From: nanowave (nanowave@shaw.ca)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 14:39:33 MDT
Future Q wrote:
>Phil Osborn wrote:
>
>> After I sent my earlier post on tomorrow's meeting, I
>> took a further look at the AU site and noticed an
>> article by George Smith on Pascal's Wager. The
>> article was tagged as "new."
>> <http://www.atheistsunited.org/html/pamphlets/smith/smith.html>
>
>Pascal's Wager looks a bit different if you add matrices for "belief
>causes people to believe exploiting the earth is their god given right
>which may lead to environmental destruction" or "belief causes people to
>justify war, prejudice, hate and genocide" or "belief in god and an
>afterlife causes people to cheapen the value of life leading to sending
>their young to war and stiffling research into medicine" and one could
>go on and on.
>
>FutureQ
Unfortunately I can't take the time to participate in long, drawn out
debates with regard to the multitude of issues raised by these two posts, so
I'll toss out a few ideas of my own and then retreat to let others consider
and/or counter them if they so choose.
I read the article specified above, and while it did raise a few points I
hadn't considered before, I found it sloppy from a point of formal argument.
In reference to Pascal's Wager, the author quotes Blaise Pascal as
saying/writing: "Reason can decide nothing here...According to reason, you
can defend neither of the propositions."
The author then states: ". . . Secondly, the argument is not really an
argument at all, but rather a crude attempt to psychologically manipulate
people. Although Pascal doesn't specifically mention hell, it is strongly
implied in his argument."
and "The third point is that Pascal is guilty of religious ethnocentrism, of
seeing the position only through his own biased Catholic eyes. Apparently,
he never met anyone who wasn't a Catholic. . ."
The sloppiness that jumps out at me stems from the fact that Pascal is never
specifically quoted as including Catholicism as a key element of his wager.
Maybe he does (??) but then at least quote it if you're going to
systematically attack it.
Next the author says:
"Which leads us to the question of why this allegedly all-powerful Supreme
Being would allow so much confusion to occur. If he wants the best for us,
his children, then he should make his demands known in a clear, unequivocal
way. There should therefore be only ONE church. If god exists and if he or
she had done this, then perhaps there might be some validity to Pascal's
Wager."
For a compellingly logical paper that answers some of these points see:
http://www.markalanwalker.com/evil.htm
The author then says: "In addition, Pascal's conclusion does not logically
follow his premise. There is much to lose here, including our self-respect,
our intellectual integrity, and self-esteem. If we throw all this away for
an imaginary "next life," instead of losing nothing, as Pascal claims, we
lose everything!"
Ok, but I know many religious people who seem to display considerable self
respect. And not all people's values stem from intellectual integrity, (Is
that good or bad? I dunno, but it's a different argument for sure) As for
self-esteem, well that assertion seems way off the mark. But even if true,
check out this new study that hints that some of us could use a little less
self-esteem.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-07/uog-ncb072602.php
Now on to what FutureQ wrote.
"belief causes people to believe exploiting the earth is their god given
right
which may lead to environmental destruction"
Come, come now my fellow transhumanist; and I too am an atheist by the way.
Every time you open your nostrils to suck air into your lungs, you are
exploiting the earth. It's all a matter of degree, and it's exceedingly hard
to find two people who agree on just how much exploitation is too much.
You write: "belief causes people to justify war, prejudice, hate and
genocide"
Well I suppose that *we believe* Saddam is a bugger and a threat, so that
belief justifies war and thus by default prejudice (i.e. us good, them bad).
But I don't suppose anyone is claiming we should hate the Iraqis in this
case. As for genocide, granted that seems to be generally confined to
zealotry - except wasn't Hitler's Nazi Germany somewhat secular? I guess we
might transpose the fatherland for god though.
You write: "belief in god and an afterlife causes people to cheapen the
value of life leading to sending their young to war and stifling research
into medicine"
Maybe, but you glom too many things together here. Cheapening the value of
life may be a good tactic for sending the young off to war and I won't argue
that religion sometimes takes this tack, but war clearly benefits medical
research in many cases - i.e. Hey, these guys keep dying when we saw their
wounded legs off, now what on earth might be causing that? Or - if someone
drops biological weapons on our guys (and gals) how can we protect them from
harm?
Just my 2 cents
Russell Evermore
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