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laylow
Guest
Forget about Pascals wager, it was just a reference.
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Cyril
Guest
How about approaching it from the point that your POV can be unseated at any time.
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MPat
Guest
OK, that looks promising… (Although the values were not chosen with that much thinking.)
So, what values would you choose?
And, of course, why?
Oh, and, to make it more simple, perhaps you should keep those same options.
And why?
Should teacher of Mathematics also “approach something from the point that POV that 2+2=4 can be unseated at any time”?
For that matter, are you arguing in such way yourself? Somehow, I don’t get such an impression.
So, no.
If I see that your position is irrational and based on feelings, and can support this view by arguments, I am going to say so. If you don’t like it, you can argue in support of your position. If you can’t argue in support of it, and can only complain that you don’t like how I didn’t see your position as worth all that much - that’s your problem, not mine.
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Cyril
Guest
Why? Because otherwise this conversation serves no purpose and you should just leave the forums.
Want to argue mathematics then sure that’s a vastly entire different tone then opinions.
What are are arguing is perception of reality. You are trying to unseat it by assuming emotional reasons which is cute but ultimately underhand and condescending. You don’t know my life or experiences and I’m also not trying to bring them to bare either to avoid personal bias and strinctly argue from a logical perspective.
Bottom line, you don’t know my emotions Mr Spook, stop trying to use them against me.
Have I tried to use your experiences against you? Assumed on your part how you see things? I listen to what you say and only used what you brought to the table here and now like a clean slate accepting how you present yourself.
I’d argue that you cant. You don’t know me and therefor can not even begin to guess what angers me or more importantly why.
So I’m supposed to feed into your flawed approach littered with logical fallacy?
No I’m sports style flagging a foul. Don’t argue like that.
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rstrats
Guest
MPat,
re: “The term will as used in Catholic philosophy, may be briefly defined as the faculty of choice…”
So does that mean that you are able to choose from a list of available options?
re: “The term will as used in Catholic philosophy, may be briefly defined as the faculty of choice…”
So does that mean that you are able to choose from a list of available options?
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MPat
Guest
Somehow, I don’t get that impression. And somehow, I don’t get an impression that you’re the referee…
As a matter of fact, I only used what you said in this thread.
To take that same example, it is obvious that if you think that mother slapping her kid because of a misunderstanding of Church doctrine somehow proves that Church is wrong, then the process by which you reach this conclusion can’t possibly be based on reason. But it can easily be based on feelings (“How dares she! And if she mentioned the Church - how dares the Church!”).
And your exaggerated reaction seems to suggest that your conscience and reason agree with me against your position.
In which case, I wish them luck.
Well, are you going to claim that you can’t?
Or that one can’t make even a partial list of options here?
Yes, we can choose among several options - being a Catholic, being an atheist. Or, alternatively, trying to act as a Catholic, trying to act as an atheist. For example, hearing a Mass on Sunday, not hearing a Mass on Sunday.
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Cyril
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So your not good at reading people over the internet that’s okay. You’ll learn eventually.
We don’t have them here but please condescend more, does great for your image.And somehow, I don’t get an impression that you’re the referee…
No, that’s why I despise the church body not why I think the church is wrong you took an example of what I said I don’t like to see and assumed on my part why and how I feel.
Again.
so I’ll say it again: STOP. TELLING. ME. HOW. I. FEEL.
Do you understand now?
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rstrats
Guest
MPat,
re: “Well, are you going to claim that you can’t?”
I said in post #45 or #46 that I’ve never been able to consciously choose any of the beliefs that I have.
re: “Or that one can’t make even a partial list of options here?”
What??? What have I written that would cause you to ask such a question?
re: “Yes, we can choose among several options - being a Catholic, being an atheist.”
Can you right now, while you are reading this, choose to be an atheist? And if so, how did you make the instantaneous change from theist to atheist?
re: “Well, are you going to claim that you can’t?”
I said in post #45 or #46 that I’ve never been able to consciously choose any of the beliefs that I have.
re: “Or that one can’t make even a partial list of options here?”
What??? What have I written that would cause you to ask such a question?
re: “Yes, we can choose among several options - being a Catholic, being an atheist.”
Can you right now, while you are reading this, choose to be an atheist? And if so, how did you make the instantaneous change from theist to atheist?
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HarryStotle
Guest
Except we have no historical evidence for Zeus ever having been charged and executed by a human tribunal for his claims to be a god or God.
Jesus, on the other hand, was tried by the Jewish Sanhedrin for blasphemy – specifically claiming he would do two actions that were reserved for God alone: coming on the clouds of heaven and sitting at the right hand of Power.
There is no credible historian of the first century who would claim Jesus wasn’t tried and executed by crucifixion. So there is that little fact you have to explain (and not explain away). Why would the Jewish leaders seek to have him executed merely for claiming to be the Messiah, if he didn’t go beyond that to claiming to be God? A blasphemous claim. And why would the Romans execute Jesus, if as Pilate concluded, there was no substantial charge based upon Roman law against him? A little puzzle you have to work out and explain.
That means you need to do more than merely assert your opinion.
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laylow
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Very true. But many people were executed during that time, that doesn’t make them God.
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MPat
Guest
Sorry, but if you didn’t notice, your wish is not my command.
So, it looks like you couldn’t make a good challenge. Let me try now.
Let’s look at this:
And I answer that I do not believe you one bit.
And now there’s a challenge. If you actually believe what you claim - that people can’t choose beliefs -, then you would have to conclude that if I do not believe you, that has to be all your fault for not offering sufficiently persuasive evidence, arguments and the like. Or, perhaps, you’d conclude that it is no one’s fault (and that there is nothing left to do here).
Alternatively, you can decide that I should have believed what you said. Which, of course, is going to be irrational, if you really believe what you claim to believe.
So, that’s the challenge. I even gave you the right answer. It shouldn’t be hard.
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goout
Guest
But we know that life is not safe, starting with the reality of death.
So the question needs to address more than safety, cause life is not.
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HarryStotle
Guest
Not quite the point.
He was executed, specifically, for claiming to be God. Ergo, he thought of himself as God. And he wasn’t just some ordinary guy.
That is not quite the same thing as just anyone claiming to be God, because his claim has to be assessed in light of a great deal of other historical data including Old Testament prophesies, the Gospel testimonies, the Resurrection claims, historical growth of the Church, and a whole lot of other corroborating evidence.
It wasn’t just that some guy went around claiming to be God, but that this guy, Jesus, in particular, did.
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laylow
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Not necessarily. Many scholars, including renown ones do not believe the historical Jesus claimed to be God. He was crucified because he called himself the Messiah.
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HarryStotle
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Sorry, that doesn’t hold up.HarryStotle:
Not necessarily. Many scholars, including renown ones do not believe the historical Jesus claimed to be God. He was crucified because he called himself the Messiah.
The Jews were awaiting their Messiah in the first century, according to the prophecies of Daniel. It wouldn’t have made sense for them to have their own Messiah crucified.
As Brant Pitre points out, if Jesus was crucified merely for claiming to be the Messiah, the anointed King of Israel, that would not be a good way for the Jews to greet their long-awaited, divinely ordained, king – their anointed one, or Mashiach who would restore the kingdom of Israel.
There had to be another reason, and that reason was that he claimed to be God.
What was that law?
Jesus wasn’t crucified for claiming to be the Messiah, he claimed to be God in a number of ways.
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laylow
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Precisely, the Romans crucified Jesus, not the Jews. Later Christians made the Gospels more anti-Jewish and tried to make Pilate look more and more innocent. John, being the latest is more extreme in this portrayal.
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tafan2
Guest
I have not read the whole thread in detail, sorry about that, but there seems to be two lines of thinking being argued: 1) It is not useful today because there are so many religions and 2) When he wrote it, there was effectively one choice of religion in France and that was Catholicism, so he did not need to address that. Both are wrong.
First of all, when he wrote it, the Reformation was in full swing, Calvinism was rampant among the nobility of French society (not the monarchy), the Hugenot wars were about to take place. This was the setting. So there were multiple religions to choose from. He did not ignore this fact. Even with respect to Gods.
The Wager was one of his notes that was found in his desk, after he died, that were intended to be the bases of a book on Christianity he was writing. These were posthumously published as the Pensees, the proper ordering and numbering has been debated forever.
Nevertheless, if one considers the Wager by itself, one can say that it suffers from a problem of not providing a choice of Christianity. But why does anyone do that? Unfortunately its been done for centuries.
If one reads the Pensees, one will only conclude that it is referring to the Catholic faith. As the wager was part of that expected book, he certainly provides the answer of where one should go: the Catholic Church.
Furthermore, in the wager itself he talks about “taking holy water, saying masses, etc”. All of which would have not been done by Protestants (or Muslims), so he obviously considered the question of “which faith” would have been settled in his expected book before anyone reached the Wager.
Anyone who simply says:
Brittany:
(sorry Brittany, I just selected your post as one of many that would have been viable, not meaning to single you out)
Furthermore, if one reads the whole Pensees, it becomes very difficult to reject the Wager. I would best most people who read the Wager in its larger context are only able to reject the Wager if they reject Christianity all together.
First of all, when he wrote it, the Reformation was in full swing, Calvinism was rampant among the nobility of French society (not the monarchy), the Hugenot wars were about to take place. This was the setting. So there were multiple religions to choose from. He did not ignore this fact. Even with respect to Gods.
The Wager was one of his notes that was found in his desk, after he died, that were intended to be the bases of a book on Christianity he was writing. These were posthumously published as the Pensees, the proper ordering and numbering has been debated forever.
Nevertheless, if one considers the Wager by itself, one can say that it suffers from a problem of not providing a choice of Christianity. But why does anyone do that? Unfortunately its been done for centuries.
If one reads the Pensees, one will only conclude that it is referring to the Catholic faith. As the wager was part of that expected book, he certainly provides the answer of where one should go: the Catholic Church.
Furthermore, in the wager itself he talks about “taking holy water, saying masses, etc”. All of which would have not been done by Protestants (or Muslims), so he obviously considered the question of “which faith” would have been settled in his expected book before anyone reached the Wager.
Anyone who simply says:
is really doing themselves a big disfavor. The question is not whether you reject the Wager, it might work for some to find God and it might not work for others, but whether you reject the Pensees. These, I can assure you are very valuable for anyone to read.
(sorry Brittany, I just selected your post as one of many that would have been viable, not meaning to single you out)
Furthermore, if one reads the whole Pensees, it becomes very difficult to reject the Wager. I would best most people who read the Wager in its larger context are only able to reject the Wager if they reject Christianity all together.
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HarryStotle
Guest
Sorry, your analysis doesn’t hold up and, in addition, you have to add your unsupported assertion that the later Christians doctored the Gospels, which also is an unsubstantiated claim.HarryStotle:
Precisely, the Romans crucified Jesus, not the Jews. Later Christians made the Gospels more anti-Jewish and tried to make Pilate look more and more innocent. John, being the latest is more extreme in this portrayal.
The Romans were in the habit of executing not just the leader of a band of rebels, but would also round up all the followers and execute them.
If Jesus was, indeed, executed for sedition or treason against the Empire, Pilate would have rounded up his disciples and executed them, as well. He didn’t.
The fact that Pilate specifically said, “… I find no crime in him…” means Pilate didn’t determine any seditious charges against Jesus, and the fact that he didn’t execute anyone else means Pilate didn’t take seriously the allegations against Jesus as a “king.” He mockingly posted the sign – King of the Jews – above Jesus’ head to rub the noses of the Sanhedrin in their ridiculous claim.
What Pilate was worried about was the Sanhedrin fomenting a riot if he didn’t execute Jesus. That would have been an issue for Pilate who wasn’t exactly in Tiberius’ good books by this time. In fact, Pilate was later summoned to Rome when he mishandled a small uprising in Samaria and Jewish leaders complained. As reported by Josephus:
.
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laylow
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I generalized it in a sentence or two, it would take an entire book to explain the details. Asserting the Gospels were doctored is no more unsubstantiated than saying they were divinely inspired. In actuality there is evidence of doctoring and plenty of it, while there is no evidence of divine intervention. That is theology, not history.
The analysis holds plenty of merit. Read some of Bart Ehrman’s scholarship, he explains it in detail.
Of course we will disagree. I side with the scholars that believe that John has many historical problems. Most of your citations are from John, which can be characterized (generally) as a theological Gospel, not a historical one.
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tafan2
Guest
rstrats, As I did a quick scan of this thread, I do not believe you post was given a proper answer, I would like to try.
Let’s start with the fact that certainly faith is a gift from God. I do not want anything I say to sound as if I do not believe that. But it is a gift that will be given to anyone who asks for it.
So how do we come to believe enough to ask for that gift? I believe there are two parts to this: the first is obtaining an intellectual assent to the faith. The level of what this takes varies from person to person. The Pensee were explicitly written for this purpose, an apology for Christianity.
The second (and this is also part of asking for the faith) is to a large extent, our actions control our beliefs. Perhaps more so than our beliefs controlling our actions, IMO. The more we practice the faith, the stronger our belief becomes.
Notice how Pascal, in order to achieve this faith, says we should “do as we see others do, take holy water, have masses said, etc”. On top of that, note how he says “have masses said”, he does not say “attend masses”. The Wager, like all of the Pensees were just his notes, so it might be somewhat dangerous to speculate on what he would have finally written in his book, but I have always been struck by this. Why say “have masses said” instead of “attend masses” unless he intended for the mass to be said for a particular intention. And that intention was likely for one’s faith.
Hope that helps.
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