Albert Cipriani

Dear Tercel,
You were going great, had me in the palm of your hand all the way to that part about setting Albert straight.

Alas, this is not the river in which we may wash our dirty laundry. So I'll let you have the last word. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional (Unfairly Maligned & Impatient For His Chance To Extract Vengeance) Catholic

99Percent

Albert Cipriani: Anything is possible, and conversely, nothing is impossible.

That would certainly be seemingly wonderful, but it is not. And that is good or else reality would be total chaos. Anything is not always possible, and nothing is not possible. It does not exist.

Tercel: I do not have "faith" in God's existence. I believe God exists, I would say I know that God exists. But it seems customary to use the word "belief" to describe my acceptance of the intellectual proposition of Gods existence. Now, in my understanding of what biblically described "faith" is, it simply doesn't come into this and isn't related to this belief in God's existence.

Maybe its my own Catholic background (I am Mexican) that makes me think you are being basically dishonest in your belief, but the statement "I believe God exist" is undeniably a statement of faith, as it involves the free will of belief (if it where knowledge there would be no free will involved, simple as that). Your negation of this strikes me as basically incoherent at best, dishonest at worst. At least Albert admits his belief in God is based in utter faith, where as you, Tercel, you seem to not grasp the basic foundation to your religion, which is faith itself. Although myself as an atheist, I still find this foundation to be very shaky ground, or extremely thin ice, if any at all (walking on water?).

Ender

I see “original sin” in that story differently. Instead of a plaintive label like “lack of faith” I think original sin is only the dread or anxiety whenever one confronts his own freedom.

Even though Adam and Eve were both innocent and happy, there is a palpable shade over Adam’s discontent. He is unable to locate the source of this disquietude until God makes that fateful command to not eat from the tree of knowledge. Prior to that commandment, it has never once crossed Adam’s mind. But once God lays down the law and prohibits such, Adam knows he can do it, i.e. that he is utterly free to do it. Once he knows he is capable, he knows he might, and in fact, he probably will. Original sin is actually “dread” or “anxiety” when Adam realized the enormity of his own freedom inasmuch we experience when we come to grips with our own freedom.

~WiGGiN~

Koyaanisqatsi

Not quite. We've got an abstraction--the trinity--which is a load of "unbelievable pigshit," being forced down the throats (indoctrinated through inculcation) of the braindead sheep (christians), in order to insure they never can think properly (i.e., to maintain their braindead status), and thereby awaken from their programming(resurrect from the braindead).

See, it was designed to appeal to the irrational mind of the cult member, relying as it did upon contradictory concepts that only a cult member could entertain, but since my mind was only partially destroyed during my cult imprisonment as a child, I guess I just couldn't quite pull it off.

You almost got it, but, in true cult member fashion, you incorrectly redefined the terms and then attempted unsucessfully to turn it all around so that you were in on the joke, but that's ok, as that's been your leit motif ever since you've been posting here .

Tercel

You seem to have completely missed the point of what I'm trying to say. I see "faith" as trust in God, it has nothing to do with belief, -save only that we must obviously believe in God's existence before we can trust in him.

Now you say "belief" in God must involve free will, and if it was knowledge then there would be no free will involved and thus belief isn't knowledge.
Now I'm not sure I quite follow you as far as the importance of free will involved in belief in God goes: The importance of free will is with regard to faith. Trust, almost by definition has to be given freely. Thus free will must be involved in faith in God. But it doesn't have to be involved in my intellectual agreement as to God's existence. I can believe God exists or know God exists without problems since the mere assent to God's existence is not relevant. As I noted above, James points out that even the demons believe God exists. Salvation doesn't come by believing God or Christ exists, but by believing in them (as opposed to of their existence). Believing in someone is the same as trusting in them or having faith in them.

Now you suggest that if you know something exists you can't choose not to believe it does and thus you have no free will. Now as I said above, I believe this is not actually relevant, but I still think you're not entirely correct. Even if I know that something is true, I could still pretend to myself that it isn't, I could still willfully close my eyes to that truth and try and deny it. Of course atheists accuse Christians of doing this regularly, and vice versa as well.

I doubt it. He seems to be agreeing with me. (save for our... small... disagreements about the Catholic and Protestant Churches)

And I think you're completely misunderstanding what you're talking about.

Tercel

Do you mean the first set Albert straight or the second one? ie Do you agree with what I said about the nature of faith and are merely disagreeing with my objections to the not very nice things you said about Protestants, or did you disagree with the whole thing?

You did sort of start it by saying some pretty harsh things about Protestants.


Don't take it seriously, I'm just having a laugh. I do really think Catholics are okay. (I don't agree with everything they profess to believe, but that's hardly a problem as I don't agree with everything most other Protestants profess to believe either)

If you try not to give such large insults to anyone whose position isn't the same as yours you might get on better with people.

theophilus

theophilus

Correction. Doubt is not a "luxury" for free thinkers. It is unavoidable as knowledge is impossible. You're stuck with skepticism.

Not Prince Hamlet

Thedophile,

Come on, really. Is that the best you can do? Attack a spelling error?




Ooooh, now I'm just wriggling in the vice-like grip of your logic. Boy, I can tell when I've met my match. Whew. "Name two." I wonder why Churchill never used that one.

Of course! Why didn't I realize that? All these years I've wasted, waiting for you to come along and tell me that I was simply being ignorant.

Wow. I can't tell you how relieved I am now that you've come along and set me straight.

Please, if other brilliant gems of wisdom like these come to mind, do not hesitate a moment -- not a nanosecond, I implore you! -- before you share them with me. I await in breathless anticipation of the next nugget of logical gold from your treasury that you elect to share with us.

Jeff

theophilus