Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] More on Pascal's wager [was: Famous atheistchanges his mind]

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

It seems that these discussions create a lot less heat than they used 
to.  Or perhaps it was the politics rather than the religion that got 
people excited.

Mike Miller wrote:
 >
> My sister has a list of experiences of this kind.  Once, when her car 
> wouldn't start, she prayed for help, then turned the key and the car 
> started.  She then showed the car to a religious mechanic friend of hers 
> and he told her that it should have been impossible for the car to have 
> started based on his impressions of the car's mechanical problems.  This 
> kind of story has no effect on me.  People see what they want to see and 
> believe what they want to believe.  Their memories are distorted by 
> their wishes.  They willingly suspend their critical faculties so that 
> they can enjoy the pleasure of sharing an inspiring story.

One of the stories like this that inspires me is the story of Joan of 
Arc.  This young woman, born of poor means in a small village in France, 
was almost completely responsible for the reversing of the English 
invasion of France, which had began in the mid 1300's, and was 
succussfully continuing through the early 1400's until Joan came along.

She claimed to have heard voices sent from God that she was to lead 
France to put the French King back on the throne.  At first people were 
sceptical (and indeed today it sounds like schizophrenia) but her 
predictions all proved true.  So she was put in charge of the army, and 
led them from one victory to another.

Finally she was captured by the pro-English French (again something she 
predicted).  They put her on trial for herecy and cavorting with Satan. 
  Presumably had they found the stories of her miracles unsound, they 
would have rather have denounced her as a fraud.  But they could not, 
and so they tried to pin her success upon Satan rather than God.  It is 
because of this trial, and the many witnesses who were brought forth, 
that her story is so well documented today.

They got the best theologians from Paris to quiz her over several days, 
but without any help from council, this uneducated girl was able to 
provide unimpeachable answers to their questions.  Finally in 
desperation they got her on "cross-dressing" (because she often dressed 
like a man for modesty's sake, and to avoid rape) and thus sentenced her 
to burn at the stake.  Being brought to the execution overwhelmed her, 
and she recanted, but a week later retracted her recantation.  She was 
burned at the stake, and cried out to Jesus as the flames consumed her. 
  Some years later it was decided that this trial was a complete fraud, 
and she became a "Saint" of the Roman Church.



There is much in this story that would appeal to the theistic 15th 
century folk, who much like myself had this tendency to attribute the 
many events of life to the hand of God working (like my interpretation 
of the hurricane and tornado that drove the British from sacking 
Washington D.C. in 1814).  But I feel that even if modern atheists and 
agnostics would study the well documented story of Joan of Arc, that 
they might find many mysteries within it.

This one woman is probably responsible for driving England out of 
France, and had she not done so there is no doubt in my mind that our 
present history would be very very different - for example, I think that 
the present day USA would be completely different in a manner that 
cannot at all be predicted.

Stephen
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