Why Heaven Exists (Or, 'How I Take All Your Chips Away in Poker')
Offline For those of you who play Texas Hold 'Em:
Ever notice how often it is that when it's your turn for the Big Blind, and you want to see what the flop is, some asshole like me always somehow winds-up with all your chips sitting at his disposal?
Ever wonder what that has to do with the existence of Heaven?
Allow me to elaborate:
In poker, if you're the Death Star, the Big Blind is your thermal ventilation shaft. It's the point where you're at your weakest, because A) it's where you're forced to make your largest, zero-judgement investment, and B) because you're automatically throwing chips into the middle of the table, you get a false sense of security regarding your ability to see the flop. You're on Big Blind, so why not - of course you'll meet any bids to see what lands.
It happens all the time. People get an 'okay' hand on a Big Blind, but not a big points hand, and they'll start meeting small raises. Just a few chips here or there - and the bigger the pile gets, the more reluctant they become to back-off. They want to protect their investment! Sometimes they'll even up the ante, trying to bluff their way out of it - but it's often too late. They gave away their secret several bids ago when they only met raises in kind.
Before they even know what happened, all of their money is inexplicably sitting in the center of the table, and they're in a cold sweat on the river, hoping against hope that, against all odds, they somehow take the pot with a bad beat.
Christians: The church you go to every Sunday? They're doing the same thing with your judgement that people like me do with your poker chips.
They typically get you when you're young, naive and unable to make an appropriately informed decision about investing time and energy into their activities. They put a prize in front of you - Heaven - and force you to make initially small, but ever-growing investments in your judgement and resources in order to claim that prize. You structure your life according to the pious rules, you attend service, you give prayers... pretty soon, most of your chips are in. You don't want to let reason and rationality fold you out of this hand, because you've already invested so much. 'Why lose it? I've got to protect that investment!''
The thing is, you're not holding the right cards. There's no prize you'll ever be collecting. What you've already thrown away already is just that - thrown away. The best thing for you to do at this point is cut your losses and move on with the game. There are other pots you can happily collect on, afterall.
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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Good analogy Kevin, I sometimes think my mom knows that God is a joke, but the church is a hugely influential social outlet to her. The ante and subsequent investment is too great to reconsider anything about it. I kind of want to have talks with her about this stuff, but I think if I succeeded it might actually do more harm than good, kind of like the people who die from detoxing. Eventhough the drug is ultimately bad, the effects of disusing the drug can sometimes be more substantial than the effects of the drug itself. I know this isn't a compelling argument to rationally believe, but it is a fairly compassionate argument. She doesn't really force her beliefs on me anymore, but, it would be nice if I could get her to let go of theism. IDK. Hope this response doesn't hijack your thread.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
yeah , who owns the carrot .... owns you , fuck that .... nothing owns me ... I AM GOD
AS YOU
Atheism Books.
Nice one Kevin.I think most ex-christians here will agree that the waste of time and energy is something they were mad about when deconverting. And as we were discussing the other day,prayer, church etc do become habits,and it is actually hard to stop after awhile.
I knoww there are some here that deconverted at a relatively old age,but I'd wager this is why we see very few middle aged and over deconvertees. When you've invested that much of your life in it,it's gonna take alot to get you to just give it all up. ave to admit,good job of brainwashing on the church's part.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
There's also the added poetry that it's called the "Big Blind".
When our theists "friends" use Pascal wager to argue for "belief" in Gawd, isn't this trying to bluff the dealer that knows what cards he's already dealt to everyone? A suckers bet if there ever was one.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
WTF is the big blind, for those of us who don't play?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_(poker)
I get it now. not believing in a god makes you PWN at poker. no wonder I've been cleaning people out.
joking aside, that was a kick ass explanation. I'll have to use it next time I'm arguing theism with someone.
edit: this thing doesn't seem to want to post the link to the wiki article in full, so you'll have co cut/paste the '(poker)' part into your address bar on your browser.
When god gives you lemons you FIND A NEW GOD 1 Thessalonians 5:21
<My art> <not my art><MS>
Read it but I know so little about the game I didn't understand the article really.
In Texas Hold 'Em, there are two 'blind bets', or bets that you MUST wager or forfeit the game on, that are passed around the table: The Big Blind and the Small Blind.
'Big Blind' is (obviously) the larger of the two (It's typically twice the size of the Small Blind).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I don't play Texas Hold 'em, and I don't get the Big Blind thing, but I do like your explanation of the gradual increase in commitment. This is one of the reasons it's so hard for many people to leave religion, even when they know it's a lie. They're so invested, and it's such a huge part of their life, they can't imagine living any other way.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
In the 'Hold 'em' varieties of Poker (and there is more than just Texas), instead of every player putting in their ante at the beginning of each hand, only 2 are required to ante in. One of these puts in the baseline bet, or 'small blind' (ie: the smaller of the two blind bets), while the other puts in double that amount, or 'big blind' (bigger of the two blind bets). Each hand, the position of the 'blinds' rotates around the table so that in theory, everyone antes in consistently. In pure forms, each time the blind completes the circuit, it should increase, as well, so as to slowly weed out weaker players.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
Greetings,
I like your analogy pretty well. I'm pretty fervent and zealous in my belief that nearly all organized religion is despicable and even blasphemous. A true God would want people who do not make themselves slaves to ignorant, foolish men. God would want us all to act in the utmost of good ways, using our reasoning to derive ethics instead of ANYTHING else. Try telling the average theist this in a respectful way? You usually won't get very far. (At all!)
I'll also use your analogy most likely, and I'm a theist. (I'm the scholarly type, researching all religions and keeping what I like and what is good and wise.) I went to a Catholic school (I know, misery, definitely) and it was amazing to see people be as hateful as possible because they were raised by assholes without a moral compass AND without a sense of free will. /rant
It is said the great ones catch teardrops in their hands.