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Bill O'Reilly: No True Christian would kill Norwegians.
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MagicMarker wrote: »Firstly, I'm not denying anything, you asked me a question and I gave my, granted, uninformed opinion. I'll gladly accept that babies have an innate sense of grammar if that's what the evidence points to.
You gave reasons why the concept of innate knowledge in the sense
being used is "physically impossible", falsely equated it to some ridiculous
situations & said you seen no reason why babies would have an innate
sense of grammar, you'll have to forgive me for suspecting you of having
some grand scheme of denial in place.MagicMarker wrote: »If a claim is made based on logical reasoning (evidence) then I will call that claim logical. If a claim is made based on illogical reasoning (religious dogma) with no evidence, then I will call that claim illogical. It's really as simple as that.
I just have to point out the irony, did you not just admit to offering
uninformed opinions that were certainly presented as fact at the time
which is the same thing as making claims "based on illogical reasoning
with no evidence"?
It seems to me you "will call that claim illogical"
when we're dealing with religious dogma but aren't so quick to "call that
claim illogical" when it isn't religious dogma, & more surprisingly we don't
have 5 people multi-quoting your posts quick to point out all of the
problems, however trivial. If anything I think it's not as simple as that.
The fundamental fact about all of this is that it is logical reasoning. It is
all logical deduction from a core set of assumptions. Logical reasoning
is not the same as evidence-based reasoning. The thing about logic is
that all you need is a self-consistent structure for something to be
logically coherent, it's very primitive. To show that this is illogical
reasoning you either need to invalidate the assumptions that lead up
to this conclusion or you need to show a kink in the chain of logic that
progresses from those starting assumptions.
The assumption is that god exists, I doubt you can actually show this to
be false. The chain of logic leading to this conclusion is both scripture &
personal feelings. Very little, if any, of this is evidence-based argument
& frankly I don't think evidence matters as the only conclusive evidence
would be to invalidate the assumption. We all know this, religious people
have twisted things to try to work Darwinian evolution in ffs, they've
twisted the words of the beginning of the bible to try to fit cosmology
in, of course nothing but invalidating the assumption will invalidate
religious claims ultimately. Even assuming this was all shown to be
caused by some god gene, as was partially claimed, it can still be made
to fit in with the original assumption.
So very quickly we're reduced to the bare fundamentals, some people
choose not to act when there's no evidence, other people do choose to
act, without evidence either way invoking Carl Sagan's comments about
reserving judgement is nothing but justification for people choosing not
to act, it is in no way able to show that it is illogical for people to act.
This also neglects the fact that people consider certain things as evidence
for god. Are they right? Are they wrong? To discount this thinking is
fine, but you have to be aware it still exists & you are discounting it
based on your own set of assumptions - both of which are equally valid
considering there is no evidence to invalidate either (we could get into how it
would still be valid even if there was evidence to 'invalidate' it, but I doubt a anyone wants to
).
We're just dealing with biases on both sides. I think recognition of this
fact would lead to a more honest, constructive dialogue.0 -
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So here you list the instructions of jesus, two, and then an etc.
Here fore the first time you express your doubt that they are even trying to follow "the instructions of jesus". This covers all of those instructions, not just the calls to be absolutely perfect. You can modify "turn the other cheek" to something extremely difficult. But even as a first approximation basic forgiveness is there. If they are "not even trying to turn the other cheek", then they are not very well aiming for the lesser one of simply forgiving people. Enemies or otherwise.
That is a very weak argument raah, as I'm sure you know.
The standard Jesus set for Christians is very high. Saying that they are still Christians if they aren't trying to get anywhere near this standard would be disingenious.
It would be like me saying the standard for medical college is very high, 550 points, I've never met someone who even tried to get that let alone got it in their Leaving Cert (not true but for the sake of illustration), only to have you turn around and question if I've ever met anyone who has passed their leaving cert.
All Christians will do the easier stuff as well (love/forgive their friends and loved ones), but not all who do the easier stuff are Christians.So active pursuit of behaviour contrary to turning the other cheek. Again active pursuit of behaviour contrary to this is not just "not turning the other cheek" but it is the same as the opposite to loving your enemy.
Yes it is. You know it is because I defined what I mean in the sentence before that one
On the other hand, someone who regularly abandons such principles when it doesn't suit them
You again really have no excuse for pretending to not understand what I meant.You can't say that "this only means the transcendent christian kind of forgiveness" because the argument is about the inverse. You have said they actively pursue the opposite to this transcendent love, so they actively pursue the most extreme kind of non forgiveness or enemy hating.
You know that argument is nonsense raah. I explained what I meant in the same paragraph that you quote. Active pursuit of behavior contrary to Jesus teaching is clarified as the abandonment of Jesus' teaching.
You invent the notion that I must be using your "extreme" scale and then hold me to it. I'm not using your extreme scale, nor do you have any justification for believing I am since in the same paragraph I quote I explain otherwise.
We are once again back to you straw manning my argument. Again are you doing this through love?
So again, the don't even try to live up to christian principles. I've given many in that list, and there are many more than the kind of transcendent acheiving perfection kind ones.
Again see example of Leaving Cert results. Be nice to people you already like is not a Christian principle. It is a general principle, one that Jesus says Christians must transcend.
Only someone being highly disingenuous would take the charge that Christians fall short or abandon Jesus' teachings as meaning they don't do anything nice even to their friends and family.
Again it is like thinking that someone who says no one ever gets the points to medical school is also saying no one ever passes the Leaving Cert, since passing the Leaving Cert is also required to get the points for medical school.
All highly disingenuous. Which again brings us back to how loving you are being right nowThere are ones like "being covetous of your neighbours wife" and "honouring your father and mother"
Those are not teachings of Jesus, they are Mose' commandments. Jesus called on his followers to transcend them.
All Christians will honour their father and mother, but not all who honour their father and mother will be Chrisitans, as I'm sure you are aware.So again, it doesn't matter if you try to single out those two examples which you can make seem like they are impossible.
It does if the examples I highlight are examples of the very difficult ones that Christians must still try to adhere to.Firstly, the fact that they are actively pursuing behaviour contrary negates it.
Explained above, no excuse to still not understand that.Secondly the fact that you mentioned the whole range. As I've been saying from the start, it's not that you just said "all christians I've met are not examples of christian perfection", but that "all christians I've met have not even tried to uphold christian values"
Yes. And your excuse to this is that they are but just some of them and the ones that everyone upholds to anyway the ones Jesus specifically said to raise above.
Very weak argument.0 -
As I pointed out in the post above. This is irrelevent to how I was using the " s. I did not use them as a quote, but because the meaning of these statements was contained in what you were saying.
The problem with that though is when you actively change the meaning of what I've said and then slap quotes on it.
Love your enemy is a world way from love your neighbour. That is in fact the point of Jesus' teaching.The difference betweent the neighbour enemy versions has no affect on the arugment.
If you genuinely believe that you do not understand basic Christianity.
The instruction from the Old Testament is to love your neighbor, neighbor meaning fellow tribes man, friend, or more generally Hebrew.
Jesus specifically selects this because, as he says, even tax collectors love those who love them. There is nothing particularly difficult about loving those who love you back.
Jesus then calls on his disciples to do as God does, to love all, not just your neighbors but your enemies too. That is the difficult part.
You cannot be a Christian if you limit who you love to just your neighbours. You are, as Jesus points out, just doing what everyone does them.So where you said actively pursuing beliefs contrary was :
So there you have active pursuit of behaviour contrary.
Yes apologizes that quoting of your post was in accurate and unclear. What I didn't say was that contrary meant hate others (which is what you quoted me as saying).
What I meant by contrary was defined in the first line of the paragraph you quoted
On the other hand, someone who regularly abandons such principles when it doesn't suit them, I would not consider a true Christian
I said was they abandon such principles when it doesn't suit them (which is behavior contrary to Jesus' teaching).
You appreciate I hope that it becomes confusing to defend what I've said when I'm defending not only what I wrote but also the numerious times you have translated this into what I apparently meant.
Yes I knew what I meant when I said it. I also told you what I meant when I said it.So you can see that you used the word contrary first. You knew what you meant when you said it, and that's why you started talking about opposite.
On the other hand, someone who regularly abandons such principles when it doesn't suit them, I would not consider a true Christian
Do you believe that abandoning Jesus' principles when it suits are contrary to Jesus' teachings?
If you don't then I can appreciate how you would miss the connection between the first line in the paragraph and the last line. But then I clarified this for you numerous times.So I think that should be sufficiently cleard up and supported. The quotes are not always direct quotes of things you've said, but you can see that everyone of those "quotes" were statements entailed logically in what you've said.
Only if you ignore what I said
I never said that Chrisitan principles are as basic as love your neighbours. You took that as what I said because you seem to not understand the transcendent nature of what Jesus required of his followers.
I never said that Christians actively hate people. You took that as what I said because you saw the term contrary and ignored that I had already defined what I mean (abandoning Jesus' principles when it suits) and instead took it to mean actively hate (apparently based on a mathematical forum you have derived).
Really there should not be any need to re-explain this to you. I have clarified many times what I said and what I mean.Either way, you can see that everywhere I do attribute things to you it has been 100% accurate and based on what you have said.
No it isn't raah, as you well know.
It is based on assumption of what I said. But if you simply ignore any efforts to clarify, either in the paragraphs themselves, or afterwards, you are being quite disingenuous.
Which leads us back to the original question of if you are trying to love right now. Really after all this arguing back and forth is should not come as much surprise to you that I can say with high confidence that I've never met a true Christian.It also appears that it is infact you who have forgotten things you said. This is particularly well illustrated by the whole "I never said they pursued behaviours contrary to jesus' teaching" and also the singling out of particular of christianity's more demanding tennets.
That is true, such debates are confusing and get more confusing when I'm defending not only what I said but also the various points where you simply make up what I mean.
I did say they behaviors contrary to jesus' teaching. I though was arguing your interpretation of this (that they actively hate) more than what I actually said (they abandon when it suits). That certainly was confusing, and I apologize for the confusion.
I never said what you claim is the only valid interpretation of that sentence, would have been a more accurate objection to make.0 -
The issue raah is that, whether or not you have a genuine grievance that what I'm saying is unclear or not, you are not trying to understand what I'm saying (whether you agree with it or not)
You are trying to get me to stop saying it through arguments and misrepresentations and straw men that I must mean because look I used this word that clearly can only mean one thing.
So again, is this loving?
For example, I say that what I mean by contrary was explained in the abandonment of Jesus' principle sentence. Do you accept that, or do you believe I'm lying?
I say that the opposite of trying to love someone is not trying to love someone and this is not the same as saying someone must be trying to hate someone. Do you accept that is what I mean (whether you believe I'm using the English language wrong), or do you believe I'm lying?
I say that Jesus' standards, and the standards of Christianity, are much higher than average standards such as love those who also love you, and that to say that a Christianity falls short or abandons those standards is not the same as saying that they abandon the ordinary standards as well. Do you accept that as my point, or do you believe I'm lying?
I had not met a true Christian a few days ago, and unfortunately I still have not met a true Christian.
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So again, is this loving?
Before anyone can answer this quesion I think you need to define:
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Whether or not I love him is irrelevent to the discussion.
It is not irrelevant at all. You right now are falling sort of what Jesus commanded you to try and be. And more importantly for my original argument, you really don't seem to care. You seem far more interested in point scoring with me over what I clearly must have been saying and how bigoted it must have been.
You are very handily for me, demonstrating exactly what I'm talking about, to me and those who are reading this debate.
I could not have asked for a better example.
And since I was asked some where else, just to clarify to other reading, I've never tried to love or be loving to raah.0 -
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That is a very weak argument raah, as I'm sure you know.
The standard Jesus set for Christians is very high. Saying that they are still Christians if they aren't trying to get anywhere near this standard would be disingenious.
It would be like me saying the standard for medical college is very high, 550 points, I've never met someone who even tried to get that let alone got it in their Leaving Cert (not true but for the sake of illustration), only to have you turn around and question if I've ever met anyone who has passed their leaving cert.
All Christians will do the easier stuff as well (love/forgive their friends and loved ones), but not all who do the easier stuff are Christians.
For one thing, you are wrongly restricting the teachings of Jesus to those cases. He spoke about things such as divorce for example, and you are acting as though the principles of christianity completely exclude those contained in the old testament. While christians may be called to transcend certain old testament values, fulfillment of these would still be a good first approximation of trying to be christian and a step on the way to transcending them. Just as someone who wants to be a doctor and does the leaving cert and does **** tried to be a doctor. I'm sure you've heard of cases like that before. So you can take that as an instant counter example
It actually came after you mentioned abandonment. And it came as a "not only are they abandoning, but they are actively pursuing behaviour contrary" [descriptive paraphrase].Yes it is. You know it is because I defined what I mean in the sentence before that one
On the other hand, someone who regularly abandons such principles when it doesn't suit them
You again really have no excuse for pretending to not understand what I meant.
You know that argument is nonsense raah. I explained what I meant in the same paragraph that you quote. Active pursuit of behavior contrary to Jesus teaching is clarified as the abandonment of Jesus' teaching.
The "extreme scale" is where you are saying that unless someone gets 540 in their leaving cert they are not even trying. It is where you are saying medecine is the only cao option.You invent the notion that I must be using your "extreme" scale and then hold me to it. I'm not using your extreme scale, nor do you have any justification for believing I am since in the same paragraph I quote I explain otherwise.
We are once again back to you straw manning my argument. Again are you doing this through love?
It is extreme in that you are extreme in your judgements as to when people are even trying to attain these higher values, and extreme in that you have left out all lesser teachings of jesus and tennets of christianity. Like don't get divorced or things like that.
It's like thinking that someone who says "I'm going to do medecine,t hat's what I want to do, I'll try my hardest" and then only passes their leaving cert (585 is difficult to get after all), without further prompting assuming that they didn't even try is still something you are not able to do. In fact, the default is to assume that they did try but failed.Again see example of Leaving Cert results. Be nice to people you already like is not a Christian principle. It is a general principle, one that Jesus says Christians must transcend.
Only someone being highly disingenuous would take the charge that Christians fall short or abandon Jesus' teachings as meaning they don't do anything nice even to their friends and family.
Again it is like thinking that someone who says no one ever gets the points to medical school is also saying no one ever passes the Leaving Cert, since passing the Leaving Cert is also required to get the points for medical school.
All highly disingenuous. Which again brings us back to how loving you are being right now
They could very well be considered "christian principles". Christians are not called to toss out the old testament.Those are not teachings of Jesus, they are Mose' commandments. Jesus called on his followers to transcend them.
All Christians will honour their father and mother, but not all who honour their father and mother will be Chrisitans, as I'm sure you are aware.
You can restate your original statement if you'd like. But "christian principles" is what you originally said. And even a case for the teachings of jesus including these things could be made.
Well unfortunately the multiquote system has caused this sentence you quoted to be separated out from its supporting fellows. If it had been taken in cont ext you would see how this is a question begging response. All of that was taken into account in the argument made. It was an argument based on your general usage of the term "christian principles" and also the approximations to the more extreme values as mentioned above.It does if the examples I highlight are examples of the very difficult ones that Christians must still try to adhere to.
Well, Just so you don't think I'm l eaving anything out. You explained it above in this post. If it actually did explain it, then I wouldn't be able to see the explanation until now.Explained above, no excuse to still not understand that.
My argument is that you can't say that they aren't even trying to uphold the teachings of Jesus. Even the more extreme ones. And that you can't single out the extreme ones , because there are others. This holds if you want to restrict it to the "teachings of jesus" or stick to what you originally said "the principles of christianity".Yes. And your excuse to this is that they are but just some of them and the ones that everyone upholds to anyway the ones Jesus specifically said to raise above.
Very weak argument.0 -
Just to keep the real-time interactions going.
Again, this is all predicated on whether I was deliberately misinterpreting your post. I've told you I haven't been.It is not irrelevant at all. You right now are falling sort of what Jesus commanded you to try and be. And more importantly for my original argument, you really don't seem to care. You seem far more interested in point scoring with me over what I clearly must have been saying and how bigoted it must have been.
You are very handily for me, demonstrating exactly what I'm talking about, to me and those who are reading this debate.
I could not have asked for a better example.
And since I was asked some where else, just to clarify to other reading, I've never tried to love or be loving to raah.
Furthermore, if I was acting in contravention to this or that christian principle, then you still wouldn't be able to tell that I wasn't trying.
Because it's pretty much borderline case. I could have either stopped doing what I was doing altogether, and apologised, or not done so. The trying will completely manifest itself in one apology, and before then you would say that "he's not trying, he's maintaining the argument". So what you are saying is invalid on both counts, and an example of irrational inferences about whether or not different people lare trying this or that.It might take longer for you to quote the exact text I said, but it does avoid the posts and posts and posts of us arguing back and forth over your interpretation of what I must have meant.
For example, you could have simply asked me do I mean that all Christians I've met actively hate. To which I would have said no, that is not what I mean and happily clarified it.
Instead you assumed that must be what I meant, possibly (as I said originally) based on a stereotype you have in your head about non-Christians.
And when I pointed out that is not what I meant, you simply said that must have been what I mean because I couldn't have meant anything else and that I must now be back tracking.
Do you genuinely believe that I believe that every Christian hates most people on Earth?
No, and perhaps we can step away from the multi quotes and you can simply restate in more precise language how it is you have perceived 'most christians' that you have interacted with. Have they even tried to uphold christian principles? Or just the teachings of Jesus? Or just one or two of the teachings of Jesus? Or have they just not fulfilled one or two of the teachings of Jesus.
And infairness wicknight I did ask you that, several times. If you'd like to alter your statement. Our argument has been primarily about the proper interpretation of your words in their context. So far mine has been airtight, and I have given far more arguments in support of it than you have in support of yours.
Your response was more along the lines of "what I said can't be interpreted in such a way" and less "that's not what I meant". This is where the word strawman comes in.
So the major points of contention are "christian principles" as opposed to "the teachings of jesus". "Specific teachings of jesus" as opposed to "the general teachings of jesus". And finally, that one paragraph in which the word contrary occurs. Given the context, and your later unprompted use of the word "opposite" I'm going to say that you know what you meant. But that doesn't matter anyway, because you can simply restate what you think about christians and we can re-evaluate whether or not this is a reasonable thing to say about people.0 -
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Again, it is still irrelevent to my argument. The loving your neighbour could very well be included as a christian principle, and even if it couldn't it doesn't matter. You mentioned "christian principles" in their plurality. This paragraphs just ignore my argument completely.The problem with that though is when you actively change the meaning of what I've said and then slap quotes on it.
Love your enemy is a world way from love your neighbour. That is in fact the point of Jesus' teaching.
If you genuinely believe that you do not understand basic Christianity.
The instruction from the Old Testament is to love your neighbor, neighbor meaning fellow tribes man, friend, or more generally Hebrew.
Jesus specifically selects this because, as he says, even tax collectors love those who love them. There is nothing particularly difficult about loving those who love you back.
Jesus then calls on his disciples to do as God does, to love all, not just your neighbors but your enemies too. That is the difficult part.
You cannot be a Christian if you limit who you love to just your neighbours. You are, as Jesus points out, just doing what everyone does them.
This was adressed in the previous posts. I guess there is no need really for you to respond to my quoting of these posts.Yes apologizes that quoting of your post was in accurate and unclear. What I didn't say was that contrary meant hate others (which is what you quoted me as saying).
What I meant by contrary was defined in the first line of the paragraph you quoted
On the other hand, someone who regularly abandons such principles when it doesn't suit them, I would not consider a true Christian
I said was they abandon such principles when it doesn't suit them (which is behavior contrary to Jesus' teaching).
You appreciate I hope that it becomes confusing to defend what I've said when I'm defending not only what I wrote but also the numerious times you have translated this into what I apparently meant.
Yes abandoning jesus' principles would be one such instance of behaviour contrary to jesus' principles. But it is not supported by the text that this is all you meant. The order in which you mentioned them, and the fact that you say "active pursuit" would give my interpretation precedence over yours in this case. In fact, If we got an unbiased outside good leaving cert student who did reading comprehension they could tell us as much. But anyway, I have already gone through this is earlier posts too.Yes I knew what I meant when I said it. I also told you what I meant when I said it.
On the other hand, someone who regularly abandons such principles when it doesn't suit them, I would not consider a true Christian
Do you believe that abandoning Jesus' principles when it suits are contrary to Jesus' teachings?
If you don't then I can appreciate how you would miss the connection between the first line in the paragraph and the last line. But then I clarified this for you numerous times.
I can understand that you now want to convey a meaning other than that which was contained in the sentences you wrote. To do this it was necessary for you to clarify. That is why statements like "strawman" and "disingenuous" are inappropriate for this case. I did several times say "you can restate your claims if you'd like", but you said you'd rather stick with your original posts.Only if you ignore what I said
I never said that Chrisitan principles are as basic as love your neighbours. You took that as what I said because you seem to not understand the transcendent nature of what Jesus required of his followers.
I never said that Christians actively hate people. You took that as what I said because you saw the term contrary and ignored that I had already defined what I mean (abandoning Jesus' principles when it suits) and instead took it to mean actively hate (apparently based on a mathematical forum you have derived).
Really there should not be any need to re-explain this to you. I have clarified many times what I said and what I mean.
No it isn't raah, as you well know.
It is based on assumption of what I said. But if you simply ignore any efforts to clarify, either in the paragraphs themselves, or afterwards, you are being quite disingenuous.
Well again, this is the same kind of confusion adressed above. You did infact say taht I was "strawmanning" you. So this says that I was taking a fictional interpretation of your posts and using it to suit myself in argument.Which leads us back to the original question of if you are trying to love right now. Really after all this arguing back and forth is should not come as much surprise to you that I can say with high confidence that I've never met a true Christian.
That is true, such debates are confusing and get more confusing when I'm defending not only what I said but also the various points where you simply make up what I mean.
I did say they behaviors contrary to jesus' teaching. I though was arguing your interpretation of this (that they actively hate) more than what I actually said (they abandon when it suits). That certainly was confusing, and I apologize for the confusion.
I never said what you claim is the only valid interpretation of that sentence, would have been a more accurate objection to make.
I do think that my interpretation is the only valid interpretation of what you've said, given the word used. Now, this isn't english class, so you can just restate it and clear up.
Notice there is a difference between saying "Sorry, what I meant was..." and "that's not the meaning conveyed by those words taken together in that context, to take that meaning you must be deliberately strawmanning". So you can see the difference in our approach. This is why later appeals to "what I meant was" are irrelevent in the context of someone who was throwing about claims of whos a strawman earlier.0 -
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