If an asteroid was on a collision course with the earth and you had one hour left to live what would you do in your last 60 minutes?
The majority of Britons (54%) questioned in a survey, according to Reuters, said they would like to spend it either with or on the phone to their loved ones.
But the survey also revealed a strong hedonistic streak. 13 percent would sit back, accept the inevitable and reach for a glass of champagne. Two percent would start looting. That one I really don’t get.
Sex appealed to nine percent.
But here’s the kicker. Just three percent said they would turn to prayer. There is something clearly wrong in Great Britain. I mean, forget about even the religious aspect of it. Think logically, Britons!
This moment is Pascal’s Wager crystallized. You have one hour to live. If you use use just that one little hour to pray even if you’ve never prayed before you have the possibility of eternity in Heaven. If you don’t pray you can get one good solid hour of sex, drinking, and looting but put yourself at risk of damnation of the eternal variety. One hour of pleasure vs. eternal damnation. Hmmm…logically this isn’t even close. Clearly, Great Britain’s school system needs to focus more time on classes in religious thought as well as logic.
October 16, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I would take the whole family to confession, do our penance, and THEN kick back with a nice glass of wine and watch the fireworks once we were all in a state of grace.
Actually, I guess the really GOOD thing to do would be to spemd the rest of the time praying for the salvation of more souls…
But maybe we could pray WHILE we had the wine? =)
October 16, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Sorry Dierdre,
Confession is only on Saturday from 4:30-4:35. Otherwise, make an appointment for some time after doomsday.
October 16, 2007 at 5:43 pm
The only problem with that is I’m pretty bad. My confession would probably last at least an hour.
October 16, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I would be praying on my way to higher ground.
Having just re-read Niven/Pournelle’s excellent Lucifer’s Hammer this is a timely question.
October 16, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Pascal’s wager wouldn’t necessarily work out that way, of course.
One needs to take into account the estimated probabilities that different points of view are correct. If one presumes that heaven is a certain amount better than the other options, and that there exists a religion that will get one there, and the probability of choosing the right one is well defined, and the probability of an hour of prayer will get one through those pearly gates… then consider the alternatives… the probability that there is hell, for instance, or the probability of nothingness, and the pleasure that could be had in the last hour…
if one rates the probability of achieving heaven as low and the advantage it offers limited, but the probability of nothingness high, and the value of temporal pleasure high, at some point it simply isn’t worth it to ‘invest’ for an unsure return of questionable value against what one can have, here and now.
It’s still pascal’s wager, but its on the NY lottery. The brits are just expressing their own values, while pascal only had one option to consider (Christianity) and a limited number of churches, and was presuming that the cost of orthodoxy was moderate but the cost of hell is high and the reward of heaven is high.
October 16, 2007 at 10:03 pm
dude,
that kind of talk might get you a “B” on a college paper but it doesn’t mean anything other than that you don’t believe in religion.
October 17, 2007 at 12:43 am
I don’t think that Pascal or his wager would even occur to a large number of Brits (or Europeans, or American or…) because they do not consider really important issues at any level beyond the most superficial. Many are educated, but very few are wise.