Hmm … yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me. I’ll just take your word for it when you have yet to actually show it.
No, wait…instead, how about you show it to me?
But I do love how if he differs in opinion from you he’s not presenting, say, an alternate viewpoint but making an excuse. Excellent job there of setting yourself up as the arbiter of truth when that is one of the very things you accuse Christians of doing.
When you wrote that above, did you happen to include a proof of it?
So when you say “I have no respect for you”, as you effectively said many times to Lib, then it’s perfectly acceptable. But if anyone says it to you, then it is a cop-out? Again, excellent job of making one set of rules for yourself and another set of rules for everyone else.
Then it appears this discussion has little steam left.
Personally, I think it is in the best interest of your faith not too.
But not your style of Christianity, right?
Damn, that’s an ugly sentence. But I’ll attempt to parse it out. Let’s break it down, my responses in bold:
You will find, however, that I will require you to actually address yourself to what liberal Christians believe,(though anything that liberal Christians believe which seems stupid Jodi can conveniently claim as something that she does not personally believe) as opposed to what you’d like us to believe in order to make your facile arguments easier;(which means only what Jodi says counts as she speaks for liberal Christians in general but not for herself) that I will require you to maintain a basic level of civility,(Jodi can say every 4 letter word in the book which is fine but badchad must only kiss tushi) because I don’t waste my time typing out responses to people who don’t or can’t;(yet others should be fine suffering through Jodi’s diatribe) and that I will not discuss my personal beliefs,(as that would leave Jodi vulnerable)as oppose to liberal Christianity generally(where Jodi has a convenient out), so long as you fail to give me any reason to discuss the details of my personal beliefs with you.(Of which Jodi has already convinced herself that no reason will be sufficient.)
If you really care to go further then lets keep it personal to avoid any problems over who believes what. If you really care little for my opinion (as you claim) then how about you shut your cake hole. Or as Ben has said, “back it up or back it down.”
It amuses me when people say I should be respectful of their beliefs…as if popular adherence and mere age are any reason to leave unproven beliefs unchallenged. I may be respectful of people for various reasons (selflessness, charity, skill, intelligence, etc.,) but I’m neither obligated to respect them for a fundamentally nonrational set of beliefs, nor am I required to respect those beliefs simply because they think I ought to.
Hey, if you believe that some guy died and rose from the dead after three days, and walked across water, and turned water into wine, you’re spiritual, but if I believed, say, that Binky the Magic Space Clown created the universe, and we’re all just cosmic balloon animals, well hell, I’m crazy.
Actually, no. You are certainly free to put forward liberal Christian ideas, and I will do my best to explain them to you, without committing to whether they corrolate exactly with what I believe or not. But if you wish to take my refusal to discuss my personal beliefs with someone who has yet to explain why I should do so, as an excuse to weasel out of further discussion, by all means do so.
I said “If you can put forward any reason for me to [disclose my personal beliefs], I will consider it,” to which you reply:
Nicely evasive and non-responsive. Am I to take it, then, that you, like me, can think of no good reason I should tell you the details of what I believe?
I said, “But, hey, I’m here, and I’m happy to debate liberal Christianity with you as long as you like,” to which you reply:
Yes, my style of Christianity, since I do self-identify as a moderate Christian. (I don’t think it’s accurate to construe me as particularly liberal, but moderate, yes.)
I don’t find it particularly convenient, but . . . of course. Why would I believe in something “stupid”? This is you trying to insist that all Christians have to believe in the whole literal Bible again, isn’t it? Liberal Christians who have spent any time studying their faith question what the Bible says, and why it says it, and whether it makes any sense. Haven’t we already gone over this?
“What Jodi says counts”? What do you mean “counts”? If you have criticisms to level against liberal Christianity, I will address them. As I just did with your rather basic indictment of “hellfire.” I can explain what liberal Christians generally believe; I can explain why they generally believe it; but I can’t make you believe it. I think we can both agree the chances of changing your mind are slim. But if you’re going to be vocally critical of liberal Christianity, then you’ll have to take liberal Christianity as you find it – which, unfortunately for you, doesn’t include Biblical literalism.
[quote]
. . .that I will require you to maintain a basic level of civility,(Jodi can say every 4 letter word in the book which is fine but badchad must only kiss tushi) . . .
You don’t have to be clean, you have to be civil. You don’t have to kiss anyone’s ass, you have to be civil. And you don’t even have to be civil if you’re not interested in talking to me. You can be an asshole and then I’ll disengage, and you can claim you’ve won the “debate.” I believe this is a technique you’re very familiar with.
Um, what I’m willing to write and what you’re willing to read are two different things. If you don’t want to “suffer” through my “diatrabes,” by all means, skip them.
[quote]
. . . and that I will not discuss my personal beliefs,(as that would leave Jodi vulnerable)as oppose to liberal Christianity generally(where Jodi has a convenient out) . . .
I don’t defend beliefs I think are indefensible, like snake handling and faith healing. If that strikes you as “convenient,” that’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t strike me as too much to demand that, if you wish to attack liberal Christianity, you actually address things that liberal Christians actually belief.
I haven’t convinced myself of that. Would you care to take a shot at coming up with a reason? Or will you continue to evade the issue?
I’m not going to keep it personal, until you give me reason to. Which, of course, you’ve totally failed to do. But “shut your cake hole” does indicate that you’re opting for the “be insulting” possibility – imagine my surprise. And since it is you who have wanted to debate liberal Christianity – of have until someone actually attempts to take you up on it – YOU back it up or back down.
Oh, and don’t think it’s escaped my attention that you’ve entirely abandoned any further assertion that you can disprove anything liberal Christians believe. Very wise of you.
You don’t have to respect my beliefs; you just have to be minimally respectful enough of me to not be actively snide about something you know is very important to me. And you don’t even have to do that, unless you have some reason to expect me to discuss the matter with you.
I don’t see what’s so outrageous or amazing about expecting someone who desires to discuss my beliefs to be minimally respectful in doing so, or forego the dubious pleasure of discussing them with me.
None of which should be construed as asserting that my beliefs or any beliefs should remain unchallenged. Challenge away; just be minimally respectful in how you do it.
That’s what I said. I suppose there is the off chance that you could escape from your superstitious belief system but the odds of that success compared to the effort on both our parts probably makes it not worth it. Besides I like the example you make of Christianity.
As I said earlier I am willing to narrow the discussion to which parts of the bible that you believe in.
Been there and done that with Polycarp, if we can define him as a liberal Christian.
Fine, escaping a childish immature superstitious belief system. How’s that? I’m not going to try any harder than that. As I said I don’t consider you much of a player and as such I’m not that motivated.
If you want to water down Christianity to include only things which can’t be falsified then yes it becomes impossible to falsify them. I think this is to a large degree what liberal Christianity does and I recall writing as much before. Which brings me to my primary fault with liberal Christianity, that if all the miracles which can be shown to be false have been shown to be false, that should certainly shake the faith in the other miracles, even if they are unfalsifiable by definition. This logic may escape you but I don’t think it did Polycarp. But now I only repeat myself.
Not by necessity, and not even one iota. Let us consider this:
There are various posters on this MB. Let us assume that many of them have met each other in person, talked on the phone, whatever. A few are trolls. They are exposed as such.
Does their exposure discredit anyone else?
Meanwhile, badchad, I’m further impressed by your efforts to object when one person wants to define Christianity as she sees it, yet you see nothing wrong with going by your definition.
I did not, FTR, when I was Christian, build my faith on any particular Bible verses. It didn’t rest solely on whether or not Jesus walked on water or cured the blind or had blue eyes and blond hair or anything like that. It was because I believed in God. The Bible was merely a useful tool (one of many) through which to get to know Him. Now that I am not what I would call Christian, the body of St. Bernadette is still just as fascinating, but it is as much a proof of God’s existence or the Bible’s veracity as anything else is to me. If my faith depended on a literal interpretation of the Bible, my sig would long ago have read something like “Hello, I am an abomination unto the Lord. How are you todady?”.
I think it’s really neat that you’ve set up such a wonderful patch of scarecrows. You do know that a scarecrow is only effective as long as it doesn’t rain, right?
You know what this reminds me of? That old Bugs Bunny cartoon where he says “Put 'em up!” to a guy sitting down, and the guy stands up, and he’s huge, and Bugs sais “Ehhh, yer not woith it!” and walks away.
Thank you! I, OTOH, think you’re a pretty lousy example of atheism.
Let’s review: Your general indictment is of liberal Christianity, not of what I, personally, believe. Yet now you refuse to have a discussion on anything but what I personally believe, though I have volunteered repeatedly to discuss the topic you introduced – liberal Christianity – with you if you like. This appears very much like weaseling.
I’m not POLYCARP, am I? (Boy, ain’t that the truth.)
Ha! Again – “Yer not woith it!” This amuses me inordinately. As should be obvious, however, that liberal Christianity is “a childish immature superstitious belief system” is precisely the point you have declined to defend.
I’d be really interested to see how you’d prove any miracle false. The very nature of a miracle is that it transcends the laws of the natural world – water turns into wine, lame people walk, the dead rise again – so how would you ever show that they were false? Just because they don’t occur entirely within the realm of the natural world? Of course they don’t – they’re miracles. If they did, they wouldn’t be miraculous, would they?
So the fact that you cannot duplicate the raising of Lazurus doesn’t mean that miracle didn’t occur; it just means you’re not a miracle-worker.
So, sure, if “all the miracles which can be shown to be false have been shown to be false,” that would make me reconsider the nature of miracles. But none of them can be shown to be false, and none of them have been shown to be false, so this doesn’t really keep me up nights.
The weapons in your arsenal for attacking Christianity are bush league. The existence or non-existence of hell, the nature of miracles, anything that’s Bible based . . . it’s all subject to interpretation, of which there are as many as there are different churches and denominations that claim the title “Christian.” The tough subjects, just FY future I, are the philosophical questions like: If God created the universe and everything in it, and God is good, where did evil come from? Why would God reveal Himself to some, but keep Himself hidden from others? If God is omniscient, how can there ever really be a concept such as “free will”? And the oldie but goodie, If God is omnipotent, could He create a rock so heavy He couldn’t lift it?
Compared to things like this, questions like “Why did Jesus say to hate your mom and dad?” are child’s play. (One possible answer: Luke is a mistranslation and Matthew is more accurate in exhorting us only to not love our parents more than Jesus.) And it’s not like the tough questions haven’t been discussed here before. They have. Repeatedly. And like I said, no one’s mind ever gets changed anyway.
There are a lot of atheists/nonbelievers who are a lot better at this game than you are. They aren’t seduced by the easy questions, which almost always have easy answers; they are willing to meet believers on their own ground, and combat them there, and they are maintain a level of civility that allows them to draw us believers (if we are not on our toes and thinking hard) out onto a limb and then sweetly saw it off. You are not playing at this level. Find a sensei.
I am away from computer access for a week, starting tomorrow, so I won’t be back to check this thread until Sunday late. And though it may seem otherwise, I am really not interested in goading you into having a discussion you’re either not prepared to have or (giving you the benefit of the doubt) you simply don’t want to have. So I’ll be around on Sunday, but if this thread has fallen off the first couple of pages, which of course it will have, I won’t resurrect it.
Sorry to horn in here, but this interpretation still strikes me as obnoxious. What kind of egomaniacal prick would demand that people love him more than their families. I love my wife and daughter more than anything. They come first, period, and if Jesus has a problem with that then Jesus can eat shit.
Jesus does have a problem with that, according to His words. I’m sure He’s wringing His hands to hear you’d like Him to “eat shit,” though.
The point of the passage, no matter how interpreted, is precisely that we should love God more than our families. Our ultimate allegiance is to the Lord, not to anyone or anything on this earth, and keeping in mind that God has not asked anything more from us than He has given us ("For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . . "). The passage also underscores that following Jesus is not an easy matter, but an extremely difficult one, and extreme sacrifices may be called for, as they were in the case of many of Jesus’s disciples. It also reflects the humanity of Jesus, in that He would desire to be loved above all others by those for whom He would give up His life.
Not that I expect you to believe any of this, of course, but that’s the party line.
Siege has let you in on the fact that he has experienced a hell such as you cannot imagine, and rather than apologize for being snarky with him, you kept on being snarky?
I do know what you mean. I’ve also considered the possibility that Jesus was speaking about the artficiality of attachments based on mere kinship-- that he was suggesting that all people should be regarded with the same compassion as one regards one’s family.
I could even see a quasi-Buddhist interpretation of the passage which might be making a point about the impermanence of life and the ultimate futility of personal attachments (there’s a Buddhist analogy which likens personal attachments to a man falling off a cliff and trying to to grab on to the rocks that are falling along with him).
The kind of answer that b]Jodi* gives, however, doesn’t speak to me at all.
(BTW, Jodi, Jesus didn’t actually say “love me more” he said that whoever did not “hate” his mother, father, etc. could not be his disciple. That’s a much different implication.
In fairness to the traditional interpretations of Christendom, the term [symbol]miseo[/symbol] does not ordinarily carry the severe connotation that hate does in English. It’s merely in keeping with a companion verse that appears a bit later in Luke: “No man can serve two masters; he will hate one, and love the other.” It is just a matter of relativity — to love less, and not a call to hate absolutely. As Thayer has noted, it is easy to Occidentalize the phrase.
