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[Omkara]

[bacasper]

[fiveeagles]

I love Pascal. What a fantastic mind.

Hmmm, it's so much more than a feeling of devotion. The foundation of Christianity is knowing God, falling in love and being loved. Though some might classify this as a feeling...it's much, much more. It's a transforming power that can't be broken down to just a feeling. A power so powerful that it allows people to be restored and reconciled. An alcholic who finally kicks his habit and returns to her children. A drug addict who get off the streets and continues on with his destiny. A father who repents, leaves his adultery and turns back to His family. A murderer who kills many church goers of a particular domination, repents and is later accepted into the same group. What other religion/philosophy can boast of such grace? Where people turn from such evil and turn to such good. How is it that such power is revealed in such weakness? Explain that to me.

Though this paradox is stunning enough, what about God revealing Himself by coming as Jesus. A God who has revealed Himself in stunning beauty and splendor comes as the son of man. Not to be lifted up as a king, but to be killed as a liar. Why would a God, who owns the universe and all that it contains, come and die on a cross?

Such magnificance can only be attributed to one being. Nothing can parallel such brilliance.

[Omkara]

[OneWayTraffic]

[tomato]

Christians tell us "just give it a try."
But how can a rational thinking person could suppress all rational thought long enough to give it a try?

Someone suggested seeing a religious movie,
since one has to suspend disbelief in order to understand a work of fiction.

[Mix1]

[IncognitoHFX]

The Bible is a messed up guide for morality insofar as any didactic maxims from any religious text are.

You can't extrapolate particular codes of conduct for all imaginable contexts, from ten "commandments" or other universal Biblical maxims. To do so is to live life walking on a tight rope or with blinders on.

In order to "follow the Bible" in the way it is meant to be followed (as is interpreted by most Christians), one has to dumb their rational processes down to that of a small poodle and learn the art of ignoring or sheltering oneself from all events in life that don't fit into the categorical rules presented in the Bible.

Yet another way in which the Bible fails as does it's followers.

[fiveeagles]

[quote="Omkara"]

[arjuna]

.....

[Omkara]

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." --Shakespeare

Did I believe, I'd be false to every man.

Belief, again, is no choice. Pascal was a fool on this point.

Show me, then, biblical wisdom. I do not doubt it is there. But I doubt the claim of its origin. No; I more than doubt the christian claims about the bible.

Any wisdom in the bible will speak for itself. The literal belief in the story does as well.

[ED209]

[Omkara]

[fiveeagles]

[quote="Omkara"]"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." --Shakespeare

Did I believe, I'd be false to every man.

[quote]

Wow....so inspiriational, so amazing.....are you God's sock? I mean, I can now understand why you are staking your life on what you believe.

haha...are you serious?

[Omkara]

God's sock? Hmmm. Stange idea.

Perhaps I should clarify.

Pascal speaks of belief as if it were a choice. Did I believe in that way, I could not be but false to every man since believing thus I'd not be true to myself. I'd be telling a kind of lie to myself in order to "beleive." I've seen this kind of belief often. Often, the unbelief is unconscious. Yet, the falsity shines through in interesting ways.

I suppose there is a child's belief, which he or she takes on trust. Children need to do this; but there is a price when false beliefs are inherited.

Then, there are those beliefs which one arrives at as a result of experience. These are usually reliable, save when we misunderstand what we see or do not know the structure of the mind sufficently well to know that we are subject to illusions.

The third category are those beliefs we arrive at as a result of reasoning. But, without contents, reason has nothing to operate on. But the converse is also true. There is no experience possible but that upon which our categories of reason have operated.

Perhaps there are those who have met "god" face to face. Among these, there are certainly some who have misunderstood what they have experienced owing to 1) Their personal and provincial experiences which 2) inform the reason which molds the experience. In short, owing to their culture and fundamental misunderstanding of their cognitive faculties, these have had an interperative illusion.

It does not follow from this that some have not had a real experience of God (assuming It exists). Some may have had this experience. But these represent an extreme minority. Secondly, they report something which is subject to the same conditions as the former description.

Therefore, the vast majority have taken as their sole evidence for the existence of God the words of others whose sole evidence is overwhelminlgy hearsay.

Most people beleive in God because their culture has told them it is so. And among those who've experienced "god" are those who have only experienced their mind thus formed. There is a very, very small minority who may have experience the real McCoy. But, with such an important question, we should be very cautious since the probability is that they have misunderstood what is otherwise a profound experience.

I do not doubt that people have experienced something which we might call divine (as if anything is more divine than another), but what this experience is, I've many doubts. To understand what this is, it is best to first try to understand what experience is so that we do not call the object of experience something other or less profound than it is.

Yes, it is my life I weigh in the balance. But Pascal's "wager" is antiquated, obtuse and foolish.