Reworking Pascals wager....

Lets take pascals wager into account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager ..
Has it any validility ? in purely philosophical terms .. ? Juwayni the islamic scholar born in present day Afghanistan presented a similar wager based on Islamic lines 1000 years before Pascal ...

Lets look at the main at some crititics of the the wager ..

"your inability to believe, because reason compels you to [believe] and yet you cannot, [comes] from your passions."

And as dawkins put it ...

"Would you bet on God's valuing dishonestly faked belief (or even honest belief) over honest skepticism?"

Further ...

"Suppose we grant that there is indeed some small chance that God exists. Nevertheless,

it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on

his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping

him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc."

Lets set a framework for the wager .... Some premises in moving forward to the wager, so we can understand it with some sophistication.

Starting by explaining some premises

Religions provide the gateway for the afterlife, the evolution of humankind has had with it a "gateway" culture, we can understand this

"Gateway" culture as anything "spiritual" movement giving understanding to the afterlife ....

Furthermore, by adding some more intelligence and rules one can narrow down the "Religions/Gateways" that provide the greater "truth" via

certain principles ? For sake of argument some of these can be:

1) The Origin of the "Gateway"

2) The message of the "Gateway"

3) Miracles, claims of its truthfulness

4) Sensibility "it making sense"

5) Proofs to its truthfulness on its principles and how they weigh

Even to go as Far as weighting each religion we can define Pascals wager further .... and narrow down the possibilities of what "Gateways" are more truthful than others.

Betting on modern Skepticism ultimately leads you on betting your life on doubt. Dawkins point of "sacrificing" oneself for God is inaccurate, since

it is clearly "known" that those who have a "spiritual" element in their lives lead a better life and many "seek" this .... Sacrificing

oneself occurs in the rare occasions that ultimately can mean loss of ones life .... and is a complicated issue since Sacrificing oneself can occur

by sacrifing oneself in the persuit of wealth.

betting on skepticism is ultimately betting on doubt and not having sure knowledge ..

Conclusion

We can conculde that

- The wager is favoured to the religious inclined, since the Atheist has no belief in a "Gateway" and ultimately the "loss" is guaranteed for the Atheist and a chance exists for the Believer.

- That the Atheist Relies on his "Doubt" as his religion, via philosophy of modern skepticism and empirical observation as a means of belief

- The wager is not realistic since that the issue of belief in "the truth" cannot be obtained by everyone via rationality since we can easily say that

after rationality is exhausted and the Wager cannot be relied upon by its own principle (in that it "being a bet" on the "Gateway" ) since in Reality we cannot lead out lifes on a bet, since it itself negates belief in anything.

- The wager is a dangerous principle for the muslim since it can lead one in having "doubt" about the "Truth" Islaam and can ultimately destroy ones own focus and belief ...

- If one dosent believe in God and the afterlife one could strongly argue that the ONLY logical persuit in life should be in HEDONISM. And

that "honour" "Courage" Bravery" Are terms that should not exist in a land of Secular Atheists since Self preservation should be the

Ultimate Goal.

Knowing that the creator exists

1/ Knowing the Creator exists Through your own selves

That the "fitra" (innate belief of the Creator) has been implanted in humankind and isnt it fascinating that the whole of humanity

has this "innate" belief of "God" articulated and expressed Globally

2/. The books

The revealed books and the miracles within them , example is the Qur'an and the linguistic miracle that is contained within it.

3/. The messengers

The message of all the Prophets and messengers should be a sign and a warning for those who reflect

4/. Through reflection and sincerity

Only through Humbling oneself and sincerity seeking truth and

relecting on the heavens, the creation, the creation of oneself and alternation of the night and day can one see and comprehend the sign of a creator therein.

Prof. Kolowkoski (Oxford University) statng that Reliion developed for the elite as a power tool (as Niche argument) is highly unlikely

5/. That the universe is created from nothing, The methematical impropability of this, since the propabily of the universe and order to be created from nothing and nothing creating

itself is similar to the propability that numerically would not fit on most calculators because of the zero's it contains ..

.. How the Media Influences

I am writing this only a few days after the Flotilla incident in which

Israeli comandos slaughtered at least 9 humanitarian civilians on boarding

ilagally a vessel headed for Gaza.

Lets take One such "Un-biased" Media outlet, the BBC, spokes-vehicle for the

Government ...

the apparently "unbiased" Outlet failed in its tone in to condemn outright the

atrocity preffering instead in taking a ringside seat .... On one particular

radio station any mention of criticism of Israel was labelled as unhelpful

to dialogue and the caller quicky cut .... and the radio presenter on

BBC London foccussng on the Israel-Palestinian conflict ... a matter blurred

in understanding for the masses ..

A few days later the focus switched to Iran and Other conflicts quickly forgetting

the actions of Israel and any condemnations and sanctions by the so called

United Nations ....

We have spoken on this blog about the influence of Media in culture and

nurturing opinion in a reflexive way ...but this is an example in a different

perspective in how "thoughts of the day" are quickly put in check by even the

"so called" Media ....

Paganism and Europe

The new world order has clearly been seperating state and Religion but

what more have they seperated ?

Judeo-Christian pilosophy entered into Europe and subsequently Christianized

the entire European continent and beyond ..... The fallout Europe

encountered with this brought a hidden rebellion against this philosophy..

The hidden Rebellion has been advanced, secularism as an independent

philosophy and the split of State and Religio has added to this as a catalyst...

in the past 10 years secularism has heralded and evolved into an independent religion ...

and drawing closer to Paganistic cultures and finding attraction to it to the point

that NOW Judeo-Christianity as a body is even attacked at freewill ..

Something unthought of, inconceivable a while back ...

The Closeness That Europe has been drifting via its New World Secular Order

to Pagan cultures is more reminicent of harking back to pre-Christian Europe ..

Paain cultures are more celebrated and left uncriticized via the secular

framework ... More than ever before ....

Are We drifting toward Evil ? The worship of many Gods and deities and forms

of Gods or Energy are seen as something neuve and cool ....

Paganism has no set philosophy, judging from Hiduistic legacy we can see

that it is a mish-mash of opinions and philosophies and creating ones

own personal Gods or objects or Worship ....

From a Religious/Monotheistic Stand point is this is an evil path we are treading ?..

Since Morality is lost, lust is worshipped, the framework

for living and ways in bringing up and inculcating that

which is good in the next generation is forgotten ...

and the Worship Of One God Mocked ...

The misleading of Mankind by that which is Evil via the whisperings of the devils

willl be increased and all will be lost ....

The blame Game, Iraq ..

Current opinion has used the "blame game" for the entry into Iraq and Afghanistan

.... The Former in the form of "Misleading the public on the Weapons of Mass

destruction" .... The formulation of current opinion and culture NOW

rests on blaming the leaders in ill-informing/misleading the public in the

knowledge of Sadam having weapons of mass destruction ....

Although this maybe the case, where does the blame lay ?

totally on the leaders or on the public (democratic) masses....?

I say this, The holes of democracy has shown huge cracks once again and

covered up uncritically once again due to "it" The system (democracy) being the

heralded system for the New World order ....

Lets disect and gather some points to highlight this ..

1) There was huge support, "maybe" not a majority, a substantial amount

by the public of the invasion ...

2) Even if Sadam had WMD's surely going in Gun-Ho style would always of been

a catastrophe, since the Weapons inspectors were inspecting and this should

of been the ultimate and exhasted method

3) The Claim that Iraq threatened the World should have been judged a ludricous

one by mere reflection .... of knowledge in countries and cultures and invasions.

4) Again, decision making (democraticaly) by the masses has shown unfit

for judging on matters ..

5) The knowledge of the breakup of Iraq and the events "WERE" known in full

knowledge by the politicians ..

as this was clearly highlighted previously by the politicians in the first Gulf war

and was a major

reason they never entered Iraq in that period .... but this information was

never reiterated or highlighted by the mass-Media

So i say, pointing the blame Solely at certain leaders for leading us into War

is not a wholely truthful stance ....

Insulting the Prophets?

There was an uproar Globally about the insults to the Prophet

Mohammad via caricatures i think none of the muslim nations

were ignorant of this ... The protests and widespread condemnation

was articulated throuh protests and marches and typical flag burnings ..

Some muslims take the opinion that we cannot be biased and

make a distinction between the constant insults of the chosen one (annointed)

Christos-Jesus Son of Mary the Prophet of God ... And even the constant

depictions/insults of God Almighty himself .....! more or less on a regular basis ...

This is a strong argument and seemingly logical, how can Muslims suddenly be

biased and make distincion ... Surely God is Greater than any man ... and all the prophets

are brothers ...

I will go deeper and draw in a different perspective ... and try and detangle this

apparent confusion .....

First we have to acknowledge Why a Local paper affects a Worldwide audience,

Are muslims now responsible and taken on the burden of acknowledging and responding

to every local Paper Globally ? Surey this is a mammoth undertaking ?.. Or is

it was Have once again been the Victim of Global Media Histeria ? And fallen into the

trap once again .. ?

Is this a local issue for the Local muslims of the Dutch community to sort out ?

To understand the issue we have to understand that this issue is about

Current Culture and norm ... and not specifically about the insult of the prophet

himself .. Why? As i have just reiterated that the Insults of God and his prophet

are "normal" but so much greater in weighting ...

So the outrage of the muslims should be understood in that culture has changed and so

Now the Prophet Mohammad has been insulted ... thus breaking a cultural taboo/creating a cultural

norm ....

Maybe Wittgenstein was right for the need of creating a new language for philosophy ...

Since representing these arguments in purely premise terminology (X and Y) and logical form will not derive the truth,

as Wittgenstein so correctly pointed out that we need new principles, expressing contexts and forms in argumentation ..

Surely the limits of language and understanding has been lost in this issue of "insulting the Prophets" as Context, Cuture and weighting is lost in the simple-Language abstraction .

?