T
- Status
I
In_Spiration
Guest
hecd2,
Thanks once again for the thoughtful replies. I skimmed them briefly for now, and I may take somewhat longer to give my response. I’ve currently got some outside obligations pressing my time, so please hang tight either until they’re taken care of or (more likely) until I rationalize some solid procrastination effort (see: right now).
Thanks once again for the thoughtful replies. I skimmed them briefly for now, and I may take somewhat longer to give my response. I’ve currently got some outside obligations pressing my time, so please hang tight either until they’re taken care of or (more likely) until I rationalize some solid procrastination effort (see: right now).
Just nitpicking: Flew claimed to accept God on the basis of theoretical, rational argument, and he actually denied any belief in an afterlife, so I don’t think his conversion is as relevant as you suggest here. (I mainly point this out because I was reading Ed Feser’s The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheists today [good book, btw], and your interpretation is explicitly rejected in ch.1 by the author.)
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
In Spiration
Just nitpicking: Flew claimed to accept God on the basis of theoretical, rational argument, and he actually denied any belief in an afterlife, so I don’t think his conversion is as relevant as you suggest here.
Yes, I think you are nitpicking.
I didn’t say he became a Christian. I said that he became a theist. Read my post again. The title of his last book is, “There Is A God.” At the end of that book, as I recall, he indicates a correspondence is going on between him and an Anglican bishop about the divinity of Christ. So he certainly had to be interested in an afterlife at that point. In the book you cited, does it document whether he died with or without faith in an afterlife? It would be interesting to know if there is any certainty about that.
Just nitpicking: Flew claimed to accept God on the basis of theoretical, rational argument, and he actually denied any belief in an afterlife, so I don’t think his conversion is as relevant as you suggest here.
Yes, I think you are nitpicking.
I didn’t say he became a Christian. I said that he became a theist. Read my post again. The title of his last book is, “There Is A God.” At the end of that book, as I recall, he indicates a correspondence is going on between him and an Anglican bishop about the divinity of Christ. So he certainly had to be interested in an afterlife at that point. In the book you cited, does it document whether he died with or without faith in an afterlife? It would be interesting to know if there is any certainty about that.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Pascal’s wager is fundamentally an act of willing, as opposed to unwilling, surrender to God. If it is a true surrender of the heart and not merely of the head, it is a leap of faith that will be followed by many other leaps … such as the leap of understanding, the leap of virtue, and the leap of love. No atheist can understand this … nor is it likely that most atheists would want to understand it.
T
Thinkclearly
Guest
Pascals wager is logically bankrupt for various reasons, does no one here understand that??? I will allow some theists here to use their brains first and attempt to debunk pascals wager before I show you why it is completely bunk. Pascals wager can be debunked from various angles and for various reasons, can you even find one?
A big thumbs up to the first theist who shows 1 reason pascals wager is a fallacy.
Edit: oh and try to do it with your own mind, that is the point. Ofcourse pascals wager has been debunked pubically all over the place for many years, this is common knowledge, a simple google search will lead you to dozens of reasons why it is bankrupt, but try to use your own mind.
A big thumbs up to the first theist who shows 1 reason pascals wager is a fallacy.
Edit: oh and try to do it with your own mind, that is the point. Ofcourse pascals wager has been debunked pubically all over the place for many years, this is common knowledge, a simple google search will lead you to dozens of reasons why it is bankrupt, but try to use your own mind.
J
JackVk
Guest
You don’t need the attitude, friend.
Anyway, Pascal’s wager is not necessarily faith in God. It is merely saying, “I don’t know if God exists, but I’ll live as if He does exist.” It’s saying, “I’ll be good, but I don’t know if I believe”. It’s merely going through the motions. Faith, on the other hand, is believing that nothing is beyond Gods reach and that you can really “do all things through Christ who strengthens you”.
T
Thinkclearly
Guest
I will certainly try my best to keep my attitude at a minimum and be respectul of all. It is just after 10 years of such discussions, it is quite disheartening hearing the same fallacies over and over and over and over.
P
PRmerger
Guest
10 years of discussions regarding PW? Why are you so invested in disproving it, Thinkclearly?
T
Thinkclearly
Guest
Ofcourse not 10 years of discussions about PW specifically, just discussions with theists in general where this always seems to come up, their is just so many problems with it it get’s annoying. There’s no “disproving” pascals wager, it is common knowledge that it is bunk and leads you no-where but more questions and circles. It doesn’t point to any particular god for example and leaves the wager to be posed in the name of any religious faith and any god of choice. If a muslim man said to you:
“If I live my entire life devoted to Allah, and the belief is false what have I lost? Nothing. But if you live your life not devoted to Allah and he does exist, then what have you lost? Everything, even eternal life”
Would that at all be a good argument for you to believe in allah? Would it offend you slightly if this was posed to you by a muslim? Forgetting the fact it is bullocks for so many reasons, It would still just rub me the wrong way. And it should you.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Well, that’s not *exactly *true. One will know, in the end, whether it’s been proven true or false, eh?
That’s not an argument but rather begs the question.
Indeed.
Firstly, were you aware that the CC teaches that the Muslim god, Allah, is the One True God?
…together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day." CCC 841.
(Now, to be sure, where Islam diverges from the True faith is the degree that their god is a false god.)
Perhaps your example would be better given if you substituted “Zeus” for “Allah”?
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Think
Even Bertrand Russell was leery of taking on Pascal’s Wager, but you have disposed of it in one paragraph.
Congratulations!
Now tell us … if there is a God, and the atheist dies denying it, does he go to the heaven of Christ, or Allah, or Odin? Or does he go where there might be much weeping and gnashing of teeth?
Even Bertrand Russell was leery of taking on Pascal’s Wager, but you have disposed of it in one paragraph.
Congratulations!
Now tell us … if there is a God, and the atheist dies denying it, does he go to the heaven of Christ, or Allah, or Odin? Or does he go where there might be much weeping and gnashing of teeth?
M
Mystic_Banana
Guest
You know, a couple of years ago, I sat up at night, wondering if I’d ever had any supernatural experiences. I couldn’t really think of any.
Halfway through, I realised that early on in my ponderence, I’d heard a voice speaking in the next room, where there wasn’t anyone. Inevitably, I’d automatically dismissed it as odd acoustics from other flats, the wind, my tiredness etc…
I’m pretty sure we all do it all the time. Why not? We’re told to do it! All very rational! But nothing to do with a straightforward experience of the external world. I’ll doubt there are many people could honestly expose themselves to the EWW. From your reply, you are simply extrapolating a dogma bred into everyone in the western world, religious or not…
Because, actually, none of these explanations are sufficiently proven to make an EWW one that drives you toward atheism, materialism, or scientism. The justifications are too leaky. Consistent with your epistemic system? Then your epistemic system indicates that you subjugate the primary source of epistemology (experience) to another source, materialistic in nature. To the point of rejecting anything you cannot understand according to the latter. I common habit, as I say, I, and most people are similarly trained to do so, and will do so automatically. By doing so, we fail the EWW, however.
…because GPS systems drive people to crash cars, people are driven insane (or fail to be ‘cured’) by drugs passed as reliable, and mainstream science was too blinded by its own self-assuredness to realise the long term effects of atomic radiation - (etc. etc.) and I’m sure ‘proven science’ will continue to demonstrate awful unreliability today, tomorrow…
We do not have evidence that everything we cannot physically prove to be is an illusion. We just have knee jerk excuses to assume that they are. Pathetic, really, but there you go!
M
Mystic_Banana
Guest
Why you atheists keep repeating them, then, I’ll never understand!
T
Tonitz
Guest
With all due respect, Charlemagne II, I have two questions: A) Have you examined your statements in your OP for semantic consistency? B) Why do you appear to hold that the belief and disbelief conditions have the results you state as their necessary consequence?
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Tonitz
With all due respect, Charlemagne II, I have two questions: A) Have you examined your statements in your OP for semantic consistency? B) Why do you appear to hold that the belief and disbelief conditions have the results you state as their necessary consequence?
With all due respect, I don’t understand your questions. Do you?
The OP summarizes the view of Pascal. If you think the summary is inaccurately stated, you are welcome to offer a correction.
As to the second part of your question, I think the answer is self evident and has been brought to your attention several times already, though you seem to persist in the notion that Jesus can be interpreted in different ways.
“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33
As a Catholic, are you going to doubt the consequences of disbelief when they are explained to you not by me, but by Jesus himself?
With all due respect, Charlemagne II, I have two questions: A) Have you examined your statements in your OP for semantic consistency? B) Why do you appear to hold that the belief and disbelief conditions have the results you state as their necessary consequence?
With all due respect, I don’t understand your questions. Do you?
The OP summarizes the view of Pascal. If you think the summary is inaccurately stated, you are welcome to offer a correction.
As to the second part of your question, I think the answer is self evident and has been brought to your attention several times already, though you seem to persist in the notion that Jesus can be interpreted in different ways.
“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33
As a Catholic, are you going to doubt the consequences of disbelief when they are explained to you not by me, but by Jesus himself?
T
Tonitz
Guest
Yes, which is why I asked it.
I’m not questioning Pascal, I’m questioning you as to your understanding of what the terms of that wager assume in their parts.
Jesus meant what He did when He said what he did. Who can argue with that? Can He be interpreted in different ways? Yes: how else would you explain the 38000+ Christian denominations? You don’t need to prove to me that the Church’s interpretation is the one, but I’m not your sole audience here.
Of course. But again, at this distance in time and space, and going forward and backward, what are the dynamics of that from His perspective? Are you of one mind with Jesus that you know completely His every subtlety of thought about every human circumstance? I thought we had agreement on this. Are you going back on it? I’m not questioning Jesus; I’m questioning YOUR understanding of the terms of Pascal’s wager.
No, I don’t doubt what He said as he meant it. Again, I’m asking YOU if you understand all the instances and possible applications and conditions of what appears to be a pretty simplistic take on Pascal’s terms.
Why are you continually turning my questioning of YOUR understanding into doubts about Divinity? Are you not telling me something about yourself? Or might you actually be making some unwarranted assumptions? Maybe you’re not. But you are sure defensive about yourself and trying to make m look like I’m something I’m not. I just want to know if you understand the terms of Pascal’s wager. No more no less. And yes, it is an essay question.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
*Why are you continually turning my questioning of YOUR understanding into doubts about Divinity? Are you not telling me something about yourself? Or might you actually be making some unwarranted assumptions? Maybe you’re not. But you are sure defensive about yourself and trying to make m look like I’m something I’m not. I just want to know if you understand the terms of Pascal’s wager. No more no less. And yes, it is an essay question. *
Yes, I believe I do understand the terms of the wager argument. They are addressed in summary form (a short essay) in the opening post of this thread. Apparently you suspect that I don’t understand the terms correctly. So if that’s the case, why don’t you write a little essay explaining why you think I might not understand the terms of Pascal’s wager.
As to the evident personal antagonism developing in our relationship, I think you have gone out of your way to bring up doubts about your own Catholic orthodoxy. If you are incensed about that, I understand. But all you have to do is affirm your Catholic orthodoxy, in which case we can move on.
Do you believe that anyone who denies Christ at the moment of entering eternity will be denied by Christ? If you do not believe this, how do you square your exceptions with Matthew 10:32?
And don’t you believe the answer to this question impacts Pascal’s Wager? If we deny God, all is lost. All the more reason for us to evangelize the world and stop this pompous prattle going about that those who deny Christ may be more worthy of Him than those who do not deny him.
Yes, I believe I do understand the terms of the wager argument. They are addressed in summary form (a short essay) in the opening post of this thread. Apparently you suspect that I don’t understand the terms correctly. So if that’s the case, why don’t you write a little essay explaining why you think I might not understand the terms of Pascal’s wager.
As to the evident personal antagonism developing in our relationship, I think you have gone out of your way to bring up doubts about your own Catholic orthodoxy. If you are incensed about that, I understand. But all you have to do is affirm your Catholic orthodoxy, in which case we can move on.
Do you believe that anyone who denies Christ at the moment of entering eternity will be denied by Christ? If you do not believe this, how do you square your exceptions with Matthew 10:32?
And don’t you believe the answer to this question impacts Pascal’s Wager? If we deny God, all is lost. All the more reason for us to evangelize the world and stop this pompous prattle going about that those who deny Christ may be more worthy of Him than those who do not deny him.
T
Tonitz
Guest
I am asking questions that I see as relevant to deeper understanding. I have no antagonism against you personally; you only seem to embody a certain kind of unquestioning black and white acceptance of things that I find inadequate for myself and which plays into detractors stereotypes of Catholics. You are at an edge where you are not so extremely reactive as some, and are willing to respond. If nothing else that makes you someone who is actually interesting and worthy of hashing things with. For my part, Charlemagne, I don’t feel that God gave me a brain to use only as an instrument of complicity.
And this is an example of what I’m talking about.
A) Who is the “anyone?” A human from 10,000BCE?
B) “Denies” implies knowledge, and knowledge of of kinds and degrees. So what kind of denial are we talking about and what constitutes it in any particular case? Are you talking about your case? My case? A heathen sincerely convinced of his faith who is asked his allegiance by a passing missionary at the moment of his death, when he may not even be all there already? Is it OK to do what Peter did and escape the dynamic because he wasn’t dying at the time he did it THREE times in the face of the Living Presence? Etc, etc, etc.
C) Do you personally know or have the mind of Christ? I think not, so how do you know, even from the Gospel or the Church’s GENERAL statements what the action of the Christ is in any particular instance?
D) Later, Matthew Quotes Jesus about receptivity. From the tone of it, as far as I can tell, It would take and EXTRAORDINARY act of deliberate recalcitrance to deny what IS, once it has been perceived. But if someone due to trauma, education, misrepresentation, (say by incompetent missionarys) hears bout Jesus and denies what they think they think about Him, are they damned?
And similarly so on and so forth with each of the permutations Pascal puts forth. You can treat it as a game of crosses and naughts if you wish, but it isn’t that simple. And in its complexity it becomes meaningless and reduces again to one’s individual case before God, with the furies of speculation about who is saved and who isn’t yet remaining in God’s judgment, not ours.
QED above
To deny God one must not know God. You cannot deny what you know to yourself. You might lie about that to someone else, but what’s the point? That only reveals, if anything, an ignorance about God. So again I have to ask what is meant by denial? Aren’t we talking here about an exceptionally rare special case? So either you know God and by that agency can’t deny Him, or you don’t, and are incompetent to say. Or you have a false idea of God and are denying a falsehood anyway.
And I haven’t the beginning of a clue as to what “pompous prattle” you are referring to. And as for evangelizing, those close to Jesus may have had a special gift, as some may yet have today. But generally speaking, the evangelized more often than not have suffered from their missionarys. And I think we have had that conversation before.
So I am no friend of proofs or wagers, Charlemagne. They are for way the most part only of theoretical and entertainment value, save in, perhaps, the few cases where someone already inclined by grace or inquiry agrees due to what amount to an agreement in perception. So I’m left with a sense from Matthew that accepting God, whatever that might mean in any individual case, is very important and not a trifling matter in its consequences.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Tonitz
And in its complexity it becomes meaningless and reduces again to one’s individual case before God, with the furies of speculation about who is saved and who isn’t yet remaining in God’s judgment, not ours.
This is another example of your chronic antagonism, the implication that I put my judgments ahead of God’s. God has presented his judgments to us. He doesn’t need my help or yours in the matter of judging.
“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my
heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33
“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:16
I’ve grown very weary of your constant carping and nitpicking. Since we are now in the business of repeating ourselves ad nauseam, I will be ignoring any of your future posts. We are wasting each other’s time and the time of others who may be weary of our exchanges.
If you wish to continue in the private message mode, I may answer.
And in its complexity it becomes meaningless and reduces again to one’s individual case before God, with the furies of speculation about who is saved and who isn’t yet remaining in God’s judgment, not ours.
This is another example of your chronic antagonism, the implication that I put my judgments ahead of God’s. God has presented his judgments to us. He doesn’t need my help or yours in the matter of judging.
“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my
heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33
“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:16
I’ve grown very weary of your constant carping and nitpicking. Since we are now in the business of repeating ourselves ad nauseam, I will be ignoring any of your future posts. We are wasting each other’s time and the time of others who may be weary of our exchanges.
If you wish to continue in the private message mode, I may answer.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Just to add some more spice to this thread, has anyone here come up with any rational believer who used PW solely to come to belief?
- Status