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Justifying Your WorldView to an Impartial Onlooker.
Comments
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Like yourself, LVF commander Pastor Billy Wright certainly claimed he was, and like yourself claimed he could murder all he liked because he was already saved.
I think I said he could murder and he wouldn't lose his salvation. Which is slightly different. The way you phrase suggests someone who isn't a murderer becomes on merely because they are saved.
Certainly a person can take this freedom from the possibility of damnation and consider it a licence to sin as they feel (if they feel murder a sin as opposed to carrying out God's will, as some hold).
Whichever, there are consequences, just not damnation. The believing murderer, whether knowingly sinning or believing he is doing God's will is opposing God.
God will not be mocked. A sinner, believer or no, reaps what he sows. A believing murderer will suffer the same torment or death of self which a non believing murderer suffers.
And there is nothing halting God's discipline- unto taking you out if the game of life altogether
Being a believer doesn't necessarily protect you from God's general oversight.0 -
But he's been saved. How does that mean anything if it doesn't mean that his sins - including murder - will automatically be forgiven? in what way is he different from someone who isn't saved if he commits murder and gets the usual (eternal?) punishment for murder?antiskeptic wrote: »I think I said he could murder and he wouldn't lose his salvation. Which is slightly different. The way you phrase suggests someone who isn't a murderer becomes on merely because they are saved.
Certainly a person can take this freedom from the possibility of damnation and consider it a licence to sin as they feel (if they feel murder a sin as opposed to carrying out God's will, as some hold).
Whichever, there are consequences, just not damnation. The believing murderer, whether knowingly sinning or believing he is doing God's will is opposing God.
God will not be mocked. A sinner, believer or no, reaps what he sows. A believing murderer will suffer the same torment or death of self which a non believing murderer suffers.
And there is nothing halting God's discipline- unto taking you out if the game of life altogether
Being a believer doesn't necessarily protect you from God's general oversight.
Or are we meant to think that because he's saved, he'll only get a minor punishment for murder, whereas someone who wasn't saved but tries to live a good life will go to hell anyway?0 -
Why do you need to talk to him to know? Why not just take his word for it?antiskeptic wrote: »Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. If he isn't then he's a lost sinner at the further end of the sin spectrum.
If he's a found sinner then he's at the same end of the sin spectrum.
All found sinners fall somewhere along the sin spectrum. Would he be worse if not a Christian (assuming he is one)? Has he 'backslidden' (a phenomenon whereby a Christian slides backwards down the spectrum?
So many questions. How would I know? I suppose by talking to him. Say he acknowledged his sin as sin but found himself entrapped in hatred. I'd understand that: knowing what its like to know how I should live but finding I can't?
You seem to be saying that you can be the judge of whether or not he's saved - as I say, he always considered that he was, after his "born again" experience. So why do you need to talk to him to find out whether he's right or not, and what makes you a better judge than him?
This really is the question that interests me : how did you know, in retrospect?antiskeptic wrote: »I could look back when I had more understanding and see, in retrospect, the point at which I was saved. I didn't know it at the time though
And why are you somewhat reluctant to to take Billy Wright at his word about himself when you believe that you are capable of judging for yourself?
Still seems a bit inconsistent TBH. For the reasons I've pointed out above.antiskeptic wrote: »Hopefully straightforward enough?
But if you can explain what it was that told you, even in hindsight, that you were saved, then quite possibly yes.
As I've pointed out a number of times in this thread, it would be fruitless, and somewhat self defeating to dispense with the OP's impartial onlooker.
The stumbling block of the impossible impartial onlooker serves my purpose. This thread will go the way of the dodo - the impartial onlooker never produced. When (as will surely occur) folk get back to demanding evidence which conforms to their partial worldview I will remind them of our time together here.
As for Billy? Well I'm far more in position to judge all that happened me than judge what another said happened to them. Thats simple enough.
Additionally and generally, one would expect something as transformative as coming face to face (as it were) with utter good to produce change towards good. Hence I have some doubt.
Nevertheless, having seen the lack of transformation in my own life, if operating in a somewhat lower league of sin than murder, I'm prepared to accept that a Billy or slave ship operator can occur side by side with having been saved.
Like I have said, Hitler could have been saved. The extent of God's willingness to reach down into the depths to haul someone to salvation is limitless.
The only thing that will prevent a persons salvation, it would seem, is that they will it not to the very end.
Reiterating re: your last point. Everything we consider ourselves as knowing finds its ultimate root in that which satisfies oneself, whether a philosophy, whether a method, whether the fact that others too find the method satisfactory.
What convinced me won't in any way convince you. Or convince you that had you been in my shoes you would have been convinced. There are too many subtlities, too many details involved in building the picture as to why it all fit, for me, such as to make it even begin to fit for you.
Suffice to say perhaps is that the drumbeat message of the bible (in relation to the condition of a man who arrives at the point of falling to his knees is desparation. Nowhere else to go. Abraham, thief on a cross, man lowered through a hole dug by his friends in the roof above Jesus' head, the ruler centurion deigning SS officer-like before a Jew, to appeal to Jesus concerning his dying child.
I think the only way you will be convinced is when or if you find yourself with no one to turn to. But needing someone to turn to.
It's ironic that Christianity is caricatured as a person needing a crutch. The caricature couldn't be more spot on.
The gospel is, as they say, good news for people who know they are shagged. And bad news to people who think they are sorted.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »As I've pointed out a number of times in this thread, it would be fruitless, and somewhat self defeating to dispense with the OP's impartial onlooker.
The stumbling block of the impossible impartial onlooker serves my purpose. This thread will go the way of the dodo - the impartial onlooker never produced. When (as will surely occur) folk get back to demanding evidence which conforms to their partial worldview I will remind them of our time together here
Well at least you've now admitted that you need to cling to something to avoid engaging with the discussion.
But then there's this:antiskeptic wrote: »As for Billy? Well I'm far more in position to judge all that happened me than judge what another said happened to them. Thats simple enough.
Ah no. That won't do. You said you could judge BW by talking to him. Surely he's in a better position to say what his situation is than you are?
Or if not, then nor can you tell anyone else about yourself, and someone would need to talk to you to evaluate your position - which of course is exactly what you're doing your very best to avoid. Presumably because you know that you can't - and yet you implied that BW could when you said you could work it out by talking to him.
I still can't see why you won't say what proved to you that you had been saved.antiskeptic wrote: »Additionally and generally, one would expect something as transformative as coming face to face (as it were) with utter good to produce change towards good. Hence I have some doubt.
Nevertheless, having seen the lack of transformation in my own life, if operating in a somewhat lower league of sin than murder, I'm prepared to accept that a Billy or slave ship operator can occur side by side with having been saved.
Like I have said, Hitler could have been saved. The extent of God's willingness to reach down into the depths to haul someone to salvation is limitless.
The only thing that will prevent a persons salvation, it would seem, is that they will it not to the very end.
Reiterating re: your last point. Everything we consider ourselves as knowing finds its ultimate root in that which satisfies oneself, whether a philosophy, whether a method, whether the fact that others too find the method satisfactory.
What convinced me won't in any way convince you. Or convince you that had you been in my shoes you would have been convinced. There are too many subtlities, too many details involved in building the picture as to why it all fit, for me, such as to make it even begin to fit for you.
Suffice to say perhaps is that the drumbeat message of the bible (in relation to the condition of a man who arrives at the point of falling to his knees is desparation. Nowhere else to go. Abraham, thief on a cross, man lowered through a hole dug by his friends in the roof above Jesus' head, the ruler centurion deigning SS officer-like before a Jew, to appeal to Jesus concerning his dying child.
I think the only way you will be convinced is when or if you find yourself with no one to turn to. But needing someone to turn to.
It's ironic that Christianity is caricatured as a person needing a crutch. The caricature couldn't be more spot on.
The gospel is, as they say, good news for people who know they are shagged. And bad news to people who think they are sorted.
Seems strangely unforthcoming given how much you're able to post about other people, but hey.0 -
But he's been saved. How does that mean anything if it doesn't mean that his sins - including murder - will automatically be forgiven? in what way is he different from someone who isn't saved if he commits murder and gets the usual (eternal?) punishment for murder?antiskeptic wrote: »I think I said he could murder and he wouldn't lose his salvation. Which is slightly different. The way you phrase suggests someone who isn't a murderer becomes on merely because they are saved.
Certainly a person can take this freedom from the possibility of damnation and consider it a licence to sin as they feel (if they feel murder a sin as opposed to carrying out God's will, as some hold).
Whichever, there are consequences, just not damnation. The believing murderer, whether knowingly sinning or believing he is doing God's will is opposing God.
God will not be mocked. A sinner, believer or no, reaps what he sows. A believing murderer will suffer the same torment or death of self which a non believing murderer suffers.
And there is nothing halting God's discipline- unto taking you out if the game of life altogether
Being a believer doesn't necessarily protect you from God's general oversight.
Or are we meant to think that because he's saved, he'll only get a minor punishment for murder, whereas someone who wasn't saved but tries to live a good life will go to hell anyway?
Its a bit technical I'm afraid.
A person (assume the Christian position for the moment) is made up of spirit/mind/body and operates as a cascade: spirit on top
Sin infests the spirit and the infestation rolls down: mind thinks crookedly, body dies, etc. The spirit informs the mind, the mind concieves of the sin and instructs the body to execute the sin.
Salvation results in the crucifixion and resurrection of the spirit. Born again.
Pisser is, the mind and the body, the two mortal elements, don't undergo this process (not until they die and are too resurrected and rejoined to the born again spirit).
The sin-disinfected mind and body aren't mortal anymore, since it is sin that kills.
The Christian is legally different. They, by permitting their being put to death via repentance (surrender) and to their surprise, being reborn, aren't held accountable for subsequent sin in the same way that someone who refuses the 'offer'
They are accountable: they will suffer the effects of their sin whilst they live and, it appears, will be positioned in the newly recreated earth (it too being redeemed from the infestation of sin: storms, decay, eaethquakes, disease) according to the degree to which they walked in alignment with God (i.e. fought sin within their mortal minds and bodies)
The unbeliever, in refusing salvation is held to a different account. They, in effect, chose not to align with God by way of surrender. And go to a destination where God's isn't present but where all that God stands against is present. That place is called Hell.
It's not so much punishment as being placed where they choose to be placed. Yes, they will have nothing to do for all eternity but to experience such an awful environment. But ultimately, God's grants their will be done in a two option choice.
You might see then, that it's not the sin or the comparative severity of it that matters. What matters is your overall status: whether you've resisted being being brought to the point of surrender in the battle God fights for your spirit. Resisting being brought to surrender is, in effect, refusal of salvation. Since surrender saves.
The 'good' person isn't good at root - for their ultimate alignment is with that which opposes God. They might live a better life.
But the ultimate credit for that goes to the giver of conscience which enables good.
I would expect that just as 'in Heaven' there will, in Hell, be degrees of position, depending on what was done whilst 'in the body'. So far as what you do counts it will count in that way.
But the global situation: whether in God's (goods) presence or the opposite place, the currency is bigger than your individual acts good and bad.
It's total surrender of that most key part of you that changes everything - you can give no more than your total self. Not your mortal body, not your mortal mind. But your immortal spirit.0 -
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antiskeptic wrote: »That understanding of faith isn't the Christian understanding. At not the Christians I know.
"Faith, the substance of things hoped for (i.e. a hope based on something of substance as opposed to a blind hope), the evidence of things not seen (i.e. the non-empirical realm a.k.a. the spiritual realm) "... is the bibles way of putting it.
There's no 'on the off chance its true' element in there.
Not all believers believe for the same reasons. In fact, there are probably as many reasons as there are believers. In the movie Blood Diamond, there is a scene where the school teacher says to Danny Archer (Leonardo di Caprio): "Non of us know which path will lead us to God." I agree with this.
It is true there is no `on the off chance` (not my words) but as I say, faith is believing in possibility, without evidence. Faith is in fact required to be a believer.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »As I've pointed out a number of times in this thread, it would be fruitless, and somewhat self defeating to dispense with the OP's impartial onlooker.
The stumbling block of the impossible impartial onlooker serves my purpose. This thread will go the way of the dodo - the impartial onlooker never produced. When (as will surely occur) folk get back to demanding evidence which conforms to their partial worldview I will remind them of our time together here
Well at least you've now admitted that you need to cling to something to avoid engaging with the discussion.
But then there's this:antiskeptic wrote: »As for Billy? Well I'm far more in position to judge all that happened me than judge what another said happened to them. Thats simple enough.
Ah no. That won't do. You said you could judge BW by talking to him. Surely he's in a better position to say what his situation is than you are?
Or if not, then nor can you tell anyone else about yourself, and someone would need to talk to you to evaluate your position - which of course is exactly what you're doing your very best to avoid. Presumably because you know that you can't - and yet you implied that BW could when you said you could work it out by talking to him.
I still can't see why you won't say what proved to you that you had been saved.antiskeptic wrote: »Additionally and generally, one would expect something as transformative as coming face to face (as it were) with utter good to produce change towards good. Hence I have some doubt.
Nevertheless, having seen the lack of transformation in my own life, if operating in a somewhat lower league of sin than murder, I'm prepared to accept that a Billy or slave ship operator can occur side by side with having been saved.
Like I have said, Hitler could have been saved. The extent of God's willingness to reach down into the depths to haul someone to salvation is limitless.
The only thing that will prevent a persons salvation, it would seem, is that they will it not to the very end.
Reiterating re: your last point. Everything we consider ourselves as knowing finds its ultimate root in that which satisfies oneself, whether a philosophy, whether a method, whether the fact that others too find the method satisfactory.
What convinced me won't in any way convince you. Or convince you that had you been in my shoes you would have been convinced. There are too many subtlities, too many details involved in building the picture as to why it all fit, for me, such as to make it even begin to fit for you.
Suffice to say perhaps is that the drumbeat message of the bible (in relation to the condition of a man who arrives at the point of falling to his knees is desparation. Nowhere else to go. Abraham, thief on a cross, man lowered through a hole dug by his friends in the roof above Jesus' head, the ruler centurion deigning SS officer-like before a Jew, to appeal to Jesus concerning his dying child.
I think the only way you will be convinced is when or if you find yourself with no one to turn to. But needing someone to turn to.
It's ironic that Christianity is caricatured as a person needing a crutch. The caricature couldn't be more spot on.
The gospel is, as they say, good news for people who know they are shagged. And bad news to people who think they are sorted.
Seems strangely unforthcoming given how much you're able to post about other people, but hey.
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).
I'm in a position to form a judgment on whether BW has undergone what I've undergone. When asked to comment on him I would need to form a better judgment than the one I have: a statement by a randomer on the web.
A carpenter taking on a new employee is in a position, by way of conversation, to assess whether the guy he's considering taking on is a carpenter too. It's not a proof, the guy could still turn out cral. Its a judgment, a better informed one.
Or should we just take what prospective employees say on face value?
That a carpenter can't, by way of conversation, convince someone who knows nothing about carpentry that he's indeed a carpenter, isn't necessarily the carpenters lack.
Blindness on the part of the person he's talking to is the problem.0 -
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).
I'm in a position to form a judgment on whether BW has undergone what I've undergone. When asked to comment on him I would need to form a better judgment than the one I have: a statement by a randomer on the web.
A carpenter taking on a new employee is in a position, by way of conversation, to assess whether the guy he's considering taking on is a carpenter too. It's not a proof, the guy could still turn out cral. Its a judgment, a better informed one.
Or should we just take what prospective employees say on face value?
That a carpenter can't, by way of conversation, convince someone who knows nothing about carpentry that he's indeed a carpenter, isn't necessarily the carpenters lack.
Blindness on the part of the person he's talking to is the problem.
You seem to be assuming that what you have undergone is the only way and this give you authority to judge the validity of other's experiences. Yet, it could be what they have undergone that is, in fact, authentic.
As for carpenters - firstly wood is something we can all see so the working with wood is hardly some unknowable needing faith. Secondly, people across the globe have developed many different ways and techniques of working with wood each of them equally valid. A carpenter in Ireland used to Irish wood and techniques is not necessarily the best judge of the skills of a carpenter from Mozambique. Good carpenters recognize that they can learn from other carpenters not judge them because they make have different ways of doing things.
As for convincing someone who knows nothing about carpentry that one is a carpenter - happens all the time - there are even whole TV shows dedicated to exposing dodgy carpenters (and builders, mechanics, electricians, etc etc). How does the impartial observer know that you are what you claim? After all, to the reader you are just some randomer on the internet..0 -
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"?0 -
realitykeeper wrote: »A Christian`s belief is based on faith, not proof. However we can hypothesize on whether or not there is a God who sacrificed his son for us. If it is true, we owe God and that debt needs to be repaid by being self sacrificing ourselves, in other words by loving God and each other.
Sure you can say we don`t know for certain that God exists because we don`t have empirical evidence but that is not a valid excuse if God`s sacrifice did happen. I mean suppose a building collapsed following an earthquake and the rescuers were not sure if there was anyone buried beneath the rubble, they would/should check just in case. If the rescuers don`t bother going to all the trouble of looking because there might be nobody there, that is not something they would be thanked for, especially not by anyone buried in the rubble.
Also, I think there are definite snippets of wisdom in the bible. After all, trust (faith) is better than mistrust and love is better than hate.
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?0 -
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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?0 -
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.0 -
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?0 -
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.0 -
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)?0 -
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.0 -
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?0 -
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.0 -
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.0 -
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)0 -
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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.0 -
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?0 -
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"?0 -
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?0 -
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.0 -
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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?0 -
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:Pherekydes wrote: »When the Nazis came to power God herself sneaked away and abandoned the Jews to their fate.
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/Reichskonkordat0 -
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?0 -
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.0 -
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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.0
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