1. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist

Comment #147828 by TheDigitalRuler on March 21, 2008 at 11:40 am

I think many Americans, like myself, feel slighted by the fact that no major media outlets in our country have had the guts to reprint the Mohammed cartoons. It's like we're willing to give up one of the most important founding principles of our democracy because we're worried about the reaction of religious fanatics. So a friend of mine came up with the idea to make a web site where anyone who wants to stand up and say that free speech does matter can post their own cartoon of Mohammed. The URL is http://turbantoons.wordpress.com

Check it out, and if you support the idea, take a few minutes to do a sketch a send it in. So special skills or software required - MS Paint works just fine. Also, please help spread the word by sending the link to your friends, posting it on forums, etc.

2. Pascal's Wager

Comment #82380 by TheDigitalRuler on October 26, 2007 at 7:56 am

I had an email correspondence with a Christian a few months back, and Pascal's wager was one of the topics discussed. This is clipped from one of those emails:

There are numerous reasons why I do not find Pascal's argument convincing, but here I will address only what I consider to be its four biggest flaws:

1. Pascal's wager assumes that believing in God is a simple yes or no proposition.

But in reality, there are multiple religions to choose from, and each one is completely incompatible with all of the others. By this I mean that if I choose to be a Christian, I cannot also be a Muslim and a Buddhist. Because there are so many available religions, the odds of arbitrarily choosing the correct one are small. So the question now becomes: which would God look upon with more disfavor, believing in no God, or believing in the wrong God?

One thing most religions agree on is that there is no surer way to anger the almighty than by worshiping a false god. For example, the Koran clearly states that anyone who believes Jesus is the Son of God will not be allowed into heaven. By the logic of Pascal's wager, even if there is little evidence in support of this claim, I should believe it anyway, because the reward for being right is so great, and the punishment for being wrong so severe.

Since it is not within my power to determine which religion is correct, I would be better off having no religion than taking the risk of incurring God's wrath by choosing the wrong one.

2. Pascal's wager also presumes that believing in God, even in the face of insufficient evidence, will get me into heaven.

First of all, if God is omniscient, won't he be able to tell that I'm only believing in Him because I think I will be rewarded for doing so? Would God really look with favor upon this type of belief?

What if God is something like a great scientist (which any being capable of designing and creating something as complex as our entire universe would almost certainly have to be), who disdains belief for the sake of belief? If God endowed us with our five senses with which we are able to observe the world around us, and an ability to reason with which we are able to interpret these observations, why would He then want us to believe in something just because it is written in a certain "holy" book, or worse yet, just because we thought we would be rewarded for believing it? Wouldn't He be much more pleased if we investigated for ourselves, and used the abilities He gave us to draw our own conclusions?

3. The claim that there is no reward for correctly believing that there is no God is unjustified.

To me, one of the highest possible human aspirations is to gain an understanding of the universe. When I think of the progress we have made in past few hundred years, and then further reflect on what incredible mysteries must still be out there, just waiting to be discovered, I'm filled with a sense of awe which is indescribable. In my view, the story science can tell of how all of this came to be, from the big bang, to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets, to the evolution of complex, intelligent life from single celled organisms, is the greatest story ever told.

If I'm right, and this life is all we get, then missing out on the chance to understand some of the great mysteries of universe because of blind faith in scripture is one of the greatest losses a person can incur.

4. Even if I ignore all of the concerns discussed above and accept Pascal's wager as valid, it is still not within my power to simply choose to believe in God.

As I sit here writing this, it is within my power to imagine that, when I get home this evening, there will be a sack containing $1,000,000 sitting on my bed. However, I'm incapable of making myself actually believe that this windfall will take place, despite the fact that my mood would almost certainly improve if I did. Likewise, I could choose to go to church on Sundays, to pray every night, and to tell everyone I believe that God exists, that Jesus is His Son, etc. But none of that would change the fact that I don't really believe any of that is true.