Albert Cipriani

Dear Jobar,
For me to repeat COAS’s appellation for Our Lord, which amounts to calling Him a corn-dog, would be sinful. We can quibble over whether to categorize that sin as one of blasphemy or of scandal, but sin is sin. I have enough of them to my credit, thank you, without gratuitously adding to that debt.

Jobar:
So who says I’m pure? No one is pure but God. Nothing is pure but God. And COAS’s unseemly words ARE my words should I repeat them. Words are like that. They’re owned by no one, used by all, and misused by some such that some belong in the linguistic equivalent of debtor’s prison.

I like your advice about goats. I have a herd of 4 pigmy goats. To the disgust of my wife, they are the loves of my life. They’re my window into nature since I’ve had to give up my bee hives, which were literally three-dimensional windows into the house of God.

You are absolutely correct to observe:
You intercept the football here, but then run in the wrong direction by concluding:
By now human history should have disabused you of the cogency of what “seems.” From trying to eat dog shit as an infant to watching “sunrises” and “sunsets,” how this world seems to us has almost always been wrong. That fact should humble you enough from putting any stock in whatever “seems” to you to be how God should be. If we can’t even get this world right, which is right under our noses (as is our mouth and dog shit!) how audacious of us to think we can get God right on the basis of what “seems.”

That’s why He is always describing us as sheep. I know from personal experience that they are the dumbest of the dumb, even my bees were smarter than sheep. I urge you to take a cue and open your coral gate to all those preconceptions you’ve taken stock of on the basis of what “seems.”

Like blind men feeling up the elephant and coming to different conclusions, the fact that theists all have different “views” of God speaks eloquently of God’s Triune nature and gives evidence of His claim that “the things which are not seen, are eternal.” [2 Corinthians 4:18] Our multi-directional compasses point to the truth of Isaias 55:8,9: “My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.” – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic
My Religious Philosophy List

Jobar

To Amos:

I'm unsure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult, Amos- so I will simply note that I am NOT an ex-minister. I was raised Baptist but became an atheist at age 15. That quote was from the preacher at my parents' church- a good man, even if he is from my POV deluded. And my quote from Rev. Bob was meant for Albert, not you- elsewhere I have suggested that he would do well to take lessons in imperturbability from you.

And, as an atheist/pantheist, I must say that both aspects of my beliefs are quite comfortable occupying the platform of no platform.

To Albert:

I'm not trying to make a big issue of it, but you should just grit your teeth and try to ignore any screen names you find objectionable. If for no reason but to deny us heathens the cheap thrills we get when our needling so obviously hits a tender spot.

In reference to how the world "seems"- are you trying to claim that God is completely incomprehensible? If all our perceptions are as untrustworthy as you imply here, then in fact all attempts to gain knowledge- and this includes knowledge of the divine- are fruitless.

Ah, but I know from my own experience that experience is a good teacher. Whatever I might have done as an unreasoning babe, I now know to avoid shit- and also to avoid baseless and unproven ideas. Obviously, not everyone is able to learn this; some people seem () quite enamored of ideas which appear to me as repulsive and objectionable as shit.

To you both:

All right, here I speak with my mod hat on. You both are treading very close to the point where your anti-Protestant rhetoric constitutes gratuitous and unnecessary insults to the Protestant believers who frequent these boards. I strongly suggest you try to phrase your arguments in ways which avoid mention of the split between Catholicism and Protestantism; remember, to the unbelievers who make up the majority of your readers, your doctrinal disputes appear about as sensible as two tribes of savages who go to war over whether the great god Uggh desires that light blue or dark blue mud should be used to smear the ritual sacrifices.

Amos

Sorry Jobar, and in case you wonder, I prefer to spell protestant with a small p because it is not a name of a religion but a generic name for all religions that object to Catholicism, such as United, Baptist and what have you. Do you see any problem with this?

SecularFuture

Are you guys having fun? Well - - I'll be leaving to a new thread now.

Fiach

It is really more of an adjective than a noun. It means all Christians apart from Catholics, Orthodox, and Coptic and a few Nestorians in Iran.

Protestant if used as a noun could refer to a very liberal, tolerant, and humanitarian Anglican. It could be mellowed Presbyterians and Methodists. It can also refer to radical, intolerant, hateful evangelicals or fundamentalists. It can even include the Nazi-Fundamentalist religions such as Christian Identity, Christian Reconstruction, or Army of God all of those being the far far right wing of Protestantism.

I think protestant is an obsolete term for this reason. I think Chrsitians should be identified as Catholic, Orthdox, traditional Protestants (Anglicans and Lutherans), Fundamentalists, Charismatics, and Ultra-Fundamentalists. The last one being of a mindset indistinguishable from Osama Bin Laden and the Wahabi Sect of Islam.

Fiach

Albert Cipriani

Jobar,
Everyone knows that Uggh desires dark blue mud.

Seriously, your standards are revealing. Atheists can refer to our Holy book as stone aged fairy tales and refer to our God in terms of junk food, but my distinguishing of Catholic dogmas from the Christian lack of dogmas is what you call "rhetoric" that I don't get it.

To me for an insult to be an insult it must be devoid of intellectual content. What have I said of Protestants that is devoid of intellectual content? -- Albert

Boro Nut

Me too. I nearly choked on one of his pubic hairs once. Another time I wasn't sure if he had wiped his arse properly or not, or if it was the priest's fingers.

Boro Nut

Albert Cipriani

Dear SecularFuture Who Has Left this Thread in Disgust,
You ask: “What are you talking about?!”

I am talking about the absurdity of your premise that only “positive” claims need be supported. Formal logic explicates how any claim can be proposed 32 different ways, some negatively and some positively. There’s nothing magic about a “positive” claim. Positive and negative formulations are as interchangeable as energy and mater.

For example, consider these two statements:
1) Abortion is murder.
2) Abortion is not a legal choice.

One is positive and the other is negative and they both mean exactly the same thing. Yet you assert that only the positive one needs to be supported.

Just to be absolutely sure you get it (Forgive me for feeling compelled to spell it out for you and giving you no benefit of the doubt, but since you didn’t get my modest proposal post, I think it’s necessary.), consider these two statements:
1) Theism is false.
2) Theism is not true.

They both mean the same thing but, ah ha, #1 is a positive statement. It’s as positive as the contrary statement that Theism is true. Ergo, theist like me, must support our contrary assertion and atheists like you must support your contrary assertion.

Sorry. There’s no such thing as a free ride intellectually. If you believe something, stating it negatively or positively doesn’t free you from the burden of supporting it. Ergo, your un-argued conclusion is patently false:
– Albert the Traditional Catholic 2/6/03

My Religious Philosophy List

Bill Snedden

True enough. To my way of thinking, this is implied in the recognition that the alleged words of Jesus are third-person, but to be completely accurate, I suppose one should spell it out.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Bill Snedden

With respect, Albert, the passage you quoted isn't false; it's true, but the misunderstanding between you and SF turns on an equivocation of the meaning of "positive claim".

You are quite correct in stating that the positive or negative formulation of a proposition has no bearing on burden of proof. However, SF is equally correct to note that only positive claims bear a burden of proof. The difference between the two is that you are talking about matters of form while SF is speaking of function.

I'll illustrate this with your first example:

1) Abortion is murder.
2) Abortion is not a legal choice.

You note that 1 is phrased "positively" and 2 is phrased "negatively", which seems a correct statement of the form each proposition takes. However, both represent positive claims in the functional sense. That is to say that each proposition is a positive statement purporting to correspond to a true state of affairs.

In other words, it either is or is not the case that abortion is murder. It either is or is not the case that abortion is not a legal choice. To propose either one of these is to make a positive claim about reality. That is a claim that must be supported by evidence and that is where the burden of proof lies.

Now, consider: 3) I don't believe that abortion is murder.

This statement does not purport to show a correspondence between itself and the true state of affairs. It cannot be evaluated as such and therefore no burden of proof exists.

This is what SF means by "making a positive claim". Not the grammatical structure of the proposition, but rather its functional status and now we can evaluate SF's statement in light of this:

If an atheist were to make a positive statement such as "God does not exist", then, of course, she would bear a burden of proof for that statement. However, there is no functionally positive claim in disbelief. To deny the theist's claim of god is not to make a claim about reality and hence no burden of proof exists.

Regards,

Bill Snedden