Wrestling with Religion

Even if we accept the possibility of a God that dispenses an infinite jackpot for belief and withholds it for disbelief, Pascal’s Wager--his argument that it is infinitely more lucrative to believe in his God than not to--is reasonable only absent the possibility of another God offering the opposite payoff. Here are some possibilities: (1) a God who rewards reasonable disbelief and punishes gullibility or (2) a God who insists that we make specific theological choices (such as Baal vs. YHWH, Catholic vs. protestant, Christian vs. Muslim) and rewards only the correct choice. The possibility of even one such Being creates an opposing infinity and invalidates Pascal's Wager.  Belief in a generic supreme being also seems not to be enough. The priests of Baal (who competed with Elijah to call down fire from heaven and were slaughtered for it) believed their god was more powerful than Elijah's Yahweh, whom Pascal identifies with the true God, so if all that is required is beli...

Until late in WWII, infantry firearms fell into three categories: heavy machine guns requiring two operators; long-range rifles, either bolt-action or semi-automatic, with offset stocks requiring re-aiming between shots; and pistols or light machine guns spitting out light rounds with limited range. One of Nazi Germany’s many military innovations was the first assault rifle, the StG 44. It was lighter than previous rifles and incorporated three innovations: a select-fire switch converting it to a machine gun, an in-line barrel limiting barrel rise, and a mid-size round with medium range. A single weapon that could pinch-hit for all three categories. A young Soviet inventor named Mikail Kalashnikov combined these innovations with features from the American M1 and created the Automatic Kalashnikov rifle, or AK-47, named for the year it was adopted by the Soviets. In the more than 70 years since its invention, this rifle and its upgrades have been wildly successful. Kalashnikovs ...