Pascal's Wager, The risk and return of Belief in God

A genius mathmatician, Blaise Pascal, better known for the Pascal Triangle, had an epiphany one evening saying he saw Jesus Ghost and talked with him for 2 hours (many said he lost touch with reality.) Anyways, after this experience, he composed a thoery or interesting wager if you will.......

Pascal’s Wager: "Suppose you concede that you don’t know whether or not God exists and therefore assign a 50 percent chance to either proposition. How should you weigh these odds when deciding whether to lead a pious life?
If you act piously and God exists, Pascal argued, your gain - eternal happiness – is infinite. If on the other hand, God does not exist, your loss, or negative return, is small – the sacrifices of piety. To weigh these possible gains and losses, Pascal proposed, you multiply the probability of each outcome by its payoff and add them all up, forming a kind of average or expected payoff. In other words, the mathematical expectation of your return on piety is ½ infinity (your gain if God exists) minus ½ a small number (your gain if God doesn’t exist). Pascal knew enough about infinity to know that the answer to this calculation is infinitely positive, and thus the expected return on piety is infinitely positive. Every reasonable person, Pascal concluded, should therefore follow the laws of God." (The Drunkards Walk).

Kapitalism

"We have convinced ourselves that all economic growth benefits humankind, and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. Finally, we have persuaded one another that the corollary to this concept is valid and morally just: that people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation."
~ John Perkins

Ancient Egyptians-Questions

Last night I watched the movie the "Bucket List" maybe some of you have seen it. Regardless I came across something that enlightened my day.

"You know, the ancient Egyptians had a beautiful belief about death. When their souls got to the entrance to heaven, the guards asked two questions. Their answers determined whether they were able to enter or not. ‘Have you found joy in your life?’ 'Has your life brought joy to others?’”

After I watched the film I sat down and asked myself these questions. I am not stating that I believe in this Egyptian Heaven, but i felt they where good questions to ask myself. Maybe a little reflection on these two questions can stear you on the right track of life. I think that if you can answer both of these questions with a "Yes" you are doing good by yourself and others.

Just a thought.

Building an Empire

This is what EHM's (Economic Hit Men) do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to forment conditions that make other nations subservient to the U.S. corporatocracy (empire) or (U.S. large banks, government, corporations). Much like the Mafia, EHM's provide favors, providing developing countries loans to develope infrastucture such as parks, airports, highways, electric plants, etc. U.S. companies build this infrastrucuture.
~John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

If an EHM is successful, the loans taken out by this developing country ( through and advised by the U.S.) will be so large that the debtor is forced to default. Owing the United States, giving them the ability to create an embassy, military base, or take advantage of natural resources.

Interesting to ponder the new method of creating an empire. The former military empire became obsolete with the nuclear weapon, and now is only used when EHM's fail (i.e. Iraq), to think a financial stronghold can rule the world is interesting but presents problems, what happens when we no longer have control?

Some of the hidden avenues used by the U.S. to run the world are rather fascinating and malicious even when no lives are being lost.......

Short Story, "Sleeping with my eyes wide open" by Holden Caulfield

"Open your eyes", " Hurry, It's happening". I jolted out of my sheets, panting, my brain had done several flips, and my t-shirt must have jumped into a pool. Then, all of a sudden my mind was flooded with that same damn dream, it always starts with me walking down a path toward a river that is flooded with fog and across the water a man is staring at me intently. And at this moment he begins to whisper the two same damn sentences, and as the fog clears his voice rises into a thunderous roar, "Open your eyes", "Hurry, It's happening".
This dream and sequence of events happened often, so often, that every morning felt like the same damn day, and I hate days that resemble one another. I know that your probably thinking that the dilemmas I am experience have an immediate answer to them, that I need to "open my eyes", but what the hell does that mean, do I need to physically open them, and if so, who the hell closed them? I have no idea, and I can not stop asking the question that permeates every thought, action, and breath of my day, the question of, "why". However, I think I have stumbled across a solution to my aforementioned dilemma. I have begun to discipline myself and I have acquired the ability to sleep with my eyes wide open, so when that piercing voice enters my sleepless dreams, I can scream back, "Look, and see, my eyes are wide open".

Thomas Jeffereson

When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Thomas Jefferson was one of the most enlightened people of his time. He helped draft Declaration of Independence, and also served as Secratary of State, Vice President, and later President of the United States as you all most likely know.

This post is more about the religous views of this man more then a power point on his achievements which could take me days.


Hhere are some of his good quotes about religion. Just something to think about.

1. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

2.Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

3.I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent

These are just three of many. I like the second quote about blindfolded fear. I think whatever god is out there he is a god of reason then pure faith.

Time vs. Passion

Last night I ran across one of my favorite short stories (A Clean Well-Lighted Place) and it was one of the finer points in my evening. Reading, I came to a realzation/thought that is also found by a character in the story.

Hemingway shows the contrast between young and old, and how when we are young, our confidence and material things mean so much, we think our time is so important. However, as you get older all you may need is a clean well-lighted place because this, "place" does not close, and does not keep the, "time". We also see a relation to nothingness in the story, or what hemingway calls, "nada." An older character in the story sees the nothingness in life and he becomes painfully real with himself that certain things just are not a big deal.

I enjoy the difference in the views of young and old in this story. We all think our time is so important, when in reality, time, is as Hemingway says, "nada." With time contraints we do things obviously with more speed, but I think this effects relationships and life severely. For example many people, myself included have rushed to get a girl friend, rushed to get a job, or rushed to get a degree at some time in your life, only to later realize that the rush was not all worth it and the degree, job, or girl were really not what you wanted.

Rather it was when you didn't rush for your own interests, for your own satisfaction, you probably had the best time and met the best people. Basically when you didn't use time as your life compass, but instead your passion for life.

The thought of Freedom

Lately I have read the Declaration of Independance and the Bill of Rights and learned that many of us including myself take for granted the freedom of this nation. You can literally verbally abuse our president without being killed or jailed, you can watch anything and read anything you wish without, "Big Brother," or the, "thought police" hunting you down, and you can have faith in any religion you wish.

Reading these important documents (Declaration and Bill of Rts.) was not what grasped me about our freedom, but rather a letter to the Soviet Writers Union in 1969 from Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, in which he attacks Russia for being so afraid of freedom/revolt.

Alexsandr criticized Joseph Stalin's conduct of WWII. This was labeled a crime for which he served 8 years in prison. Eventually he found his way to the United States where he won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Crazy that a man this smart had to spend 8 years in jail, what a sad waste of potential by Stalin.

Anyways, he mentions in the letter, "It is a high time to remember that we belong first and foremost to humanity. And that man has distinguished himself from the animal world by THOUGHT and SPEECH. And these, naturally, should be FREE. IF they are put in chains, we shall return to the state of animals."

The foundiung fathers realized this over 200 years ago and held illegal meetings for the benefit of themselves and a greater good. The point is respecting freedom needs to be something we need think about everyday.

Isacc Newton Last Words

"I don't know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

I found this quote awhile back and I really took something out of it. This might be one of the most intelligent people to walk the Earth. These are his last words.

Socrates view on Death 399 B.C.

As Socrates says to the judges which condemned him,

"Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things--either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?"

"...Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death."

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows. "

I highlighted some lines for main points. Crazy that these were his last words, I especially enjoy the part about no evil can happen to a good man.

Introduction

I have created this blog in order to collaborate the studies of people who I have found to have a unique view on life. Some in religious matters, some in philosphy, politics, or economics. The point is we all agree on a few rules:
1. To each his/her own
2. Keep an open mind to all opinions
3. Do not sway with emotion, but rather intellect.

It is as Thomas Jefferson once wrote to John Adams, "I have thus stated my opinion on a point on which we differ, not with a view to controversy, for we are both too old to change opinions which are the result of a long life of inquiry and reflection; but on the suggestion of a former letter of yours, that we ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other."

The point being, I think everyone invited here has some opinion that we should all have a chance to see and learn from before we may, "go our seperate ways." So if you read or come across anything interesting in your life, post away and lets debate.

Without further adieu......