danielius

A straw gentleman.

What he said, in effect, is: 'This is my view - I might not be right'. The whole idea of a person holding a view is that they hold it to be the right view. If they don't, it isn't their view.

Except that one.

But is there anything that doesn't also exist as a concept?

Your response was that thinking requires no commitment to any absolute tenet. Except that one.

Thinking involves exposing your mind to hundreds of different paths (of inquiry/thought), and then choosing one to go down. You can't go down more than one simultaneously. You may later on decide to change and go down another path. Regardless, for as long as you are on any one path, you are only on that one path. Thinking requires commitment and limitation.

The 1960s movement that called itself 'free love' is no better proof of something than a politican who calls himself a 'compassionate conservative' is proof that conservatism is really compassionate. Love requires commitment. If you love something, you are emotionally tied to it. If you are tied to something, you can't be 'free'.

Why all this euphemism anyway? 'Freethought' is really 'baseless thought' and 'free love' is 'free sex'.

Try not to jump to your conclusions quite so fast. I appreciate your honesty.

Before you can examine a church's structural soundness or unsoundness, you have to look at its foundations. Else it's impossible to understand quite why things are the way they are structurally-wise.

I was attempting to make a fairly simple but important point about the sunflower in the photo: how can we say that it is impossible to talk about a sunflower in a photo, yet we talk blithely about a sunflower in a garden, as if the garden's sunflower is the measure of the photo's. How can we be sure that the garden we are looking out on isn't itself part of a wider reality?

I can't think of anything that misdirects more than the claim of misdirection.

Daniel

Calzaer

Dan: So you DON'T believe in Heaven?

Amaranth

The question: Is Christianity a reasonable reasonable world-veiw?

The debate: Are there varying degree's of reality, and does the word "dogma" have meaning outside the word "idea".

The conclusion: None. If this coversation had started out discussing archeology, it would have by now devolved into debating the varying degree's of having a shovel, and why we should not have a word for "rock" when "dirt" works just fine.

Amaranth

emotional

*YAWN* I come here for concrete, to-the-point discussions about religion and Daniel here gives me a heavy, longwinded discussion more appropriate to the Philosophy forum.

Radorth

Other than humans evolved from hot chemicals meeting in the ocean, there is no God, and if there was he's be a useless do nothing anyway. You forgot those.

Rad

Goliath

danielius,

Wrong! I can question why I hold no dogmas, therefore the statement "I hold no dogmas" is not a dogma!

Please, xian, pay attention!

Sincerely,

Goliath

Goliath

Radorth,

BULLSHIT, XIAN!!! I dare you to find one instance of me claiming any one of these things!!!

I am getting SICK AND GOD DAMNED TIRED of xians putting words in my mouth!

Sincerely,

Goliath

Abel Stable

danielus:
Who says so? You?
You're still just as wrong as ever, but I don't think anyone here has the patience to correct you again.
Does this mean you haven't checked out the Biblical Criticism & Archeology section?
There are some things that exist only in concept. Unless you've seen someone leap off a cliff and fly away like Superman.
Who ever said it was impossible to talk about a sunflower in a photo?
What wider reality? Reality is reality...it's all how we choose to perceive it. You'd better deconstruct this analogy soon. What does the photo represent to you? What does the garden represent? Its high time that you tell us these things, because this is all going nowhere as far as I can see.
How about a semantic merry-go-round? Or baffling "sunflower photo" analogies that shed no light on the topic at hand?

Didn't you start this thread to discuss the reasonableness of the christian worldview? All I can see is....well...semantics and opaque analogy! Please tell us your opinion of the christian worldview & how you feel it is based on reason. Maybe then some actual discussion will emerge.

AJ113

Which is exactly what he said, except that you are the probably the only individual on this board who is prepared to go to such pedantic lengths to attempt show otherwise.

Just for the record, and to allow ourselves to be clear on this, BBT was making the point that the statement "I hold nothing to be absolutely true" is based on all current available data, and is a view arrived at as a result of a rational thought process.

However, there is a possibility that this belief could, some time in the future, be shown to be based on insecure data, by the disclosure of new, and as-yet-unknown data.

But for NOW, and until given sufficient reason to change his views, BBT clearly holds nothing to be absolutely true, and for HIM, HE HOLDS IT TO BE THE RIGHT VIEW.

Geddit?

I don't like being dragged down to this pedantic level, but if this is the level that we're gonna operate at in this thread, Danielus, you're still WRONG. So I suggest that you stop hiding behind this bullshit, and tell us exactly why Christianity is a reasonable world-view.

keyser_soze

Relax brother, they are manipulating you...giving their side credibility because they seem rational and you seem irrational, despite the fact that their stubborn and intellectually crippled arguments are what drove you to it. Just let it slide. His points have already been allowed to rot on the ground, they are just trying to bury you in tiny little bits so you don't realize their argument has already been destroyed.