Scott Adams’ deathbed conversion to Christianity shouldn’t be taken seriously

The "Dilbert" creator reduced Christianity to Pascal’s Wager, and plenty of conservatives applauded the con

This newsletter is free and goes out to over 23,000 subscribers, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can use the button below to subscribe or use my usual Patreon page!

---

Scott Adams, the racist, MAGA-aligned, Holocaust-denying, anti-vax, ivermectin-loving conspiracy theorist who made shitloads of money from his “Dilbert” comic strip and proved you don’t have to be funny to be a cartoonist, died yesterday at 68 of prostate cancer.

Scott Adams (screenshot via YouTube)

For the sake of this site, I won’t get into all of the reasons plenty of people won’t be mourning his death. But I did want to focus on how Adams used his final weeks to promote Christianity.

During a livestream on January 4, Adams talked about how he appreciated Christians who attempted to convert him because “how would I believe [that you] believe your own religion if you’re not trying to convert me?”

He then explained that would soon announce his death-bed conversion for the flimsiest of reasons:

So, you’re going to hear for the first time today that it is my plan to convert.

So, I still have time, but my understanding is you’re never too late. And on top of that, any skepticism I have about reality would certainly be instantly answered if I wake up in Heaven.

I do believe that the dominant Christian theory is that… I would wake up in Heaven if I have a good life… I don’t necessarily have to, you know, state something in advance. And so, to my Christian friends, yes, it’s coming. So you don’t need to talk me into it. I am now convinced that the risk/reward is completely smart. If it turns out that there’s nothing there, I’ve lost nothing. But I’ve respected your wishes and I like doing that. If it turns out there is something there and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win.

So with your permission, I promise you that… I will convert. But I probably won’t spend much time in that phase. So don’t expect it to happen today, okay? But argument made, argument accepted.

In other words, Adams had fallen for Pascal’s wager, a fallacy so famous it has its own name. It’s the first thing you learn in Atheism 101.

The basic idea is that if you believe in the Christian God and it turns out atheists are right, oh well, no big deal. You wasted time praying but it’s not the end of the world. But if you’re an atheist and it turns out Christianity is true, you’re doomed to spend eternity in Hell. So it’s better to play it safe and accept Jesus.

But there are so many problems with that theory. You’re not just wasting time, but money and relationships and basic human decency (depending on how conservative you are). Believing in bullshit has repercussions elsewhere (like accepting science). You’re simply manipulating your emotions. There’s never going to be any evidence that tells you the Christian option is correct.

More than anything, believing in the Christian God because your statistical model points in that direction seems disingenuous at best.

Yet that statistical probability model is what Adams said he was relying on: the “risk/reward” of it all.

Maybe he quickly realized his reasoning was ridiculous because he followed up that livestream with a message that “what happens next is between me and Jesus.”

After he died yesterday, a message was posted to the same social media account in which Adams said he had accepted Jesus.

A Final Message From Scott Adams

…

… My body failed before my brain. I am of sound mind as I write this, January 1st, 2026…

Next, many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit the risk/reward calculation for doing so looks attractive. So, here I go:

I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I look forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven. I won’t need any more convincing than that. And I hope I am still qualified for entry.

I will admit all of this is weird in part because Adams said he wrote that on January 1st, but then said days later in his livestream that he still wasn’t a Christian yet. But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess even Adams knows his biggest fans won’t be able to piece that complicated timeline together.

If all of that was an attempt to get the final stories about his life to override all of his shitty beliefs, I guess it worked to an extent. A story from the National Catholic Register last week focused only on his eventual conversion, ignoring his right-wing extremism.

The same thing happened with Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen:

That story ended with a plea to Christians to keep annoying people into belief because it totally works:

Please join us in praying for Scott Adams’ health condition and conversion and that he will use his voice and platform to share truth about life’s sacredness and use his own testimony to advocate against physician-assisted suicide.

In the meantime, keep sharing the Good News with your unbelieving friends and family. Remember that God can use your interest in their salvation to help assure them of His love and interest in them.

After Adams announced his plan to convert and even after he died, there were plenty of commenters who seriously believed his last-ditch attempt to get into Heaven would work, as if it wasn’t just some calculated tool to earn goodwill after spending years using his platform to spread lies and hate.

Adams could have used his final words to apologize for spreading so much misinformation. Instead he offered a shallow, half-hearted conversion. That’s not an embrace of anything associated with Christianity—there’s nothing about what the faith taught him, what beliefs we should hold true, anything he learned from Jesus, etc. It’s just the bare minimum—or so he believes. It’s one last side hustle to win over the most gullible people in the country.

It’s ironic, really, that Adams spent his entire cartooning career telling readers that those in power had no clue what they were doing, only to act like the most incompetent people in government were the leaders we truly needed. He didn’t take his own advice and he ended up becoming as cynical as the people he derided.

But he knew his audience. He knew they would fall for it. He knew people would rush to praise him because it boosts their narrative that persistence and pressure and coercion can win souls, even when it occurs through calculation and not conviction. Who needs accountability and a serious belief when a centuries-old formula does the trick?

No one should think for a second that Adams spend any real time thinking about Jesus. He was too busy believe other kinds of superstitions, anyway. All he left us with was a reminder of how easy it is to lie about one’s religious convictions and how willingly some people will celebrate that lie.

---