John Page

Amos:

This is getting very silly.

Bye.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Jaliet,


Now I see the problem. You've been dialoguing with Amos too long. No wonder you're not making any sense. Allow me to deconstruct:
1) God is a concept.
2) But anything we can conceive of is also a concept.
3) I can conceive of Jaliet on the Savanna.
4) Ergo, Jaliet on the Savanna is a concept.
5) Ergo, Jaliet on the Savanna is God.

What could you mean by saying "the concept needs sustenance"? Bodies need sustenance. Concepts aren't equipped with bodies, not even the concept of God.



Obviously, neither. If by "sustained" you mean studied, then both. If by "sustained" you mean indoctrinated, then neither.

And here, you're just babbling:


I've read that twice and it still makes no sense. You've simply got to stop talking to Amos.

This has never been about me proving that God exists. I readily conceded what all honest atheists concede, that God cannot be proved or disproved. That fact does not get us off the hook. Rather, it simply obliges us to lower our standard of evidence, admitting subjective data and being content to draw inferences one way or the other.



Experience requires consciousness if you want to adhere to the dictionary definition of that word. Continue to insist on that word meaning what Webster says it means and you can continue to gleefully reject my metaphysics and remain happily ignorant of my ontology.

It's your choice. Pretend to win the argument on the basis of word usage, or lift your head out of your dictionary and recognize that words are merely tools in the service of ideas, and maybe, just maybe, your mind will be expanded by a new idea.



If I scratched you, you'd remember it. If I scratched a stone, the scratch would remain. Over time, you might forget my scratch. In a babbling brook, over time, the scratch in the stone would be worn away, forgotten smooth.

Everything experiences everything. It is only the arrogance and egocentricity of man that enables him to fancy himself as the only one capable of experience. Objectively, the only difference between rocks and us is that we experience this universe in more ways than rocks. But to argue, therefore, that a rock does not experience this universe at all, is simply absurd, even by dictionary standards. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Amos

It is from the bible John, "God is love" and "Lord God is Life." (I am the way the truth and the life).

Amos

Albert I must object to the citation that I called God a concept because that is not my idea of God.

I used the word "concept" in the following paragraph as biblical evidence that "essense precedes existence" taken from page 8.

<strong>This concept is from the bible where in Gen.1 God "created" and in Gen.2 Lord God "formed" (but not created). The Prime Mover is God (as in "God said") and the second cause (existence) is Lord God (as in the Word became flesh)." </strong>

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Albert We do not believe that the world is flat anymore because that concept could not sustain inself in our minds: science dispelled it - from our minds.
Cultural practices, like female circumcision for instance, are not capable of sustaining themselves because other cultures come in and "override" the inferior ones.
Thus even concepts are dropped when they cannot sustain themselves anymore IN the minds of men.

God is a concept.
It cannot sustain itself anymore because most have thought and found it a false concept.
Ergo, we have more liberal christians (who are trapped by social pressures to remain christians), more agnostics, more atheists, more materialists etc as time goes by.

To help you understand, trees grow on the earth. They need the earth in order to exist. If the trees cannot sustain themselves, they dry up an die.

In the same way, concepts take root in the minds of men (which begin as tabla rassa), then, through education and scientific advancement, men are able to select what they have in their minds because they have more facts. They uproot what is false from their minds. What is false only exists in mens minds because of ignorance and fear. When both ignorance and fear go, the ideas go with them. The ideas are sustained by ignorance.
The concept of God is a case in point.
Is that clear now?

Ted Hoffman

Amos
What then, are part of the argument?
Albert
John page asked "can we answer jaliet's original question by concluding your belief in the catholic faith is based on falsified records?

I believe JPage has adequately demonstrated that the records are falsified.
You need to respond to this by discrediting JPages sources or refuting the idea that they are falsified through some other means.
Amos says the catholic church is infallible because its not "led" by men but by omniscience - he provides no evidence for this.
You have given up trying to explain why you believe in revelations of saints?
Does that mean this discussion is over?
You cannot explain why we should not treat the testimonies of your "credible" sources the same way we would treat the testimonies of the girls in the salem witch trials.

You cannot defend the validity of your belief system and I believe you need to do so.

*cut off moderator mode*

I think this is a good idea and it argus well with the fact that both Albert and Amos (the two great proponents of catholicism) profess to be staunch members of that faith.

If as Amos claims, his beliefs are not part of the argument, then maybe he can provide us witha list of his relevant beliefs? So that we can tell when he is stating his belief(s) and when he is not.

Amps Universal truth? The Bible says God made a woman pregnant, that he made mistakes, regretted and tried to set things right. That he loves to dwell in thick darkness and kills babies.
That is not the Allah that Muslims worship.
Greek mythologies only show that gods are powerful. Otherwise, they lust after women, sleep with them, fight with men, get tricked, get jealous and exhibit all the basest human natures.
In the OT, Yahweh enjoys the nice smell of roasting sacrifice (maybe he had been on plain vegetables for too long) and incense. I bet if someone used the tabernacle as a toilet he would really get the nasty stink!
Maybe if we wanted God to Go away we could just manufacture a nasty-smelling chemical!
Is this the Universal truth you are talking about?
So to have philosophies that are not found in other philosophies makes Catholicism superior?
Philosophies like praying with the rosary?
Philosophies like celibacy?
Please explain which philosophies make Catholicism superior.

All catholics are religionists but not all religionists are catholics - some religisonists are protestants.
So you are a religionist.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

HelenM

Ted Hoffman

Helen
No.
Most people muse idly then they claim they have thought.
Many think but think sloppily, without applying the rigorous rules of logic.
Even many find it too hard to think about "these things".
Many more don't even see the point of thinking about "these things" at all.
Of course More than 1/3 are ravaged by apalling poverty, they are too busy worrying about the next meal(which sometimes comes from church-affiliated organisations) to even think that the church could teach them a falsity.

Among the few that have thought hard, most have ended as infidels.
It depends on what they think about Helen, and as far as the question of God goes, they could think of a hell of a huge range of subjects from where God came from, why he is so fixated on being praised, to why God made someones wife pregnant.
There is questioning, there is agressive questioning and there is smart questioning.
And then there is the need for an informed participant, like people at secweb.
In my country, there are jobs that require one to be born-again christians. When I was a job-seeker I was ready to claim I was one to get the job, but then again, I was younger then.
I have met many who are not believers but are afraid of the hostile and judgemental questions they will be confronted with if they stop acting like christians. I am talking about people I know.
Most countries in the world anyway require even presidents to be "sworn in" while they hold some holy book of some sort.
These all show how much moral correctness is inextricably linked with religion.
Not to be religious is to be immoral.
This is the social pressure I am talking about. Not everyone is brave enough to face the consequences of being declared a pagan or a heathen.
There is a poll that was conducted in Europe that indicated the number of christians (btwn 1975 and 1995) is reducing.
On church attendance:

"[church attendance 1999] 7.5% on an average Sunday, from 10% in 1989 and 12% in 1979 ... 49% still had their children baptised
[ uk.news.yahoo.com. ]"

"In the US, from 1978-1997, the seven of the biggest non-fundamentalist churches lost 7 million members, in comparison with the US's population rise of 60 million."

"The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance puts the number of non-religious worldwide at 806 million (17%) and the number of Atheists (not included in the foregoing) at 211 million (4%). The Encyclopedia Brittanica has the number of Atheists at 220 million (3.8%) with 1.67 million ( &lt; 1%) in North America. Adherents.com puts the number of non-religious at 850 million worldwide:"

Religious Tolerance.org says that the percentage of non-Christians in Canada has increased from 10% to 17% between 1981 and 1991.

On Global Trends, Jay Gary upon receiving the Earl Award at the World Future Society noted that the number of non-religious people will increase in future.(Gary is the author of The Star of 2000 and president of Celebration 2000, a consulting group which specializes in turn of the millennium events.)

In Adherents.com, statistics (last updated Aug 2001) of majot religions in the world indicate

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist people came 4th at 850 million compared to Christianity: 2 billion, Islam: 1.3 billion, Hinduism: 900 million
Buddhism is no 5 at 360 million.
Of course if you rewind the clock to a few decades ago, there was a time Bertrand Russel was the only known non-religious person.
We are talking about religions that were started centuries ago.
Now Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheistic people are almost the same number as the religious ones.

Now
Look around you now Helen.
These are the days of our lives.

Check these links for more info, figures and facts:

<a href="http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/rib.html" target="_blank">http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/rib.html</a>
<a href="http://gvatheist.tripod.com/numbers.htm" target="_blank">http://gvatheist.tripod.com/numbers.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/can_rel.htm" target="_blank">http://www.religioustolerance.org/can_rel.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.wnrf.org/articles/gtrends.htm" target="_blank">http://www.wnrf.org/articles/gtrends.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html" target="_blank">http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html</a>

Its called INEVITABILITY.
Its like Growing up. The milk teeth, however white, must be shed off.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

Amos

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

HelenM

I agree that people failing to think is a problem. Also I see that where you live there are social pressures that could encourage people to claim to be Christians even if they aren't really.

Thanks for the other info you provided.

love
Helen

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>