For some reason Cheerskep ignores my main point that belief is not a choice but a necessity of consciousness. This aspect of belief has nothing to do with the existence of a god or gods or anything at all concerned with religious belief. But it does imply that Cheerskep's denial of belief ignores the fundamental fact that our brains and consciousness rely on a-priori assumptions, about the next moment, thought, act all the way on to grand totaliing concepts like God. That's also the underlying assumption that Pascal, in the context and language of his time, recognized in his argument. Is it silly? Of course! Any admission of assumptions -- the first recognition of philosophers from Plato to Kant and beyond -- is silly form the standpoint of being conjectural and impossible to set beyond the circle of subjectivity.
It's no less a silly presumption to deny the "verities" of religion (I extend this to consciousness) than it is to accept them. What satisfactions does Cheerskep attain by denying them? Whatever they are, those satisfactions are no more substantial than the ones he denies. When he says he can't belive, what takes its place? What's really silly is to presume the historical imagery of God, angels, and all the rest, is to be taken as the substances and not as transient symbols. If the symbols are silly does that mean that the symbolized is silly? I've seen many silly portraits of Lincoln. Was Lincoln silly? wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, September 11, 2011 5:50:12 PM Subject: Re: Aesthetics, intellect, high intelligence, and sensibility. William asks: > Why is Cheerskep still angry over his early disillusionment with > religion. > I'm sorry you believe this about me, William. My sole remark about religion was this: With the departure of the religious faith of my youth went many reassuring verities. That remark does not seem to me sufficient evidence of anger. Nor do I recall any such feeling at the time (or after). When I came to realize there is no Santa Claus I didn't get angry either. A more likely emotion might be one of sadness, but I also didn't feel that with either disillusion. I admit I can imagine someone else getting angry, either about promises broken ("I was told I'd go to heaven if I were good!") or burdens that "faith" brought with it ("I felt uncomfortable guilt about masturbating and other sexual stuff because I was told they were impure!"), but for whatever reason once a belief in a deity or Santa Claus was behind me, I simply never had such thoughts. "Ah! Well of course Santa Claus doesn't exist! Well that was a child's thought anyway." "Ah. So there's no heaven. Well, if you think about that was a silly thought anyway." As for Pascal's wager the way he expressed it, I thought that was pretty silly too because it implied that belief is subject to an act of will, and I've never found that so for me. An early murmur of disbelief came when I read that God is an eternal being who is perfect and thus never changes, and yet he is credited with all sorts of acts affecting humans, that struck my young mind as impossible, and by no straining effort of mind could I make myself think otherwise. I accept there may be others who can, by an "act of faith", block out such doubts, but that ability is denied me. Once I came to see the various alleged attributes of angels as silly, that was that for any further belief in them. The belief or rejection of belief was definitely not a voluntary act.
