Live a Good Life

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” ― Marcus Aurelius

Question everything you hear and many things you see. Your reasoned consideration is much more important than blind faith. I don't think you "only need to believe" to find truth. I think you need to be certain in your beliefs and not easily follow the crowd just because there's a mob around you. If you wouldn't convert your beliefs after moving to a country with a different popular religion then why should you follow the popular religion around you now? We should always challenge our beliefs and assumptions!

Pascal's Wager says that if God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell). The quote above from Marcus Aurelius is the better answer to Pascal's Wager since humanity has imagined various gods like in Hinduism and variations of a god like in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

There are major differences in the beliefs for the most popular big guy known as the Abrahamic God. Your bet is on primitive humans having knowledge of the divine and the correct facts about their imagined big guy. Don't ask yourself if you trust in God, ask yourself if you trust those primitive humans who wrote those words. Critically read them all with that in mind.

If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. Someone who lives in accordance with one of the many religions could easily have picked the wrong one. Pascal's Wager doesn't take into account that all of the current religions could have the details wrong even if there is some truth to the overall god concept. A just god would be disappointed you followed a bunch of weird rules written by ancient men.

If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. The Old Testament God was a self-admitted jealous god. He got angry and he loved sacrifices of animals and people. He never condemned slavery and gave rules for the treatment of slaves. He picked inbred chosen people and representatives. It wasn't a sin to have multiple wives and children with their handmaids. That god doesn't match with our greatly improved morality. We're better than that god's vision of humanity despite the supposed popularity of his good book.

If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. If a software program is platform-agnostic then it works in multiple environments because it isn't overly dependent on its environment. The best bet is to be god-agnostic and live your life as if all of the gods are right and none of the gods are right. Most people operate as self-contained good people deciding their morality based on each situation instead of strict adherence to a set of ancient rules. This works just fine and is better than blindly following a god.

If we live in harmony with the better parts of humanity and our lives can be considered generally good by humanity's general standards, then we are good people no matter the ultimate truth about gods. A just god shouldn't expect any more than what a just person expects from themself.

The best bet is to be the best version of yourself.