For those unfamiliar with Blaise Pascal, he was a brilliant 17th century French mathematician who is famous for many contributions including Pascal’s Wager. Lifted from Wikipedia, “Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. 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).” In my childhood I had been admonished with similar arguments and it always struck me as artificially binary. Let us examine some other possible outcomes to this game of life.
Scenario one (the most rosy scenario): god exists and you believe. The assumed payout is going to heaven and living for eternity. Pascal assumed an infinite good, but is he correct? Perhaps endless bliss for eternity could be appealing to some, but the idea makes me weary. I don’t want to go on for an infinite amount of time. What makes life special is that it is fragile, fleeting and rare. If I learned anything from Zardoz, it is that being an eternal sucks.
Scenario two: god exists and you didn’t believe or believe correctly. The punishment for guessing wrong is an eternity of hell. Pascal assumed this as an infinite bad. Again, anything for an eternity gets boring. I only have so many orifices in which a pineapple can be forcibly inserted.
Scenario three: belief in a god and no afterlife. No harm, no foul. Pascal assumed you only forgo a few luxuries and pleasures to follow his religion, but that is too narrowly focused. How many people struggle with who they are because their religion tells them they are imperfect sinners and they need to atone with money and supplication? Different religions demand different amounts of sacrifice of time and money, so I won’t dwell on the details, but the costs are not insignificant. Suffice to say that money and time diverted to religious purposes is wasted if the religion is incorrect.
Scenario four: you don’t believe in god and there is no afterlife. You get to be responsible for your own life and choices. There is no hope for a deus ex machina. There is no cosmic justice or divine inspiration. No fellow travelers or community to share your burdens. There is no moral objection to debauchery, but there are social consequences. Cheating on a spouse will usually end a marriage. Heavy drug use will cost you a job. Being a dick still gets you uninvited to parties. Shame, guilt and feelings of inadequacy are just as painful when generated internally versus externally. The only benefit of atheism is freedom to define your own morality.
These are the four possible outcomes of Pascal’s Wager: god exists/faith, god exists/no faith, no god/faith and no god/no faith. This is where I take issue with the wager. It simplifies religion/god into a binary, when there are countless religions and beliefs that are all in opposition to one another. The choice isn’t really god vs no god, the choice is a rejection of all religions or choosing one of thousands. Even limiting the thought experiment to the most popular religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, you only have a twenty percent chance of picking correctly. One in five odds to gamble eternity. This assumes all Christian denominations are interchangeable even though there are dozens from which to choose. Even in Islam, which prides itself on fidelity to the word, you must chose between Sunni and Shia. Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Vajrayana Buddhism are all competing for your attention. Hinduism brings its own complexities with polytheism. Which of the gods are real? All? Some? None? How do you know which to make an offering? I haven’t even scratched the surface of the old gods and long forgotten religions. Choosing any of these religions is de facto rejection of all others. You haven’t really placed a wager of god vs no god, you have placed a wager of one belief vs thousands of other choices.
Pascal was clearly brilliant, but he engaged in a practice I find disturbing and increasing in modern society. He took a complex decision and condensed it into right versus wrong. His wager assumed Christianity or atheism was the correct answer and never considered that they could both be wrong. Alternatively, they could both be correct. There is no way of knowing if what you believe when you are alive, shapes your fate after death. It is a debate with no possible resolution.
Modern wagers aren’t all about religion, but they do suffer from the same limited mindset. Activists still frame complex problems in a simple binary matrix. Abortion, homelessness and crime are issues that require real thought and nuanced thinking. However, people claim there are simple solutions to these complicated issues. Total abolition of abortions versus absolute choice until birth. Giving the homeless a home versus chasing them out of the city. Rehabilitation of convicts versus a police state. I understand this desire to simplify the world. We all want to do the right thing, but what is right is not often clear. Everything has costs and benefits and even those are subjective for every individual. Knowing what is right is difficult because we are all working with imperfect knowledge. What troubles me is the people who are so certain that they are on the right side of history. There is a smugness that comes with absolute faith that they are correct. It leads to polarization and divides too deep to bridge. Othering people leads to dehumanization and makes violence that much easier. I only ask you to consider that when encountering people with different beliefs and ideas, do not dismiss them out of hand. Just because you listen doesn’t mean you have to agree or change your position. Everyone is not good or bad, wrong or right, but they are humans trying to make their way through a chaotic world. Life is a cosmic crap game. We hold our collective breath as the dice bounce, praying we placed our wager wisely.
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong”
– H. L. Mencken
I think the absolutism on both extremes are the issue. And those are also typically the people that are the most hypocritical.
I find atheists that buy billboards during Christmas as tedious as religious people that complain Starbucks doesn’t have the red cups for the holidays.
Yes. More concerned with the mostly inconsequential beliefs of others than their own. They’re not interested in conversion, just signaling.
Bingo.
You must choose, but choose wisely.
I prefer the practical effects of yore to the cgi that is dominant today.
Tits or Ass?
Ass.
Ass, it’s not even close.
Umm, pussy?
Yes, what about it?
First choice?
It’s certainly close.
It’s a tight race
Taint that close.
Do I have to say it? Why not both??
They usually come as a package, but most people have a preference.
IKR?
Easy for you to say, Jessica.
*grabs popcorn*
Eh. We already hashed out most things with Mo’s religious post. I probably wouldn’t have submitted this one if I had know in advance.
But we didn’t have John and Eddie for that one.
*lights signal*
Signal away I think they are both banned.
Correct.
?
I think Homer Simpson sums it up best. What if we picked the wrong religion? Every week we are just making God madder and madder.
Sorry if I screw up the link I don’t post to often.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMUmczoQekU&feature=youtu.be&t=230
Seriously though. Outside of the valid original point you made, for me it seems impossible to just believe something. I assume if there was a God and I just pretended to believe he would know.
assume if there was a God and I just pretended to believe he would know.-
Trying to fool god? That’s a paddlin’.
I’ve always wondered why god would be so hung up on our awareness of his edicts. If I arrive independently at the same basic moral conclusion, isn’t that more righteous than doing it because I’m convinced the entire religion is true and correct? Cessation of “sin,” based solely on your concern for God’s displeasure at you sinning, seems sorta like an admission that the “sin” is desireable and you’re sacrificing the pleasure it would give you. Whereas, not being convinced of God’s existence (or at least his particular commandments,) yet still determining that wrongs are wrong and abstaining from them, seems so much purer and sincere. Why is always so important for me to accept a prepackaged deal with all the various traits any one particular religion has deemed a) correct and B) important enough to preach it to others?
BTW, I basically believe that God ( or a creator, at least) exists, I just don’t ascribe to Him (it?) the myriad details the religions do. I don’t have a huge need to know every last detail and frankly, I’m suspicious of the means by which such details began and are now spread.
I think that is very interesting. I know people here hate (it’s not my idea!) there is no altruism because you get something out of doing good. This is the reverse of that coin. Being a good dude because you think it’s right, with no expectation of reward.
Or taking responsibility for your own poor behaviors rather than pawning responsibilty off on Jesus.
Yeah. Everyone knows society is to blame.
I wouldn’t say there’s no reward, just that it’s inherent in the consequences of the act. If you do wrong, you are wrong and to the extent that you do this, you life becomes wrong. Doing right has the opposite effect. Personally, I think our souls are self contained. Everything one needs to discern right from wrong is baked into us. When I harm another without just cause, I suffer. It takes some learning and paying attention to learn how, but it provides a roadmap to life.
I meant no heavenly reward. I believe the reward for being “good” is paid in social standing.
Yeah, i don’t really mean social standing either (although it is part of it.) I mean more like social standing in your own esteem. I think Dostoevsky hit on it pretty well in Crime and Punishment. Committing a crime requires justification, not really to other, but to yourself. Yes, you pay a cost socially, but you pay a far greater cost privately in your own mind and soul. Figuring out how to discern the ways of your personal soul is the key to life. I believe that those who violate the dictates of their souls live a lessened life, even if it doesn’t appear so to others.
I haven’t thought to put it in those terms, but that is a good expression of how I roll. Whenever I do something that I regret – say, yell at some stranger who won’t get out of my way – I hate myself a little bit. When I suppress that impulse, I feel better about myself (and not coincidentally, better than others….)
Exactly. It’s very cumulative. Little bit of wrong equals a little bit of suffering. That is what makes it so difficult to keep current with. We can all afford some degree of wrong doing, and we often do. But, just like eating or drinking or drugging, eventually it gets out of control and you’re contemplating real crimes. That’s why we have to keep it in check and try to live up to our own moral code, regardless of the legal ramifications. That’s what pisses me off so much about our legal system. When you outlaw benign stuff, it reduces the effect of laws against real crime. That, and our total disregard for proportionate sentencing.
Well, in many variants of Christianity, good works aren’t the path to heaven at all. Salvation is only possible by grace alone, through faith.
“Posted by Florida Man”
*chops out fat rails of meth*
That’s all I got tonight. It’s been a rough day at work. ?
I mean no one died…but it still sucked.
You better be drinking.
He better not. Meth tricks the body into thinking it hasn’t had enough alcohol.
Dopamine is a harsh mistress.
Tell me about it. I took MDMA for the first time in years over the weekend and though dopamine is only third, it think, in the amount of feel good chemicals released after taking that shit, it still drains your body(especially saratonin) of it’s normal levels and it takes a few days to balance out. I’m just now getting over being bitchy for the last few days.
I hope you had a good time.
I really didn’t.
“Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists”
So at worst, it’s a bad argument to be a better person. It’s like Chris Rock’s theory on religions that prohibit pork. Trichinosis is real, but like theology, it’s difficult to explain. So tell people that God says they shouldn’t eat pork. That way they’ll listen.
I’m not really addressing religion as much as people taking complex issues and making them A or B situations, then having Supreme confidence that’s its A.
Hence, faith.
I absolutely believe in faith, over religion. What I have a problem with, just like the alphabet mafia, is that there’s only one school of thought and everybody else is evil.
I’ve never understood the trichinosis argument for the pork dietary code. So then why did early Christians abandon that practice if there was a practical purpose behind it and why did Islam adopt that dietary code when it came later on? And why didn’t other ancient civilizations have similar dietary codes?
Is it possible that they actually believed consuming pork was forbidden by their God rather than having an alternative motive that we enlightened people of today have definitely discovered the true meaning behind?
Hindus don’t dig swine either, then again, pigs don’t like hot dry weather. Most of Europe, where Christianity became big, is good for hog farming.
And somehow they were also OK with pork before the advent of Christianity. That’s why this argument makes little sense to me.
As far as I know, Europeans were not monotheists prior to Christianity. They were also illiterate.
Much of China is good for raising pigs, but the Chinese, who supposedly invented bacon, cook the shit out of their pork.
Right. Europe was pagan and ate pork.
So how does that prove the trinchosis argument to be correct? Wouldn’t that further undercut it?
One of Paul’s arguments for abandoning the dietary codes was that gentiles would be like “woah, woah, I can’t eat pork?” and so it would be harder to convert them.
Pork was probably the most common source of meat for Europeans at that time. Why if the trinchosis argument is definitely correct for why Jews developed dietary restrictions for pork? Did pagans just live dangerously?
I’ve heard that triC was more prevalent in the middle east. Dunno if true, or how you’d even figure that out.
Not really. The ease of raising pigs in that area could easily outweigh any negatives associated with them.
Well, no, they were illiterate pagans, who all believed in different gods or whatever. It’s possible they just lived dangerously. Regardless, even if some of them knew about trichinosis, how would they disseminate that information? Scarcity is real, and it’s difficult to convince hungry people not to eat something for reasons they can’t understand.
Organized religion requires literacy, not only for scripture, but for communication. Paul wrote letters that became scripture.
The Chinese could have distributed some aphorism, “Confucius says he who under-cooks pork is a dumbass” or something. I have no idea.
The Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were pagan and yet far more advanced than the Israelites. Yet, I’m not familiar with a dietary prohibition against consuming pork (and maybe I’m ignorant about other civilizations with similar restrictions).
All I’m asking: is it possible that our modern attempt to explain these dietary codes are complex rationalizations meant to discount the argument that Hebrews offered, that they believed that God commanded them to not consume pork? The trinchosis argument seems to have several holes in its logic apart from the fact that no other civilization (as far as I know) in the vicinity adopted similar dietary restrictions (Islam which shares this restriction comes much later) chief among which is how do we account for other dietary restrictions (like dairy not being consumed with meat).
Is it possible that we are overthinking the rationale rather than accepting the plain rationale that they offered? I really don’t know.
Of course they believed that God commanded them not to eat pork. The trichinosis theory is just an possible explanation for how that rule started, and why it had such staying power through many years.
People in and outside my church try to find scientific reasons for dietary restrictions. Non-members want to poke holes in the “science.” Members want to prove God’s wisdom in handing down these commandments (tangentially, they then extrapolate those made-up reasons to other substances).
One time, a non-member was badgering me about why I can’t drink tea. “I don’t really know. … I don’t know, I just can’t … I don’t know why.” Finally, I got mad and said, “Because I believe God told me not to!”
Not much you can argue with right there.
My point wasn’t so much about one restriction, or the Jews in particular. Clearly, religions have proscriptions that don’t have logical explanations. For a long time, Catholics didn’t eat meat on Fridays. If eating meat was bad, wouldn’t it be bad the other six days? Clearly, the church had some reason to come up with that rule, otherwise they wouldn’t have. My point was that religions use supernatural justifications to encourage arguably desirable behavior. A good example is the Ten Commandments. Whether God give them to Moses or not, if you are trying to maintain peace and order in a society, not having people fuck each other’s wives and steal their shit is still good public policy.
I have respect for people who both have faith and try to do right in the world. I have contempt for people who profess faith and willfully do wrong in the world. I am not talking about imperfection here, I am talking about those who seem not to try to do right, but who are ostentatiously religious, ending calls with God Bless, posting religious memes, making sure to go to church etc.
I have no respect for formal religious laws of the dietary or ritualistic type. To me, an admitted agnostic, the ‘substance’ of religious truth are precepts for living rightly. They parallel the classical concept of human flourishing. It is a complex idea involving much more than hedonistic happiness. It involves awareness of natural consequences, deferred gratification, discipline, empathy, recognition of abstract concepts like justice and rights, and a conscious attempt to live in a way that comports with those things.
The legalistic prohibitions I believe come from clergy acting as tyrants. They are codified prejudices of those who were in a position to add their desires to God’s laws.
Don’t be envious is a moral precept that can easily be understood as a rule which reality will enforce with awful suffering and consequences to the society that breaks it too frequently.
Don’t eat pork is not.
It’s because pigs are sexy.
Penile trichinosis is a hell of a disease.
“Life is a cosmic crap game.”
If you consider the odds of your existence at all, you’ve already won.
God’s a funny little man.
“I’m kidding God! Don’t smite me!”
That’s assuming we don’t find hundreds of millions of interstellar species one day.
My crazy theory is that aliens are actually time-traveling humans from the distant future. Hence the lack of defined interactions.
Depends how depressed you are that day.
^
^
^
That’s why I basically believe that God exists. I can logically trace it all back to…I can’t really. If you view God as “the Creator,” then you can see that man didn’t create all of this. It might be a random occurrence but I can’t see that. The Occam’s razor result is a supreme being must have created all of this. I absolutely do not accept the popular understandings of God’s nature, but I’m inclined to believe in his existence.
“If you’re sad today, just remember the world is over 4 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.”
-Simon Pegg
The inverse of Mencken’s quote is Occam’s razor: that the simplest answer is usually correct.
Of course that was developed by a monk
“The inverse of Mencken’s quote is Occam’s razor: that the simplest answer is usually correct.”
Reminds me of a favorite Bohr quote: “The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
I’m going to have to think about this a little bit. I know nothing about Pascal except his wager and I haven’t read anything by him.
In my unschooled ignorance then (redundant? you decide), I always assumed that God = 10 Commandments.
In my unschooled ignorance then (redundant? you decide), I always assumed that God = 10 Commandments.-
But that’s a Eurocentric view point. If you had grown up in rural Africa or Southeast Asia or India, you would have a different starting assumption.
Then let’s go with the Golden Rule. Every culture has some iteration of that.
^^^This ^2
Consider this. If all world religions have different origin stories and different predictions for an afterlife, does that prove the Golden rule is a human creation instead of divine.
All of the rules are. They’re control.
True, as long as the rules only apply to the little people.
I really tried to avoid any negative overtures towards religion in the article. I have my issues but they aren’t relevant to the argument.
It does raise an interesting question though. I just read through Pie’s article from earlier and the ensuing comments and it has me wondering if gods existed in the minds of humans before we began to live outside of a family unit or small packs. Say, a few hundred people. Once so many individuals live within proximity of each other and are dependent on some form of mutual benefit there’s bound to be deep, unresolvable conflicts of interest. So were gods(or The Golden Rule)invented by the elders in order to add weight to their edicts? An external, undefeatable source of unfathomed power that will punish you for not following its demands, spoken through its chosen ones? Or, is it just an evolutionary reflex to keep your surroundings as stable as possible in order to raise your offspring to adulthood?
TH: Anthropomorphism is hard wired into us. We see entities in everything around us because that is what our herd brain does…analyze other entities.
Gods no doubt existed before Humans did. I have no idea how far back or widespread (Do dogs believe in supernatural beings? Apes? cetaceans?)
Man, I think the whole thing is metaphoric. It’s all based on the human condition. Heaven and hell are representations of what we do to our own souls. Having been a wrongdoer as a kid and having turned that around, it’s plain and clear to me that all these elements of religion are avatars for things that will happen in your soul automatically. I’m sure there’s am degree of culture based elements to it, but I think the basics transcend all boundaries. Most of it is common to all people regardless of geography or culture.
If the Abrahamic faiths are reduced to nothing more than the Golden Rule than we can find many precursors, but it’s hard to look at early Christianity and conclude that they are identical to pagan morals. Nietzsche wrote a good deal about how Christianity inverted many pagan morals into a slave mentality.
I was mostly just curious as to how or why there’s been a few prevailing rules across most of recorded civilization regarding murder, rape, theft, ect, being viewed as detrimental to a large group environment and outlawed by it’s rulers. Granted, those rules usually only apply to common people doing that to each other, not the rulers. Is it ingrained in all our nature by evolution, god, or has it being conditioned into most organized peoples by the rulers shrewd and ruthless enough to not only gain power, but also realize that manipulating uneducated, fickle people into not rioting and tearing the whole thing down on their heads needed some what seems obvious to us now “ground rules”?
Suthen, I think humans tend to intrinsically seek out patterns in nature, and when they encounter things that they can’t explain, things beyond their knowledge that disrupt or add to the natural order, the need for order drives us to attribute those instances to an unknown, intelligent, ordered being that they’ve yet to interact with.
I guess I’m just saying humans are hardwired for a need for order, entities were just a means to that end.
The Buddhist (right actions) and Hindu (yamas and niyamas) are pretty close to the Ten Commandments. Almost all religions have the same basic morals at their core.
Pascal’s triangle produces the normal distribution as n goes to infinity.
The reason is that the math clearly models a physical phenomenon, my favorite reason for math.
Racist.
Yur eider wit us, or agin us.
Unfortunately, often you’re forced to play the game, even if you don’t want to.
Yeah, sadly, you are very correct.
“One strength of the Communist system … is that it has some of the characteristics of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.”
(Albert Einstein, Out Of My Later Years, 1950)
Well, yeah. That’s why it outlaws other religions.
I guess I’m in Group 4.
Dad’s family was largely Church of Christ and Mom was influenced by her Catholic mother. They tried to force religion on me and, while it might not have worked as they planned, it influenced me.
I’m not a believer, nor am I a non-believer. I think that, outside of the “leap of faith”, it is impossible to prove either way.
It’s simply a matter of “respect (rather than ‘love’) your neighbor” and act as a decent person. I try to be scrupulously honest in my dealings with other humans. I am remained married to my wife after 47 years because I honor my vow and I don’t whore around. I drink, but in moderation. My family has never known hardship because of my drinking.
The “Golden Rule” seems to me to be a re-representation of the NAP. don’t fuck with people and, in return, don’t fuck with me.
I find it interesting that the Golden Rule comes up often in libertarian groups. I remember it being taught in elementary school. I wonder if it is still taught?
Since I looked up Einstein quotes, this seems relevant:
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”
And I think God would like that philosophy.
The missing requirement from Christians is the acknowledgement that the only path to God is via Jesus. Well, I’ll be a good person and take my chances.
I think, “don’t be a dick”, satisfies most of the requirements.
MTF trans approved.
The “Golden Rule” seems to me to be a re-representation of the NAP
backwards by millenia
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EHfhBv_WwAAwOj3.jpg
What?
Lol.
Christmas is
comingcuming.I need that shirt.
This one lost me when the author tried to out-math Pascal.
I would never try to out math a legend. It was just a hook to address an issue I have with people trying to simplify to world, then demonize people that won’t agree with them. People remember Pascal hundreds of years after his death. I doubt anyone will remember me a year after my death.
But you are Florida Man. You are Legion.
There is some comfort in knowing my legacy will be carried on by the worse people to live.
It could be worse. People could forget you after you take a week of vacation.
I don’t get the legacy gimmick. I’m dead, what do I care if anyone remembers me.
It’s just another form of virtue signaling. It’s sickening. What’s worse is now people get shit named after them while they are still alive and grifting.
I get it, and appreciate the effort.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.
hmm. I’m unfamiliar with your gods.
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm
Titty Tuesday makes you believe in G-d.
http://archive.li/AFwyr
What? No ass? You just alienated half of the glibs.
Ask and you shall receive.
http://archive.li/B1TNp
Also, I’d be interested to see just exactly what the split is, because I’m skeptical it’s 50/50.
Dammit, I’m a neanderthal after all.
Some of us are more holistic, and appreciate a a balanced, err, package.
I’m happy to have someone who doesn’t steal my stuff and lie about me in court.
That goes for the size of said ass or tits.
Religion is about control, for better or worse. Pascal’s wager is just another way to say “You really should do as you are told.”
How much of human behavior is not about control? What institutions are not about control?
We are herd animals and each member of the herd polices all of the other members. It is only the oddballs that can mind their own business. Someone once asked me why I didn’t want to be in charge. “I do, but being in charge isn’t what you think it is. Being in charge the way you mean it means everyone else’s needs, wants and fuck-ups dictate your life to you. Screw that. I want to be in charge of my own life and that is as much in charge as you can ever be.”
^^This^^
Being in charge means putting others needs ahead of yours. Been there, done that, it’s now someone else’s problem.
Well, if you’re a good person, that’s what it means.
If you’re a narcissist/sociopath, not so much.
I’ve worked for that guy. It’s an incentive to promote.
I think that religions end up there. I do not believe they start there (synthetic religions created by outright grifters excepted). I think the initial impulse is a thirst for truth.
I already linked it today, but it’s Python, so it never gets old.
A gem. I’ve always been fond of Grail, but Brian is a much better, more meaningful movie.
First, I’ll put forth some relevant material from somebody much smarter than I.
I’m not sure the point. “Finding the right answer is hard, so I didn’t bother trying” isn’t particularly convincing and seems more like a convenient rationalization for agnosticism than anything else.
I think you missed my point. My point was that it is hard, and that means keeping your mind open to new ideas, instead of picking one and burying your head in the sand.
So I’m catching up on Rick and Morty in preparation for the fourth season and Adult Swim keeps playing these bullshit anti-vaping ads. The stupidity behind vaping bans is just staggering. Close family friend is a lifelong smoker and just (miraculously) recovered from cancer that was caused by it. She switched to vaping and she still gets her nicotine kick without the cancer risk. Someone who opposes vaping actively wants thousands of people to die needlessly.
Robert Conquest’s third law crept into reality.
I’m starting to think Robert Conquest’s third law is in fact de facto law for most of these agencies. Whole fall of a Rome business. Or rise of Hydra. Maybe I’m just cynical. Commies, though. They’re all goddamn commies. I think it comes down to communists infiltrating every rank of our society.
Yep. Fucking puritanical bullshit.
Ohio just raised its legal tobacco and vaping age to 21, and the idiot governor wants to ban flavored vaping. I’m sure that like all prohibition schemes, this will totally work, and won’t have any negative unforeseen consequences.
The fallacy of progress. As states start doing away with blue laws on alcohol consumption they stiffen restrictions on tobacco use. So it all evens out.
Something has to be the boogeyman. Legalize marijuana, but make opiates harder to acquire.
I dunno. This strikes me as something more sinister than just puritanism.
In Britain, doctors promote vaping as a healthier alternative to smoking. Which country is swirling down the drain again?
All of them?
You can justify any ridiculous belief if you say the alternative is DEATH! Climate cultists use this silly technique all the time.
Thanks for the article, Florida man. I just always flat out rejected Pascal’s wager.
Also: on topic.
Believe, don’t believe, worship the Sun, jack off to the hymnal, it’s no skin off my nose. Do whatever you want using whatever justification you want, just stay off my lawn.
*yells from sidewalk*
Have you heard the good news?
I feel like I really made a misstep by using Pascal’s Wager as my example of taking complicated problems and using basic logic to simplify the solutions.
Nah. It was a good article. I take issue with Mencken’s quote, though, but that’s because I take issue with Mencken
I don’t think it was a bad example to use. I was introduced to Pascal’s Wager (though I wouldn’t have remembered it by that name) as a college sophomore in a 100-level Philosophy class called “Problems of God & Religion.” Even then, I thought the rationale of “believing” just in case it would get you into heaven was an awfully mercenary attitude to take. (Not entirely unlike espousing specific political beliefs because you think it gives you prestige with your peers.) Of course, I’d already started questioning the idea that Judeo-Christianity (much less my specifically Presbyterian upbringing) held a corner on the market with respect to truth.
I always felt like the odds that God just looked at your attendance records and decided your eternal reward on that basis were pretty low. You kind of either believe or don’t believe, and I always thought people (probably starting with Pascal) claimed to hew to the Wager as an excuse for their failing to meet the expectations of their particular faith, kind of like the kid in gym who sucked at basketball but passed it off as not really caring about the class anyway.
Not at all. It reminded me of my Dad’s take, which I found is common to a lot of Episcopalians (and others) I’ve encountered. He didn’t believe he needed to go to church and listen to some “kid-touching pervert” tell him how to talk to God, as he put it, but he went to Midnight Mass every Christmas Eve to “cover his bases”. Really, it was a tradition that started at some point because it made my grandmother happy, but his version of Pascal’s Wager was his official rationale.
Anyway, the thing about Pascal’s Wager that I think you’re pointing towards is that it not only simplifies a difficult topic but it solves the problem as well. A person who cannot or will not put the effort into arriving at some well-considered position regarding the infinite can “bet on black” so to speak and then shelve the topic without worrying about it again. It doesn’t simplify in order to produce understanding, in other words, it simplifies in order to lower the standard for a solution. It’s the difference between asking someone to explain a problem to you in the simplest terms so that you can understand it better and arrive at your own conclusion and asking someone to just tell you how to solve the problem.
This is something people do all the time, often without thinking about it. Political parties on a certain level owe their success to doing the thinking for you. You don’t need to analyze every single topic and decide where you stand; just pick a party that represents things you like in broad, fat crayon strokes and stick with them. Don’t want to understand things like monetary policy, or economics, or broken window fallacies? Well, do you think rich people should give their money to poor people? Yes? Vote Democrat. Go to church do you? Don’t like illegals taking your jerbs? Vote Republican. Done.
As the eminent philosopher Sir Phillip Anselmo once said, “Be yourself, by yourself. Stay away from me.”
After going all in on the “there is no society” in the afternoon thread, I think will pass on religion tonight.
Ricky Gervais is an atheist. (There, not completely off topic) and he just retweeted Titania McGrath. The red pilling continueth.
Speaking of Pascal’s Wager, the ninth circuit has just decided that the Little Sisters of the Poor have to provide contraceptives in their healthcare plan despite the administration allowing wide exemptions and the the Supreme Court requesting that the government reach a compromise that doesn’t offend their religious beliefs.
Contraceptives are just part of the common good, so they can’t complain.
Just one moral code imposing its will on others
Lobotomized monkeys banging away on typewriters could come up with better reasoned and constitutional opinions than the 9th Circus.
I can’t wait until Thanksgiving when the Ninth Circuit overturns the turkey pardon.
I larfed.
I also recall that on an episode of The West Wing (yes, I watched it and enjoyed the writing. I often had to banish Mr. GT from the room when he’d start arguing with the characters.) President Bartlet claimed he didn’t have the authority to pardon the turkey, but he could (and did) conscript it into the military.
So much madness to unpack. Can’t they just work around it by not providing a health care plan?
In theory, that would violate Catholic social teaching.
They would need to restructure to cover ’employ’ fewer than 50 people to even get a chance for the government to send out an assessor to determine if they qualify for to receive the proper pre-application papers.
Surprised they stopped short of making the sisters use them, too.
Make the sisters perform abortions. That’ll really show them Christfags.
Abortions at gay weddings!!!
That’s already coming. And I won’t hold my breath waiting for the same people who howl about “freedom of association” when it comes to social media firms to utter a peep in their defense much like those same people went full Nazi over wedding cakes.
Religious people are right to lose faith with liberalism, because it’s a charade
OT Judges are fuckwits #7374658688
“In what will surely go down in history as one of the most Galaxy Brain court rulings of all time, a Michigan appeals court determined that a tire rotation does not, in fact, include tightening the lug nuts.”
https://jalopnik.com/does-tire-rotation-include-tightening-lug-nuts-michiga-1839270921
I’m in a bad mood now. Goodnight.
That’s so stupid that I have to immediately wonder if there isn’t some form of corruption behind that ruling. I guarantee that every single repair manual describing a tire rotation includes tightening the lug nuts after the tires have been swapped.
Rat fuckers. Every time I do that, I have to sign a sheet. If anything goes wrong, I have to explain why I signed it off and exactly what I did. I once got sued by a guy who crashed the next day after I installed new tires on his Harley. He also sued Harley and the tire manufacturer. I went to a forensic disassembly of his bike and everything checked out fine. My insurance company settled for around 75 grand. I was proven to have done nothing wrong and he still got 75 g’s just from me. The others paid up too.
Huh. Does homicide include loading tyrannical judicialcrats into woodchippers?
Self-defense, brah.
Brexit of the PNW
Voters overturned a previous law to give drivers license to illegals. Legislature said fuck you and gave them again. Secretary of State, beholden to the Democrat machine Gov that appointed her, joins in the fuck you.
Democracy is just a facade to lend legitimacy to the ruling oligarchy. It’s only abided by when it reaches the conclusion that they’ve predetermined to be correct
^^^This.
It started (as most crazy things do) in California with Prop 187.
What’s going on with the WordPress theme? Seems to be happening more frequent on page reloads.
Yeah, I’ve been getting the gray, small font thing off and on all day.
I like the bigger avitars, but the light colors are harder to read.
Been seeing that all day.
Yep. Seems to have stabilized, thank goodness. The other one is so hard to read.
I STILL SEE IT!!! AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
*runs into the night, flailing arms wildly*
*refreshes page*
Oh, nevermind then.
Yeah I got your Pascal’s Wager right here.
Imagine believing that a better world means making energy more expensive for the poorest among us
I’ve seen that stupidity before.
It’s missing a few items on the checklist, like “wrecked economies” and “billions dead” but whatevz.
Here’s the problem:
Me: I really, really want you to leave me alone.
Them: We really, really want to control your life.
To me, it’s pretty digital. I don’t think that I am going to win.
Piss yourself, right there in front of them. That usually gets them to leave you alone. Then, when they leave you’ll have time to extract that tooth that CIA put a microphone in! *strips naked and runs into the woods*
This quote regarding a Supreme being is particularly relevant and moving to me:
Joseph Campbell, “The Hero’s Journey”
I particularly like the last lines that I bolded. They are a wonderful explanation of fundamentalists of both stripes: the hyper-religious you’re going to hell if you don’t believe what I do, as well as the current zealous, strident atheism that I think is best personified by Hitchens and Harris. Oddly, with an upbringing in science, I find the certitude of the “secular humanist” crowd more offensive, not because they’re atheist, but because they’re hypocrites. They claim to be scientists, yet are engaged in belief in a negative based on a “lack of evidence.” Methinks they doth protest waaaayyy too much.
It’s a shame Deism has been lost in the shuffle. There is some mechanic that has created the universe. It created everything from nothing. To religion this a god, to science it is a law of physics. Whether or not it is a conscious thing imposing it’s will is the only question, not whether or not it exists.
Doesn’t this create “It’s Deism all the way down”? Because when someone says that god created the universe, my question is where did this god come from?
It’s true of either form. Where did the laws of physics come from is the same question, in a more scientific nomenclature.
I’m not sure it is. “Where did physics come from” implies creation. Physics came from us, really, in an effort to frame observable phenomenon in terms that we could understand and use to describe a system that we could then use to predict future outcomes. Then again, I don’t think that Deism has to recurse into an endless cycle of creator gods; a property of the Prime Mover can be that it is infinite.
According to Hawking, the laws of physics are as infinite as a prime mover. Time did not exist before the Big Bang, therefore whatever force produced the Big Bang is infinite, the only way we can understand the Big Bang is through the laws of physics, therefore the laws of physics are infinite. Like I said same question, just in a different lexicon.
Interesting. But if there is such a thing as “before” the Big Bang, then there would necessarily have to be time, wouldn’t there?
No. That’s only if you assume time is an absolute.
Not according to the current understanding of physics. There may have been something before the big bang, but time would not have existed, according to what we know now. It seems very familiar to the idea of Adam and Eve, which was dismissed as fiction, but once we acquired the ability to track genes it was determined all living humans did in fact descend from one female. The same story, in two different belief systems. You tell the child a stork brings babys…
Boom.^^^^
Here’s another nutty notion: suppose that “infinity” or “the infinite” isn’t N+1 forever (as in, just keep adding one more, or just keep going), but is instead unity? That to be infinite is to be a part of something all-encompassing, interconnected down to smallest particle.
And I was pointing up at Bill’s comment, although I’m not sure it matters, CPRM.
+1 we are all made of Star Stuff
+1 we are all God’s children
I can’t remember where I read this and I know I’m going to butcher it, but it’s a metaphor about how time is perceived and it goes like this:
Suppose you’re on a train. You can look out the window and see what’s immediately passing by, but that’s it. That’s how people experience time. You can’t really see what’s ahead or behind, just what’s immediately around you.
Now, suppose you could run to the front or the back of the train. You could see where the train’s going, or where it’s been. This is how a human would see the future or the past. You’re still on a train, it’s still heading in one direction, but you can perceive things in front and behind on the track.
Now, zoom out. You see a landscape. In the landscape, a train’s moving along a track. You can see the whole track, including where the train is. This is what time “really” looks like to a being that can perceive time but that still lives within time.
Now, imagine the landscape, the track, and the train are depicted in a series of pictures in a book. There’s a picture for every possible position the train could occupy on the track. This is what time looks like to God. In other words, every time is now, and every possible place is here. That’s infinity.
Damn, Bill, I really like that.
Along that idea, a friend pointed out to me that almost all spiritual language that comes down to us is in the form of metaphors, or hymns/songs (the Vedas, for example), or poems/poetry, parables, etc. because (his assertion) is that words are otherwise inadequate to describe the Infinite.
A God who knows every infinite track each life may take and how that effects the final outcome, is a way to get around ‘the free will problem’, IE what if Moses hadn’t crossed the Red Sea, there would be another way out; but until the argument is cut down to diest vs theist, it’s just a thought exercise the same way minarchist vs anarchist is now. Quibbling about the details will have it’s time once there is a broad agreement about the fundamentals.
The notion of “where” with the Almighty might indicate a limitation of thinking, not a limitation of the Almighty, but it’s kinda like that old Carlin bit on “Occupation Fool” where he jokes about him and his friends terrorizing their theology teacher:
“So, uh, Fadda, if the Lord is All-Powerful, can he create a rock so heavy he himself cannot lift it. Gotcha there, Fadda!!!” Whoo!!!
I’m sure the Almighty will take that into consideration when you’re done here. 😉
“The Truth is One, the sages know it by many names.”
~RigVeda
I have a friend training as a shaman who describes his job as simply “pointing to the mountain.” I find very little conflict in all of the major belief systems, including native and meso-American cultures. The people arguing over trifling details remind me of Swift’s “Big Endians” and “Little Endians.” Talk about missing the point.
The Golden Rule finds expression in virtually every civilization that we delve into, yet we can’t even manage that, yet we focus on minutiae and use it as a justification for de-humanizing other human beings.
Like libertarianism, Deism offends both extremes, so is beyond the pale.
(he said, flippantly)
(Yea, even glibly.)
I always chuckle when people (christians, generally) argue that the US is a “Christian Nation” and are rebutted by atheists pointing out that the Founding Fathers were Deists. Talk about two sets of people talking past each other.
I find Deism the most attractive – I can wrap my head around a supreme being, a watchmaker. But the though that such a being cares what each moving part does to the point of eternally punishing misbehaving parts / eternally rewarding well behaving parts is beyond my belief.
Worse, to me, is the idea that one would be condemned to eternal punishment for wrongthink, i.e. picking the wrong “team.” An entity that would do that doesn’t strike me as worthy of reverence.
GT, I’m gonna go out on a limb and assert that the “don’t’s” and the “you’ll go to hell for not believing what I tell you” comes from Man, not the Almighty.
Exactly. And I can’t fathom why those who DO believe that those edicts come from the Almighty would revere such a being.
Power and control. Feel free to join our Glib reboot of Catholicism that Raph and I are trying to get underway. Meet in caves, read the mass, have some wine and bread. 15 minutes tops. No sermon, no talking down. All circumstance and no pomp..,or is it the other way round?
Can we have hymns? The one thing I miss about church is hymns.
This. I want the pomp.
Do you want cardinals? Because this is how you get cardinals.
No hymns! MUSIC IS FOR THE GAYS, God says so!
I love me some Joseph Campbell. The thing about what he’s saying there is that even most religions consider God (or the ultimate divine whatever) as something that is beyond human understanding. The Tao Te Ching just comes right out and says it, but the Bible intimates that God isn’t beholden to human mental frameworks, too. Many religions use the term “mystery” or something like it in their rituals or writings for a reason. It’s not something that you’re supposed to understand in the same way that you understand how doors work or why your mom got upset with you when you didn’t clean your room.
I can only say from my own experiences that the quote “surpasseth all human understanding” is inadequate to the task.
Ozy, following up on your post and the Campbell quotation; religion (even the religion of no-religion) is an attempt to find answers about the unknowable. It strikes me that whenever we claim certitude it leads to conclusions that are, at best, meaningless and at worst, murderous (ex: the Holy(?) Inquisition and ISIS). So what’s a rational person to do? Maybe the best thing is to simply live by the Golden Rule and/or the Confucian restatement of it (what you would not like done to yourself, do not do to others). Several of the posts above covered that pretty well.
FM, thanks for the article. Good stuff.
MYB, That’s a very simple and effective way of doing it. I think the “Great Commandment” covers it, as well, but that’s because I’m familiar with that tradition. I’m finding wonderful stuff in the Indian spiritual texts, as well, and the Tao is next on my list. Confucius’ stuff after that. I’ve already got a bunch of buddhism under my belt, as well, and they all point to that same idea. Just love one another – the rest is fine print.
If you wanna understand the Taos, you gotta understand the Tao of Steve. Donal Logue is a national treasure!
– Eliminate desire
– Do something excellent in her presence
– Withdraw
When Gandhi was asked if he could put the secret of his life into three words, he quoted from the Isha Upanishad: ‘Tena tyaktena bhunjithah’ – ‘Renounce and enjoy!’
Slumbrew is my new best friend! Fuck off Sir Digby!
My friends and have have been big Tao of Steve fans for years
The (intentional) irony of that movie is that step 3, while effective, prevents happiness.
Steps one and two are legitimately effective.
Yeah, that was the film makers message, but I don’t know if that’s truth, or the story they wanted to tell. What do I know. I haven’t been too successful in this whole ‘life thing’; I wonder what the return policy on it is.
That is awesome. Thank you.
Sorry.
Whenever I see Pascal, I think of the programming language. When it’s not, I feel blasé.
What DOS you feed your Python?
This pun would make Swiss Blaze with anger!
Ada feeling we were going to see some puns at some point.
I’ll only give that pun a C++.
http://airsicknessbags.com/components/com_airsicknessbag/images/C++A.jpg
http://airsicknessbags.com/components/com_airsicknessbag/images/C++UnionCampB.jpg
You nerds insist on going with the basic programming puns.
They’re trying to be swift with their groovy puns, though they take a bit of assembly.
Why bother with this crowd? It’s like casting your perl before swine.
Some of us get our kicks on FORTRAN 66.
I ruby don’t see the point of going on like this.
I really hope this isn’t one of those threads where the puns snobal.
This is going to SNOBOL
How dare you try to jump on my obscure programming-language pun! Just Go!
I would have beat you if I wasn’t trying to print out some ladder logic at the same time as replying!
Nerd fight.
Finished the first episode of Treadstone. Quite enjoyable.
Oh? I started to watch, then realized I was 20 minutes into it and was lost. May try again.
It does jump around a bit.
Ensign Ro is in it along with a very fetching Korean chick.
a very fetching Korean chick.
*perks up*
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Hyo-joo
*adds Treadstone to list*
So, what’s going on aro-
::reads opener::
Aaaand, I’m out.
Don’t puss out, it’s been quite civil.
(other than me calling you a puss)
At least you didn’t call him a bitch, then you’d be a law breaker in certain states, and as the constitution provides for extradition between states, you’d be shipped out post haste.
That would be my state, in fact.
On the plus side:
Please don’t judge our state by our preening, dim-bulb politicians. We have plenty of fools to go around, without involving the professional fools.
My problem with all this is that if a god exists, you don’t really know how he wants you to behave, which religion is right, if any. Maybe god wants you to solve the riddle of steel or some shit (Lachowski is way ahead of us). Anyhow to early for this. Good morning glibs!
Contemplate this on the tree of woe.
I find the simulation theory a lot more likely. I suppose the entity running it could be considered god.
*Lachowsky
Many thanks, FM, for kicking off such a thought-provoking discussion, and good night Glibbies!
The basic problem with Pascal’s Wager is the lack of consideration of probability. How you address the “wager” is dependent on the probability of God existing. Even if you accept all of Pascal’s premises, if the chance of God’s existence is infinitesimally small, then the costs of belief in god are going to outweigh the benefits. In order to side with Pascal, you have to place a chance on the existence of God (in the traditional sense, since a more nebulous god invalidates the wager anyway) that is larger than I think most scientifically inclined people would place.
But what of the rules passed down? Is it good for society to have men who impregnate women and leave them to be cared for by the state? Is murder not a wrong unless a god forbids it? Is theft ok if there is no Supreme Being?
It’s different.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1186830433985748993
77 dimensional chess or the rantings of a mad king? When we can’t tell, that is scary.
I mean, it seems Trump could use a Jump to Conclusions mat and randomly hit all this, but it is really fuckin scary to think he does any of this on purpose.
Something best timeline something
Lebron is keeping the damn ball to much. Not dynamic enough, just stays in one place and dribbles. Lakers need better offensive schemes.
Like LeBron is going to listen to a coach! He’s been told he was the BESTEST EVAR! since he reached 5ft. Once again, this is why basketball is the most inferior sport, no other sport can you from being the best child playing the game to the best professional athlete in the sport. Except gymnastics. But that at least gave us Gymkata.
real football also can have this situation
Real football? You mean soccer? I guess, I mean if a boy can compete against men, that would be some where where it could happen. A teenager can fake being touched as good, probably better, than a man. And flop on the ground and pretend he’s injured. I mean teen boys around the world pretend they weren’t doing what they were doing for that hour and half they were locked in the bathroom.
You should play. Really. I’d like to see how you hold up.
I didn’t leave the NBA, the NBA left me.
I don’t know why you knuckleheads are trying to reinvent the wheel. We already know the answer. It’s 42.
Now, on to more important puzzles, like how to get the stray that won’t leave to quit barking outside my door all night.
There is yet another possible outcome that Pascal failed to consider.
That god does exist and does not consider “good behavior” done out of fear of punishment and superficial “belief” acted out as a hedge against damnation to be sufficient to get into heaven