Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 9:26 pm
One fact is that you give evidence of being addicted to the ad hominem, and to posturing and rhetoric over substance.

I think I see you, and describe you, quite fairly. More fairly than most frankly.

That you are a fanatical Christian fundamentalist is a valid, fair-minded description. In that zone you reason at a very primitive level.

In other areas you do decent intellectual work and one can trust you.

I wonder about the “Whole Man” and how such a man would order his perception? I felt I encountered such a one in Basil Willey. Man it would have been interesting to have spent days or weeks with him and to ask questions.

He proposed that in this transitional age we needed a “master metaphysician” to help us see our own perceptual system.

And Lo!

I am come among ye!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:11 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:02 pm There's nothing new theism can offer ...

Well, we'll see.

Either now, or later, you're going to lose on that contention. Maybe both.

You've lost all credibility - not that you ever had any - if this is the best you can come up with. If you can't properly offer a defense, insert a mild threat of damnation as your ultimate default response. What's your limit when it comes to being deplorable? Are there still undiscovered lower layers not yet manifested?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:19 pm
I'm not seeing anything in you to which the truth should appeal.

Now you come in for the theological kill! I admire your tactics!

The Truth = Jesus Christ, right?

This is what you are trying to say, yes? Not a mere appeal to traditional logic or reason.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:11 pm
Either now, or later, you're going to lose on that contention. Maybe both.

This too is corrupt. In my own case I would not ever seek to destroy the conceptual ramp that leads to being a true man or a truthful man grounded in good ethics.

Should a supreme being see me — I hope — my value or will to live honorably and truthfully would, as it would for everyone, be seen. I mean if we do establish a god who sees & judges.

Your implied condemnation is therefore at least questionable.

I do not have a godless vision of things. And even those who encounter you, and are driven to atheism, would be seen by the supreme being I must assume could or might exist.

My platform for any judgmentalism has therefore become far wider.

Even Age will enter and be bathed in blessedness!

Even Iambiguous!

The hypothesized god I envision must be incredibly merciful!

What would I say if I unexpectedly appeared before the final tribunal headed by Jesus if not the only four-letter word I can think of...OOPS!

But if I see IC among the elect, I'd say to Jesus, I never wanted to be here in the first place. The bad air is stifling! Happy to depart. Present company not required.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:42 pm
The hypothesized god I envision must be incredibly merciful!

...a consummation devoutly to be wished...HOWEVER....

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:19 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:11 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:02 pm There's nothing new theism can offer ...

Well, we'll see.

There certainly was nothing new in the Lennox lectures that wasn't already understood and acknowledged by theists generations ago. Can you point out a single thing that was original and I don't mean the silly metaphors?

I don't feel the need to exposit the obvious. If you reject his arguments, you reject them. I can't make you regard them any more highly than you're willing to.

We'll just have to wait to see who's right, then.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:42 pm Your implied condemnation is therefore at least questionable.

If you thought I implied I would judge before the Judge, you're quite wrong.

I can only tell you what I believe to be the truth, and what I'm prepared to live and die by. I can't tell you to what or whom you choose to dedicate your soul. So if you're expecting condemnation, then it's nothing I've said that makes you feel that way...I am not going to judge for anybody but myself.

Yet your mind jumped right to the supposition, "I'm condemned." Interesting. You might ask yourself why.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:31 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:19 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:11 pm
Well, we'll see.

There certainly was nothing new in the Lennox lectures that wasn't already understood and acknowledged by theists generations ago. Can you point out a single thing that was original and I don't mean the silly metaphors?

I don't feel the need to exposit the obvious.

If it's so obvious you should have no problem in "expositing" it and showing to one and all how brainless I am in not noticing. I'm sure you wouldn't mind doing that...if you actually could. So what's keeping you? Why keep it a secret? Give a clue in what's original in the Lennox lectures! Can't you even think of ONE item? Listen to it a few more times; maybe you'll come up with something.

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:44 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:31 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 10:19 pm
There certainly was nothing new in the Lennox lectures that wasn't already understood and acknowledged by theists generations ago. Can you point out a single thing that was original and I don't mean the silly metaphors?

I don't feel the need to exposit the obvious.

If it's so obvious you should have no problem in "expositing" it and showing to one and all how brainless I am in not noticing.

That's never my point, actually. I would get no joy from that: why should I wish to humiliate people? That seems a thoroughly unkind and petty thing to do, doesn't it?

My role begins and ends with presenting the information, and allowing you to make your own decision. I would never deprive you of your right of conscience, even if I could do such a thing. It would be entirely counterproductive, since faith is voluntary, not compelled, as Locke so astutely noted.

I think you have what it takes to understand what Lennox offers in his Oxford talk, and what's available in other apologetics resources to which I have previously referred. And you have every right to settle the disposition of your own mind on the issues he raises and those they may add.

What else can I say? You have a right to settle your own mind, and arrange the disposition of your own soul. A man can't be forced to believe.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 2:22 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:44 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:31 am
I don't feel the need to exposit the obvious.

If it's so obvious you should have no problem in "expositing" it and showing to one and all how brainless I am in not noticing.

That's never my point, actually. I would get no joy from that: why should I wish to humiliate people? That seems a thoroughly unkind and petty thing to do, doesn't it?

My role begins and ends with presenting the information, and allowing you to make your own decision. I would never deprive you of your right of conscience, even if I could do such a thing. It would be entirely counterproductive, since faith is voluntary, not compelled, as Locke so astutely noted.

I think you have what it takes to understand what Lennox offers in his Oxford talk, and what's available in other apologetics resources to which I have previously referred. And you have every right to settle the disposition of your own mind on the issues he raises and those they may add.

What else can I say? You have a right to settle your own mind, and arrange the disposition of your own soul. A man can't be forced to believe.

If Lennox had anything to offer in that video, scientists would all be on board. It is the same ol' crap at the nitty gritty of it, that there must be a first cause ....called God!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:34 am I can only tell you what I believe to be the truth, and what I'm prepared to live and die by. I can't tell you to what or whom you choose to dedicate your soul. So if you're expecting condemnation, then it's nothing I've said that makes you feel that way...I am not going to judge for anybody but myself.

Yet your mind jumped right to the supposition, "I'm condemned." Interesting. You might ask yourself why.

You insipid moron: as you begin to lose debates, you always resort to: “Both of us will soon know if I’m wrong or if I’m right.”

Like clockwork.

Inner moral work or realization is such a part of my being (or personality) that review of what I do, how I act, is part of my nature.

You see, I regard moving beyond or through the limitations of your obscene version of religiosity as part of a *spiritual* process. This is what you cannot get. That many people you likely communicate with have a developed moral sense.

But in your perverse religion that is not what counts. You privilege submission. My *essence*, as it were, is not geared to the mood of submission. I can partner with what I grasp as directive metaphysical concept though. But what I say here goes over your head.

No Immanuel, you dishonest fraudulent liar: I gleaned what you were trying to communicate and that which is your core message.

You and the imago you attempt to wield do not have the power to influence me nor anyone I see you encounter.

How odd it is to watch a man slowly back himself into a corner and to observe him embody a wicked influence.

What if … what if it turns out you will pay a price for the *fruit* of your own work?

Morally, I suggest you devote attention to your influence.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:34 am I can only tell you what I believe to be the truth, and what I'm prepared to live and die by. I can't tell you to what or whom you choose to dedicate your soul. So if you're expecting condemnation, then it's nothing I've said that makes you feel that way...I am not going to judge for anybody but myself.

Yet your mind jumped right to the supposition, "I'm condemned." Interesting. You might ask yourself why.

..and beyond AJ's points. Do you honestly believe that a person that has lived a virtuous life is going to be condemned JUST because he\she did not believe in Christ?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 2:46 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 1:34 am I can only tell you what I believe to be the truth, and what I'm prepared to live and die by. I can't tell you to what or whom you choose to dedicate your soul. So if you're expecting condemnation, then it's nothing I've said that makes you feel that way...I am not going to judge for anybody but myself.

Yet your mind jumped right to the supposition, "I'm condemned." Interesting. You might ask yourself why.

...you always resort to: “Both of us will soon know if I’m wrong or if I’m right.”

Correct. That's just a fact. And you might assume that it's you that knows that you're going to be right...except you know that you'll never know any such thing, either way, if your worldview is right.

However, having no confidence you're right, you immediately assume you'll be shown on that occasion to be wrong -- though I have not said. All I've said is that the Judge will decide. If you suspect that means you're going to be shown to be wrong at the end, then maybe, ironically, that finally makes you right about something.

What you still miss, what you've never gotten, is that the ad hominems are nothing to me. I don't care a whit how you rail and rant, and even if any of it were true, it would have nothing to do at all with the justification or refutation of the statements I have made. Ad hominems are not refutations; in fact, they're pretty much flat demonstrations of failure to reason.

I just suggest you might want to be unreasoning less often.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2023 2:51 am ..and beyond AJ's points. Do you honestly believe that a person that has lived a virtuous life is going to be condemned JUST because he\she did not believe in Christ?

I honestly believe what Jesus Christ says about that: "The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36)

So don't believe me. I wouldn't want you to, anyway. I save nobody.

Believe Him.