Christian pastor Ryan Bell was all over the media this week for a project he has just undertaken: spending a year without God. Without having lost his belief in God, Bell wants to explore atheism as an alternative faith system in order to see what conclusions he comes to at the end. Will he return to faith? Will he become an atheist? Or will he remain what he clearly now is: an agnostic (although he doesn’t use that language).
Bell’s project reveals a fascinating set of assumptions about faith, religion, and doubt. It is reminiscent of one of the most famous experiments in living with God: the 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal’s wager.
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