RE: Ask a Catholic
June 8, 2015 at 3:15 pm
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2015 at 4:26 pm by Simon Moon.)
(June 7, 2015 at 10:09 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: “Let us then examine the point, and say, ‘God is , or He is not.’ But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?” (Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 233)
I don’t think you’re really asking me which is the right direction, Stimbo. In our hearts, we all know what is right and what is wrong because we were created in the image of God who is not merely good but who is Goodness itself.
He has planted an understanding of these things deep within us and we cannot shake free from it. We also have the capacity to choose between good and evil, right and wrong, because He gave us a conscience which feels the happiness of a choice well-made but also informs us by the pangs of guilt we feel over a poor choice.
You know these things because this is how you were made, Stimbo. But the question remains as to how you will choose to live.
Sure, there are lots of religions and lots of arguments, but you are no stranger to them all; you know the evidence and the choice before you: either Christianity is true or nothing is.
The clock of your lifetime is running, and you must make your choice.
1. If God does not exist, and you do not believe He exists, you lose nothing.
2. If God does not exist, and you believe He does, you lose nothing.
Not bad. But there’s more:
3. If God exists, and you do not believe He exists, you lose all.
4. If God exists, and you believe He does, you win everything.
Where will you place your wager?
If atheists are correct (1 & 2), then nothing you do can cause you any loss. However, if Christians are correct (3 & 4), and you guess wrong, you lose all.
Only by believing as a Christian are you guaranteed not only that you will never suffer loss, but that you will possibly enjoy infinite gain.
So, what is the right direction for you, Stimbo?
It is to move in the direction of faith in Jesus Christ.
I am really disappointed.
You came here with the attitude that you were a philosophically sophisticated Christian, and you were really going to challenge our disbelief. Now you post this laundry list of flawed and fallacious arguments.
Special pleading, question begging, false dichotomy, unsupported assertions, followed by the mother of all flawed arguments, Pascal's Wager. What a joke.
Pascal's Wager was flawed in the 17th century, and it is no less flawed in the 21st. If you are unable to understand why, I really don't know what to say.
Here's a hint on why PW is flawed. There was an almost identical version of Pascal's Wager, from over 500 years before Blaise Pascal, authored by Muslim philosopher, Al-Ghazali, but the subject of belief was Allah, not the Christian god. So, how convincing is the Muslim version of the argument to you?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
