You know, I didn’t think it POSSIBLE for someone to not get it on such a scale as you do.
But I was incorrect; you raise “not getting it” to an art form.
Oh, man! Backward masking is real!!
Pot, kettle.
You have, unsurprisingly, missed the point. Yes, you could go out and kill some believers tomorrow. And you’d get arrested, imprisoned, and probably executed for it. With that penalty before you, coupled with your general disconnection with society and it’s attitudes, it’s very easy for you to take the position that you refrain from violence out of moral pureness, and not convenience. But if things were different in this country, if you could commit murder and not only get away with it, but be commended for it? If you were surrounded by people who parroted your exact brand of hatred and intolerance, who re-enforced your prejudices at every turn? I think it would take very, very little to tip you over into murder.
Oh, and it’s not just religious people who are calling you evil. This atheist isn’t much impressed by your self-professed moral superiority, either.
Heh, I chose the right one from this list, even though some were even more amusing.
I would be amused too — if I’d seen it. You’re not a would-be mass murderer because you argue with us; you’re a would-be mass murderer because you dehumanize us in the manner I described.
Let’s go back to the point I was making:
You mentioned a friend who had left the church, then returned to it.
You said the friend was still troubled, fearing that s/he had brought down the doom of the verse in Mark based on his or her actions being an “unforgivable sin.”
My point was that in the context of that verse from Mark, the RCC, as a whole, does not interpret generalized blasphemy to be “the sin against the Holy Ghost,” and that your friend should get in touch with someone from the church who could set his or her mind at ease.
Blasphemy has a few meanings, but the specific phrase “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” has a very distinct meaning in RCC theology, that of dying in sin and choosing to die in sin. (This is the connection to depair I mentioned earlier. Generally, the church figures that a person who deliberately chooses to die in sin has despaired of the possibility of forgiveness and that is what causes them to choose to die in sin.)
In the theology of the church, (individual cranky priests, notwithstanding), blasphemy in the context of hurling imprecations at God–even in the person of the Holy Spirit–is not considered to fullfill the conditions of the special phrase “blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.” I am not challenging your ability to blaspheme or even the ability of you or your friend to use the person of the Holy Spirit as the target of your blasphemy. I am simply pointing out that the phrase “blaspheme against the Holy Spirit” has a particular meaning in RCC theology and that a person who has chosen to return to the church after apostasy has not, in the theology of the church, committed that unpardonable sin.
The early 20th century Catholic Encyclopedia does not even address the issue of “unpardonable sin” in the context of Blasphemy.
If you wish (and can stand ) to wade through it, here is the section from Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica on Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. It is only impenitence that he holds cannot be forgiven.
Again: I am not challenging that you have been taught or chastised with any particular belief. My only original point was that if you knew of a person troubled by a misunderstanding (or bad teaching) you might assuage their troubles by pointing out that what they had been told was not in accord with church teaching.
I don’t think either of you get it. Nancarrow was making fun of Happy Scrappy Hero Pup’s overblown comparison of Der Trihs to a crusader, if only he had the power.
I confess. I LOL’d.
Hitler painted the most beautiful picture of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus I have ever seen.
You aren’t even in his league.
You’re not evil, just stupid.
Before you make this about atheists, I’ll tell you that I came back to this forum partially to see what Voyager and SentientMeat are up to. SentientMeat sent me on a quest to learn more about Cognitive Science, and I told myself I wouldn’t come back here until I’d read the books he recommended. I bought them all, haven’t read them, but I am studying neurology now. The long and short of it is, I came back here because I talked to two atheists who made a good impression on me. You are still the same fucking idiot you were a few years ago, and it’s not because you’re an atheist. I was sort of amazed to find that your argumentation had not improved at all in my absence.
You are no Hitler, you are the equivalent of a member of Westboro Baptist church. Same level of rationality and everything.
I like that a pitting of Don’t Ask became a pitting of Der Trihs, at least when Don’t Ask is being a bigot, he makes me giggle.
Hotflungwok Blasphemy is like a Black Mass, not the same as a crisis of faith I don’t think.
What impresses me is how he argues the atheist side from a totally emotional standpoint like the religious people he despises. His claim of moral purity is precisely where those religious people believe that their superiority derives, but he does not want to ‘sink’ to their moral level. His arguments have NOTHING to do with reason as they are mostly ad hominems and appeals to emotion. What’s so perplexing about Der Trihs is that his attitude is precisely that of the side he reviles. The content is different but the presentation is exact.
Maybe Der Trihs is practicing Dissimulation. He’s playing the stereotype atheist that every Christian bigot wishes atheists to be in order to confirm people’s bias against atheists.
It’s a rare man who chooses their path in life to become the perfect resemblance of a reviled stereotype.
You’re not the first person to suggest this.
Didn’t you read the definition? Black Mass is just one extreme example. Like I said, I’ve been told by Catholic priests, as well as other people of the Christian faith, that denying the existance of god is blasphemy.
I read the definition. It seemed to be sort of vague as to whether expressions of doubt counted as blasphemy. I cannot imagine that any religion would be benefitted by not allowing people to pursue their doubt.
I guess it depends on how you define, ‘Impious’. I don’t know, it seems weird to me.
Shrug, that was just something I pulled out of a dictionary. The priests who said it, now that’s something else.
You’re not very familiar with how religion operates are you?
You post all those things, and then you post this?
Religion in general would benefit greatly, but those in positions of power in those religions likely would not.
Not sure what your point is here.
I’m not so sure. From what I’ve seen, close rational examination of religious tenets without preconceptions or assumptions, especially those held up as indisputable fact, tends to end with even more doubt about the tenet, and the religion itself. People trying to tell me that the Noah’s Ark story was real and factual was a big reason for my investigation into Catholic dogma, and my subsequent dismissal of it.
My point is that you obviously didn’t investigate very far into Catholic dogma if you base your arguments on “shrug,” and “Priests told me.”
Um, I was raised Catholic. Last I checked, priests were an acknowledged source of info for the religion they devote their lives to. So when I hear a Catholic priest say something about the Catholic church, I’m going to assign it more weight than I would someone else.
And how do you get that I based my argument on ‘shrug’? I said that when mswas tried to argue about the definition with me. I said that because the definition was general, and I just used it to show Liberal that blasphemy was a bit more than what he was trying to say it was.