I enjoyed your articles and videos about Blaise Pascal! I did not know much about him before - but about one argument that someone told me was attributed to him. When I was in college and became a Christian I used Gregory Mendel's biology 'boxes' to recognize that statistically it is more prudent to believe in God, than not to. If you don't, and there is a God - better be on the right side. If not - no harm done; you're just dead and dust without punishment.
I thought I had made this up! HAH! But someone pointed out this was also an argument from Blaise Pascal, and his name has been seared into my brain. It was interesting to read about him and read some of his Pensees. I think the flagellation of sorts is a bit weird, but I know it was extremely common with Catholics in the past. It seems the intention was good, but perhaps...a bit off the mark as far as needing punishment/pain to remind one of thinking about God.
I really like his and your conclusions about distractions being what we charge after so we don't have to sit with ourselves, and I agree wholeheartedly. Sometimes distractions can also feel like 'revenge me time', not necessarily avoiding ourselves, but seeking rest from extreme fatigue but in ways that numb instead. Perhaps they are a different side of the same coin.
I have mixed feelings about Pascal's conclusions. A lot of what he says is necessarily a transposition of his own personal feelings as generalizations which could apply to us all. That is perhaps something that many philosophers do, but the fact that he was basically distracting himself from the world most of us know by depriving himself of sunlight and wearing a belt of nails seems to me to colour some of his observations. That being said, it is certainly true that most of us tend to seek out distractions that are not useful in building our souls, our character. We perhaps have a greater choice of distractions than in the past, but Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, many centuries before Pascal, lamented the distraction of the arena, so this problem is currently new only by its artificiality on the screen. All of these philosophers lived before Darwin and current astronomical observations, and their view of deities was quite different from what is common now. My own view is that as a species living in a complex society, we invent our own meanings and values... nothing "wrong" with that, but we should be aware of it... and we are a tiny part of a huge universe whose origin, destination, and purpose we are still very very far from understanding. But what is important to us is how we relate to each other and hopefully we will gain a greater understanding of how to improve that, here and elsewhere, on a global scale, and within our own families and neighbourhoods.
I enjoyed your articles and videos about Blaise Pascal! I did not know much about him before - but about one argument that someone told me was attributed to him. When I was in college and became a Christian I used Gregory Mendel's biology 'boxes' to recognize that statistically it is more prudent to believe in God, than not to. If you don't, and there is a God - better be on the right side. If not - no harm done; you're just dead and dust without punishment.
I thought I had made this up! HAH! But someone pointed out this was also an argument from Blaise Pascal, and his name has been seared into my brain. It was interesting to read about him and read some of his Pensees. I think the flagellation of sorts is a bit weird, but I know it was extremely common with Catholics in the past. It seems the intention was good, but perhaps...a bit off the mark as far as needing punishment/pain to remind one of thinking about God.
I really like his and your conclusions about distractions being what we charge after so we don't have to sit with ourselves, and I agree wholeheartedly. Sometimes distractions can also feel like 'revenge me time', not necessarily avoiding ourselves, but seeking rest from extreme fatigue but in ways that numb instead. Perhaps they are a different side of the same coin.
Thoughtful articles!
I have mixed feelings about Pascal's conclusions. A lot of what he says is necessarily a transposition of his own personal feelings as generalizations which could apply to us all. That is perhaps something that many philosophers do, but the fact that he was basically distracting himself from the world most of us know by depriving himself of sunlight and wearing a belt of nails seems to me to colour some of his observations. That being said, it is certainly true that most of us tend to seek out distractions that are not useful in building our souls, our character. We perhaps have a greater choice of distractions than in the past, but Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, many centuries before Pascal, lamented the distraction of the arena, so this problem is currently new only by its artificiality on the screen. All of these philosophers lived before Darwin and current astronomical observations, and their view of deities was quite different from what is common now. My own view is that as a species living in a complex society, we invent our own meanings and values... nothing "wrong" with that, but we should be aware of it... and we are a tiny part of a huge universe whose origin, destination, and purpose we are still very very far from understanding. But what is important to us is how we relate to each other and hopefully we will gain a greater understanding of how to improve that, here and elsewhere, on a global scale, and within our own families and neighbourhoods.