Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>‘Reversing Pascal: Scepticism about Religious Belief and its Value’ makes a general sceptical argument concerning many purported religious believers whose actions do not reflect their beliefs, exploring potential solutions. There are good reasons to doubt, where many (clearly not all or even most) purported religious believers are concerned, whether they are indeed believers, or at least whether their beliefs are strong; and religion seems to greatly increase the risks of deception, duplicity, lying, and hypocrisy, as well as self-deception and inauthenticity. In these ways, many religious people end up being morally much worse than otherwise similar but secular people, who also commit serious moral offences. Arguably, if there is a God who cares deeply about individual moral behaviour, he would punish religious moral transgressors more harshly than secular ones. And so, pace Pascal, it seems prima facie better to wager on the secular life.</jats:p>