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Pascal contends that a rational person should adopt a lifestyle consistent with the existence of God and actively strive to believe in God. The reasoning behind this stance lies in the potential outcomes: if God does not exist, the individual incurs only finite losses, potentially sacrificing certain pleasures and luxuries.
Examples include the Hebrew midwives who lie after Pharaoh commands them to kill all newborn boys (Exodus 1:17–21), and Rahab (Joshua 2:1–7; cf. Hebrews 11:31), an innkeeper who lies to soldiers while hiding spies in her inn. The midwives appear to be rewarded for their actions (God "dealt well with the midwives” and "gave them families").
Albert Einstein, 1921. Albert Einstein's religious views have been widely studied and often misunderstood. [1] Albert Einstein stated "I believe in Spinoza's God". [2] He did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve. [3]
Karen Armstrong notes in A History of God that "not all psychoanalysts agreed with Freud's view of God," citing Alfred Adler, who believed God was a projection which had been "helpful to humanity", and C.G. Jung, who, when asked whether he believed in God, said "Difficult to answer, I know. I don't need to believe. I know." [39]
Lewis, who had spoken extensively on Christianity to Royal Air Force personnel, was aware that many ordinary people did not believe Jesus was God but saw him rather as "a 'great human teacher' who was deified by his superstitious followers"; his argument is intended to overcome this. [1]
"There are no atheists in foxholes" is an aphorism used to suggest that times of extreme stress or fear can prompt belief in a higher power. [1] In the context of actual warfare, such a sudden change in belief has been called a foxhole conversion.
Despite believing in gods, Lucretius, like Epicurus, felt that religion was born of fear and ignorance, and that understanding the natural world would free people of its shackles. [14] [15] He was not against religion in and of itself, but against traditional religion which he saw as superstition for teaching that gods interfered with the world ...
But the only people who believe that religion is about believing blindly in a God who blesses and curses on demand and sees science and reason as spawns of Satan are unlettered fundamentalists and their atheistic doppelgangers." [49]