Comments on: Atheist brings reality to Liberal Protestant

By: David

David — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:11:06 +0000

rockfalter,
On your first point – as I’m sure you realise – stuck takes God’s existence as a given. Therefore: no God; no Creator: no creation; no atheists.

On your second point. I’m not inclined to disagree; Pascal’s wager does have the flaw that to believe something to be true as an insurance policy is not really to believe it to be true.

By: rockfalter

rockfalter — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:02:58 +0000

#17: I am a disbeliever in the existence of mermaids. Without mermaids, is there no me? (I realize I’m sort of missing your point; non-mermaid-believers are not a specific group of thinkers with a handy one-word tag to describe them, but if mermaids were known to exist then this group may well be more prominent, and have a name. Nonetheless, this axiom or whatever it is about God and atheists doesn’t “grab” me. Sorry.)
#7: one thing I’ve never understood about this notorious wager: surely God doesn’t cherish the belief of those who offer it merely on account of such a cold and selfish calculation!

By: stuck in Toronto

stuck in Toronto — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:54:00 +0000

I just came across this amazing observation “without God there would be no atheists.” grabs ya don’t it!

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:34:43 +0000

I suppose, but I have always seen it as more of a logic statement. It’s not a creed, after all, just an argument for belief.

By: Henry Troup

Henry Troup — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:56:42 +0000

Because I know that I have eternal life now – it’s not about “pie in the sky when you die”.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:31:42 +0000

I don’t see how that follows, Henry. How does Pascal’s wager confuse eternal life with afterlife?

That fact that someone would thank Spong for leading him to atheism, together with the fact that Spong was never disciplined for his views and allowed to retain his clerical collar, is in a nutshell an excellent reason for the existence of ACNA.

By: Henry Troup

Henry Troup — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:10:22 +0000

Actually it was on top of the maple taffy stove at the Log Farm. Sizzled nicely but briefly.

***

I should point out that Pascal’s Wager is not a simple two-way proposition – if the Norse legends were true, after all, all of us Christians could wind up in a pretty unpleasant afterlife. Of course, if I recall correct, so would everyone else, anyway. A depressing mythos – go to Hel now, or tarry in Valhalla then fight and lose in Ragnarok later. How much boiled pork could you stand? Almost as bad as Sartre’s Hell in Huis Clos!

In a very real sense, Pascal’s Wager embodies (no pun intended) a serious error that might even be a heresy, that “eternal life” is the same as “afterlife”. Christ told us that we already have eternal life (zoe). See John 1:12, 3:16, and 5:24; also I John 5:13.

An interesting sidelight some of you may enjoy is the American Freethought review of Spong’s book Eternal Life – the reviewer dubs Spong an “honorary atheist”. And in the comments a couple of people thank Spong for leading them from faith to atheism!?!
Oh my!

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:49:58 +0000

Hey Henry, I’m reminded of the time you roasted a snowball in the oven to determine a snowball’s chance in hell!

By: Henry Troup

Henry Troup — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:39:15 +0000

Thanks David – it was in the original posting, I left them a comment, too.

By: David

David — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:31:29 +0000

Henry,
Thanks for pointing that out – fixed.