Pascal's wager

I don't understand your point. I participated in nonviolent civil disobedience (in the spirit of martin Luther King, Jr.) against weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction, specifically nuclear weapons that cannot be used without murdering hundreds of thousands, or millions of innocent people, and whose very existence is a terrorist threat, and which were manufactured with blatant disregard for the radioactive pollution of the environment. I did these protests knowing that I would probably go to prison for it, which I did, and which I accepted. I never tried to evade imprisonment for my acts. In court I argued that my actions were justified by the horror of the weapons, but I freely admitted the facts of the cases.

What does this have to do with arguing against attempts to violate the Constitution by making the U.S. into a nation with an official religion? Or with arguing for a rational, rather than a faith-based world view?

I am capable of agreeing to disagree on issues where I feel that's appropriate. But as I've said before, I raise these issues for the sake of people who feel trapped in oppressive religious contexts, and have on occasion commented that hearing from likeminded people has helped them.

Nobody is forced to participate.

Thank you.

I have never been formally diagnosed with Aspeger's. I think it might have been a year and a half ago that I met a fellow Prius Chatter, and we did some hiking together. The person in question has a degree in social work and suggested that I might have Aspergers. I read up on it and concluded that I think I probably do. I took one of those unscientific on-line quizzes, and the results were inconclusive. My self-diagnosis is based on several points:

High intelligence.
Strong verbal skills.
Poor to no non-verbal skills.
Tendency to become engrossed on a subject interest.
Muscle twitches reminiscent of (but not identical to) Tourette's.

I admit to poor social skills. That's just how I am. But I still think that my arguments stand or fall on their own merits. And I will probably keep arguing for things I believe in, and against philosophies (such as religion) that deny basic human rights to people (such as the right of same-sex couples to marry.) When religion ceases to be the primary motivator for denying basic rights, I'll probably stop arguing against it.

I am registered to vote. I spent five years volunteering about 15 hours a week at a homeless shelter, and four years volunteering about the same amount of time at a legal aid office that provided free services to low-income migrant farm workers, as well as other stuff occasionally. I have always given significantly to charitable causes, including Catholic Worker houses (look up Dorothy Day) and the Salvation Army, though more to non-religious charities.

I suspect that the Barna Group is one of those religious groups that claims dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. They actually cite their own "research" as the source of the above quote. I.e., it's nothing but a self-serving and unfounded claim.

I have seen opposing research saying that atheists give more than theists, but my own opinion is that people are people and there's no significant difference.

Bottom line: None of that has anything whatsoever to do with Pascal's wager and its relevance to people's lifestyle choices.

I really like Stev0's idea that if you believe in god simply because you think you'll be rewarded for it (which is after all what Pascal's wager advocates) you are being dishonest. And if there is a god, she/he gave you reason, and you should base your beliefs on use of that reason, rather than rejecting reason in favor of unreasoning faith.

This does not mean you cannot believe in god, or gods. But you should not believe simply in order to get the reward, which was the original topic of this thread.

 

It was a long time ago, but I don't think I ever called Windstrings an idiot. I would undoubtedly have received at least a warning, if not an infraction, from the mods if I had. I probably did say that many of his pronouncements were nonsense, because they were. I think we disagreed a lot. I don't remember any animosity between us. My impression of his intelligence was not favorable. If I offended him I am sorry and I apologize. I do not apologize for disagreeing with anything he said.

I found his avatar to be extremely creepy. But maybe that was just me.

 

To be fair to Chuck, I was the first person to post on Prius Chat that I think it likely that I have Asperger's, after a friend suggested it to me, after spending some time together. The suggestion makes sense to me, though I've never been diagnosed by a professional, and that on-line survey I took seemed borderline to me.

But OTOH, my diagnosis is not relevant to the thread topic. Though, of course, as I've often said, this is FHOP, and pretty much anything (other than politics or personal insults) is fair game here. I actually don't mind the personal attacks so much, since it suggests that the people attacking have no substantive arguments against my points. (But I also appreciate the people who stand up for me. )

I try very hard to respect people as individuals.

I do not feel any obligation to "respect" ideas or philosophies that I regard as irrational and harmful. A philosophy that tells people to deny basic rights to others is, IMO harmful. So I do not respect religion.

Catholics have a saying: Hate the sin, love the sinner. I respect individuals, but I sometimes disrespect their ideas. I am aware that some people take my disparaging of religion personally, but that's their problem, not mine.

As I review this thread, it appears that hardly anybody has addressed the points in my opening post. A few people jumped in immediately to express outrage at yet another anti-religion thread. Trebuchet posted a quote from a fundamentalist outfit claiming that theists are more generous than atheists, which is irrelevant even if it were true. ETC(SS) and Stev0 I think are the only ones to have addressed the post. ETC(SS) to say that he does not view his sig in the light of Pascal's wager, but merely meaning to say that he'd rather live his life as if there is a god; and Stev0 to add an item to my incomplete list of ways Pascal's wager could fail. But mostly the thread seems to be people telling me I'm rude for discussing religion. Well, I consider religion to be a problem, and a dangerous one, so I'll keep discussing it.

BTW, ETC(SS) seems to be one of the more rational and humane posters here, even though I don't share his beliefs. And this thread was not aimed at him, though it was inspired by his sig, which reminded me of an argument I hear from time to time. I first encountered Pascal's wager while reading C.S. Lewis. I didn't yet know it had a name. I thought it was an extraordinarily stupid argument (that you should believe in the Christian god because if you were wrong you'd lose nothing, and if you were right you'd go to heaven.) I felt insulted that Lewis would think his readers (including me) stupid enough to buy it. (For all the reasons outlined in post #1.) I've never been able to enjoy his fantasy stories, knowing they were written by someone who would seriously put forth such an argument. Which is too bad, because they might be fun stories.