I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving
Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
And the days keep reminding me, there's a hellhound on my trail
Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail
I can tell the wind is risin', the leaves tremblin' on the trees
Leaves tremblin' on the trees
I can tell the wind is risin', leaves tremblin' on the trees
All I need is my little sweet woman
To keep my company, hey, hey, my company
—Robert Johnson
At times of disaster and emergency, I always feel more connected to people. And not just friends and loved ones. I feel more connected to the many who live most or all their days in uncertainty or worse.
My time of uncertainty was late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Short-lived and feeble, I know. Since then, I've been living with the improbability that my Stuff (that's "stuff" with a capital "s") will be destroyed (including all of my Dissent stuff, which, to tell you the truth, I don't give a rat's ass about).
At this point, the probability of disaster-for-Chunk has declined to about .1 or lower, I guess.
Living with the likelihood of personal non-disaster is like holding a grenade that is very likely not going to blow up. If somebody comes up to you and says, "Hey, Grenade Boy! We just heard that the likelihood of your maimage and/or death with that grenade in your hand has gone down further! Ain't that good news?"—well, you smile, but you also cringe.
It all reminds me of Pascal's Wager. Do you know it? Pascal was a clever bastard. He said that there exist two possibilities, for either God exists or God does not exist. That's obvious.
He then said that you've got two choices, for you're either gonna believe in Him or not. Which is it gonna be? At this point, says, Pascal, you've gotta do a "cost/benefit" analysis with an eye to expected outcomes assessed in terms of probabilities.
OK then. Suppose you believe in Him. In that case, you've got nothing to lose and much to gain, 'cause if God exists, He'll bestow paradise on you, which is good, and if he doesn't exist, then so what. You've got a false belief. You've already got lots of those, especially if you're a Republican. One more won't make any difference.
Now suppose you don't believe in Him. In that case, you've got lots to lose. If he doesn't exist, then, all right, you got that one right. You don't win any prizes, though. But if he DOES exist, you are in one shitload of trouble, 'cause God punishes bigtime when somebody has the temerity not to believe in him, despite the paucity of evidence of Him and the clear and distinct urgings of common fucking sense that God is like Santa Claus.
So do the math. Sure, God isn't likely to exist. Just like Santa. But if he DOES exist, you are faced with a fate "a shittier than which cannot be conceived," as Anselm might put it. A 1% chance of INFINITE SHITTITUDE = well, a shitload of shittitude, fer sher.
I sometimes explain Pascal's Wager to my students. Then I'll hold up a board marker and I'll say, "OK, choose to believe that this here board marker is a potato. Go ahead."
LAST NIGHT, I spent some time with the family, who are assembled at the Irvine home of my little brother The Ronald. He and his wife just had twins. I decided to take pictures of these creatures.
Didn't wanna weird them out with a flash, so I took these pics hand-held, sans flash. They're a little fuzzy.
One of these gals is named Catherine. The other is named Natalie. They're very quiet babies. One seems always calm and collected. The other is generally peevish and gives people the stink eye. But she's pretty quiet about it.
Reminds me of the Sunny Girl.
THIS MORNING, after jawing with the Janster for a bit—while watching Sunny and her long-lost son Mojo warily interact—I headed over to the college (IVC). It was a ghost town. Saw no cops. Saw a couple of stray students. I had no idea what they were up to. I didn't stick around.
So, now, I'm here with Susan and the twins. What's next? I have no idea. Guess I'll peruse the latest fire news at OC Register online.
That Pascal sure was an asshole.
12 comments:
Pablo Picasso was never called an "asshole."
"Not like you."
You should thank the Lord, Chunk
those babies are gorgeous.
Thank you, god, for burning up other people's palces.
In that last picture there you can see that, now familiar, early orange afternoon glow from the fire.
Oh, and, sweet babies!
Even if God did exist, why would he care whether you or I believe in Him? If I don't believe in Him, he's gonna punish me? Haha! That would make Him a very insecure God, and definitely not the perfect God that the theologians tell us he must be.
I'm more concerned about the shit caused by those who claim to believe in God. You gotta keep an eye on them. But, whatever. There are more important things to believe in anyway like family and friends. You don't need a god to know that.
Pascal was a coward.
Ever notice how un-Christian, most near damn most who are loud obnoxious proclaimers, are the ones who are the most un-Christian, least tolerant, mean spirited, self-centered, and most useless arrogant dangerous bastards of our society.
Fuck 'em all. Arrogant assholes.
Them and all the other fucking religious fuck-ass extremists.
FUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOUUUUUUU
Just cuz Jesus apparently road one does not mean Christians need to be one.
Unfortunately, people tend to ignore the historical circumstances that motivated Pascal's famous "wager." He was, after all,and if we are to believe him, a devout, traditionalist (but heavily influenced by Jansenism) catholic. But 17th century France, and Europe for that matter, was in the midst of a yet another crisis of faith. His "wager" was directed to "rationalists," inspired by Descartes, for whom reason was the ultimate guide. He was, in other words, attempting to use their tools in order to make belief in God more "palatable." It is doubtful that Pascal subscribed, personally, to the "wager" argument. And even though one might be tempted to label him as an "asshole," the label might be appropriate, but for a different set of reasons, i.e., his flirting with Jansenism, and with the Port-Royal movement (his sister was, after all, a nun in the Port-Royal convent, one of the centers of Jansenist thought)and with their belief in predestination and their denial of the role of "free-will" in accepting "God's grace."
Descartes did not want to suffer the same condemnation as Galileo--and much worse persecution by the Roman Inquisition--so he made adjustments to his "rationalization" of the existence of God to appease the Roman church. He and Pascal and others have based their beliefs in God on the fear of the consequences of believing otherwise. That is not very rational. I suppose in the seventeenth century one of the few intellectuals to have the rational "balls" to reject these superstitious arguments was that Portuguese Jew from Amsterdam.
Hey, don't be so literal! I wasn't really calling Pascal an asshole.
Indeed, I was suggesting that Pascal sheds light on some situations, such as the one I am in in which something extremely bad is only barely possible.
I've got nothing against Pascal. In fact, I often explain to my classes that Pascal shows us that there is a difference between having evidence for the existence of X and the rationality of believing in X. --CW
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