Judging you, based only on your persona in attacking people on this message board, I’d say that you’re a loser, whether using earthly standards(read=polite society) or Jesus’ standards. Not in your own mind, of course. Just in the minds of some of us.
So you’ll rag on me for not renouncing worldly wealth and taking the trouble to provide for myself and my dependants, and also on Poly for renouncing worldly wealth and trusting to God to provide for him? You sure have all the bases covered.
Incidentally, it amuses me to see you harp on and on about the biological processes that go on in a body after it is dead, as though it were news to anyone that it’s nothing short of astonishing for someone to be walking and talking on Sunday morning when he was dead by Friday evening. Newsflash: even two thousand years ago, people were pretty much aware of what dead bodies do and don’t do.
You’ll be pleased to know that neither you nor pseudotriton ruber ruber have made a serious dent in your allowance of 490 forgivenesses apiece. Directly either of you approach me with a heartfelt apology, I guarantee you unconditional acceptance and a prompt consigning to oblivion of any and all offences you may have committed against me. I’m sure Polycarp feels the same… and one as Bible-literate as you surely knows that forgiveness carries the precondition of repentance.
Back to my prayers for you now.
“Synonymous”? As in “something like, but not the same as?”
When Bible man asserts that God will behave in a particular way, that is a belief.
When Bible man makes a claim that scientists have stated matters in a particular way that is contrary to the way that scientists have stated them, that is not a belief. The works of scientists are readily available to be examined. If he chooses to post misstatements regarding what has been published, it may be the result of a belief, in which he needs to ignore published works in order to make a claim in an argument, but his misstatement is not, actually, a belief.
You mean like the thread that you abandioned for two and a half days, letting several subconversations wander off without you so that you could come back later, do nothing to bring the multiple conversations back to your point, and then wait a few more days to cry bitter tears that I let the thread be hijacked?
Your confidence appears to be misplaced, except as an excuse for whining.
I do not see a significant difference between people who “Have faith in Jesus” or the God of their choice and the people who believe in Spirits, Wiccan rites, Ghosts, the possibility of ESP or other psychic powers. I realize we have yet to find any proof for any of these things, but I keep an open and skeptical mind about all of it. From Jesus to Clairvoyance, none of it seems the least bit likely, but I have no proof of any of its impossibility.
Jim
Well, sure, you can’t prove that psychic powers don’t exist in general. But you can prove that specific people claiming to have psychic powers do not, in fact, have psychic powers. I can’t prove that Polycarp’s god doesn’t exist. I can prove that Uri Gellar is a fraud. Therefore, it’s fair to attack Uri Gellar, but unfair to attack Polycarp. Considering that every time a psychic has agreed to have their powers tested in a laboratory setting, they have failed the test, I think it’s fair to draw some assumptions about the existence of psychic powers in general, but as you say, one should keep an open mind about it.
Why are we so judgmental all of a sudden? Have we as an American Message Board strayed so far from The Golden Rule? Did “Judge Not” somehow erase itself from the tenets of common discourse?
PS: CarnalK, great post. You dislodged his mouthguard with that one. 
When was “Judge not” ever applicable to the Board as a whole, and the Pit in particular? I do agree that the Golden Rule should be a general Board standard (I do expect a bit of embarassment myself at the Final Judgement, even as I wished it upon our erstwhile God-haters), but the GR isn’t exactly a Pit-rule.
I do believe in the “Judge not” passage in the whole context of Matthew 5-7 (in which Jesus lays out standards for proper and improper judgement), but that line has been so distorted, that I don’t think Jesus would at all mind Ayn Rand’s inversion of it- which is much more appropriate for the SDMB…
“Judge, and be prepared to be judged.”
Or, in Boardspeak, “cite?”
Are we not a Christian nation?
Not yet, a few more elections and Supreme Court appointments going my way, and the amending of the Constitution to include the Nicene Creed as mandatory for voter registration, and we’ll be just fine.
Oh fuck that. I’m not bound to Sin, I just enjoy it every third weekend after Cirque du Soleil.
Could badchad be George Bush IRL? Because he is a uniter* par excellence.* I find myself aligned with folks who normally I would wither with the burning scorn of my wit. And it would not be a pretty sight. We’re talking thousand sun burning here.
Are we not DEVO?
I am just amazed that a person on a message board would feel bullied just because someone else states that she does not believe his claims.
We reveal who we are in our posts both directly and indirectly over a period of time. What other people say about us here isn’t all that important. It’s what we ourselves say.
Certainly. The man you have described as “your hero,” was one of the leaders of the Transcendental Movement in the Nineteenth Century. Reliance upon intuition as opposed to outside authority is one of the tenets of Transcendentalism.
From Heaven on Earth: The Legacy of 19th Century Transcendentalism as an Ecumenical Philosophy of Nature by Meg Brulatour, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1999:
Naturally that strikes me as being not quite in keeping with the reasoning you have presented here and elsewhere.
I share your interest in Emerson and have been to his hometown and his grave to pay my respects. Have you?
“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” - Ralph Emerson
First I don’t recall Polycarp renouncing his wealth. I don’t recall the details but I think he just lost his job and couldn’t find another one. Though judging by the time he spent on this message board back then it didn’t seem like he was working all that hard to find another.
Second, yes my bases are pretty covered. If one chooses to profess belief in, and to be the follower of, the teacher of ridiculous things, then an outsider can then criticize them from to two fronts. One criticism being for followers when they do not actually follow the teachings of their mentor, and two for actually doing ridiculous things. So, in claiming to follow the teachings of an idiot, guys like me do have you coming and going. The only consistent way out is to stop professing to be the follower of a man/god who teaches ridiculous things.
For example; say that Jesus taught that believers in him should demonstrate to outsiders the sincerity of their belief by drinking poison and dancing with deadly snakes. If Jesus did teach this, Malacandra, wouldn’t you think it a bit suspect if you knew a Christian who abstained from these acts? If you knew a Christian who did do these things wouldn’t you think them a bit nuts?
That’s true. My point is that today there is ample scientific reasons why a resurrection is impossible rather than just noticing that it is an event that generally does not happen.
Are you praying for something specific?
“Synonymous” as in different words for the same thing.
I say true.
Unless Bible man is lying I say false. Bible man has a belief on what scientists say. It may be a false belief that he reached by reading creationist books and websites but it is a belief he holds.
A misstatement may not be a belief but believing a misstatement is a belief.
“Bitter tears?” Those are strong words coming from someone to cowardly to argue his beliefs. I don’t care that my thread was hijacked, just that you hypocritically contributed to it, while having just told me I couldn’t do the same to another. As for abandoning my thread, I don’t have the time or the desire to post every day. I have this thing, called a real life, that’s often a better use of my time. As for the thread in question:
I consider it mission accomplished. Nobody that I recall put forth an argument that we should believe things simply because they are taught to us, esp. when contradicted by our own observation and reasoning. Suburban Plankton my primary target, did try to argue that his Christian beliefs were more than brainwashing/indoctrination but he pretty much rolled over when I challenged him. After that I don’t think anything else I said was challenged at all and I found other threads that interested me more. I do think it interesting that you would wish to belabor this point while ignoring many of our more interesting disagreements. Are you catching this Mayo?
Also I should mention the things, thus far, you have ignored/failed to support:
**So you admit you are incorrect in saying I coyly hide my beliefs? Also it seems you think having no “system of Belief” is a bad thing. Why?
I should believe in things I don’t have evidence for? Wouldn’t that be kind of dumb?
Also I asked you to back up your assertion that my stance on free will is just a word game.**
I’m taking your silence on the resurection vs. 6 day, young earth creation as your admission I’m correct that you have no more reason to believe in one vs. the other.
Miller you don’t know what you are talking about. I have a more than passing knowledge on psychic abilities and paranormal claims. I’ll be more than happy to bend a spoon at a dopefest someday. Uri Geller did undergo and pass many laboratory tests and so have a lot of other psychics. Uri even had an article done about him in the respected journal “Nature” as I recall. You might also look up the research of J.B. Rhine out of Duke University who tested for and found a lot of evidence in favor of psychic powers. This makes you statement that psychics have never passed a laboratory test patently false.
Now you might counter that psychics have not passed any “good laboratory tests,” and to this I would tend to agree with you, but those in favor of such things would only argue that we label as good research only that which discredits the psychic and bad research all that which does the opposite.
Also it is worth bringing up that any “good psychic” will tell you that their powers are fleeting and not always under their control and sometimes fail to function, often in laboratory environments where there is much “negative energy” or whatever. As such paranormal abilities are kind of like god, hard to disprove, but pretty stupid to believe in anyway. So I think you need to come up with a better reason for why you think it’s ok to criticize one and not the other.
A search of Nature’s web site returns 26 mentions of Uri Geller. Most of them are obviously derisive, for some the tone is difficult to discern from what is viewable for free, and one, from October 1974, appears to be a serious article about the methodology for studying claims of ESP. These articles cost $30 to download. Can you provide any cites supporting your claims about Geller and other psychics? Thanks.
Cute. I’ll do likewise. (Note that there’s no promise of not using one’s hands)
Glucose tolerance test, complete blood count, throat staph culture test… 
You are seriously gonna have to back that up, dude. I have several friends who are very active in the “skeptic” community–a cousin edits a national magazine on the subject–and they tend to keep me pretty well abreast on such matters. As far as I am able to suss out, the ongoing status of testable psychic phenomena–i.e., none–remains in place. Trust me, if there had been a breakthrough in this area–if even one instance of psychic ability has ever, *ever *stood up under laboratory conditions–my cousin would know about it.
It’s time for some hard cites, badchad.
(Oh and, plus, I’d be happy to bend a spoon for you too; I know exactly how Geller did the trick, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it.)