I would concede the relevance of the term you suggest, conflation (and maybe elision as well), as being a less-than-entirely distinct means by which what I shall call Khan’s Gambit could operate; but I meant to refer more to ends than to means. Loving, and being able to live with, one’s relatives, it seems to me, very often requires such diplomacy.

obfuscate …
1. To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand …
2. To render indistinct or dim …

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/obfuscate

you meant conflation, right? obfuscation doesn’t make sense.

yes, i am aware of the context of pascal’s argument. that’s why i referred to *vulgar* pascal’s wager. whatever the details of pascal’s intent, it’s seed has gone in a much different direction operationally. i even put a note clarifying this issue.

p.s. and people, i linked to the critiques of the wager on wikipedia for a reason. you don’t need to repeat them

Firstly, Pascal did not frame his Wager in terms of a particular interpretation of a particular creed (Even though one might infer he meant to be understood as pointing to some view of the Catholic conception of God, I do not see it; the most I see in his framing of the wager is of A God – singular.). Rather, he framed it in terms of conducting one’s life AS IF God (A God) actually existed, regardless of one’s intellectual convictions, or belief, or both, as to whether God actually existed (and as THE God). Such a wager leaves abundant room for both personal conception of God and personal interpretation as what might be the will of such (A) God.

By way of contrast, Camping framed his “wager” in terms of his own peculiar interpretation of a particular approach to a particular creed, with no allowance for the individual to challenge him on any of those levels, despite that there happens to be much room to challenge him intellectually on each of those levels on their own terms, without even getting into a dispute over the existence of God (or A God).

Secondly, the underlying basis for Pascal posing his Wager is that he could not conceive of any, or at least any material, downside to following his tip, no matter its correctness or no (He of course was a man of his times, but this blog does not wish to go there, so I will just skip along.); whereas the same cannot be said of the Camping “wager”, to put it rather mildly.

So, responding to one’s relatives asking after the former by citing the latter is to commit obfuscation; but, in the circumstances, I should think Pascal would approve of it as a gambit.

Just not true. Parents and grandparents can make their kids miserable without religious help. Any kind of firm belief can get them there.

Religious movements advocate for good things and for bad things, for pretty much any interpretation of the word “good”.

There was a video on a Huffington Post article interviewing a couple who was due to have a baby next month who’d quit their jobs and were living off their savings in order to do nothing but prepare for the Rapture. I wish that there would be a follow-up on how they’re dealing with this. They put themselves in a precarious situation with a baby due in just a couple weeks.

There is no harmless position. If the believers kept their beliefs at home in their bedroom and did not share, well then there might be a harmless part. That isn’t how religion works. All the Abrahamic faiths are admonished to spread the word, convert all they contact, or suffer the woes of hell and damnation. It is not possible to sit on the fence and be either a good believer or a good human.

If you can remain agnostic about it you have not or will not allow yourself to see the harm that is inflicted on others in the name of gods. There is no human endeavor that comes without possible cost or risk. Even the belief that the holy grail of AI will be achieved one day comes with risks. There is nothing that can be said is good in religion that cannot be sourced elsewhere, and without the dangers attached to it as when you get it from religions. Many will tell you that religion is about love and compassion but in truth the three emotions that cannot be separated from religion are fear, hate, and pride. Religions are born of them, feed on them, and will die without them. Yep, even grandma has those emotions rattling around inside her. Talk to her and see. You’d be surprised.

Tell a Christian you have proof (from the bible) that non-Jews are not going to heaven. Watch what happens. They practically self-destruct… even before you can tell them you are kidding.

The problem with not getting off the fence? You are not helping to stop the corrosive parts of religion from ruining your society. If you live in a flooded part of the US, sitting on the fence about whether something should be done is only doing harm to those that need help. The religion argument is the same. If you’re not helping, you’re blocking the way for someone who would. Get off the fence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze

Ibn Khaldun thought that religion was one of the ways by which solidarity (‘asabiyyah) could be attained.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun

Here’s a 20th c. cult which worked in entertainment: semi-poro baseball, music, and an amusement park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_David_(commune)

The significance of experimentalism is that, after a religious conversion, people are willing to do things differently than the conventional way. Normal lifestyles are actually both restrictive and wasteful, because of the need to be respectable keep up with the Joneses. So religious who don’t spend their time and money conventionally have some slack that they can do new things with.

But the new way of doing things doesn’t always work. I think that it’s close to the “random variation and selective retention” of evolution.

Here’s a Norwegian religious reformer who was an industrial force: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Nielsen_Hauge

I think that this is a little bit like the “madness and genius” or “sickness and genius” arguments. In that case, it may not be that madness helps genius, but that the duties of normality, convention, and routine harm genius just by preempting time. Sickness or madness, if they get people away from routine, might only incidentally help genius express.

Not really. His argument was quite literally “everything to gain, nothing to lose”. Nothing’s subtle about it. “All else being equal” is assumed, naturally. Of course, there is no such thing as all else being equal.

there’s a difference between a value of 0 with a small confidence intervals, and a value of 0 with huge confidence intervals. i’m closer to the latter. though the fluctuations in the value you get is as i imply above contingent upon the parameters i think (your “values”). finally, i’m close to the not-even-wrong position which suggests that religious impulses are pretty much impossible to eliminate in most people anyway.

I’d be interested in hearing everyone’s arguments, for and against, on this question. If everyone were taught purely science would the world be better off? Almost certainly. However, that’s like saying “I wish it were 7 o’clock.” It’s neither here nor there and doesn’t reflect reality but, instead, an ideal.