I used it correctly. You might want to check your definition. She’s behaving like a martyr.
I have a child. I didn’t give him everything he wanted. I also didn’t kill him in a tsunami or set him in front of crazed muslim extremists to go down in a blaze of religious glory. He’s happy about that.
Back to the pink hi-tops — if I say they are a beautiful pair of pink hi-tops and you say “beauty” does not exist, please demonstrate the existence of beauty…?
Umm, zillions of people polled say they know what beauty is from personal experience.
Bz-zzzzt! Deluded sheep! Got any empirical evidence? I didn’t think so!
OK, I array 30 pink hi-tops side by side and in double-blind testing these 5 were found the most beautiful to a statistically significant degree in a sample pop of 250. There’s something setting them apart from the others that people can perceive!
Ehhh! Those 5 had discernable physical differences, they are more likely to have silver buckles and more likely to have a satiny finish. The people have a cultural or historical affinity to those design characteristics and have been deluded into interpreting that affinity as “beauty”. There is no such thing as beauty, though, only silver buckles and satiny finishes.
But beauty is undefinable! We’re not saying there aren’t physical manifestations, but there could be beautiful pink hi-tops that don’t have silver buckles and don’t have satiny finishes yet are still beautiful.
Oh, so you admit the word has no meaning because you’re going to use it and apply it to any hi-top? Random, arbitrary! Conveys no meaning! Words without meaning are…duh, meaningless! Hello?!
It’s not meaningless, it’s that the meaning can’t be distilled down into a definition. We know it when we see it, but we can’t say in advance what characteristics it will have if it is beautiful.
Here are four observers who find these pink hi-tops “beautiful”. Ask them, they’ll confirm. These were the bottom-most on the “beauty scale” of your aggregate group. So either these shoes have beauty, in which case all hi-tops have “beauty” and it means nothing, meaningless term again, or no, I would say you “beauty worshipers” can’t just “know it when you see it”, wanna try again?
It’s not a bloody objective phenomenon, dammit! Perceptions differ, there really does exist such a thing as “beauty” but not all people will see it identically and it’s not like you can prove where the real beauty is and say that folks who see it differently or elsewhere are objectively wrong.
Oooh, so this invisible “beauty” can’t be seen or measured and you can’t be sure you know it when you see it and it means different things to different people, hey keep on, you’re making my case better than I could myself. Real useful concept, this “beauty”.
It is useful, it describe something that is experientially real to us, and a world that did not acknowledge its existence would be a world I would not care for. Anyway, you probably perceive beauty yourself, you just don’t conceptualize it in those terms. Aren’t there some of these hi-tops that appeal to you in a way that the others don’t, for reasons you can’t boil down to finite & measurable qualities?
I like these and those. I like them because this seam here means well-constructed, and because this material here is durable. If you do not know why you like something, you are irrational in choosing your preferences, but then we already know that you are irrational.
Etc
And you’re the one so tethered to your dismissive POV that you can hardly even phrase a question in a way that doesn’t say or imply “you’re deluded”, “you’re insane”, “you’re brainwashed”! Again, I never said I don’t have baggage, but so do you. The difference is I acknowledge mine.
Faeries are generally understood to have a corporeal physical presence on this earth that would be amenable to physical proof. Since not a shred of proof exists in favor of this – a concept that is amenable to proof – I do not believe they exist. God is not amenable to proof. No one is alleging that God exists in this world in any physical, corporeal way that is provable. If there were any assertion that He did, I would join you in expecting people to prove it.
Thank you. :rolleyes:
Yes, I was aware.
Well, here’s a hint. You don’t have to be offensive at all. You can ask question without the in (your case inevitable riders) about “I think this is total bullshit but . . . .” You don’t have to qualify your disbelief. You don’t believe. I get it.
What I am not at all certain of is your ability to be respectful of my beliefs if we were to discuss them, and that is the basis for declining to discuss them at any length. I suspect you’re only asking me what my beliefs are so you can attack me for them, as opposed to asking out of any sincere interest in what they are. Maybe I’m wrong about that and, if so, I apologize, but I think if you review the thread in its entirety you would have to concede this suspicion is not unreasonable.
If you’re honestly interested in knowing what I believe, drop me an e-mail. I promise I’ll answer any question you have.
If I were also omnipotent, they very well might, and I very well could, respectively. I could make it so Coke and candy built strong healthy teeth and bones, sitting at the X-Box every day burned as many kJ as exercise, and all the knowledge they could ever want or need was beamed straight into their brain. Why wouldn’t I? If I am omnipotent, they can’t be spoiled rotten by such treatment, for in my omnipotence, I can make them unspoiled.
You see how silly a combination of omnibenevolence and omnipotence can be? The only way I can see around that is to say that God wants us to struggle, that it’s “for our own good”. I’ve never heard a better explanation than “it’s character-building”, though. I’d prefer the non-tooth-rotting Coke, frankly.
I wasn’t promised anything. But an omnipotent god is capable of keeping innocents from harm and chooses not to. That’s not loving.
According to most non-literalists I’ve ever talked to, the bible is full of metaphors. Why couldn’t the basis of it all…the existence of god…be a metaphor as well? I think god is the metaphor for civilization or something along those lines and all the other metaphors were created to support that one. I don’t think that fact would have any bearing on the efforts of any humans to get people on the bandwagon. If they bought into any of it, they could just as easily buy into that part.
Obvious to you, you mean. In fact, this POV, while interesting – God as construct – is pretty well disproven, at least insofar as you allege that’s all God was ever intended to be. God is not a metaphor in any book in the Bible; He is an integral part of the Biblical reality. He has a name, He is an actor (meaning, one who affirmative acts), He walks with Adam and Eve in the garden, He sends his Son in the NT, He sends His prophets in the OT. I have never heard of any evidence, either as theology or as history, suggesting that He was consciously “invented” to symbolize anything other than Himself, the idea of God.
A ploy invented by whom, and to what end? Regardless of your personal belief in the existence of God, or any god, the universality and continuousness of a believe in the Divine Something would seem to contradict your theory that it’s all just a ploy.
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Sorry for the fucked up coding. Can someone fix that?
Tom–I not only believe that you are an officious horse’s ass, I know it.
Is that statement more offensive than “Tom–I believe you are an officious horse’s ass”? Less offensive? Why?
Maybe a tenth, sure. 
But you’re more in there with DtC, and such. Yeah, you’re an atheist, and you’d give Fundies a hard time, but you’re not an asshole about being an atheist. I’d debate with you. You’re an OK dude.
No, but it is my opinion that if a believer never said another syllable about religion, no atheist would ever bring it up. We don’t need to. Atheism isn’t about persuading people of the non-existence of God, any more than basketball is about the non-existence of basket-weaving. Life has nothing to do with God, who doesn’t exist, and there are plenty of things in an atheist’s life which it is useful to contemplate. Believers, OTOH, can’t shut their fucking traps for three minutes without bringing their ridiculous God, their foolish beliefs, their nonsensical Bible, their silly practices into the secular life that they share with me. So I respond.
Amen.
Kalhoun:
I would say abstraction rather than metaphor.
I’m not Christian and don’t worship books, but I would say the babytalk images of God (God conceptualized in our image, if you will) are metaphors inspired by the actual experience — attempts to explain things that don’t explain well.
Going back the analogy of parenthood (not a great one, but probably the closest thing there is). Up until the age of reason (let’s say, 18, as the arbitrary age our society has set down as adulthood), you have control over what your child does. If you kept him in a padded room, this would be an example of keeing innocents from harm. No risk of him getting injured or killed by any of the usual things…car accidents, etc. But, I have a feeling you didn’t keep him in a padded room. You let him go to school, drive around in cars (even with other people driving!), let him go swimming, let him go to amusement parks. Goodness knows all the harm that could have come to him in these situations! Does this mean you weren’t a loving parent? I doubt it. I’ll bet it means that you wanted him to live life, and take risks, and make some decisions for himself and learn about the consequences. This, in my opinion, is what pretty close to what God does. It is called giving us free will, and it is, in my opinion, probably God’s greatest gift to humanity. The problem is, he can’t give us free will if he interferes with the Universe. The two ideas contradict each other. So, He, in my opinion, chooses to give us one at the expense of the other.
A metaphor, for me anyway, works better because I don’t see the concept of civilization…Earth and its inhabitants, if you will, as something that can be communicated with, questioned in the “ask-it-a-question-and-receive-an-answer” way. It cannot have human features or traits. It cannot “do” anything. It cannot care. It can be pondered and manipulated but it is not interactive in any way. It doesn’t think, feel, need, or have expectations. It cannot be disappointed, happy, or angry. It doesn’t love or hate. It just “is.”
The difference is that I can’t protect him from all harm. The christian god can. In that world, my son could experience all the things you listed without fear of being hurt or of hurting anyone else.
As I said, you could have kept him in a padded room, at least until he turned 18. Sure, his life would have been pretty drab, but he would have been safe. If God took away our free will, sure, life would be pretty drab, but we would be safe.
The thread moves in mysterious ways. 
I have to admit, it’s apparently an effective tactic to say to someone “I’m smiling over the fact that I’m better than you” - the gloating suggests a victory that hasn’t been earned through presentations of fact, and it covers both believers who say the souls of atheists are going to Hell and atheists to say believers are deluded. Someone from either side who uses the tactic can bet on creating a lots of sound and fury from the other with surprisingly little effort.
I’m smiling over the fact badchad and Polycarp are exactly the same, and I’m better than them.
Right. I could have kept him in a germ-free room with no chance of injury, but god could let him go out in the world and do all the “dangerous” things without any chance of him getting hurt. Hurt wouldn’t be an option. God has the power to make it exciting and safe.
Kalhoun, this is the problem with evil and people have been arguing about it for over 3000 years. There’s a very good, unbias article on it here. There’s a less dense, more accessible article here. Personally, the answer that is most persuasive to me – and it is by no means totally persausive – is a combination of free will among people (explaining most “artificial” evils) and natural processes (explaining most “natural” evils). It’s the rationale first set forth by Maimonides and applied in a Christian context by St. Thomas Aquinas. It isn’t a perfect explanation but, to the extent it isn’t, the rest I believe I am required to take on faith, with the expectation that what is inexplicable to me know will make sense some day. (“Now, we see through a glass darkly, but then, face to face.”)
I suppose it could be, but it doesn’t seem likely it was, reading the book as a historical text. AFAIK, the only metaphors dealing with God are in praise of Him or in dread of Him – God is “like” something else, in strength or breadth or whatever. I have not seen any scholarship indicating God was intended to be a metaphor for something else. It seems unlikely, given the broad span of time in which the books of the Bible were written – from Genesis to Revalations, about 1000 years.
Since the OT God both predates civilization (Garden of Eden) and repeatedly exercises control over civilization (Babylon and the Flood of Noah), this seems unlikely.
I appreciate the fact that you’re thinking about this; I only ever objected to your assumption that I haven’t, or couldn’t possibly because I’m not smart enough.
The padded room is a metaphor for life without free will.