The first of the Atheist Bus messages have now started rolling out across Britain, the most popular being:
“There’s probably no God so stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
The “probably” just cracks me up. It’s as if the non-theists responsible for the slogans aren’t totally convinced themselves. Imagine if John 3:16 read:
“God probably loved the world so much that He more than likely gave His only Son so that all that believe in Him probably won’t perish but quite possibly might have eternal life.
Not very convincing is it. The Dictionary defines ‘Probably’ as ‘being without much doubt’ which is an alternate way of saying that there is still some doubt. The slogan might as well read:
“There is a possibility that God exists and your eternal destiny depends on how you respond to His message.”
Which brings me to Pascal’s Wager. Pascal’s Wager is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason (debatable), a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose. Put another way, If God does not exist, one loses little by believing in him and gains correspondingly little by not believing. If God does exist however, one gains everything by believing in Him and loses everything by not believing.
The wager is fascinating to study (for some), as Pascal’s reasoning can be proved true mathematically. In fact, according to decision theory, the only rational path to follow is to live for God. As you can imagine, Pascal’s Wager is a hotly debated topic, and has been a nasty thorn in the Atheist’s side for hundreds of years.
And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?
(Jesus Christ)
One might argue that giving your life to God based on mathematic probability is not the most heart-felt or sincere thing to do. After all (and speaking from experience), trying to follow God, without having a relationship with Him is frustrating to say the least. Pascal to the rescue (again). Pascal never treated acceptance of the wager to be in itself sufficient for salvation. Placing the wager, he argued, is unavoidable. However, it alone isn’t a justification for faith. Rather, the wager is an impetus toward faith.
As if Christians don’t enjoy their lives, lol. Except we don’t just want life, we want LIFE and life in abundance.
Cracking up at your post title.
Posted by Stephen | March 6, 2010, 10:00 amHey Symon,
I love how posts like these come up. I think Christians should learn to think more and give a reason for the hope that is within them and not just claiming “Jesus loves you and I”.
Just to be controversial :) and provoke more thoughts.
Your redefinition of John 3:16 is obviously incorrect as opposed to the original Biblical version, but in regard to us believing it I think that for me it is quite accurate. For example:
Lets take faith. What is faith? I take faith to mean to beleive in something beyond a reasonable doubt. I have faith in God and the Bible as the word of God. My faith is not blind faith where I believe just because I believe. Rather my/our faith is built on evidence pointing to the reality of God and His word.
God in His word seems to like to justify why we should believe Him and trust Him. Like in the old testament He speaks often saying “remember the days of old when I brought you up out of Egypt” etc. God does not expect us to beleive blindly but to intelligently follow where the evidence leads.
A christian philosopher once said that the only area we can speak of proof is in mathmatics. I find that interesting. It shows that both ahteists and christians alike live by faith and following something beyond a reasonable doubt.
I can’t prove God to atheists, but I can point them toward evidnece that causes me to believe that God is the best answer to everything. I sit on this chair believing that it will hold me, but I may have a little doubt/question regarding it being able to hold me but I choose to accept by faith as a whole the reality that it will hold me.
Same is with the Bible and God. I have questions that I cannot answer, but on the whole I accept God to be real and live for Him.
Atheists accept God not to be real and live by their faith that He is not real even though they can never be sure.
So, who has more faith? the atheist or us?
I would say the atheist. I would have to have more blind faith to believe in atheism than theism.
Follow the evidence where it leads.
cheers and God bless,
Dan
P.S.
That was longer than I expected.
Posted by Daniel | March 6, 2010, 11:40 amThat last post was from Daniel Tattersall in case you didn’t know who “Daniel” was LOL.
Posted by Daniel | March 6, 2010, 11:41 amAwesome thoughts… love the post title.
Posted by PaisleyJade | March 6, 2010, 4:29 pmawesome.
Posted by Rachel Kate | March 8, 2010, 2:28 pmThis is good
makes people think both sides
it cool to think that it can be proven with maths
so people cant say that it’s impossible LOL
you can see in the photo that it looks like the person riding in it is shocked that she is even on a bus with that slogan written on it
(amazing that science supports that there is evidence that god is the real deal)
Bro, nephew, sis
Posted by Ozzy Drake family | March 20, 2010, 12:28 pmLove this article!
Posted by Sophie | April 20, 2010, 4:29 pm