Pascal Rewagered and the God of Smart People

Blaise Pascal
formulated his famous "wager" in his notes and never
published them in his lifetime. The wager says basically that we
cannot know whether God exists or not, so we should act as if God
does exist because the promised reward for living a moral life is
infinitely beneficial and the punishment for living an immoral life
is infinitely harmful. If God does exist and we live a moral life
then we get infinite reward. If God does not exist and we live a
moral life we sacrifice nothing because life would be equally
meaningless no matter how one chooses to live.




As Clavius states in the movie Risen what his greatest fear is: "Being
wrong, and wagering eternity on it."




The main objections most people have to
Pascal's wager never seemed to cut it for me.




The first objection, which Pascal
himself simply laughed at as a word game, is that there are multiple
religions with different gods and to follow one religion faithfully
would mean violating the tenants of other religions, all of which
have infinite consequences. This objection is false, and obviously
so, because there really are only two religions with infinite
consequences – Christianity and Islam – and the two are mirror
opposites of one another. And if you need help figuring out which is which then you're hopeless and shouldn't be pursuing philosophy.



The second objection argues that God
would never accept someone who is persuaded by the wager because such
a person is being moral for selfish reasons. This objection, too, has
been transformed into a joke by the anti-Christians, because the only people opposing Pascal very rarely talk about other
religions, which always seemed suspicious to me, as if their primary
objective was just anti-Christian. They are not atheists because none of them seem to oppose the infusion of paganism into modern society, like all the days of the week and the months being named after pagan deities (and yes, there are many thousands of people who profess belief in Odin and nature spirits and all of that, so the argument that these are dead religions falls flat). And very few of them ever dare criticise Islam, and most actively praise it. Let's face it, if the money said "In Thor We Trust" or "In Allah We Trust" none of these so-called atheists would complain. Their only problem is with Christianity because it gives them the out to be edgelords.



Atheists seem to be saying that God, or
at least the Christian God, would endow humans with the faculties of reason and intelligence and then demand that we never use them. The God of the objectors wants humans to be stupid, based on the false notion that faith means "belief without evidence", when, in actuality, faith in the Biblical context means something closer to trust, and is arrived at through reason and evidence.



Stupid people, overwhelmingly it seems, are not moral. Certainly not more moral than smart people. Stupid people kill albinos because they believe albinos practice sorcery. Stupid people kill others for sorcery, full stop. Stupid people have sex with their cousins and produce inbred children who are even stupider. Stupid people cut open the heads of bald men believing treasure to be inside. Stupid people are less moral because stupid people have lesser ability to defer gratification, which makes them more violent, and stupid people are also less empathetic, meaning less able to take on the perspectives of others. This means that the God of the Anti-Pascalites wants humans to be immoral. If God wants people to be immoral then God is not God but is instead the Devil. The Anti-Pascalites are confusing the Devil for God and are crafting an erroneous argument out of their own confusion.



But God is not the Devil, and God wants people to be moral, because God is moral. If God wants people to be moral then God wants people to be smart. Smart people come to trust God through reason and evidence, and can apply that reason to see that it is better to be moral and believe in God than to be immoral and disbelieve in God. An intelligent person can appreciate Pascal's wager, because morality within a Western context is inextricably linked to Christianity.



This isn't to say that God exists. Pascal was not arguing for the existence of God with his wager, although he did present arguments for the existence of God in the same unpublished book. Pascal was merely saying that it is better to act as if God exists, meaning that it is better to act morally than to not act morally, because the consequences otherwise are too horrific to contemplate.



And we've seen those consequences. We've seen the hundreds of millions dead as a result of societies that have tried to kill God. The consequences go above and beyond survival after death, they impact the world of the here and now. The only thing that can replace God is the absolutist state, and the problem with the absolutist state is that it does not recognise any authority outside of itself. The absolutist state has no room for forgiveness, where as God's mercy is very great indeed. We've seen this with the gulags and the killing fields, and more recently with cultural Marxism and how the left has begun to eat its own. In the great oppression olympics, the left has sought to crucify its own members who are not extreme enough. There is only one place behaviour like this ends, and that's a mass grave.



Whether we want to think of the metaphysical implications or not, the pragmatic implications of cultural Christianity more than justify the continuation and strengthening of Christian culture within Western society.

Atheist Richard Dawkins identifies as culturally Christian.

Idiots, Normals, Smarties, and Genii

 An article from Yahoo claims that "more intelligent" people tend to be atheists.



Who are these "more intelligent" people who are less likely to believe in God? Isaac Newton, probably the most influential scientist of all time, spent thousands of hours more studying Biblical prophecy than he did physics. All his scientific endeavors were conducted as an act of worship. James Clerk Maxwell, the second most influential scientist of all time, was also very religious, going so far as to become an elder of the Church of Scotland. Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Nikola Tesla, Gregor Mendel, Michael Faraday, Robert Boyle, Galileo Galilei*, Gottfried Leibniz, Johannes Kepler, John Eccles, Werner Heisenberg, William Thomson Kelvin, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes all believed in God. Even Charles Darwin believed in God until much later in his life, and so did Alfred Russel Wallace, whom Darwin stole his evolutionary theory from. I'm left to wonder, are these "more intelligent" atheists "more intelligent" than the people I just listed? If they are not then why the fudge should I give a flying feather what they think?



The article says that these "more intelligent" people are really people with higher IQs, and they show a picture of Richard Dawkins holding up a picture of himself as an example, I guess, when the smartest thing Dawkins ever did was buy that really nice suit he's wearing in the picture (his selfish gene idea is intriguing, but I don't think it holds much water, he did create the word "meme", unfortunately, so that'll cost him some points, and everything he did after that is pure garbage). According to the article there was "a life-long analysis of the beliefs of a group of 1,500 gifted children - those with IQs over 135." Well, there's your first problem. Okay, your second problem. It is almost impossible to accurately assess the IQs of children, to say nothing of the fact that IQ doesn't really mean anything anyway.



What do I think? I think it has to do with know-it-all-ism. "More intelligent" people tend not to fit in as well with normal people and social isolation + greater capacity for X = ego boost. "I don't fit in because I'm better than everyone else." Someone with know-it-all-ism is more likely to believe that one knows it all, and is less likely to appreciate just how much one does not know. Someone with know-it-all-ism is also less likely to go with the crowd just because it's something to do, being different for the sake of being different, or because "I'm better than everyone else."



On the contrary, a true genius has risen above the show all together and realises "I may know more than everyone, but in the grand scheme of things I really know shit." A genius is thus more likely to appreciate the mysteries necessary for spiritual beliefs. That is why the vast majority of the world-changing geniuses believe in God or some higher order of the universe while the merely "smart" people are more likely to be atheists.









*Who was imprisoned because he wrote a satire about the Pope, who was also the leading temporal authority of the time, making Galileo's writing an act of treason, NOT because he wrote about a heliocentric solar system. There was no official Church position on cosomology at the time. The ammended geocentric model of Ptolemy made better predictions than the heliocentric model created by Copernicus because he got the orbits of the planets wrong, and it was this greater accuracy with predictability that made most people accept the geocentric model at the time. The idea that Galileo was arrested because the Church is anti-science is a load of horseshit propaganda.

Why Dawkins Doesn't Debate Craig

Dick-to-the-Dawk-to-the-PhD won't debate William Lane Craig because he's scared there's a huge likelihood that he'll lose, but instead makes up fake reasons like: "I'll only debate members of the Church establishment and not professional debaters," and "Craig believes in genocide because he's a Christian." Other atheists are calling Dawk out on being a pussy. This guy (don't know who) posted two videos showing Craig destroy Dawk's fellow nay-theists Peter Atkins and Sam Harris with the remark "I think the real reason for Dawkins’s refusal to debate Craig is plain enough to see."



Here are the videos below:





Atkins





Harris

Don't Take This The Wrong Way

The Amazing Atheist calls Rebecca sexist, and I completely agree. He also congratulates her for getting Richard Dawking to actually comment on her insignificant non-problem mere moment of discomfort. Wonderful, insiteful, very funny video.


Runs 13:50

Richard Dawkins is Right

About one issue in particular. I still disagree with him on practically everything else in the entire universe.



Apparently some broad got propositioned in an elevator at some conference, like that doesn't happen every day everywhere in the world and throughout all of human history and forever into the future (except the elevator part, which wasn't invented until the 19th century, although there were elevator-like transport sysems in place for thousands of years prior). The two most liked comments on that video sum up public, and my own, sentiment pretty well that this is a total load of horseshit and nothing wrong happened at all. As an outspoken atheist she should be flattered that he was (supposedly) just following what Darwin said, because it demonstrates that the cock and balls fairy story of Darwinism is right, or at least can be seen in that light if you choose to believe in that stuff (I don't, but as an outspoken media atheist fundamaterialist spep-dick she has to believe it, so of course she should be happy to see Darwinian principles in action!). After this complete and total non-event Dick-to-the-Dawk-to-the-PhD said this:



The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that....Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behavior, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.



And with that I finally found something to agree with Dawkins on! Never did I think that would ever happen.



Unfortunately, modern society is run by the New World Order and they are making people kowtow to pussies who are professional victims and it's not politically correct to say "shut up and deal with it," when either someone gets injured through their own stupidity or the laws of nature are percieved to be unfair.



Thank you, Mr. Dawkins, for being the voice of reason in this insane world (about this one issue, although I still think your other claims are asinine).

Survival of Someone

Everyone who references Phillip Longman's article "Survival of the Godliest" titles thier own critiques "Survival of the Godliest" so I didn't. He writes about the trend of religious people having more children than secular people, so in the future there will be a trend toward more religious people and less secular people. Also, the more religious the person is the more children they have, so more deeply fundamental religious folks have more children than fair weather religious folks, but more on that latter.



Once again we resume our exploration of the topic of the demographic decline of atheism. Modern fundamaterialists of all stripes like to think that we're fucking killing the earf and humans have to go extinct to save the planet. Some like to anthropomorphise the planet, thinking the earf to be their mother goddess. Those who are not dirt worshiping dirt worshipers (when people refer to "mother earth" they mean dirt) are in the Dickey D crowd, folks who think they're better than us and shutter at the fact that they must inhabit the same space-time continuum as us lower forms of life. They don't care about the earth but they are smart enough to use the language of the dirt worshiping dirt worshipers in order to get the dirt worshiping dirt worshipers to join forces with them against their religious enemies.



Not too long ago I got into an argument with someone who may or may not fall into one or both of the above groups. Now, I don't like to get into arguments. They're rarely fun and even rarelyer accomplish anything. I'm more like a reporter. I report things here and then tell you, my valued couple of readers, to go out and do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Often I will give opinions, but more often than not I will admit that more study is needed and we shouldn't jump to conclusions. She used a lot of ten dollar words, said I was mistaking correlation with causation, and that when Muslims move to Europe and secularize their fertility rate drops. Well, big words won't win you an argument, around half the people who take a side on the issue of declining population raise the issue of the decline of secular people and I doubt ALL of them are mistaking correlation with causation (aside from myself and Phillip Longman, Vincent Torely at UD, and secular University of London professor Eric Kaufmann must be mistaking correlation for causation, plus Dean Radin didn't mention any logical mistakes with this argument, though he did question what the world would look like if the trend continues), plus, the argument is that religious people have more children so will outbreed secular people, if Muslims who migrate to Europe SECULARIZE one would expect them to have fewer children if the argument were correct. I'm not trying to make an argument from authority. All the people I've listed fall into the group of humanity, and as a member of that group there is metaphysical certainty that they will be mistaken at least once in their lives. I'm also not trying to make a climate change (hide the decline) type appeal to concensus, which does not exist in science. However, using fancy rhetorical devices won't make the argument go away just because you don't like the implications with regard to your lifestyle choice. Vincent at UD presented a good argument why secular people may still win the demographic battle, due to legislation (some passed, some very easy to pass) that would limit the number of children religious people could have or prevent them from having children in the first place, and those few children they do have, assure that they are given secular indoctrination so secularism survives the demographic decline. On top of that I might suggest that in the future, at the current rate of government expansion, there may come a day when political dissidents (libertarians, fundamentalist religious folks, etc.) may just be rounded up into camps (extraordinary rendition, 110,000 Japanese rounded up during WWII, it's happened before) and exterminated, or at least removed from the breeding population.



Getting back to Longman's article, he writes:



"To be sure, in countries rich and poor, under all forms of government, birth rates are declining across the globe. But they are declining least among those adhering to strict religious codes and literal belief in the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran. Indeed, the pattern of human fertility now fits this pattern: the least likely to procreate are those who profess no believe in God; those who describe themselves as agnostic or simply spiritual are only somewhat slightly less likely to be childless. Moving up the spectrum, family size increases among practicing Unitarians, Reform Jews, mainline Protestants and “cafeteria” Catholics, but the birthrates found in these populations are still far below replacement levels. Only as we approach the realm of religious belief and practice marked by an intensity we might call, for lack of a better word, “fundamentalism,” do we find pockets of high fertility and consequent rapid population growth."



If you're wondering where the Urban Mystic falls on that scale, well, I'm wondering too. At the present moment it's best to let Longman do the talking.



"When confronted with the fact that they are being outbred, secularists often respond that many if not most children born into highly religious families will grow up to reject the faith of their fathers — such is the assumed allure of freedom and individuality....Arguing against this proposition, however, are some stubborn demographic facts. Among fundamentalist families, it turns out, the apple does not fall far from the tree. And the more demanding the faith, the more this rule applies."



According to Eric Kaufmann's new book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, Darwin explains why secular people will be much fewer and farther between in the future and the religious shall greatly multiply.



"In a world in which childbearing is rarely accidental and almost never rewarding economically, birthrates increasingly reflect values choices. And so, by Darwinian process, those who adhere to traditions that preserve and celebrate the ancient injunction to “go forth and multiply” wind up putting more of their genes and ideas into the future than those who don’t. As Kaufmann shows, fertility, over time, plays out like compound interest. That is, even if religiously fundamentalist families only have a few more children than secular or religiously moderate counterparts, and they can keep those children holding on to fundamentalist faith and values (especially related to child-bearing), the passage of generations will greatly magnify their numbers and influence. Similarly, secularists and others who choose to have only one or two children, and who pass those values on to their children, will, over time, see their population decline precipitously."



Will religious people inherit the earth? Will secular people go extinct? I will say this only once, so pay attention: I don't know.



I am NOT an unbiased observer. There are few such people, maybe none. I do have a stake in the matter, and you may as well. I can only present to you the information that I am given and then ask that you draw your own conclusions.



-Dee

The Randy Prize

6 June 2008



Here is a very good and lengthy article about the Randi million dollar prize and how it's a scam. Scientists don't take the prize seriously. Many people who have tried to apply for the prize have been ignored by Randi. Estimates for the cost of winning the prize (applicants must pay all expenses) exceed the million dollars in prize money, meaning you'll have to lose potentially millions to win Randi's million dollars. Even fellow magicians criticize his prize:



"According to paranormal investigator Loyd Auerbach (who, like Randi, is a member of the magic fraternity):
"The suggestion that ending the Challenge after 10 years supports any statement that psi does not exist or someone would have won the challenge, is absurd on many levels.
"The procedures for the Challenge included several hurdles in favor of, and multiple "outs" for Randi and the JREF that any discerning individual capable of any kind of extraordinary human performance would think twice about (and here I'm not just referring to psychics and the like)."



Randi lies like a Persian rug about everything and anything in regard to the challenge, for example Gary Schwartz recalls:



"James Randi has a history of engaging in the twisting of the truth...Randi's recommendation of Dr. Krippner was certainly acceptable to me. However, when I contacted Dr. Krippner directly to see if Mr. Randi’s statement about him serving on the panel was correct, Dr. Krippner was concerned. Dr. Krippner explained that he had previously emailed Mr. Randi stating that he would not agree to serve on such a committee. The truth is, Dr. Krippner was not willing to serve on the panel, and he made this clear to Mr. Randi."



Richard "Dick to the Dawk to the PhD" Dawkins warned the not so amazing Randi that there are a number of paranormal phenomena that may become recognized by science soon and this could jepordize his reputation as the gatekeeper of what is science and what is quackery (in The Amazing Meeting #3). Surprise, surprise Randi is discontinuing his challenge in 2010, perhaps on the eve of some psi phenomena like the Ganzfeld telepathy experiments being vindicated?



Why, even on the video "The Case of ESP" some skep-dick brought up the Randi prize as a weak retort to the video, which neither set out to make a positive statement about Randi, his prize, or Psi for that matter; the comment was promptly deleted. There's enough hate and filth on the internet already. In case you are curious, the video was intended only to point out that a particular skep-dick willfully lied when trying to debunk Charles Tart and his associates as SRI. If you watch the video you can notice where I point out first a conscious lie followed by a completely irrelevant comment designed to distract people from the real crux of the issues at hand.



-Dee