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[ThirdSection]

A Word on Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager is basically an argument for the belief in God based on the consequences of belief and those of non-belief.  If there is no God, nothing will happen to you whether you believe or not.  If there is a God on the other hand, if you do believe, you will go to Heaven, otherwise, you go to Hell.  So, as the argument goes, it is better then to believe because that choice yields 50-50 odds of a neutral or positive outcome, while non-belief yields 50-50 odds of a negative outcome.  On its face, it makes sense.

However, Pascal's wager makes one vast, and tragically wrong assumption—There is only one religion.  If you choose to believe in God in order to hedge your bets on an afterlife, your next choice has to be which god. If you place your bet on accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and the correct answer turns out to be submission to the Will of Allah, you lose and you're going to Hell.  In order for Pascal's Wager to work, the existence of God has to be a true/false question, when in fact, it is multiple choice, and that makes our chances of choosing correctly absolutely miniscule.

If, then, you wish to hedge your bets against eternal damnation or some other kind of afterlife punishment, the logical move would be to accept as many gods from as many religions as is permissible at any given time. This rules out any of the monotheistic faiths, because they demand your full, exclusive, undivided attention. Islam won't allow you to embrace Christianity on the side, and Christianity won't allow you to hedge your bets at the Mosque, either. The trick, then, is to go for something that's polytheistic, or nontheistic, and preferably faiths that will allow you to practice other religions concurrently.

So really, if you want to play the odds on an afterlife, you probably want to stock up on your Eastern religions.  Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Taoism and Confucianism can, in theory, all be adhered to at the same time, and I'm sure that none of them would have a problem with you further hedging your bets with various Native American traditions and any number of forms of animism or shamanism.

Sorry Christianity and Islam, you're the nickel slots, at best.

[Ziggy Strange]

A Word on Pascal's Wager

Great post. I believe you "can" experience what you expect. I also believe when what you expect is based on some religion, it is a fleeting experience that abates once you get your bearings. A lot like the movie "What Dreams May Come".
I'm one of the people that have had past life memories. I have no questions at all in terms of "we live on" but I have no memories of being on the other side. I was stillborn, strangled by my umbilical cord. I remember coming back after they worked on me. I even remember being angry and frustrated at the struggle to get here.

Later I developed asthma and as a result, high fevers. During those fevers I had repetitive lucid dreaming experiences all dealing with my moment of death in a few previous lives.

It stopped after I was 8 or 9. But I remember each one clearly as they were lucid dreams, and felt just like being awake. They were interesting, and the theme throughout all of them was that death was in many ways no big deal. There was no fear once death was for sure. In one dream I was running from some guys after me on horses. I had stolen some food, and they were going to kill me if they caught me, I was scared, and trying to get away in some woods. I remember feeling gritty, and stinky. I saw some bushes and decided to jump behind them and try to control my breathing so they would not hear me pant. When I jumped the bushes, they were on the edge of a cliff. As I fell my though was "this is a really stupid way to die". At the moment of that though, there was no fear at all, no emotion other than feeling stupid, in a comical sort of way. No sadness, nothing, just acceptance. At that point it all goes blank, and I find myself in another scenario that leads to my demise.

I watched my Father die, I was looking him in the eye, and holding him. I did not see fear, he knew he was dying, there was one tear at the moment the life went out of his eyes. I wonder what it will be like for me?

Thanks for the post you silly wabbit.

[elemental wolfess]

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away (actually Gering, Nebraska) I fully embraced the notion of born-again Christianity.  What changed that was how they treated my retarded son; they had decided to create a 'choir' for very young children and since Jon was 6 at the time I was thrilled at the opportunity for him to be with children that he might be able to learn from.  Everything went fine until the first time this choir sang in front of the congregation ... Jon did the same thing all the other kids did, but evidently some members of the congregation complained, so I was told Jon couldn't sing in front of the congregation anymore.  After weeks of praying and doing my best to deal with my anger in a 'christian way' I had one more opportunity to see how wrong their behavior was.  I was late getting out of the sunday school class I was teaching so when I got upstairs I found a teen-age girl doing her best to hold onto a sobbing Jonathon b/c he wanted to go up to the front of the sanctuary with the rest of the kids in the choir.  That next wednesday I distributed a letter to the ministers, and the board members citing different scriptures and asking them to reconsider their position.  My husband told me to put 'cc:atty' at the bottom of the letter.  The next day they all came to our home to say that it was never their intention to discriminate (mind you, I never said anything about discrimination -- their guilt was showing) and that after 'prayerful consideration' Jon could rejoin the choir.  He got to go up in front of the congregation one more time and then they disbanded the choir.  I decided that any 'church' that would be that callous toward a child (Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not) was not a place I wanted to be.  Unfortunately, after leaving that church it just became impossible to listen to any church/minister who believed they 'sat on the right hand of God.'

So now I am a witch, and I DO work with poppets! 

[Ziggy Strange]

So now I am a witch, and I DO work with poppets!

Good move!

[KB723]

So now I am a witch, and I DO work with poppets!

I am still awaiting my Witches Cider...

[KB723]

I watched my Father die, I was looking him in the eye, and holding him. I did not see fear, he knew he was dying, there was one tear at the moment the life went out of his eyes. I wonder what it will be like for me?

I have been thinking the same for some time, and almost feel like I am pushing myself closer just by thinking about it... So I do some situps and get my heart racing so I know it's still working... Sorry about your father Ziggy... =(

[KB723]

Hey ThirdSection, great post... I used to try to get to know all western religions just to get the feel for what worked for me... I found that None of them worked for me, and practice no said religion... I wonder what my odds are with that thought process???

[elemental wolfess]

I am still awaiting my Witches Cider.

Ooh-ooh I love draught woodchuck!!!

[KB723]

Ooh-ooh I love draught woodchuck!!!

Is That right? Never heard of that...

Woodchucks - GEICO Commercial

[elemental wolfess]

Bring our soldiers home -- draft the woodchucks!!!

[KB723]

Bring our soldiers home -- draft the woodchucks!!!

LOL!!! =)

[ThirdSection]

I can't believe I haven't noticed all these replies to my one and only blog post until now!!!!!

And so, I reply...

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away (actually Gering, Nebraska) I fully embraced the notion of born-again Christianity.  What changed that was how they treated my retarded son; they had decided to create a 'choir' for very young children and since Jon was 6 at the time I was thrilled at the opportunity for him to be with children that he might be able to learn from.  Everything went fine until the first time this choir sang in front of the congregation ... Jon did the same thing all the other kids did, but evidently some members of the congregation complained, so I was told Jon couldn't sing in front of the congregation anymore.  After weeks of praying and doing my best to deal with my anger in a 'christian way' I had one more opportunity to see how wrong their behavior was.  I was late getting out of the sunday school class I was teaching so when I got upstairs I found a teen-age girl doing her best to hold onto a sobbing Jonathon b/c he wanted to go up to the front of the sanctuary with the rest of the kids in the choir.  That next wednesday I distributed a letter to the ministers, and the board members citing different scriptures and asking them to reconsider their position.  My husband told me to put 'cc:atty' at the bottom of the letter.  The next day they all came to our home to say that it was never their intention to discriminate (mind you, I never said anything about discrimination -- their guilt was showing) and that after 'prayerful consideration' Jon could rejoin the choir.  He got to go up in front of the congregation one more time and then they disbanded the choir.  I decided that any 'church' that would be that callous toward a child (Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not) was not a place I wanted to be.  Unfortunately, after leaving that church it just became impossible to listen to any church/minister who believed they 'sat on the right hand of God.'

So now I am a witch, and I DO work with poppets! 

Equal in the eyes of the Lord, indeed 8-{

Anyway, here's what did it for me:

Back when I was a kid, my mom, sister and I were sort of inadvertently on the Born-Again path.  My mom, the daughter of Greek immigrants left the Greek Orthodox Church when she grew up and married my dad (a life-long agnostic) because it has been a huge part of that, shall we say, non-feminist old-world upbringing she wanted to get away from.  But, she still believed and wanted my sister and I to experience church, so we started going to this little non-denominational congregation that met in an elementary school gym on Sundays.  Things seemed to be nice--the reverend would give an opening sermon, play his guitar and sing some hymns (no choir), then we kids would break for Sunday School.

Then it all went apeshit.  One Sunday a bunch of congregations from around the Denver area met in a huge auditorium (perhaps a high school gym--this ws the big-time) with a booming fire-and-brimstone preacherman: "Now everybody close your eyes. Stand up if you have SIN!" Of course all of us kids had stood up, so we went with the church people to the back rooms, I with the older kids, my sister with the younger.  In my group we just talked about how to sin less and how to be forgiven and whatnot, but for my sister's group, there was a clown, and that clown knew all about Hell, and he spared those children no horrible, painful, graphic detail about the fire, brimstone and damnation that awaited them all.  My poor sister had nightmares for years about that, and she still can't deal with clowns (we're both in our 30s now).

Anyway, some of the holy rollers called us on the phone, my mom answered, they asked to speak to my sister, and oh boy, I think that was the first time I heard her use any swear words at all (she's still a very nice lady), and she used them skillfully, and fluidly, her yelling reverberated in the air and the floor and the walls shook.  We stopped going to church after that.

Anyway, I've got no poppets, but my black cat is very familiar to me :-)  Other than that, I'm still trying to figure out what I believe.

Great post. I believe you "can" experience what you expect. I also believe when what you expect is based on some religion, it is a fleeting experience that abates once you get your bearings. A lot like the movie "What Dreams May Come".
I'm one of the people that have had past life memories. I have no questions at all in terms of "we live on" but I have no memories of being on the other side. I was stillborn, strangled by my umbilical cord. I remember coming back after they worked on me. I even remember being angry and frustrated at the struggle to get here.

Later I developed asthma and as a result, high fevers. During those fevers I had repetitive lucid dreaming experiences all dealing with my moment of death in a few previous lives.

It stopped after I was 8 or 9. But I remember each one clearly as they were lucid dreams, and felt just like being awake. They were interesting, and the theme throughout all of them was that death was in many ways no big deal. There was no fear once death was for sure. In one dream I was running from some guys after me on horses. I had stolen some food, and they were going to kill me if they caught me, I was scared, and trying to get away in some woods. I remember feeling gritty, and stinky. I saw some bushes and decided to jump behind them and try to control my breathing so they would not hear me pant. When I jumped the bushes, they were on the edge of a cliff. As I fell my though was "this is a really stupid way to die". At the moment of that though, there was no fear at all, no emotion other than feeling stupid, in a comical sort of way. No sadness, nothing, just acceptance. At that point it all goes blank, and I find myself in another scenario that leads to my demise.

I watched my Father die, I was looking him in the eye, and holding him. I did not see fear, he knew he was dying, there was one tear at the moment the life went out of his eyes. I wonder what it will be like for me?

Thanks for the post you silly wabbit. Cool

Now that is interesting!  I can't help but think/feel that many people around us have had past lives.  I've never had death dreams as memorably vivid as yours, but used to have dreams where I would rise above my still body and somehow I knew that this was going on in Romania, or perhaps Russia.  One day about 15 years ago I visited Auschwitz, and all the past-life information (at least I'm pretty sure that's what it was) came at me at once in one instantaneous incomprehensible flash.  I guess it fried my circuits because I've never been able to access it since.  But now, whenever I study the Holocaust, I simultaneously feel horrific revulsion yet strangely at peace.

I have been thinking the same for some time, and almost feel like I am pushing myself closer just by thinking about it... So I do some situps and get my heart racing so I know it's still working... Sorry about your father Ziggy... =(

It's coming eventually whether you think of it or not, but the situps might help to make it later rather than sooner... :-D

Hey ThirdSection, great post... I used to try to get to know all western religions just to get the feel for what worked for me... I found that None of them worked for me, and practice no said religion... I wonder what my odds are with that thought process???

According to all the Western religions, you're done, gone, damned, over.  But then Buddha once said that there are many ways to the mountain so go ahead and find the trail that's right for you (hiking is also good for your heart). :-D

Bring our soldiers home -- draft the woodchucks!!!

I'd rather draught them, myself...

[elemental wolfess]

It's been my experience over the years that the angriest people are the ones who profess to be 'born-again christians' -- if there is a God, and he did send his son I cannot seriously believe his 'followers' behavior isn't sorely trying his patience :-)!

I've had a number of 'deja vu moments' over the course of my life and wonder if they aren't tied to some past life experience.

[KB723]

It's coming eventually whether you think of it or not, but the situps might help to make it later rather than sooner... :-D

So does mtn biking and I do it a lot... =)

[KB723]

According to all the Western religions, you're done, gone, damned, over.  But then Buddha once said that there are many ways to the mountain so go ahead and find the trail that's right for you (hiking is also good for your heart). :-D

I have never delved into any eastern religions, so maybe I should take a Peek... I like to try to live with Meaning and Purpose, I now have a new one to look into, that helps keep me alive as well, the only hiking I do is from one fishing hole to the next....

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