Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:18 am
Only half-wrong. I'm afraid the regularity is indeed pretty poor...or at least...the speed and reliability thereof.
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Well good gravy, Malik - if analogies must always be limited to physical artifacts, or to other phenomenon of precisely the same type, then we'll have to throw a lot of analogies historically made out the window.Malik23 wrote:If you can suggest that Loremaster doesn't really believe in Swiss watches, then yes, you missed his point.rusmeister wrote:If you don't believe in Swiss watches - if you think they are all, to the very last one, actually made in Thailand (and most are - granted - this is why your experience with Swiss watches has been so dismal) then my pointing to one would be futile, as far as you are concerned.
No, I don't guess I missed your point.
I don't believe he was arguing that Swiss watches aren't real, but instead that your analogy wasn't apt because watches are physical artifacts, whereas you're proposing an authentic interpretation of a religious text. While it may become problematic to tell a fake watch from the real one, this can only arise as the fake approaches the real one in quality and appearance. Thus, there is a standard of comparison which is unquestionable. The Swiss watch is a real Swiss watch by definition. There is nothing circular about defining an object as itself. In logic, that's called the law of identity. A = A. "A Swiss watch is a Swiss watch."
However, in claiming that your interpretation or brand of Christianity is the authentic one, you have no corresponding, unquestionable standard of comparison. You can't say that yours is the authentic one, the real one, and all the others are fake copies. Maybe yours was merely the first draft Christianity, and others corrected its imperfections. Maybe God will add a Even Newer Testament that renders the 1st two worthless. Or perhaps Christianity isn't the way to go, at all. Maybe the Muslims are right.
Maybe Christianity itself can't even "tell time," in this analogy. How would we know? There's another major difference: we can check a watch's accuracy with physical means, but we can't check a religion's accuracy except by dying.
When talking to an atheist, telling him that he is describing a fake version of Christianity is about as relevant as a Star Wars fanboy arguing that his favorite mythology is more realistic than a Star Trek fanboy's favorite mythology. To someone on the outside, the debate looks hopelessly silly.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnalogyGreek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle actually used a wider notion of analogy. They saw analogy as a shared abstraction (Shelley 2003). Analogous objects did not share necessarily a relation, but also an idea, a pattern, a regularity, an attribute, an effect or a function. These authors also accepted that comparisons, metaphors and "images" (allegories) could be used as valid arguments, and sometimes they called them analogies. Analogies should also make those abstractions easier to understand and give confidence to the ones using them.
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analogyMain Entry:
anal·o·gy
Pronunciation:
\ə-ˈna-lə-jē\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural anal·o·gies
Date:
15th century
1: inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others2 a: resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : similarity b: comparison based on such resemblance3: correspondence between the members of pairs or sets of linguistic forms that serves as a basis for the creation of another form4: correspondence in function between anatomical parts of different structure and origin — compare homology
synonyms see likeness
I'll bet we could become really good friends!Evan remained in an unmoved and grave attitude. "There is a part
of me which is divine," he answered, "a part that can be trusted,
but there are also affections which are entirely animal and idle."
"And you are quite certain, I suppose," continued Turnbull, "that if
even you esteem me the esteem would be wholly animal and idle?"
For the first time MacIan started as if he had not expected the thing
that was said to him. At last he said:
"Whatever in earth or heaven it is that has joined us two together,
it seems to be something which makes it impossible to lie. No, I do
not think that the movement in me towards you was...was that surface
sort of thing. It may have been something deeper...something strange.
I cannot understand the thing at all. But understand this and
understand it thoroughly, if I loved you my love might be divine.
No, it is not some trifle that we are fighting about. It is not
some superstition or some symbol. When you wrote those words about
Our Lady, you were in that act a wicked man doing a wicked thing.
If I hate you it is because you have hated goodness.
And if I like you...it is because you are good."
Turnbull's face wore an indecipherable expression.
"Well, shall we fight now?" he said.
"Yes," said MacIan, with a sudden contraction of his black brows,
"yes, it must be now."
The bright swords crossed, and the first touch of them,
travelling down blade and arm, told each combatant that the heart
of the other was awakened.
It was repaid with interest. We all suffer things in life so that we can acheive something greater. I can understand how Job reads like some mash-up of the Greek gods (and their vanities) with the Hebrew God. I can see God as being suggested to have vanity for using a human to prove a point with Satan. An apologetic could also suggest that it was for Job's glory (ala Achilles) that he was allowed to suffer Satan's cruelties. A different apologetic could suggest that Job is simply about God's faith in mankind, as an answer to the long running question of why God allowed free will, and by consequence sin, to exist in the world.Avatar wrote:Uh, so it's alright to take everything from somebody, and subject them to all kinds of suffering, as long as you give them new stuff afterwards? I don't think so. (There's a thread in the Close where I was discussing Job with somebody...if you have a different take on it, than I did there, I'd be interested to hear it. ) (Edit: Found the Link)Tjol wrote:At the end of Job, all the things taken from him were restored. Job (the book) is at times complicated, but that detail isn't one that you should have missed.
Well, apart from observing that plenty of people suffer terrible things without ever getting anything greater, I don't think the fact that it was repaid with interest makes any difference.Tjol wrote:It was repaid with interest. We all suffer things in life so that we can acheive something greater.
I think if Job had not suffered, then he wouldn't have acheived anything. As it is, he acheived in surviving Satan's attempts to break him.Avatar wrote:Nah, no problems. The running conversation ended far longer ago than I'd remembered anyway.
Well, apart from observing that plenty of people suffer terrible things without ever getting anything greater, I don't think the fact that it was repaid with interest makes any difference.Tjol wrote:It was repaid with interest. We all suffer things in life so that we can acheive something greater.
Indeed, one could argue that it makes it even worse. Job didn't achieve something greater, it was given to him like weregild...suffering price. Either it was compensation for the things that were done to him to prove god's point, or it was a reward for submitting to god's will no matter what was done to him.
--A
Trying to wrap my brain around this. So it's okay for a god to kick some poor b*stard repeatedly, to the point where he has less than nothing, as long as the god then compensates him for his suffering? It's okay to destroy someone as long as you're compassionate to him afterward?Tjol wrote:Repaid with interest does in some regard make a difference. It suggests compassion for the suffering.
What you seem to missing entirely, as well as everyone who thinkgs they've found a foothold in this, is that God did not himself do any harm to Job. Satan is the one who decided to use Job to make a point (or try to anyways).aliantha wrote:Trying to wrap my brain around this. So it's okay for a god to kick some poor b*stard repeatedly, to the point where he has less than nothing, as long as the god then compensates him for his suffering? It's okay to destroy someone as long as you're compassionate to him afterward?Tjol wrote:Repaid with interest does in some regard make a difference. It suggests compassion for the suffering.
What happened to Rus?(And I kind of wish you guys would've started a new thread -- every time I scroll down in this one, I think for a minute that Rus is back... )
The gods know that Wikipedia could be wrong -- but apparently Yahweh was no passive bystander:Tjol wrote:What you seem to missing entirely, as well as everyone who thinkgs they've found a foothold in this, is that God did not himself do any harm to Job. Satan is the one who decided to use Job to make a point (or try to anyways).
The wiki goes on to say that scholars believe Job may be the oldest book in the Bible; I'd hazard a guess that the story is adapted from a much older myth. Altho apparently (again from the wiki) "a majority of Rabbinical Torah scholars saw Job as having existed in real life". Still, that doesn't preclude the adaptation of an older story to fit details of the life of a real Jewish patriarch.Wikipedia wrote:In brief, the book begins with an introduction to Job's character — he is described as a blessed man who lives righteously. Satan, however, challenges Job's integrity, proposing to Yahweh (God) that Job serves him simply because of the "hedge" with which God protects him. God progressively removes that protection, allowing Satan to take his wealth, his children, and his physical health and to thereby tempt Job to curse God. However, despite his desolation, he does not curse God's name or accuse God of injustice but rather seeks an explanation or an account of his wrongdoing.
My take is that he was trying to get people to read Chesterton and C.S. Lewis in order to force them into the same epiphany he himself had had about Christianity. When he eventually realized that he was getting no takers, he left. That's only my opinion, tho.Tjol wrote:What happened to Rus?
Unfortunately no time for more than this tonight...Tjol wrote:As it is, he acheived in surviving Satan's attempts to break him.
How?Avatar wrote:Unfortunately no time for more than this tonight...Tjol wrote:As it is, he acheived in surviving Satan's attempts to break him.
But it was God's attempt to break him...
--A
God doesn't need to 'prove' anything, because he is all-knowing, right? He knows Job will suceed, and he knows that Job will make profit from the hardship.Avatar wrote:Ok, well, I've thought about this a little more since I posted, and technically it wasn't.
But nothing would have happened to the poor bugger if god hadn't said "look how awesome Job is," and then followed it up by saying, "Ok, go ahead and try breaking him. Do anything you want."
God caused suffering to be visited on Job, to prove that his hold on him was so strong that nothing could break it.
And to prove it to Satan no less. Why would he even need to prove such a thing?
--A
Amen!Tjol wrote:Righteousness is done for it's own sake, not for the sake of reward.
There's no such thing as good if there is no such thing as evil.Tjol wrote:As I pondered, Job may simply be God's answer for the question, 'Why did you allow the existence of evil?' his answer seeming to be that evil does not preclude good, that we can be as good as we want to be, regardless of whether the world around us chooses to follow our example or not.
So why put Job through it if he knew he would succeed?Tjol wrote:God doesn't need to 'prove' anything, because he is all-knowing, right? He knows Job will suceed, and he knows that Job will make profit from the hardship.
Well, it's old testament. Long before Satan becomes the "cause of evil" or whatever in Christianity. Notice at the beginning of the book, Satan is counted among gods children, and god didn't know what he'd been up to.Ali wrote: I can't think of another Bible story in which God and Satan essentially have a bet...
Why should a person be given the opportunity to live a single day of life on earth if they are not all going to be perfect days?Avatar wrote:So why put Job through it if he knew he would succeed?Tjol wrote:God doesn't need to 'prove' anything, because he is all-knowing, right? He knows Job will suceed, and he knows that Job will make profit from the hardship.
Not even if the new ones were better looking?Fist and Faith wrote:Well, I still say that it's not an even exchange if my children were killed, but I had more.