Betting Against Pascal

This post is not an attack on any person's belief or lack thereof. Though I do not understand Christianity, I respect those who practice it so long as they respect others in turn. This about the backfiring of a popular apologetic argument, which ended my brief foray into Christianity.

I grew up in Taiwan, immersed in Chinese culture where philosophy, science, and religions of various sorts coexist without any sense of contradiction. This mentality of syncretism and non-exclusivity makes it difficult for me to grok the appeal of Christianity.

It was in part my failure to understand Christianity and curiosity about its success that encouraged me to 'give it a try'. I chose Roman Catholicism because it is the faith practiced by the Irish American side of my family. My beloved aunt, who is a sister (nun) and a lifelong educator, gave me guidance and reading materials, and I found an enthusiastic sponsor at Saint Jude's Shrine in downtown Baltimore.

If Pascal is right, I would side with this guy

The details of my experience are for another post, but suffice to say that Christianity and I did not part on good terms. I came away from it even more mystified by the popularity of Christianity than I was before. Catholic theology in general and apologetics in particular made little sense to me, no matter how my mentors framed it. The single most obnoxious argument in their arsenal was Pascal's Wager.

Seventeenth century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal posited that, with no rational means to prove or disprove the existence of the Christian god, it is safer to bet on his existence, as one has everything to gain by believing (i.e. Heaven) and everything to lose by not believing (i.e. Hell). This is known as Pascal's Wager, or Pascal's Gambit.

There are a number of serious problems with this argument--false dichotomy being the most immediately obvious--but the one that really put me off was its implications on the character of the Christian god. Pascal's Wager hinges on the assumption that the Christian god, if he exists, saves those who believe him and damns those who do not. 'Believing in the Christian god' entails acknowledging him as an omnipotent being and the creator of the human species, if not the entire Universe.

However, Christianity originated only two thousand years ago, within a rather small ethnic tradition. In order to preserve Pascal's premise, then, we must conclude that the Christian god intentionally withheld his revelation--and therefore salvation--from the vast majority of humanity for most of history. If so, he is a negligent parent at best and an egomaniacal despot at worst.

Given Pascal's conditions, I would wager against the existence of the Christian god. If he exists and would damn anyone who did not believe in him, then I want no part of his kingdom. If he exists and is the just and loving god some modern Christians make him out to be, then he would presumably save anyone who leads a good life, believer or nonbeliever. If he does not exist, then it makes no difference whether I believe in him or not.

When I left the Church without ever being baptized or confirmed (they do it in one big ceremony for adult converts), my sponsor was not surprised. My aunt kept a brave face, though I knew she must have been devastated. She told me to "follow your own Light", to which I replied that I did, and always would.

Tempest in Russell's Teapot

As detailed in Nothing Unreal Exists and Faith and Farce, I take my skepticism very seriously. So seriously that I cannot quite bring myself to subscribe to atheism, no matter how appealing I find it.

Nevertheless, most of my friends are atheists, agnostics, humanists, or freethinkers of some variety, and I like to consider myself an 'atheist ally'. Religion (or lack thereof) is a private matter, and I oppose its involvement in any public sphere, especially education.

Vitarka mudra - the gesture of discussion

However, I seem to have trouble talking to atheists (especially New Atheists) about atheism, even though I often get 'read' as an atheist myself. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but somehow those conversations have a way of ending with an atheist insisting that all religion is harmful to humanity and we must do away with them if we are to advance.

I practice Chan (Zen) and Discordianism, but see no reason those religions must contradict with science. I accept materialism as an ideal baseline for discussing consensus reality (although I suspect an information-based paradigm will supplant it within my lifetime). I do not proselytize or expect others to understand why I meditate and Partake of No Hotdog Buns. I do expect tolerance to be answered with tolerance.

I suggested this to an acquaintance, who replied that he saw no reason to tolerate a delusional worldview, and that religious people have already given up on logic by discarding reality for faith. Questions of civility aside, this stance is not particularly constructive. It shuts down discourse and alienates believing allies.

As I see it, discourse of any kind requires some degree of faith in a shared reality. We assume that our senses convey independently verifiable information (not always true). We assume that other people interpret our words the same way we do (often not true). We assume all manner of things that the nature of our very cognition render impossible to prove or disprove (for now).

There is nothing wrong with any of that, but I think it worthwhile to be aware of the assumptions we make. Where we draw the line between 'rational' and 'delusional' assumptions is culturally determined, and sometimes rather arbitrary. It serves no one to assume that someone who professes a different set of beliefs must be incapable of coming to an agreement on basic definitions for the sake of discourse.

To me, a person who believes that a teapot might orbit the Sun between the Earth and Mars, acknowledges the empirical shortcomings of this claim, and willingly entertains other points of view is far more rational than someone who will not stray from his own paradigm--whether spiritualistic, transcendental, materialistic, or informational.

Faith and Farce

As I explained in Nothing Unreal Exists, I am very skeptical by nature. For many people, this translates to (philosophical) materialism or atheism. My skepticism goes beyond that; the malleability of perception leads me to doubt the essential reality of everything, even phenomena I can directly observe. I do find spiritual faith difficult to accept, but only marginally more so than material faith.

Long-Shan Temple in Taipei, Taiwan

To me, a philosophical paradigm--whether materialistic, metaphysical, transcendent, or otherwise--is a tool that frames perception, something that can be swapped out to suit the situation. This viewpoint is not uncommon in East Asia, where multiple religions and philosophies have coexisted and cross-pollinated down through the centuries.

In the temples of Taiwan, people revere Daoist deities, Bodhisattvas, and Confucian sages side-by-side without compromising their confidence in the theory of evolution. So I have come to practice both Chan (Zen) and Discordianism, with no sense that either of them must needs interfere with my interest in modern science.

Usually, when someone asks my religious affiliation, I just answer Buddhist. This is laziness on my part, as I do not feel like explaining the intricacies of syncretism or Discordianism. Most Americans, even the proselytizing Christian variety, will not take on a major faith, though they may gladly run roughshod over a minor faith (or the lack thereof).

Every so often, when I find myself conversing with people who seem genuinely curious, I will tell the whole truth in brief--including the part about Discordianism being a joke. Sometimes these people ask me why I would practice a 'made-up' religion. I contend that all religions were made-up at some point in time, whether by gods or by men.

Why, yes, I do have a super deformed
Quan-Yin on my brush rack

To put things in perspective: I do not care if the history of the Sakyamuni Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) is 'true'. Even if I learned tomorrow that Zen was an elaborate joke made up by Bodhidharma, it would not change the fact that Buddhist practice has improved my quality of life.

Buddhism does not require unquestioning faith; in fact, both of my mentors have discouraged it. When I took Refuge, I made a decision to trust that the Three Jewels could help ease suffering. Had I found otherwise, I would have parted ways with Buddhism as genially as I have with other religions.

Discordianism requires nothing (and more!), but I find it useful in its own right. It reminds me not to take myself--or anyone else--too seriously. Besides, if you do not believe in Eris, you are likely to be turned into a precious Mao button and distributed to the poor in the Region of Thud.

Fiction can teach us truth in the form of parables parables, poems, word problems, and analogies. So why not belief systems, too? Perhaps next year I will give Thelema a try, or Luciferianism...

An Afternoon with Death

Like many geeks, I am terrible at platitudes and socializing in general. As such, I have a difficult time at mixed gatherings even when I know everyone involved. For me, going to a rural Pennsylvanian Catholic memorial service full of strangers is the social equivalent of diving into shark-infested waters wearing Lady Gaga's meat dress.

Okay, not exactly.

Yesterday, I attended the wake of a woman whom I did not know--my partner's great-grandmother. I accept this as a part of being in a long-term relationship with someone who has drifted away from/avoided his extended family.

I went along to provide emotional support, but it did not work out that way. Instead, I shadowed my partner and tried not to intrude on the grief of people I only distantly recognized from his grandfather's funeral a year ago. Some of them had never met me at all. The introductions went like this:

Mother-in-law: This is Zeph, my son's friend.

Distant relative: Nice to meet you, Jeff.

They treated me kindly, but the awkwardness never went away. I come from a world utterly alien to people who have lived their entire lives in a small town where one finds out about the death through the newspaper rather than social media. 'My condolences' sounded as stilted and out of place among them as my slim-fit suit and Windsor knot looked.

I kept my head bowed and my mouth shut during the prayer service. The Catholic liturgy was graceful, except for occasional wedged-in creeds. It read like poetry with interpretations written in between the stanzas.

Afterwards, a lector (I think?) encouraged mourners to talk about the deceased. No one seemed to know what to say. The exercise had an incongruously modern flavor to it, a certain awareness that the service was really for the living and not the dead.

My partner amazed everyone by using his smartphone to locate a restaurant that met their disparate criteria. They talked about bygone family activities, snapshots from a childhood my partner rarely discussed. I listened and nodded when it seemed appropriate.

Following dinner, my partner and his brother decided to visit their grandfather's grave. We stood on the hillside in the dying light, hands shoved deep in pockets, shoulders hunched. The brothers, both lapsed Catholics with their own grudges against Church and maybe God, talked about the headstone.

In Taiwan, we would have burned incense--even if none of the mourners were religious--without worrying about whether we did it for the living or the dead. Chinese culture juggles the spiritual and the material, the secular and the religious, with an effortless grace that I often wish would export better. Alas, I had nothing to offer them but my silence.

Leave-taking involved many exhortations for us to visit, though I doubt if anyone really expects it. They wanted to make me feel welcome, and I appreciated that, but they knew that I was not--and probably never would be--'one of them'. What they may not know yet is that my partner is not, either, and perhaps never was.