…and this is a 
Scott Adams wanks again!
Category: Godlessness • Kooks
Posted on: August 7, 2007 11:31 AM, by PZ Myers
Scott Adams makes his argument against atheism. Let's just say that Adams makes McGrath look like a brilliant, nuanced genius by comparison. All he's got is the cartoonist's version of Pascal's Wager, and his own profound misconceptions about what atheists are.
In order to be certain that God doesn't exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity — the ability to be 100% certain. A human can't be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren't that reliable. Therefore, to be a true atheist, you have to believe you are the very thing that you argue doesn't exist: God.
Ummm, he forgot to capitalize True Atheist™.
Atheists do not claim 100% certainty. We prefer to point to the lack of evidence for religion, which makes their certainty look ridiculous, and argue instead that we have reasonable grounds to doubt claims of talking snakes, stationary suns, and resurrected rabbis. His premise that atheism is all about perfect certainty is false, making the rest of his argument irrelevant, but the rest of his argument is so stupid that we'll include it for its entertainment value.
Let me put this in perspective. You might be willing to accept a 10% risk of going skiing and getting hurt, but you wouldn't accept a 10% risk of a nuclear war. The larger the potential problem, the less risk you are willing to tolerate.
An eternity in Hell is the largest penalty there could ever be. So while you might not worry about a .00000000001% chance of ending up in Hell, you can't deny the math. .00000000001% of eternity is a lot longer than your entire mortal life. Infinitely longer.
Ah, the Argument from Imaginary Improbabilities. That's a dangerous game to play, because any fool can invent them, including me.
Maybe God is perverse, and if you believe in him in the absence of any credible evidence, he's going to shout "You got punk'd!" when you show up at the Pearly Gates, toss you into Hell, and all the atheists get ushered into Heaven to join the ranks of celestial wise-asses who get to mock all the faith-heads forever. There's a minute chance that if you aren't an atheist, you'll go to hell.
Maybe I'm God. If you don't worship me and tithe to me, I'll send you to PZ's Hell when you die. You should worry, because every torment in my Hell is a million times worse than the torments in the Christian Hell — every magma smoothie is a thousand degrees hotter than theirs, to every poke with a pitchfork we add an anal reaming with a hook-suckered tentacle, every hill up which you must push boulders is 15° steeper, every lake of vomit contains twice as many chunks. Obviously, the potential problem is much greater in my Hell than your pedestrian Christian Hell, therefore you should believe in Me. Donate now, or suffer.
Or maybe you could just realize that an assortment of imaginary probabilities, no matter how dire, are entirely incoherent, contradictory, arbitrary, and unresolvable, and therefore negligible. You don't have to be 100% certain to be able to dismiss the rantings of bearded prophets as lacking grounds for concern. We usually develop an intellectual discriminatory filter that allows us to screen out the silly threats from the real ones; religion is a massive perforation in that sensible screen that encourages people to ignore evidence and accept Imaginary Improbabilities as Inarguable Inevitabilities. Rejecting it should be regarded as an important issue of self-defense.
But then, we have churchly institutions that make gullibility a sacrament and worship the holy gaps in our rationality, and urge their believers to widen and deepen their credulity to let the invisible imaginary beings in. We also have a fair number of people, like certain cartoonists, who are simply not smart enough to grasp simple ideas, even if they are uncontaminated by the preachings of a church.
Comments
I still believe in Dogbert, but I'm beginning to doubt the existence of Scott Adams.
Of course, I can't be 100% certain.
Posted by: Zeno | August 7, 2007 11:45 AM
Am I going to have to do another Image Dogtoring?
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 7, 2007 11:46 AM
Scott Adams once upon a time used to have a brain. The early Dilbert's were amusing and showed an understanding of corporate life.
The latter day Adams clearly has suffered some kind of brain damage.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | August 7, 2007 11:46 AM
Scott Adams would be eaten alive by anyone with a mental capacity over 100. Too bad, too.. Dilbert is absolutely hilarious. In print, of course.
Posted by: Tom @Thoughtsic.com | August 7, 2007 11:49 AM
I find it interesting that both left and right wingers use modern versions of Pascal's wager.
The right warn us that ignoring terrorism could lead to enormous dangers, whereas the left claim that we have to act now on global-warming even though there are still large uncertainties on how bad it will be or how much we can do about it.
Being left-wing I tend to agree with the latter- but I'm not convinced that I'm not making the same mistake as the right, or the religious. Just because a potential threat could be enormous does not by itself justify spending billions to counter it.
Posted by: Christian Burnham | August 7, 2007 11:50 AM
Dilbert is funny -- because the ideas are coming from so many 'corporate' sources.... Adams merely 'dilberts' them for publication.... and in agreement with an earlier post - he's now no longer 'in' corporate life so has lost the necessary filter for evaluating those ideas realistically! Some are good. Some are bad. In general, though, even the bad ones are still funny-ish.
Dilbert apart, though, Adams *is* the pointy-haired-boss of anti-atheist sentiment.
Posted by: tony | August 7, 2007 11:55 AM
An eternity in Hell is the largest penalty there could ever be.
How about an eternity with Scott Adams? That might tip the scales for betting the opposite of whatever he is betting.
Posted by: windy | August 7, 2007 11:56 AM
oops...sorry... for all the... ellipses!
Posted by: tony | August 7, 2007 11:57 AM
So let me get this straight, a True Atheist would need to have a godlike mental capacity to truly know that god does not exist. Shit, if that is the case, what use does the The Atheist need of the scientific process. The The Atheist knows all. No need to test any theory.
With this, I will state that no scientist is an atheist. PZ, the gig is up. Please state if you are a scientist or a True Atheist. You cannot be both.
Posted by: Janine | August 7, 2007 11:58 AM
I need to be infallible to know anything with 100% certainty? Tell me this is a joke. Otherwise you might as well, again, lump god into the category of the celestial teapot, flying spaghetti monster and the invisible pink unicorn.
Another thing about knowing with certainty is that you place your bets on the measure of doubt you have about the matter. I'm 99.9..% sure that gravity will hold for the very near future and will remain so even longer. Should I place bets on that infinitesimal oddity of everyone suddenly falling up?
Posted by: ChrisD | August 7, 2007 11:59 AM
Hell is a thousand commenters arguing about the meaning of "atheism".
Posted by: aiabx | August 7, 2007 12:00 PM
Christian Burnham,
I am not sure that those who oppose Bush's policies on terrorism are denying terrorism is not a problem. I think it is far more likely they think the solutions Bush proposes will not work. With regards climate change, there is still a substantial number who deny it is happening, or argue that even if it is: 1) it is not down to human activity and 2) it does not matter anyway. In addition evidence from Europe shows that reducing CO2 emissions does not seem to be as costly as some claim. The UK will meet its Kyoto targets and the UK economy seems to be doing pretty well.
So the difference between the right on global warming and the left on terrorism seems to be that the right deny global warming is happening whereas the left admit there is a problem posed by terrorism but think the proposed methods of dealing with it will not work.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | August 7, 2007 12:00 PM
PZ did a great job going after the absurdities in Adams' dribble.
But wait for it... The Scott Adams drones will be here in a minute to point out how we just don't see the great irony, sarcasm, and wit of it all.
Sorry drones, but, as an atheist, I won't believe there is irony, sarcasm and wit in Adams' posting unless there is at least some shred of evidence that it exists.
Posted by: Sonja | August 7, 2007 12:00 PM
Adams has clearly never read Pratchett.
"We're going to show you what we think of Mr. Clever Dick in these parts."
Posted by: Don | August 7, 2007 12:03 PM
Scott Adams also once wrote about how we should have an atheist president. And while i was searching trying to find that article i came across this one that he just wrote.
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/poster-child-fo.html
I don't know what the hell he's thinking or doing.
Posted by: Brian W. | August 7, 2007 12:04 PM
PZ's Hell: We Do It Better™
Posted by: Warren | August 7, 2007 12:05 PM
You're dead on, Sonja.
The big problem Adams misses with satire and so forth: There has to be a grain of truth in order for it to be funny. All he's doing is borrowing some generic fundie propaganda.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 7, 2007 12:06 PM
Here's another example of where atheism goes astray. It's totally pointless to get sucked into arguments about the probability of god's existence. Whether god exists in some tangible form or not isn't the problem. The problem is religion. The problem is the claim to specific knowledge about the unknowable in order to exert political influence in the real world. (And I confess to paraphrasing Hitchens there.)
While it's true that theism is the root generator of religion, it's a fight that can't be won because there is no proof either way. But it's easy to attack the knowledge claims of religion, simply by demanding proof for the -specific- claims it makes. So I'm not interested in atheism and prefer to call it what it really is - Anti-Religionism.
Add a red R after the red A and you get ARrrrrr....Pirates!
Posted by: TW | August 7, 2007 12:09 PM
Pascal's Wager is a joke.
Anyone can just make up some crap and use Pascal's Wager to defend it:
On the night of the harvest moon, Trogdor will come and burninate anyone who does not leave a penny outside their front door as tribute.
Now apply Pascal's Wager:
Cost of believing if false - the trivial effort of leaving a penny outside your front door. You don't even lose the penny.
Cost of not believing if true - painful death by burnination.
I'm sure someone is going to say that Pascal's Wager doesn't apply, because I just made this up, and Trogdor is well known to be fictional. Atheists, however, feel the same way about hell and God.
Posted by: John Marley | August 7, 2007 12:10 PM
I suspect Adams is a professional troll (ditto John C Dvorak). He just churns out garbage he knows will get a rise from people who promptly link to him in anger, sending visitors his way, and generating advertising revenue.
It is a relatively clever business model for people who went to Catbert's school of ethics.
Posted by: David Dorward | August 7, 2007 12:12 PM
Have you seen his follow-up post on Pascal's Wager? Where he reveals that Islam, and not Christianity, is more likely to be the winning wager, on the grounds that they're going to nuke us as soon as they get the bomb, and God is most likely on the side of the winners?
Posted by: Mark Nutter | August 7, 2007 12:22 PM
Any bets that Adams was raised as a Catholic?
Posted by: Jsn | August 7, 2007 12:24 PM
Adams's silliness is compounded by limiting "God" to the obvious Christian god with hell and brimstone. By the same logic, I should be just as worried about karmic reincarnation among other things.
I guess I'm screwed for killing all those ants yesterday with bug spray. Oh well, better luck next life.
Posted by: gonzoknife | August 7, 2007 12:26 PM
He forgot to add another 0. so it is actually .000000000001%.
http://thestubborncurmudgeon.blogspot.com
Posted by: John Danley | August 7, 2007 12:27 PM
*Hurk!*
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 7, 2007 12:27 PM
PZ pokes fun at Adams' construction of false probabilities, but it probably won't have much traction with faith-minded people. I prefer to imbue doubt in the following fashion:
Faith can certainly move mountains; people can remain abstinent of drinking, perform great physical feats against the odds, etc. if they think they can do something. On the other hand, faith can very easily be misplaced. Pick your favorite example: the kid who hides from the fire in his closet instead of making egress; the parishoners of a pastor selling bonds that turn out to be him laundering money for drug cartels; or the believers that the US simply does not torture people or that GWB is a very good president.
I think the time is fast approaching when believers need to recognize that they will be held accountable for their beliefs. Believing that Christ died and was raised from the dead is innocuous; believing that Christ died, was raised from the dead, and for this reason you have to deny homosexuals the right to marry (or insert your favorite fundie feverish action issue here that no decent person with ethics could advocate, absent their training in bronze-age mystics passing stories down from the specific oral tradition of the tribes of Abraham), etc. Simply slap a label "God" on something and you've got instant support: the Iraq war is God's will and therefore Christians should support it.
My hope is that, with the recent distaste faith is engendering, maybe Christians will start to rethink cherished beliefs and to recognize that the Neuremberg defense wasn't all that convincing after WWII; it would be a very unjust God (unless it was PZ after all; all hail PZ!) that would suddenly think "I was just following orders" to be a credible defense for anything as clearly immoral as denying marriage benefits to same-sex couples on the basis of a particular bronze-age philosophy.
Faith moves mountains, but misplaced faith kills and engenders immoral behavior. Christianity has enough sheep; now we need skeptics.
BCH
Posted by: Burt Humburg | August 7, 2007 12:27 PM
Isn't the same argument used for the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Even if the chance is remote, would you take a pass on the .0000001% chance that you could spend eternity with a beer volano and stripper factory.
Adam's problem is he is not over the top enough.
Posted by: Bob L | August 7, 2007 12:28 PM
Quite true. But in my experience the "left-wing" argues mostly from the likely consequences of global warming, not the extreme scenarios. Now, they may not be doing a full risk/benefit analysis, but the arguments (mostly) aren't as silly as Pascal's wager.
Posted by: Andrew Wade | August 7, 2007 12:29 PM
Sorry. Meant to bring it back to the topic at hand...
This is why Pascal's Wager is bullcrap. As stated above by others, any proposition could be set up to be defended using the logic of Pascal's Wager, but what isn't being adequately enumerated is the risk of the proposition at hand. Believing in God, yes, is innocuous, but believing in a God via a religion that trains its followers to devalue reason is a recipe for destruction for everyone.
Adams is wrong; atheists have it more right with this issue, clearly.
BCH
Posted by: Burt Humburg | August 7, 2007 12:31 PM
It's sad to see Adams sink to such silly arguments. I used to love his strip, and he used to use it to mock the sort of arguments he now makes happily.
Christian Burnham wrote: "I find it interesting that both left and right wingers use modern versions of Pascal's wager."
I don't really think the two cases of rightie terrorism and leftie global warming are so readily comparable.
A true 'application' of Pascal's wager employs 'infinitely' bad (or good) consequences of an event to offset the fact that it is vanishingly likely to happen or, worse, has no evidence it could happen at all. The right wing are doing this, because they offset the extremely low probability of nuclear terrorism (there's no evidence anyone is close to using nukes in terror) by using the horrible consequences of it - ergo, we must invade Iraq (don't ask why!).
While the end result of global warming is not completely understood, there is scientific consensus that it is happening, and that the effects will be negative. In other words, the bad consequences are not extremely unlikely, and most climate scientists would probably call them likely at this point. The real question in global warming, and one most serious policymakers are addressing, is how do we take reasonable steps at reasonable cost to offset the worst possible consequences.
There are, of course, a number of people who employ Pascal's wager in global warming for their own purposes (e.g. The Day After Tomorrow). But it isn't the default policy of the 'global warmers', whereas Pascal's wager is administration policy.
Posted by: gg | August 7, 2007 12:32 PM
I can say with 100% certainty that Dilbert was printed in my morning paper today.
Eat it, Scott Adams!
Posted by: Dan | August 7, 2007 12:33 PM
So......since humans can't be 100% certain about anything, true theists (who I assume are human) can't be 100% certain God exists?
Posted by: Dave S. | August 7, 2007 12:34 PM
Yesterday my newest issue of Vanity Fair arrived in the mail. Though I dislike Christopher Hitchens, I did read his article on the interactions he has had with believers as he has travelled the country debating them and promoting his book against religion. The most interesting part was that in at least one venue in the deep south, he got the feeling that the atheists in attendance were surprised at how many fellow atheists they had in their community.
The recent flood of books is allowing a lot of us to "come out of the woodwork" so to speak.
Posted by: Dallas Reader | August 7, 2007 12:34 PM
BCH wrote: "Believing in God, yes, is innocuous, but believing in a God via a religion that trains its followers to devalue reason is a recipe for destruction for everyone."
That's another interesting point about Pascal's wager. It is a bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand, keeping your eye on the infinite consequences/punishments of disbelief so that you don't think about the real-world benefits of such disbelief, e.g. you'll be able to clean your house on a Sunday, you can use that tithing money to put your kids through college and you won't be such a credulous moron.
Really, it's no different than what religion has been doing from the dawn of conscious thought. Pascal just gave it a name.
Posted by: gg | August 7, 2007 12:38 PM
Yep he's a troll all right. He admitted to it once. I think it was around the first time he blogged about evolution. Someone responded to that with a comment that what Adams was doing was called trolling. Adams' response to that: "There's a word for it? Cool."
Anyway I can't comment anything better than Prof Myers, Zeno, or Sonja. Well done and thank you all. I read both Pharyngula and Dilblog everyday. Adams writes books for money but the blog for free so what the heck, I read it. When it's funny, great! When it's not funny but at least makes me think, still good. But most often when it's neither like the Atheism post in question I just shrug and head back to Pharyngula because this one NEVER let's me down : )
Posted by: DinoBoy | August 7, 2007 12:40 PM
(.)(.)
Posted by: wÒÓ† | August 7, 2007 12:42 PM
I like jhuger's response to Pascal's wager. My updated rejoinder is to ask, when you get one of those spam messages threatening your life, do you pay the $20K, or do you ignore it?
Posted by: Glenn | August 7, 2007 12:45 PM
You make it sound like wanking is a bad thing
Posted by: rutty | August 7, 2007 12:47 PM
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 7, 2007 12:47 PM
10:
32:
Yeah, I noticed the same thing. His argument applies equally well against total, complete certainty in anything, be it God or the statement that there is a Crush can on my desk. "In order to be certain that [foo], you have to possess a godlike mental capacity -- the ability to be 100% certain. A human can't be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren't that reliable. Therefore, to be a true [believer in foo], you have to believe you are [...] God." Ergo, no one should ever use universal quantifiers when talking about the real world. Either that, or it's a totally banal observation about the imprecision of the concepts of belief and certainty in casual English. I don't really understand what this has to do with atheism specifically, though.
Posted by: Cyrus | August 7, 2007 12:47 PM
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 7, 2007 12:48 PM
Not if Tom Tancredo has anything to say about it!
Posted by: Aaron | August 7, 2007 12:49 PM
You guys have probably already seen this since it was listed in the latest COTG, but Greta Christina wrote an interesting essay about trying to reason based on threats of infinitely bad punishment: here.
Posted by: C. L. Hanson | August 7, 2007 12:53 PM
Really? I'll state Adams' position for him: "We really can't know for sure, because if anyone states a position on it one way or another, they must be some kind of asshole."
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 7, 2007 12:53 PM
Adams claims that he calls himself an atheist because "it's too hard to explain Spinoza's version of god." This is after he provides Pascal's Wager as a valid reason for believing in god. Should someone explain to Adams that there is no threat of hell with Spinoza's god?
Posted by: H. Humbert | August 7, 2007 12:54 PM
"A human can't be 100% certain about anything."
I'm not 100% certain that's true
Posted by: Brian W. | August 7, 2007 12:54 PM
By definition, that is precisely what Adams is NOT doing.
Morons.
Posted by: Caledonian | August 7, 2007 12:58 PM
I saw a couple of amusing replies, my favourite being from Conrad...
Posted by: JVC | August 7, 2007 1:01 PM
My very, very favorite critique of this Pascal's Wager crap came from South Park. There's a scene at the gates of hell, where all the newly dead souls who are going to hell are lining up and being welcomed by one of Satan's minions. And almost EVERYBODY who's newly dead is there. They're all bitterly complaining that they shouldn't be going to hell: they were good people and faithfully followed the tenets of their assorted religions, and why aren't they going to heaven?
And the minion, treating it like a game show, says, "No, I'm sorry, you all had the incorrect answer. The correct answer was: Mormons."
Posted by: Greta Christina | August 7, 2007 1:01 PM
Has anyone asked Scott Adams what the relative payoff would have to be to get him to respond to a Nigerian 419 scammer? After all, if the payoff is big enough and the initial cost low enough, he'd have to be some kind of fool not to take the offer, since there's a miniscule chance I could really be the deposed prince who needs a quick cash infusion.
So, what do I have to offer him by email to score five bucks? Lunchtime's coming up, and that sandwich isn't going to buy itself.
Posted by: grendelkhan | August 7, 2007 1:06 PM
It was so nice and quiet with Johnny Hart dead and gone...
Posted by: richard | August 7, 2007 1:10 PM
Anyway, Pascal's Wager is the argument from imaginary probabilities. He, for no apparent reason, postulated the possibility of the God of Christianity existing being 50/50. Well, with those odds of course one should believe in God. He forgot to separately weigh the odds the odds that the Christian beliefs about god, the existence of hell and heaven and how to get into the later, as PZ has noted.
The big problem with Pascal's Wager is that it is a universal argument for gullibility. One need only posit the possibility of a high pay off with a low cost to enter. The lottery? Check. Ex Nigerian warlord's wife wants to pay me $1,000,000? Yup. Valhalla? Gotta try for that...
Pascal not only deliberately ignored all the other low probability possibilities besides the existence of the Christian God, he also ignored the "cost." He argued that belief was free. But the Church says belief is not enough. They expected you to tithe and hold to their dogma. And that that belief could cut you off from a mutually exclusive propositions.
Pascal is just another example of a great man with his reason removed when it came to religion.
Posted by: scote | August 7, 2007 1:11 PM
Which hell, which god? Its that simple. Atheism is grounded in naturalism, just like science; while theists advocate supernatural ideas (memes).
Can they provide some way of telling us which of their ideas are true and which are false? To the theist, they think they are discussing profound, life-changing ideas; while to an atheist, its just one more meme out of millions. That is why it is so hard to communicate. Theists just don't get it that we think their profound ideas are nothing but mind-viruses.
Posted by: The Naturalist | August 7, 2007 1:12 PM
I'm not 100% certain that Scott Adams isn't a supporter of terrorism. Perhaps we should lock him up in Guantanamo Bay.
Posted by: MarcusA | August 7, 2007 1:17 PM
I just commented over at DilBlog; I wanted to share my thoughts here since I figure that this audience might be more receptive. Here's what I wrote:
The argument about the number of decimal places on certainty misses an important point. Atheism (which I define as the rejection of faith-based approaches to life, and please no one pull out a dictionary unless they're willing to go toe to toe over words like "liberal" in dictionaries vs. current usage) is not a strictly epistemological position, but also a decision about how to approach life.
And how is it that the rationalist, atheist person approaches life? I like this passage from Ayn Rand's For the New Intellectual. I am not a subscriber to everything the woman wrote, but I think this is germane and cogent:
Posted by: CP | August 7, 2007 1:24 PM
But the agnostic can't be 100% certain that he can't be 100% certain. He's in no better a position than the theist or atheist in this respect. It seems he has to accept both theism and atheism, which might be even worse.
Posted by: Dave S. | August 7, 2007 1:32 PM
"An eternity in Hell is the largest penalty there could ever be."
Uh, what about an eternity in heaven? Spending the rest of existence praising some being -- I'd consider that a hell of a penalty.
Though I definitely don't want to go to Myers hell, either....
Posted by: Callandor | August 7, 2007 1:35 PM
In other words, "nothing is provable therefore any fool belief is as valid as any other."
You can't prove grass is green, so there's nothing wrong with me believing it's pink with orange polka-dots.
Posted by: tsg | August 7, 2007 1:48 PM
I find agnosticism to be very easy. I don't respect any of the gods of the 'revealed' religions, but there -might- be some grain of accuracy to the Spinoza/Einstein concept of an intelligence at work in the universe. As an architect by training, and as a mammal evolved to recognize useful patterns, I tend toward thinking there is an underlying pattern at work. But if I should learn in my lifetime that there isn't, then that's okay too. It doesn't have that big an effect either way.
Posted by: TW | August 7, 2007 1:49 PM
Come on PZ, you're the scientist here, he's the HUMORIST.
Who is expected to be a source of truth, and who isn't?
I could see good-hearted fun poking, but you're either purposely shit-stirring for the sake of more comments, or you're not being rational.
He's handing out tools for thought to some, and just making others mad on purpose to keep the commenty discussion going.
Smart people like you are supposed to see this kind of behavior for what it is- not college level education, but one of those coffee-table amusements made out of twisted nails or wooden blocks. You're either amused by those for the few minutes it takes to figure them out, or you're not.
No need to get too upset about them, though.
Posted by: Will Von Wizzlepig | August 7, 2007 1:50 PM
Scott Adams said,
Damn. I'm not often tempted to yell, "I know you are but what am I!" This is one of those times.
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | August 7, 2007 1:55 PM
Nothing can ever be 100% certain, becuase we learn everything. There is no absolute answer to anything. If we knew the answer to everything the true answer our minds would not be able to comprehend it. There is a 1/infinity chance of thier being a twin of you in the universe somewhere. Space is infinite so there is 1 out of infinity chance that you have a twin, it is not 0 out of infinity but 1 out of infinity. These are just examples of that anything can happen.
Posted by: Redf | August 7, 2007 1:56 PM
Von Wizziepig, do realize there is a difference between humor and navel-contemplation like wanking.
Posted by: Stanton | August 7, 2007 1:56 PM
Me too, neither. BTW, what's Myers heaven like? I have more varied interests than just strippers and beer...
Posted by: dwarf zebu | August 7, 2007 2:00 PM
My favorite refute of PW comes from Homer Simpson: "What if we picked the wrong God? Then everyweek, the real God gets madder and madder."
OTOH, I was pleased to see the number of responses that tore him to shreds.
Posted by: Pablo | August 7, 2007 2:01 PM
It's not Image Dogtoring, but it's a rant.
So, how exactly is Adams being funny?
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 7, 2007 2:03 PM
Redf.
So what? Should I have stayed a virgin before marriage... just in case?
Fuck that.
Sure there's a 1 in infinity chance there's a god. SO. The odds are, I'm more likely to get run over by a bus or get lucky with Anne Hathaway, than there's a god.
I'll take my chances with the real world rather than the deluded "what if?" crowd.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 7, 2007 2:09 PM
Hell is worse than nuclear war? Can any amount of suffering by an individual approach the mass-murder horror of a nuclear war?!?! Get over yourself, Scott!
Posted by: Mike Nilsen | August 7, 2007 2:11 PM
Posted by: Stanton | August 7, 2007 2:12 PM
Very nice, Bronze Dog. "The wager is essentially an appeal to selfishness over truth, logic, and evidence."
My favorite question to ask the missionaries that would confront people walking across the U of M campus was, "would you believe this if your belief meant an eternity in Hell?"
In other words, take away the selfish motivation altogether -- do you actually think this stuff is true? Or are you believing out of fear of punishment/promise of reward?
Pascal's Wager is just a case for intellectual dishonesty.
Posted by: Sonja | August 7, 2007 2:20 PM
In case anyone is interested, I have all the fans of Great Scott over here responding to what I posted a couple of days ago about his claims:
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/259315.htm
Some insist that he's making a reasonable argument and defend that. Others insist that he's just joking and none of it should be taken seriously. None of them appear to be reading what the other is saying. Their contradictions, twists, and turns are very amusing to observe.
Posted by: Austin Cline | August 7, 2007 2:25 PM
Scott is another militant/fundamentalist agnostic. ;-)
Oh, and uh PZ, where's the donate link? You had me at "every lake of vomit contains twice as many chunks."
Posted by: NYCatheist | August 7, 2007 2:41 PM
I couldn't just choose to believe in a god without evidence, simply because I thought it expedient to do so. My mind doesn't work that way. If I accepted Pascal's wager, I wouldn't be a Christian: I'd be an atheist in church. It's an argument in favour of dishonesty and abject fear. How is that a good thing?
Posted by: Moggie | August 7, 2007 2:42 PM
Austin: Sounds like a description of the last time the Dildoid hoardes descended on here en masse. Of course none of them read what the others say. That would require reading. And of course they will use the joke defense, even though as far as I can tell, the Adams post was neither funny nor MEANT TO BE FUNNY. Same ol' sameol.
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 7, 2007 2:44 PM
It doesn't surprise me that Scott Adams would tend to support irrational beliefs. At the end of his book "The Dilbert Future," he has a (as far as I can tell) serious chapter on his belief in "affirmations," or the ability to influence the world by writing down a phrase daily. See here: http://www.insolitology.com/rloddities/dilbert.htm
So, I guess he's a kook.
Posted by: George | August 7, 2007 2:46 PM
I love Tony's comment: "Adams *is* the pointy-haired-boss of anti-atheist sentiment."
I don't think that Adams was making some clever joke that we don't get. But I do agree with David, DinoBoy and Caledonian that Adams is a troll... although I don't know if he realizes it (is it possible to be an accidental troll?)
Posted by: Eisnel | August 7, 2007 2:57 PM
Ummm... in case you haven't noticed, the Dilbert Blog is more of a comedic blog than you make it out to be. Although we are getting quite a laugh over there that so many atheist bloggers are getting so riled up about a post that was so obviously meant to rile people.
Posted by: Zephyrus | August 7, 2007 2:57 PM
#62: "BTW, what's Myers heaven like?"
It's only a guess, but if PZ believed in such things as a heaven, I think it would go... something... like this...
Myers heaven
Posted by: gg | August 7, 2007 2:58 PM
The world would be a poorer place without the PHB and Catbert, evil Human Resources director. This is not the first time Adams is saying some grossly stupid stuff outside of that frame, though.
Posted by: forsen | August 7, 2007 3:07 PM
The only atheists I've met who claim that "100% certainty" are those using analytical arguments against specific definitions. "If God X is defined as A .. AND God X is also defined as ~A, then God X contains an internal contradiction, and it is therefore logically impossible that God X exists." If sound, then there is nothing wrong with atheism with 100% certainty -- as an analytical matter, not an empirical one (which is what you have when you have to go out and look around and make inferences from evidence).
Of course, the premises are usually attacked, and God X has a nifty habit of turning into God X-1, but I think this is the only real example one might encounter of the "True Atheist" -- and the case wouldn't fail under the "have to know everything in the universe" criticism.
Adams' argument is full of it. If he's only pretending to believe it to make people jump and holler, it's interesting that he's decided to poke at a despised minority. Perhaps his next post will be on how "real black folk wish they were slaves again, because they'd be better off." Aw, c'mon -- can't you guys take a joke? It's satire.
Posted by: Sastra | August 7, 2007 3:08 PM
That's what they said about Dane Cook. I fail to see the humor, and I fail to see how getting "riled up" means anything.
"Look at them! They care about stuff! It's so hilariously funny that people can actually be passionate! Let's make some racial epithets next and watch some more people get riled up because riling up people is funny!"
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 7, 2007 3:14 PM
Well, I'm sold. Screw this, I'm taking the gamble.
All I need to do is pick a one in a million deity without any evidence at all. Well, that's done.
Now all I need to do is feign belief well enough to trick this God. On top of having needed to choose the right deity.
--
The idea that Norman Borlaug who received a Nobel Prize for saving the lives of a billion people is going to burn forever for failing to take a one in a million stab in the dark without any evidence at all and then fail to pay proper lip-service even if he managed to hit the Heaven Lottery.
Any deity this argument applies to is evil. Honestly, E-V-I-L... You might as well take the Atheist's Wager. Do good, then if there's a evil God everybody is still screwed. If there is a good God then you go to heaven, if there is no God then doing good is its own reward.
Posted by: Tatarize | August 7, 2007 3:15 PM
Zeyphyrus: Please point out the joke in Adams' post. I can't find it.
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 7, 2007 3:21 PM
You're not a "philosotainer", Scott, you're an idiot.
Posted by: Pareto | August 7, 2007 3:22 PM