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Justifying Your WorldView to an Impartial Onlooker.

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Comments

  • #102
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The question in the OP involves an impartial onlooker. Its not Mark doing to judging, his view and mine are to be judged. By this impartial onlooker.

    If the impartial onlooker can't exist then the question is voided, given its reliance on an impartial onlooker.

    I would have thought Mark would be as interested in there being an impartial onlooker as I am - if we are to assume he actually is interested in his question being answered.

    You evidently are not interested.

    And if God doesn't exist, then the question of religious belief is voided. And yet, didn't you try to argue for God's existence very recently by starting from the assumption that God exists?


  • #103
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Mark Hamill has an agenda. He wants a toe to toe, his worldview vs my worldview ... presented to this impartial onlooker according to the norms of Marks empirical/rational worldview.

    Can you please show me where I have said that? I just want you to explain your worldview in terms of explaining it to someone who isn't inherently empirical or theistic.


  • #104
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    An athiest is in the same position as a believer: he is convinced that nothing he does will result in his eternal damnation.

    Logically (your logic that is) atheists must necessarily become like LVF pastors on the basis of this get out of jail free card.

    Do you believe all the atheists you are talking to here are like LVF pastors? If not, then why not?


  • #105
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    You'd have to point out where I said doing good works was necessarily doing satan's work.

    Eh...
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    All the rest are weighing scale gods of one sort or another, coming as they do, straight from Satan's rectum.


    Same rectum, same smell.

    Good works is that smell.


  • #106
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I would have thought it would be obvious rather than strange.

    Let's say I start giving reasons for my certainty (to folk who aren't impartial). Those same folk, who have found their worldview higher ground isn't anyway as high as they thought, will leap thankfully on the opportunity offered by thread recalibration (the disappearance of the need for an impartial onlooker).

    They will, sure as night follows day, start challenging on the basis of their worldview (as if that established higher ground). "No empirical evidence"

    You might as well open the stable door..

    But the thread is about an impartial onlooker evaluating your worldview, not us. Are you saying that if an impartial onlooker is presented with multiple worldviews, both empirical and non-empirical, they will always orientate to an empirical worldview and judge all the rest thusly? Why do think that is? Why stops you from doing the same (orientating to an empirical worldview)?


  • #107
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Having the thread flounder has utility. It underlines the partiality of those who regularily suppose themselves impartial (a.k.a. empiricism is a neutral/best assessment method for how we know things)

    It shoes nothing of the sort, as it is not about empiricism vs non-empiricism and no impartiality of anything has been declared, described or tested.

    If anything, all this shows is that you are afraid to answer simple questions about your faith, repeatedly displaying paranoia about traps when questioned. In terms of debate, a trap can only exist if there is a hole in your argument for it to latch on to. It does not speak well for your worldview if even you can see holes so big in it that you won't chance some possible traps.


  • #108
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Having the thread flounder has utility. It underlines the partiality of those who regularily suppose themselves impartial (a.k.a. empiricism is a neutral/best assessment method for how we know things)

    It shoes nothing of the sort, as it is not about empiricism vs non-empiricism

    They happen to be the two worldviews under the microscope. It could be any two (in which case the impartial onlooker need be impartial in considering them).

    We don't have to concern ourselves with another pair of worldviews, we're concerned with these two.





    and no impartiality of anything has been declared, described or tested.

    Indeed. We await this impartial onlooker.
    If anything, all this shows is that you are afraid to answer simple questions about your faith, repeatedly displaying paranoia about traps when questioned.

    All that has been shown is the failure of the impartial onlooker to appear.



    In terms of debate, a trap can only exist if there is a hole in your argument for it to latch on to. It does not speak well for your worldview if even you can see holes so big in it that you won't chance some possible traps.

    The hole I can fall into is allowing the impartial onlooker (your OP) to fall by the wayside and begin engaging with a partial onlooker - one who evaluates other worldviews according to the mechanisms of his own.

    Not much chance of that.

    So. Can you produce one. Or should we just declare the thread's OP a non-starter?


  • #109
    realitykeeper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    But there are others putting their worldviews forward too, worldviews that inherently contradict yours (be they other religions, philosophies or empirical worldviews). What do you think would make your worldview stand out to an impartial onlooker? Why does it stand out to you over any other?

    To me what makes Christianity different is the selflessness of God. People sometimes blame God or stop believing when bad things happen like war or illness. Sometimes they ask why God does not do something or give more but the way I see it, God gave us everything he had to give by sacrificing his son. He did it so that we would know that this self sacrificing love is important.

    Most people think Christs sacrifice was to atone for our sins but I think it was primarily an example for the selfless lives we are to live, so God expects a lot from Christians.


  • #110
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Mark Hamill has an agenda. He wants a toe to toe, his worldview vs my worldview ... presented to this impartial onlooker according to the norms of Marks empirical/rational worldview.

    Can you please show me where I have said that?

    When you jump to 'just answer the question' and when you suppose I'm dodging for reasons other than the one given: failure to produce the impartial onlooker. It's your OP so when you desert it's essence and want the answer anyway, one can only suppose who the new, not-impartial onlooker is going to be. You (or rather) the assessment methods of the worldview you hold to.


    I just want you to explain your worldview in terms of explaining it to someone who isn't inherently empirical or theistic.

    I've posed a problem. The problem is that everyone is antagonistic to God. According to my worldview that is.

    The onlooker needn't be intrinsically empiricist or theist - I fully agree that from your perspective such a person can be found. Pretty easily in fact. But according to my worldview they are intrinsically antagonistic and blind (where blind means they have no spiritual optic nerve for spiritual information to travel to the spiritual brain - a bar to impartiality.)

    You suggest hypothetical, for that would seem to solve the problem. But this hypothetical isn't described such that I can assess the onlooker balanced and able to assess both views impartially. I wouldn't even know myself how to construct such a hypothetical.

    The problem there is that there is no half way house. The onlooker can have empirical experience (how can they not?) which is necessary to be able to understand your argument. And not be an empiricist (i.e. they haven't a worldview centred on empiricism for want of giving such the questions it attempts to answer much thought).

    But they can't have a part experience of God in their lives (as they have the empirical world in their lives).

    Someone doesn't have their eyes half opened by God. They might have experience of the theistic world (gone to church a few times, seen Songs of Praise (or a televangelist!), been brought up in the West with it's innumerable Christian influences, patent and less patent.

    But that doesn't qualify them as sufficienly informed in the way their empirical experience qualifies them to consider empiricism. Such theistic experience, whilst blind, merely more empirical experience.

    The issue is their antagonism and blindness. And I don't think that can be overcome.


  • #111
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    You'd have to point out where I said doing good works was necessarily doing satan's work.

    Eh...
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    All the rest are weighing scale gods of one sort or another, coming as they do, straight from Satan's rectum.


    Same rectum, same smell.

    Good works is that smell.

    If you read it again you will find that the 'good works' referred to are a demand of the SYSTEMS : "do good works and you will (or may, another nasty smell) go to heaven", for example.

    It is not referring to the "good works" that people do whose motivation ranges from utterly selfless (mother pushing a pram out of the way of a speeding car and sacrificing her own life for the baby in the pram).

    To utterly selfish (folk who give generously and visibly solely in order to appear generous to others. Inwardly they hate having to give away money but want the kudos more)


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  • #112
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Works can be defined as ' following, by act of a persons own will, the the prescribed/ believed to be prescribed ordinances of a system (or their own interpretation of a system) in order to obtain the reward associated with having followed them'.

    Yet, you can have not 'worked' a jot in your life and be saved in a second. An athiest up to the point of salvation can't have worked, can they?

    God works. He works by utilising the effects of your sin in your life. Sin brings pain (the stick unbelievers no nothing about). Pain's function is always to tell you that something is up.


    He also, on the positive side (the carrot unbelievers know nothing about) works on the longing within you (if you long) for things to be as they ought to be: fair, equitable, joyous, worry free...

    (If you've ever looked at all the locks we employ: our cars, our houses, our wheelie bins (a burglar once used them to scale our garden wall), our lock-ers, our bicycles, our smartphones, our bank accounts .. and yearned for a place where locks weren't required. Well, He works with that.)

    If the pain becomes too great. If the longing becomes too unbearable. Then what?

    You have described the way in which you think God works, but you have not explained why Gods choice to "work on" someone (a particular someone) isn't arbitrary.
    antiskeptic wrote: »

    On God's caring about a (now) child self/others harm?

    You're probably more interested in the effect on the believing sinner than the effect on God. Right?

    1. The first effect is the ordinary effect. Sin causes trouble. I, a believer, rob a bank I go to jail. I sleep with someone other than my wife I feel guilt and shame .. and if she finds out she might leave me. I drink to excess, I get fat or get cirrhosis of the liver. Normal, everyday stuff.

    I say 'guilt, shame' above. I'd feel the same guilt and shame for cheating on my wife as an unbeliever who feels guilt and shame for cheating on his wife.

    But I'd have an additional problem: my father. I'd have cheated on him as well.

    (You'll know, if you watch football, the chagrin of a defender hoofing a dangerous crossed ball into his own net?

    A believer sinning is like a defender, knowingly, willingly, hoofing a ball into their own net.)


    When saved you realise there are two distinct and separate sides: good and evil. And that somehow, you've been transferred to the side of good.

    A believer sinning is, effectively, taking a bribe from the other side to score an own goal.

    Then again, I'm a sinner. That drug still flows through my veins. God knows this too .. and doesn't condemn

    We might, for instance, know Nike scores zero on the scale of corporate responsibility. We nevertheless fall for the ad-men manipulation, the bribe referred to above, parking the inconvenient wider, ugly truth for the desire of the present.

    As Robin Williams noted: we don't want Ms. Right. We want Ms. Right Now.

    Tension thus:

    - no condemnation from God. Just a father distraught at the self harm/harm to others.

    -no peace when I rush headlong down the path of sin.

    So Gods caring is the simple cause and effect of doing damaging things, either on a biological system (e.g. illness from drinking or eating to excess) or psychological system (e.g. guilt, shame etc. from doing something you later regret).
    Does this mean all examples of such damaging effects are a direct result of God "caring"?

    God works to draw everyone in.

    Whether they are landed or not depends on whether they 'will it not' to the extent of not being landed (to use an angling analogy).

    As I said, the believer has a relationship with their father. That involves presence, communication, cuddles .. and discipline.

    'Move close to God and He will move close to you" has an opposite.

    The discipline (for a believer) can involve the normal cause and effects - but cause and effect that occurs because God withdraws and leaves you to it rather than remain close to help steer you away from it.

    Even his distancing himself is unpleasant. Once you taste his presence, you don't like it when he is distant Just like any naughty kid with a parent who loves them but distances their loving (in the pleasant sense) expression from bad behaviour.


  • #113
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    Most people think Christs sacrifice was to atone for our sins but I think it was primarily an example for the selfless lives we are to live, so God expects a lot from Christians.

    So your God sacrifices his only son (although apparently we're all God's children) for a whole three days as an illustration of selflessness and then goes on to inflict a myriad of fatal diseases on mankind and turns a blind eye when his worshipers slaughter, torture and commit genocide in his name?


  • #114
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    I hadn't meant to make so many posts in a row to you before, so I'm going to respond to your responses in this one post, to keep things tidy.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    They happen to be the two worldviews under the microscope. It could be any two (in which case the impartial onlooker need be impartial in considering them).

    We don't have to concern ourselves with another pair of worldviews, we're concerned with these two.

    No, we are concerned with your worldview versus any and all others, that is the scenario of my initial question. Please stop trying to move my goalposts and strawmanning my question.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Indeed. We await this impartial onlooker.

    I meant no impartiality of any worldview.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    All that has been shown is the failure of the impartial onlooker to appear.

    As it is an hypothetical onlooker and therefore not supposed to be real, the only failure is your failure to openly engage with thread.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The hole I can fall into is allowing the impartial onlooker (your OP) to fall by the wayside and begin engaging with a partial onlooker - one who evaluates other worldviews according to the mechanisms of his own.

    Not much chance of that.

    So. Can you produce one. Or should we just declare the thread's OP a non-starter?

    The only one claiming a non-impartial onlooker is you. So again, please stop trying to move my goalposts and strawman my question (never mind my argument) and just answer the question.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    When you jump to 'just answer the question' and when you suppose I'm dodging for reasons other than the one given: failure to produce the impartial onlooker. It's your OP so when you desert it's essence and want the answer anyway, one can only suppose who the new, not-impartial onlooker is going to be. You (or rather) the assessment methods of the worldview you hold to.

    Except I have repeatedly said I will not do that. Are you saying I'm lying?
    Even if I am lying, why would that stop you from answering the question? Surely you have answered such a question to yourself, when you arrived at your worldview instead of any other?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The problem there is that there is no half way house. The onlooker can have empirical experience (how can they not?) which is necessary to be able to understand your argument. And not be an empiricist (i.e. they haven't a worldview centred on empiricism for want of giving such the questions it attempts to answer much thought).

    But they can't have a part experience of God in their lives (as they have the empirical world in their lives).

    Someone doesn't have their eyes half opened by God. They might have experience of the theistic world (gone to church a few times, seen Songs of Praise (or a televangelist!), been brought up in the West with it's innumerable Christian influences, patent and less patent.

    But that doesn't qualify them as sufficienly informed in the way their empirical experience qualifies them to consider empiricism. Such theistic experience, whilst blind, merely more empirical experience.

    The issue is their antagonism and blindness. And I don't think that can be overcome.

    I already covered this possibility a few times, that you don't believe you could convince someone if they didn't already have their eyes opened by God. That's why I asked the second question of the thread, if they don't believe why do you? And before you say "because my eyes have been opened", how do you account for people of contradictory religious worldviews making the same claims about themselves?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    God works to draw everyone in.

    Whether they are landed or not depends on whether they 'will it not' to the extent of not being landed (to use an angling analogy).

    As I said, the believer has a relationship with their father. That involves presence, communication, cuddles .. and discipline.

    'Move close to God and He will move close to you" has an opposite.

    The discipline (for a believer) can involve the normal cause and effects - but cause and effect that occurs because God withdraws and leaves you to it rather than remain close to help steer you away from it.

    Even his distancing himself is unpleasant. Once you taste his presence, you don't like it when he is distant Just like any naughty kid with a parent who loves them but distances their loving (in the pleasant sense) expression from bad behaviour.

    This just repeats what you said already. Can you answer the question:
    Does this mean all examples of such damaging effects are a direct result of God "caring"?


  • #115
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    To me what makes Christianity different is the selflessness of God. People sometimes blame God or stop believing when bad things happen like war or illness. Sometimes they ask why God does not do something or give more but the way I see it, God gave us everything he had to give by sacrificing his son. He did it so that we would know that this self sacrificing love is important.

    Most people think Christs sacrifice was to atone for our sins but I think it was primarily an example for the selfless lives we are to live, so God expects a lot from Christians.

    But that self sacrifice wasn't really a self sacrifice, though was it? Either you take Jesus as Gods son, in which case God sacrificed someone else to show how important sacrifice in the name of god is, or you take Jesus as God incarnate, in which case the sacrifice is meaningless as God cannot, by definition, lose anything.


    Besides that, and accepting the God is selfless in the way you describe, why would that make you accept that interpretation of God over nay other? Why does being nice make it more believable than any other? How many other religions and philosophies did you investigate before you came to the conclusion that Christianity had the most selfless god and was most accurate?


  • #116
    Pherekydes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,190 ✭✭✭✭Pherekydes


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    To me what makes Christianity different is the selflessness of God. People sometimes blame God or stop believing when bad things happen like war or illness. Sometimes they ask why God does not do something or give more but the way I see it, God gave us everything he had to give by sacrificing his son. He did it so that we would know that this self sacrificing love is important.

    Most people think Christs sacrifice was to atone for our sins but I think it was primarily an example for the selfless lives we are to live, so God expects a lot from Christians.

    When Jesus was born, God told Joseph to sneak away to Egypt with Jesus. He abandoned the innocents to their fate. A simple message to the parents would have sufficed.

    When the Nazis came to power God herself sneaked away and abandoned the Jews to their fate.

    Sounds like a towering creep.

    P.S. while I've been typing this, a few hundred children have starved to death in Africa.


  • #117
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    Most people think Christs sacrifice was to atone for our sins but I think it was primarily an example for the selfless lives we are to live, so God expects a lot from Christians.

    and to the 1000's of non-Christians god enabled to be killed on 26th Dec a few years back, was it just the case he didn't care about them?


  • #118
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    When the Nazis came to power God herself sneaked away and abandoned the Jews to their fate.
    Well, in fairness, god himself may have had a hand in that, since some of his representatives in the Center Party helped young Adolf into his position of absolute power, there to do what god must surely have known they would do:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Kaas#Hitler's_Enabling_Act

    BTW - fun thing to note - the Reichskonkordat signed between the Nazi government and the Vatican remains - I believe - the only remaining international agreement which was signed into law by Adolf Hitler and which remains in operation today.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat


  • #119
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,339 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I've posed a problem. The problem is that everyone is antagonistic to God. According to my worldview that is.

    The onlooker needn't be intrinsically empiricist or theist - I fully agree that from your perspective such a person can be found. Pretty easily in fact. But according to my worldview they are intrinsically antagonistic and blind (where blind means they have no spiritual optic nerve for spiritual information to travel to the spiritual brain - a bar to impartiality.)

    Why would God make everyone inherently antagonistic to him?
    If he wanted it to be a test or something, wouldn't it be enough just to make them inherently neutral to him?

    Which FWIW is what I think people who haven't been brought up in a religion actually are, and not antagonistic.

    Seems like wallowing in victimhood to develop a world view in which people are inherently antagonistic to the God who, you think, created and loves them.

    Especially as this is based on no evidence at all apparently, given the multiple forms in which people have actively sought, or more likely created, a notion of God or gods throughout human history. I would say that people have traditionally very much wanted there to be a God. Or several. So I wonder where this idea of antagonism comes from.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The issue is their antagonism and blindness. And I don't think that can be overcome.

    Except by you and a few others because you have been "chosen" by this God, who nevertheless we are told, loves everybody - is that the idea?

    Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls: "Very concerned about statements by the IOC at Paris2024 (M)ultiple international treaties and national constitutions specifically refer to women & their fundamental rights, so the world (understands) what women -and men- are. (H)ow can one assess fairness and justice if we do not know who we are being fair and just to?"



  • #120
    realitykeeper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    smacl wrote: »
    So your God sacrifices his only son (although apparently we're all God's children) for a whole three days as an illustration of selflessness and then goes on to inflict a myriad of fatal diseases on mankind and turns a blind eye when his worshipers slaughter, torture and commit genocide in his name?

    Do I detect a hint of anger in your tone. Anger does not impress God. I suggest you repent.

    Mod : Kindly refrain from commenting on the posters and stick to rebutting those aspects of their posts you disagree with. Comment such as this do not advance the debate and are not of the standard expected here in A&A.
    Thanking you.


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  • #121
    realitykeeper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    But that self sacrifice wasn't really a self sacrifice, though was it? Either you take Jesus as Gods son, in which case God sacrificed someone else to show how important sacrifice in the name of god is, or you take Jesus as God incarnate, in which case the sacrifice is meaningless as God cannot, by definition, lose anything.


    Besides that, and accepting the God is selfless in the way you describe, why would that make you accept that interpretation of God over nay other? Why does being nice make it more believable than any other? How many other religions and philosophies did you investigate before you came to the conclusion that Christianity had the most selfless god and was most accurate?

    There are three person`s in one God. To sacrifice one`s son cannot be easy even for a mere mortal who cannot love as God loves. You also forget that Christ entered willingly into his passion and he did so for humanity. After all, a man can have no greater love than to give his life for his friends, so Christ is a friend to anyone open to receive his friendship.

    I have already addressed the second paragraph in an earlier post.


  • #122
    Timberrrrrrrr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,644 ✭✭✭✭Timberrrrrrrr


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    Do I detect a hint of anger in your tone. Anger does not impress God. I suggest you repent.

    So avoid what was said and insult the poster instead?

    Not very christian of you.


  • #123
    realitykeeper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    Pherekydes wrote: »
    When Jesus was born, God told Joseph to sneak away to Egypt with Jesus. He abandoned the innocents to their fate. A simple message to the parents would have sufficed.

    When the Nazis came to power God herself sneaked away and abandoned the Jews to their fate.

    Sounds like a towering creep.

    P.S. while I've been typing this, a few hundred children have starved to death in Africa.

    It was Herod who had the children killed, not God. Some of the Jews were crucified by the Nazis. God did warn the Jews, "weep not for me but for your children." And of course the sins of the father will visit the sons.

    The children who died in Africa did so because of sin (war, corruption, colonial legacy etc). God would have them live in paradise.


  • #124
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    Do I detect a hint of anger in your tone. Anger does not impress God. I suggest you repent.

    Suggest away, but I'd suggest in turn that anger doesn't impress you god as in my own humble opinion your god is no more than a fantasy for the credulous.

    That said, I honestly have no issue with what people choose to believe, only with how they behave. So for example, if you decide not to follow a given course of action because it is a sin in your belief system, that's fine by me. If you suggest that I don't follow a given course of action because it is a sin in your belief system however, we have a problem.


  • #125
    Timberrrrrrrr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,644 ✭✭✭✭Timberrrrrrrr


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    It was Herod who had the children killed, not God. Some of the Jews were crucified by the Nazis. God did warn the Jews, "weep not for me but for your children." And of course the sins of the father will visit the sons.

    The children who died in Africa did so because of sin (war, corruption, colonial legacy etc). God would have them live in paradise.

    Erm, many die from famine, famine bought on by a "god" that doesn't make it rain there.


  • #126
    Bannasidhe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,218 ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    Do I detect a hint of anger in your tone. Anger does not impress God. I suggest you repent.

    Which God?
    There are so many Gods worshipped by so many people.
    So many versions of even what is apparently the only God.

    All you can say really is the version you personally believe in is not impressed by anger (or at least you believe he/she/it isn't) but perhaps the other versions are very impressed by anger.

    Also, what is the point of repenting if the believers in Predestination are correct sure it's all be decided long before anyone gets angry about anything?


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  • #127
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    volchitsa wrote: »
    Why would God make everyone inherently antagonistic to him?

    He didn't make them. Sin made them thus. God made man perfect, man corrupted himself and that corrupted spiritual DNA rolls on down to all offspring.

    Why did God allow a situation whereby man could corrupt himself? Free will. And something to chose from (otherwise the free will couldn't express)


    If he wanted it to be a test or something, wouldn't it be enough just to make them inherently neutral to him?

    As it happens, a perfectly functional choice-in-effect is available in the existing situation. God attempts to save man and does all the work in achieving it. Unless man wills it not. That's the only thing that can prevent salvation, you resist God's effort.



    Given man isn't a neutral entity, the normal operation of choice won't work. Normally the person is neutral and is faced with two options and they will for this one or that one. Will in both direction.

    Since will is antagonisic from the get go, that normal way of choosing won't work. So God steps into the breech. His will pulls the person towards salvation. The persons will pulls them to damnation.





    Which FWIW is what I think people who haven't been brought up in a religion actually are, and not antagonistic.

    You would say that.

    Seems like wallowing in victimhood to develop a world view in which people are inherently antagonistic to the God who, you think, created and loves them.[/quote]

    It's not so much developed as either the way it is or not the way it is. I hold that it is the way it is.


    Especially as this is based on no evidence at all

    You (a partial onlooker) would say that.



    apparently, given the multiple forms in which people have actively sought, or more likely created, a notion of God or gods throughout human history. I would say that people have traditionally very much wanted there to be a God. Or several. So I wonder where this idea of antagonism comes from.

    A pointed out, those gods are performance based gods. There is a good reason for creating performance-based gods (rather, created by satan and followed by people). It means the gods are attractive. I mean: so long as you adhere to this and that rule, there is a whole lot you can do that doesn't fall under the rules.

    Satan is quiet happy with that. I use happy in a figure of speech way. Satan can't be happy.





    Except by you and a few others because you have been "chosen" by this God, who nevertheless we are told, loves everybody - is that the idea?

    See above. It's those who resist the attempt to save who aren't saved. God doesn't choose as such.

    The resistence doesn't happen in the conscious arena, so it doesn't matter that someone is an atheist. Athiests can be saved just as anyone else.


  • #128
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,339 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    He didn't make them. Sin made them thus. God made man perfect, man corrupted himself and that corrupted spiritual DNA rolls on down to all offspring.

    Of course he made them, or else he's not God. All powerful, omniscient etc, which means he chose to make man as he is. especially as you said we are born antagonistic to God - but babies don't choose sin do they?

    So where is the baby's free will when it's born? The free will not to be antagonistic to God?
    Oh the baby doesn't get that sort of free will, right?

    Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls: "Very concerned about statements by the IOC at Paris2024 (M)ultiple international treaties and national constitutions specifically refer to women & their fundamental rights, so the world (understands) what women -and men- are. (H)ow can one assess fairness and justice if we do not know who we are being fair and just to?"



  • #129
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    No, we are concerned with your worldview versus any and all others, that is the scenario of my initial question. Please stop trying to move my goalposts and strawmanning my question.

    Fair enough. The impartial observer needs to be impartial to any and all worldviews. Mine and and any or all others.


    I meant no impartiality of any worldview.

    I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps you meant no partiality towards any worldview? That's not achievable in practice, hence your hypothetical to circumvent that practical problem

    As it is an hypothetical onlooker and therefore not supposed to be real, the only failure is your failure to openly engage with thread.

    "Not real" doesn't mean the hypothetical has no characteristics. They presumably have to be equipped in some way to be able to evaluate the positions.

    Can they think? That's a characteristic

    Can they speak the language the positions are communicated in? That's a characteristic.

    Have they a base conceptual understanding of the principles of the worldview they are assessing? Have they experience in the empirical world and have they the physical senses, such as to understand, for example, the empiricists position? That's a characteristic.

    Etc.



    The only one claiming a non-impartial onlooker is you

    The only one claiming an impartial onlooker is you and other atheists. Hardly an imprimateur.

    Robindch dealt with the hypothetical "up is the same as down" by sweeping up and down from the table with his x/y 2D world. There is no such thing as up and down in a 2d world such as to make a characterless hypothetical up is the same as down possible. "Up is hypothetically the same as down" (the statement) isn't the same as saying there is no up and down.


    Except I have repeatedly said I will not do that. Are you saying I'm lying?

    Let's see what you have to say about the impartial onlooker's characteristics. I suspect we'll find that you grant them those that are convenient to your position, but not to mine (of two worldviews of the any number you're considering).

    Even if I am lying, why would that stop you from answering the question? Surely you have answered such a question to yourself, when you arrived at your worldview instead of any other?

    I had some information to go on that you can't understand. So little point. I await your impartial onlooker. Not a Christian but suitably equipped (as your non-empiricist but suitably equipped onlooker could assess your position from the information you give him). I can't think of their characteristics, but maybe you can?



    I already covered this possibility a few times, that you don't believe you could convince someone if they didn't already have their eyes opened by God.

    I wouldn't need to convince someone if their eyes were already opened by God.
    That's why I asked the second question of the thread, if they don't believe why do you? And before you say "because my eyes have been opened",

    Because my eyes were opened, and only because of that. You can't reason or empiricize (or whatever other characteristics you might assign) someone to belief. Wrong currency.
    how do you account for people of contradictory religious worldviews making the same claims about themselves?

    Why do you exclude empiricism from this? You presumably believe as you do because you are convinced by the evidence available to you. Presumably they are convinced for the same reason.

    Whose right (if any right). Roll up the Impartial Onlooker suitably equipped to evaluate.

    In the event the contradictions are fatal (e.g. there is no God, or the faith in question is clearly God-antagonistic) as opposed to detail (the faith follows the same principles involved in saving faith: trust in God/god, recognition of own sinfulness, repentance), then I would account for it by lost (the former)/perhaps found (the latter).

    Found people can be found without knowing the mechanics of it. They need never have heard of Jesus Christ in order to have been saved through him. Abraham is a case in point

    As I've said on numerous occasions: I expect people of all faiths and none to be "in heaven". Indeed, the bible appears to indicate they will be surprised, when standing before God to find out they were saved.

    This just repeats what you said already. Can you answer the question:
    Does this mean all examples of such damaging effects are a direct result of God "caring"?

    I outlined as least two damaging effects of sin on the believer: God's presence (or rather his withdrawal) and the normal effects on sin as they effect everyone: drink drive and you lose your licence, believer or no.

    Which category are you interested in?

    God caring has two elements: caring that those he loves get damaged by the natural outcome of sin (a loving caring). And cares (in the sense that it's a serious matter to him) because he is God and hates sin.

    He doesn't direct the damage: sin does the damage without his intervention (drive drunk and crash into a wall).


  • #130
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,339 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    See above. It's those who resist the attempt to save who aren't saved. God doesn't choose as such.

    The resistence doesn't happen in the conscious arena, so it doesn't matter that someone is an atheist. Athiests can be saved just as anyone else.

    So not by their free will then? Just luck?

    Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls: "Very concerned about statements by the IOC at Paris2024 (M)ultiple international treaties and national constitutions specifically refer to women & their fundamental rights, so the world (understands) what women -and men- are. (H)ow can one assess fairness and justice if we do not know who we are being fair and just to?"



  • #131
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    volchitsa wrote: »
    So not by their free will then? Just luck?

    You haven't got free will. You're born antagonistic towards God, remember. Left to your own devices you'd chose against him every time.

    So he balances the pre-tipped scales by sitting on one side of it, making it an "effective free will"

    There's nothing lucky about it. If you end up in hell, it's because, despite the rebalancing of the choice by him sitting on the bent scales, you still willed it not.

    Will isn't luck.


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  • #132
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,339 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    You haven't got free will. You're born antagonistic towards God, remember. Left to your own devices you'd chose against him every time.

    So he balances the pre-tipped scales by sitting on one side of it, making it an "effective free will"

    There's nothing lucky about it. If you end up in hell, it's because, despite the rebalancing of the choice by him sitting on the bent scales, you still willed it not.

    Will isn't luck.
    Where does all this "theory" come from, I've never come across all this before in our religion classes or indeed anywhere?
    With all due respect, you do seem to be just making it up as you go along AFAICT.

    Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls: "Very concerned about statements by the IOC at Paris2024 (M)ultiple international treaties and national constitutions specifically refer to women & their fundamental rights, so the world (understands) what women -and men- are. (H)ow can one assess fairness and justice if we do not know who we are being fair and just to?"



  • #133
    Hobosan
    Registered Users Posts: 582 ✭✭✭Hobosan


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    A hypothetical doesn't actually have to be possible to work.

    Atheists, ladies and gentlemen. Frame this quote and put it on your wall, alongside your painting of Jesus Christ.


  • #134
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    volchitsa wrote: »
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    You haven't got free will. You're born antagonistic towards God, remember. Left to your own devices you'd chose against him every time.

    So he balances the pre-tipped scales by sitting on one side of it, making it an "effective free will"

    There's nothing lucky about it. If you end up in hell, it's because, despite the rebalancing of the choice by him sitting on the bent scales, you still willed it not.

    Will isn't luck.
    Where does all this "theory" come from, I've never come across all this before in our religion classes or indeed anywhere?
    With all due respect, you do seem to be just making it up as you go along AFAICT.
    Hobosan wrote: »
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    A hypothetical doesn't actually have to be possible to work.

    Atheists, ladies and gentlemen. Frame this quote and put it on your wall, alongside your painting of Jesus Christ.



    ☺

    We are to imagine a hypothetical deaf, mute, brain dead impartial observer who doesn't speak English lying in his hospital bed with myself and Mark sitting either side outlining our positions.

    Above his bedstead, nailed to the wall is this framed quote.

    We must therefore persevere. I think not.


  • #135
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    ☺

    We are to imagine a hypothetical deaf, mute, brain dead impartial observer who doesn't speak English lying in his hospital bed with myself and Mark sitting either side outlining our positions.

    Above his bedstead, nailed to the wall is this framed quote.

    We must therefore persevere. I think not.

    Cause its far fetched?

    You believe a man once lived that could create food from nothing, walk on water and had zombie powers. Yet the hypothetical above is far fetched? :pac:

    I think the above hypothetical is far more believable to be honest. :D


  • #136
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    There are three person`s in one God. To sacrifice one`s son cannot be easy even for a mere mortal who cannot love as God loves. You also forget that Christ entered willingly into his passion and he did so for humanity. After all, a man can have no greater love than to give his life for his friends, so Christ is a friend to anyone open to receive his friendship.

    So god sacrificed someone who was happy to be sacrificed, in order to show how important sacrifice in his name is? Still doesn't really answer my question. For an all powerful being, it's not really a sacrifice, is it?
    realitykeeper wrote: »
    I have already addressed the second paragraph in an earlier post.

    Which one?


  • #137
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,348 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    There are three person`s in one God. To sacrifice one`s son cannot be easy even for a mere mortal who cannot love as God loves.

    Ahhhh the Jarvis Cocker conundrum as I call it.

    In the song Common People the girl was trying to see what it was like to live like the Common People. The main narrator of the song eventually comes to the realisation that she can never truly understand their condition however.

    Why?

    Because she has an out. She can ring daddy at any time when things hit their lowest and get out of the situation she is in. Having that "out" means she will never truly feel as they do.

    I would say the same of the god in your fantasy fairy tales. That god can never actually understand sacrifice, loss, grief, pain involved in the death of their son. Because at any point when the pain gets too much he can merely will the son back alive again. Show me any human parent who can do that?

    It is a mockery of the word "sacrifice" to use it in relation to the Nazarene fable in other words. Jesus did not die. God did not "sacrifice" anything. Said son is said to be sitting in eternal bliss and dominion at his fathers right hand. That is not a sacrifice. That is an upgrade. That is not "giving us his only son" that is LENDING us one for a period of time that is not even an eye blink in eternity.

    Your christian fables are a mockery and an insult to anyone who actually has lost a child and to anyone who actually has made a real sacrifice for another person, a place, or an ideal. Your god does not.... literally COULD not.... understand either.

    You say "a man can have no greater love than to give his life for his friends" is 100% true. Your Christ did not do that however. The very real men and women who gave their lives with no expectation of an eternal after life or a reward of eternal bliss and dominion..... THEY experienced and demonstrated the attributes of real love.

    Had the Christian narrative been one where God OFFERED eternal bliss and dominion to his son but his son chose the true death in lieu of that offer.... and god suffered that loss and grief and shock and surprise........ that would be a story and a sacrifice worth the telling of the story. One that could be told without shame or insult or mockery to the real love and the real suffering in our world.

    But instead your lads opted for something more fitting a Marvel Comic book where people die but somehow never manage to stay dead all the time.


  • #138
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    Ahhhh the Jarvis Cocker conundrum as I call it.

    In the song Common People the girl was trying to see what it was like to live like the Common People. The main narrator of the song eventually comes to the realisation that she can never truly understand their condition however.

    Why?

    Why indeed. Also why is it that 'Common people' as sung by the captain of the Starship Enterprise seems to capture the right mix of incredulity and outright fantasy when I read this thread? Even manages to throw in a much needed face-palm on the album cover :pac:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainyK6fXku0


  • #139
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Fair enough. The impartial observer needs to be impartial to any and all worldviews. Mine and and any or all others.

    In my hypothesis, the impartial viewer is impartial.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps you meant no partiality towards any worldview? That's not achievable in practice, hence your hypothetical to circumvent that practical problem

    It means that you tried to strawman my hypothesis into me being the onlooker (and therefore not impartial as you don't believe my world view is impartial) and I caught you out on it. The onlooker is impartial. Our worldviews may or may not be impartial, but we cannot say so because you are unable to answer the question and describe your worldview.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    "Not real" doesn't mean the hypothetical has no characteristics. They presumably have to be equipped in some way to be able to evaluate the positions.

    Can they think? That's a characteristic

    Can they speak the language the positions are communicated in? That's a characteristic.

    Have they a base conceptual understanding of the principles of the worldview they are assessing? Have they experience in the empirical world and have they the physical senses, such as to understand, for example, the empiricists position? That's a characteristic.

    Etc.

    [SNIP]

    Let's see what you have to say about the impartial onlooker's characteristics. I suspect we'll find that you grant them those that are convenient to your position, but not to mine (of two worldviews of the any number you're considering).

    [SNIP]

    I await your impartial onlooker. Not a Christian but suitably equipped (as your non-empiricist but suitably equipped onlooker could assess your position from the information you give him). I can't think of their characteristics, but maybe you can?

    All of this has been covered. They will listen (and therefore are capable of understanding),without a pre-conceived empirical or non-empirical worldview, any argument you care to make. So why don't you make one?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    The only one claiming an impartial onlooker is you and other atheists. Hardly an imprimateur.

    It's my hypothetical I can claim what I like about it, as long as I am consistent (which I have been since the start). Like I said before, get your own goalposts and stop trying to move mine.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I had some information to go on that you can't understand. So little point.

    Why would stop you from explaining it? You have posted a lot in this, trying to justify your beliefs, why stop here?
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Why do you exclude empiricism from this?

    Because I am asking about your religious belief as opposed to other religious beliefs.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    You presumably believe as you do because you are convinced by the evidence available to you. Presumably they are convinced for the same reason.

    Whose right (if any right). Roll up the Impartial Onlooker suitably equipped to evaluate.

    In the event the contradictions are fatal (e.g. there is no God, or the faith in question is clearly God-antagonistic) as opposed to detail (the faith follows the same principles involved in saving faith: trust in God/god, recognition of own sinfulness, repentance), then I would account for it by lost (the former)/perhaps found (the latter).

    Found people can be found without knowing the mechanics of it. They need never have heard of Jesus Christ in order to have been saved through him. Abraham is a case in point

    As I've said on numerous occasions: I expect people of all faiths and none to be "in heaven". Indeed, the bible appears to indicate they will be surprised, when standing before God to find out they were saved.

    I did not ask why you think people arrive at different (mirroring but contradictory) religious beliefs to you, or what you think happens to them after they die. I asked how do you account for them when you decide that your beliefs are the right ones.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    I outlined as least two damaging effects of sin on the believer: God's presence (or rather his withdrawal) and the normal effects on sin as they effect everyone: drink drive and you lose your licence, believer or no.

    Which category are you interested in?

    God caring has two elements: caring that those he loves get damaged by the natural outcome of sin (a loving caring). And cares (in the sense that it's a serious matter to him) because he is God and hates sin.

    He doesn't direct the damage: sin does the damage without his intervention (drive drunk and crash into a wall).

    So god "cares" but doesn't actually do anything. And all of the effects of sin are indistinguishable from cause and effect - drink driving causing a crash. What about sin where nothing bad happens to you, because you get away with it?


  • #140
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    Hobosan wrote: »
    Atheists, ladies and gentlemen. Frame this quote and put it on your wall, alongside your painting of Jesus Christ.

    Got a problem with what I said?


  • #141
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,783 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    ☺

    We are to imagine a hypothetical deaf, mute, brain dead impartial observer who doesn't speak English lying in his hospital bed with myself and Mark sitting either side outlining our positions.

    Above his bedstead, nailed to the wall is this framed quote.

    We must therefore persevere. I think not.

    As has been repeatedly explained, that is not the hypothetical that started the thread, so please stop lying about it.


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  • #142
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    We are to imagine a hypothetical deaf, mute, brain dead impartial observer who doesn't speak English lying in his hospital bed with myself and Mark sitting either side outlining our positions.

    I think the suspension of disbelief required to imagine a person with this impartial worldview is negligible. If you look at the OP's criterion, 'a hypothetical blank slate, religious-and-empricism-wise', anyone raised on the basis of a non-religious philosophy would fit the bill nicely, e.g. someone from a closed humanist community. Whether or not they do exist, they most certainly could exist from a hypothetical standpoint. No need to be deaf, mute, brain dead or have any other disability you might inflict on them in order to attempt to ridicule the OP's argument.

    If you can imagine that Christian mythology might be true it should be well within your capacity to imagine the above.


  • #143
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    Got a problem with what I said?

    Mod warning: Keep it civil please. Thanks.


  • #144
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,348 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    So your entire argument, the reason you have avoided my question for so long is that you can't convince someone of your worldview unless they are significantly on their way to believing it?

    Ahhh it was been quite a few years since I have seen, heard from, or thought about the greasy but aptly named Matt Slick. But you just made him pop right back into my head. Actually last I heard of him was when his daughter came out as atheist and.... if memory recalls..... came public about all kinds of horrible abuse she suffered at her fathers hands. Though I might be mixing him up there, so apologies if I am!

    Anyway... he advocated a form of Christian Theism Apologetics which he called "Presuppositionalism" which is basically the position that he can prove to you god exists and Christianity is the one true religion.... if you would only make the small concession of accepting up front that god exists and Christianity is the one true religion.

    To refuse to make that concession was in his view close minded and biased and unfair to him and almost malicious.
    volchitsa wrote: »
    The idea that this child who was brought up with no knowledge of religion thereby becomes impervious to the very idea of God seems to run counter to the whole missionary aspect of Christianity.

    I think it also goes against much of evolutionary biology too. We have evolved things like the intentional stance and hyper active agency detection.

    We are at the level of our very biology therefore, predisposed to the fantasy that an intentional agent is at work behind the reality around us and the things that happen there.

    The idea therefore that a child brought up in an environment sterile to religious thinking would be less inclined towards religious memetic infection is for me like saying that someone brought up on an island entirely sterile of bacteria would be less inclined to catch the common cold.

    In fact for both memetic and genetic infection I would say A) he would still be very much inclined to become infected and B) having never built up any immunity perhaps even MORE so.

    We exist in the universe and we do not know how or why this situation has arisen. As demonstrated by the theists who post on this thread......... and forum over the years......... they have not a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning that suggests that whatever the explanation turns out to be..... that a non-human intelligent and intentional agent was involved.
    smacl wrote: »
    So for example, if you decide not to follow a given course of action because it is a sin in your belief system, that's fine by me.

    Not to single you out here but just thinking out loud I wonder if we can push on that one a little, just for fun :)

    There are parents, some of them now thankfully serving justice in jail cells, who refused to bring medical treatment to their own children..... sometimes for relatively easy to manage medical conditions..... leading to the children suffering greatly or even dying. They did this because the medical intervention was an affront to the god they worship.

    So they decided not to follow a given course of action because it was a sin in their belief system.

    Is that fine by us? Should it be?


  • #145
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    Not to single you out here but just thinking out loud I wonder if we can push on that one a little, just for fun :)

    There are parents, some of them now thankfully serving justice in jail cells, who refused to bring medical treatment to their own children..... sometimes for relatively easy to manage medical conditions..... leading to the children suffering greatly or even dying. They did this because the medical intervention was an affront to the god they worship.

    So they decided not to follow a given course of action because it was a sin in their belief system.

    Is that fine by us? Should it be?

    Of course not, but then parents aren't their children are they? If as an adult, they refused the medical treatment for themselves, I'd think them dumb but happy enough to let them proceed. Denying your child medical treatment because it does not accord with your belief system is not the same and personally I'd consider it abuse. This illustrates the boundary between where the rights of a parent ends and the rights of the child begin.


  • #146
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,348 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Ah ok I see the distinction then which I missed before. They are refusing a course of action based on their faith FOR THEMSELVES. But refusing a course of action in general, especially where others are involved, was not what we were referring to there?

    That distinction makes it clearer for me I think. Sorry if it should have been obvious to me the first time around.


  • #147
    smacl
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,776 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    Ah ok I see the distinction then which I missed before. They are refusing a course of action based on their faith FOR THEMSELVES. But refusing a course of action in general, especially where others are involved, was not what we were referring to there?

    That distinction makes it clearer for me I think. Sorry if it should have been obvious to me the first time around.

    For me a basic principal of secularism is that a persons religious beliefs cannot be used to excuse trampling all over the human rights of someone else, even if that someone else is that person's child. On that basis, I'm of the opinion that most Christians in this country are also secularist, and that more doctrinaire Christians are in the minority here at least.


  • #148
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    smacl wrote: »
    I'm of the opinion that most Christians in this country are also secularist, and that more doctrinaire Christians are in the minority here at least.

    Social changes in our country and landslide YES votes would certainly back that opinion up


  • #149
    realitykeeper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »
    Erm, many die from famine, famine bought on by a "god" that doesn't make it rain there.

    Erm, famines are almost always man made. War displaces people and interrupts trade routes and supply systems. Deforestation causes soil erosion and climate change. etc etc etc


  • #150
    realitykeeper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    Bannasidhe wrote: »

    Also, what is the point of repenting if the believers in Predestination are correct sure it's all be decided long before anyone gets angry about anything?

    I think they think their destiny is predetermined because they believe in pre destiny (or something like that). Sounds a bit like chasing your tail to me.


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  • #151
    Bannasidhe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,218 ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    realitykeeper wrote: »
    I think they think their destiny is predetermined because they believe in pre destiny (or something like that). Sounds a bit like chasing your tail to me.

    Are you saying, just to be clear, that what a person believes determines their destiny?


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