Pascal wager
EKTAchhe.
76% world population sense something
No atheist in foxhole
“No atheists in foxholes” is a famous saying suggesting that in extreme danger — especially war — people instinctively turn to belief in God.
The phrase is commonly associated with Dwight D. Eisenhower, though versions of it appeared earlier during World War II.
People use it in different ways:
- some mean it literally: fear and mortality naturally provoke spirituality or prayer,
- others use it rhetorically to argue belief is somehow more fundamental than disbelief,
- critics argue it unfairly dismisses sincere atheists, including soldiers who remained nonreligious even under fire.
Many atheists object to the phrase because there have unquestionably been atheists in combat zones, prisons, disasters, and terminal illness who did not adopt belief in God. Organizations such as Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers specifically arose in part to challenge that stereotype.
Psychologically, the saying points to something real about human beings:
- under existential threat, many people seek meaning, surrender, prayer, transcendence, or connection to something greater than themselves.
But that response is not universal, and it doesn’t necessarily prove or disprove any religious claim.
There’s also a deeper interpretation closer to the passage you quoted earlier: when the ordinary ego structure is overwhelmed — by terror, awe, love, meditation, or near-death experiences — people can become less certain that the isolated individual self is the whole story. Different traditions interpret that opening differently:
- some as God,
- some as pure consciousness,
- some as psychological survival mechanisms,
- some as neurological phenomena,
- some as profound spiritual truth.
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