Terrapin Tables

Everyone reading this knows where I fall on this issue. I thought' Harris's "The End of Faith" was excellent, even though I do not agree with quite a bit of what he wrote in the second half. In this piece, Harris serves his position well, but I don't think Warren does, especially by trotting out tried-and-failed arguments (like Pascal's wager, at the end, or the idea that we need religion to have morality).

I'm guessing this is the same Rick Warren that wrote The Purpose Driven Life. Irma got that as a present from a friend, and couldn't even make it past the first chapter it was so bad.

And I agree - Warren did a bad job compared to Harris, but unfortunately, a lot of people that read the article won't see it that way. Arguments like Pascal's Wager and atheists lacking a basis for morality still seem like very good ones to a lot of people.

I'll read the whole text later (working) but right on page one is what bugs me about the Jesus arguement:

WARREN: To you.

See, right there...it's the adult version of "nuh-uh," the perfect rejoinder in the sense that it's a blanket refusal which cannot be countered. Of course it says nothing and proffers no intelligence or reasoning, but you know, consider the source.

The same guy probably talks all kinds of trash about Lebowski's "well, that's just, like, your opinion, man," while using the same arguments to discount people who bother to debate them.

While listening to Mr. Tony talk about penguins disguised as monkeys, it occurred to me that Pascal's Wager might better be applied to global warming than religion.

That Pascal guy is full of crap. If you're convinced to believe by an argument like his Wager, then should God exist, the omnipotence would reveal your false belief, and you'd be sent to hell without even passing Go. So, Pascal is basically saying "go through the motions," but everything God-people say is that God ain't falling for that shit.

Chris - in defense of Pascal, he didn't intend for that argument to necessarily convince people to become Christian, it was more a way to try to get indifferent non-believers to consider the question (Wikipedia entry). However, many people do use it as a reason for belief, which as you pointed out, is stupid.

John - that's an interesting point about global warming.

Yeah, all I know about Pascal's Wager is the wording, not the intent or the backstory. I figured I was missing something if it survived all these years with such an apparently obvious flaw.