I took an (accelerated) business program without being interested in the field, and I'm not ashamed. Back there and then, you needed a letter of commerce in order to run your own business. or pay someone to be on the letterhead, which was something I'd never do.

It was torturous - coming from an engineering background, I could not appreciate how my fellow students and the teachers struggled with basic maths, and never grasped concepts such as that the order of factors don't matter, or doing compound interest calculations on an easier number (like 1) and multiply afterwards.
The only worthwhile classes were "Technical English" (nothing technical about it at all) and the elective "Touch Typing". I would have taken stenography, but too few students had signed up.

No, the cheapest way is to buy a cheap router or access point. No, you won't get a video port, but you'll get more RAM, persistant storage, multiple ethernet ports and other advantages, like a case and power supply.

It doesn't. However, what was "before" (which is a difficult concept given that our interpretation of time couldn't exist at the big bang) can not have any influence on or bearing on the universe after, so it's completely irrelevant. To us, whether it was another universe, nothing at all, or an endless line of pink copulating bunnies makes no difference - we can never even catch a glimpse of it without breaking the laws of this universe.
This means that a god's potential existence before the universe appeared is also irrelevant to this universe, unless you want to believe in a god who can and will make 1 equal to 2.

Minor things? That depends on which side of the fence you look from, I should think. If the president had said "No, I don't know that Christians should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation free from God", if believers in a God were barred from holding high office in seven states, and Jews, Moslems and Amish were not allowed to wear their clothing, I believe you no longer would call it "minor things".

A bachelor's degree doesn't make one a mathematician.

She's a teacher. Which NSA might want too, if she's young and healthy enough, that is. It's illegal to discriminate against someone based on their age or handicap, except if you are a government TLA. And, of course, provided she's willing to work for such an organization.

I'd think it depends on whether the degree is backed by an interest or not. Some people get degrees because they think it is the smart or right thing to do, not because they love the field.

If she got the degrees because she really wanted to teach and thought that kids needed maths more than other fields, or because there is a greater shortage of teachers in the science fields, then I don't think it's a wise thing for her to pursue a job where maths theory and application is a great asset.
If it's what she loves, on the other hand, go for the master's degree and join higher academia - or the IT industry.

I think fear of death is the main motivating factor. They take Pascal's wager.

I also think (but don't know) that a majority of the "believers" don't truly believe, but honestly wish that they will before they die, so the wager will be valid. And precisely because they don't believe, they have such a strong urge to defend their chosen religion, so no one sees through their deception.

Like mathematics, which came from Arabs and India (while Christian merchants still had problems adding and subtracting using Roman numerals, and hired Arabs and Jews as accountants), Indians and Chinese did advanced calculus.
Like philosophy, which came from the Greek?
Like Galileo who was forced to refute his discoveries?

If anything, Christianity has been a clog in the gears of progress, and Western civilization has progressed despite of and not because of it.

True, but in the deist camp, every single one has proven themselves to be irrational. In the other camp, it's just a possibility.

Would this be the Hitler who sent soldiers to war with the slogan "Gott mit uns"? The same one who said "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord"?

Or perhaps he wasn't a True Scotsman?