seebs

You're welcome to opt out of the belief system, but denying other people the right to perceive the world through belief systems is quite clearly a violation of *their* rights.

No one's forcing you to say "yes, I'm a sinner". However, you really have no grounds to tell people not to view you (and everyone else) according to their belief system. That'd be like saying that Buddhists have no right to say that you have not attained Nirvana, or whatever. People have a right to form opinions based on their own belief systems, even if you don't like those opinions.

ybnormal

seebs:
However, you really have no grounds to tell people not to view you
(and everyone else) according to their belief system.

With that in mind, do you stand by your claim that, It's not a judgement,
and it's not meant to force you to be part of my belief system.


So, are you or are you not,

1) judging us, and
2) making us a part of your belief system?


seebs:
You're welcome to opt out of the belief system,
but denying other people the right to perceive the world through belief systems
is quite clearly a violation of *their* rights.


seebs earlier
Basically, the theology is that the "just" punishment for our sins is death;
we can't pay that price and live.

Arguably, yeah, we *should* do so ourselves - but if we can't,
we'll have to rely on someone else who can pay for them for us.

So, seebs, if we are welcome to opt out, why do you threaten us with death?

And if we are welcome to opt out, why do we HAVE TO RELY on someone else to pay our debts?

I suggest, there is NO WAY to opt out, and still owe you or your Christianity for something we didn't buy.

seebs

I'm not making you a part of my belief system; I'm interpreting you in light of it.

I believe the sky is blue. I have not coopted the sky; I have formed an opinion about it. The sky is, to the best of my knowledge, blissfully unaware of
my opinions.

Your worldview probably has theories about what people are. You aren't "making those people part of your belief system" - you're just understanding them in the way you understand things.


I don't. I merely have a belief that it is a likely outcome.

When someone fails to share my belief that driving drunk is dangerous, *I'm* not threatening them with death; their actions are, or are not, dangerous according to external reality.

When I was a kid, I knew a guy who refused to go camping because "anyone could just kill you while you're in your tent". If I went camping, he would conclude that I was in grave danger of death.

He wasn't *threatening* me; he was holding a belief, which I happen to think to be false, about my likely future survival chances.

If I am welcome to not believe my friend's theory about tents, why do I *have* to not sleep in a tent to be safe? I *don't*. Unless he's right.

In which case, if I'm right, you have a problem, and your opting-out was ill-considered. Or, perhaps, you're fine. I dunno.

I have my beliefs. You have yours. My beliefs include theories about other people; what they are like, what happens to them in life, what happens to them when they die. I have no right to demand that people agree with my beliefs - but nor do they have any right to tell me not to hold or express those beliefs.

In other words, I have the same right to say "you're a sinner" to Joe Atheist that he has to tell me "after you die, you're just gone, poof". Neither of us is obliged to *agree* with the other.

ybnormal

seebs, I noticed that you avoided directly answering #1...

yb:
So, (when calling us sinners) are you or are you not,
1) judging us...

[emphasis & "( )" mine]
You do yourself no favor by going into some distracting and transparent abstract analogy when a simple yes or no will do, certainly for something so glaringly obvious to anyone reading your words.

How you deny making a judgment when saying, "you are a sinner", is somewhere off my Absurdity Meter.

Care to try again?


yb:
So (when calling us sinners), are you or are you not,
2) making us a part of your belief system?

Please look at your above statement. You once again, included me while saying that I am not included. That's more absurd than the "judging us" thing above. Rephrasing, you just said that...

I am not a part of someone or something that is interpreting me.

and/or, that...

I am not a part of someone or something that is judging me.

You can't have it both ways...

If you want to claim that I am not a part of your belief system, then you must eliminate me from it.

And you can't eliminate me from it, while claiming I am a sinner, as a part of that same belief system.

I think you have yourself a fine conundrum.

Care to try again?

seebs

Hmm. An interesting question, and one I'm not sure how to answer. When I say that I think you're mortal, I'm not evaluating you medically, although I am making a prediction about something that could be considered medical.

I guess, I don't think I'm "judging" you. Judgement, to me, implies evaluation, and no evaluation is involved; the statement is practically a tautology.

If the analogy doesn't fit what you think I'm talking about, perhaps I'm trying to use it to express what I *am* talking about.

Well, I guess, because I don't see any value judgement without contrast. If I only said *some* people were sinners, then yeah, that would be judging.

I am forming beliefs about you; this is not the same as forcing you to share those beliefs. To be a "part" of my belief system, you would have to share those beliefs.

You aren't in my belief system. Rather, my belief system makes certain general claims about the structure of the world, which I assume apply to you as well as everyone else.

Nonsense! Newtonian physics does not *contain* objects, it *makes predictions about* objects. A ball is not "a part of" Newtonian physics; rather, Newtonian physics makes claims about the behavior of objects, and those claims are expected to apply to the ball as well as everything else.

I think the dilemma is false, so, no. I'll stick with my existing model; a belief system may make claims about things which are not "part" of that belief system.

Kassiana

because there is no such thing as "sin."

People believe themselves to be sinners, of course, in certain religious belief systems, and believe others to be as well. They're wrong, of course.

(And don't start the "sin is only imperfection, and we're all imperfect" nonsense...that isn't what the Christian concept of sin is really about, and we know it.)