The Will To Believe - **

Pascal's Wager: A passage exhorting the reader to believe in God, because if he exists and you don't believe in him, you go to hell - conversely, if you believe in him and he doesn't exist, any worldly loss you may suffer pales in comparison to the infinite gain you'd have if he had existed.
-- the book goes on to say that this is only compelling as long as the God mentioned represents that of your culture's underlying faith: replace God with Allah and see how quickly people reject the implied premises in their entirety.

"Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace or private pleasure of the believer. . . If a belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence, even if it be true, the pleasure is a stolen one." -- Clifford

"Here in this room, we all of us believe in molecules and the conservation of energy, in democracy and necessary progress, all for no reasons worthy of the name. We see into these matters with no more inner clearness, and probably with much less, than any disbeliever might possess." Should he believe, "his unconventionality would probably have some grounds upon which to show its conclusions; but for us, not insight, but the /prestige/ of these opinions is what sparks our faith."

"Our reason is quite satisfied, 999 times out of 1000, if it can find a few arguments to recite in case our credulity is challenged by someone else. Our faith is faith in someone else's faith."

The characteristic happiness philosophies yield has mainly consisted in the conviction felt by each successive school or system that by it, bottom-certitude has been attained. "Other philosophies are collections of opinions, mostly false; MY philosophy gives standing-ground forever," - who doesn't recognize this in the key-notes of every system worthy of the name?

The greatest empiricists among us are only empricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.

No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon.
-- One word: Mathematics. 2 and 2 is undisputably, unmistakably 4 to anyone who can count.
-- Action is also truth. If I move a ball from point A to point B, I did that. Convincing someone of this, however, is another story - there'll always be other explanations for how that ball moved from Point A to Point B.

He who says "Better to go without belief forever than believe a lie!" shows his own private horror of becoming a dupe.
-- Beliefs can mask fears. The most obvious example of this is racism.

The most useful investigator is he whose eager interest in one side of a question is balanced by an equally keen fear of deception.

Faith can act on the powers out of one's control as a claim of sorts, and can create its own verification.
Examples: self-promoters, positive thinkers, passionate lovers

A social organism is what it is because each member does his duty with a trust that the others will do theirs. Whenever such an organism achieves anything, it's due to the faith its members have in each other.

A trainful of passengers will be looted by highwaymen simply because the latter can count on each other, whereas the passengers cannot. If they could, they would each rise, and train-robbing would not even be attempted.
-- post-9/11 - the gung-ho attitudes of American airline passengers mentally prepared to fight plane hijackers.

"Where faith in a fact can help create the fact, the logic of refusing to believe before scientific evidence has arisen is insane."
-- Um, faith doesn't create facts. It helps one prove the hypotheses one believes in, which may -- or may not -- translate into facts. No matter how strong his conviction is, the man who has faith that he can win a woman won't always win her.

"To preach skepticism to us as a duty until 'sufficient evidence' for religion be found is tantamount to telling us that when in the presence of a religious hypothesis, to yield to our fear of its being erroneous is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true."
-- Okay, the way I see it, religions are characterized by two things: the creators' presumption to know the will and workings of the universe, and the requirement that its followers must have faith in its doctrines, principles, and practices for the religion to be effective. Both of these points are so far beyond the boundaries of what logic tells us of reality that anyone even vaguely acquainted with critical thinking or skepticism will demand that these assertions be proved. By the very nature of religious hypotheses - i.e., they require belief in the two aforementioned premises - I'd say that elevating the hope that they may be true to a primary consideration, to be balanced against our fear of their being erroneous (which stems from the ridiculousness of the above statements), is a fallacy. Blind hope is no substitute for critical thinking skills. The "facts" faith can create don't extend as far as to include "There is one God and Mohammed (Jesus) is his prophet".

"I, therefore, cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do this for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule."
-- Last I checked, agnostics are the people who believe that the jury's out on religion until exactly that kind of truth is found. The author may be thinking of athiests, but I guarantee that if such truth were to be found - if God manifested himself or his favor in ways replicateable in everyday life, ways not subject to conjecture, and would did so on demand, that'd take care of all but the most die-hard athiests.

"If we are empiricists, if we believe that no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasps, then it seems a piece of idle fantasticality to preach so solemnly our duty of waiting for the bell."
-- Here, he confuses the issue by bringing up his earlier point - that there is no concrete test of what is really true - and uses it to question the wisdom of requiring absolute proof of religion's validity. While he's correct that there is no "bell" which rings in the presence of 100% truth, I don't believe the nihilistic concession this forces serves the purpose of invalidating the process by which people come to an understanding of "truth". No logical thinker's "bell" should ring when confronted with the illogical, fantistical, and ultimately unproveable propositions religion presents. The idea of millions of people being driven into cognitive dissonance by the sound of "bells" ringing across the globe speaks volumes regarding the prestige religion holds.