Gambling on God

dice.jpgIs it right to gamble on God? If we’re not absolutely convinced that God even exists does it make any sense to live as if he does?

Many people will say that they are absolutely convinced that God is real and that they know him. Others seem equally as convinced that God doesn’t exist. What about those who aren’t completely sure one way or the other? Is there a place for stepping across the line and living as if they believed one way or the other? If so, which is better, to live as if God is real or to live as if he is a fabrication of human imagination?

Blaise Pascal’s posthumously published writings, known as Pascal’s Wager, suggested that knowing absolutely isn’t a prerequisite for faith.

Pascal’s Wager (or Pascal’s Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should “wager” as though God exists, because so living has potentially everything to gain, and certainly nothing to lose.

Pascal figured that if the person who lives as if God is real is wrong, they’ve lost nothing, but if the person who lives as if God doesn’t exist is wrong, they lose everything.

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

This week we discussed the idea of gambling on God and Ross recounted stories of people who came very close to believing in God but there was still a gap between what they’d been told about God and what they truly believed. Many people have felt that the gap to God is smaller than the gap away from him and so they’ve taken the step to believe and then felt an enormous confirmation within their spirits that they’ve connected with the Creator.

You can hear our conversation by clicking play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

What has your experience been? Have you stepped across the line to belief in God? Did that come after you were totally convinced of the truth of who God is or did you still have doubt? What happened after you took that step?

Maybe you’ve heard people talking about God but you’re not sufficiently convinced that the evidence stacks up. What would it take to convince you that God exists?



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A wonderfully woolly story

You really must read this post.



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The Carnival is Coming Back

I’m having some friends drop in next week. They’ll be visiting from all over the world and you’re invited to join us. The next Christian Carnival is being hosted here at RodneyOlsen.net.

The most recent edition is posted at Brain Cramps for God.

The weekly Christian Carnival is an opportunity for Christian blog writers to share their best posts from the previous week. The topic of the post doesn’t necessarily have to focus on Christianity but it must reflect a Christian worldview, and the writer must be Christian to qualify. You may wish to consider that the readership of the Christian Carnival will be more varied than your usual readership, and you might do better contributing a post with broad appeal.

I’ve taken part in the carnival many times over the years and this will be the second time I’ve hosted the carnival. I’ve already received a number of contributions and I’m looking forward to offering readers of this blog some great links when the carnival is published.

If you’re a Christian and you’ve never contributed before, or if it’s been a while since you have, how about having a look through your posts for this week and choosing something to contribute. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, just a post that outlines your point of view or is designed to get others thinking. Being part of the carnival could be a great way to gain a little extra traffic at your blog.

The easiest way to get involved is to submit your article through the Blog Carnival Submission Form. Otherwise, you can email the submission address.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday evening at midnight, Eastern (US) Standard Time. (EST is GMT minus five hours.) That means it’s midday Wednesday here in Perth, Western Australia.



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A Christian Response to Climate Change

earth_1.jpgAre we responsible for what happens to our planet? Do we have a part to play in creating a more sustainable future for the earth?

Some Christians prefer to ignore the evidence of global warming while for others environmental issues become all consuming. Is there a balance that will let us care for the environment without losing sight of the essentials of faith?

Should we as people of faith be looking at driving smaller cars, using public transport, recycling and becoming more environmentally aware or are green issues taking us off on a tangent, forcing us to take our eye off the ball?

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

Today we discussed the growing concern among people of faith that we have failed our God given responsibility to be good stewards of the planet. Our desire to consume at rapidly rising levels is having a massive effect on poorer nations who don’t have the resources to respond.

You can listen to our discussion by clicking the play button of the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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Pushing against the wind

Today I’m revisiting a post from a couple of years ago.

It’s around this time of year that I battle headwinds and rain as I cycle to work. As I’ve pushed against the wind in the past I’ve thought about the difficulties we face on the journey of life and how they can impact us.

I guess that a lot of the time we would prefer life to just roll along smoothly without hassles but we know that’s unlikely to happen. To be truthful, while I’d rather not battle headwinds all the time, I don’t really mind them that much. I know that when I’m pushing hard and seemingly getting nowhere that I’m building strength. I enjoy the challenge of getting to my destination knowing that I’ve persevered and I have a sense of achievement that I’d never have if it was all downhill with a tailwind.

Kicking Down Doors

As I think about how much good those tough rides are doing me, I start wondering about the reasoning that says that we know we’re following the right direction for our life when circumstances are easy or when things ‘fall into place’. We talk about God ‘opening doors’ and ‘shutting others’. Well, sometimes I think we need to discover what God wants us to do, which isn’t always an simple thing, and then go out and kick down a few of those closed doors.

I cringe when I hear people using easy circumstances as God’s stamp of approval. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that sometimes God does give us an easy passage to accomplish his purposes but if we expect that to always be the case I think we’ll be disappointed more often than not. I do believe, and it’s been my experience, that God will sometimes open a way that previously seemed permanently shut and we need to be sensitive to that and walk through when it’s right but not just assume that if we do the right thing that life will simply fit neatly together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Of course taking the opposite view, that following the right path will always be difficult and that taking the easy way is always wrong is equally flawed.

In the end, I believe that stopping at closed doors and walking through open ones isn’t always a recipe for right living. We need to be wary of who’s hand is on those open doors.

What’s your experience?

Have you had to struggle to find the way through? Have you had to kick down a few closed doors along the way? Have you walked through an open door only to find that it’s produced more problems than it has solved? Have you also experienced those times when God has very clearly guided you through an open door?



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