Nice try, he said catholic CHURCH problem all those of the laity are forbidden the sacrament of pedophilia
Scout leaders and Teachers are not members of the clergy, they don’t sex up children to prove god’s love they only do it for their own selfish gratification. We are speaking of god’s emissary’s on Earth not some common criminals. The statement, "That’s a Catholic Church problem, not a Christian-wide one,” suggests to me that Der Trihs was speaking of the clergy not layman. His example of a non-catholic was Jim Bakker not a teacher or scout leader.
In any case there is no scandal only god’s good works in action. The church is not covering things up they’re only being modest. (You’re not supposed to boast about your piety).
**"When you incorrectly predict what my argument will be in that manner and incorrectly explain my mindset and what I will do as you did in this post to begbert2 I call that mindreading rather than attacking my pov.
Quote:
So thanks for not accusing me of mind reading.
It was more of a statement than an accusation. Refrain from those type of posts and it won’t happen again.
I assume you are calling it as you see it. I will do the same, and that includes commenting on the overall tone of your posts when I feel it’s warrented."**
Well, you’re wrong. It isn’t mindreading. It’s POV-reading, and I’m very familiar with what that POV leads to logically from one step to the next. Predictions about what POVs logically lead to is part of the whole point of such discussions.
When POVs start to slip logic, however, then they can’t be predicted. They then go all over the map with ridiculous discussions about the meaning of words, etc. which anyone can see has happened in this thread with at least 2 other people. I doubt that’s a coincidence. Probably something wrong with them too.
Not really an endorsement of the POVs logic. Parsing can also be used as a way to avoid taking responsibility for a POVs logical failure. So it seems to me. So, I’ll say so. Refrain from that and it won’t happen again but I won’t hold my breath.
The preconceived notions are yours, not mine; and the chip on the shoulder about non-believers not giving enough credit to believers, etc. is worn out.
You’ll recall my entire entry into these threads came from a compliment that I sent your way about what appeared to be a cohesive POV. It’s since shown itself to be vapid and that’s not something I did to the POV.
I notice you’ve ignored both in the last thread and this one each instance of my saying something nice about you as opposed to the POV you’ve expressed.
That’s perfectly fine, but as in the last thread – and yes, I know you don’t care, etc. blah blah, I won’t be debating things with you in this thread anymore since there seems to me to be a lack of intellectual honesty. I’ll respond to attacks if I choose, but debate is pointless with the way your POVs are argued.
**
Quote:
Originally Posted by 9thFloor
“I’m not refusing to acknowledge definitions of logic or evidence. I’m flat out saying that the argument offered by atheists is not logical according to the text book definition. Clear enough?”
Which argument, specifically, offered by atheists are you saying is not logical?
I’ve stated it several times pretty clearly. Sorry you missed it.
**
I think so. You have to begin to extrapolate farther and farther out, bending more and more of your own experiences to comport with the theist hypothesis.
What I think is interesting is something like the Totem & Taboo explanation for how religion develops in the first place; theologically, it needs no explanation since it was there from the start when god created man blah blah but secularly it’s been explained there and elsewhere as man’s response to the uncontrollable aspects of the world and the apparently inherent impulse towards imagining either a time that was utopian or a possible other future or place/time where that could exist.
Hitchen’s recent “God is not Great” and Dawkin’s recent book are both fascinating reading on this; Hitchens considers the impulse towards belief a mammalian flaw.
There’s an interesting (rational, measured, non-polemic, non-hyperbolic, non-ridiculous) debate between Hitchens and Prager on YouTube on some aspects including that; it’s a bold premise Hitchens starts with that goes even beyond what I would’ve said which is that religion has never done any good for mankind ever and is an unmitigated evil that’s worthy of contempt and derision.
He defends that position pretty well, and Prager’s no intellectual slouch.
It seems to me that there is a POV (whether it’s cosmosdan’s or not I’m beyond trying to divine, so let’s just say a theoretical POV out there) that very much wants the avatar to be the player because otherwise it becomes pretty well impossible to construct player-level morality within the avatar world if we are avatars beyond cause/effect and would seem to basically render the world (filled with avatars, in which we live) amoral as understood in traditional terms of morality.
Does that seem so to you? Or have I just confused those terms beyond all recognition? (I’m pretty good at that!)
"On the other hand we have the problem of a god (an issue it itself) allowing or causing pain for unfathomable reasons, none of which we are told or can deduce. I’m not sure we can expect a better attempt at an answer than cosmosdan has given us in this thread. "
By the way, for the record, having been raised xian I frankly always found it a little puzzling why xians had so much trouble with the idea of suffering while still remaining xians. The problem of suffering, to me, is one that causes problems if you’re looking to believe in a god from scratch and attributing omnipotent and omniscient powers to the idea of that god but within traditional xian theology it’s always seemed to me to have a rather succinct explanation at least the way we were taught in our denomination: there’s free will, the fallout from the poisoning of the earth by man’s fall which explains all natural disasters, and satan being allowed to inflict all types of horrible things on mankind to try to get them to curse god and go to hell. God has no power whatsoever on earth as a result of the free will sandbox that he’s allowed to have happen; all interventions chronicled in the OT are made moot by christ dying so that after the new testament, you don’t have any more intervention by god in mortal affairs since his interventions earlier were all still premised on not having a sacrificial entity upon which to lump all the moral violations of man past, present, and future.
That always seemed to explain it pretty succinctly to me; the problem comes when you go farther back than the point at which that premise begins (such as creation, making man have free will to be able to choose the knowledge of good/evil, etc. and the omniscience factor) and you end up with “god must have a reason” but taken from the starting point that religion typically starts with, it’s not that hard to understand is it?
Obviously, I’m not a believer but exploring the logical consistency of that viewpoint once given certain premises never seemed that hard to me.
Its like exploring the logic of the RPG scenario once given the premise; it follows logically. Whether or not the premise is, in fact, the truth is of course another matter and not even something the RPG tries to justify, it’s just a theory.
Can’t this be another thread? We’re all straining as it is to try not to hijack.
(Why is pedophilia immoral would be an interesting one, but then again I’d hate for all of us to be rounded up and carted off to jail for talking about it LOL)
Did you notice the prediction I responded to was wrong? Pointing out where the logic leads or asking is one thing. Predicting what argument will be offered next is another. Your post I linked to was even more than that.
I think assuming where the argument will go, or categorizing it with others presents a danger of missing the point the other poster is trying to make. I confess I’m guilty of it on occasion myself but I doubt it adds much value to the discussion.
How do you have a discussion without going over the meaning of words? How do you clarify your pov without that? My purpose is to make myself understood and to understand others , within this particular subject which is pretty tricky to express.
If I used the term unknowable inappropriately that’s a grammatical error and I have np with people pointing that out. I’m always glad to learn something. The frustrating part for me was that **Czarcasm ** ignored my meaning even after I pointed it out and it was pretty clear in my posts.
I have to wonder if the term unknowable has any use at all. Without a time frame reference wouldn’t almost everything be unknown?
Sure parsing can be used that way. I try to discern whether the person I’m debating with is sincerely trying to exchange ideas and understand or just trying to score some imagined victory within the argument. Being more concerned with a technical dictionary definition rather than the clear intended meaning strikes me as the latter.
So saying you’re very familiar with where a pov leads to logically, and a preconceived notion, are very different in what way?
When you say you’re familiar with the logic of a pov it’s because you’re …accurate? When I notice similarities in atheist arguments it’s because I have a chip on my shoulder. That’s interesting.
I do have a chip on my shoulder about the manner in which select atheists present their arguments. Beginning with the Sam Harris book atheists on this board have supported his call to remove the protected status of religious beliefs. I happen to agree. What I notice is when I compare how belief systems are held within people in general, atheists and believers have a lot in common. When I point it out in GDs I get some knee jerk defensiveness.
That’s your opinion. It’s unfortunate if we talked past each other. It’s hard to draw lines of logic in this particular subject matter.
I also noticed you didn’t respond to my post about “beyond the reach of logic”
This is the second time you’ve mentioned this. Is there a point? Should I have blushed and thanked you?
In a similar manner you conclude parsing is a way to avoid admitting an error, I notice that the phrase “lack of intellectual honesty” is thrown out there when a discussion hasn’t gone well.
With the influence of some good folks here on the SDMB I’ve been trying to make my points of discussion easier to understand. The subject matter here makes it challenging and it appears I have a long way to go, but I do strive for honesty and and make a sincere attempt at understanding the other persons position.
You say you have no problem with people pointing out a grammatical error, which is exactly what I was doing when you kept substituting the word “unknowable” for the word “unknown”, but you continued to make this mistake after it was pointed out to you, insisting that I accept it and move on. This isn’t acknowledgment of a mistake, and your meaning was, and still is, wrong.
They had another reason. If you read Paine’s The Age of Reason he very clearly says he is not an atheist because of a deity of the gaps argument, specifically about the structure of the solar system. Now, if he had more math he might not have used this, but it is reasonable to look for the simplest explanation. Back then there were so many gaps, so many mysteries, that a god one might fit. Not a Christian one - his attacks on Christianity are the same as we see today. Today we have a wider knowledge of the universe, and a process to get more, so the gaps are small and shrinking.
It is interesting to speculate if Madison, Jefferson and Paine would be atheists if they were living today. I suspect they would be.
Jim Bakker was involved with an adult. Any evidence that the Catholic church issue wasn’t purely a human failing one combined with CYA behavior by the hierarchy, combined with taking the easiest way out by reassigning a problem? It’s not like that doesn’t happen in the secular world.
As you should have noticed, I’m an atheist. There are plenty of reasons to not believe other than making stuff up.
The OP asked the question “how do we know god loves us” and I gave my answer the fact you feel it’s a hijack is why this section is known as great debates. (BTW Why is pedophilia a catholic sacrament reserved for priests is a better question) and as long as you become part of the clergy you could talk about it and do it too! The Pope still hasn’t decided just how many times you can boff a baby before it’s wrong so you’d be in the clear.
I don’t know what “avatars beyond cause/effect” means, and I don’t know what terms of morality are “traditional”, so that does drain rather a lot of meaning from your post, yes.
The RPG model doesn’t have any sort of godly or objective morality to it at all; in fact, things that we consider pretty much universally immoral are perfectly acceptable as far as the Players are concerned, if that’s how they want to play the game. (‘You want to play it as the most heinous bastard possible; killing, maiming, pillaging, and raping like there’s no tomorrow? That’s perfectly fine; just don’t be surprised if your avatar isn’t alive and free for much longer.’) Secularly-constructed avatar morality is actually better than what is imposed on us from above.
I think that conflation of Players and avatars would occur because the conflater wants us (the avatars) to have the benefits of being Players: loved by god, lives forever, the personality and sense of identity persists forever, etc. Of course, they’d probably also want to keep the benefits that come packaged with the RPG model itself, that are caused by the separation of Player and avatar: problem of evil solved, issues of fairness, reward, and punishment wiped away, etc. This would be a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too - it just doesn’t work.
True, it makes sense that the conflater would have those reasons; but don’t you think another reason would specifically be the fact that, as you said, you can play it as the most heinous bastard possible killing maiming, etc.? I think that sticks in the craw of conflaters and they aren’t satisfied with the cause/effect morality that would result in the avatar probably not being alive and free much longer because, for one thing, it would be possible to completely get away with it and live and die without ever losing your freedom or your life as a result of that behavior (everyone dies anyway eventually); it has been known to happen.
Not everyone gets their comeuppance in equal measure every time in the RPG model, so that even though the structure of it allows for ‘moral’ balance to usually occur in the aggregate it doesn’t guarantee that each individual avatar will always suffer punishment for every “heinous” offense and that, methinks, makes conflaters angry as well. In religion, at least they’ll get theirs in the afterworld.
I guess you’re basically saying as much when you say issues of reward and punishment are wiped away; I think a conflater would hang their hat mightily heavily, however, on the RPG notion expressed by your statement that " just don’t be surprised if your avatar isn’t alive and free for much longer" as total justice that functions as reward/punishment on an avatar basis, every time.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you weren’t being sarcastic or hyperbolic; so you’re saying that boffing kids really is/was put forth as a way to teach kids of gods love?
By the way, say that again? LOL I’m not sure if I’m reading that first part right – Paine said he’s **not **an atheist **because **of the god of the gaps argument?
