The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

[qatarperegrine]

I've been reading Pascal's Pensees. It's pretty awesome. (Jess, I'll bet you'd like it better than Aquinas.)

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me? Memoria hospitis unius diei praetereuntis. [The remembrance of a guest that tarried but a day.] The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
...
This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and I see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents to me nothing which is not matter of doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied; wherefore I have a hundred times wished that if a God maintains Nature, she should testify to Him unequivocally, and that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she should suppress them altogether; that she should say everything or nothing, that I might see which cause I ought to follow. ...
...
It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that He should not exist; that the soul should be joined to the body, and that we should have no soul; that the world should be created, and that it should not be created. ...

Wow.

Comments

[georgiarepublic.livejournal.com]

Wow, exactly.
I have not read this, though it doesn't sound like it provides any new answers, it does give me the sense that I am not alone in this conundrum.
I have always felt this way about the belief in a deity.
While I have always been skeptical in such a divinity as is written in the bible, at the same time I wondered how there could not have been/be something ethereal to explain all of the tangibles and intangibles that makes up the universe I know.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Pascal's answer comes a few paragraphs later, where he gives the famous "Pascal's Wager." But it is an inordinately silly answer, from both a logical perspective and a theological one.

I am basically a panentheist. I don't believe in a large-scale personality kind of god, but I'm not a materialist either.

[meshach.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think I would. that's beautiful.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Yup. :-)

Pensees in plaintext. Because I know you have TONS of time to spend reading religious philosophy this semester. ;-)

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's about how I felt before I worked out that there's no God.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

:-D

[rmitz.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't see the point in it. The first paragraph seems particularly nonsensical to me. The rest is a legitimate viewpoint, though it seems to me that constraining God to need to show his own existance is...shortsighted.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

The first paragraph makes a bit more sense in the context of his whole discussion of the concept of infinity. But I agree that the whole "Why am I here and not over there" question seems an odd way of looking at the universe.

I don't think he is constraining God to show God's own existence as much as he is constraining nature to give hints as to its origin. But I suppose it comes down to the same thing.

Generally, though, I think he's sort of making the same point as the Design by Unintelligent Hand people, albeit in a less sarcastic manner. I think people have always looked at the universe and thought, "There must be some intelligence behind this." Pascal's the earliest guy I've read who says, "Yeah, but if some intelligence is behind this, wouldn't it all be a bit... nicer?"

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

Now I know why you and Mum get migraines and I don't. Cos you both read this and I stick to other stuff. Currently on my nightstand: Cvltvre Made Stupid. A selection from this work:

The history of western thought does not, of course, start with the Greeks. But all books do.
The Greek philosophers began by asking fundamental questions about the nature of life, the universe, and thought itself. They soon discovered that the answers to these questions were not forthcoming, nor likely to be.
But in time, they made a greater discovery: that merely posing the questions—in a suitably convoluted manner—sounded mighty impressive. And a philosopher who sounded thus impressive got veneration, large fees, and comfortable consulting positions.
...
After the Pre-Socratic thinkers came the Post-Socratics. (There were no actual "Socratics" except for Socrates—who may or may not have actually existed, as he himself would doubtless be the first to admit if he were alive today.)

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I LOVE Cvltvre Made Stupid. I never pass by a Greek statue anymore without getting the urge to color the eyes "back" in.

[(Anonymous)]

:-) The question leads to an answer which leads to another question.

....

[(Anonymous)]

I was probably watching legally blonge when you read this. You people should do the same.