Thanatoast

lpetrich said:
Ah, but you have to remember that whoever those last words are spoken to might very well be an unsaved sinner. Therefore, according to most Xian theological frameworks (including R.C.), they go to eternal torment.

Gotsta luv Jesus. Yay.

MrDarwin

Then perhaps you should be asking whether the doctrine of infallibility of these church bodies (or the Pope, for that matter) was instituted for spiritual, or for political (or for other) purposes.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Ipetrech,
Thanks for the biology lesson:
That's what I love about this place. You are all so smart. And I get to reap the rewards of your knowledge.

What your post points out is that it is not how we do it, but that it be done. Even the Catholic Church says there is no sin in how we do it, just so long as that whatever it is that's done, when all is said (a.k.a. aural sex) and done, culminates in anatomically correct intercourse.

Likewise, single-celled creatures procreate by binary fission. Others have 50 sexes to choose from! Point is, "ambiguous sex" is in the eye of the beholder. Sex is sex.

People who are born with sexual abnormalities are people who are born with sexual abnormalities. Their birth does not render sex ambiguous. Likewise, people who are born blind do not cast a shadow across the science of optics. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Scigirl,
Your post disapointed me.

You said: The operative word is not "think." Whatever we can think of Him is necessarily more wrong than right and quite irrelevant. What God cares about is exactly what we care about (Remember that line about us being made in His image?), which is awe. If you analyse every peak moment of your life you will note that at its core was a sense of awe. God "experiences" that in relationship to Himself. He created us to share in that relationship. We do so every time we are awed.

Trouble is, we can't be too awed by Him if we aren't looking his way. But people such as yourself who aren't looking His way, can still look to Nature, even Evolution, for awe. In that way, you can still be participating in a prayerful paganistic life and you will thus render His creation of you less vain.

You assert: There's only one world. I call it what's real. We are all in it more or less. The more we are in it, the more real we are, the more reality we are capable of, the more rewarding is our life.

Context is the strong arm that bears suffering. Theists simply have more of a context for their suffering than atheists do. Whether we're right or wrong about the afterlife is irrelevant to the fact that this life is more bearable to the extent that we have managed to construct a greater context for it. For example, given the context for it, the outrageous pain of childbirth is typically borne with joy and immediately forgotten. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Wounded King

I think the idea that theists are more contextualised in their reality than atheists is highly debatable.

Atheists may have just as much of a context, they just dont have such a simplistic context. I also doubt whether they have any more joy in childbirth, after all many catholics consider the newborn to be already tainted with sin.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Wounded,
Your bold-faced assertion is without foundation:
How much more context can you get than everything related to this universe correlated with the ultimate everything beyond this universe? That’s the theistic context. It’s unarguable. Of course you can argue that our context is simplistic and false, but surely you cannot argue that our context is anything but a superset of your context. Our context may be pie-in-the-sky, but it is sky and pie that your context does not encompass.

You say,
Catholics mothers have more of a context for the life they bring into this world because they believe that life is destined for an eternal existence in the next world. Ergo, their labor has accomplished something even angels cannot accomplish; they have in a sense forced the hand of God to create ex nihilo a soul that will never die. Ergo, their joy ought to be greater than atheistic mothers who, by definition, believe the life they create is doomed to be worm food. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Salmon of Doubt

Ok, just have to quote the great Douglas Adams:
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day"

Anyway. The peak moments of my life involve joy, but not necessarily awe. I did feel awe when meeting my TV idol, and when I finally understood the theory of evolution properly, but other than that, awe was never a primary emotion in various experiences I have had. I can feel awe for the beauty of nature as well as any religious person, and I can feel awe at the brutality of nature as well. So what? Why does the presence of the emotion awe mean anything about God? If I am awed at nature, does that please God? Why does he care? Does he care if I am impressed with the world if I am a hell bound atheist?

And I'm not sure what you're talking about with "Rendering his creation of me less vain". Huh? Sorry, I'm a scientist, not an English major, and I don't know what you mean by that.


Why? If I had a child I would be joyful that I would get to enjoy their presence while we were both still alive, and amazed that I could bring a life into the world. Why do you feel the need to reduce the potence of the emotions of atheists? We don't feel things less strongly just because we view them without the filter of God.

Wounded King

Dear Albert,

How can a statement I make about my own thoughts be without foundation?

That questions seems to be on a par with asking what is bigger than the biggest thing ever, and about as useful. Your context would only be a superset of mine if it encompassed it, while there are a number of theistic points of view which might qualify, yours, as a fairly traditional creationist context, certainly doesn't qualify.

TTFN,

Malcolm

Albert Cipriani

Dear Salmon,
You ask,
Because God is awesome, every species of awe is ultimately derived from Him. Ergo, when you feel awe, when the demons below feel awe, you and they are (even tho you’re unwilling) offering homage to God, responding to Him as you should.

You say,
Theology 101 says that God created the heavens and the earth to give glory to Him. To give glory is the objective articulation of the subjective experience of being awed.

Ergo, whenever creatures feel awe, those creatures are fulfilling their raison d’etre for having been created. If they never once felt awe, they would have never once given glory to God and so God’s creation of them would have been in vain and God Himself would have proven Himself not to be God. For with God, failure is not an option.

You ask:
OK. I’ll let you do it yourself. Wouldn’t your joy at giving birth be mitigated if you learned that your baby would die in two weeks? Of course it would be. Ergo, you’ve admitted that the potency of your joy is reducible by your conception of how long that joy will be operative. Since theists believe that the joy of their children’s existence will be operative eternally, their joy is rendered more potent. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Salmon of Doubt

Because understanding the scientific way the world works is awesome, every species of awe is ultimately derived from it. Ergo, when you feel awe, you are awed at how science has managed to result in the natural world, and the presence of a brain that is capable of feeling awe.

Now how is my statement less valid or logically correct?

I feel awe at the disgusting and brutal aspects of nature, like for example insects that lay eggs inside other insects, which then eat them slowly and painfully from the inside out until they die. Is this related to God? Is this proof of how much God loves his creation? Should I feel awe that God felt it necessary to destroy parts of his creation in horrible ways? Or was that Satan's doing? If I feel awed by the concept of Satan, is that awe at God as well?

I see no logical provable reason why the existance of awe is evidence of God. It is simply another emotion produced by the brain that helps us function as a society and was therefore selected by evolution.

So when I feel awe at nature, or the beauty and acting talent of Claudia Black, that's enough for me to fulfil the aim of my creation, and God's happy with that? I feel awe, therefore I am worshipping him indirectly. Do I go to heaven now?

Is there any way for me to feel any emotion without it being attributed to God? Does this raise issues of free will if I cannot feel an emotion without it relating to God in some way?

Fine. You have fun tormenting and threatening your kid with the prospect of hell if they don't obey God, and feel complacent in your belief that everything's going to be the same for eternity. Meanwhile I'll go and enjoy the time I have with my kid, where it will feel all the sweeter and I will appreciate it more because I know some time it will have to end.