Gambling with God: Ryan Bell's Atheist Bet

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7496/gambling_with_god__ryan_bell_s_atheist_bet/

January 10, 2014
By LINN MARIE TONSTAD


Ryan Bell rolls the cosmic dice...

Christian pastor Ryan Bell was all over the media this week for a project he has just undertaken: spending a year without God. Without having lost his belief in God, Bell wants to explore atheism as an alternative faith system in order to see what conclusions he comes to at the end. Will he return to faith? Will he become an atheist? Or will he remain what he clearly now is: an agnostic (although he doesn’t use that language).

Bell’s project reveals a fascinating set of assumptions about faith, religion, and doubt. It is reminiscent of one of the most famous experiments in living with God: the 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal’s wager.

Pascal, whose mathematical work was in probability theory, considered the pros and cons of faith in God whose existence by its very nature cannot be proven. So there are no final rational reasons for believing or not believing in God. Instead, I have to bet—with my life—on whether God exists or not. If God exists, and I fail to believe in God, I will experience eternal damnation—about the most significant downside imaginable. If I believe in God, and turn out to be right, salvation and eternal bliss are mine. But if my belief turns out to be wrong – God doesn’t exist—what will I have lost? Not much, in comparison to the risks of not believing in a God who is real.

Therefore, Pascal concluded, one should live “as if”—as if God is real, which does not mean intellectual assent to the proposition “God exists” but rather participation in all the practices of Christianity: going to church, praying, and especially speaking with and trusting those who have found faith. One must act as if one believed, and one will—Pascal says—come to belief and so gain everything.

more at link

[dimbear]

1. Bell is certainly getting a major amount of play in the media, a jillion times what he ever had as

a pastor.

The immediate result is inevitable. Just as Reza Aslan is now hated and envied in the community of religious educators, his fame will redound against him.

How will it end? Will he emerge a newly minted nonbeliever? Or a renewed and redicated servant of the Lord? (Get your bets down now.)

[cbayer]

2. Reza Aslan is hated in the community of religious educators?

I think Reza Aslan is hated by the people at Fox, but I wasn't aware that there were those in the academic community who hated him.

As for Bell, I think he is doing an interesting sociological experiment. How he handles it is yet to be seen, but I think he maintenance of a decidedly neutral stance is a good sign for getting some possibly valuable information.

My guess is that he will emerge with his beliefs intact but with a deeper understanding of and empathy towards non-believers.

From my perspective, that would be a good outcome.

[dimbear]

3. The deal with Reza Aslan is entirely jealousy, as the community readily admits.

The fun kind of hate. Won't last. (The "why couldn't that have been me?" type of hate. )

I'm completely non-committed on the Bell experiment so far, but it's caught my interest.

Actually, either way it comes out could be a plus. Or a big black eye. It depends on how the rest of the communities (note plural) treat it. So far, as I've noted, not well on the faith side.It would have been so much better to extend Bell a sabbatical or a leave without pay that they never intended to renew. Tin ear syndrome. Or, really, pressure from donors.

Life is complicated sometimes.

[cbayer]

4. There is limited information on the response except from his employers.

And it's not clear to me what that is about and whether it had anything at all to do with them being "faith communities".

He's gotten some pushback from both sides, imo.

We shall see.

[gcomeau]

5. Argh....

"Will he return to faith? Will he become an atheist? Or will he remain what he clearly now is: an agnostic (although he doesn’t use that language). "

If Bell doesn't use that language it's possibly because he has a better understanding of what those words mean than this idiot article writer. How many times a day can I see people misusing the same damn word?






(/pet peeve)


As for the issue of Bell's experiment itself, he's not "living as an atheist" since the only criteria for living as an atheist is not believing in God. Reading atheist writings and not going to church doesn't make your life atheistic if you still believe in a deity, which Bell appears to be saying he does.



Also, Pascal's Wager is purely stupid in every possible way, from not properly considering the set of possibilities on which you are betting to making the explicit assumption that if God does exist he's a credulous idiot who you can so easily fool by performing as outlined by the Wager...


Just so much to be annoyed at here....

[cbayer]

6. The old atheism/agnosticism argument is so tired

and so useless unless one is trying to sign people up for teams. It's a pet peeve for me as well. I think people should be able to call themselves anything they want when it comes to belief/non-belief and no one else has the right to categorize them or tell them that their definitions are wrong.

But, it's a canard that is dying a very slow death.

There are some better articles about what Bell is really doing here. Some have been posted here, if you are interested.

It's more of a sociological experiment or study. He recognizes that he can't actually live like an atheist.

It has the potential to be something interesting, possibly enlightening and, at it's best, a tool for increasing understanding and empathy.

But it could also end up as a joke.

[gcomeau]

7. Oh?

"It's a pet peeve for me as well. I think people should be able to call themselves anything they want when it comes to belief/non-belief and no one else has the right to categorize them or tell them that their definitions are wrong. "

This particular misuse of the word agnostic defines it in a way which is logically incoherent.

People who say they are this type of "agnostic" might as well be saying they're invisible unicorns.

My response to that will always be "sorry... but no, you're not".

[cbayer]

8. Many disagree with you, although I realize there are a number of

people who completely agree with you.

As for all the people who define themselves as agnostic, but not atheist, I am going to respect that decision and not tell them they can't be based on what I consider to be a highly questionable semantic argument.

So, I think we can dispose of that. I am sure there are others that would be happy to engage in this debate, but I'm not one of them.

To me it's the same thing as arguing for the existence or non-existence of a god or gods - circular without any purpose whatsoever.

[gcomeau]

9. And the fact that many disagree...

..is ridiculous. Hence my "argh".

"As for all the people who define themselves as agnostic, but not atheist, I am going to respect that decision"

Which is rather like "respecting a person's decision" to claim they are a zucchini. And there is nothing highly questionable and semantic about it. That use of the word is nonsensical.

[cbayer]

10. Take it up with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Personally, I'm going stand with him.

He's been able to explain so many things so well to me

Have a nice night.

[gcomeau]

11. Happy to.

His embrace of the absurd "non overlapping magisteria" position is intellectual cowardice. Plain and simple. As it was when Gould did it. I can agree with them on many other things and still recognize that point.


And if he "explained" this particular issue to you he did not do it well at all.

[trotsky]

12. "people should be able to call themselves anything they want when it comes to belief/non-belief"

Really? Have you actually thought about the implications of such a statement?

I don't think you have, and that's a pity. Confusing and obfuscating terms to such an extent hinders discussion instead of facilitating it. And it has absolutely nothing to do with creating "teams" as you (and only you) keep bringing up. How many disagreements occur simply because terminology isn't clearly defined? Why do you want to see discussion made more difficult?