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tonyrey
Guest
The moral basis of Christianity is not the Jewish decalogue but the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity implicit in the teaching of Jesus and in his attitude to women, children and Gentiles.
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jonfawkes
Guest
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
jonfawkes
**
I think if the only reason you’d follow Christ is out of fear; you’ve missed the point entirely. **
If you ever say the Act of Contrition for your sins, you say it for fear of losing heaven and the pangs of hell.
That’s built into our Catholic theology. Nothing wrong with fear … it has saved many a soul in danger, not to mention many a life in peril
**
I think if the only reason you’d follow Christ is out of fear; you’ve missed the point entirely. **
If you ever say the Act of Contrition for your sins, you say it for fear of losing heaven and the pangs of hell.
That’s built into our Catholic theology. Nothing wrong with fear … it has saved many a soul in danger, not to mention many a life in peril
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
jonfawkes
**I think if the only reason you’d follow Christ is out of fear; you’ve missed the point entirely. **
Perhaps you’ve also missed Pascal’s point. Fear is not the only reason. It would be for the atheist the first reason. As Pascal says, once you open to God, then comes the love.
**I think if the only reason you’d follow Christ is out of fear; you’ve missed the point entirely. **
Perhaps you’ve also missed Pascal’s point. Fear is not the only reason. It would be for the atheist the first reason. As Pascal says, once you open to God, then comes the love.
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Michael_VPV
Guest
Please speak for yourself.
What I was taught, when I was growing up by both educators, and priests, and my father, was that repentance based on fear of hell is not true repentance. It is only true if it is for the reason of having offended God. Ultimately only you and Him can know if a repentance is therefore real. According to that teaching, true deathbed repentances are believed to be extremely rare. At that point in life if one has been habitually in sin, it is very unlikely that someone will be more interested in having offended god than insaving themselves in the hereafter.
Also, that then completely invalidates Pascal’s wager - if someone believes in God because of it, it is for a purely selfish reason, so that “belief” will not save them. They have to Love God as well as have belief, in order to feel true contrition for sins.
Hence Faith, Hope and Charity ( Love), the greatest of which is Charity.
Interesting side point. I have heard a variation of Pascal’s wager is used to justify belief in man made climate change. Summarised as - we’d better act as if it were true, because if we act as if it isn’t and it is, then the planet will be in ( literally) hot water.
This is a little better than applying it as Pascal did, because climate change does not have the Love element that belief in God and salvation requires.
However, that is still flawed, because it doesn’t take into account probability at all.
I could say that there is a probability I’ll be run over by a bus tomorrow, so by Pascal’s Wager logic, the best thing is not to get out of bed. If I go out and there is no bus, no harm done, if I stay in bed, no harm done whether there is a bus or not. So better to stay in bed.
The probability of being run over by a bus is so small that we take the risk. Without knowing the probability of man made climate change then, that argument for climate change is useless. ( I am not necessarily arguing against climate change, I am just saying that is a bad argument to use for it and using it as an example to illustrate a flaw in the wager when applied practically).
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
What I was taught, when I was growing up by both educators, and priests, and my father, was that repentance based on fear of hell is not true repentance.
Here is an official Act of Contrition recommended by the Church to be prayed after confession. Perhaps you have never prayed it. I was reared to pray it and still do.
O my God,
I am heartily sorry for
having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins,
because I dread the loss of heaven,
and the pains of hell;
but most of all because
they offend Thee, my God,
Who are all good and
deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve,
with the help of Thy grace,
to confess my sins,
to do penance,
and to amend my life.
Amen.
There are two reasons for repenting; the first is the lesser reason, but a valid one (in blue); the second is the better reason, a reason that the atheist will acquire in due time when his heart opens up to God and he ceases to merely mouth his prayers but really mean them.
Pascal says fear is a great motivator for good deeds and for saving ourselves from disaster. This is why you will not run out in the street and throw yourself before a bus.
And it should be just as good a reason for the atheist** to begin thinking** about the fate of his immortal soul.
Michael, if you still consider yourself a Catholic, why not identify yourself as one?
Here is an official Act of Contrition recommended by the Church to be prayed after confession. Perhaps you have never prayed it. I was reared to pray it and still do.
O my God,
I am heartily sorry for
having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins,
because I dread the loss of heaven,
and the pains of hell;
but most of all because
they offend Thee, my God,
Who are all good and
deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve,
with the help of Thy grace,
to confess my sins,
to do penance,
and to amend my life.
Amen.
There are two reasons for repenting; the first is the lesser reason, but a valid one (in blue); the second is the better reason, a reason that the atheist will acquire in due time when his heart opens up to God and he ceases to merely mouth his prayers but really mean them.
Pascal says fear is a great motivator for good deeds and for saving ourselves from disaster. This is why you will not run out in the street and throw yourself before a bus.
And it should be just as good a reason for the atheist** to begin thinking** about the fate of his immortal soul.
Michael, if you still consider yourself a Catholic, why not identify yourself as one?
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Filthy_Tugboat
Guest
As far as I’m aware the New Testament frequently references and recommends the Old Testament in it’s entirety. Then there’s the issue of slavery that is still commanded within the New Testament, I’m sorry but a moral system that denigrates individuals to property, women included, is not in line with moral systems recommended in todays society…
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Michael_VPV
Guest
Yes, as I was taught, it is right to detest sins and fear hell, but that is not enough for salvation. The “most of all” is very important.
Fear is good for saving us from buses, but it is needs more than that to save us from hell. Anyone who merely mouths their prayers is not out of the woods. Pascal’s wager is in my opinion either dishonest or misguided therefore, because the basis is flawed in this way. You assume that the atheist will in time open his heart. The wager doesn’t state that and is based on the premise that he will be saved purely by believing.
I identified myself as catholic-raised in my last post . I am catholic. I am fairly new here and have assumed people are catholic unless they state otherwise. But how does my own faith affect the argument ? What I say is what I say, regardless of whether I’m catholic, atheist or four square gospeller.
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PRmerger
Guest
Yes. What is needed for salvation is to say Yes to the Divine Marriage Proposal.
Pascal’s Wager is either the starting point for one’s belief, or the ending point. It does not stand alone. That is, if one is considering beginning one’s journey into faith, PW may be the impetus. Or if one has considered all of the arguments and still is on the fence, PW may be the final catalyst.
It does not stand on its own. Pascal never proposed this.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
To be sure, Pascal’s wager is not the end goal of conversion for the atheist, but rather the first step in the journey toward a truly loving relationship with our Father.
As Pascal says at the end of #233, in which the “wager” is posed:
“If this discourse pleases you and seems impressive, know that it is made by a man who has knelt, both before and after it, in prayer to that Being, infinite and without parts, before whom he lays all he has, for you also to lay before Him all you have for your own good and for His glory, that so strength may be given to lowliness.”
As Pascal says at the end of #233, in which the “wager” is posed:
“If this discourse pleases you and seems impressive, know that it is made by a man who has knelt, both before and after it, in prayer to that Being, infinite and without parts, before whom he lays all he has, for you also to lay before Him all you have for your own good and for His glory, that so strength may be given to lowliness.”
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Michael_VPV
Guest
And similar comment by the good HRE himself.
But that still invalidates the premise that “If I believe, everything is ok” which is part of the wager. Because everything is not OK.
Fair enough though, I would expect any atheist taking this as a starting point to very quickly be made to understand that. Because if say, somebody reading this forum were to go away and think about it, start believing purely on that basis, and then a few weeks later was run over by the eponymous bus, they might get into heaven on a “misguided” pass… however, the person who knowingly misguided them would then be in trouble. I would consider it a serious sin of omission NOT to point this out at the same time as explaining the wager. One cannot be too cautious and the road to hell is paved with good intentions…
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tonyrey
Guest
Pascal made it clear that it is not just a question of belief but putting belief into practice:
“Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others?”
gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm#p_233
His wager is not confined solely to what happens after death…
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jonfawkes
Guest
The first and third reasons are the same, indicating their importance and it does explicitly say “but most of all because they offend Thee, my God” - It’s not fear that gets us from Hell. It’s not toadyism that brings us to Heaven.
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jonfawkes
Guest
Acting “faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, and truthful” aren’t contingent on belief in the Christian or any other God.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
jonfawkes
**
The first and third reasons are the same, indicating their importance and it does explicitly say “but most of all because they offend Thee, my God” - It’s not fear that gets us from Hell. It’s not toadyism that brings us to Heaven. **
But it’s fear that wakes us up to the possibility of hell, just as it’s fear that keeps us out of the path of a bus.
The atheist has to start his journey toward God at some point. Since the atheist cannot simply begin to love all at once, he can at least learn Fear of the Lord, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and by that grace grow ever so gradually, as we all do, into the love of God.
Wherein does the Act of Contrition or Pascal advocate toadyism?
And why do you persist in viewing Pascal’s wager as the end of his appeal to the atheist when he has written nearly a thousand “thoughts” that surround the wager and amplify how we might grow in faith once the wager is made? You have a copy of Pensees, don’t you? Do you not recognize that it is a hefty volume of reflections not only on apologetics, but also spirituality? The wager argument is only # 233 out of 924.
MIchael
**Because if say, somebody reading this forum were to go away and think about it, start believing purely on that basis, and then a few weeks later was run over by the eponymous bus, they might get into heaven on a “misguided” pass… however, the person who knowingly misguided them would then be in trouble. I would consider it a serious sin of omission NOT to point this out at the same time as explaining the wager. One cannot be too cautious and the road to hell is paved with good intentions… **
Do you think Pascal expect people to read only #233 and die under the illusion that as long as they said they believed, they would be saved?
Perhaps you do not give atheists credit for enough intelligence to know that belief alone will not save them. They have to act on that belief.
**
The first and third reasons are the same, indicating their importance and it does explicitly say “but most of all because they offend Thee, my God” - It’s not fear that gets us from Hell. It’s not toadyism that brings us to Heaven. **
But it’s fear that wakes us up to the possibility of hell, just as it’s fear that keeps us out of the path of a bus.
The atheist has to start his journey toward God at some point. Since the atheist cannot simply begin to love all at once, he can at least learn Fear of the Lord, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and by that grace grow ever so gradually, as we all do, into the love of God.
Wherein does the Act of Contrition or Pascal advocate toadyism?
And why do you persist in viewing Pascal’s wager as the end of his appeal to the atheist when he has written nearly a thousand “thoughts” that surround the wager and amplify how we might grow in faith once the wager is made? You have a copy of Pensees, don’t you? Do you not recognize that it is a hefty volume of reflections not only on apologetics, but also spirituality? The wager argument is only # 233 out of 924.
MIchael
**Because if say, somebody reading this forum were to go away and think about it, start believing purely on that basis, and then a few weeks later was run over by the eponymous bus, they might get into heaven on a “misguided” pass… however, the person who knowingly misguided them would then be in trouble. I would consider it a serious sin of omission NOT to point this out at the same time as explaining the wager. One cannot be too cautious and the road to hell is paved with good intentions… **
Do you think Pascal expect people to read only #233 and die under the illusion that as long as they said they believed, they would be saved?
Perhaps you do not give atheists credit for enough intelligence to know that belief alone will not save them. They have to act on that belief.
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Dawnia
Guest
I think that this “wager” can not be looked at on it’s own. Was Pascal replying to a specific argument? And who was his audience? From the atheists that I have encountered each has their own ideas or reasons why they believe that God doesn’t exist, so I would wager that he had a specific group in mind when writing this. It is hard to know what an author is saying without knowing the context in which he is writing. 
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jonfawkes
Guest
Hell is separation from God. You have to experience God’s presence before you can fear losing it. Fear cannot bring you to God.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Dawnia
I think that this “wager” can not be looked at on it’s own. Was Pascal replying to a specific argument? And who was his audience?
His audience was most probably the growing number of atheists in Europe at that time. Most of the articulate ones were “intellectuals” who could poke holes in what were then the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Pascal, however, is looking to defend not only the faith, but to also put the atheists on notice that their own position is full of holes, and the singularly most important hole they have to worry about is the fate of their immortal souls. Do they care or not? Is their immortality a trivial matter or not? Do they really think about why they are atheists and what they risk by walking away from God?
An intellectual in his own right (mathematician and inventor) he was not the kind of writer that atheists could afford to ignore with impunity because he was highly respected.
Before he reached his teen years, Pascal demonstrated extraordinary insight into complex mathematical problems by proving Euclid’s 32nd Proposition and by discovering an error in René Descartes’ geometry. At the age of sixteen he had sent his “Essay on Conics” (today referred to as Pascal’s Theorem) to Père Mersenne in Paris. At the age of twenty he astounded the mathematical world with his "Treatise on the Arithmetical Triangle.” Just a year later he corresponded with the great mathematician Pierre de Fermat and together they produced a breakthrough theory of probabilities.
Still in his early twenties, he was the inventor of the first calculating machine (Niklaus Wirth in 1970 published a programming language system named after Pascal). His other inventions include the hydraulic press, the syringe, the roulette wheel, and the first horse-drawn vehicle containing many seats (precursor of the modern motor bus). Contrary to the belief of Aristotle, he proved by several experiments with barometers that nature can contain a vacuum.
In later life he got into some very heated disputes with the French Jesuits, whom he found wanting for their reluctance to defend traditional morality.
I think that this “wager” can not be looked at on it’s own. Was Pascal replying to a specific argument? And who was his audience?
His audience was most probably the growing number of atheists in Europe at that time. Most of the articulate ones were “intellectuals” who could poke holes in what were then the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Pascal, however, is looking to defend not only the faith, but to also put the atheists on notice that their own position is full of holes, and the singularly most important hole they have to worry about is the fate of their immortal souls. Do they care or not? Is their immortality a trivial matter or not? Do they really think about why they are atheists and what they risk by walking away from God?
An intellectual in his own right (mathematician and inventor) he was not the kind of writer that atheists could afford to ignore with impunity because he was highly respected.
Before he reached his teen years, Pascal demonstrated extraordinary insight into complex mathematical problems by proving Euclid’s 32nd Proposition and by discovering an error in René Descartes’ geometry. At the age of sixteen he had sent his “Essay on Conics” (today referred to as Pascal’s Theorem) to Père Mersenne in Paris. At the age of twenty he astounded the mathematical world with his "Treatise on the Arithmetical Triangle.” Just a year later he corresponded with the great mathematician Pierre de Fermat and together they produced a breakthrough theory of probabilities.
Still in his early twenties, he was the inventor of the first calculating machine (Niklaus Wirth in 1970 published a programming language system named after Pascal). His other inventions include the hydraulic press, the syringe, the roulette wheel, and the first horse-drawn vehicle containing many seats (precursor of the modern motor bus). Contrary to the belief of Aristotle, he proved by several experiments with barometers that nature can contain a vacuum.
In later life he got into some very heated disputes with the French Jesuits, whom he found wanting for their reluctance to defend traditional morality.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
jonfawkes
Hell is separation from God. You have to experience God’s presence before you can fear losing it. Fear cannot bring you to God.
Yes it can. Fear of the Lord is the 7th gift of the Holy Spirit.
Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.
Hell is separation from God. You have to experience God’s presence before you can fear losing it. Fear cannot bring you to God.
Yes it can. Fear of the Lord is the 7th gift of the Holy Spirit.
Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.
J
jonfawkes
Guest
It’s awe of the Lord not fear of Hell.jonfawkes
Hell is separation from God. You have to experience God’s presence before you can fear losing it. Fear cannot bring you to God.
Yes it can. Fear of the Lord is the 7th gift of the Holy Spirit.
Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.
- Status