OK, I don’t think this is what Jesus had in mind when he said he wanted us to emulate him, but my wife showed me this article in USA today, titled, “Agnostic cloaked himself in the Bible for a year”
He sounds like an iteresting interview!
After 381 days without shaving, A.J. Jacobs felt as if he had a hedgehog attached to his face. Now, that beard is stashed in a Ziploc bag, a souvenir of his year-long endeavor to follow the Bible’s more than 600 precepts and teachings.
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (Simon & Schuster, $25) grew out of Jacobs’ increasing interest in the role of religion in the world.
So Jacobs, 39, an agnostic, put himself into “the mind-set and sandals” of his forefathers, “first, to find out if I was missing something — like a man who had never fallen in love or had never heard Beethoven — or if half of the world is deluded.”
An editor at large for Esquire, Jacobs is no stranger to immersion journalism. His 2004 The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World recounts the months he spent reading all 44 million words of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Mike O | 2 Comments »
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Chuck Colson: A Sucker’s Bet
Monday, October 15th, 2007
Chuck Colson has another article about atheists.
In it, he says the following:
Even atheist Richard Dawkins admits that there is a one-in-seven chance that God might exist. He simply chooses to take, as he sees it, the six-in-seven chances that God does not exist. That’s a bad bet.
Hang on a second… Richard Dawkins thinks there’s a 14% chance of God existing?
Nope.
I think what Colson is referencing is in chapter 2 of The God Delusion, where Dawkins outlines seven different milestones along the contiuum of God-belief.
1: Strong theist. 100% probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, “I do not believe, I know.”
2: Very high probability but short of 100%. De facto theist. “I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.”
3: Higher than 50% but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. “I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.”
4: Exactly 50%. Completely impartial agnostic. “God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.”
5: Lower than 50% but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. “I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be sceptical.”
6: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”
7: Strong atheist. “I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung “knows” there is one.”
These are not “seven chances that God might exist.” They are seven categories of believers. (Dawkins puts himself in 6 leaning toward 7.)
So what’s up with Colson? Where did he get his 1 out of 7 figure? Obviously not from Dawkins, who calls the probability of God’s existence vanishingly small. Obviously not by reading this chapter in The God Delusion. In this chapter, Dawkins painstakingly makes the point that the odds of God’s existence vs. non-existence isn’t 50-50 just because there are two possibilities being considered. The entire point of this passage is to explain that just because there are a certain number of possibilities, the likelihood of each doesn’t spread between them equally.
But back to the main point, Dawkins wasn’t talking about probability of God’s existence. He was speaking about 7 different categories of PEOPLE.
Colson then writes:
The great philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that if there is no God, and you bet your life there is, you have lost nothing. But if there is a God, and you bet your life there is not, you have made an eternal mistake.
Here Colson quotes the dishonest odds of the Pascal Wager… a sucker’s bet that says that the mark should make whatever bet threatens the worst possible downside if it comes up true and we didn’t bet on it. So according to the Wager, we should believe in whichever religion has the worst version of Hell. Okay, Chuck, I’m betting that’s probably Osama’s ultraradical form of Islam… better start facing Mecca, dude.
Colson again:
Or put it this way: If Dr. Dawkins had been on the Titanic and was offered two lifeboats—one certain to sink and the other with a one-in-seven chance of staying afloat—he would not have chosen the one that was sure to sink. That would be irrational.
What’s irrational is writing an article about Dawkins and saying he thinks there’s a 14% chance of God existing, and NOT CHECKING IT, or thinking his readership wouldn’t.
What are the odds of him posting a correction? Any wagers?
-Siamang
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Ravings of a Madman - #5 - “I speak in parables so they will not understand”
Thursday, October 11th, 2007It’s been a while since I wrote one of these “ravings,” so before I start, I just want to assure you that my purpose here is not to convert, contort, convince or connive you into agreeing with anyting I’m about to say. My purpose is simply to give you a glimpse into the workings of one Christian mind as I process (what I think are) interesting topics. In my first “ravings,” I put it this way:
What if a Christian were to expose to non-Christians the thoughts he has when reads scripture? What if non-Christians could see into the mind of a Christian who is serious about his faith, and was willing to be transparent about it?
I’m going to call this series “Ravings of a madman” as a tongue in cheek way of saying that I know you don’t buy it. I know you think it’s ridiculous. But perhaps it will be interesting to see how an actual Christian processes the things he reads in scripture.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Mike O | 33 Comments »
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