Pascal’s Wager

There is no God— at least not in the way Blaise Pascal believes. Pascal was a French philosopher who, if nothing else, had some very interesting ideas on God and why you should believe in his God. I'm sure during the time he was alive his arguments were as solid as a castle's defense, but if we merely look at his theory from another angel we'd find it is nothing more than a house of cards. Pascal believes that though God is incomprehensible it is still in our best interest to believe in him. I'm going to show how his argument is mortally flawed for several reasons.

Pascal gets right to the point by first telling us that "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible…We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is" (93). I agree, if indeed there is a divine, almighty, super being out there, it doesn't give humans a second glance. Next Pascal goes on to simplify the notion of God into two categories: He exists or He doesn't. As human beings we have a choice, a wager, when it comes to our immortal existence, if indeed there is such a thing. According to him these are the only choices we have and we must put all our chips on the table when it comes to making this wager. As to what's on the line, Pascal explains "You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things at stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery" (94). To add to this already iffy claim Pascal leaves no third option, that being not to wager at all. His reasoning here is that if you choose not to live a life not choosing your actions will, as a default, lean toward the side of not believing.

There are four outcomes to this two choice wager; if you believe in God and he turns out to exist you'll live in eternal happiness, ie heaven, if you believe in God and he doesn't exist you don't lose anything and actually, according to Pascal, you'll be a better person because of it; on the other side if you don't believe in God and he turns out to exist you'll be in eternal misery, ie hell, or if he doesn't exist you don't gain anything anyway. Pascal then goes on to say that of the two options a reasonable man will choose to believe in this God because, in the long run, you have less to lose. His argument, "Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side [believing in God]? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, [and] truthful" (Pascal 95). At first glance all these arguments seem solid and reasonable, but let's take a closer look at some of his assumptions.

First, though his logic is sound, something just doesn't feel right about his two options. You believe or you do not believe, but already I'm not even included in these categories because I choose not to choose. Before I elaborate, though, I want to address his major flaw, that being his assumption of a Christian God. Although he tries to take an unbiased outlook on his work as a whole, his basic argument rests on Christian doctrine. First he says that to take a third view your life will unwittingly follow a path of sin, and that by believing in God you'll live a life without sin. As everyone knows that is not the case. There are people out there that do wretched, horrible, despicable things and yet still follow the word of God. They go to Church every Sunday, they don't say the Lords name in vein, but yet do horrible, horrible things. As such, there are people out there that don't necessarily believe in God, but are moral, they live without sin, they're loyal friends, humble, honest, and all of the other qualities Pascal set to only those who believe. To spur his Christian point on, he brings up heaven and hell, the notion, of course, is familiar to all of us but it should not be clouding the mind of someone trying to find Truth. The other downfall of this assumption is we don't actually know which God is the God. Let's say we live out life to the t as a Christian, die, and find out that it was really the Hindu God that was the real God. Would that God not be unhappy with us? Would that God not punish us for not only not believe in him, but for living out life by the standards of a God that doesn't even exist? This assumption of a Christian God is Pascal's biggest flaw, one that damages his argument beyond repair.

Even if we're generous with Pascal and let the Christian God assumption slip by he still has some major flaws. Going back to the outcomes; do we really know what happens when we die? Pascal says that if one were to not believe in God and be right they would gain nothing. What if when we die we are still self-aware in some way, would we not be somewhat gratified to know that we lived out life how we wanted to live it? Though, this is a bit of a stretch, I believe it is still valid. Pascal also mentions practically tricking yourself into believing in God "Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness" (Pascal 94). Essentially brainwash yourself into believing in God, but wouldn't that doubt still nag the back of your mind? I believe it would and as such, though we don't know the nature of God, I surely doubt He would want us to fake believing in him. The outcomes themselves are a little too forced, seeing as we do not know what happens when we neither die, nor do we know the nature of God or if Heaven and Hell exist there's no way we could conclude as Pascal did that there are only four outcomes. If for instance there is a God, but he is wholly apathetic to us and decides that there is nothing after death, neither punishment nor happiness, Pascal's theory crumbles. Indeed, the choices and the outcomes don't quite match up either, seeing as the Christian God gave us free will, I then could choose not to choose but still live an absolutely moral and "good" life there is no way He could punish me for it. This is yet another crack in Pascal's theory.

In conclusion, though Blaise Pascal's theory has some, almost logical, basis looking a bit deeper reveals some major flaws. By assuming that God is the Christian God, Pascal alienates many other religious groups with just as much evidence for their God(s) as Christianity. Instead of trying to prove the existence of an organized religions', we as philosophers, indeed we seekers of Truth should try and find the nature of whatever god may be out there, if there is a God. We should also not limit ourselves to possible outcomes, especially in matters of death. No one will ever know what happens when we die, perhaps nothing, perhaps something, but there are limitless possibilities. We should also not assume that can even touch on Gods nature, as such we should not let things we want cloud our judgments and make us blind to negative aspects of Gods nature. Perhaps God is something that should not even be sought; after all we have many, many equally tough questions to ask

Talking About Books

I find it increasingly difficult to actually compare books, or even just decide what my favorite is. In the long run this isn't a big deal, but seeing as I work at a bookstore and need to be able to make myself clear, it's a bit of an issue. I'm not sure why I'm having such trouble now, before it didn't take much thought at all, but now it’s actually hard! Partially, I think, it's because I've read so many more books recently than I have before. Indeed, it’s rather sad, but I tallied up the total number of books I've ever read, at least the ones I can remember, and I excluded almost all kids’ books, and it only came up to 211. This is way stupid, but I really thought I read more. Okay fine I'm only 20 years old so I guess that's a pretty good number, but considering I read a fourth of those this past year, it's really distressing to me. Maybe I'm having a more difficult time because in the past couple years I've read so many great books that it's now impossible for me to say. Or more likely I'm just thinking about things way too much.

I don't know why I do it, but I do. There are so many variables to consider, so many differences, such complexity, that I just find it almost stupid to even try. But what exactly am I suppose to do? A customer asks "What's your favorite book?" I can't start asking them about genres, moods, length, and complexity. I'm the one who’s supposed to be making their choice easier. How though? How on earth can anyone, no matter who they are or what they do, compare, in any legitimate way, science fiction and, say, mystery? Or even worse, sci-fi/fantasy to fiction? You can't, you really just cannot do it! Hell it's hard enough to compare books in the same genre! I mean I love Tolkien, but I also love Feist. The two are completely different in the themes and styles--okay so most fantasy authors take a little dip into the Tolkien style, but that's irrelevant here--and yet they are two of my favorite fantasy authors ever. Why? I love them both for different reasons, I can't say I like one more than the other because they're too different! And yet they're in the same genre! I want to make a list of my top ten favorite books, but I just can't! I suppose I could just write up a list of my top ten in each genre, but like I said earlier, picking one over the other is just.. wrong!

Don't get me wrong, I have very obvious favorites when it comes right down to it. For example, Dune is so much better than most sci-fi out there, but can I say it's my favorite sci-fi novel/series? No, I really can't. This is because the very nature of sci-fi, and arguably any genre, is the amount of creativity within the genre. Dune is great for so many reasons, but it's not great for the same reasons as Snow Crash. Indeed, what make them so amazing are those very differences, their originality, and their uniqueness. Another huge factor involved in how I rate books is the feelings I have about them. Now this is completely and utterly subjective, but it still makes a huge difference. I'm not very eloquent, so this is probably going to sound really confusing, but whatever. The mood I'm is what plays a role here. It’s hard to explain, but I can only read certain genres or even certain books at certain times. Tolkien for example, I love The Lord of the Rings, but it's one of those trilogies that I have to be in the "mood" for, ya know? I've heard this at my work before, "I just need a nice easy read" or "I feel like a good trashy romance right now". So maybe I'm not as dumb as I thought.

I find this plays a huge role in when I read what, especially when it comes to non-fiction and literature. Probably 85% of the time I want to read something entertaining or fun, in my case that's science fiction or fantasy. Not that I don't enjoy non-fiction or literature, but it's just not, fun. More and more I'm forcing myself to read literature even when I'm not in the mood for it. This tactic seems to work well because I do genuinely like literature, I just have to get started first. This isn't the case for non-fiction, for that I really have to be in the mood for it, or had to fiction myself out. Though I haven't really tried to force myself to read it, I'm sure if I did it would work somewhat, but I just have a bad attitude I think. I feel that if I don't "want" to read it I shouldn't waste my precious little time reading it, even if it's good or factual or whatever. I have the same problem when it comes to studying; I'm only living for a set number of years, why should I spend 8 hours studying for a test that doesn't matter? It's a bit of a problem, I know. Slowly but surely I think I'm making progress, most of it can be attributed to Kimberley. I find that I'm studying more now--on my own even--and I'm also trying really hard to read more literature stuff, even though most of the time it's rather dry. Although, I have no doubt that no matter my age or maturity level, I'm always going to prefer sci-fi/fantasy to any other genres.

Writing this out seems to have helped clear up my thinking. It really is amazing what the simple act of writing your thoughts down will do to put things in perspective. The brain is certainly a funny thing. I realize now that even if I can't arrange them in a numerical order, the fact I am so "in love" with certain books or series gives me a perfect place to start from. I have these favorites in pretty much every genre aside from non-fiction, which I haven't really read enough of to make them clear. Not only that, but I'm seriously passionate about some of these titles, enough so that with a little background on a customer, I can probably find something that they will like. In the meantime, it might be kinda fun to try and list some of my favorites, and group them by genre if only so I have a reasonable idea of how to answer "what's your favorite book?". Maybe I'll even try and work out some sort of numerical list, or if not a rating system. I've tried the rating stuff before; actually I have a word doc that is a replica of my Year of Reading that has ratings of all the books. It's a simple ten point system, but I find that after each book I read I end up altering many of the scores of the others. This seems to be a bit of a problem, so maybe I'll spend some time this summer and see if I can come up with a more accurate system. Oh and what I'll do is post up various ideas or thoughts on it to try and fine tune it with a little feedback, not that anyone really ever comments :(. I will be sure to start working on that list here shortly, it totally sounds like an interesting and fairly difficult project to wrap my head around, way better than school that's for sure!

Overcome

I wander through the fiction section straightening books as I go. Face one out here; slide two over there, all the while my eyes glide over various titles and authors. I feel it coming, I always feel it coming, yet I feebly try to stop it. And then it's there, crushing me, suffocating me. I feel my heart thud in my chest, blood rush to my face, these names, these titles, I am nothing compared to them. The great names loom over me: Austin, Capote, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Huxley, Orwell, Steinbeck, Tolstoy.. on and on until my vision fogs over and my head screams "You are nothing! What are you ever going to accomplish? You can't compare. Nothing you do will ever be worth even one of these books" I mange to shake it off, if only slightly, but the books still surround me. There are so many! So many stories. So many characters. So many voices calling out to me. It's too much! It's all too much, I want to throw down my badge and just read, read, read, read! But my vision expands and I see not only literature, but mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, history, politics! The subjects go on and on! Rows upon rows of books, wall to wall, floor to ceiling. My breath catches in my throat and my mind goes on, "Ha! Even if you spent every minute of every day for the rest of your life reading never will you get remotely close to reading what's out there." Then my paranoid side comes out, what if I choose wrong? What if it's bad? What if that time is gone forever? And my mind reels at the fact it's all passing by. What am I doing with my life? Why? How? I'm never going to have this minute again. NEVER. It's gone. Again and again, I'm losing time, I'm slowly dying, but what am I doing? Nothing. Life is slowly getting away from me, I've been here twenty years now and what do I have to show for it? I'm fat, I'm not educated at all when it comes right down to it, and it all just overcomes me. My eyes begin to water, but then, hope. My heart slows, my breath comes easy, and I look around. I anxiety subsides and I realize how I relish being in the presences of these great ones. 

Thoughts From a Bookstore Part 2: The Dumb and the Awkward

So, I know I said I was going to do my next one of these on the religious people, but after a good 20 minute rant to my girlfriend I figured I had enough content for another topic. Everyone complains how the rest of the world thinks Americans are idiots; perhaps this section will shed some light as to why that is.

The Dumb

There are several assumptions one can make about people that shop at a bookstore. First and foremost is that they can read. Well I have discovered that is not always the case, in fact, I think it's safe to say many are flat out blind. For example, the question we get asked most doesn't have anything to do with books, nor music, nor movies, but where the bathroom is. Now this is a logical question seeing as we're a public facility and all, and hell even in some parts of the store, but most seem to enjoy standing right under the freaking sign, or even in a direct line of sight to it. Along the same line we get people who come up to the desk and ask for CDs or DVDs, which are conveniently pointed out by 5 foot black and white contrasting signs hanging from the God damn ceiling. To add insult to injury when I point the sign out, they still don't see it. Come on people. Big black and white sign. Not hard to miss. I'll give some people credit, though, older folks do have fairly bad sight, but anyone under 50 has no excuse. Next up we have the people who refuse to take "we don't have it" for an answer. These people come in all self righteous, refuse help saying they can look it up on their own. Which they can, it is a pretty easy program to use, and all the buttons are clearly labeled as are the results. The screen even says either "Likely in store" with the location of the item listed or in bold red font "ORDER" if we don't currently have it in. Seems pretty easy doesn't it? Even still these people will then yell at us and ask "Where is this, it doesn't say" of course the item they're looking for isn't there. I tell them such and they proceed to practically scream saying such and such is a "classic" why don't you have it blah blah blah this is outrageous. Then as if any of us care, they say "well *lifts nose up* Barnes and Nobel will has it". Uh, okay, cool, is that suppose to be an insult? Pretty sure we each carry different shit, big deal. And more than likely they don't have it seeing as Hastings, Borders, and B&N all get books from the same distributors. This next incident I couldn't make up if I wanted too: On multiple occasions we've had people all and ask "hi, Do you have books?" Whoa.. what? Okay sure calling a place like Hastings you could ask that, seeing as they mainly carry multimedia, but this is Borders BOOKSTORE. Come on. Though, sadly, we've had someone come in, walk through the front of the store--which I might add is full of all sorts of books--and ask if we carried paperbacks. Sigh shoot me seriously. The last example I have by far takes the cake on American stupidity. I was fixing the audiobooks and this couple next to me was looking at Homers The Odyssey. The man was scrutinizing it pretty intently; I thought maybe he was just hard of seeing, but nooo he comments to his wife: "So do you think this is read by the original author? This, uh, Homer guy? I think it might be." I stopped what I was doing and was just hoping and praying he was joking, but I looked over and they both looked puzzled. And the final blow came from the wife, "I hope so, I heard he has a wonderful voice!" Oh lord.. Just.. yeah... And we wonder why everyone thinks we're fucking idiots.

The Awkward

This section is somewhat worse than the one above, but for different reasons. As most of you should know, bookstores have an adult erotica section. As such we get all sorts of weirdos because of it, not to mention the 14 year old horny middle school students. First I should probably mention that we have some pretty fucked up books back there too--har har "fucked up"--such as The Fetish Book, which is conveniently made of rubber for even the most wacky sex. I should also mention that I'm pretty open when it comes what people do behind closed doors, but it's still.. awkward when people are super open about it. For example way too many times have I had an older couple, maybe in their 50s or 60s, come up and ask where the sex section was. That's cool, I mean, heck its natural, but these people are like teenagers! Again, that's cool, but I don't think I'll ever get used to the sight of an old man grabbing his old wife's bum and sucking on her saggy neck.

The other common awkward experience is those that deal with recovery. As many of you know, or should know anyway, people have problems, lots and lots of problems. It also goes without question there are plenty of people out there that are willing to help, or at least make money pretending to help. Many times I'll have guests come in, sadly a lot of parents and grandparents that are looking for ways to get their kids/grandkids off drugs, or through other addictions. It's so hard to know what to say when they ask for something like that, I mean usually I like to try and make conversation with my customers, but with something like abuse, or drugs, or many other topics in that area, it’s hard to know where the line is. There are people that are willing to share their entire life story with you and others that don't want you to talk at all. The ones I find especially difficult are those that deal with abuse. We have a whole section on it, and there are some really helpful books out there, but when it comes to talking about it, or helping someone it’s just so.. I don't know difficult. Cause I feel bad, but at the same time I'm supposed to be impartial and keep my nose out of things. Or before we used to order specific books for people and when they got in we'd give them a call telling them their book has arrived. A lot of the time people won't answer, for good reason too I mean it is a random number, but what am I suppose to say when the title is something like When Daddy Hurts Mommy or Love Shouldn't Hurt, or Get Out Now!, what if it’s a general mailbox and the child hears? Or the abuser listens? I don't know, this probably isn't the tone you were expecting after the first examples, but it's something worth noting I guess.

So I was planning on doing one other section, but I'm just going to cut it cause its kinda stupid anyway. Essentially it was just how half the people out there think they know how to run the store better than we do. Meh, people are freaking stupid anyway. I hope this little adventure gave you some laughs and maybe even got you thinking.

E-Book Revolution

The digital reader scene first hit my radar back in December '07 when Sony partnered up with Borders to sell their brand new Reader Digital Book--don't look at me, I think it's a terrible name too--soon after I heard about the Kindle made by Amazon (this one is of the Kindle 2 since they took down the link to the first edition). I'm not going to lie, I've been avoiding the whole idea of e-books since I first heard about them. Usually I'm pretty open to new technologies, I had one of the original iPods, got the Nintendo Game Cube, Wii, and DS all when they first came out, not to mention the first Google phone, but electronic books? It just doesn't sit well with me.

As you all should know by now, I'm probably one of the biggest bookworms out there. So intuitively I should be excited for such a revolution to take place, I mean come on, combine technology and books, it should be heaven! At the same time, though, I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to certain things in my life, not many mind you, but a few. One of them, the biggest I'd say, is books. I love, love, love opening a new book, turning the pages, really experiencing the book. Where is that with one of these e-readers? Sure you can hold 20+ books at once all in the palm of your hand, but where's the actual interaction between you and the book? It's not even just new books I love, I absolutely adore the worn down, well read half falling apart of really old books. Some of my favorite novels I have are from before I was born! Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist are pretty much falling apart on me. Master's back cover has come off completely--this does make me quite dismayed to be honest--and both of the spines are so worn from handling that you can hardly read the spine. And the smell, ah the smell. It might be weird to you guys, but working at Borders combines two of my absolute favorite smells, coffee and new books. When I buy a brand new book I usually open it up, close my eyes, and just run my thumb over the pages so they fan right into my nose!

My weird fetishes aside, I feel that by making books completely digital we're going to lose something humans have had for hundreds of years! Now I can't really bag on the whole thing either. I like to think that I try to be environmentally friendly, but lets face it, I probably have trees worth of paper just sitting on my shelves. Not to mention, as much as I love seeing my books on display, they take up loads of room. Also, from what research I've done, digital books are cheaper than their paper brethren, this makes sense since, after all, there aren't really any materials being used, and with the amount of memory we now have on computers, even a 500 page novel doesn't take much space. Of course, if you know where to look, you can get e-books for free. This is where it gets kind of iffy for me; ethically speaking I have no problem downloading music and even the occasional movie or two, but I don't know how I'd feel downloading books. It might be hypocritical on my end, so sue me I think writing a book takes much more time, effort and passion than that of a pop song or movie. And, unlike movie stars or rock stars, authors don't make nearly as much money, nor does the majority of their profits go to greedy labels. The publishers do get a cut, it's true, but it's not rape like the music industry. And, as a matter of opinion, but authors are much more humble than their media cousins, there are of course exceptions--J.K. Rowling--but the majority I can think of that aren't Opera whores or publishing whores, are pretty cool. I'll be honest, I've downloaded two books in my life time, one was Snow Crash because I was reading it at work and could not wait to find out what happened, the other was Twilight. In my defense, after I finished Snow Crash I bought it, and honestly I couldn't get through 100 pages of Twilight. Besides Stephanie Meyer is now way richer than she should be so one fluke download probably didn't hurt her much.

Ha I just thought of something, with my wide reader base, I'm sure I'll somehow get screwed and have the bored FBI agent browse my blog. If you guys don't here from me in over a month you'll know what happened!

The other downside that I've seen from these digital readers is that they're becoming more than just readers. Okay, so we live in a digital age, and most people can't live without their email or internet connection, but reading is the last refuge against the technological onslaught! People are suppose to curl up in bed or by the fire with their book and just relax, take a break from the almost overly connected world, escape! Alas both the Kindle and the Sony Reader are connected synced to the net, which is okay if all it is is to buy books, but they also have browsers. This isn't so bad for those people out there that go and read blogs and such for their news, but I dunno it just feels.. wrong. Not to mention both readers come equipped with a whole host of other features, such as mp3 capabilities, image storage, even access to radio, and I'm sure it won't be long til both are sporting a camera. When I sit down to read I want to sit down and read, not listen to music, look at pictures, or browse the internet I mean come on! Because of all this extra baggage both the Kindle and the Sony Reader fucking expensive! The Kindle rings in at a whopping $359 and the Sony Reader at a cool $399! Fuck you guys, Ipods are cheaper than that AND have more storage good lord. Everyone says that they pay for themselves quickly, this may be true after a while. I have a hard time justifying burying a $25 brand new hardcover, this is just ridiculous since you'll be at $400 BEFORE you get any books. The other problem with the pricing is that the books really aren't that great of a deal.

Lets take a look, a new mass market paperback book--that's the small ones for all you non-booknerds--is $7.99 in the store. On the Kindle you can get the same book, for $6.19 if its new, if it's somewhat older, but not too old mind you, you can go down to around $3.15. Sounds like a good deal, but consider a used book. Shit you can get most new, bestsellers at a used book store for around $2-$3 easy.. with the advent of these e-books there will never be that cheap a book again! I guess the real savings come in for hardcovers, a brand new hardcover in store will run you anywhere from $20-$35 depending on the content, a fiction usually averages out at $25.99, young adult at $19.99, and non-fiction upwards of $30. On the Kindle, brand spanking new "hardcovers" are only $9.99 from what I can tell, going up or down from there depending on the price. Once again this seems like an amazing deal, but the reason you spend that extra $15-$20 bucks on a hardcover is because you're getting a hardcover, as an e-book there's no difference between a book that's 5 years old and a book that came out this week. It's all text! So what exactly are you paying for? The fact that it's new? Brand new music on iTunes costs the same as music from the 80's and they take up more space. So really are you saving money by buying e-books? Seems more like saving space, and even then, I don't know anyone who hates the way books look on shelves, it's just one of those things everyone inherently likes. It reminds us of old times, of piece and quite, of dare I say sophistication! Granted I think it would be damn cool to have all your books in a neat little folder on your computer, saves space, saves hassle, but wtf are you suppose to do when your computer crashes. I will bet money that neither Amazon nor Sony will let you re-download the book, there'd be way too much fraud. "Oh hey, I uh, my uh computer crashed, I had like, 1000 books, can you give them back to me?" No way pal. If you think about it, books are really hard to get rid of, they're hard to move around, take up a whole hell of a lot of space, and they're heavy, it's really unlikely that you'll lose your entire library.

Now one thing I do support is what Google is doing. They're scanning in, or at least trying to, every single book ever made. It'll take ages and ages, but they have the resources and the security to back up these books that are deteriorating. Whats more is that they're letting people have these books for free. A lot of them aren't the most brand new, or best sellers right now, but you can go to books.google.com and search for books and then download them. They even have a mobile site for you psychopaths that think reading a novel on a cell phone is a good idea: books.google.com/m.

So really I don't know what to think. I love to read, and I think it's a really cool idea to have multiple books on an e-reader or computer, but I don't think it's worth the price. On the one hand you don't have the hassle of carrying books onto planes or having them take up a bunch of space in your house, but on the other they're easily lost and the reader itself is damn expensive. Not to mention all the bells and whistles that are attached to these readers, a book is a book.. not an mp3 player or photo gallery.

For now, I think it's safe to say that I won't be investing in either the Kindle or the Sony Reader, maybe if something comes out that's cheaper and really basic I'll consider it. Even then, though, I don't know how into it I will be, it's always been my dream to have a whole room that's just a library in my house.. but if there really is an e-book revolution, print books may go extinct. We'll see what the future holds I suppose.