Bumble Bee Tuna

danielius

Hi Brian,

Many thanks for your thoughts and comments.

Thank you - I appreciate your honesty. Let's indeed move on...

Here are some thoughts, directly relevant to the question of Christianity's world-view, which I'm now putting on the floor for discussion:

1. Do we live in a meaningless universe? If our universe had had no light, we would not have evolved eyes, yet we all seem to have developed a faculty for evaluating questions of meaning, and an inherent desire for it. Where do these come from?

2. Can we have justice in an injust world? We live in an inter-connected society and share in the responsibility for things good and bad. We all have blood on our hands, at least indirectly. How can we reconcile justice with forgiveness? Is it even possible?

3. Why do we always let ourselves down? I could have done all sorts of useful, worthwhile things today, yet I haven't. What is this standard, this completeness, we seem fallen from? And if there is no standard, what are we aiming for at all?

(This is what I was beginning to reference with the question of the sunflower. Perhaps better than talking about a sunflower in a drawing or photo being 'less real' is to talk about it being 'less sunflowery'. Why am I less 'Daniely' and you less 'Briany' than we know we can/should be?)

There are many more things to discuss, but these I think will give us focus and direction, and plenty to talk over.

Take care,

Daniel

AJ113

I see, and these points are directly relevant to christianity's world view are they?

I guess the next fifty posts are going to discuss the definition of the word "relevant"

sigh..................

emotional

No. DNA has meaning. Need we say more?



To quote biologist D'Arcy Thompson: "Everything is the way it is because it got that way". Meaning evolved like everything else.



Yes, we can and we do.



I trust you are hinting towards the Christian doctrine of atonement, which permits God to be both just and merciful at the same time. I have already refuted this idea on the boards before, thus: in the Christian system, the feeder of the hungry goes to eternal hell if he did not accept Jesus, and the mass murderer goes to eternal heaven if he did on his deathbed; so that the Christian god, in an attempt to be both just and merciful at the same time, ends up being neither. This is the chief reason why I reject Christianity.



Oh, give me a break. Just a cursory reading of the scriptures (especially the OT) should make it clear that most humans live up to a much standard than the Christian God. If He is the setter of standards, we're in big trouble.

You seem to be arguing by presupposition: Christianity sets the standard of reasoning for everything and is synonymous with reason itself. I don't accept that. Man's autonomous reason is a far better guide than fear of God. Remember, it is your "reasonable" Bible that says that there is a way that seems right unto a man but the end of it is death, or in other words, don't you dare reason for yourself.

Jinto

Oi. I hate being absent from this forum. Okay, where were we...

No, my response was that your assertion was not in any way supported by the definition of thought. Please have the courtesy to look at what I actually said and not mix me up with someone else. And incidentally, please do not make strawmen of that someone else's argument either.

Bullshit. Aside from the fact that I can handle two or three seperate lines of thought in parallel (albeit with difficulty), a physical limitation in handling multiple lines of thought simultaneously would no more signal a comittment to those thoughts than would the physical impossibility of eating and breathing at the same time signal a commitment to one over the other, nor would it signal an inability to switch paradigms. By the way, this is exactly what I was talking about - trying to bend your definitions so that you can support the groundless assertion that we are dogmatic, as though it would any more excuse your obvious dogmatism. Why don't you try defending your position rather than continuing to apply annoying theist tactic #1?

More bullshit. Tell me, if you really believe that love and freedom are incompatable, then do you not care about freedom or do you avoid love like the plauge? (Note: if the answer is neither, then you will please explain why I should bother refuting a position that you don't even believe yourself, especially given that it's tangential to the main argument?)

AH, now we get to the heart of your argument: which is, just as I suspected, trying to attack our belief system in order to somehow justify one that you KNOW is irrational: yours. Off on a tangent: Does anyone else find it odd that theists attack atheists on grounds of moral relativism, yet their arguments quite frequently depend on trying to prove factual relativism.

And by the way: bald assertions don't carry much weight around here.

That wasn't a conclusion, that was a premise. Do you need a re-education in logic?

Then WHY, WHY, WHY are you wasting our time arguing about the definition of dogma rather than telling us what knowledge Christianity is based on?

I'm sorry, but I don't hear anyone saying that it's impossible to talk about a sunflower in a photo. And as for the part about a "wider reality," is your position that we're living in the matrix? I thought you were here to defend Christianity?

I must admit, you have thourghouly baffled me with your bullshit. Well done.:notworthy

Let's see: a claim that pointing out your misdirection is an attempt at misdirection, when I quite explicitly stated at the bottom of my post that this was not an argument either for atheism or against Christianity, and when the post was about your irritating debating tactics, would probably count.

Ah finally, something resembling an actual argument. Let's see: we all have a faculty for hallucination and delusion, does that mean that hallucinations and delusuions are somehow real? Answer: no. Why? Because evolution does not select based on wheter an organ serves a purpose, but rather on whether it is conducive to survival. Let's face it: making accurate judgements about the meaning of the universe is not on the top of the priority list for survival of most humans, so consequently our abilities in that regard are going to be limited and perhaps quite flawed.

Now, if you really want to know the evolutionary explanation for religon, opn a thread in E/C and we'll explain it to you.

In order: yes, although it's going to be an imperfect and limited justice; we can't, that was YHWH's mistake; no.

Funny, I don't have any of those feelings. In fact, I consider each of my days to be quite well spent, especially considering that I could have been doing something unproductive, like sleeping (excessively, in moderation sleeping is a highly useful activity). Are you absolutely sure that your reaching for a "higher standard" isn't just a conditioned response from your years of Christianity?

But, how is it possible to be more like Jinto than I already am? I think what you are talking about is the fact that you don't believe yourself to be an acceptable standard, so you make one up, and thereby become a second-rate version of someone who deosn't exist anyway rather than a first-rate version of yourself.

I hereby perscribe for you 100 mg of SELF-ESTEEM, 25 mg of DOUBT, and 10 mg of ASC (apathy, sarcasm, and cynicism) AS NEEDED.

danielius

Addressing some of Jinto's points...

No, Jinto, you can only pursue any one path of thought at one time, as you can only walk down any one path at any one time in your local park. You may well reference information and ideas from other areas whilst going down that particular path, but the idea of going down more than one coherent line of thought simultaneously is just not possible.

I never said that love and freedom are incompatible. I said that love requires commitment, the establishment of emotional ties. Anyway, my relationship gives me the freedom to love one man, my partner, unconditionally.

I suppose by your many spelling errors that you're committed not only to 'freethought' and 'free love', but also to something equivalent to 'free spelling' (or should that be 'free speling'?)

What about that one?

Actually, I've been a Christian for only a year, perhaps less.

I believe that I find myself in others. When I make new emotional ties, form new friendships and social connections, I 'grow' (that for me is what 'personal development' is all about). It's interesting that when someone dies, a person will say, 'A part of me died with them'.

Well, you can be more 'Jinto' by creating new connections, meeting new people and making new friends. The more connected you are, the less likely it is you'll act selfishly, greedily or cruelly.

Danielius

DMB

Danielius: this thread has never really addressed its title. I thought at first that that was simply because you were new to posting here and had overcomplicated your OP. Now it looks increasingly as though you are deliberately drawing red herrings across the trail.

Please, please, start again. As a xian you obviously think that your religion provides a reasonable world view. Please try to tell us why, in simple terms and without all this woolliness (deliberate or inadvertent).

Amaranth

This is bloody bullshit, pure and simple. Here's a simple example that even a simple person could accomplish: Play solitaire and think a song. Both are seperate actions, requiring seperate lines of thought, and even children can multi-task them. Anyone who has ever learned to play an instrument and sing at the same time can tell you that this idea of one line of thought is ludicrous.

Equivocation has become the theme of this thread, this time of the word freedom. Congratulations.

To address what little point there is here: Emotions do not require any extended commitment. I can hate you, right now, and not even think about it 5 minutes from now. Simple.

Ahhh...It's about time you moved from somewhat veiled patronizing to right out ad hominem. Again, congratulations.

Way to not address the issue! I assume that means you concede the actual point?

Around here we call that "living vicariously".

Maybe it's interesting to you. To me, it's merely cliche'.

This is rediculous. Jinto is Jinto. There is no "more Jinto" or "less Jinto" version of Jinto. It's really quite bloody cut and dry. Jinto - Are you Jinto? Check yes or no.

Completely unsupported assertion. I'd be really interested to see what facts you have for this one, though hopefull they will be in a thread where such an assertion would be ON TOPIC.

Amaranth

Abel Stable

You can't? I do all the time, so I'll assume others can do the same. Maybe if you're an infant or very intoxicated on take-your-pick, but any sober person has to be able to follow multiple lines of thought during the day. Obviously you've never had a job where you answer phones, do paperwork, and deal with customers all at the same time. Extrapolate from that.
Grow up, daniel.
You just love saying this don't you?
Sure, we're social animals and we're inclined to be happier and feel fulfilled with other people. But if you're not secure and happy with yourself, then thats a problem you seriously need to address.
Wait a sec! How can you be more yourself when you're made up from a patchwork of other people? Taking this at face value, you just killed your own premise. Think about it.
Yeah, I'd like to see this study too. Or did you just make it up? Remember what Jinto said about bald assertions?

Bumble Bee Tuna

Well, since you STILL failed to touch on anything relating to the reasonableness of Christianity as a worldview, my responses to your questions will be very brief.

Meaning is always arbitrarily given to something by an entity. We live in a meaningless universe in that there are no other entities assigning meaning to us. We are perfectly capable of assigning meaning to ourselves, though, if we choose. I disagree that there is an inherent desire for meaning. We developed a faculty for solving problems through evolution, just like we developed everything else.

Yes, we can have justice some of the time in an unjust world. If we are talking about the world as a whole having justice then of course not, since you defined the world as unjust. I disagree that we all have blood on our hands, that's ridiculous. And no, justice and forgiveness are exclusive terms and you can't reconcile them, which makes the infinitely merciful yet infinitely just God many Christians believe in a ridiculous concept.

We have desires and drives, if we do not satisfy those desires and drives, we feel bad. Cease using "we", because I personally don't share your feelings of constant letdown about myself. I'm happy with myself. Speak for yourself. Your questions are horriblly question-begging. We don't seem fallen from a standard, we don't always let ourselves down.

Completely ridiculous. I am Brian, therefore I am as Briany as I can be. I define the word. No idea what point you think you're making here. This makes no sense.

How about we discuss this:

What reasonable process did you use to arrive at a conclusion of "therefore, Christianity is true"? This is the question at hand. How is Christianity a reasonable worldview?

This is the topic you started, and you have never addressed it. Explain what makes Christianity reasonable. It's really a pretty simple task.

I hate to be like Goliath, but, here goes:

GET ON TOPIC

Thank you.

-B