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The Iconoclast

‹‹ The Progressive Diminishment of Man

Film seized 'shows children being radicalised' ››

Sunday, 31 January 2010

The Wager of Immortality

by Mark Signorelli (February 2010)

But that either this or something very like it is a true account of our souls and their future habitations – since we have clear evidence that the soul is immortal – this, I think, is both a reasonable contention and a belief worth risking, for the risk is a noble one. -the Phaedo

Nothing is more lamentable about the present intellectual condition of our society than the great flippancy with which contemporary authors regularly treat the most momentous of topics. The journalistic attitude, comprised of a pernicious congeries of arrogant self-assurance, fashionable bigotry, and incurable mental indolence, is all pervasive, and ushers into the world on a weekly basis dozens of trite, insipid, often sarcastic treatments of the gravest and most consequential questions which, for eons, have resisted the most pertinacious inquiries of philosophy and theology. There are times when the mass of contemporary authors appears like nothing so much as one large crowd of schoolchildren, dressed up in their parents' over-sized formal wear, play-acting at some adult concern, like a wedding or a funeral, yet possessing none of the maturity or sophistication to carry it off in the least convincing manner. Bishop Butler lamented how much the reverence for truth had waned in his own time; what would he say had he lived to our own age? One of the most notable evidences of this intellectual unseriousness is the habitual disrespect displayed toward the name of Blaise Pascal, and the ignorant and dismissive contempt leveled towards his famous argument of the Wager. more>>>

Tags: Mark Signorelli, Blaise Pascal, Pensees, limits of reason

Submit Your Comment

Posted on 01/31/2010 2:51 PM by NER

Comments

17 Feb 2010

Jacob

And still so many happy lives are sacrificed on the altar of annhilation before they ever had the chance to be.

22 Feb 2010

Jerry Mander

This is absolute trash compared to my works. You are an intellectual lightweight, whose childish panerings are more indictive of an amateur status then of an enlightened individual like myself. FRANCE RULES.

8 Mar 2010
Clemmie

Thank you for the laugh. Seriously, can't you see the problems in this, just your second sentence?

"The journalistic attitude, comprised of a pernicious congeries of arrogant self-assurance, fashionable bigotry, and incurable mental indolence, is all pervasive, and ushers into the world on a weekly basis dozens of trite, insipid, often sarcastic treatments of the gravest and most consequential questions which, for eons, have resisted the most pertinacious inquiries of philosophy and theology."

IYou should read the following paper and consider the "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity"

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/opplab/papers/Opp%20Consequences%20of%20Erudite%20Vernacular.pdf

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