Of all the bets one can make to earn some extra bucks, some of the best are "off the table", such as betting some fundie whacko somewhere will dredge up the old "Pascal's Wager" bet to try one more time to intimidate atheists into copping to belief. Better they argue, to go with belief, rather than die, be proven wrong and spend eternity....you know.....in a perpetual barbecue pit!
Some of the glib analogies that I've recently beheld include comparing the Pascal's Wager nonsense to taking a 50-50 bet in a casino. Say gambling with your rent money that the slot machine you plow it into will be the one that is merely minutes (or seconds) away from yielding all its contents! Thus, a 50-50 bet that by the time all my rent money is fed (quarter by quarter) into the one-armed bandit, it'll cough up the jackpot.
But this is bollocks, and we know from their past screeds these fundies are loaded with bollocks if nothing else (like smarts).
For one thing, it's truly a false analogy. In a casino bet such as I illustrated above, the choice is really one of moral hazard or no moral hazard. If I use the rent money to gamble that a slot machine is near its "tipping point" (which I understand is usually near 5.30 a.m. MT rom Vegas experts) and lose, then I do my family a moral injustice. The money had been allocated for a specific purpose and wasn't mine to plow into a machine to try to get it to spit up its contents or jackpot.
Worse, if I know the odds of slots I compound my responsibility. I'd have been better off going to a craps table where the odds of beating the House are at least slightly better than 50-50 if you know what you're doing. Still, it is a moral hazard if I use the rent money, even at a craps table where the odds are improved. I have NO business using any non-disposable income or money for such frivolous activity.
Now, what of Pascal's wager? First it isn't a true bet like in a casino. It is more like going up to some outdoor table where a guy has a cup placed upside down, and he asks me to bet whether there's anything beneath it or not, without seeing anything first. Even here the bet rests on presence or non-presence (of whatever), as opposed to a putative penalty for total non-belief. For example, I can simply tell the guy that I believe there's nothing there and he never intended there to ever be anything beneath the cup. But, if there is - and I'm wrong (though I don't bet) he's not going to toss me into eternal perdition for my non-belief.
In the case of the Pascal Wager, the bet is supposedly on the welfare of something I don't even know exists: a soul. But let's assume for the moment that, despite no proof for it, it does exist.
Then the bet is that I am wagering my eternal "soul" on my unbelief.....or IS it?
No, not quite and this is where most of the ignorant fundies who appeal to this bunkum get it wrong.
The bet is not that, but rather that IF there is a deity, it will not be a glorified Psycho or Genocidal Killer, or a petty, egomaniacal tyrant who's too insecure in its being not to tolerate unbelief. In other words, the rational atheist is betting that even IF he "loses", he wins! He's effectively betting the putative deity is a more generous and forgiving Being than the crazed, narrow-minded caricature that fundie bigots allow. (He's also betting that if a real deity exists, it's infinite, so no Hell will be possible - see the end of the blog!)
Now, this is difficult for the average double-digit IQ fundie, so again we have to go slow and spell it out for him. What we're doing is reasoning that IF a deity (who created the whole cosmos) exists, it has to first be rational (implying infinite intelligence) and not irrational, egoistic, entitled, quixotic, stupid, petulant, vengeful or crazy. Also, we're betting that it has no small amount of dislike for a cowardly punk.
What do I mean by a cowardly punk? I mean a person who - for the sake of accessing what can only be called an "afterlife insurance policy" - cops to God-belief to save his ass. In other words, he isn't believing because he thinks there's really something there, but because he's a chicken shit and wants an out, in case there is. In other words, he's prepared to sacrifice his integrity for an ass-sparing belief!
Can you spell C-O-W-A-R-D?
What we see here is that Christians who invoke this baloney are demonstrating mainly their own desperation and paucity of logical or rational arguments. They're making the proposition that it’s more important to choose “safety” via an afterlife insurance policy, than personal integrity. In other words, the integrity of non-belief – sincerely held – amounts to nothing compared to a belief held in bad-faith, solely to save one’s presumed “soul” (which no Christian I've ever debated has yet explicated or shown to even have a proper operational definition).
Apart from this, what does that say about the presumed deity with which fundies and orthodox Christians threaten atheists ? That it would accept a craven human’s false belief (to save his or her eternal ass) over a courageous atheist’s integrity? If indeed it does so (as these fundies imply) it’s nothing but a mere cosmic joke, an insecure cosmic ASSHOLE, too insecure in its being to tolerate unbelief. Yet it would accept a “yes man” in a nano-second!
Pascal's wager is bunk because Pascal rigged the medieval dice and weighted them in his favor to make the 'wager' come out the way he wanted. This has been pointed out by many authors (e.g. George Smith in 'The Case Against God', and Michael Martin, in Atheism: Philosophical Justification). The most direct way to rout the wager is to attack its basis. In the normative wager the scalawag, turn tail coward who cops a belief to save his hide is okay. (After all, neither Pascal nor his defenders take care to parse the motives of the bettor. They could be the most loathsome or selfish- to merely make a quick bet to save his hide, not that he loves the God he professes a belief in to save him)
A true reckoning of the Wager, as Michael Martin has shown (op. cit.), would take into account the sincerity of the "bettor". If then this deity is honestly and truly GOOD (which implies also being reasonable) it will reckon the sincerity of one's UNBELIEF as a higher standard of ethics than professed belief merely to save a soul as insurance (or “win a bet”, as it were). If the deity being appealed to (and whose eternal largesse is bet on) is instead unphased by sincerity of the unbeliever, it's possible to argue that it’s no deity any sincere intellect would wish to spend a nanosecond with, far less an eternity. In addition, it would be even more noxious since it obviously favors a cabal of "yes men" to sincere intellectual unbelievers.
This brings up several interesting questions pertaining to winning the wager:
i) What are the necessary conditions for winning Pascal's wager?
ii) What are the sufficient conditions for winning Pascal's wager?
iii) If they are different, then why?
Why are these important? Well, if one refuses to explicate them then better, superior thinkers than Pascal may come up with their own! After all, NO intellectual adjudication standards have been implemented.
For example, Michael Martin actually turns the originally proferred Pascalian choice on its head in arriving at an alternative view of the Wager, based on a negative deity he calls the “Perverse Master” which (he imagines) acts in consistent contradiction to the “just God” of orthodox Christians. For example, rather than rewarding belief or faith in itself, especially if such belief is predicated on fear of torment, this entity punishes it for any supernatural being (including itself) while rewarding disbelief with eternal bliss.
Lastly, the atheist (using reason) again resolves the issue by showing (using logic) that Hell is an impossible condition (or fiction) if any deity that exists is presumed to be INFINITE. This again is the "Hell-God- Infinite" paradox and employing it the atheist is 100% certain he is safe without sacrificing felicity or integrity to cop to a last minute belief his intellect is unable to embrace.
To summarize: If GOD exists and is infinite, that means that he must be ALL there is. (One cannot have a partial infinite, or two infinites without destroying the definition). If, however, an abode ("Hell") also exists, then it either must:
a) be apart from GOD (in which case GOD is no longer infinite since he's now sharing Being with something else, OR
b) Be part of God, in which case the one BEING includes Hell within it (bad news then for all the fundies going to "salvation"!)
Up to now NO fundie has solved this paradox, which is to show an infinite God can co-exist with a Hell. Maybe they lack the brainpower, or more likely they just toss logic and reason to the four winds and accept whatever syncretic additions appear in their KJVs. (And we know that essentially all "hell" references were late additions, made to intimidate unbelievers.)
So all the atheists I know are quite content in our conviction that this is one sure bet! Just like we are that all the fundies are too damned dumb to ever solve the infinite-Hell-God paradox!
Some of the glib analogies that I've recently beheld include comparing the Pascal's Wager nonsense to taking a 50-50 bet in a casino. Say gambling with your rent money that the slot machine you plow it into will be the one that is merely minutes (or seconds) away from yielding all its contents! Thus, a 50-50 bet that by the time all my rent money is fed (quarter by quarter) into the one-armed bandit, it'll cough up the jackpot.
But this is bollocks, and we know from their past screeds these fundies are loaded with bollocks if nothing else (like smarts).
For one thing, it's truly a false analogy. In a casino bet such as I illustrated above, the choice is really one of moral hazard or no moral hazard. If I use the rent money to gamble that a slot machine is near its "tipping point" (which I understand is usually near 5.30 a.m. MT rom Vegas experts) and lose, then I do my family a moral injustice. The money had been allocated for a specific purpose and wasn't mine to plow into a machine to try to get it to spit up its contents or jackpot.
Worse, if I know the odds of slots I compound my responsibility. I'd have been better off going to a craps table where the odds of beating the House are at least slightly better than 50-50 if you know what you're doing. Still, it is a moral hazard if I use the rent money, even at a craps table where the odds are improved. I have NO business using any non-disposable income or money for such frivolous activity.
Now, what of Pascal's wager? First it isn't a true bet like in a casino. It is more like going up to some outdoor table where a guy has a cup placed upside down, and he asks me to bet whether there's anything beneath it or not, without seeing anything first. Even here the bet rests on presence or non-presence (of whatever), as opposed to a putative penalty for total non-belief. For example, I can simply tell the guy that I believe there's nothing there and he never intended there to ever be anything beneath the cup. But, if there is - and I'm wrong (though I don't bet) he's not going to toss me into eternal perdition for my non-belief.
In the case of the Pascal Wager, the bet is supposedly on the welfare of something I don't even know exists: a soul. But let's assume for the moment that, despite no proof for it, it does exist.
Then the bet is that I am wagering my eternal "soul" on my unbelief.....or IS it?
No, not quite and this is where most of the ignorant fundies who appeal to this bunkum get it wrong.
The bet is not that, but rather that IF there is a deity, it will not be a glorified Psycho or Genocidal Killer, or a petty, egomaniacal tyrant who's too insecure in its being not to tolerate unbelief. In other words, the rational atheist is betting that even IF he "loses", he wins! He's effectively betting the putative deity is a more generous and forgiving Being than the crazed, narrow-minded caricature that fundie bigots allow. (He's also betting that if a real deity exists, it's infinite, so no Hell will be possible - see the end of the blog!)
Now, this is difficult for the average double-digit IQ fundie, so again we have to go slow and spell it out for him. What we're doing is reasoning that IF a deity (who created the whole cosmos) exists, it has to first be rational (implying infinite intelligence) and not irrational, egoistic, entitled, quixotic, stupid, petulant, vengeful or crazy. Also, we're betting that it has no small amount of dislike for a cowardly punk.
What do I mean by a cowardly punk? I mean a person who - for the sake of accessing what can only be called an "afterlife insurance policy" - cops to God-belief to save his ass. In other words, he isn't believing because he thinks there's really something there, but because he's a chicken shit and wants an out, in case there is. In other words, he's prepared to sacrifice his integrity for an ass-sparing belief!
Can you spell C-O-W-A-R-D?
What we see here is that Christians who invoke this baloney are demonstrating mainly their own desperation and paucity of logical or rational arguments. They're making the proposition that it’s more important to choose “safety” via an afterlife insurance policy, than personal integrity. In other words, the integrity of non-belief – sincerely held – amounts to nothing compared to a belief held in bad-faith, solely to save one’s presumed “soul” (which no Christian I've ever debated has yet explicated or shown to even have a proper operational definition).
Apart from this, what does that say about the presumed deity with which fundies and orthodox Christians threaten atheists ? That it would accept a craven human’s false belief (to save his or her eternal ass) over a courageous atheist’s integrity? If indeed it does so (as these fundies imply) it’s nothing but a mere cosmic joke, an insecure cosmic ASSHOLE, too insecure in its being to tolerate unbelief. Yet it would accept a “yes man” in a nano-second!
Pascal's wager is bunk because Pascal rigged the medieval dice and weighted them in his favor to make the 'wager' come out the way he wanted. This has been pointed out by many authors (e.g. George Smith in 'The Case Against God', and Michael Martin, in Atheism: Philosophical Justification). The most direct way to rout the wager is to attack its basis. In the normative wager the scalawag, turn tail coward who cops a belief to save his hide is okay. (After all, neither Pascal nor his defenders take care to parse the motives of the bettor. They could be the most loathsome or selfish- to merely make a quick bet to save his hide, not that he loves the God he professes a belief in to save him)
A true reckoning of the Wager, as Michael Martin has shown (op. cit.), would take into account the sincerity of the "bettor". If then this deity is honestly and truly GOOD (which implies also being reasonable) it will reckon the sincerity of one's UNBELIEF as a higher standard of ethics than professed belief merely to save a soul as insurance (or “win a bet”, as it were). If the deity being appealed to (and whose eternal largesse is bet on) is instead unphased by sincerity of the unbeliever, it's possible to argue that it’s no deity any sincere intellect would wish to spend a nanosecond with, far less an eternity. In addition, it would be even more noxious since it obviously favors a cabal of "yes men" to sincere intellectual unbelievers.
This brings up several interesting questions pertaining to winning the wager:
i) What are the necessary conditions for winning Pascal's wager?
ii) What are the sufficient conditions for winning Pascal's wager?
iii) If they are different, then why?
Why are these important? Well, if one refuses to explicate them then better, superior thinkers than Pascal may come up with their own! After all, NO intellectual adjudication standards have been implemented.
For example, Michael Martin actually turns the originally proferred Pascalian choice on its head in arriving at an alternative view of the Wager, based on a negative deity he calls the “Perverse Master” which (he imagines) acts in consistent contradiction to the “just God” of orthodox Christians. For example, rather than rewarding belief or faith in itself, especially if such belief is predicated on fear of torment, this entity punishes it for any supernatural being (including itself) while rewarding disbelief with eternal bliss.
Lastly, the atheist (using reason) again resolves the issue by showing (using logic) that Hell is an impossible condition (or fiction) if any deity that exists is presumed to be INFINITE. This again is the "Hell-God- Infinite" paradox and employing it the atheist is 100% certain he is safe without sacrificing felicity or integrity to cop to a last minute belief his intellect is unable to embrace.
To summarize: If GOD exists and is infinite, that means that he must be ALL there is. (One cannot have a partial infinite, or two infinites without destroying the definition). If, however, an abode ("Hell") also exists, then it either must:
a) be apart from GOD (in which case GOD is no longer infinite since he's now sharing Being with something else, OR
b) Be part of God, in which case the one BEING includes Hell within it (bad news then for all the fundies going to "salvation"!)
Up to now NO fundie has solved this paradox, which is to show an infinite God can co-exist with a Hell. Maybe they lack the brainpower, or more likely they just toss logic and reason to the four winds and accept whatever syncretic additions appear in their KJVs. (And we know that essentially all "hell" references were late additions, made to intimidate unbelievers.)
So all the atheists I know are quite content in our conviction that this is one sure bet! Just like we are that all the fundies are too damned dumb to ever solve the infinite-Hell-God paradox!
No comments:
Post a Comment