Why don’t you tell ME what word you’d like me to use to describe something that is (to me…not YOU)
It’s not slang (like “cunt”), it’s not even considered widely (though not universally) offensive (like “cunt”), and it accurately describes what millions of people feel about the subject. Pick a word and I’ll see if it’s close to what I’m trying to convey. Please don’t use one of those widely misunderstood words like “fiery lake” (which many christians translate to “love”) or the like.
“Preposterous” suggests to me that you are not in fact enquiring honestly but have dismissed the very question as absurd; go right ahead, but let’s not deceive one another about what you are up to. And the little taunt in your last sentence rather reinforces my point.
As for badchad, I expect him to take another look at my Location field, and post an informed guess as to the gender-specific pronoun that’s applicable to me.
More later, maybe.
Some years ago, I was given some excellent advice. I’m following it.
For those interested, it can be summarized in a five-letter acronym: DNFTT.
Never said it didn’t.
True, but I personally don’t feel that, for the most part, others’ beliefs are that damaging. Now, suicide bombers, Phred Phelps, violent anti-abortion protesters, those that seek to curtail our freedoms, yes. They need to be opposed. However, I do think that one needs to consider their choice in battles, you know?
Not defending, just respecting. The same way that I’d like to see them offer in return… for Wiccans and atheists and Seventh Day Adventists and New Agers and on and on and on. If we expect them to do that for us (I’m an agnostic deist now, by the way, if I hadn’t stated that before), why on earth wouldn’t we hold the same standards for ourselves?
Again, my only issue is one of respect or lack there of. I have no problem with badchad or anyone else for that matter, disagreeing about anything. But do so civilly, because I’m assuming that’s what separates us from animals, savages and the willfully ignorant. In my opinion.
I know it’s not much, but believe it or not, I do have a bigger sample size than simply that of one. Plus, I’ve witnessed lots more from interaction on places such as here. And no, it wasn’t so much as convincing me as it was deduction on my part (if I can take credit at all), but certainly my progress wouldn’t have been as likely, or as far, without the continued patience and respect of those who wanted to share and enlighten. Truly, if I’d been bashed, I might have completely rejected reason and instead chose to cling stubbornly to what I didn’t feel to be true and correct just because. For I also know many people who’ve chosen this route. 
Obviously.
Agreed, but no matter what, I’ve NEVER seen anyone switch sides due to ridicule. Also accordingly, I can’t think of a single instance throughout culture or popular media that’s inspired likewise. Except in the cases of fear and as we all surmise (from the very Christianity that some so despise), that’s not real or encouraged. Your mileage may very.
Nice talking with you Grant. Keep up the Giantness. Really.
Preposterous, as it was used by me, was in reference to the whole idea that most christians cannot agree on what is metaphor and what is real, frequently believing we are supposed to take the most far-fetched passages of the bible at face value. I’m not attempting to deceive. The taunt in my last sentence was directed toward your little jihad against words that offend you…regardless of their actual meaning. Grow up.
You’re way in over your head with these particular “trolls,” Poly. May as well quit now that your behind.
Unless, of course, you have another Second Coming to announce.
I wonder who it will be next time, Paris Hilton? They both have five letters in their first names.
Looks like my quotes weren’t quite so flagrantly out of context after all - were they Skald?
The points I quoted in post 862 were offered in good faith to bluntly ask you answer them, not simply to rile you up (which is what trolling actually is).
You calling it trolling seems very much like evidence of the coddling you’ve recieved here on the Dope. Maybe you can come back in a month and re-read this thread more objectively. Perhaps then you’ll see that refusing to let some of your out-of-whack comments and revisionist follow-ups slide doesn’t equal trolling. To be honest, you should be thankful badchad for being tenacious. It’s about the only real honest challenge to your core beliefs you’ve had on the Dope for many years.
I don’t know it. I believe it.
Not convenient for me. I didn’t say that those particular teachings weren’t appropriate for me – only that I hadn’t lived up to them as I should have.
Is that what you think I have tried to do with my life – weasel out of the really hard stuff?
I grew up in the church and began college as a Christian education major. But an even more direct influence on my life was the father that I have mentioned several times at the Dope. I didn’t realize until I was a teenager the source of his words, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” I just thought that it sounded very “Christian” to me. And I knew that as long as my father had his grocery, feed and seed store, he didn’t let people in the town go hungry. For me, it was all the same thing.
Thank you for helping to clarify that in my mind.
badchad, one thing I am really good at is living in the moment. I am very much a lily of the field these days. Sometimes it is really good to learn to live with uncertainty.
Preposterous, as it is generally understood, implies that the subject in question is objectively absurd - not merely that conflicting views about it cause you to experience some intellectual difficulties.
There’s a nice piece of advice Screwtape gives to Wormwood in one of his Letters. It’s to do with getting his “patient” into the state of mind where he can deliberately say things in order to offend people, and yet be full of outraged innocence when offence is indeed taken. In the light of this, you can explain how phrases like “little jihad” and “Grow up” weren’t meant to fan the flames further.
This is The Pit. I fully intended to fan the flames with the last two remarks in light of your lame attempt at forcing me to say something I didn’t mean when I used the word “preposterous.” You and other christians continue to try to tell non-believers I can’t look at the existence of god or the worthiness of the bible both intellectually and objectively. Well, maybe YOU don’t need facts in order to believe, but *I * do. I can question the existence of the universe without buying into elaborate tales of the supernatural.
The fact that the words I choose to express my opinion of your world view might sting a little doesn’t make them inappropriate or insulting.
Well, Humpty :), you can carry on defining words to mean what you want them to
mean, but you’ll understand it was a reasonable mistake on my part:
And if you want you can also carry on looking at the existence of God and the worthiness of the Bible both intellectually and objectively - what’s more, if you can point me to where I have tried to prevent you from doing so, I’ll undertake to apologise handsomely.
That’s exactly what I wanted to say. Unlike so many around here, I use words that are universally understood to mean what the definition says they mean. So what? Does that mean I don’t say it? You have a right to believe whatever you want to believe. I require evidence that can be corroborated by other people and science and you don’t. If you’re offended by my opinion about your faith there’s nothing I can do about it.
I never said you were trying to obstruct my right to the views I hold. But to imply that the existence of god should be looked at subjectively is to imply that I’m the one with the intellectual deficit. Who’s slinging insults now?
So in fact my
was nothing of the sort. Fine, that’s that sorted out.
Well, you have the option of not stating that my faith is one that can be held only by the childish, the feeble-witted or the insane, if you like. If you can’t discuss my beliefs without being contemptuous of them then perhaps we’d be better not to discuss them.
What did this mean then?
Where did I say that the existence of God should be looked at subjectively?
parenthesis added by me.
You’ve got that right. It’s always “kid’s gloves” with Poly.
Now, I have no doubt of either his intelligence nor his innate politeness on-line. But what the fuck does either one have to do with engaging another poster in debate – granted said poster might not be as “polite,” but that hardly obviates the points he makes. Then again, perhaps that makes him some sort of an “interloper” (read: “troll”) in Poly’s exceedingly facile brand of Xtianity.
Kalhoun, this is just my personal opinion. I think that an examination of the Bible should be intellectual and objective and, at times, subjective. If you examine the existence of God intellectually and objectively, you may come up with answers that satisfy you and that’s fine. Maybe they’re even the right answers. But do you think that you or any other scientist is equipped intellectually to disprove, once and for all, the existence of God?
I have a high regard for the scientific method. I hope that someday all of it will make empirical sense in some sort of TOE (or other) way. But I can’t reason my way through String Theory or imagine it and the God I believe in is too big for the same intellectual and objective analysis. I think that TOE will be either discarded or embraced universally long before anyone can think much beyond.
The Pale Blue Dot is barely aware of itself.
I’m not sure what you mean by TOE. I believe that after 3000 years with no objective evidence in favor of the existence of god, the old “you can’t prove he doesn’t exist” has pretty much worn out it’s usefulness. Man imagined human flight and eventually it moved from the realm of the mind into reality. Man imagined walking on the moon and that eventually came to be a reality. Somehow I don’t see that happening when it comes to god.
I don’t believe there’s any reason for god to exist and not make his existence plainly understood to all his creatures. What could possibly be the benefit to him or us to keep it a secret? The pre-conceived notions of god that go hand-in-hand with christianity, islam, judaeism, et al, make people think “it’s too big to wrap our brains around,” but I disagree. If you set aside all those preconceptions and unanswered questions and all the secrecy, it boils down to the possibility that we are here because we were always here.
The concept of creation implies both a purpose and a front end. If you believe the universe was created (whether 6000 years ago or 100 million years ago or whenever) there automatically had to be something before that. What would that something be? Why would god wait all that time to create man? Why would a supreme being need to create man? Once you create a god, you remove any need for man or the universe. A “perfect” being neither needs nor wants for anything; the universe ceases to exist.
I don’t claim to have the answer. But to me, belief in god limits the possibilities.
Theory of Everything. The current holy grail of physicists hoping to reconcile the various apparent contradictions among their serveral hypotheses that are all internally consistent but are in direct conflict with other internally consistent theories.
Thanks. I’m familiar with the term but I must confess I need to read up on it in more depth. I’ve never heard it acronymized before.
How intellectual and objective do you think you have been, considering you “grew up in the church?”
Well scientific method sure has disproven a lot of things that the bible held true. What, intellectually and objectively, makes you think anything divine remains? Also philosophy, while it can not disprove all gods, sure seems to have killed your omnibenevolent/omnipotent god with its problem of evil. As Jodi argued, free will is the typical apology to slide around the problem of evil, but if I’m not mistaken, we took that concept apart handily a few pages back.
Also Malacandra, have you renounced your possessions yet?