Why is Python popular, while Lisp and Scheme aren't?

[Laura Creighton]

> 
> P.S. I think I've mentioned this analogy before, but I guess I will
> again.  Slavoj Zizek discusses Pascal's Wager.  To wit:  Pascal argues
> that belief in God/Xtianity is a good way of playing the odds:  if
> you are wrong, you were foolish during life, then you are dust; if you
> are right, eternal salvation and all that (yeah, I know the flaws in the
> probabalistic argument).  But Zizek claims that the naive understanding
> misses Pascal's reversal:  No one who does not already believe will be
> convinced by the Wager as an argument... rather the Wager makes profound
> sense to those who -already believe-.

> ---[ Postmodern Enterprises <mertz at gnosis.cx> ]--------------------------

Ian Hacking in _The Emergence of Probability_ claims that Zizek has
it precisely backwards.  This is because, as Pascal sees it, you either
act with complete indifference to God, or you act in such a way that you
will, in due course, believe in his existence and his edicts.  Pascal
accepts as a piece of human nature that belief is catching: if you go
along with pious people, give up bad habits, follow a life of 'holy water
and sacraments' intended to 'supefy one' into belief, you will become
a believer.  Thus the two possible acts are not 'Believe in God' and
'Do Not Believe',  but to Act (or not to Act) in such a way that you will
very probably come to believe in the existence of God. 

Relevance?  It sounds to me as if in 'desiring to like LISP' but
disliking the brackets, you are akin to a person who professes as
desire to like 'Eternal Life and Personal Salvation' -- but finds
'getting up before noon on Sundays and going to the Church' too much
to ask <wink>.

Laura Creighton