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NY Times

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pete-enns/3-ways-jesus-read-the-bib_b_5902534.html

Gary Cutting NYTimes The Stone

D.G.: Centuries of discussion have certainly not led to a consensus about the arguments. But we cannot forget that at some times in the past, there was a general consensus that God exists, and, perhaps, a general (though not universal) consensus that some of the arguments, for example the argument from a first cause, are correct. The question is really why arguments that were once convincing have lost their power, something that is true of many arguments from the history of philosophy.

G.G.: Wanting to believe in God suggests Pascal’s wager argument, which remains for many the most appealing case for religious belief. What do you think about it?

D.G.: Formally, the argument has many well-known flaws, though it also has its friends. Even knowing the flaws, I do find myself somewhat moved by it. The reason is that at the core of the argument there are some very compelling intuitions. Basically, the argument turns on the idea that if there is a God, and we believe in him, we then have a shot at eternal happiness. If God doesn’t exist, then we are stuck in this very finite and imperfect life, whether we believe in him or not. So, it would seem, for all sorts of reasons, we should want to believe in him. The problem (perhaps insuperable) is taking these plausible considerations and turning them into a genuine argument.

But the real worry about the argument comes at a later moment, I think. It is important to remember that Pascal’s wager it isn’t an argument for the truth of the proposition that God exists, but an argument for why we should want to believe that God exists: It only tells us that it is to our advantage to believe, and in this way makes us want to believe, but it doesn’t give us any reasons to think that God actually exists. In a way, I’m already convinced that I shouldwant to believe. But there is a step from there to actual belief, and that’s a step I cannot personally negotiate. Pascal tells us, roughly, that we should adopt the life of the believer and eventually the belief will come. And maybe it will. But that seems too much like self-deception to me.

NY Times

One recent study on women competing at the 2011 track and field world championships found that 7 in 1,000 elite track and field athletes had hyperandrogenism and some blend of male and female anatomical characteristics. That’s 140 times more than expected in the general population.

NY Times

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/10/05/leaving-the-family-faith-behind/

Main link Mother of God

Aeon

‘At our current rate of technological growth, humanity is on a path to be godlike in its capabilities,’ Musk told me. ‘You could bicycle to Alpha Centauri in a few hundred thousand years, and that’s nothing on an evolutionary scale. If an advanced civilisation existed at any place in this galaxy, at any point in the past 13.8 billion years, why isn’t it everywhere? Even if it moved slowly, it would only need something like .01 per cent of the Universe’s lifespan to be everywhere. So why isn’t it?’

Musk has a more sinister theory. ‘The absence of any noticeable life may be an argument in favour of us being in a simulation,’ he told me. ‘Like when you’re playing an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can’t ever get there. If it’s not a simulation, then maybe we’re in a lab and there’s some advanced alien civilisation that’s just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mould in a petri dish.’ Musk flipped through a few more possibilities, each packing a deeper existential chill than the last, until finally he came around to the import of it all. ‘If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilisations, and I mean strange in a bad way,’ he said. ‘And it could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilisations.’

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