Good/Evil

[rusmeister]

Quick philosophical question: If Lewis and GKC never existed would there be no rus?

Rus would probably be talking like most other people around here, and would seem like just another member of the herd.

[rusmeister]

Of course I can make claims about time before the Fall, Fist. Since man wasn't Fallen, there was no homosexual desire. Amazingly simple. We have come to desire many wrong things after the Fall.

Really? How do you know? And what "fall" are we talking about? The biblical story of man's expulsion from "Eden?"

--A

Av, Christians (and Jews and Muslims) claim to know some things not empirically testable because of special revelation, the acceptance that valid revelation of truth was made and is accepted as true. Children accept the same thing from their parents on the same basis - faith and authority, and nobody is shocked at this.

'The Fall' in Christian theology refers to the commission of the first sin, which did make man unable to live in paradise. (so yes, it is referring to that story in general)

[rusmeister]

Faith based claims do tend to be "amazingly simple." I've experienced this myself. For example, take my belief that we are all part of a Greater Self, the experience of isolation from this Self being due to our indivdual egos. Now take two powerfully non-rational experiences, my mystical experience and my Acute Psychotic Episode. My experience of one was "good" and my experience of the other was "bad." I wish to validate the good one and invalidate the bad one. So, one was a result of becoming aware of the Greater Self, one was a pathology rooted in a malfunctioning ego.

Amazingly simple, really.

The only thing I'll say to this (if it's imputing anything about my own claims) is that the claims I accept have many levels. They can be accepted and understood on a very simple level, but also have much deeper and more sophisticated levels, and are not simplistic for being simple on one level.

[rusmeister]

Obviously, I'm not going to go along with saying we HAVE degraded from what the pre-Fall people were. It's fine to have an ideal way of life in mind, and try to live up to it. I'll go along with that. (Although, obviously, we'll disagree with what that ideal way of life is. No knowledge of good and evil?? Not an ideal way of life, imo.)

It's another to say we HAVE degraded. You can think we have degraded. But, for me, there needs to be something visible (at least historically visible) that can become degraded. And, taking society's attitude toward homosexuality as an example, the only visible behavior I'm aware of is certainly worse than the growing acceptance of homosexuality that we see today. Homosexuals have been killed, even still, which seems to have been sanctioned by the Bible. They've been beaten, even on a regular bases. They've been cast out by their families. They hid themselves from everyone they knew and loved in order to avoid these fates. They learned to be afraid and ashamed of themselves. What is it like to live an entire life ashamed of yourself?

Society's acceptance of homosexuality is not a degradation of that situation.

And even you can't claim that the pre-Fall attitude toward homosexuality was better than the growing acceptance we have today. And that's because there wasn't any homosexuality before the Fall. I assume? So as soon as homosexuality came into being, it was reviled, and punished. YOUR attitude - wanting to lovingly help them be the people God wants them to be - is surely an improvement over what we've had since the Fall, but it is not what society ever saw, and is not what we have degraded from.

Of course I can make claims about time before the Fall, Fist. Since man wasn't Fallen, there was no homosexual desire. Amazingly simple. We have come to desire many wrong things after the Fall. The wrongest thing is to justify the wrong things and make them "right".

I would translate "knowledge of good and evil" into your language as simply "knowledge of evil".

Again, you can speak about people who suffer from homosexuality as you do. I put the desire right alongside other ones that none of us approve of and that we DO agree that people ought to be ashamed of practicing (I'll emphasize "practicing"). From that standpoint it is not improvement to increasingly encourage its practice. So the whole trouble comes back to the fact that we do not agree on what is right, and your progress is my regress and vice-versa regarding these issues.

You still speak without any support. There's never been a society that self-destructed because of homosexuality. Nor is there reason to believe a society that accepts homosexuality cannot exist just fine. (Again and again, you say that the ills of society were caused by other things, which led to a greater acceptance of homosexuality. It does not follow that homosexuality is the, or even a, major problem with society.) Therefore, we have no reason to consider homosexuality harmful. That being the case, it is certainly an improvement to accept homosexuality, instead of ostracizing, beating or killing them, and making them hide who they are.

Don't get me wrong. "God doesn't want it" is a valid stance. Just come out and admit that that's what it is. As I've said, there's no reason you can't base all political stances on religious belief.

Sorry, Fist. Not going to argue with you any more. That you do not accept my reasons and deny their validity does not mean that they do not exist; only that you don't accept them. That you don't want to consider any support likewise doesn't mean that it does not exist.

I'd encourage you to listen to Hopko like I've been doing. (I'm on #9 of the Darwin series, #10 will complete the circle for me, as I started with #11) It's much better than arguing, and you would at least hear intelligent voices of reason other than my own - and I'll say better than my own, to boot. But if you don't want to there's no reason for me to argue it here.

[Fist and Faith]

Whether you want to argue or not, if you keep repeating, "Homosexuality will lead to the downfall of society", but offer no historical precedent and no logical support, I'm going to keep repeating, "Your assertion has no historical precedent and no logical support." You sound like, well, a member of the Bible-thumping herd. Give us something substantial. After all these months and months of it, give us a shred.

I listened to the one Hopko link you gave us. Darwin and Christianity - Part 16: Faith and Knowledge, Reason and Revelation It's too long to have gotten it all on the first listening, so I'll listen again before moving to the last part. But he didn't do much more than say that there's a difference between how you know things in one sense, and how you know them in another sense. He said Part 17 gets into those methods of knowing.

Av, Christians (and Jews and Muslims) claim to know some things not empirically testable because of special revelation, the acceptance that valid revelation of truth was made and is accepted as true. Children accept the same thing from their parents on the same basis - faith and authority, and nobody is shocked at this.

Can you explain what special revelation is? How are prehistorical events known to be accurate? I can understand if you were given a vision of it. Is that how you know?

[rusmeister]

Whether you want to argue or not, if you keep repeating, "Homosexuality will lead to the downfall of society", but offer no historical precedent and no logical support, I'm going to keep repeating, "Your assertion has no historical precedent and no logical support." You sound like, well, a member of the Bible-thumping herd. Give us something substantial. After all these months and months of it, give us a shred.

I listened to the one Hopko link you gave us. Darwin and Christianity - Part 16: Faith and Knowledge, Reason and Revelation It's too long to have gotten it all on the first listening, so I'll listen again before moving to the last part. But he didn't do much more than say that there's a difference between how you know things in one sense, and how you know them in another sense. He said Part 17 gets into those methods of knowing.

Av, Christians (and Jews and Muslims) claim to know some things not empirically testable because of special revelation, the acceptance that valid revelation of truth was made and is accepted as true. Children accept the same thing from their parents on the same basis - faith and authority, and nobody is shocked at this.

Can you explain what special revelation is? How are prehistorical events known to be accurate? I can understand if you were given a vision of it. Is that how you know?

The one thing I think I can say something to here is on revelation. What it really comes down to is something being revealed, and accepted, on the basis of authority that one accepts. WHY one accepts this is far deeper than what you want me to say: "Because God says so". For someone it COULD be that simple - the simpleton or idiot who accepts Christ on that basis is more holy than I, and much easier for God to save. For me it is a combination of knowledge and life experience - which really is the same thing - that convinces me that the authority I accept speaks the truth. That's why I can't put it in one sentence or post; that's why I can't say "do thus-and-so and it will be proved to you..."

A very tiny fragmental example of that was my life on the left coast, where I became convinced that there is a definite war in progress - certainly I witnessed the conduction of a campaign in that war - and that one could only be on one side or the other. It was clear to me which side was being squeezed out of public life and effectively oppressed. It was clear to me that one who would be a teacher HAD to profess the other side if they wanted to keep their public-teacher jobs.

So. How can we know anything at all? To iterate what I said before, we begin as small children and we certainly DO accept a great deal of our knowledge on the basis of authority that we accept, first from our parents, then our teachers, and we are right to do so. As we learn more we can begin to apply our own discernment. So how can I 'know' that the world is millions of years old? Because I accept it from an authority that tells me so. How can I know that Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire existed? Ditto. It is not particularly distinguished from all of the other things that we 'know' on the basis of authority. A historian may have a much more solid basis for accepting what most of us accept on faith about Caesar. Ditto for a geologist on tha age of the earth. Most of us accept these things on faith - we believe the authority that we accept. So it is with revelation. If we accept the authority - if we find that it consistently tells the truth, then it is both logical and normal to accept what it teaches us.
(voice of Yoda: Yes, yes, to Hopko you listen! Serve you well it can!" )
Seriously, listening to him, or Steve Robinson - 'Steve the Builder' at the same site - I think these guys are worth a dozen of me. I'm not the best teacher - certainly not for you. I'd rather point to people who are superior to me.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm really wondering what the definition of "revealed" is. I've never heard anyone say that they know the earth is millions of years old, or that Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire existed, because they accept, on the basis of authority, what was revealed to them about the earth's age or the Romans. Is "revealed" the same as "taught", but about religious matters? Or is "revealed" a specific method of transferring information?

[Avatar]

Sorry man..."special revelation" doesn't cut it for me. God told some special people that nobody was gay before the fall? Well, since there wasn't supposed to be anybody else back then, it's scarcely surprising.

However, since we have archaelogical evidence of civilisations already flourishing in 4,000 BC, the story as portrayed in the Bible is probably suspect at best...

--A

[rusmeister]

I'm really wondering what the definition of "revealed" is. I've never heard anyone say that they know the earth is millions of years old, or that Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire existed, because they accept, on the basis of authority, what was revealed to them about the earth's age or the Romans. Is "revealed" the same as "taught", but about religious matters? Or is "revealed" a specific method of transferring information?

Fist, if your mother tells you something, and you believe it without having seen it with your own eyes, then it has been revealed to you. You accept it as true based on authority. SPECIAL revelation refers to what you mean by religious revelation. But the concept is the same - the source is different. What's so hard about it?

[rusmeister]

Sorry man..."special revelation" doesn't cut it for me. God told some special people that nobody was gay before the fall? Well, since there wasn't supposed to be anybody else back then, it's scarcely surprising.

However, since we have archaelogical evidence of civilisations already flourishing in 4,000 BC, the story as portrayed in the Bible is probably suspect at best...

--A

Well, since nobody is saying that "God told some special people that nobody was gay before the fall", we can dispense with that presentation of the understanding. No special laws were necessary until people began violating the natural order. Deviate implies that there is a "via" to "de" from.

The Bible is an immensely complicated document - it is neither myth nor science. Above all it is not a Koran which fell out of the sky from God. So your apparent idea that there is one interpretation that says there was no civilization before 4,000 BC is not one that I myself would claim, or one made by the faith I accept.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm really wondering what the definition of "revealed" is. I've never heard anyone say that they know the earth is millions of years old, or that Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire existed, because they accept, on the basis of authority, what was revealed to them about the earth's age or the Romans. Is "revealed" the same as "taught", but about religious matters? Or is "revealed" a specific method of transferring information?

Fist, if your mother tells you something, and you believe it without having seen it with your own eyes, then it has been revealed to you. You accept it as true based on authority. SPECIAL revelation refers to what you mean by religious revelation. But the concept is the same - the source is different. What's so hard about it?

Nothing hard about it. I just didn't know the definition. Now I do. Thank you.

[rusmeister]

I'm really wondering what the definition of "revealed" is. I've never heard anyone say that they know the earth is millions of years old, or that Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire existed, because they accept, on the basis of authority, what was revealed to them about the earth's age or the Romans. Is "revealed" the same as "taught", but about religious matters? Or is "revealed" a specific method of transferring information?

Fist, if your mother tells you something, and you believe it without having seen it with your own eyes, then it has been revealed to you. You accept it as true based on authority. SPECIAL revelation refers to what you mean by religious revelation. But the concept is the same - the source is different. What's so hard about it?

Nothing hard about it. I just didn't know the definition. Now I do. Thank you.

Looking back, I think my last comment could have come across as snooty. It was really coming from a number of other interchanges with you where it does seem that any understanding is hard.
My apologies. It was not necessary.

[Avatar]

Well, since nobody is saying that "God told some special people that nobody was gay before the fall", we can dispense with that presentation of the understanding.

You said there was no homosexual desire before the fall. And you said or perhaps implied, this was known thanks to special revelation.

Since of course I don't believe in the fall, or the biblical creation story, we have no common frame of reference here. *shrug*

--A