GunnerJ

<Snip Albert on subsets>

Oh, all right. I get it. Sorry about the confusion there. I guess I missed your meaning about sets and supersets; I infered that you were grouping people, when in fact you were grouping ideas.

<Snip Albert on papal infallibility>

Very informative. I said I might have been laboring under a delusion of sorts, and it seems you've pointed this out. I have one comment though:

I may again be missing something, perhaps it's in the term ex cathedra. This seems somewhat post hoc. "Yes the Pope's word is infallible... but only if we check it to see if it's consistant with what we already consider law." This seems to somehow make the Pope a third wheel in the process of Catholic dogmatism. Unless, of course, the Pope is more analogous to the Supreme Court than the President; i.e., he if an interpreter of the law, not a maker of it.

I thank you for giving me answers to these questions, this has been very informative. My CCD classes never went into such deapth. Now if you could only establish the existance of god, I might be persuaded to come back to Mother Church. That should be easy though, right?

GunnerJ

Could this be a sort of litmus test? "Well, the Pope just threw out 1000 years of Catholic dogma, and he's not dead... guess this is the will of god!" Sounds remarkably like the way they used to test for witchs: Dunk 'em in water, if the float, burn 'em, if they don't they die an honorable Xian death. If a controversial Pope were to be assassinated, would you take it to mean that his teachings met with God's displeasure? Seems liek something of an invitation...

Albert Cipriani

Dear Devnet,
You quote Tom Paine in the butt as saying,


This is a stray man. If uniqueness qualifies as truth, then that pink orbiting rhino Rainbow Walking keeps getting stomped with by you guys would qualify as the most true religion. If Paine said what you said he said, the man is more of a fool than I suspected.

Furthermore, I know people make a big deal about snowflakes being unique, but not a single anything, not an atom or quark, absolutely nothing in existence is the same as any other thing in existence. Ergo, everything really is, scientifically and metaphysically, unique. So it’s simply inconceivable for uniqueness to qualify as any standard for anything. His statement is mind-bogglingly dumb.

You commit a fallacy of interrogation when you ask,


The question presumes that this world is all that is real. If it is, then you are right because my claims concerning an unreal world must necessarily be un-demonstrable. If it isn't, you are still right because my claims concerning the real world cannot have an effect in this unreal world.

We're like twins in the womb. I'm trying to sell you on running shoes and you're trying to tell me (as you gurgle in your amniotic fluid) you will never have a need for them.

You say,


The operative word is "world." My beliefs are irrelevant to the world. That is why the world hates them.

Theism is relevant only to each person in the world as the means of deriving ultimate meaning for their place in the world and the human race's race toward death and meaning thereafter death in the hereafter. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

bgponder

Hi Y'all;
Yeah well, maybe.


Even though I don't like Country Music in its most wangy-tang versions, Alan Jackson says it well:

'Bout as well share

'Bout as well smile

Life goes on for a little bitty while."
...from the song It's All Right To Be Little Bitty

Peace and Much Hot Cornbread, Barry

[ January 18, 2002: Message edited by: bgponder ]</p>

HeatherD

Your logical mistake is assuming that you, as a prisoner, have any choices at all. You are excepting your plight as a prisoner and excepting any fate that follows. Wishful thinking won't change your fate although it might ease your stress.

The chains are the religions, superstitions and irrationality that have bound most of humanity for thousands of years. You are a prisoner because you choose to be.

We make the chains, we can break them.

Think for yourself, free your mind.

Panta Pei

Well said, Heather.

Unfortunately, our friend Albert suffers from an unreasonable fear of death which is the fuel for supernaturalism, mindsnaring religious dogma and feelings of inadequacy and persecution.

He states:

"The operative word is "world." My beliefs are irrelevant to the world. That is why the world hates them.

Theism is relevant only to each person in the world as the means of deriving ultimate meaning for their place in the world and the human race's race toward death and meaning thereafter death in the hereafter."

Here it is apparent that religion teaches that the "world" is the enemy and that the only way to numb the senses against it is to hold fast to the fantasy of the "hereafter".

It is a true loss for someone to deny the beauty of the infinite universe in plain view and hope for something more than all things.

Supernaturalism, superstition and myth blind many to this real life and that is a true mindcrime.

Here's hoping that seekers like Albert may find a better perspective regarding honest value, ethics and morality based on integrity and the ability to test reality free from dogmatic limitations.

Just a simple aspiration, no deity required

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Panta Pei ]</p>

emotional

</strong>

I admire you for your honesty.

</strong>

Yes, you're telling us about a magnificent kingdom far over them thar hills, waiting to be discovered, when we infidels are content to enjoy this present realm. Looking on the bright side: at least you don't ask for contributions as a prerequisite for getting there.

</strong>

Huh? Have I missed something? How come I've succeeded in deriving ultimate meaning for my place in the world without the need for theism? I must be a strange person that naturalism fills the world with meaning for me.

</strong>

"Meaning after death"... that's equal territority for every storyteller. You don't know if harps and wings, eternal bliss (nirvana) or 72 virgins await you. Forsooth, the WTC attackers had the Hereafter meaning by virtue of their theism: wala tahsabanna alladheena qutiloo fi sabeel illaahi amwaatan bal ahyaa'un 'inda rabbihim yurzaqoon - from the Qur'an, trans: "And do not think of those who were killed in the path of Allah as dead, but alive, receiving sustenance from their Lord". Subhaan! Subhaan! Subhaan Allah wata'aala!

Synaesthesia

You'd rather your refrigerator didn't work?

Albert Cipriani

Ecco:


Now it is apparent that what I avoided was your nonsense. I made sense of what your were saying and argued against that. I should have read you less carefully so that I wouldn't think that I detected a semblance of an argument glimmering between the clotheslines underwear.

You define lottery winnings as real and pretend to know that heaven is not real. Well, it'd be just as stupid for me to define my latest dream as real and pretend to know that all else is a fantasy.

Definitions, like a camera's viewfinder that composes the picture, structure an argument. With you, your definition IS your argument, which is to say... NOT!

Reading you has been the equivalent of looking at Stevie Wonders snap shot album. And at last count, it was praying to Allah five times, not seven times, a day. -- Frustrated, Albert the Traditional Catholic <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Theli

Didn't you just turn everything backwards here?

Do you think that lottery winnings doesn't really exist?
How do you really know that heaven exists?

Oh, really?
And why is that?

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>