Blaise Pascal

Lessons from Blaise Pascal - Reasons to Believe

“Whatever one’s religious beliefs, Pascal teaches that all individuals have to make a choice between faith in some reality beyond themselves or a life without belief. But a life without belief is also a choice, and in Pascal’s view, a bad bet.” - The Conversation

“my colleague Shane Morris had a fascinating discussion on the Colson Center’s Upstream podcast … about Christian mockery, using the writings of 17th-century mathematician and Christian apologist, Blaise Pascal.” - Breakpoint

“Pascal was a pioneer in the psychology of persuasion. …Lead people to the answer, but let them discover it on their own. ‘People are generally better persuaded by reasons they have themselves discovered than by those from the minds of others.’” - Breakpoint

“I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town….

Carl Trueman: Perhaps the irony of Christmas is that, in its current form, it has become one of the focal points of the culture of distraction, which Pascal so ably critiqued. It is all about consumption, which is just another form of distraction and diversion.