Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Bill O'Reilly: No True Christian would kill Norwegians.
Comments
-
-
It's not that we're ruling things out - it's that you're ruling things in, if ya get me.CiscoStudent wrote: »You Clearly misinterpreted my meaning. What I intended to get across, apparently unsuccessfully, was that one cannot rule out certain things especially when so little is known about them.
0 -
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
Honestly I don't know how referring, & providing a link, to evidenceYou're basically arguing from authority there.
against your claim that "you're born with practically no innate knowledge"
is an argument from authority.I should have clarified my statement; when I refer to "knowledge", I mean conscious, recall-able information - like the concept of "God". The first couple of years of life are spent developing the most basic wiring for basic functions in our body, like walking and talking. Abstract concepts such as "country" or "world" are out of our grasp, never mind "God".
You specifically used the word "innate" which is why I linked to a page
on innatism & furthermore I would have thought it was obvious that
we're discussing innate knowledge along the lines of innate morality,
empathy etc... as opposed to conscious & recall-able information. It's
obvious a baby isn't capable of empathizing at that time but the baby
is born with that which develops to allow for such things to form.
Just as technical literature for the past few centuries has been using
language in the way we are here to talk about the idea that a child can
be born with an innate morality, or an innate human grammar (in more
recent times) despite a newborn lacking the means to fully comprehend or
indulge in these things I think it's plainly understandable what is meant.
Not even the definition of innatism, or innate, takes such a ridiculously
literal, & useless, perspective on the concept so I see no reason to use it
here unless for grammar games.
If this is too much of an abuse of language for you then I think you'll
appreciate correcting all the people in these threads for their similar
abuse of language :P
So I don't think this is an argument against the claim that if one has a
belief in god it is entirely possible for them to think that humans are born
with an innate knowledge of god.CiscoStudent wrote: »I believe in God through Christ.
Just curious, why god through christ & not because of the sight of a
field in a park on a rainy day, or the existence of fake lucozade, or
because of some other religious cult's claims? Picking christ as a
justification would, to me, indicate a little more going on there
0 -
-
-
Well God doesn't exist
By true Christian I mean someone who actually follows the instructions of Jesus, turn the other cheek, love your enemies, etc.
I've never met a Christian who does this. I've met who claim they try to, but then in practice they fall far short. This is some what understandable, Jesus' advice was for people who were soon going to be called to heaven, not advice for 2,000 years.
This is all that is important. If you define being a christian as "following such and such a teaching" then if someone does something which is "contrary to such and such a teaching" then in doing so they were not being a christian. Of course, the definition of what it is to be christian varies, but this short counter example is enough to show that it does not fall within the scope of this "fallacy".
This is completely different from universal claims about a certain class of people which are not entailed in the definition of that class. And thinking they are the same demonstrates the same inability to think which most people on the internet demonstrate when they fly about the place talking about this or that "fallacy" without any reference to context or content.
Furthermore wicknight, I think you are demonstrating somewhat of a bias when you say you've never met a christian who turned the other cheek, or did any of those other christian things. This really is the stuff of the extremely bigotted. No christian is perfect, but many are very christian. What you are saying amounts to "every christian I've ever met is really nasty".
It also does not look very well for you rationalists and brights to be constantly jumping on any tradgedy as an example of "why everyone should hate such and such".0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
It also does not look very well for you rationalists and brights to be constantly jumping on any tradgedy as an example of "why everyone should hate such and such".
This is borderline generalization raah!, It also does not look very well for
anyone to fight generalizations with (even borderline) generalizations 0 -
-
-
-
sponsoredwalk wrote: »This is borderline generalization raah!, It also does not look very well for
anyone to fight generalizations with (even borderline) generalizations
I love generalisations. You'll often find me saying "be careful around people who wear tracksuits and look like they've done a bunch of heroin".
Wicknight's statement there was "I've never met a nice christian", or at least, what amounted to that. "I've never met a christian who was forgiving etc.". Now, even if this was "most christian's are nasty" I would disagree with it.
I do not have a problem with just generalising, but generalising inaccurately or unfairly. And as I said, statements like "most christians are nasty", just sound bigotted to me. Though perhaps this is because I have had different experiences with christians, and perhaps have different definitional criteria.
But if you take the broad nonsesical "cultural christian" definition (or as Kierkegaard nicely put it christianity as a "banal social membership") then wicknight is saying something like ... I dunno what the percentages are but "most irish people I've met when I was younger were nasty".
So on the "relationship with jesus" front I disagree, and on the "banal social membership front" I disagree.
Now it's possible that wicknight was refering to just the "relationship with jesus" category, then it would be possible that he's actually just met mostly nasty big time christians. It would still just mean that he had become bigotted from his experiences with what must be a small proportiona of a fairlyl rare breed of person.0 -
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
I love generalisations. You'll often find me saying "be careful around people who wear tracksuits and look like they've done a bunch of heroin".
See I could tell, thats why I quoted you, to get you to reveal this sinister
unchristian side of you I just knew you (& the rest of your ilk) had in you
Wicknight's statement there was "I've never met a nice christian", or at least, what amounted to that. "I've never met a christian who was forgiving etc.". Now, even if this was "most christian's are nasty" I would disagree with it.
I honestly didn't read it like that, I read it as christians don't "actually
follows the instructions of Jesus, turn the other cheek, love your enemies"
which I personally think is true. This says nothing about christians being
nasty or unforgiving, it just means they do not universally uphold the
teachings of Jesus. This goes the same for all moral people (especially
christians & the "rationalists" you were referring to), personally I think we
are all total hypocrites in some form or other, I would find it astonishing if
you could convince me christians, alone out of us all, are acting in
accordance with their doctrines. The difference is that I don't preach
absolutes & call them moral (unlike some, despite such obvious flaws in
this logic).0 -
-
-
Hence why I clarified my meaning. I would have thought it was obvious that we were discussing the idea that a child would have actual conscious knowledge of God from birth, since that's CiscoStudent's claim.sponsoredwalk wrote: »You specifically used the word "innate" which is why I linked to a page on innatism & furthermore I would have thought it was obvious that we're discussing innate knowledge along the lines of innate morality, empathy etc... as opposed to conscious & recall-able information. It's obvious a baby isn't capable of empathizing at that time but the baby is born with that which develops to allow for such things to form.
The discussion of what unconscious processes are and are not innate is an entire other universe altogether.0 -
Heh, yeah I actually really like that topic. And I think people often confuse unfairly assuming that an individual is the embodiment of this or that stereotype with just the truth of general statements about people. I think I'll make a post about it on humanities or the philosophy forum somehwere.sponsoredwalk wrote: »See I could tell, thats why I quoted you, to get you to reveal this sinister
unchristian side of you I just knew you (& the rest of your ilk) had in you
Yes perhaps wicknight can clear it up, but he did say that every christian he met "fell far" from following the teachings of Jesus.I honestly didn't read it like that, I read it as christians don't "actually
follows the instructions of Jesus, turn the other cheek, love your enemies"
which I personally think is true. This says nothing about christians being
nasty or unforgiving, it just means they do not universally uphold the
teachings of Jesus. This goes the same for all moral people (especially
christians & the "rationalists" you were referring to), personally I think we
are all total hypocrites in some form or other, I would find it astonishing if
you could convince me christians, alone out of us all, are acting in
accordance with their doctrines. The difference is that I don't preach
absolutes & call them moral (unlike some, despite such obvious flaws in
this logic).
With the rest I agree, and it's something you often have people levelling at vegetarians too. For example "birds get killed when making grain" or "bugs got scraped into that". It is some sort of inverse "true scotsman" confusion (except we already know it doesn't very well apply to well defined ideologies, but rather, universal claims about cultural/national groupings.) Where a person says "you don't perfectly follow this to the T, you are therefore not a such and such".
Ah yes! I agree. I should have paid more attention to the "whether you mean it or not". I guess I was carried away by my dislike for such terms.Malty T
Just saw your edit now.
I agree, but I use terms like strawman, ignorant and selfish when I expect the person to understand the actual meaning of the words and not take them as condescending comments implying dishonesty, greediness,stupidity etc. If I think the poster is being dishonest I'll actually say so. If it was a local layperson for instance I wouldn't call their lack of knowledge on a subject ignorance but if it was you I would. In my opinion, It all depends on who you are communicating to and you should choose your jargon accordingly.So instead of saying "Raah I think you misunderstood what wicknight said and have based your reply upon that wrong interpretation" I'd just say "Raah whether you realise it or not, I think you made a strawman of Wicknight's position" because I fully expect you'd understand what I mean.0 -
Hence why I clarified my meaning. I would have thought it was obvious that we were discussing the idea that a child would have actual conscious knowledge of God from birth, since that's CiscoStudent's claim.
The discussion of what unconscious processes are and are not innate is an entire other universe altogether.
When I said I have alway "Known" I did not realize that people would get so hung up on this word.
I merely meant that I believe I was born with an innate sense of something which I now call God. I was not born able to speak, But I was born with the facilities and senses required for this, I believe the same of my faith.
Now to answer Sponseredwalks question, Why Jesus? well as suggested there is thought process behind this. In short, I have in my life, through prayer and observing the results of prayer, come to aknowledge Jesus as the path to God.0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
Advertisement