{"id":37966,"date":"2016-09-19T16:41:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T20:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=37966"},"modified":"2016-09-19T17:01:09","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T21:01:09","slug":"podcast-151-dr-michael-rota-on-pascals-wager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-151-dr-michael-rota-on-pascals-wager\/","title":{"rendered":"podcast 151 &#8211; Dr. Michael Rota on Pascal&#8217;s Wager"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_3751\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-37966-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/p\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities151.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/p\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities151.mp3\">http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/p\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities151.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/p\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities151.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?powerpress_pinw=37966-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/trinities\/p\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/podcast\/trinities151.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"trinities151.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/7FuUF9DZM3zhtN41n6RJ6l\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_spotify\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe on Spotify\" rel=\"nofollow\">Spotify<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/subscribebyemail.com\/trinities.org\/blog\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe by Email\" rel=\"nofollow\">Email<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Taking-Pascals-Wager-Evidence-Abundant\/dp\/0830851364\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474238165&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=rota%2C+taking+pascal%27s+wager\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-37967\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Michael-Rota-Taking-Pascals-Wager-Faith-Evidence-and-the-Abundant-Life.jpg\" alt=\"michael-rota-taking-pascals-wager-faith-evidence-and-the-abundant-life\" width=\"279\" height=\"416\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Michael-Rota-Taking-Pascals-Wager-Faith-Evidence-and-the-Abundant-Life.jpg 400w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Michael-Rota-Taking-Pascals-Wager-Faith-Evidence-and-the-Abundant-Life-201x300.jpg 201w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Michael-Rota-Taking-Pascals-Wager-Faith-Evidence-and-the-Abundant-Life-90x134.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 279px) 100vw, 279px\" \/><\/a><strong>What if you believe in Christianity, and it&#8217;s false?<\/strong>\u00a0Have you lost much, really? On the other hand, if you believe it and it&#8217;s <strong>true &#8211; eternal life<\/strong>!<\/p>\n<p><strong>What if you <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> believe it, and it&#8217;s true?<\/strong> No eternal life, and maybe something way worse. What if you don&#8217;t believe it, and it&#8217;s <strong>false<\/strong>? You&#8217;ve successfully avoided wasting your time and money on church, and have avoided believing a falsehood. A little gain, to be sure, but nothing extreme.<\/p>\n<p>If you think the <strong>most compelling options<\/strong> are Christianity or naturalism, these are the possibilities you must weigh. Just compare them. Isn&#8217;t the <strong>prudent choice<\/strong> to do whatever it takes to believe Christianity, adopting the lifestyle of a participating seeker, and hoping that Christian beliefs\u00a0will eventually follow?<\/p>\n<p>In this episode <a href=\"https:\/\/mikerota.wordpress.com\/\"><strong>Dr. Michael Rota<\/strong><\/a> of the University of St. Thomas discusses his new book <a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/trinities-20\/detail\/0830851364\"><strong><em>Taking Pascal&#8217;s Wager: Faith, Evidence and the Abundant Life<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. This is an accessible, well-written, and carefully argued book which makes good use of much recent work by philosophers of religion. In my view, it&#8217;s better than C.S. Lewis&#8217;s classic <em>Mere Christianity<\/em>. In this first part of our conversation, Dr. Rota presents the basics of <strong>part 1 of the book, a practical argument<\/strong> for taking up a religious life. It turns out that the social sciences have strengthened the argument in some ways which Pascal couldn&#8217;t have anticipated.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Links for this episode:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-37970\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son.jpg\" alt=\"return-of-the-prodigal-son\" width=\"368\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son.jpg 600w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son-300x271.jpg 300w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son-420x379.jpg 420w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son-460x416.jpg 460w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Return-of-the-Prodigal-Son-90x81.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 368px) 100vw, 368px\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mikerota.wordpress.com\/\">Dr. Rota&#8217;s home page<\/a><\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stthomas.edu\/catholicstudies\/faculty\/dr-michael-w-rota.html\">Dr. Rota @ the University of St. Thomas<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/trinities-20\/detail\/0830851364\">Taking Pascal&#8217;s Wager: Faith, Evidence and the Abundant Life<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(<a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/trinities-20\/detail\/B01D8W6ISO\">kindle<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/pascal\/\">Blaise Pascal (1623-62)<\/a>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/pascal-wager\/\">Pascal&#8217;s Wager<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/montaigne\/\">Montaigne<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.peterkreeft.com\/home.htm\">Peter Kreeft<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xenu.net\/\">Scientology<\/a>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s\/ref=assoc_res_sw_view_all?tag=trinitiesorg-20&amp;link_code=w14&amp;linkID=ISZSX35I27NLT3KG&amp;_encoding=UTF-8&amp;field-keywords=bare-faced+messiah\"><em>Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Luke 15:11-32<\/li>\n<li>This week&#8217;s <strong>thinking music is &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/freemusicarchive.org\/music\/Jesse_Spillane\/Art_of_Presentation\/Jesse_Spillane_-_Art_of_Presentation_-_11_Number_0\">Number 0<\/a>&#8220;<\/strong> by <a href=\"http:\/\/freemusicarchive.org\/music\/Jesse_Spillane\/\">Jesse Spillane<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What if you believe in Christianity, and it&#8217;s false? Have you lost much, really?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,16,80,56,9,57,66,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-books","category-faith","category-interview","category-philosophy","category-podcast","category-religious-diversity","category-roman-catholicism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37976,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37966\/revisions\/37976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}