There is a sure hope that Paul speaks about that is not just wishful thinking. It’s guaranteed and not at all a gamble. (I actually hope to die and am looking forward to it. Dying in Jesus will be sweet, but the process could be distinctly uncomfortable. ; - )
What I mean is that you have zero proof of it. You can’t prove it, and neither can I. That means it’s faith. In the end no matter what you or me or anyone says it’s all purely faith and hope and it based on evidence. If there was concrete evidence, we would use it to convert the entire world.
Did you mean to include another word or two there, like is or is not? As it stands it seems ambiguous.
We do have objective evidence of God’s providential interventions into his children’s lives though. Of course it is not scientific proof in the sense that can be reproduced by other investigators, but it is a very much a recognizable ‘forensic’ M.O. So yes, faith is required, but it absolutely is not blind faith.
We have work to do, don’t we, and people will still deny good evidence (recall that Jesus said so).
Yeah! HONESTY!
Believe it because you think it is the truth.
Do it because you think it is the right thing to do.
That is a big part of what faith means!
Trying to buy your way into the grace of God, whether your coin is good works or believing what someone tells you to believe, is the opposite of faith. I don’t think that will get you anywhere, any more than it did the man in Matthew 19:16-26.
Only if you are making a bet rather than seeking the truth. If you are seeking the truth then wherever you look is likely to only be the first step on a long road. But making a bet means you are just settling on a first guess and looking no further. Like to that man in Matthew 19:16, I want to say, what’s your hurry? If you think you can just get it done, then your thinking is all wrong.
1 Like
A bet does not mean that to me.
Betting on it being the truth, blind faith, and faith are all just the same thing to me.
None of us have proof Yahweh is God. That Jesus was does, rose from the dead and somehow will save us.
We are all betting that Jesus it’s true. We all have faith it’s true. We all have blind faith it’s true. We all have personal experiences that means everything to us and nothing to others. We all have experiences we heard from others that means the world to us and means absolutely nothing to the next person.
If anyone could prove Yahweh is god or that Jesus is still alive and came back from the dead 2,000 years ago I would love it. I would love to trade faith for evidence.
First person accounts of objective facts truthfully reported are evidence. That’s what scientists do in their field notebooks. And when there are series of multiple otherwise discrete events tied to each other only by the objective meaning infused because of the individual and the circumstances involved, that is evidence of God’s providential intervention. That is not trading faith for evidence – it is evidence supporting and strengthening faith, not unlike the evidence of big bang cosmology, but more personal.
But that is how gambling works. You cannot change your bet whenever you want. And your bet is all about trying to get the payoff.
Ok, but they are not the same thing to me. To me they are all different.
A bet is a gambling term and all about seeking a payoff, and that is what makes it the opposite of faith.
Blind faith is insisting something contrary to the evidence. It is just willfulness and there is nothing of good faith about that.
Real faith is not looking for a payoff, but believing because you think it is true and doing something because it is right. It is the meaning of acting in good faith. And to do this you have to accept the inescapable reality of uncertainty. There is no absolute proof for what is true and right but to live your life you have to make a choice and decide who you are and what kind of person you will be.
Since faith is an important aspect of love, then we can also make these analogies:
The bet is not love but manipulation to get what you want.
Blind faith is just the obsession of a stalker, which doesn’t love the person but only the image they have in their own mind.
Real love is a relationship to make yourself a part of their life according to who they are and what their hopes, desires, dreams and needs are. Likewise, real faith is more realistic fully engaged with life and seeking the truth – doing and being your best.
No… WE are not. That is you – not me.
We get our understanding of reality from our own personal experiences. That doesn’t make it a bet. I don’t have to annihilate the understanding other people have from their experiences in order to get my understanding. The fact is that those differences are a part of my experiences and thus it is only rational for me to make those differences a part of my understanding of reality.
Yahweh and Jesus are just names… It is the person who matters and the person is not captured by either the name or the religion.
And I think there is something very wrong with that statement. For the faith is the whole point and what we really need – not the being right. To me this shows what is wrong with making faith into a bet… so you want the cheat of a sure thing, right?
I just skimmed past your musings because it’s too irrelevant to me. I’m not wasting time on what words mean to you versus me.
The fundamental issue with pascal wager is we don’t know if it responds to the requirements to be saved.
What we talk about is being born again by which we mean your behavior actual in relation to sin actually changes. Does is Pascal Wager really enough to go that far? My bet would be in most cases no. I mean being born again to an extent goes against pascals wager.
Now I do think its a stepping stone. It can help prepare the ground but is not in it self sufficient. But this is true for most arguments for god using pure logic. Whether it be the cosmological argument, the fine tuning argument. These things help take down barriers to faith but they may not be in them selves sufficient.
3 Likes
Evidence can also initiate faith, too, as in Maggie’s case.
I didn’t respond before this because it just made be laugh. The whole point I was making was that religion is about yourself versus the world, deciding who you are rather than trying to understand the external world. And your reply that is more about being childlike. LOL Yeah… that is YOU being childlike. I mean… I understand your reaction because… getting away from too much focus on yourself is one of the more universal messages of religion… like understanding you are part of a greater whole… or that you are nothing without a relationship to your parent creator. I wholly agree. But that is still about you as a participant in life rather than as an objective observer of life. I was getting at the difference between science and religion.
…was all about self, regardless. Reread it.
And you obviously don’t recognize the difference between being childlike and childish.
Pascal’s wager can be used (poorly) to argue for atheism. There could be a deity who created the universe, and this deity has purposefully hidden from us. After we die, this deity will only allow atheists into heaven because the atheists were good skeptics, just as the deity expected. Since this deity could exist, it is best to be an atheist just in case.
[note: I am, by no means, endorsing this argument]
5 Likes
Good, because some silly person will say that we have contrary evidence. 
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.