Whether my argument was Pascal's whatever still doesnt take away the simplicity of it. Besides, I was not focusing on POSSIBLE consequences, I was focusing on the truth that we all will DIE. If we all die in the end, and I had 2 ways of doing things, then I would do the way that will hurt the least.
Dying is not like robbing a bank or killing someone or making ANY sort of choice, it is just a fact.
The question was about the truth about God, a truth that you're deciding based upon these possible consequences. (post-death, yes, but possible consequences nonetheless)
In essence, you resorted to a utilitarianistic criteria for deciding the identity/existence of God based upon what happens to a certain individual when he dies. But you see, you can never make enough what-ifs. Your hypothetical system is fundamentally flawed. I'll show you what *does* take away from the simplicity of it.
IF there is God and heaven out there, it's not going to hurt those who believe in God,
This makes a statement about a God we haven't proven. What if God's a big fan of rationalism and since -- according to others, and seemingly, you-- He has not provided sufficient reason in the universe to believe in Him, He actually prefers those who do *not* believe in Him since they do it on the basis of rational integrity?
at the same time, IF there wasn't a heaven or a God, it STILL wont hurt the people who believe in Him, since they will be dead anyways.
What if there's something else... say, a parallel universe or a time-shifting dimension. Or perhaps reincarnation is an option and we're punished by nature for actions committed on this world. And say this "nature" naturally selected those who believed in God because their faith invoked a hormone called adeniphroen into their systems, catalyzing a mass-chain biological reaction and ultimately leading to greater reproductive success in future reincarnated generations. (Yes, I got creative, but you get the idea.)
So for people who DO believe in God, it is a win situation either way, whether God is real or not.
This is assuming that we care only for "win situations" and not for truth. You're making a statement for a basis of faith that says "I don't care if I'm wrong." That's not a very solid basis, and we can't ask others to share this basis. The consequentialist view, while human, is imperfect, incomplete, and ultimately flawed in that too many assumptions are made about what is/what is not/what is the nature of. So while death is not equivalent to robbing a bank, what we choose to believe about post-mortem phenomena can have the same flawed justifications and rationalizations that one might have about robbing a bank or committing a murder. Greatest good for either a) the greatest number (altruistic form) or b) self (egoistic form).
That's all I'm saying. I wasn't making an ad hominem attack against Pascal. I admire the man for many of his works. Philosophy is not one of them.