Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is author of
The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life, of
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, of
Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, of
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and of
Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More, and is editor of
Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients. She has been a public speaker for many years, and many of her talks can be seen on YouTube. Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including
Everything You Know About God Is Wrong and three volumes of
Best American Erotica. (Any views she expresses in this blog are solely hers, and do not necessarily represent this organizations.) She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid. You can email her at gretachristina (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow her on
Facebook.
Who’s to say that God, if he existed, would reward syncophantic worship over independent, inquiring, sceptical thought anyway?
As someone who does believe in God, I cringe anytime I hear Pascal’s Wager used as an attempt to convince people to become religious.
Of course, this has to do with my own beliefs, which I think are reasonable, but it basically boils down to thinking that, as an omnipotent being, God would know the hearts of those before him anyway, so insincere belief would be seen as such.
Of course, I also believe that people won’t be punished for the beliefs they hold, as there is no certainty in religion. As I like to say, God gave us reason, he must expect us to use it.
And yes, I know that doesn’t take into account all the other religions you would have to decide between, making it more of a longshot than playing the odds, as Pascal’s Wager would have people believe.
I enjoy the AMOTD, but honestly I’ve had this weird dislike for the tag on the end- “Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.” I don’t know, it seems… redundant?
well and succinctly stated. I am fond of using the abusive parent/spouse analogy since it works so very well for religion and their gods.