Fist & rus

[Fist and Faith]

OK, I know. rus and I are very much alike in a way that annoys the shit out of normal people. Same problem Lore's and my Pantheon characters had. This was my solution there as well. I'll start with a few old topics that are in need of clarification, and add any that may come along. Nobody else needs to so much as open this thread, much less participate. But anyone is free to jump in on ehther side of the fence whenever they want.

[Fist and Faith]

rus, you are, of course, as free to ignore this as everybody else is. But I don't think you will. We're alike in this (unhealthy) way. But more important, you want your faith to be seen as intelligent and reasoned by those who do not share it. Well, I say it isn't. This thread might be a good platform for you to attempt to demonstrate otherwise. You continually tell us our views are not just wrong, but groundless, and we should see the obvious truth of yours. But yours are sloppy.

[High Lord Tolkien]

In before the endless Chesterson and Lewis quotes.

[Fist and Faith]

First up may as well be Hell. When people say they don't have anything good to say about a God who so much as allows people to suffer eternally in burning fire, you say that concept comes from commonly accepted, but innacurate, translations, and you don't like or believe in it either. And yet, the very podcast you directed me to to clear up the issue says Gehenna is an eternal afterlife named afte a burning trashpit. So stop saying it's a false belief that you don't share.

[Orlion]

No, Orlion.
I am not doing the same thing. I am NOT saying that you believe in fairy tales, or even that you are idiots, something constantly implied in my direction.

As you shouldn't, because I don't believe in fairy tales nor am I an idiot At this point, I'll distinguish between a 'fairy tale' and the fantastic. It namely has to do with perspective... or rather, a 'fairy tale' is something that I've all ready decided is fiction and involves the fantastic. Something that is fantastic is a thing that wouldn't/shouldn't happen in normal reality. Example: Producing enough food to feed hundreds from a couple loaves of bread and a few fish should be impossible in normal reality, as a result the act is fantastic. If I don't believe it happened, it is to me a fairy tale. If I do believe it happened, it doesn't change the fact that such an event would violate natural law.

When the question is, "Have you stopped beating your wife?", then "dodging it" (insisting on a rephrasing so that the answer can be put into a logical framework) is the only sensible thing to do.

That doesn't fit. In your example, it is implied that you don't beat your wife and the question erroneously/falsely implicates you in at least past beatings. HLT and my question, "How can you expect us to believe in the fantastical points of the Christian story?" Does not have that problem. That is because you do believe that Jesus did fantastic things like heal the blind with his spit mixed with dirt, cast evil spirits into pigs, walked on water, and rose from the dead. All those things do not happen in real reality and are therefore fantastic, and you believe it. HLT and I are asking for justification in believing these fantastic claims over an equally fantastic claim of an old man that delivers toys to all the children of the world in a flying sleigh in one night. Now, if you don't believe Jesus did all those things, say so and the question will be withdrawn. If you don't have a reason beyond faith, that's fine. Just don't expect us to accept any argument based on that faith.

When you say that 'Weez "whines", you project an unreasonable attitude onto his quite reasonable one. We treat you as reasonable, but wrong. You treat us as unreasonable from the get-go.

'Weez "whines" because he makes assertions without backing them up and moans when we don't accept them. "Jesus and Santa Claus can't be compared!" He says, "Why not?" We ask, "Because he said don't cast pearls before swine and Planck says blah blah blah and have I told you how upset I am that no one takes MMT seriously in the Tank?" That is not reasonable, nor is it treating anyone else as reasonable.

And I had to heckle you before you would go beyond anything superficial like me calling Aslan a Jesus lion (and BTW, what else would you call him? He pretty much makes the claim that he IS Jesus at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader... and he's a lion... who sometimes appears as a lamb that offers children honey at world's end. All of that is true, and you know it and you still take offense, but I'm going off topic...)
I have expounded before on how the idea that "ideas are outdated" is silly - that if something is true, it does not then become "stale" or "moldy". It does not have "an expiration date". So the unreasonableness is decidedly not on my side there.

I do NOT see any of you as actually crazy (with the possible exception of Holsety, to the extent that he himself admits), despite Fist's continual misunderstanding of my speaking of ideas leading to insanity if followed to the end (as Nietzsche actually did, and people here, I believe, have not). The treatment really is one way in that respect. So my respected colleague from Westchester County is mistaken, and it is not disrespectful to say so. But it is to say that what he believes has just as much basis as a belief in the modern conception of Santa Claus does, for it reveals an abyss of ignorance.

If your respected colleague from Westchester has a belief that has as much basis as a belief in the modern conception of Santa Claus and you don't say so, you are being dishonest and a moral coward. If your belief (or mine or any one else's for that matter) deserves respect, it should earn it. It doesn't get it just because we are engaged in a debate.

Respect may NOT mean "treating other views as equally true as my own" It CAN mean "taking them under serious consideration (and ceasing to speak of Flying Spaghetti Monsters)". I take paganism, atheism and agnosticism quite seriously, I think their adherents, for the most part, to be quite uninformed, especially in regards to history, above all, the history of the Christian Church they attack (so Murrin will get his response, as he is showing himself at the moment to be reasonable and able to think through to what the really important issues must be).

Funny thing Rus, as far as I can tell from all the posts I've read, you are as ignorant of history as you claim everyone else is. Prove me otherwise, but you have yet to do so.

I do believe you are a good person, and your debating skills have improved orders of magnitude since I first started posting... but that doesn't mean I'm going to give you a break

[Orlion]

And while I'm in a satirical mood, Rus believes in Lucifer. He thinks it's God, but it's really Lucifer spread really thin across the cosmos. He'd realize this if he understood Sumerian history which clearly and without doubt demonstrates that this is the case. Come, and learn wisdom of Enki!

Edited to add a yuk-yuk-yuk! Since obviously Rus' bible speaks exclusively of El, the god of the sea!.... and Yahweh, a minor god of war... and has praises to Baal immortalized in the Psalms...

[Orlion]

Triple post! Rock and Roll!

I fully accept that you understand western Christian concepts of sin. However, even a broad experience with all forms of western Christianity is not going to give you an understanding of the eastern paradigm - all western forms descended from the Roman understanding, anyway. So no matter how well you understand Catholic, protestant or even Mormon conceptions of sin, that does not give you a leg up on eastern Christianity. Sin is not juridical in Orthodoxy.

Just to let you know, the Mormon and Orthodox view of sin is pretty much the same. So....yeah... so much for your 'correct understanding'.

[ussusimiel]

I must be psychic! I was wondering when a thread like this was going to kick off. It is like watching the Unstoppable Force meet the Immoveable Object. The only result can be fireworks.

Edification and entertainment in one neatly packed thread. Most excellent! (I'll watch mostly and chip in the odd question asking for clarification now and again.)

Let the games commence!

u.

[Worm of Despite]

I really don't agree with a topic calling out another Watcher. What if rus is tired? Long day at work? Then this?! A personal complaint thread?!

I just hope, if this is sportsmanlike, the two combatants agreed to combat?

[Orlion]

I really don't agree with a topic calling out another Watcher. Isn't this just going to be every other topic here when you two guys debate? Oi.

The idea is that sometimes, people can get into it. Such getting into hijacks the thread, and people wanting to discuss the original topic can't due to the massive amounts of unrelated bickering. (hell, I think I was involved in such a hijacking with one of your threads). This thread would help alleviate that and is named after the two most infamous for off-topic hijacking, tedious arguments. The fact that I was about to get into it with Rus in Z's thread is a happy coincidence and the perfect opportunity for me to use this thread and for Z's to be free of the back and forth betwixt Rus and I.

[Worm of Despite]

I really don't agree with a topic calling out another Watcher. Isn't this just going to be every other topic here when you two guys debate? Oi.

The idea is that sometimes, people can get into it. Such getting into hijacks the thread, and people wanting to discuss the original topic can't due to the massive amounts of unrelated bickering. (hell, I think I was involved in such a hijacking with one of your threads). This thread would help alleviate that and is named after the two most infamous for off-topic hijacking, tedious arguments. The fact that I was about to get into it with Rus in Z's thread is a happy coincidence and the perfect opportunity for me to use this thread and for Z's to be free of the back and forth betwixt Rus and I.

Oh. I don't follow the endless bickering. I just figured was is a brand-new, spur-of-the-moment "get rus" thread.

[Orlion]

I really don't agree with a topic calling out another Watcher. Isn't this just going to be every other topic here when you two guys debate? Oi.

The idea is that sometimes, people can get into it. Such getting into hijacks the thread, and people wanting to discuss the original topic can't due to the massive amounts of unrelated bickering. (hell, I think I was involved in such a hijacking with one of your threads). This thread would help alleviate that and is named after the two most infamous for off-topic hijacking, tedious arguments. The fact that I was about to get into it with Rus in Z's thread is a happy coincidence and the perfect opportunity for me to use this thread and for Z's to be free of the back and forth betwixt Rus and I.

Oh. I don't follow the endless bickering. I just figured was is a brand-new, spur-of-the-moment "get rus" thread.

It'll probably devolve into that... until rus and Fist go at it, then it'll be like that one episode of Star Trek when two beings are trapped fighting each other in a pocket of time for all eternity for the good of the universe

[Orlion]

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, it really doesn't matter when rus gets around to addressing anything here. (Assuming he does. Which I do assume.) I'm just saying I'll drag things into here instead of starting it again in somebody else's thread.

And if, in another thread, rus says, for example, that he doesn't believe in the burning Hell idea any more than anybody else does, but hasn't addressed it here, I'll make a link to my previous post.


But for now, let's get back to another topic...

An analogy!

Let's pretend there's a bit of writing from 5,000 years ago. Accepted knowledge and carbon dating agree on the date. It says:

John was angry at the person in the house next door, and threw a rock at the window, breaking it.

Now, how clear is that? My "spin" on it is that John broke the window next door because he was angry at the person there. Is that too much of a stretch, or can we agree on that "interpretation"? If we can, let's move on.

Another scrap of writing is from 3,000 years ago. It says:

Long ago, there was a man who enjoyed going into other people's houses, and killing them in front of their windows, daring anyone to stop him.

Today, there's a group of people who claim that those two writings are closely tied together. They say John broke a window on the house next door to his thousands of years ago because he saw a guy sneak into the house, then saw the guy killing his neighbor. Well, that's great. And interesting idea. But how do we know that?? Who says the person who wrote the first thing meant it that way? If he did, why didn't he say that?? It would have been easy enough. It's not like there's anything complicated about it. And, in fact, if he did mean it that way, not saying it most certainly confused the issue!

Oh, hang on... This group says that 500 years ago, a guy named Ed said the first writing was about the second. They say their group has believed this connection since Ed declared it so. They say the fact that they've believed it since Ed said it establishes precedent, and that this Tradition is proof of the connection.

Well, I don't see that that's anything resembling proof of the connection. A vastly more important issue is how the heck Ed knew that the connection was legitimate in the first place. It could be nothing but speculation. We can tie together any number of different writings from different times. Even from different parts of the world. But what makes us think these things are tied together in any way other than in our minds? Heck, for all we know, Ed was just noticing an interesting juxtaposition. And if he said it's not just something he noticed, but that it is an actual connection, how does he support that claim?

So let's talk about the Fall. My "spin" on Genesis is that God was angry because Adam and Eve disobeyed him, and he punished them. Only it's not a "spin" of any sort; that's what it says. And he also prevented them from eating from the Tree of Life, so they would not be immortal.

OK, what's the next step?

[Worm of Despite]

You guys are annoying. I hope rus doesn't reply and you guys keep posing arguments to empty space.

[ussusimiel]

(Oops, I did miss the point of your question )

u.

[Vraith]

You guys are annoying. I hope rus doesn't reply and you guys keep posing arguments to empty space.

But if he does answer, it won't change anything except it will be "you guys +1 posing arguments into empty space." [ squared. ]

[Fist and Faith]

You guys are annoying. I hope rus doesn't reply and you guys keep posing arguments to empty space.

I notice you're reading along...

Anyway, like I've said, I really don't care about this stuff. I don't believe any supernatural aspects of Christianity. But I don't care if anybody else, even rus, does. If it gives anybody what they need, that's awesome. However, rus, if you're gonna tell me my beliefs contradict themselves, or that I don't even know how much thought I have put into my own beliefs, then I'm pointing out the same about you. Say you don't believe in the inaccurate western concept of Hell; but there is this pesky little Gehenna. Tell me I can't be bothered to look into the sources you suggest; when the information on Gehenna is from one such source? Tell me your faith is reasoned and thoughtful; but you have no idea how the events in Genesis about the Fall (Of all things!) are reconciled with what you believe about the Fall. You simply believe what they told you to believe.

[Worm of Despite]

You guys are annoying. I hope rus doesn't reply and you guys keep posing arguments to empty space.

I notice you're reading along...

Not really. Just skimming enough to roll my eyes.

I'm just glad I don't have to answer all your questions. Or have to confront them to need to feel secure in my faith. What you and I get out of the Bible are utterly different things.

Here's my take, for the record: the Bible isn't a rule book or the provider of specific words to answer all our questions. It brings us closer to the Word who created us and knows our need before we ask. If you actually read the Bible not as Church authority (that's, uh, what Church is for), then you'll see it's a simple testament of God working through a people who were enslaved, then set free and became wealthy and enslaved others. Prophets warned they would pay for this, and they were enslaved again. Then prophets spoke of God's mercy and they were set free. The new testament is God's ultimate act and fulfillment of mercy and love in history: salvation through following Christ's teachings and creating a "kingdom of God", which is among us.

Read that way, you must ask as a believer: if he condemned Egypt and and later exiled his own people for being unjust, how will he judge me, my nation, my business, etc. Am I going against or with his purpose?

Anyway. My . Just thought I'd add it for no explicable reason.

[Fist and Faith]

You don't have to answer them because you don't insult me. See how easy that is?

But my money says you'll be reading along.