spurly

"Fear", in the biblical sense of the word where it says to fear God, means to hold him in a position of awe and respect - not to shake in your sandals before him.

Perfect love casts out being afraid.

Kevin

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by spurly :

1 John 4:18 points out that there is no fear in love. So either we aren't supposed to love God, or the Bible contains a contradiction. And it's pretty strange that there would be no room for awe and respect within love.

Giorgia

Hi, Heretic! And welcome to the II boards!

Apologetix is long gone (hasn't responded since 2/28); however, it would seem that spurly has taken up the xian torch of illogic.

I re-quoted your wonderful post above because I think we should seriously consider turning your thoughts into "The Atheist Anthem" and suggest that all atheist children be allowed to read this anthem aloud while others pray. Or that, in court cases about public posting of the ten commandments, atheist rebutt with "Sure, post away; as long as we're allowed to hang the Atheist Athem right next to the 10C." Etc. etc.

Only being slightly facetious here...

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Clutch

Well, for pete's sake. I've only said it four times now. Let's try an attention-grabbing colour:

Your contrast between "making a spherical cube" and "learning something" is a false contrast. The former conjoins incompatible properties -- but each property, taken individually, is realizable. So it is a simple error of reasoning to take the conjunction of incompatible properties and compare it to a single realizable property, when the point to which you are attempting to respond is that "learning something" is no less incompatible with "being omniscient" than "being spherical" is with "being a cube".

My patience for explaining this very straightforward point is now exhausted.

the_cave

Well, sounds to me like you'd been listening too long to the low-church Protestants

I'm a Christian, and I find the Bible fascinating, in all it's contradictory, patchwork, chaotic glory. Not much different from human life and history in general. To me, it is indeed (as I said on another thread) a record of the ethical development of a culture--and an incomplete record at that, because it's the history of the church that helps to complete it, and even now it isn't complete, as many of you atheists take pains to note. I would agree that if you're looking for verse after verse of Perfect Instructions for Everyday Life, (or Satisfactory Solutions to Knotty Epistemological Questions) the Bible will surely let you down. But neither I nor the Christians I know think that's what it is. I'll admit many Christians seem to treat it as such.

the_cave

I appear not to have made myself clear. I'm not suggesting performing any unethical acts! Here's an example of what I'm talking about: I might be afraid to show up half an hour late to an appointment with someone, for fear that they will lose their temper. But I can still love that person, even though I wish they wouldn't lose their temper if I'm late.

And as a matter of fact, I do love strangers, and the police as well.

And for that matter, if I love someone, I am afraid of hurting them.

I think this fear would also include the fear of performing unethical acts. But the point is, those weren't the acts I had in mind in my example.

No, it's an attempt to translate a Hebrew root into English, which may not have an equivalent for it. (I should also note that the early translators of the Bible into English used an English language somewhat different from our own. Much modern Bible translation goes to lengths to preserve that early langauge, for better or for worse.) You can call it "Christian speak", but it's really just an issue for any translator; indeed, for any reader of any text in any language.



But their triumphs have no moral authority over me. However, I bet you do in fact deeply respect moral laws. Are you trying to tell me you respect moral laws the same way you do atheletes? (See how hard it is to define words? Even in English!)

Nope, just as I also have a different feeling from that kind of fear when I tell someone "I'm afraid we're out of milk." If you look up "fear" in the dictionary, you might find more than one definition (even in English.)

Great! I also have a strong form of respect for Steven Jay Gould. But it's not the same strong from of respect I have for God (or for moral principles, or for my relatives, or the police, or the crackhead, or...)

Kvalhion

I interpret this as saying you are more than willing to suspend disbelief in regards to the bible in order to piece together something you wish to believe in.

This is fine, and you are obviously more than welcome to do so. However I would point out that if you try to establish credibility of the bible with others, you cannot simply dismiss that which is completely contradictory, vulgar or absurd. Unless, of course, you congregate with others of a like mind.

Jobar

Mt. 10:28- "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. "

"Respect", huh? Try plugging that in place of 'fear' in that verse.

doodad

It appears that the fear of one who can destroy both body and soul in hell is intended to motivate someone to behave himself.
It's a deterrant, like the fear of the law or the needle.

Folks do have option as believers. Granted, the non-believer doesn't have to concern himself with such a fear. I think this type of "God will get you for that." stuff is intended to intimidate people into walking the line for fear of being punished if they don
't .

Wizardry

Thomas Metcalf,

And why not? It would be nice if you could provide a counter-argument or some sort of reason why you think this rather than just asserting it, but I'll explain again why this matters, anyway.

The following two statements:

1. I make a cube.
2. I make a sphere.

are different statements, no? They represent two different tasks, don't they? Of course they do, because the verbs here have different objects. To compare the relative abilities of different beings to complete the same task, the subjects should be changed like so:

1. I make a cube.
2. You make a cube.

note that only subjects have changed and not the objects or the verbs. Now if we had changed the objects along with the subjects, we would get two obviously incomparable statements as follows:

1. I make a cube.
2. You make a sphere.

Trying to assess and compare the relative creative capabilities of you and me from these two statements would make no sense, because, since the objects are different, the tasks are different. Similarly, I have argued in previous posts that the nature of the verb to learn means that there is an inherent object that is not mentioned whenever we make the statement that "being X learns".

Basically, since to learn expands to "to increase one's own knowledge", then the capacity of "one's own knowledge" becomes a relevant object, as much as cube or sphere were in the previous examples. Consider these possible expansions of learning.

• I increase my own knowledge.
• You increase your own knowledge.

Now those two statements in their expanded form are as different as the subject-object mismatch from before, even though in common parlance we would only say "I learn" and "you learn". Apples and oranges. So basically, trying to conduct analysis on these statements is doomed to failure. If you really want to do it right, you would have to compare the statements like this (omitting the own of course, so that comparisons can be made at all):

• I increase my knowledge.
  and
• You increase my knowledge.
  
  or
  
• You increase your knowledge.
  and
• I increase your knowledge.

Nope. All I'm saying is that when considering tasks that implicitly reference the subject, care must be taken in the analysis to be sure that comparisons are being made correctly.

Why would I do that? I have been operating under more or less equivalent forms of the definition you've provided. My argument has been solely with the analysis of verbs with internal reference to the subject.

I beg to differ. Learning cannot exist by itself. It always has reference to a subject and an object, as I've argued above.

Which is exactly the premise I have been arguing other, that for different beings, the simple statement "being X learns" represents very different tasks depending on the subject despite the fact that the same verb is used for all.

McNothing is not omnipotent, not because of his coincident properties, but because of his relevant properties. In fact, the defining characteristic of McNothing is that he cannot perform some actions (ie all of them). That statement directly speaks to his power. McNothing could possess all the same properties as he does now and have more power (a la McEar and beyond), so he does not meet the standard of omnipotence.

I hope I've cleared everthing up.