I know I should not post reaction-posts here. But this is Truly Horrifying in more than one way.
Did they not even investigate your claim? Or did they just settle with labeling you a crackpot conspiracy theorist?
Did they not even investigate your claim? Or did they just settle with labeling you a crackpot conspiracy theorist?
They kind of settled half way between "I don't believe that's possible / I don't care".
For them, it makes zero difference in their lives, so they just don't want to invest time and energy into thinking about it.
While still billions of people believe in Allah, God or whatever without any evidence. I dont know how this can happen...
Isn't it obvious? In both cases people do the smart thing (which is not necessarily the "objectively correct" thing).
Faith in Allah, God etc, is a good social glue, and is personally comforting, helping regulate emotions, etc.
Similarly, not believing the Snowden story helps them fit with their social group (e.g. republicans), relaxes their mind from a whole lot of worries and concerns, helps re-enforce their personal beliefs (e.g. in good government), etc -- and most importantly, has no real disadvantage in their day to day life and work...
The leaks about mass-surveillance don't fit the criteria, as best I can tell. It's in their best interests not to, as you state.
You can very well waste all your life in pointless prayer, like the monk who basically imprinted his feet on the wooden floor by praying several hours a day for decades.
Even getting out of that room to help someone in a trivial task would have been much more useful than the praying.
Not to mention the huge amount of censorship over your own thoughts that some religions impose on your life.
So, IMO, if you get the wrong end of Pascal's wager, you can waste your only life, every infinitely valuable second of it (because there's no afterlife), over a non-existent afterlife.
That's a hell of a wager to lose.