Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jack the Bodiless · 10-28-2004, 01:07 AM

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No, the apostle Paul explicitly teaches that Christ is our example. If we do anything that He wouldn't do, it is a sin.

...So why are you posting here?

There IS someone called "Jesus Christ" who has posted on this forum, but somehow I suspect it wasn't the same guy.

There are further problems with your argument, of course. Such as your Paulianity: Paul wasn't Jesus. Plus the notion that Jesus had the power to "coerce belief" and actually chose not to. Remember my dragon?

Ed · 10-28-2004, 09:31 PM

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Originally Posted by lpetrich

Originally Posted by Ed
There is no specific chapter and verse but given that Christ is our ultimate example and He never physically coerced belief in him but rather used arguments and evidence. Then so should we when evangelizing non-believers and to do otherwise is a sin.

lp: However, he was more than happy to threaten eternal damnation, and he vilified in rather extreme terms those scribes and Pharisees and those who would not listen to him.

Evidence he was "more than happy"? And he was always harshest on believers, ie scribes and Pharisees, because they know the truth but don't live it, but not as harsh with unbelievers because sometimes they didn't know better.

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lp: Furthermore, in his argumentation with Pharisees, they come across as pushovers, which seems rather unlikely.

Evidence?

lpetrich · 10-28-2004, 09:51 PM

lp: However, he was more than happy to threaten eternal damnation, and he vilified in rather extreme terms those scribes and Pharisees and those who would not listen to him.

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Originally Posted by Ed

Evidence he was "more than happy"? And he was always harshest on believers, ie scribes and Pharisees, because they know the truth but don't live it, but not as harsh with unbelievers because sometimes they didn't know better.

Did Jesus Christ say so? Or did he simply dismiss Gentiles as beneath his notice? As with that Syro-Phoenician woman, when he called Gentiles "dogs".

lp: Furthermore, in his argumentation with Pharisees, they come across as pushovers, which seems rather unlikely.

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Evidence?

The Talmud. As Frank Zindler notes, the rabbis who contributed to it were master quibblers, and they could easily have held their own against JC. Simply consider all those you've argued with here; who here has been a pushover for you?

Ed · 10-30-2004, 09:50 PM

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Originally Posted by Jack the Bodiless

jtb: So, which is it? Can we see that Christianity "fits reality" NOW, or do we have to wait until after we're dead to see this?

Ed: We won't fully understand God's justice until the afterlife, but we can see that all humans desire justice and this is evidence that a God that is concerned about justice exists and created us in his image. Also that justice actually exists and is not just an evolutionary and social construct.

jtb: This is not true, and even you can see that it isn't true. That's why you keep inventing non-Biblical doctrines and ignoring what the Bible actually says.

Ok, give an example of a healthy person who DOES NOT desire justice.

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jtb: The Bible says that innocents should be punished for the sins of others. The Bible says that God initially hardened Pharaoh's heart. The Bible says that God is unjust.

I have refuted those contentions earlier in this thread so I will not rehash them again at this time.

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Ed: Yes, because there is scientific evidence for a Triune creator

lp: A "triune" one? Why not a hundred-part one or a million-part one?

ed: Because noone has claimed to experienced such a being or seriously proposed such a cause of the universe.

ss: Really? Lots of people I know experience just that on acid. Although if you want a better example look at the post above:

Ed: Well they may have thought they experienced such a being, but most would not claim them as the creator of the universe. But anyway I am primarily referring what sane non drug users believe and claim.

jtb: Are you denying the existence of millions of Hindus, and all other polytheists throughout hstory? Or are you claiming that they're all insane or on drugs?

Ed: Actually Hindus are pantheists not polytheists. Lp was referring to a single god with millions of parts, polytheists believe in a multitude of individual gods so they are plainly not the same thing. And hindus believe that there is a single god who manifests himself in millions of forms ultimately forms are just illusions.

jtb: We can all read what he wrote, Ed. "A triune one? Why not a hundred-part one or a million-part one?"

Hindus believe in a multi-part divinity. Their doctrine that all the gods share the same "essence" doesn't change that. You are simply wrong. And, apparently, you're a polytheist: Christians believe that there is only one God.

It is very likely that the Christian Trinity was copied from the Hindu one. Or did you not know that Hindus venerate a Trinity?

No, Hindus believe in one totally unified god, the "parts" are just illusions. Their "gods" are more than just the same essence, they are also the same Being.

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jtb: History, philosophy, science, and our own experience tells us that Hinduism fits reality better than Christianity does. There is no "Problem of Evil" in Hinduism, there is no pattern of "threes" in the Universe, and if we apply "Ed's Law of Resemblances" we note many examples of nested hirearchies in the Universe (Seattle is a part of Washington State, which is a part of the United States...), which mirrors the Hindu pantheon structure.

Ed: You are right there is no problem of evil but because of that there is a multitude of other problems with hinduism. There is the problem of justice, if hinduism is true then there is no justice because there is no evil, everything is "good" because everything is god.

jtb: Nonsense. We all have distinct personalities, they can be "good" or "bad", and our actions determine our status in the next incarnation.

Not if Hinduism is true, because we are ALL god and all the same god. So there is no good or bad and our actions are gods actions. And our personalities are an illusion.

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Ed: Also there is the problem of individuality, we all strongly feel that we are separate persons, but if hinduism is true then in actuallity we are all one and our individuality is an illusion.

jtb: Already addressed. Please try to KEEP UP, Ed.

Not adequately, see above.

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Ed: And your example is actually a manmade creation that mirrors the unities and diversities inherent in the universe. Because the cities and states are all real separate individual entities within a unity of the US. If it was based on hinduism then the states would just be illuisons and not actual separate entities.

jtb: But they ARE illusions. Go to any state border, test the soil on either side, and you won't be able to detect any physical characteristic that distinguishes the territory of one state from the next.

In your world, there should be only three states (and no counties etc), all part of one nation, with physical borders.

Actually I meant to say that the CITIES would just be illusions but they are not, they actually exist.

Ed · 10-31-2004, 09:47 PM

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Originally Posted by lpetrich

Originally Posted by Ed
I don't deny that some of the more specifics were derived from the Greeks and Romans but again as I said the overarching things were derived from judeo-christian principles.

lp: If one waves one's hands about vague "principles", one can prove whatever one wants.

I would hardly call basic human rights, vague principles.

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(The Divine Right of Kings...)

Ed: Yes, but they had a theocratic view of government which remember was a borrowing from the ancient hebrew theocracy which Christ superceded as I have demonstrated in earlier threads.

lp: I'm not aware that Jesus Christ had proclaimed "No more divine right of kings!"

No, but one of the main crys of the Revolution was "No king but Jesus!"

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lp: Furthermore, the Divine Right of Kings has been a common theory of government over the millennia; it does not have to come from the Bible. Seen in that light, it has been rather exceptional to view governments as the servants of their citizens rather than their divinely-appointed masters. And from the beginning to the end of the Bible, the divinely-appointed-master view of government is the only one that one sees. Try coughing democracy out of Romans 13 some time and you'll see what I mean.

Romans 13 does not rule out democracy. And see my earlier post above about this subject.

lpetrich · 10-31-2004, 11:27 PM

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Originally Posted by Ed

I would hardly call basic human rights, vague principles.

I meant vague descriptions and vague sort-of fits. One could, if one had enough imagination, derive the US Constitution from Sharia law or Rome's Twelve Tables or the Buddha's Five Moral Rules or the Laws of Manu or some version of the Egyptian Negative Confession.

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No, but one of the main crys of the Revolution was "No king but Jesus!"

However, the article Was "No King but Jesus" a Revolutionary War Slogan?
explains that it was only a minor slogan. And in any case, neither the Constitution nor the DoI claims that.

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Romans 13 does not rule out democracy.

A rather serious stretch -- "we the people" is not Mr. G.

Jack the Bodiless · 11-02-2004, 01:59 AM

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Ed: We won't fully understand God's justice until the afterlife, but we can see that all humans desire justice and this is evidence that a God that is concerned about justice exists and created us in his image. Also that justice actually exists and is not just an evolutionary and social construct.

jtb: This is not true, and even you can see that it isn't true. That's why you keep inventing non-Biblical doctrines and ignoring what the Bible actually says.

Ok, give an example of a healthy person who DOES NOT desire justice.

When I said "this is not true", I wasn't referring to "all humans desire justice", but to the notion that God cares about justice. You keep trying to rewrite the Bible because of this problem.

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jtb: The Bible says that innocents should be punished for the sins of others. The Bible says that God initially hardened Pharaoh's heart. The Bible says that God is unjust.

I have refuted those contentions earlier in this thread so I will not rehash them again at this time.

Anyone who reads this thread will know that you failed to do this. I repeatedly pointed out what the Bible actually says, and you repeatedly ignored the authority of your own God.

...Which I still find to be rather puzzling. This is one aspect of the theistic mindset that I honestly don't think I will ever understand. I can just about grasp the notion of wanting to believe in a super-powerful authority figure: "God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world". But the desire to grovel and worship this being is alien to me: and what I find utterly incomprehensible is the desire to invent the doctrines of this being!

If I actually believed that an almighty God ruled over everything, and the Bible was his word: then I just can't see myself having the nerve to overrule my God like that.

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Hindus believe in a multi-part divinity. Their doctrine that all the gods share the same "essence" doesn't change that. You are simply wrong. And, apparently, you're a polytheist: Christians believe that there is only one God.

It is very likely that the Christian Trinity was copied from the Hindu one. Or did you not know that Hindus venerate a Trinity?

No, Hindus believe in one totally unified god, the "parts" are just illusions. Their "gods" are more than just the same essence, they are also the same Being.

You seem to be confirming my point: you are a Christian heretic, a polytheist, who worships a pantheon of three independent beings.

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Ed: You are right there is no problem of evil but because of that there is a multitude of other problems with hinduism. There is the problem of justice, if hinduism is true then there is no justice because there is no evil, everything is "good" because everything is god.

jtb: Nonsense. We all have distinct personalities, they can be "good" or "bad", and our actions determine our status in the next incarnation.

Not if Hinduism is true, because we are ALL god and all the same god. So there is no good or bad and our actions are gods actions. And our personalities are an illusion.

I have already addressed this: you are falling behind again. Hindus OBVIOUSLY believe that we have individual personalities: they OBVIOUSLY must believe this, because it is OBVIOUSLY true.

Again, your argument against Hinduism seems to be "I prefer to believe that millions of Hindus are dumber than a box of rocks".

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Ed: And your example is actually a manmade creation that mirrors the unities and diversities inherent in the universe. Because the cities and states are all real separate individual entities within a unity of the US. If it was based on hinduism then the states would just be illuisons and not actual separate entities.

jtb: But they ARE illusions. Go to any state border, test the soil on either side, and you won't be able to detect any physical characteristic that distinguishes the territory of one state from the next.

In your world, there should be only three states (and no counties etc), all part of one nation, with physical borders.

Actually I meant to say that the CITIES would just be illusions but they are not, they actually exist.

Cities are illusions too. They're just names we give to a denser-than-usual blob of buildings occupying a very loosely-defined area. There is no "magic number" of buildings that distinguishes a town from a city, there is no detectable change in physical characteristics when a town becomes a city, and most modern cities have no clear boundaries: they're surrounded by sprawling suburbs, industrial units, and satellite "towns" which have merged with the city even though they retain their old names. A city boundary is just a line on a map, marked by a road sign.

In your world, there would be three cities surrounded by city walls, with no buildings outside them.

Ed · 11-02-2004, 07:37 PM

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Originally Posted by Jack the Bodiless

Again you are trying to direct the reader to "evidence given elsewhere" which doesn't actually exist.

...Which doesn't support your position (and why cite an article about Hinduism "from the early Vedic Period to the period of Vedanta philosophy of Madva in the 12th century CE", rather than today?)

Nobody here is claiming that Hindus worship hundreds of entirely separate deities. What I'm claiming is essentially what P. Ravi Sarma is claiming: that the various Hindu deities are "personal gods" which are actually aspects of a single, incomprehensible, impersonal divine essence. If you wish to simplify this to "Hindus worship only one God" and contrast this with what YOU worship, then you are admitting that YOU are a polytheist: you worship three entirely separate gods which do not partake of the same divine essence.

That makes you a heretic. And you've ignored the Bible again.

No, the Trinity is three separate persons with one divine essence. This is how Athanasius formulated it from the scriptures.

Ed · 11-02-2004, 07:49 PM

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Originally Posted by Jack the Bodiless

Incidentally, Ed, do you even care that you're applying a double standard to Hinduism?

OK, this has never stopped you in the past...

Ed: Also there is the problem of individuality, we all strongly feel that we are separate persons, but if hinduism is true then in actuallity we are all one and our individuality is an illusion. Of course this also compounds the problem of justice because noone is responsible for crime except the god.

jtb: Yes, it is obvious that we are individuals, and any religion that denies this cannot possibly be correct.

It is also obvious that we are not God-controlled robots, and any religion that says otherwise cannot possibly be correct.

In the case of Christianity, you used this to override all of God's attempts to coerce people in the Old Testament, to promote invented and un-Biblical doctrine. You even extended this into the NT to invent a claim that God now permits "freedom of religion", and invented a new sin for the Book of Ed: "physically coercing belief in the true God is now a sin".

Yet it never occurred to you that obviously millions of Hindus couldn't possibly be stupid enough to believe, for thousands of years, that human individuality didn't exist at all.

So, do you now expect us to believe that Hindus are unbelievably stupid in addition to being either insane or on drugs?

Devout hindus believe that the illusion of individuality is so strong and powerful that only extreme and deep meditation and spiritual exercises can allow an "individual" to experience the reality of total ONENESS. This is basically the whole goal of their religion. This is not the result of stupidity but rather due to millenia of spiritual confusion and darkness.

Jack the Bodiless · 11-03-2004, 01:32 AM

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No, the Trinity is three separate persons with one divine essence. This is how Athanasius formulated it from the scriptures.

And some of the ancient Greeks believed the same about their gods: that, despite being "separate persons", they shared the same "divine essence".

The Greeks were polytheists. So are you.

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Yet it never occurred to you that obviously millions of Hindus couldn't possibly be stupid enough to believe, for thousands of years, that human individuality didn't exist at all.

So, do you now expect us to believe that Hindus are unbelievably stupid in addition to being either insane or on drugs?

Devout hindus believe that the illusion of individuality is so strong and powerful that only extreme and deep meditation and spiritual exercises can allow an "individual" to experience the reality of total ONENESS. This is basically the whole goal of their religion. This is not the result of stupidity but rather due to millenia of spiritual confusion and darkness.

...Or, perhaps, centuries of deep meditation and spiritual insight.

We're still waiting for an explanation of why Hinduism CANNOT be true. You cannot use the "we are actually all individuals" argument against Hinduism if "extreme and deep meditation and spiritual exercises" (which you have presumably not performed) are supposedly required to penetrate the illusion.

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