Does anybody seriously believe the Pascal's Wager argument?

[DavidGYoung]

If an evangelist said to me "If I answer all your questions, will you become a Christian?", my reply would be "It depends what your answers are."

[Athanasius]

If an evangelist said to me "If I answer all your questions, will you become a Christian?", my reply would be "It depends what your answers are."

So you say. Alright, what's one such answer?

[DavidGYoung]

You seem to have missed the point of enquiry.

It's the absence of any satisfactory answers so far that persuade me not to return to Christianity. It's for the evangelist to suggest a convincing one.

[RabbiKnife]

Really?

You think the evangelist is responsible for your salvation?

Wow

We played a flute for you, and you did not dance
We played a surge for you, and you did not weep

The job of the evangelist is to present the gospel, not to play games with skeptics

[tango]

If an evangelist said to me "If I answer all your questions, will you become a Christian?", my reply would be "It depends what your answers are."

... which would be an entirely appropriate response. If you receive satisfactory answers you consider what is being offered more carefully and maybe change your thinking and your life accordingly. But if you make it clear that giving complete answers to all of your questions will just result in ever-more questions, what's the point of asking and answering the questions?

[DavidGYoung]

In response to the post by RabbiKnife, the backstory I am assuming here is that the evangelist approaches the unbeliever first, using the Pascal's Wager argument. I'm not talking about other interactions between evangelists and non-Christians.

[ProDeo]

You seem to have missed the point of enquiry.

It's the absence of any satisfactory answers so far that persuade me not to return to Christianity. It's for the evangelist to suggest a convincing one.

Let's make it more concrete, God gives you a sign, will you believe again?

[DavidGYoung]

What kind of sign are you thinking of?

[RabbiKnife]

In response to the post by RabbiKnife, the backstory I am assuming here is that the evangelist approaches the unbeliever first, using the Pascal's Wager argument. I'm not talking about other interactions between evangelists and non-Christians.

That’s not what an evangelist does…

[DavidGYoung]

That might not be your ideal evangelist, but such an evangelist exists whether you want one to or not.

"No true Scotsman..."

[RabbiKnife]

Secular society does not get to describe what a Christian evangelist is.

Sorry, that’s not a true Scotsman fallacy.


You have to live with the definitions the Bible gives…

[Oscar_Kipling]

If an evangelist said to me "If I answer all your questions, will you become a Christian?", my reply would be "It depends what your answers are."

... which would be an entirely appropriate response. If you receive satisfactory answers you consider what is being offered more carefully and maybe change your thinking and your life accordingly. But if you make it clear that giving complete answers to all of your questions will just result in ever-more questions, what's the point of asking and answering the questions?

To see what happens.

[ProDeo]

What kind of sign are you thinking of?

Something that convinces you.

[tango]

If an evangelist said to me "If I answer all your questions, will you become a Christian?", my reply would be "It depends what your answers are."

... which would be an entirely appropriate response. If you receive satisfactory answers you consider what is being offered more carefully and maybe change your thinking and your life accordingly. But if you make it clear that giving complete answers to all of your questions will just result in ever-more questions, what's the point of asking and answering the questions?

To see what happens.

There's nothing to see. If you're asking a bunch of questions having already decided you won't accept the answers it's just a waste of everybody's time. If wasting time is your goal then it might be a successful endeavor. If drawing someone into an endlessly pointless argument is the goal it might be a successful endeavor. Aside from that it's a waste of your time and theirs.

[DavidGYoung]

No, there could be answers I have not encountered before.

To give you a few examples from outside the realm of Christianity's truth claims, here are a few things I would and would not be interested in hearing:

Yes:
Any new argument in favour of Matthean priority that entered scholarship after 1994.
No:
Any argument that the Synoptic Gospels were all written independently of one another or that the Fourth Gospel was written first.

Yes:
Various versions of Christianity which firmly take one side or the other in the freewill-versus-divine-foreknowledge debate.
No:
Any argument that they are both compatible.

Yes:
Non-signs-and-wonders Christianity which acknowledges the theory of evolution to be true.
No:
Anything in the signs-and-wonders or creationist versions of Christianity.

Those are just a few areas where I would still be interested in what Christians, and other theologians, have to say.
However, it's the strength of the arguments that I am interested in and nothing more.