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Grex > Agora56 > #84: Newspaper in Denmark prints cartoon pics of Mohammed | |
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| 25 new of 432 responses total. |
nharmon
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response 269 of 432:
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Feb 15 17:42 UTC 2006 |
Sindi, even Christians get tired of Christmas music. :)
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happyboy
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response 270 of 432:
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Feb 15 17:53 UTC 2006 |
they listen to it on their ipods while they
pass legislation
banning hpv vaccines
republican values!
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kingjon
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response 271 of 432:
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Feb 15 19:04 UTC 2006 |
Re #253: That may be an accurate *historical* summary. That is, when I was too
young to have any insight on what to believe, I took the testimony of the
resident "experts." You might call it a "working hypothesis." That's not the
*reason* I believe in whom I believe. I believe in God for the same reason I
believe in my parents. For what it's worth, I am entirely willing to let people
believe what they will. (Sometimes sharp contentions get to my temper and it
may not seem that way, but I always regret it afterward.) After all, it doesn't
harm *me* if someone not under my care believes even that east, for example, is
west. I will in some cases try to persuade them otherwise, just as I would try
to persuade someone who was trying to commit a gradual form of suicide to stop.
Re #263: That's what inevitably happens when you get a bunch of people
together. Look at the extreme variance within any semi-major political party.
Re #268: I have said before that the public school system seems to me to be an
indoctrination machine into the "religion" of atheism -- but we've been over
that ground before and I don't want to start that debate again.
Decorating public places with religious symbols is not necessarily forcing your
beliefs on other people; a display could easily include only symbols of
religions that those designing it did not hold to.
For what it's worth, I don't like the commercialization of "Christmas" at all.
In the Christian liturgical calendar, the "Christmas season" begins December 25
and runs until the sixth of January, while the "Christmas" music on the radio
always begins around Thanksgiving and stops abruptly on Christmas Day.
Did you know that "holiday" by etymology means "holy day"?
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gull
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response 272 of 432:
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Feb 15 19:10 UTC 2006 |
Re resp:250: Sure, if God made it somehow physically impossible for us
not to believe in Him, say by altering our brain chemistry, that would
be restricting free will. Simply providing clear evidence that he
exists, then allowing us to take it or leave it, would not. All this
sneaking around and refusing to provide any hard evidence doesn't serve
any obvious purpose to me, if He exists.
(This is assuming free will exists at all -- but that's another
discussion. There's some evidence it doesn't even without a
supernatural being involved, and several tenets of Christianity also
call it into question.)
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tod
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response 273 of 432:
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Feb 15 19:10 UTC 2006 |
Syria is about 10% Christian. How would you like the idea of living there
with all the religious symbols "decorating" public places?
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kingjon
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response 274 of 432:
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Feb 15 19:38 UTC 2006 |
Re #272: The contention of many is that there *is* clear evidence that God
exists. If the evidence is (or if you prefer "were") in fact there and you've
decided to leave it, you'd still be saying "all this sneaking around and
refusing to provide hard evidence ..."
I will admit that *current* free will is not a central doctrine of the Church
as a whole, since it has proven impossible to come to an agreement on it. It is
simply the explanation of how some of the unclear passages fit together that
fits the text best in my view.
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kingjon
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response 275 of 432:
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Feb 15 19:41 UTC 2006 |
Edit of #274: My reference to *current* free will. I meant to add that I
haven't found any debate on the point that before the Fall human beings had
free will; strict Calvinists (and others) believe that this capacity for free
will was damaged in the Fall and is only repaired by the Holy Spirit -- who
lives inside Christians.
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tod
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response 276 of 432:
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Feb 15 20:06 UTC 2006 |
There is more evidence that aliens exist. Do they have the Holy Spirit in
them? How about black people? Do Jews? What's the criteria and how has it
changed over the years?
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rcurl
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response 277 of 432:
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Feb 15 20:09 UTC 2006 |
"Free will" is a neurobiological question, and the overwhelming conclusion
is that all living organisms have free will in the sense that they have
unreliable choice mechanisms between options.
I think Jon and I have a belief in common. I agree completely with his
observation that "it doesn't harm *me* if someone not under my care
believes even that east, for example, is west."
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bru
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response 278 of 432:
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Feb 15 20:13 UTC 2006 |
It hasn't changed from God's point of view. Humans, being imperfect, nake
the wrong choices at times.
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nharmon
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response 279 of 432:
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Feb 15 20:14 UTC 2006 |
The mexican restaurant I ate at last night was staffed by latin
americans who obviously had difficulty speaking english. Would it have
been rude for me to try to speak to them in spanish?
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kingjon
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response 280 of 432:
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Feb 15 20:15 UTC 2006 |
Free will is only a purely neurobiological question if the body is the person
and the person is the body. I realize that's one of your assumptions, but it
isn't one I'm willing to grant you.
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kingjon
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response 281 of 432:
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Feb 15 20:16 UTC 2006 |
nharmon slipped.
Re #279: Rude? I don't think so; unwise, perhaps, depending on how well you
know Spanish.
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tod
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response 282 of 432:
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Feb 15 20:25 UTC 2006 |
re #279
All the hispanics I know are usually pleased to see someone show a lil
culture.
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rcurl
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response 283 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:03 UTC 2006 |
Re #280: there does not exist any evidence against the hypothesis that free
will is a purely neurobiological question. It forms the basis for
medical/psychological treatment of mental illnesses.
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mcnally
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response 284 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:11 UTC 2006 |
re #271:
> I believe in God for the same reason I believe in my parents.
If you honestly think that the nature of your belief in God
and the nature of your belief in your parents are of the same
type then *my* belief is that you're hopelessly self-deluded.
Unless everything you have ever experienced has been a delusion
your parents have undeniably been a part of your life. You've
seen them, heard them, touched them, smelled them, tasted them.
You've conversed with them and they've responded -- directly,
unambiguously, and without your having to wonder whether their
response was just wishful thinking on your part.
To claim that your belief in God is built on the same sort of
foundation as your belief in your parents not only overtaxes
our credulity but at the same time denies your personal religious
faith -- after all you don't need "faith" to believe in your
parents' existence..
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kingjon
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response 285 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:26 UTC 2006 |
Re #283: There may be some relevance in thinking of free will as a
neurobiological question, but your claim of "no evidence" betrays, again, your
assumption that nothing nonphysical, immaterial, etc. can possibly exist.
Re #284: Any analogy I bring up will be criticized one way or another. :)
I have met my parents. Often. I have lived my whole life under the care of my
parents. The same holds with God. I have seen, heard, and conversed with God
("seen" and "heard" being the two words closest in meaning to the actual
experiences). And as for never wondering whether my parents were figments of my
imagination -- reading Descartes does that to a person for a moment, and
meeting God demonstrated his existence sufficiently that I'm beyond doubt.
Whether it is conscious faith or not, believing anything your senses tell you
requires faith. How do I *know* that I'm not just a brain in a vat?
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tod
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response 286 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:30 UTC 2006 |
Maybe he's an A-sexual orphan? ;)
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marcvh
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response 287 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:37 UTC 2006 |
"Seen" has a precise meaning. If you mean that precise meaning when you say
that you have "seen" god then it invites a lot of follow-up questions (like
"what color is he?") If you really mean that you "perceived" him then that
is something else, and leaves to our imagination which of the five senses
did the perceiving.
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kingjon
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response 288 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:46 UTC 2006 |
The problem is that God can't (normally) be perceived with any of the physical
senses, but there aren't words for the sort of perception used to perceive him,
so we are forced to use analogous words that don't mean precisely the same
thing. "See him" also sometimes is used to mean "see his 'fingerprints'" (with
"fingerprint" being used in a metaphorical sense).
"'I see,' said the blind man to his deaf companion, as he picked up his hammer
and saw."
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tod
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response 289 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:51 UTC 2006 |
re #285
You refer to Descartes but don't seem to practice methodological skepticism
when people think (i.e. doubt) Your faith deceives you.
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drew
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response 290 of 432:
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Feb 15 21:57 UTC 2006 |
You've actually *met* God?
Like that chick on _Joan of Arcadia_?
Or like people who from time to time say
that they've been visited by Mary with
the Cherry?
(btw I think these claims do bear some
investigation.)
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marcvh
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response 291 of 432:
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Feb 15 22:02 UTC 2006 |
Of course there are words. The phrase used to describe perceiving something
by some method other than the 5 senses is "extra-sensory perception" or
ESP. If you perceived God by some method other than seeing, hearing,
touching, smelling or tasting him then it was ESP.
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kingjon
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response 292 of 432:
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Feb 15 22:06 UTC 2006 |
"ESP" by now has obligatory connotations that preclude the use of the term.
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marcvh
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response 293 of 432:
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Feb 15 22:07 UTC 2006 |
So it's not PC to call it ESP? What is the PC term for it? I mean, you
call it perception, and clearly it's not sensory...
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