The notion that Jesus is the ultimate goal of all spirituality is held by only a few Christian groups and several New Age groups. That would mean it is neither universally nor exclusively Christian.
If you are so intent on having it out with Liberal regarding his beliefs, I’m sure you can find a thread to do it, but you’re really hijacking this one.
In this thread, I pointed out that Liberal made a tactical error in the discussion by attacking the sematics of worship in Czarcasm’s post, leading to an insistence by multiple posters that he had attempted to drag atheists into the same system. You attempted, in this thread, to challenge my observation by insisting that you were just upset that he continued to lump all spiritual believers into a group that you do not believe is legitimate.
However, you began your assault in the other thread with a claim that he was assigning belief to atheists and that is the claim which Liberal denied throughout that thread. I see no place where you backed off from your initial claim that
With no revocation of that erroneous claim, there is no reason for Liberal to have treated your arguments any differently than those of other posters who were claiming that he was assigning belief to atheists.
He quite possibly does believe that all spiritual paths lead to a single goal and that that goal is Jesus. You can disagree with him to your heart’s content. However, the following statement is in error in the context of the original thread under discussion.
He did not retract that statement because the statement for which he was being attacked was that all people, including atheists, were going to be dragged into his “garden.”
Since you erroneously joined the group that was attacking him for lumping atheists into the discussion, I do not see that you have a right to be upset with him in that thread. It is quite possible that you could have the same disagreement in another argument in which he would continue to hold the same position to which you now object. It is simply wrong, however, to complain that he was failing to retract a concept about believers in a thread in which he was actively addressing the issue of non-believers and your post had put you among those arguing the (faulty claim for the) non-believer position.
I was unaware that there were non christians who subscribed to the belief that Jesus was the messiah, I retract my claim that his position was specifically christian. I retain my claim that it was specifically dogmatic and would box someone in.
I am not intent on that, and I’m answering you and what you’re saying. Namaste, noble fellow hijacker.
That was what I challenged you on. That his dogmatic stance did indeed force all believers into something. So, no, some people who’d wish to be excluded, as per the examples I’ve given, would be included, thus forced to be included.
It is one thing for you to explain that liberal mispoke or made an incorrect statement, and that he did not mean to imply that the word worship covered atheists.
It’s quite another for him to say that himself. Without a retraction, coupled with his garden analogy and what I still see as backpeddling, I thought he was trying to have his cake and eat it too.
I also don’t see the place where Liberal retracted his claims about worship.
As a matter of fact in the post I’ve quoted in this thread, he responds to Czarcasm’s denial that people who don’t worship God at all, with his quote on worship, that was also the last time he used the word ‘worship’ in the thread. As such, I fail to see how my claim was in error.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Um… why not?
They were different, and I explicitly brought all believers/theists/spiritualists into it.
You mean if part of my argument is held by other posters, and the rest of my argument is unique to the discussion, my posts should not be treated any differently than the other posters?
I don’t care what other people were ‘attacking’ him for. I made the explicit point that varying spiritual/religious paths would not not agree or have anything in common, and there was no reason to assume they all went to the same place by many paths ,and that path was (insert personal deity X).
He never retracted his statement that the end result, this ‘garden’ was Christ.
Naw, I didn’t pay my membership dues, I wasn’t part of that group.
I had a point of debate in common with them, but I’m reasonably sure that all my posts were from my point of view, not in coalition or opposition to any group or person.
That’s a very weird construction… at least to me. In my mind, that thread is over, or at least my interaction with him in it. I’m not still upset with him, and the subject of the thread itself doesn’t motivate any specific emotoinal energy in me. I was upset with him while reading/writing in the thread, and I think I’ve explained the source of my misinterpretations and/or statements which were made which logically implied something which I disagreed with.
Whether or not I had the right to, I did, it’s done, and I’ve apologized for my tone and getting upset in that thread. Not quite sure what else there is to do.
I disagree.
He can actively address the issue of non-believers with ten billion other posters in the very same thread, and if I come along and point out that his premises also implicate believers, he can actively address that too. If he doesn’t retract his statement as challenged by two vantage points rather than one, then he still hasn’t retracted it. I see nothing wrong with my noting that or debating two lines of argumentation at once, one of which was held by other people in the thread. . But if you’re telling me, as a Mod, that it’s wrong to do that, then yes okay, I won’t do it again.
Because his whole worship digression was, indeed, a digression that had nothing to do with the general theme of that discussion. Iy was simply Liberal taking tim,e out to ruminate on what he perceived to be semantic confusion. In the second paragraph following that digression, he explicitly said to Czarcasm that
Following that, people erroneously misread his worship statement to mean that he was trying to force everyone into a state of belief when he was not.
You know, Finn, unless you are talking to, or about Liberal, I can follow your arguments quite well, and often read your posts. But I will admit; once the subject changes to the personality stuff, I hit the page down key a lot. So, I can’t give you a blow by blow as to exactly where you or he left the realm of logical debate, and started throwing rocks.
Respond to untruth with its alternate. Don’t tell me who is lying, or what their lie was. Just expose the real truth, as you see it. I might recognize it, on my own. I am certain a great many people here will recognize it. And you will become known as a source of truth.
I retract my implied accusation that you were not honest. I made that judgement without sufficient reason, or evidence. Sorry.
Tris
“As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.” ~ Josh Billings ~
Am I not allowed to notice the logical implications of a digression? If someone makes a point that’s tangential to the main point, I shouldn’t argue it?
Because, if the original claim on worship is not retracted, even if it’s a tangential digression, it still has very real implications. Without it being retracted, at best it is contradictory to the claim that nobody is being forced to do anything.
You can if you’re not inferring conclusions that the author never implied. Liberal simply stated that he thought Czarcasm was imposing a solitary meaning on the word worship that Liberal felt was too constricting. The implication from that statement, combined with his reference to Sentient Meat’s attitudes, was that worship did not always require a belief in the spiritual. From that you (and others) then tried to impose on Liberal a claim that he was attempting to impose religious belief on others.
Your error. His fault. (He shoulda know’d better.)
Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagee. The whole ‘his fault’ thing is something I can’t get past. If it was his fault, if he applied the word worhship to a broader class, then he shouldn’t be surprised when people think he’s applying worship to a broader class. In other words, in the context of the thread, I think I was pretty much correct. Not knowing Lib anywhere as well as you do evidently, I took his text on face value.
And, as I’ve said, the attempt to impose something on others is also supported by his quotes about all spiritual paths leading to the garden, and the garden being Christ.
You’ve told me that he misspoke, etc… but he never said that. In such a context, all I had to go on was his text, and its implications.
P.S. By the way, it’s kinda amusing but in your playful attempt at mocking me in the Hilter is half Jewish thread, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. The class of teachers is diverse enough that one cannot speak to their fundeamnetal nature. Obviously some teachers simply read from prepared answer keys, and as such they literally cannot be mistaken. But, then again, obviously, nobody has ever had an oragnized campaign of genocide against teachers, so it’s slightly different.
You’re probably right. I do not think it was his fault for saying something wrong; I think it was his fault for interjecting a separate thought that would be misundertood by so many people when he has, obviously, been misunderstood in similar situations previously.
As for the “group” of teachers, I have read the lingusitics philosophy literature and I simply think that that “group” of philosphers has gotten it wrong. However, that is for a different discussion at a different time.
Indeed. Thanks for discussing this in a calm and rational manner (and the theory of idenity/groups), it’s a bit frustrating to do my best to be polite and then get dogpiled.
Which is why that paragraph started with, “I kinda feel like…” I thought that made it clear that it was an analogy.
As Excalibre said, though, I’m not pixels. I’m flesh and blood, typing at a computer. If you’re pixels, binary code, ones and zeroes, well, that’s fascinating, but you’ll have to accept that you’re not going to understand the emotions we humans feel.
I suspect you meant something else entirely, though, even if I’m not sure what you meant.
However, that is for a different discussion at a different time.