Pascal's Wager

If we run out of God arguments today in A&P, we might want to take a closer look at Pascal's famous wager. (SEP, IEP) I've not yet met a really thoughtful person who endorsed it, but it still has an allure for many. But James didn't like it, and there wasn't much he wasn't willing to like.

Blogs vs. Term Papers - NYTimes.com

Blogs vs. Term Papers - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

So what if faith is quixotic and mad?

Is there anything at all to be said for fideism? Guess it depends on what you think of Don Quixote.

Faith is indeed quixotic. It is absurd. Let us admit it. Let us concede everything!

Concede everything, and continue believing anyway. That drives many atheists right up the wall. I'm still trying to understand why such a smart and sane guy as Martin Gardner could "admit that faith is a kind of madness" and still embrace it.

Whining Buddhists

Niall Shanks vs. William Dembski

I mentioned my late former colleague Niall Shanks in A&P class today. Here's a clip from his 2004 debate with William Dembski, who wrote the paper I also mentioned today on "How to Debate an Atheist-If You Must."

Shanks was brilliant and funny, a strong debater and a good companion over an "ale" or two. His book God, the Devil, and Darwin is terrific. I just wish he'd taken better care of his health.

Stick a Babel Fish in your ear

"A final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God"-

Outrageous

I hold in my hands a complimentary copy of "The New Atheism," published by the Southwestern Journal of Theology (Thanks very much, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) and requested at the instigation of an A&P student (Thanks, Dean.)

One section is headlined "Outrageous Quotes by New Atheists," beginning with this one from Dawkins:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic,  homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Is it outrageous? I think it's outrageous that more theists aren't outraged by the Old Testament.

James & Dewey on "natural piety"

We're doing the Doubt Quiz today. It might be instructive and amusing to take a look at William James's stab at a similar exercise back in 1904.

Do you believe in personal immortality? "Never keenly; but more strongly as I grow older."

Do you pray? "I cannot possibly pray—I feel foolish and artificial."

What do you mean by 'spirituality'? "Susceptibility to ideals, but with a certain freedom to indulge in imagination about them. A certain amount of 'other worldly' fancy. Otherwise you have mere morality, or 'taste.'"

What do you mean by a 'religious experience'? "Any moment of life that brings the reality of spiritual things more 'home' to one."

James in this quiz exhibits an experientially-inclusive sensibility I've called "global naturalism." It makes room for lots of indulgent personal "fancy" about what some would consider supernaturalism. It's this that distinguishes his form of natural piety from John Dewey's in A Common Faith.

"Home and Away"

"Amazon Prime" has won me over.

I was listening to Scott Simon on "Morning Edition" Saturday when he tweeted something about his memoir Home and Away, which I'd not previously known of. Impulsively I ordered it, and here I am less than two days later, on MLK Day, just $3 poorer and reading Simon's account of how that horrible day in Memphis in 1968 seared the young author and NPR reporter-to-be in Chicago.

That's in the chapter called "Cubbie Love." Simon mentions King's "creative tension," which I mentioned in my post this morning.

And the book arrived with a bonus: an envelope stuck in the middle, postmarked "Oxford, U.K" and return addressed from "The Queen's College/Oxford." Page notes are scribbled all over it. It's addressed to a reporter at the Globe in Boston.

It looks to be a terrific memoir, and a fine evocation of what Scott Turow calls in his blurb a portrait of "the powerful personal mythology that every dedicated sports fan creates for him or herself." I think I have my topic for the next "Baseball & Literature" conference.

And, I think I'm going to trust more of my impulses from now on.

Moneyball and philosophy

The moral of this story, for me? You're a loser if you can't enjoy life's passing show and celebrate small victories as they come. Lovely film, sad man.
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Billy's problem is a version of George Santayana's:

"The problem still remains," argues Henry Samuel Levinson, commenting on Santayana, "how to display suffering's meanness and then transcend it by celebrating 'passing joys and victories in the world.'" DS

Go A's. Go us.