Religion and Ethics Forum

Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: john on March 24, 2017, 09:40:10 AM

Title: Progressive Christianity
Post by: john on March 24, 2017, 09:40:10 AM
Link here to an interesting article.

The writer says that "progressive Christianity" will lead to the downfall of Christian beliefs.

By the phrase is meant; the diversity of interpretations of beliefs especially as they bend to encompass new historical and scientific findings. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/atheology/2017/03/can-progressive-christianity-save-cure-christianity/?utm_source=[!]%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL%20Nonreligious&utm_content=14395
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 24, 2017, 12:34:57 PM
Read my signature below.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: john on March 24, 2017, 12:43:12 PM
You got it.... That's basically what the article says.  :)
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Stranger on March 24, 2017, 12:47:31 PM
Read my signature below.


Rationalism leads to Protestantism leads to atheism.

Yes, in order to be a theist, you have to be irrational. Can't argue with that....
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 24, 2017, 01:00:34 PM
Yes, in order to be a theist, you have to be irrational. Can't argue with that....

There is a difference between being rational and rationalism.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ippy on March 24, 2017, 04:32:22 PM
There is a difference between being rational and rationalism.

Yes but not your speciality area, after all you are a theist.

Spring's here at last, have a good day a o.

ippy
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 24, 2017, 05:09:25 PM
 ::)
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 24, 2017, 06:35:49 PM
Read my signature below.
Everything leads to something else. And round and round we go.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 24, 2017, 06:42:43 PM
I don't think there can be progressive Christianity any more than there can be a progressive science or a progressive second French republic.

Christ is about as progressive as you can get.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 24, 2017, 06:44:38 PM
I don't think there can be progressive Christianity any more than there can be a progressive science or a progressive second French republic.

Christ is about as progressive as you can get.
You mean dead!!!  ;D
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 24, 2017, 06:53:33 PM
I don't think there can be progressive Christianity any more than there can be a progressive science or a progressive second French republic.

Christ is about as progressive as you can get.
I thought he hated the ghey? Or is that just your fellow Christians who you think are wrong? Do you think a person having the homosexual sex is sinning by doing so?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 24, 2017, 07:02:05 PM
You mean dead!!!  ;D
He could be as dead as anything and still be a better man than any.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 26, 2017, 04:52:20 PM
He could be as dead as anything and still be a better man than any.
So, for Christians, being brain dead is better than being intelligent, rational and alive?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 26, 2017, 05:18:05 PM
So, for Christians, being brain dead is better than being intelligent, rational and alive?
I rather think Jack, that we are at the point where you either believe Jesus death achieved something........or you don't.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Robbie on March 26, 2017, 09:55:51 PM
This thread started off well but is now so dreadful, dreary and pointless, i'm surprised anyone is bothering to respond because they are not saying anything.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 26, 2017, 10:31:14 PM
Jack,

Quote
So, for Christians, being brain dead is better than being intelligent, rational and alive?

Not only does Vlad think that, he lives by it!
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 26, 2017, 10:35:33 PM
Jack,

Not only does Vlad think that, he lives by it!
Ni !
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 26, 2017, 10:40:04 PM
Vlad,

Quote
I rather think Jack, that we are at the point where you either believe Jesus death achieved something........or you don't.

No, that's not the point you're at at all. I'm quite content to think that there was a Jesus (or someone of a different name) and that he (or several "hes" whose stories were later incorporated) existed, and that he/they was/were a charismatic street preacher(s)/conjuror(s)/soothsayer(s) etc (though not of course a genuine miracle performer(s)) and that their stories subsequently were written down, re-translated and heavily edited by people with vested interests in the outcome and that those stoires then happened to catch the wind more by happenstance then design did indeed achieve something - albeit no necessarily a positive something.

Will that do?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 26, 2017, 10:43:00 PM
Vlad,

No, that's not the point you're at at all. I'm quite content to think that there was a Jesus (or someone of a different name) and that he (or several "hes" whose stories were later incorporated) existed, and that he/they was/were a charismatic street preacher(s)/conjuror(s)/soothsayer(s) etc (though not of course a genuine miracle performer(s)) and that their stories subsequently were written down, re-translated and heavily edited by people with vested interests in the outcome and that those stoires then happened to catch the wind more by happenstance then design did indeed achieve something - albeit no necessarily a positive something.

Will that do?
You'll have to take that up with him.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 26, 2017, 10:43:18 PM
Robinson,

Quote
This thread started off well but is now so dreadful, dreary and pointless, i'm surprised anyone is bothering to respond because they are not saying anything.

I agree that it started well, but once we'd established that "progressive Christianity" was just a big steaming heap of confirmation bias I'm not sure that there was anywhere else to go with it was there?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 26, 2017, 10:44:16 PM
Vlad,

Quote
You'll have to take that up with him.

I can't - he's dead.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 26, 2017, 10:56:59 PM
Vlad,

I can't - he's dead.
And resurrected.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 26, 2017, 11:09:02 PM
Vladd,

Quote
And resurrected.

So I'm told some people believe. Weird innit?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 26, 2017, 11:14:16 PM
Vladd,

So I'm told some people believe. Weird innit?
It is unusual.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 26, 2017, 11:20:37 PM
Vlad,

Quote
It is unusual.

So's flat earth-ism.

It gets weirder though. Can you believe that some people actually think they're "in a relationship" with him?

I know, I know - I'm not making that up, I promise. 
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: jeremyp on March 26, 2017, 11:54:03 PM
Vlad,

So's flat earth-ism.

It gets weirder though. Can you believe that some people actually think they're "in a relationship" with him?

I know, I know - I'm not making that up, I promise.
Also he magicked water into wine, a few loaves and fishes into dinner for five thousand and made a dead person come alive again. And the people that believe all this have the temerity to tell us that leprechaunism is ridiculous.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Sassy on March 27, 2017, 05:20:10 AM
Read my signature below.

Your signature is more offensive than the idea of progressive Christanity.

You see Protestants took away all the bad bits which God hated in the Roman Catholic Church like trying to take his place as God as if absent
and oppressing the poor and putting yokes on the believers.
They tried to take back control over the people once the Romans lost control over their own empire.

The truth is there is more Christians like Christ in the protestant church than in the Roman Catholic Church who made their own rules up and tried to force them onto others.  There is nothing Christ-like about the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of God has never been a part of it,

Christ said " Love thy neighbour not torture them or frighten them into submission.  Your signature will not be found in any of Gods teachings or those of Christs. Just as the truth shows that more than any religion calling themselves Christians...the Roman Catholics have the largest number of deserters who become atheists than any other Christian religion.

Time to come to your senses. The Roman Catholic Church is not and never has been the true church of God and Christ.

Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Sassy on March 27, 2017, 05:38:30 AM
Link here to an interesting article.

The writer says that "progressive Christianity" will lead to the downfall of Christian beliefs.

By the phrase is meant; the diversity of interpretations of beliefs especially as they bend to encompass new historical and scientific findings. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/atheology/2017/03/can-progressive-christianity-save-cure-christianity/?utm_source=[!]%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL%20Nonreligious&utm_content=14395
Progressive Christianity isn't the Christianity of Christ.
I note that they said
Quote
For example: trying to defend the Bible’s stance on homosexuality. Yes, it’s true that Jesus did not condemn it. Yes, only six verses explicitly mention same-sex relations. But there’s no getting around the fact that the Bible calls it “an abomination,” just as there’s no getting around Paul telling wives they need to be submissive to their husbands.

Homosexuality was considered such a terrible sin that they would not even talk about it. As Christ obeyed the whole law he would not have been able not to condemn it. But the law is clear that some sin lead to being put to death immediately and some didn't.  Hence that would be the sin you could not pray about for someone and adultery and other sins which lead to instant death. But what I think EVERYONE ignores is that sin is sin.

Christ said " If you break one law you break them all."  I believe he was teaching that if you sin you are dead in your sins and that does not matter which law you broke.

It is mankind who singles out the sins and singles out the isolating of one persons type of sin.
But if a person loves God their body and their own wants come second to what God wants for them.
If believers really believe God has a future planned for them, then why would they not want to live Gods way?

We have all sinned and we don't all die from one type of sin but each has sin and no matter what that sin it brought death.
Pot calling kettle black an adulterer believing themselves better than a thief. But they both get the same penalty.

We can do anything one might say because we are no longer under the law and saved. But in truth we would uphold the law because we know God does not want us to do those things.

No one who sins is any different because of their type of sin. Man does not make the rules, God does.
If I, were  a person with homosexual tendencies, adulterer or a thief.  Knowing God saw it as wrong I would cease from doing those things.
It is about who we put first in our lives. It is a personal choice. We cannot change the laws to suit the sinner.
We cannot make one sin more or less than the other sin. We just have to choose and then live as called.

Break one law you break them all because all sin is sin. Christianity remains as  in the time of Christ the fulfillment of the Jewish faith.
So a Jew or not a Jew everyone gets to choose. We are not here to judge another's sin or think their type of sin is different from anyone elses.

Love is about loving everyone despite all our own individual sins.  The sin s not any less a sin because we change a law. We could legalise stealing but it remains a sin in Gods eyes and in the faith. No different to any other sin.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 27, 2017, 07:22:50 AM
Vlad,

So's flat earth-ism.
 
Poor analogy......Just like Religion being the same as saying 2+2=5.

Oh how we laughed at that one.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 27, 2017, 08:03:57 AM
Your signature is more offensive than the idea of progressive Christanity.

You see Protestants took away all the bad bits which God hated in the Roman Catholic Church like trying to take his place as God as if absent
and oppressing the poor and putting yokes on the believers.
They tried to take back control over the people once the Romans lost control over their own empire.

The truth is there is more Christians like Christ in the protestant church than in the Roman Catholic Church who made their own rules up and tried to force them onto others.  There is nothing Christ-like about the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of God has never been a part of it,

Christ said " Love thy neighbour not torture them or frighten them into submission.  Your signature will not be found in any of Gods teachings or those of Christs. Just as the truth shows that more than any religion calling themselves Christians...the Roman Catholics have the largest number of deserters who become atheists than any other Christian religion.

Time to come to your senses. The Roman Catholic Church is not and never has been the true church of God and Christ.

I find you offensive. I don't have to defend the Roman Catholic Church. I don't belong to it. And yet even though I've told you that a million times it still hasn't got through that thick heretical skull of yours. Protestantism is the result of rationalism and Protestantism leads to atheism. The proof is western Europe, its secularism and iconoclasm: its apostasy.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: floo on March 27, 2017, 09:00:25 AM
I find you offensive. I don't have to defend the Roman Catholic Church. I don't belong to it. And yet even though I've told you that a million times it still hasn't got through that thick heretical skull of yours. Protestantism is the result of rationalism and Protestantism leads to atheism The proof is western Europe, its secularism and iconoclasm: its apostasy.

You poor sad little person! :o
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 27, 2017, 09:21:43 AM
You poor sad little person! :o

Don't ask me what I think of you, dear.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Robbie on March 27, 2017, 09:23:40 AM
You poor sad little person! :o

Nothing wrong with being little!
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 27, 2017, 10:08:50 AM
Vlad,

Quote
Poor analogy......

No it isn't. I just makes the point that being "unusual" tells you nothing about the truth of a conjecture.

Quote
Just like Religion being the same as saying 2+2=5.

Oh how we laughed at that one.

I know that you didn't laugh "at that one" becaude no-one said it. Stop lying.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on March 27, 2017, 04:43:01 PM


Time to come to your senses. The Roman Catholic Church is not and never has been the true church of God and Christ.

Proof positive that you never read a bloody thing that anyone here posts, or if you do read it, you never understand one iota, whether from atheists, agnostics or other Christians.

Ad_orientem has told you endless times which faith he belongs to - it is not the Catholic Church. I don't share his beliefs, but at least I'm probably among the majority here who had to be told only once that ad_orientem belongs to the Orthodox faith. The clue is in his log-in name.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on March 27, 2017, 04:48:52 PM
He could be as dead as anything and still be a better man than any.

Well, a better man than most, possibly. I think I might open a thread on Jesus' confusingly inappropriate anger on several occasions, some day. Mark's gospel is particularly odd in this respect.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: floo on March 27, 2017, 05:13:50 PM
One would have thought Jesus, if he was some sort of god, would be above having temper tantrums.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 27, 2017, 05:37:59 PM
jeremy,

Quote
Also he magicked water into wine, a few loaves and fishes into dinner for five thousand...

OK, so he was good at tapas - I'll give him that.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 27, 2017, 05:40:50 PM
jeremy,

OK, so he was good at tapas - I'll give him that.

And could make really good weapons against zombies. Do not play if you are easily offended, squeamish at work and complain!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgDF52BRXfE
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 27, 2017, 06:19:33 PM
Your signature is more offensive than the idea of progressive Christanity.

You see Protestants took away all the bad bits which God hated in the Roman Catholic Church like trying to take his place as God as if absent
and oppressing the poor and putting yokes on the believers.
They tried to take back control over the people once the Romans lost control over their own empire.

The truth is there is more Christians like Christ in the protestant church than in the Roman Catholic Church who made their own rules up and tried to force them onto others.  There is nothing Christ-like about the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of God has never been a part of it,

Christ said " Love thy neighbour not torture them or frighten them into submission.  Your signature will not be found in any of Gods teachings or those of Christs. Just as the truth shows that more than any religion calling themselves Christians...the Roman Catholics have the largest number of deserters who become atheists than any other Christian religion.

Time to come to your senses. The Roman Catholic Church is not and never has been the true church of God and Christ.
Philosophically and psychologically I agree with A_O. Protestantism eventually led to our modern world of materialism.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 27, 2017, 06:22:22 PM
Philosophically and psychologically I agree with A_O. Protestantism eventually led to our modern world of materialism.
I think that was trains.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Robbie on March 27, 2017, 06:54:17 PM
Philosophically and psychologically I agree with A_O. Protestantism eventually led to our modern world of materialism.

I don't follow that at all, please explain.
As people have changed over two millenia,knowledge more widespread, new discoveries every day. If they have a faith it is bound to be different to that of their grandparents or earlier.That is what I see as progressive Christianity.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 27, 2017, 07:20:31 PM
I think that was trains.
Are you trying to be funny, 'cause that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Robbie on March 27, 2017, 07:21:46 PM
I think that was trains.
Don't forget the advent of the printing press.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 27, 2017, 07:26:50 PM
Are you trying to be funny, 'cause that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Neither does any simplistic James Burke's Connections (Google if you are young) x caused y caused j sense of history. Further if you do follow that then it's all deterministic anyway so no particular selection starting point makes any sense. But I tried to make the point shorter in the vague hope that this is obvious to anyone thinking about causality here.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 27, 2017, 07:29:12 PM
Don't forget the advent of the printing press.
See answer to Jack Knave. I get the randomly select something and claim everything else comes from it. Effectively that creates a regress to the start of time. The selection of the starting point is, umm well, pointless
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 27, 2017, 07:50:35 PM
I don't follow that at all, please explain.
As people have changed over two millenia,knowledge more widespread, new discoveries every day. If they have a faith it is bound to be different to that of their grandparents or earlier.That is what I see as progressive Christianity.
What Protestantism did was to give access to the masses the mystery and numinousness of the spheres of the gods. They were left to choose and work things out for themselves. Hence the endless schisms the church has had. Some of those schisms for the individual was to reject God and religion all together (it should be noted here that many, within themselves, would have rejected or doubted the catholic faith and/or God etc. long before the Reformation came along, just that the threat of the authorities would have kept the "poll" on this mute). With the nascent influence of science (reason etc.) and the enlightenment the means to make a safe public stand on atheistic positions, with arguments for this, grew and so groups and gatherings developed. Once groups form so does social pressure as they became dominate in the society they are in and following generations are then "trained" to take this atheistic position as the norm. Very few things are wholly successful, so we have to day a situation where atheism is dominate in most social institutions - science, politics etc. - and where religious views are held in these institutions they are very much watered down versions of true spiritually; a token gesture, and as such has a very weak influence on matters. Religion, therefore, today, in the West, is a peripheral institution (especially in psychological terms) and plays no real part in social-political matters.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 27, 2017, 07:52:34 PM
I don't follow that at all, please explain.
As people have changed over two millenia,knowledge more widespread, new discoveries every day. If they have a faith it is bound to be different to that of their grandparents or earlier.That is what I see as progressive Christianity.

The Reformation, which was essentially an exercise in rationalism, throwing the baby out with the bathwater led to the Enlightenment > Modernism > Atheism.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 27, 2017, 07:56:03 PM
See answer to Jack Knave. I get the randomly select something and claim everything else comes from it. Effectively that creates a regress to the start of time. The selection of the starting point is, umm well, pointless
So nothing causes nothing else. They just randomly jump into existence do they?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 27, 2017, 07:59:53 PM
The Reformation, which was essentially an exercise in rationalism, throwing the baby out with the bathwater led to the Enlightenment > Modernism > Atheism.
I thought the Reformation was an exercise in a rejection of religious despotism that went against the word of the NT.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 27, 2017, 08:05:43 PM
I thought the Reformation was an exercise in a rejection of religious despotism that went against the word of the NT.

No. It was Iconoclasm raising its ugly head again.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 27, 2017, 08:06:29 PM
The Reformation, which was essentially an exercise in rationalism, throwing the baby out with the bathwater led to the Enlightenment > Modernism > Atheism.
Not sure about people being atheists because of somebody elses churchmanship or heterodoxy.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 27, 2017, 08:24:21 PM
No. It was Iconoclasm raising its ugly head again.
Again?

You're going to have to explain to me what the big deal of Icons is. You surely can  understand why they rebelled against such things and the way that they were used etc. in the Catholic church in those days.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 27, 2017, 08:29:28 PM
Not sure about people being atheists because of somebody elses churchmanship or heterodoxy.
To understand that you have to throw in the growth of science and rationalism etc.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 27, 2017, 08:46:10 PM
So nothing causes nothing else. They just randomly jump into existence do they?
No, and lovely strawnan.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 27, 2017, 08:58:15 PM
To understand that you have to throw in the growth of science and rationalism etc.
I don't understand why science should promote atheism when, as we are about to find I think, the British have not been into science for ages, not many have wanted to be scientists and have merely enjoyed it's consumer products as diverting toys from a true and rounded intellectual life......and that includes diversion from an actual understanding of science.

As far as rationalism and the GBP is concerned.......Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha He He He He He Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho.......
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 28, 2017, 01:51:36 AM
Again?

You're going to have to explain to me what the big deal of Icons is. You surely can  understand why they rebelled against such things and the way that they were used etc. in the Catholic church in those days.

I'm using the term "Iconoclasm" in a much broader sense here but it's essentially the same mentality. The Iconoclasts sought to strip the churches of religious imagery. Protestantism sought to strip the faith to its bare essentials, though quite who gets to decide what is essential and what isn't is another matter, though related of course. It was an application of rationalism which ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not saying that the reformers didn't have any legitimate grievances. At the very least the Pope had become a tyrant. Not only did he claim to have universal jurisdiction over the whole Church but he also claimed to be a secular king. What really happened was everybody ended up being their own pope, their own little tyrant. Indeed, some of the worst acts that happened during the Reformation occurred between rival Protestant sects. They jumped out of the frying pan straight into the fire. All they had to do was look East, but the East had become a mere distant memory in the mind of the West. I think Melanchthon did go and see the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople though, thinking that the Reformer's rejection of the papacy would automatically endear them to the Patriarch, but Melanchthon was promptly told to get on his bike.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 09:52:21 AM
lad,

Quote
I don't understand why science should promote atheism...

It doesn't. Science is indifferent to religious beliefs. What it does do though is to provide more cogent explanations for many phenomena that previously were explained by "god did it".
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 09:54:00 AM
ad,

Quote
It was an application of rationalism which ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

What baby?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 28, 2017, 09:56:44 AM
ad,

What baby?

The faith of the Apostles.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Anchorman on March 28, 2017, 10:00:35 AM
No. It was Iconoclasm raising its ugly head again.
-
Not entirely.
It was also a reaction to the corrupt nature of the relations between church and state (especially in my country) Destruction of statuary and junking of relics was an added extra.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 10:06:29 AM
ad,

Quote
The faith of the Apostles.

I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean by that answer. I'm familiar with the term, but rationalism finds more cogent answers than the superstitious ones that precede it. What baby was thrown out by that? 
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 28, 2017, 10:27:53 AM
ad,

I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean by that answer. I'm familiar with the term, but rationalism finds more cogent answers than the superstitious ones that precede it. What baby was thrown out by that?

I've already gone into this. By attempting to strip the faith down to its bare essentials through their contempt of tradition (their rationale being they were ridding the faith of useless accretions) they ended up rejecting much of the faith itself, even things approved by the college of bishops under the Holy Spirit. In reality all they did was act on personal whim.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: floo on March 28, 2017, 10:42:41 AM
I've already gone into this. By attempting to strip the faith down to its bare essentials through their contempt of tradition (their rationale being they were ridding the faith of useless accretions) they ended up rejecting much of the faith itself, even things approved by the college of bishops under the Holy Spirit. In reality all they did was act on personal whim.

One should utter contempt and rejection of a faith, which has permitted and turned a blind eye to all the evil done in its name over the centuries. >:(
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 28, 2017, 10:47:14 AM
One should utter contempt and rejection of a faith, which has permitted and turned a blind eye to all the evil done in its name over the centuries. >:(

Zzzz! You're such a bore, floo.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 10:50:36 AM
ad,

Quote
I've already gone into this. By attempting to strip the faith down to its bare essentials through their contempt of tradition (their rationale being they were ridding the faith of useless accretions) they ended up rejecting much of the faith itself, even things approved by the college of bishops under the Holy Spirit. In reality all they did was act on personal whim.

Several problems there:

First, rationalism didn't "attempt to strip faith down to its bare essentials" at all. Insofar as it considered faith at all it examined the arguments for its claims of fact and found the wanting, and for the most part it was concerned rather with finding out how things actually worked.

Second, any "contempt" was for bad arguments for faith. That faith in general suffered from that was a consequence.

Third, you seem to think that "things approved by the college of bishops" should be immune from enquiry and challenge. What if they were wrong?

Fourth, you've a assumed a "Holy Spirit" - essentially the fallacy of reification.

Fifth, why would you think enquiry and reason that led to discoveries like electricity and functional medicines were a matter of "personal whim" rather than an honest and remarkably successful attempt better to understand the world?   
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 28, 2017, 11:38:59 AM
ad,

Several problems there:

First, rationalism didn't "attempt to strip faith down to its bare essentials" at all. Insofar as it considered faith at all it examined the arguments for its claims of fact and found the wanting, and for the most part it was concerned rather with finding out how things actually worked.

Second, any "contempt" was for bad arguments for faith. That faith in general suffered from that was a consequence.

Third, you seem to think that "things approved by the college of bishops" should be immune from enquiry and challenge. What if they were wrong?

Fourth, you've a assumed a "Holy Spirit" - essentially the fallacy of reification.

Fifth, why would you think enquiry and reason that led to discoveries like electricity and functional medicines were a matter of "personal whim" rather than an honest and remarkably successful attempt better to understand the world?

You seem to be somewhat confused and assuming that rationalism can only be applied in one way, that is, by questioning the very basis of faith rather than a method by which one may also decipher the faith. Both are acts of rationalism, even if one takes faith as granted and the other doesn't. With regards to the Reformers their rationalism was that if something is not directly found in the scriptures then it is not necessary for salvation. That is a rationalism.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: floo on March 28, 2017, 11:44:34 AM
Zzzz! You're such a bore, floo.

So are you dear, as your church has clearly brainwashed you into using thought processes, which are far from rational.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Enki on March 28, 2017, 02:46:28 PM
No, and lovely strawnan.

I'll have you know that my nan was never made out of straw. ;)
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 28, 2017, 02:49:11 PM
I'll have you know that my nan was never made out of straw. ;)
gets stuck in your teeth when eaten with the tikka masala ;)
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 04:31:58 PM
ad,

Quote
You seem to be somewhat confused and assuming that rationalism can only be applied in one way, that is, by questioning the very basis of faith rather than a method by which one may also decipher the faith.

Nope.

First, axiomatically rationalism can only be applied in one way – rationally! Either the argument is rationally sound or it isn’t.

Second, you have this odd notion that rationalism concerns itself with faith. It doesn’t. When someone of faith thinks he has a rational argument to validate or demonstrate his faith (ie, he wants to play in rationalism's turf which, as NS tells us, is an odd notion to start with given that rationalism is itself a naturalistic concept, but anyways…) then the tools of rationalism can be brought to bear. So far as I’m aware all such arguments so far have failed, but you never know.

Third, I don’t know what your choice of faith happens to be (though I know it’s not RC) but I was struck by a catholic cleric I saw interviewed before a papal visit a while back in which he positively abjured rationalism – he rejected it as too limited in scope given his apparently superior epistemology of “faith”.

Fourth, how would you propose to use rationalism to “decipher the faith” given that it’s, you know, faith? If that was amenable to rational enquiry, wouldn’t it be logic or science or something?   

Quote
Both are acts of rationalism, even if one takes faith as granted and the other doesn't.

No, neither are. Trying to apply rationalism to matters of faith is like trying to design a building using Morris dancing. They have nothing to say to each other.

Quote
With regards to the Reformers their rationalism was that if something is not directly found in the scriptures then it is not necessary for salvation. That is a rationalism.

No it isn’t because it ignores the problems with the underlying premise. As leprechauns are by common repute musical, is it rational to think they’d take well to piano lessons?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 28, 2017, 04:40:34 PM
Gordon Bennett! Another person who doesn't understand what rationalism is as opposed to reason or being rational. They're all related to some degree, of course, but there are subtle differences.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 04:42:28 PM
ad,

Quote
Gordon Bennett! Another person who doesn't understand what rationalism is as opposed to reason or being rational. They're all related to some degree, of course, but there are subtle differences.

How do you think this helps you? If you want to talk about "capital R" Rationalism, then say so.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 28, 2017, 05:16:24 PM
lad,

It doesn't. Science is indifferent to religious beliefs. What it does do though is to provide more cogent explanations for many phenomena that previously were explained by "god did it".
Bad

Science doesn't do God.
Also not all religion is failed science and let's not forget that even with the most cogent scientific explanation, God could still have done it.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 05:32:36 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Bad

Science doesn't do God.
Also not all religion is failed science and let's not forget that even with the most cogent scientific explanation, God could still have done it.

Anything "could have" done something. Are you attempting a negative proof fallacy here? It's been a while.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 28, 2017, 05:34:21 PM
Vlad,

Anything "could have" done something. Are you attempting a negative proof fallacy here? It's been a while.
I believe you've misunderstood what this fallacy entails, That HASN'T been a while.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 06:07:01 PM
Vlad,

Quote
I believe you've misunderstood what this fallacy entails, That HASN'T been a while.

Then, as ever, you believe wrongly. I'll grant you that the pointlessness of "anything could have done anything" isn't a head on NPF, but it leaves the sentiment hanging in the air. What point did you even think you were making if not for "you can't discount God as a possibility"?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 28, 2017, 06:56:52 PM
Vlad,

Then, as ever, you believe wrongly. I'll grant you that the pointlessness of "anything could have done anything" isn't a head on NPF, but it leaves the sentiment hanging in the air. What point did you even think you were making if not for "you can't discount God as a possibility"?
I'm not talking to you.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 28, 2017, 07:45:42 PM
I don't understand why science should promote atheism when, as we are about to find I think, the British have not been into science for ages, not many have wanted to be scientists and have merely enjoyed it's consumer products as diverting toys from a true and rounded intellectual life......and that includes diversion from an actual understanding of science.

As far as rationalism and the GBP is concerned.......Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha He He He He He Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho.......
It is the culture and philosophy of it that seeps into the everyday world of the people over many generations and then becomes the norm. You know the philosophical materialism you keep going on about. People/our modern culture has replaced the spiritual with the material god.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 28, 2017, 07:55:27 PM
I'm using the term "Iconoclasm" in a much broader sense here but it's essentially the same mentality. The Iconoclasts sought to strip the churches of religious imagery. Protestantism sought to strip the faith to its bare essentials, though quite who gets to decide what is essential and what isn't is another matter, though related of course. It was an application of rationalism which ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not saying that the reformers didn't have any legitimate grievances. At the very least the Pope had become a tyrant. Not only did he claim to have universal jurisdiction over the whole Church but he also claimed to be a secular king. What really happened was everybody ended up being their own pope, their own little tyrant. Indeed, some of the worst acts that happened during the Reformation occurred between rival Protestant sects. They jumped out of the frying pan straight into the fire. All they had to do was look East, but the East had become a mere distant memory in the mind of the West. I think Melanchthon did go and see the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople though, thinking that the Reformer's rejection of the papacy would automatically endear them to the Patriarch, but Melanchthon was promptly told to get on his bike.
But you haven't explain the significance of icons. What is the big deal about having icon and why throwing them out caused problems, in your view? It could have just been a correlation, and that iconic loss had no effect on the situation. To me, as an atheist, they are just picture and statues etc.

Also, though it may be a bit of a large topic, from your post the question arises how is your church run to avoid tyrants and the like? Who leads it and governs it?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 28, 2017, 11:15:53 PM
Vlad,

Quote
I'm not talking to you.

The loss is all mine.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 29, 2017, 02:01:21 AM
But you haven't explain the significance of icons. What is the big deal about having icon and why throwing them out caused problems, in your view? It could have just been a correlation, and that iconic loss had no effect on the situation. To me, as an atheist, they are just picture and statues etc.

Also, though it may be a bit of a large topic, from your post the question arises how is your church run to avoid tyrants and the like? Who leads it and governs it?

The seventh ecumenical council against the Iconoclasts goes into some detail regarding images but in a nutshell, images confirm to us that the Word became flesh and is why the Old Testament prohibition no longer applies. Again, it's a case of lex orandi lex credendi. Also the veneration payed to the icon traverses the image and reaches the one depicted in it. So in otherwords, if we believe that the Word actually became flesh then we should depict him. To us icons are not an optional extra but an integral part of how we pray because prayer reflects belief. In the same way one might say, if you don't celebrate the Ascension (just as an example) don't you believe it?

As for Church governance, then in the East we emphasis episcopal collegiality and here the ecumenical councils reign supreme. Any hierarchy that exists between the bishops of the East is really just an administrative convenience but at the end of the day they're just all bishops. It might make things a bit messy at times, bishops quite often fall out with each other but then that was always the case. What unites them all is their orthodoxy.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 29, 2017, 07:13:47 AM
Vlad,

The loss is all mine.
That people are atheist because of science shows that they have confused science with atheism, confused methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism.
That either is somehow justified because this has increased overtime is the fallacy of modernity and possibly argumentum ad populum.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Gordon on March 29, 2017, 07:35:14 AM
That people are atheist because of science shows that they have confused science with atheism, confused methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism.

Well I don't confuse science and atheism any more than I confuse knitting with ski-jumping and unlike your good self I do understand the difference between methodological and philosophical naturalism. 

Quote
That either is somehow justified because this has increased overtime is the fallacy of modernity and possibly argumentum ad populum.

I suspect your random sentence generator needs new batteries.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 29, 2017, 10:39:18 AM
Vlad,

I thought you weren't talking to me? Oh well.

Quote
That people are atheist because of science...

Oh dear. "People" aren't atheists "because of science". People are atheists because there's no evidence for theism. That theists sometimes try to play on the turf of science (creationism for example) and science falsifies the effort is a secondary matter.

Quote
...shows that they have confused science with atheism, confused methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism.

It shows no such thing because your premise is false, and the only confusion here is your confusion about what methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism actually entail. That you've had these terms explained to you countless times only for the explanations to fall on deaf ears though suggests that you'll never get it.

Quote
That either is somehow justified because this has increased overtime is the fallacy of modernity and possibly argumentum ad populum.

Stop digging!
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on March 29, 2017, 04:33:25 PM
Link here to an interesting article.

The writer says that "progressive Christianity" will lead to the downfall of Christian beliefs.

By the phrase is meant; the diversity of interpretations of beliefs especially as they bend to encompass new historical and scientific findings. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/atheology/2017/03/can-progressive-christianity-save-cure-christianity/?utm_source=[!]%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL%20Nonreligious&utm_content=14395


The idea that "progressive Christianity" will lead to the downfall of Christian beliefs is something that has long been debated among Christians who've actually taken the trouble to read any of the literature. John Shelby Spong, who attempted to synthesise many of these ideas seemed full of enthusiasm for the future of the Christian faith in this regard. The major proponents for this kind of thinking in England were Bish John Robinson, who seemed to retreat a bit to more traditionalist thinking in later life, and Don Cupitt (The Sea of Faith), who moved more and more to an out-and-out atheist position.

However, the writer does seem more than a little bit out of touch with critical thinking, as revealed by the following comments:

Quote
  That Jesus and Paul fit into the category of failed “apocalyptic prophets” in significant ways is more of an unstated premise in academic work than something that’s consciously explored; but that’s beginning to change.

(Well, it's explicit in Schweitzer - and that was quite a while back)

Quote
The truth is that in some ways, we’re still in the historical infancy of critical academic analysis of the Bible, and particularly in our understanding of the theological implications that might emerge from this. In my most recent post, I’ve highlighted some of the unexplored areas here, and what both Christians and non-Christians can do to help break new ground in this regard. For now, though, there are many senses in we simply still don’t know what the implications of critical Biblical interpretation might be.

There may still be much research to be done, but it's been going on for at least a couple of a hundred years  (since scholars were at risk of losing only their jobs, and not their freedom or sometimes their lives, that is). If the end result of this critical enquiry is the loss of traditional faith, tough. That it should result in the extinction of Fundamentalism - I personally can't wait.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on March 29, 2017, 04:39:17 PM
I rather think Jack, that we are at the point where you either believe Jesus death achieved something........or you don't.

We're certainly at the point of needing to decide whether Jesus' life achieved something (with the proviso of deciding which of the several portraits of Jesus in the NT is the most authentic). Cynic sage or Jewish End-time apocalyptic prophet seem to be the most likely to have any historical accuracy. Everything else is what was foisted on him by his adoring followers.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on March 29, 2017, 04:49:10 PM
With regards to the Reformers their rationalism was that if something is not directly found in the scriptures then it is not necessary for salvation. That is a rationalism.

And one which was not particularly rigorous, since they were then faced with deciding what texts were authentic and divinely inspired. Basing their views on a slipshod text produced by Erasmus (which - for English readers became essentially the basis of the KJV) doesn't inspire any confidence in the divine authority of scripture in me.

I suppose the Orthodox and the Catholics have a slightly better argument in this regard, since they appeal to Church tradition and the interpretations of the Fathers to attempt an approach to 'Divine Truth', though that's 'a faith thing' in itself, and one which I haven't been able to swallow.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 29, 2017, 05:30:03 PM
The seventh ecumenical council against the Iconoclasts goes into some detail regarding images but in a nutshell, images confirm to us that the Word became flesh and is why the Old Testament prohibition no longer applies. Again, it's a case of lex orandi lex credendi. Also the veneration payed to the icon traverses the image and reaches the one depicted in it. So in otherwords, if we believe that the Word actually became flesh then we should depict him. To us icons are not an optional extra but an integral part of how we pray because prayer reflects belief. In the same way one might say, if you don't celebrate the Ascension (just as an example) don't you believe it?

As for Church governance, then in the East we emphasis episcopal collegiality and here the ecumenical councils reign supreme. Any hierarchy that exists between the bishops of the East is really just an administrative convenience but at the end of the day they're just all bishops. It might make things a bit messy at times, bishops quite often fall out with each other but then that was always the case. What unites them all is their orthodoxy.
Pictures were for those who could not read. It was a practical policy for the ignorant and has now become something more which it wasn't at the start. It also is something material for the simple who would have found metaphysical ideas too "out there" to hold on to. Probably the lack of items to project onto may have not helped the burgeoning Protestant movement; plus leaders often provide this kind of unconscious projection phenomena, but I very much doubt it caused any real harm as you are claiming.

Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 29, 2017, 05:48:34 PM
We're certainly at the point of needing to decide whether Jesus' life achieved something (with the proviso of deciding which of the several portraits of Jesus in the NT is the most authentic). Cynic sage or Jewish End-time apocalyptic prophet seem to be the most likely to have any historical accuracy. Everything else is what was foisted on him by his adoring followers.
But the accounts of JC are so worldly unreal that in the end it has to be seen as symbolic and collectively psychological.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 29, 2017, 06:09:55 PM
Vlad,

I thought you weren't talking to me? Oh well.

Oh dear. "People" aren't atheists "because of science". People are atheists because there's no evidence for theism. That theists sometimes try to play on the turf of science (creationism for example) and science falsifies the effort is a secondary matter.

It shows no such thing because your premise is false, and the only confusion here is your confusion about what methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism actually entail. That you've had these terms explained to you countless times only for the explanations to fall on deaf ears though suggests that you'll never get it.

Stop digging!
Hillside

I'm afraid when I say there are more atheists now I'm saying it like it is a bad thing.
But it is a bad thing because it is not because of science or rationality. I'm afraid religion is tolerated for it's weddings and punch at Christmas.....just like science is tolerated because of it's goodies. Not many want to be clergy and alas and alack not many want to be scientists.

To portray the increase in atheism as the march of science is pure delusion on your part. A modern myth easily blown. The reasons are simple people aren't religious, just like they are not scientific at heart or ''rational''......... (goodness knows is there not enough evidence for that).........but because they cant be ''arsed'' to be. 
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 29, 2017, 06:16:49 PM
Well I don't confuse science and atheism any more than I confuse knitting with ski-jumping and unlike your good self I do understand the difference between methodological and philosophical naturalism. 

Really? I thought you just sat there going:
FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 29, 2017, 06:27:19 PM
Blue hillside states:

Quote
..."People" aren't atheists "because of science"...

Vlad replies:


Hillside
....To portray the increase in atheism as the march of science is pure delusion on your part. ....

Mmmm
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 29, 2017, 06:28:51 PM
Vlad,

Quote
I'm afraid when I say there are more atheists now I'm saying it like it is a bad thing.

Why? And incidentally in your head is “more atheists” worse than “more people believing in gods in which I don’t believe”?

Quote
But it is a bad thing because it is not because of science or rationality. I'm afraid religion is tolerated for it's weddings and punch at Christmas.....just like science is tolerated because of it's goodies. Not many want to be clergy and alas and alack not many want to be scientists.

I’m aware that fewer want to be clerics (at least in the West) but I don’t know why you think fewer people want to be scientists. Either way though, why do you think fewer clerics to be a bad thing?

Quote
To portray the increase in atheism as the march of science is pure delusion on your part.

No it isn’t, not least because that’s not something I’ve said. Why are you lying again?

Quote
A modern myth easily blown.

It’s a “modern myth” because you’ve invented it. 

Quote
The reasons are simple people aren't religious, just like they are not scientific at heart or ''rational''......... (goodness knows is there not enough evidence for that).........but because they cant be ''arsed'' to be.

What are you even trying to say here?

Oh, and my last Reply (84) that you just ignored put you straight on this stuff already too by the way.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 29, 2017, 06:34:59 PM
NS,

Quote
Blue hillside states:

Quote
..."People" aren't atheists "because of science"...

Vlad replies:

Quote from: Emergence-The musical on Today at 06:09:55 PM
Hillside
....To portray the increase in atheism as the march of science is pure delusion on your part. ....

Mmmm

It's weird innit. Vlad says, "you think black is white, blah blah blah...". I reply with a, "No, I think black is black" and he comes back with, "See, the trouble with you thinking black is white" etc.

Some kind of word blindness maybe? Comprehension problem perhaps? Who can say. 
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on March 29, 2017, 06:46:39 PM
Pictures were for those who could not read. It was a practical policy for the ignorant and has now become something more which it wasn't at the start. It also is something material for the simple who would have found metaphysical ideas too "out there" to hold on to. Probably the lack of items to project onto may have not helped the burgeoning Protestant movement; plus leaders often provide this kind of unconscious projection phenomena, but I very much doubt it caused any real harm as you are claiming.

I think you underestimate the ancients. Faith and prayer is much more than reading, hearing and understanding. It involves all the senses, including sight, smell, taste. Posture also. I always thought that how a church and its liturgy look (that is if they have any liturgy at all) fairly accurately reflects its faith. Bare church, minimalist liturgy, long dull sermons....well, you get the picture.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 29, 2017, 07:02:23 PM
Blue hillside states:

Vlad replies:


Mmmm
Yes if only he had stopped at that without going on to suggest that maybe science did have something to do with it.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 29, 2017, 07:10:06 PM
Yes if only he had stopped at that without going on to suggest that maybe science did have something to do with it.
You mean when he wrote this "That theists sometimes try to play on the turf of science (creationism for example) and science falsifies the effort is a secondary matter."!

Because that doesn't say anything you have stated he said either.

So that's at least three times you have stated bluehillside has said the opposite of what he actually wrote in three posts. It's not exactly a way to have a discussion.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 29, 2017, 07:15:49 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Yes if only he had stopped at that without going on to suggest that maybe science did have something to do with it.

Would it actually kill you just for once just to respond to what I actually say rather than to your straw man version of it?

Just once maybe?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Gordon on March 29, 2017, 07:16:21 PM
Really? I thought you just sat there going:
FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY: FALLACY

Not all the time Vlad: just when I read the contributions of certain posters, such as yourself. Sometimes it is like shooting fallacies in a barrel.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 29, 2017, 07:18:33 PM
You mean when he wrote this "That theists sometimes try to play on the turf of science (creationism for example) and science falsifies the effort is a secondary matter."!

Because that doesn't say anything you have stated he said either.

So that's at least three times you have stated bluehillside has said the opposite of what he actually wrote in three posts. It's not exactly a way to have a discussion.
Jack Knave suggests the rise in atheism as a product of science and rationality and Hillside is there defending him.....Reply No 57.............. Hillside on science on religion.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 29, 2017, 07:37:33 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Jack Knave suggests the rise in atheism as a product of science and rationality and Hillside is there defending him.....Reply No 57.............. Hillside on science on religion.

What I actually said in Reply 57 (a different reply to the one you just mischaracterised by the way) is as follows:

You:

“I don't understand why science should promote atheism...”

Me:

“It doesn't. Science is indifferent to religious beliefs. What it does do though is to provide more cogent explanations for many phenomena that previously were explained by "god did it".”

A tip for you: if you really can’t stop yourself from lying, perhaps you should consider being a bit less obvious about it. Reply 57 merely corrects another of your false charges about what science supposedly does is all. Science does not "promote atheism".
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 29, 2017, 07:38:48 PM
Jack Knave suggests the rise in atheism as a product of science and rationality and Hillside is there defending him.....Reply No 57.............. Hillside on science on religion.
Which is this quote



"It doesn't. Science is indifferent to religious beliefs. What it does do though is to provide more cogent explanations for many phenomena that previously were explained by "god did it"."

Nope again that doesn't say it either. 4 times
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 06:48:55 AM
Which is this quote



"It doesn't. Science is indifferent to religious beliefs. What it does do though is to provide more cogent explanations for many phenomena that previously were explained by "god did it"."

Which suggests support for the idea that science has lead to the demise of religion, a phenomenon which would be an argumentum ad populum and the religion vs science fallacy.

Hillside here has backed the notion that science has smashed religion. I disagree that science has. A misunderstanding of what science is may have notionally contribute in a small part as a justification....but science doesn't.

Thee public have held science and religion in a similar place......best left to those who are interested.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 08:59:32 AM
Which suggests support for the idea that science has lead to the demise of religion, a phenomenon which would be an argumentum ad populum and the religion vs science fallacy.

Hillside here has backed the notion that science has smashed religion. I disagree that science has. A misunderstanding of what science is may have notionally contribute in a small part as a justification....but science doesn't.

Thee public have held science and religion in a similar place......best left to those who are interested.
and again it says nothing of the sort. So that would be 5 misrepresentations in 5 posts.

As to how you misrepresent, and the rest of your post. All the statement from bhs does is note that where in the past there have been claims of supernatural causes for natural effects, that on investigation there gave been natural causes. Note that says nothing about either the demise of religion - one misrepresentation, or even mentions numbers, a further misrepresentation in your incorrect mention of the ad pop.

You also mention a religion vs science fallacy. While it's not a fallacy that I am aware of, I am guessing that you are using it in some sense related to Non Overlapping Magisteria idea touted by Stephen Jay Gould. Now leaving aside my objections to the idea, let's allow you to use it. In which case you be wrong to do so because Gould would point out that the claims of natural effects by religion was it acting outside its 'magisterium'


You then just repeat the misrepresentation of what bhs has said.

Your last sentence is a non sequitur to the specific discussion but your previous comments seems to be a tangent about 'Some people are religious and they don't really think about either their religion or science, and some people are atheists and they think about neither religion or science'. Is this then you trying to say that the misrepresentation you have made from bhs is affected by the numbers who actually care? If so you would appear to be attempting to counter your own strawman of a charge of using the ad pop, with your own ad pop.

Of course, it may not be that, since you write as if half the sentences in your posts are missing. Please make some effort to make them comprehensible, and not a series of misrepresentations with a few sentences that make no sense internally, or in relation to the rest of your post.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 30, 2017, 10:13:02 AM
Vlad,

Quote
Which suggests support for the idea that science has lead to the demise of religion, a phenomenon which would be an argumentum ad populum and the religion vs science fallacy.

Hillside here has backed the notion that science has smashed religion. I disagree that science has. A misunderstanding of what science is may have notionally contribute in a small part as a justification....but science doesn't.

Thee public have held science and religion in a similar place......best left to those who are interested.

NS has already done a more than adequate job of dismantling your post. What I actually did was to point out that science has come up with more cogent explanations for observable phenomena that the superstitious efforts that preceded it. This is as true for thunder and Thor as it is for evolution and creationism. That’s why your charge that “science promotes atheism” (from which you seem to have resiled now by the way to a sort of, “OK then, religion declined because of the findings of science”) is flat wrong. Science “promotes” no such thing, and the least you could do is to stop repeating the lie that I think the opposite of that. 

Oh, and you don’t understand “argumentum ad populum” either. Even if it is the case that there are many atheists who would have been religious but for the advent of scientific explanations, that would say nothing to which position is correct. All it would tell you is that there are more people in one set (atheists) than would otherwise have been in a different set (theists).

It’s just counting. It's also a consequence, not a purpose

As for the stuff about not enough people being interested in either topic, I have no idea what you’re even trying to say here.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 05:22:06 PM
and again it says nothing of the sort. So that would be 5 misrepresentations in 5 posts.

As to how you misrepresent, and the rest of your post. All the statement from bhs does is note that where in the past there have been claims of supernatural causes for natural effects, that on investigation there gave been natural causes. Note that says nothing about either the demise of religion - one misrepresentation, or even mentions numbers, a further misrepresentation in your incorrect mention of the ad pop.

You also mention a religion vs science fallacy. While it's not a fallacy that I am aware of, I am guessing that you are using it in some sense related to Non Overlapping Magisteria idea touted by Stephen Jay Gould. Now leaving aside my objections to the idea, let's allow you to use it. In which case you be wrong to do so because Gould would point out that the claims of natural effects by religion was it acting outside its 'magisterium'


You then just repeat the misrepresentation of what bhs has said.

Your last sentence is a non sequitur to the specific discussion but your previous comments seems to be a tangent about 'Some people are religious and they don't really think about either their religion or science, and some people are atheists and they think about neither religion or science'. Is this then you trying to say that the misrepresentation you have made from bhs is affected by the numbers who actually care? If so you would appear to be attempting to counter your own strawman of a charge of using the ad pop, with your own ad pop.

Of course, it may not be that, since you write as if half the sentences in your posts are missing. Please make some effort to make them comprehensible, and not a series of misrepresentations with a few sentences that make no sense internally, or in relation to the rest of your post.
As maybe as this all maybe, Hillside is effectively saying ''science has nothing to say about religion(he uses the term 'ignores') but.............''. He thus immediately resurrects the idea of science having an affect on religion.
He knows it isn't science which has led to an increase in atheism since there is no methodology which establishes that but still sees some merit in reviving Jack Knaves thesis.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 05:29:25 PM
As maybe as this all maybe ''Hillside is effectively saying science has nothing to say about religion(he uses the term 'ignores') but.............''. He thus immediately resurrects the idea of science having an affect on religion.
He knows it isn't science which has led to an increase in atheism but still sees some merit in Jack Knaves thesis.
there is a difference between saying it has no effect on religion, and that it won't have an impact on religious claims about naturalistic effects. It's not doing it, in relation to religion. Galileo didn't set out to disprove church doctrine, he just did science, and it was then, as with creationism now religion putting itself against that process that causes the issue. Science exactly ignores religion, religion exactly fights pointless battles with an opponent that doesn't know that there is a fight.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 05:42:37 PM
there is a difference between saying it has no effect on religion, and that it won't have an impact on religious claims about naturalistic effects. It's not doing it, in relation to religion. Galileo didn't set out to disprove church doctrine, he just did science, and it was then, as with creationism now religion putting itself against that process that causes the issue. Science I exactly ignores religion, religion exactly fights pointless battles with an opponent that doesn't know that there is a fight.
Unfortunately Hillside mentions what he believes about science and religion in the context of Jack Knave's thesis linking atheism with science. However he cannot make science equal atheism.

In Hillsides reply to my reply to Jack He seems to acknowledge what I am saying. Why he introduces God as big invisible chap I know not since it doesn't change that science does not do god
or ignores God in Hillsidian terms but introduces a bit of innuendo.

Isn't that called muddying the waters?

Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 30, 2017, 05:47:31 PM
Vlad,

Quote
As maybe as this all maybe…

“As maybe all this maybe” is you flat out lying again remember?

Quote
Hillside is effectively saying ''science has nothing to say about religion(he uses the term 'ignores') but.............''.

He thus immediately resurrects the idea of science having an affect on religion.

Say what now? How on earth did you manage to from jump from “science has nothing to say about religion” to “resurrecting the idea of science having an effect on religion”?

Yet again, science is entirely indifferent to the claims of the religious because those claims offer nothing with which the methods and tools of science can engage.

Why is this so difficult for you?

As a secondary matter, when sometimes theists get it into their heads that it’s a good idea to play on science’s turf (creationism for example) then science falsifies their claims.

As a tertiary matter, if that causes some people not to be theists then that’s a consequence but certainly not the purpose of science as you earlier asserted.

Good grief!
 
Quote
He knows it isn't science which has led to an increase in atheism…

“He” knows it because he’s never claimed any such thing. That’s just you lying again remember?

If science has caused fewer people to be theists than would otherwise have been the case, that’s just an unintended consequence of people doing science. 

Quote
… since there is no methodology which establishes that but still sees some merit in reviving Jack Knaves thesis.

Epic fail. Why would there be a methodology to establish something that no-one argues to be the case in the first place?

Oh, and speaking of no methodology…
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 30, 2017, 05:58:06 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Unfortunately Hillside mentions what he believes about science and religion in the context of Jack Knave's thesis linking atheism with science. However he cannot make science equal atheism.

Please stop lying now – it’s just dull.

First, my posts were in reply to mistakes you’d made (about science "promoting" atheism for example), not to JK’s “thesis”.

Second, I’ve said flat out now several times in a row (and consistently in the past) the opposite of saying that science equals atheism.

What goes through your head when you lie like this? That no-one will notice? That lying is fine when it’s done for Jesus? What?

Quote
In Hillsides reply to my reply to Jack He seems to acknowledge what I am saying.

No, “he” falsified it – pretty much the opposite of this claim.   

Quote
Why he introduces God as big invisible chap I know not…

“He” didn’t.

Quote
…since it doesn't change that science does not do god…

You don’t say.

Quote
…or ignores God in Hillsidian terms but introduces a bit of innuendo.

Actually it’s “indifferent to” rather than “ignoring” "God" (which would suggest that there’s something to be ignored), and there is no innuendo. It’s perfectly clear.

Quote
Isn't that called muddying the waters?

No. It’s called Vlad telling more lies.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 06:02:01 PM


If science has caused fewer people to be theists than would otherwise have been the case, that’s just an unintended consequence of people doing science. 


Well I hope Nearly Sane is clocking this.
You seem to be saying that science could cause atheism!!!
Now that we have finally got that straight. What makes you think that science could possibly cause atheism or to put it another way cause fewer people to be theists?

And for the record science cannot cause atheism and have nothing to do with religion.

You cannot seem to help yourself Hillside. You cannot quite break the link between equating science with atheism.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 30, 2017, 06:06:12 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Well I hope Nearly Sane is clocking this.
You seem to be saying that science could cause atheism!!!

Which part of the conditional "if" is confusing you?

Quote
Now that we have finally got that straight...

You haven't.

Quote
What makes you think that science could possibly cause atheism or to put it another way cause fewer people to be theists?

Stop lying.

Quote
And for the record science cannot cause atheism and have nothing to do with religion.

Are you feeling unwell or something?

Quote
You cannot seem to help yourself Hillside. You cannot quite break the link between equating science with atheism.

Your correct reply here should have been: "Dear Hillside. I'm very, very sorry that I keep lying about your posts. I promise not to do it in future".

You're welcome.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 06:08:34 PM
Vlad,

Which part of the conditional "if" is confusing you?

You haven't.

Stop lying.

Are you feeling unwell or something?

Your correct reply here should have been: "Dear Hillside. I'm very, very sorry that I keep lying about your posts. I promise not to do it in future".

You're welcome.
Vlad shoots and scores. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 06:13:20 PM
Well I hope Nearly Sane is clocking this.
You seem to be saying that science could cause atheism!!!
Now that we have finally got that straight. What makes you think that science could possibly cause atheism or to put it another way cause fewer people to be theists?

And for the record science cannot cause atheism and have nothing to do with religion.

You cannot seem to help yourself Hillside. You cannot quite break the link between equating science with atheism.
science can't. Religion can, however, cause fewer people to be religious by making claims that it isn't in the ground of making. If someone reads of Galileo, and thinks mmm if the Pope could get it so wrong because of dogma, maybe this infallibillity stuff is all nonsense. Then it's religion's doing.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 30, 2017, 06:13:43 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Vlad shoots and scores.

Indeed he does, and both barrels too...

...one for each foot.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 30, 2017, 06:15:55 PM
NS,

Quote
science can't. Religion can, however, cause fewer people to be religious by making claims that it isn't in the ground of making. If someone reads of Galileo, and thinks mmm if the Pope could get it so wrong because of dogma, maybe this infallibillity stuff is all nonsense. Then it's religion's doing.

Do you suppose that "Pants in Fire" Vlad genuinely has never come across the phenomenon of the unintended consequence?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 06:28:56 PM
NS,

Do you suppose that "Pants in Fire" Vlad genuinely has never come across the phenomenon of the unintended consequence?
An unintended consequence of methodological materialism is philosophical materialism?  or atheism?
Science has no unintended consequences. What is the matter with you?

Science cannot ''not do God'' and ''do for God'' as well.

I think we'll all have to look for another reason for the reduction in theism.......




Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 06:32:08 PM
science can't.
Got there in the end.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 06:35:37 PM
Got there in the end.
So I take it your are posting this through the Internet Spirit Provider of your choice using an iBible?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 30, 2017, 06:40:20 PM
Vlad,

Quote
An unintended consequence of methodological materialism is philosophical materialism?  or atheism?

As you consistently abuse these terms for your own purposes, why are you attempting to use them here?

Quote
Science has no unintended consequences. What is the matter with you?

How on earth can anyone respond to ignorance as deep as that? Of course science has unintended consequences – Thalidomide? The banning of DDT? The introduction of cane toads to Australia?

Is any of this ringing a bell for you?

Anything?

Quote
Science cannot ''not do God'' and ''do for God'' as well.

Perhaps if you looked up the term “unintended consequences” it would help you make less of an arse of yourself?

Quote
I think we'll all have to look for another reason for the reduction in theism.......

You can if you like as no-one suggested science as the cause in the first place.

Well, no-one except you that is. It was you who claimed that science ”promotes” atheism after all wasn’t it.

Quote
How about Goddodging in the sense of jumping on anything to avoid discussing God....as you seem to jumping on science.

He lied, and “goddodging” is dead in the water because you have to demonstrate first the thing that’s supposedly being dodged.

Apart from that though.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 06:46:16 PM
So I take it your are pisting this through the Internet Spirit Providervof your choice using an iBible?
Smileys with wee halos all round.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 06:50:04 PM
Smileys with wee halos all round.

My ISP crucify me for charges, and when they go down they are always back in 3 days.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 06:52:14 PM
My ISP crucify me for charges, bBut anf when they go down they are always back in 3 days.
You might have a lifetime agreement with yours but mine goes from erection to resurrection.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 06:55:09 PM
You might have a lifetime agreement with yours but mine goes from erection to resurrection.

I used to use an aethernet connection, but I found that it was transubstantially infaerior.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 30, 2017, 08:00:17 PM
I think you underestimate the ancients. Faith and prayer is much more than reading, hearing and understanding. It involves all the senses, including sight, smell, taste. Posture also. I always thought that how a church and its liturgy look (that is if they have any liturgy at all) fairly accurately reflects its faith. Bare church, minimalist liturgy, long dull sermons....well, you get the picture.
So you want a church and a religion with a razzamatazz? Something to keep you entertained. In other words I can't see how a "duller" (in your words) approach could cause such a loss of faith.

What you are really talking about is culture, your culture. Did the early Christians have all this? I think not. So what is your spiritual justification for all this razzamatazz? Or to be specific your particular brand of razzamatazz.

Who are the ancients?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 30, 2017, 08:24:31 PM
As maybe as this all maybe, Hillside is effectively saying ''science has nothing to say about religion(he uses the term 'ignores') but.............''. He thus immediately resurrects the idea of science having an affect on religion.
He knows it isn't science which has led to an increase in atheism since there is no methodology which establishes that but still sees some merit in reviving Jack Knaves thesis.
All it is is a battle of ideas. And as the intellectual capacities of mankind increased; an increase in consciousness, religion had to gradually adjust its perspective as science or the investigations of people debunked the previous explanations of religion that God did this and that. This has been the process for the last 500 odd years or so. This led essentially to Darwin's ideas that dealt a significant blow to the God brigade, and as we know have been fighting back ever since.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 08:27:36 PM
All it is is a battle of ideas. And as the intellectual capacities of mankind increased; an increase in consciousness, religion had to gradually adjust its perspective as science or the investigations of people debunked the previous explanations of religion that God did this and that. This has been the process for the last 500 odd years or so. This led essentially to Darwin's ideas that dealt a significant blow to the God brigade, and as we know have been fighting back ever since.
What is the scientific measure of an 'increase in consciousness'?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 30, 2017, 08:46:26 PM
All it is is a battle of ideas. And as the intellectual capacities of mankind increased; an increase in consciousness, religion had to gradually adjust its perspective as science or the investigations of people debunked the previous explanations of religion that God did this and that. This has been the process for the last 500 odd years or so. This led essentially to Darwin's ideas that dealt a significant blow to the God brigade, and as we know have been fighting back ever since.
well I'm not sure about a battle of ideas, nor that the intellectual capacities of mankind have increased,
I am even less sure about an increase in consciousness. Science may be against Godsliteralrighthandism but American Biochemist, Darwinian and theist Martinez Hewlett has pointed out that fundamentalism of that type is a relatively recent phenomenon.

So I think your version is an urban myth.

Organised religion as Nearly suggests does itself in by siding with oppressive forces and party politics such as the Spanish Falange and in this country the practice of landlords insisting on worker tenants attending church as part of a package of subservience including King country, party and elders and betters. But as we now know church attendance was always a dispensible feature for the powerful who now insist on internet connectivity with and of a worker for every waking moment.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 30, 2017, 08:50:54 PM
What is the scientific measure of an 'increase in consciousness'?
That's the psychological background that enabled man to see the world in a new light.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 30, 2017, 08:58:15 PM
That's the psychological background that enabled man to see the world in a new light.
mi'lord, mi'lord!!! What is it, Knave? I believe, mi'lord that we have discovered the purest  WOO!!!!!
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 31, 2017, 10:09:30 AM
Vlad,

You:

Quote
Science has no unintended consequences. What is the matter with you?

Me:

Quote
How on earth can anyone respond to ignorance as deep as that? Of course science has unintended consequences – Thalidomide? The banning of DDT? The introduction of cane toads to Australia?

Is any of this ringing a bell for you?

Anything?

So how does that work then? You make a bonkers assertion and insult me, I correct you and you just ignore the correction as if nothing had happened. It happens a lot I know (your “philosophy has nothing to do with logic” will live long in the memory for example) but, either way, it seems dishonest to me…

…not that you care about that of course, but even so.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 31, 2017, 04:45:55 PM
mi'lord, mi'lord!!! What is it, Knave? I believe, mi'lord that we have discovered the purest  WOO!!!!!
As you would say that's a tu quoque.

Just because you are too stupid and blind to understand and see these things doesn't make it woo. How would you explain how people think? And how would you explain what they think, its content?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 31, 2017, 05:02:07 PM
well I'm not sure about a battle of ideas, nor that the intellectual capacities of mankind have increased,
I am even less sure about an increase in consciousness. Science may be against Godsliteralrighthandism but American Biochemist, Darwinian and theist Martinez Hewlett has pointed out that fundamentalism of that type is a relatively recent phenomenon.

So I think your version is an urban myth.
The roots of all this stems from around the Greek time 2500 years ago or so. Consciousness etc. doesn't just change and hey presto everything appears. It's a gradual process. The ground work has to be laid which is often than not unconsciously formed. And it is a battle of ideas, what are you doing now but battling with your ideas against others.



Quote
Organised religion as Nearly suggests does itself in by siding with oppressive forces and party politics such as the Spanish Falange and in this country the practice of landlords insisting on worker tenants attending church as part of a package of subservience including King country, party and elders and betters. But as we now know church attendance was always a dispensible feature for the powerful who now insist on internet connectivity with and of a worker for every waking moment.
That doesn't explain why breakouts from the traditional system happen at a given time, and these breakouts can't be just a reforming of the old ideas and customs etc. but new and progressive approaches that move to new "territories" and genres.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 31, 2017, 05:40:01 PM
As you would say that's a tu quoque.

Just because you are too stupid and blind to understand and see these things doesn't make it woo. How would you explain how people think? And how would you explain what they think, its content?
I wouldn't say it is a tu quoque, because it isn't. You could argue it's an ad hominem attack, not fallacy, but I think that it just attacks the deepity that you had attempted.

I don't think we have a full understanding of how and what people think. I definitely wouldn't try and sum it up in a meaningless one line deepity though.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 31, 2017, 06:27:14 PM
I wouldn't say it is a tu quoque, because it isn't. You could argue it's an ad hominem attack, not fallacy, but I think that it just attacks the deepity that you had attempted.
It is a tu quoque but you can't see it because you are working on an assumption to your position that makes you think you understand things but in fact makes your position just as much woo, or not, as mine.


Quote
I don't think we have a full understanding of how and what people think. I definitely wouldn't try and sum it up in a meaningless one line deepity though.
Some of the wises words have be done as one liners!!!

And again, 'meaningless' is your relative judgement, and not a good one.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 31, 2017, 06:32:00 PM
It is a tu quoque but you can't see it because you are working on an assumption to your position that makes you think you understand things but in fact makes your position just as much woo, or not, as mine.

Some of the wises words have be done as one liners!!!

And again, 'meaningless' is your relative judgement, and not a good one.
Just to help you out with your misunderstanding of the tu quoque

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 31, 2017, 06:40:42 PM
Just to help you out with your misunderstanding of the tu quoque

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
No, it's you that don't understand why it applies to your comment and so think it has been misused.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 31, 2017, 06:46:40 PM

How on earth can anyone respond to ignorance as deep as that? Of course science has unintended consequences – Thalidomide? The banning of DDT? The introduction of cane toads to Australia?

What foolishness made you bring this up?
These aren't the consequences of science they are the consequences of the lack of it!!!
This kind of thing happens when we get overconfident that we understand science sufficiently as in the hands of the new atheists who are flattered by acolytes who make parrot noises such as ''our understanding of science means that we can dispense with religion''. Whether wittingly or not, New atheists are in danger of encouraging absolution from actually knowing about science through POP science rather like pre reformation bishops selling indulgences........IMHO.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 31, 2017, 06:50:45 PM
JK,

Quote
And again, 'meaningless' is your relative judgement, and not a good one.

I assume that by “meaningless” NS means “meaningless for other people”. Any notions can be meaningful for those who have them, but that meaning is just subjective until and unless they can build a logical path to “true for you too” objectivity. Now in some cases that’s easy – for gravity for example I can set out various tests that will do the trick – but when people assert “God” etc there are no such logical paths.

That’s why “meaningless” is more than a “relative judgment” here.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 31, 2017, 06:57:11 PM
Vlad,

Quote
What foolishness made you bring this up?
These aren't the consequences of science they are the consequences of the lack of it!!!

Seriously? Seriously seriously though?

So when people did science, implemented their discoveries and then found that entirely unexpected and unintended consequences ensued you think that meant they didn't do science at all? 

I think perhaps you need to take another sabbatical to try to get your thoughts in some kind of order.

Quote
This kind of thing happens when we get overconfident that we understand science sufficiently as in the hands of the new atheists who are flattered by acolytes who make parrot noises such as ''our understanding of science means that we can dispense with religion''

Stop digging. Seriously, for your own sake - stop digging.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on March 31, 2017, 06:58:59 PM
JK,

I assume that by “meaningless” NS means “meaningless for other people”. Any notions can be meaningful for those who have them, but that meaning is just subjective until and unless they can build a logical path to “true for you too” objectivity. Now in some cases that’s easy – for gravity for example I can set out various tests that will do the trick – but when people assert “God” etc there are no such logical paths.

That’s why “meaningless” is more than a “relative judgment” here.
It's not my fault that other people are ignorant.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 31, 2017, 07:01:02 PM


Seriously? Seriously seriously though?

Yes, Yes , Yes Hillside.....Too much confidence in ones own and societies handle on science.

Evidence Thalidomide, The Milgram experiment............ list is endless
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 31, 2017, 07:06:00 PM
JK,

Quote
It's not my fault that other people are ignorant.

What makes you think that you're not the one who's ignorant? If, say, you believe in something you call "God" what tests would you apply to satisfy yourself that you're not mistaken?

Is it also not my fault that you're ignorant of my certain knowledge about leprechauns?

Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 31, 2017, 07:11:15 PM


Is it also not my fault that you're ignorant of my certain knowledge about leprechauns?
Thin at one end, fat in the middle, thin at the other end?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on March 31, 2017, 07:11:38 PM
No, it's you that don't understand why it applies to your comment and so think it has been misused.

Your explanation of why it applied is in conflict with the definition.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on March 31, 2017, 07:14:25 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Yes, Yes , Yes Hillside.....Too much confidence in ones own and societies handle on science.

Evidence Thalidomide, The Milgram experiment............ list is endless

Dear god but you're slippery. Your claim remember was: "Science has no unintended consequences. What is the matter with you?" (Reply 117)

I then suggested to you Thalidomide as precisely an example of science having an unintended consequence. Now you shift ground entirely from, "science has no unintended consequences" to "people sometimes have too much confidence in science" (a completely different issue) and then have the gall to quote back to me the example I used to falsify your previous mistake!

Have you any idea how scummy this makes you look?

Anything?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Bubbles on March 31, 2017, 07:29:48 PM
Jesus appears to have been progressive for his time, he spoke to strange women for a start.
Something men generally didn't do.

He mixed with tax collectors and other riffraff, something else people who aspired isn't his group, at that time didn't do.

Loving your enemy is pretty radical, not many people achieve that one.

Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on March 31, 2017, 08:47:21 PM
Vlad,

Dear god but you're slippery. Your claim remember was: "Science has no unintended consequences. What is the matter with you?" (Reply 117)

I then suggested to you Thalidomide as precisely an example of science having an unintended consequence. Now you shift ground entirely from, "science has no unintended consequences" to "people sometimes have too much confidence in science" (a completely different issue) and then have the gall to quote back to me the example I used to falsify your previous mistake!

Have you any idea how scummy this makes you look?

Anything?
I never talked about "confidence in science" read the posts will you
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on April 01, 2017, 04:20:00 PM
Jesus appears to have been progressive for his time, he spoke to strange women for a start.
Something men generally didn't do.

And suggested that one at least was a variety of dog. Jesus may have been an exceptional chap, but the records (especially Mark's gospel) do not portray him as whiter than white.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: floo on April 01, 2017, 04:30:29 PM
As a human Jesus would have had good points as well as bad.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 01, 2017, 04:43:05 PM
And suggested that one at least was a variety of dog. Jesus may have been an exceptional chap, but the records (especially Mark's gospel) do not portray him as whiter than white.
I think you're spinning it Dicky. I thought he was just talking like a red neck since he then outlined faith as being above parochial prejudices.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on April 01, 2017, 04:45:50 PM
What foolishness made you bring this up?
These aren't the consequences of science they are the consequences of the lack of it!!!
This kind of thing happens when we get overconfident that we understand science sufficiently as in the hands of the new atheists blaa blaa blaa

It's like reading Dave Spart. Do you think Christian (rather than atheist) scientists would automatically have been more cautious in the research and application of Thalidomide in its control of morning sickness during pregnancy? Do you know the faith position of the scientists involved in manufacturing the drug? Or those who were testing a drug for arthritis, in which the volunteers thought their heads were about to explode - among other unfortunate symptoms?
Perhaps we should have exorcists on hand during drug trials to 'beat out the Devil' should experiments take an unforeseen turn.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Dicky Underpants on April 01, 2017, 04:51:59 PM
I think you're spinning it Dicky. I thought he was just talking like a red neck since he then outlined faith as being above parochial prejudices.

One interpretation. But as a firmly believing Jew, who hardened the Law, rather than softening it in some instances, it is quite likely that Jesus  would have had a stiff-necked attitude to those who were not quite of the 'Chosen race'. The text reads perfectly well as though the Syro-Phoenecian woman's intelligent reply had touched a level of compassion in him which his prejudices had blocked up. As a 'cosmic' figure, one would have thought he would have immediately been above prejudices and acted accordingly. The traditional explanation is that he was just 'testing her' - now that's spin.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 01, 2017, 04:57:25 PM
It's like reading Dave Spart. Do you think Christian (rather than atheist) scientists would automatically have been more cautious in the research and application of Thalidomide in its control of morning sickness during pregnancy? Do you know the faith position of the scientists involved in manufacturing the drug? Or those who were testing a drug for arthritis, in which the volunteers thought their heads were about to explode - among other unfortunate symptoms?
Perhaps we should have exorcists on hand during drug trials to 'beat out the Devil' should experiments take an unforeseen turn.
A litany of things I've not argued. I think that's called Straw Man.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on April 01, 2017, 08:27:40 PM
JK,

What makes you think that you're not the one who's ignorant? If, say, you believe in something you call "God" what tests would you apply to satisfy yourself that you're not mistaken?

Is it also not my fault that you're ignorant of my certain knowledge about leprechauns?
Am an atheist, but I could ask you a similar question. What makes you think that you're not the one who's ignorant? And that was the underlining point of my comment some posts back that started this with NS.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on April 01, 2017, 08:30:05 PM
Your explanation of why it applied is in conflict with the definition.
That's not making any sense so you're going to have to elucidate on it.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on April 01, 2017, 08:37:14 PM
Am an atheist, but I could ask you a similar question. What makes you think that you're not the one who's ignorant? And that was the underlining point of my comment some posts back that started this with NS.
which again illustrates that you do not understand the tu quoque fallacy.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: jeremyp on April 02, 2017, 10:51:54 AM
Protestantism is the result of rationalism and Protestantism leads to atheism. The proof is western Europe, its secularism and iconoclasm: its apostasy.
And Western Europe is such a terrible place to live compared to such bastions of religious law law Iran and Saudi Arabia...

... oh wait.

If the end result of protestantism is Western Europe, then protestantism is obviously a Good Thing.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 02, 2017, 11:51:31 AM
JK,

Quote
Am an atheist, but I could ask you a similar question. What makes you think that you're not the one who's ignorant? And that was the underlining point of my comment some posts back that started this with NS.

You're missing it. The point rather was that you (or I or anyone else) cannot assume that others are ignorant of our personal truths when those truths are only personal. One man's "god" and another man's leprechauns are epistemically equivalent for this purpose. My gravity and your gravity on the other hand share the common ground of intersubjective experience - so our opinions on it don't matter - and thus we call gravity objectively true.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 02, 2017, 11:58:35 AM
Vlad,

Quote
I never talked about "confidence in science" read the posts will you

You can split hairs about the difference between “confidence in science” and “confidence in ones own and societies handle on science” (sic) as much as you like, but it’s still a big ol’ distraction tactic to get you out from behind your ludicrous claim that “"Science has no unintended consequences.”

Looks like another one of your mistakes we need to file along with “philosophy isn’t about logic”, “science promotes atheism” etc that you later pretend haven’t been falsified at all.

I think we’re gonna need a bigger filing cabinet pretty soon…
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on April 02, 2017, 12:21:07 PM
And Western Europe is such a terrible place to live compared to such bastions of religious law law Iran and Saudi Arabia...

... oh wait.

If the end result of protestantism is Western Europe, then protestantism is obviously a Good Thing.

Is a country which follows a false prophet the best you can come up with? ::)
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 02, 2017, 12:26:16 PM
ad,

Quote
Is a country which follows a false prophet the best you can come up with? ::)

What would a non-false prophet be, and how would you know?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on April 02, 2017, 12:26:56 PM
Is a country which follows a false prophet the best you can come up with? ::)
Which country would you hold up as a good example of your non rationalist beliefs?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Stranger on April 02, 2017, 12:29:06 PM
Is a country which follows a false prophet the best you can come up with? ::)

How do you tell a false prophet from a real one?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: floo on April 02, 2017, 02:46:06 PM
Is a country which follows a false prophet the best you can come up with? ::)

Is there such a thing as a true prophet?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: jeremyp on April 02, 2017, 02:57:46 PM
Is a country which follows a false prophet the best you can come up with? ::)
I was trying to think of any countries that are run according to religious principles. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, in fact) all the Christian theocracies realised that running a country on religious principles is a terrible idea at around the time of the Enlightenment so there aren't any left.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: SwordOfTheSpirit on April 02, 2017, 04:50:30 PM
Is there such a thing as a true prophet?
Yes. Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and of course Jesus Christ.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 02, 2017, 04:51:36 PM
Sword,

Quote
Yes. Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and of course Jesus Christ.

What in your opinion makes any of them "true"?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 02, 2017, 11:03:11 PM
Vlad,

You can split hairs about the difference between “confidence in science” and “confidence in ones own and societies handle on science” (sic) as much as you like, but it’s still a big ol’ distraction tactic to get you out from behind your ludicrous claim that “"Science has no unintended consequences.”

Looks like another one of your mistakes we need to file along with “philosophy isn’t about logic”, “science promotes atheism” etc that you later pretend haven’t been falsified at all.

I think we’re gonna need a bigger filing cabinet pretty soon…
Hillside.

Science doesn't promote atheism. I don't believe I've ever argued that.
Philosophy is not science. I don't believe I have linked philosophy with logic. Surely logic in philosophy proceeds from it's premises. It's then up to people like Gordon to spot where the fallacy lies, see my quote form the Blessed Bertrand below. Could you cite the particular post you are basing your take on my attitude from?

Also I think you have Category F'd, Science and the historic application of science.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on April 02, 2017, 11:21:02 PM
JK,

You're missing it. The point rather was that you (or I or anyone else) cannot assume that others are ignorant of our personal truths when those truths are only personal. One man's "god" and another man's leprechauns are epistemically equivalent for this purpose. My gravity and your gravity on the other hand share the common ground of intersubjective experience - so our opinions on it don't matter - and thus we call gravity objectively true.
If they don't understand what I'm talking about then they are. If someone doesn't understand the basics of life and what it means to be human then they can be seen as being ignorant or naïve or something.

You're 'gravity' is worthless as it says nothing about what it means to be human.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Jack Knave on April 02, 2017, 11:41:27 PM
I wouldn't say it is a tu quoque, because it isn't. You could argue it's an ad hominem attack, not fallacy, but I think that it just attacks the deepity that you had attempted.

I don't think we have a full understanding of how and what people think. I definitely wouldn't try and sum it up in a meaningless one line deepity though.
Now that I know what you are saying then yes I would agree that minions like yourself shouldn't try it and that it should be left with the mighty and gods of this world to do it, as I successfully did.  ;D
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: floo on April 03, 2017, 08:32:40 AM
Now that I know what you are saying then yes I would agree that minions like yourself shouldn't try it and that it should be left with the mighty and gods of this world to do it, as I successfully did.  ;D

Oh dear, that post of JK's says it all about his mindset. ::)
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 03, 2017, 10:46:36 AM
Vlad,

Quote
Science doesn't promote atheism. I don't believe I've ever argued that.

Your Reply 55:

Quote
I don't understand why science should promote atheism…

Which of these positions do you finally want to opt for?

Quote
Philosophy is not science. I don't believe I have linked philosophy with logic.

You said something like, “philosophy isn’t about logic”. Philosophy is precisely about logic – would would "illogical philosophy" even mean?

Quote
Surely logic in philosophy proceeds from it's premises. It's then up to people like Gordon to spot where the fallacy lies, see my quote form the Blessed Bertrand below. Could you cite the particular post you are basing your take on my attitude from?

The one when you said philosophy isn’t about logic? Probably if I could be bothered to look for it – it was a reply you made to Wigginhall I think.

Can you really not see though that “proceeding from its premises” is itself an approach in logic?

Quote
Also I think you have Category F'd, Science and the historic application of science.

Presumably you’ll be along soon to demonstrate this claim?

Incidentally, when looking for references for your various errors I typed “Emergence the musical” and “science” and came across a site called “Fundies say the Darndest Things” – essentially a compendium of daftnesses posted by the logically challenged – and guess what? Yup, it contains a whole stack of your quotes from this mb!

The good news? You’re famous!

The bad news? Erm, not in a good way…
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: ad_orientem on April 03, 2017, 10:56:53 AM
I was trying to think of any countries that are run according to religious principles. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, in fact) all the Christian theocracies realised that running a country on religious principles is a terrible idea at around the time of the Enlightenment so there aren't any left.

No, there aren't any. However, if we look to the past then definitely Byzantium.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 03, 2017, 10:58:20 AM
JK,

Quote
If they don't understand what I'm talking about then they are. If someone doesn't understand the basics of life and what it means to be human then they can be seen as being ignorant or naïve or something.

You're 'gravity' is worthless as it says nothing about what it means to be human.

You’re missing it still. People can “understand what you’re talking about” and still think you’re wrong. The point was that assertion gives you subjective truth, but nothing more; you need logic (or another method better than guessing) if you want to build a bridge from there to objective truth.

“What it means to be human” may well be something on which you have an opinion, but the point of the analogy with gravity is that you need something more than an opinion if you expect it to be taken seriously by other people.   
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 03, 2017, 11:29:54 AM
Vlad,

Your Reply 55:

Which of these positions do you finally want to opt for?

You said something like, “philosophy isn’t about logic”. Philosophy is precisely about logic – would would "illogical philosophy" even mean?

The one when you said philosophy isn’t about logic? Probably if I could be bothered to look for it – it was a reply you made to Wigginhall I think.

Can you really not see though that “proceeding from its premises” is itself an approach in logic?

Presumably you’ll be along soon to demonstrate this claim?

Incidentally, when looking for references for your various errors I typed “Emergence the musical” and “science” and came across a site called “Fundies say the Darndest Things” – essentially a compendium of daftnesses posted by the logically challenged – and guess what? Yup, it contains a whole stack of your quotes from this mb!

The good news? You’re famous!

The bad news? Erm, not in a good way…
Nope I was challenging Jack on his point that science promotes atheism.
Then you pitched in with agreement and then qualification of that agreement, a qualification I must say you have continued to reinforce.

Both Jack's suggestion that there is less theism because there is more science and your qualification of your agreement with me are incorrect IMHO.

Increase in atheism or the reduction in theism are not a happy (nor unhappy) consequence of science... and therefore can be neither intentional nor unintended..........

You either come out and agree with Jack's original suggestion or me...

....Which I think puts you between a rock and a hard place.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 03, 2017, 11:46:09 AM


Incidentally, when looking for references for your various errors I typed “Emergence the musical” and “science” and came across a site called “Fundies say the Darndest Things” – essentially a compendium of daftnesses posted by the logically challenged – and guess what? Yup, it contains a whole stack of your quotes from this mb!

The good news? You’re famous!

The bad news? Erm, not in a good way…
Argumentum ad populum.
Well I'm not famous....Emergence the musical is.
Thanks for bringing this up and I knew about it anyway.
I was surprised though at who was behind it.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 03, 2017, 11:48:59 AM
Vlad,

Quote
Nope I was challenging Jack on his point that science promotes atheism.

Nope. You said it, and were called out on it. Stop lying.

Quote
Then you pitched in with agreement….

Agreement with what? That science promotes atheism? Nope – I said the opposite of that – very, very clearly. Stop lying.

Quote
…and then qualification of that agreement, a qualification I must say you have continued to reinforce.

You can’t “qualify” something you didn’t say in the first place. Stop lying.

Quote
Both Jack's suggestion that there is less theism because there is more science and your qualification of your agreement with me are incorrect IMHO.

That’s wasn’t my “qualification”. I merely said that, when science provides answers that previously were provided by superstitious alternatives (Thor and thunder for example) then a plank that supports the superstitious belief is removed. It’s hardly a stretch therefore to suggest that the incidence of those kind of beliefs has declined as a result.

That though just means that there have been unintended effects incidental to the practice of science, not that it was the goal of “antitheistic scientists” as your bonkers paranoia has it.

Quote
Increase in atheism or the reduction in theism are not a happy (nor unhappy) consequence of science... and therefore can be neither intentional nor unintended..........

Another non sequitur. Do you think that more people believed in Thor or in a flat earth before or after the real answers were discovered?  That’s the unintended consequence bit – science didn’t set out to discredit Thor-ism or flat-earthism; it just set out to find out how things really were. 

Quote
You either come out and agree with Jack's original suggestion or me...

....Which I think puts you between a rock and a hard place.

It does no such thing because your position is fundamentally dishonest.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 03, 2017, 11:52:16 AM
Vlad,

Quote
Argumentum ad populum.

Perhaps if you bothered looking up what argumentum ad populum means you wouldn't make this mistake again? I wasn't making an argument at all; I was just noting that you're a hit on a site that complies fruit loop religious postings.

Quote
Well I'm not famous....Emergence the musical is.

Infamous is a better fit I think.

Quote
Thanks for bringing this up and I knew about it anyway.

I was surprised though at who was behind it.

I have no idea who is "behind it".
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on April 03, 2017, 11:53:55 AM
Argumentum ad populum.
Well I'm not famous....Emergence the musical is.
Thanks for bringing this up and I knew about it anyway.
I was surprised though at who was behind it.

Just in case anyone is wondering you mean me. FSTDT is a site I've been submitting to since BBC board days. Not sure why you might find it a surprise.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 03, 2017, 12:00:00 PM
Just in case anyone is wondering you mean me. FSTDT is a site I've been submitting to since BBC board days. Not sure why you might find it a surprise.
Why have you put our posts on that site?

 
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on April 03, 2017, 12:03:04 PM
Why have you put our posts on that site?
as I said I've been submitting posts since the BBC days for things I thought fitted there.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on April 03, 2017, 12:05:22 PM
Vlad,

Quote
Why have you put our posts on that site?

Did you mean "our" or "my"?
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Nearly Sane on April 03, 2017, 12:06:35 PM
Vlad,

Perhaps if you bothered looking up what argumentum ad populum means you wouldn't make this mistake again? I wasn't making an argument at all; I was just noting that you're a hit on a site that complies fruit loop religious postings.

Infamous is a better fit I think.

I have no idea who is "behind it".

As confirmed to Vlad, it is I that have submitted stuff. Note it isn't exclusively religious quotes by any means on the site.
Title: Re: Progressive Christianity
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on April 03, 2017, 06:48:51 PM
As confirmed to Vlad, it is I that have submitted stuff. Note it isn't exclusively religious quotes by any means on the site.
Apparently Lord Lucan was on FSTDT for several years and that enabled him to avoid detection.