Christianity

[Harbal]

Your wall is every bit as high as IC's, btw, Alexis.

As hard as this may be to imagine, H., there are other ways of living and seeing things than your own.

So you think I'm too dogmatic, do you?

That doesn't mean you owe me, or AJ, for that matter, to agree we've got things right...you owe us nothing, in fact, obviously. But it does mean that a person isn't necessarily inauthentic or "behind a wall" for thinking very differently from the way you are inclined to.

You have misunderstood the "wall" comment. It is nothing to do with your thinking, or its being different from the way I am inclined to think. You have an agenda, and pursue it with an alarming single-mindedness; you treat every interaction you have here as an opportunity to proselytise; you are absolutely relentless, and trying to reason with you often feels like trying to reason with a machine. You are the Evangelical Christian version of The Terminator; you will not stop. What you never are, is just a person whith whom it is possible to have an open and honest conversation, because when someone approaches you in that spirit, all you see is a chink in their resistence that can be exploited. That person, if he exists at all, is completely inaccessible behind the impenetrable wall that is the character I describe above.

[Harbal]

Is that a 'wall' for you? If anything another metaphor is needed: It is a ladder over a wall.

You have set yourself up here as some kind of superior intellect upon whom the task of educator of the too-dumb-to-work-things-out-for-themselves has been placed. The persona you have invented to execute this self imposed duty is the wall behind which the actual person is hidden. No one can really communicate with you, they can only talk to the wall.

[phyllo]

The "good life"? Virtuous behavior? Justice? The "noble life"?

You're interested in what Marcus Aurelius has to say?

Read 'Meditations'. It's free :

http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

[iambiguous]

The "good life"? Virtuous behavior? Justice? The "noble life"?

You're interested in what Marcus Aurelius has to say?

Read 'Meditations'. It's free :

http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

No, I'm interested in how someone who embraces the point that they think he is making in the quote above would bring it "down to Earth" pertaining to the "conflicting goods" I noted above.

That's my "thing" here remember? Bringing general description philosophical assessments about the good life, virtue, justice and the pursuit of noble endeavors in the is/ought world down out of the clouds of abstraction and wrestling with them existentially.

Re AJ and race, IC and the Christian God, etc.: Where's the beef?

Though, sure, if some folks here have no interest in examining the existential parameters of the points they make, that's their prerogative. All I can do is to suggest just how limited the value of that is for actual flesh and blood men and women interested in how philosophy itself might actually be pertinent to the lives they live.

[phyllo]

'Meditations' was written by a real guy wrestling with real problems. It's not a text by some academic philosopher.

But maybe it's not specific enough, not down out of the clouds enough, not existential enough.

You're the only one who knows what is appropriate for you.

[Gary Childress]

The Word of God judges everybody, Gary...me, you, and everybody else. And I'll continue to point that out to people, because it's the truth, and they need to know it.

The alternative is literally to say, "Everybody else can go to Hell." So I won't be doing that, as you'll understand.

Fair enough. I don't understand it in any other context than as a selfish desire to manipulate others or prey on their uncertainties but I suppose it's to be expected.

Well, I suppose one always tends to project from what one imagines one would be doing if one did what others are doing, and assume that that is, in fact, what they are also thinking. That might be one reason for the attractiveness of that supposition. But that's only a guess.

Right. If someone is happily agnostic, atheistic, or Buddhist you'd never try to undermine their sense of peace of mind with all your nonsense about going to hell. As I stated, I'm sure you'll go to heaven. However, you seem reluctant to return the kindness.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

The so-called "humanistic" moral perspective has no grounds for morality of its own. Rather, it represents a holding-over of Judeo-Christian moral assumptions (some, not all), despite the fact that Humanism denies the existence of the grounds from which these morals can be justified.

Humanism is like falling off a cliff, and trying to stop half way down. It just doesn't work, as a way of justifying any morality. It's gratuitious.

Post- enlightenment organisations called ' Humanist 'do indeed draw from Christianity.

Yet they deny that the whole foundation, the legitimative basis, of Christianity exists. So they are "floating" their values on absolutely nothing, and not aware of it, because they have mistaken their own borrowed elements of the Judeo-Christian values for "rational" and "universal" ones.

What's shattered this, though, is multiculturalism, which has revealed beyond any doubt that no such values are simply "universal," and different cultures and assumptions yield contradictory "values." So they now have to speak of "moral incommensurability," in all the academic writings in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, education, political science, comparative religions, and so on.

Moral Universalism is now dead, as a belief. No thinking person can credit it anymore. Check out some of that academic writing, in any of those disciplines, if you want to see if I'm right.

No no, you obviously have never been a Humanist, or else you would know that many Humanists are interested in the history of Humanism.

The British Humanist Association believes that in the absence of an afterlife and any discernible purpose to the universe, human beings can act to give their own lives meaning by seeking happiness in this life and helping others to do the same.

As for moral universalism, Matthew (7:12): “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .” covers it.

[Dubious]

Fair enough. I don't understand it in any other context than as a selfish desire to manipulate others or prey on their uncertainties but I suppose it's to be expected.

Well, I suppose one always tends to project from what one imagines one would be doing if one did what others are doing, and assume that that is, in fact, what they are also thinking. That might be one reason for the attractiveness of that supposition. But that's only a guess.

Right. If someone is happily agnostic, atheistic, or Buddhist you'd never try to undermine their sense of peace of mind with all your nonsense about going to hell. As I stated, I'm sure you'll go to heaven.] However, you seem reluctant to return the kindness.

Only if Jesus is too stupid to know the value of truth, honesty, and justice even as practiced by an atheist who has no quarrel with god being simply a matter of indifference, independent of any scripture in practicing the edicts of his conscience. Just as a starter ignites an engine to start, a theist requires the external impetus of scripture for his own moral system to function.

[attofishpi]

Well, I suppose one always tends to project from what one imagines one would be doing if one did what others are doing, and assume that that is, in fact, what they are also thinking. That might be one reason for the attractiveness of that supposition. But that's only a guess.

Right. If someone is happily agnostic, atheistic, or Buddhist you'd never try to undermine their sense of peace of mind with all your nonsense about going to hell. As I stated, I'm sure you'll go to heaven.] However, you seem reluctant to return the kindness.

Only if Jesus is too stupid to know the value of truth, honesty, and justice even as practiced by an atheist who has no quarrel with god being simply a matter of indifference, independent of any scripture in practicing the edicts of his conscience. Just as a starter ignites an engine to start, a theist requires the external impetus of scripture for his own moral system to function.

..and considering there is nothing in the Bible that literally states that if you do not believe in Jesus, you WILL go to hell, it's kind of moot. (of course the evangelists will try and wangle scripture to contradict me, but they'll skew anything to continue in their absurd delusion)

[attofishpi]

- Pate -

Pate turned out lovely Alexis. Hi had 3 times the amount of liver than in the recipe so multiplied by appx 3 - and slighly less butter as per your recommendation.

[Dubious]

Right. If someone is happily agnostic, atheistic, or Buddhist you'd never try to undermine their sense of peace of mind with all your nonsense about going to hell. As I stated, I'm sure you'll go to heaven.] However, you seem reluctant to return the kindness.

Only if Jesus is too stupid to know the value of truth, honesty, and justice even as practiced by an atheist who has no quarrel with god being simply a matter of indifference, independent of any scripture in practicing the edicts of his conscience. Just as a starter ignites an engine to start, a theist requires the external impetus of scripture for his own moral system to function. Theists along with power hungry politicians are the biggest liars on the planet.

..and considering there is nothing in the Bible that literally states that if you do not believe in Jesus, you WILL go to hell, it's kind of moot. (of course the evangelists will try and wangle scripture to contradict me, but they'll skew anything to continue in their absurd delusion)

Those who uncompromisingly believe in absurdity have no other means to defend it since logic, fact and history are relegated as counterfactual in defence of such deviations. There remains no way to defend it except by the same mindset by which it became established; add to that a thick layer of purposeful distortions and outright lies whenever an inconvenient truth...of which there are many, is thrust into an argument.

The defence methodology of theists is both hideously and disgustingly plain! How many examples does one need for this to be accepted as a certifiable fact!

[tillingborn]

No. Go back and read again. Then think, this time.

If we're only speaking about how language works, then yes.

Good. You got it. I knew you could.

Make your mind up; you said

No.

in your previous post, which you followed up with this advice:

Go back and read again. Then think, this time.

It could have been written for you.
I very much doubt that anyone is fooled by the consistent nonsense you peddle. The odds are even worse when you contradict yourself. And it hasn't passed unnoticed that you have no answer to which of the following is true?
1. If it is only your fear of God that prevents you from doing terrible things, you confess to being a dangerous lunatic that needs to be controlled.
2. If you are not a dangerous lunatic, you admit that your sense of morality is independent of God.

[promethean75]

Holy fuck rook to b4. You're screwed, IC. Don't reckon you'll get outta that one.

[tillingborn]

Meanwhile, which of the following is true?
1. If it is only your fear of God that prevents you from doing terrible things, you confess to being a dangerous lunatic that needs to be controlled.
2. If you are not a dangerous lunatic, you admit that your sense of morality is independent of God.

It's 1. Fear of God is probably the only reason IC is heterosexual for a start.

He clearly believes that humanity is fallen.
Given his incontinent projection, it seems reasonable to infer that the reason is the urges he has to suppress. You might be right about his homosexuality, but my money's on him being a dangerous lunatic.

[promethean75]

i don't get that at all. i had em pegged as a middle aged, older aged middle-upper class family guy with a mortgage and a wife and a career who does overzealous christianity on the side at philosophy forums. nuthin wrong with that. now if IC had a billion listeners then yeah, we'd have to take em down once and for all to save mankind from IC's nihilism.

the lunatic line of argument wuz clever tho. by admitting only of a belief in morality if a god exists, one inadvertently admits that the reason, the foundation, for their being moral is something they can't prove to u, exists. as such, the position is on its face absurd and a total abandonment of any faith in man to make his own morality.