Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Theism and Atheism => Topic started by: Sriram on December 14, 2022, 06:31:20 AM
-
Hi everyone,
Religions have been receiving lot of flak from all sides.....but in reality they have been a huge success. They have succeeded in uniting the world and in providing a common goal.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/religions-have-suceeded/
Just some thoughts.
Cheers
Sriram
-
Just no - for millenia they have been a prime cause of conflicts, the suppression of women, outright prejudice and the maintenance of ignorance through undue social and political influence.
Thankfully, where I am, as confirmined by surveys, religion is in decline - but elsewhere, such as what the Taliban are up to in Afghanisatan right now as regards the education and employments of girls and women, some forms of religion clearly remain a scourge.
-
Just no - for millenia they have been a prime cause of conflicts, the suppression of women, outright prejudice and the maintenance of ignorance through undue social and political influence.
Thankfully, where I am, as confirmined by surveys, religion is in decline - but elsewhere, such as what the Taliban are up to in Afghanisatan right now as regards the education and employments of girls and women, some forms of religion clearly remain a scourge.
The UK is an example of an increasingly secular society which has many indicators that life is getting worse.
Campaigning atheists e.g. those who post here have been observed to equate bad with religion. Celebrity atheists such as Pinker have equated the enlightenment with progress and commerce which has caused global warming and species extinction.
-
I know you are a fan of reincarnation but...
https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=15021.msg711755#msg711755
https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=11174.msg569339#msg569339
-
The UK is an example of an increasingly secular society which has many indicators that life is getting worse.
Like what? Life expectancy, infant mortality, educational outcomes, access to communication and travel, moves towards more social equity? It's not finished, obviously, but the trend is towards improvement.
Celebrity atheists such as Pinker have equated the enlightenment with progress and commerce which has caused global warming and species extinction.
Human expansion has been causing extinctions since long before the Enlightenment, although it has been accelerating, and climate change is a new concern. Those are pressing concerns, but they are the result of previous successes in food production, economic development, improved medical outcomes and a reduction in violent conflicts which has seen significantly more people surviving to adulthood and old age than was previously the case.
You can, rightly, see climate change as a worrying development, but to cite it out of context with the marvels that have led to it is just cherry-picking.
O.
-
Sriram,
They have succeeded in uniting the world and in providing a common goal.
You're joking right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war
-
Hi everyone,
Religions have been receiving lot of flak from all sides.....but in reality they have been a huge success. They have succeeded in uniting the world and in providing a common goal.
this is a joke right?
-
Read the article patiently without knee jerk reactions and you'll understand my point of view. :)
Thanks NS for digging up the posts that I had forgotten.
-
Sriram,
Read the article patiently without knee jerk reactions and you'll understand my point of view. :)
Thanks NS for digging up the posts that I had forgotten.
The "article" appears to be a series of poorly reasoned declarations (did you fall asleep leaning on the exclamation mark key?). Religions have caused and continue to cause many wars, invasions and sundry miseries. Their effect has been largely to divide, not to unite. Look at the link I gave you.
How anyone would calculate the net good vs the net harm religions have done is anyone's guess, but to deny that huge harm had been done in their name would be dishonest to put it mildly.
-
Sriram,
The "article" appears to be a series of poorly reasoned declarations (did you fall asleep leaning on the exclamation mark key?). Religions have caused and continue to cause many wars, invasions and sundry miseries. Their effect has been largely to divide, not to unite. Look at the link I gave you.
Absolutely - religion has been a major, perhaps the major, source of conflict over the centuries. And it continues to be a key factor in many conflicts across the globe.
But if we become a little more local - I fail to see much 'uniting' rather than 'dividing' amongst adherents of the most widely followed religion in the UK, namely christianity. So in my local area, presuming it is fairly typical, perhaps 5% of local people might be active christians who attend worship. Are these people all united - not a bit of it. Within easy walking distance of my house I can think of at least eight separate christian denominations, each of which will consider their interpretation of dogma and practice to be correct and the other seven to be faulty in some respect. So much for unity.
And even amongst one denomination - CofE, there isn't much evidence of unity. There are nine CofE churches within about a 30 minute walk from me - I know plenty of people who are CofE worshippers. Do they go to the most conveniently located church? Not a bit of it, nope they attend the church that most closely aligns with their narrower interpretation still. So the evangelicals ignore perhaps three nearer churches to attend the most evangelical. The high-church cathedral types won't worship in more lowly churches, only the Abbey and so on.
And, of course each denominations wants its own schools to divide even further.
-
If for example, Christianity had not developed, what would the 2 billion people across the globe be today?
-
If for example, Christianity had not developed, what would the 2 billion people across the globe be today?
That is, and very obviously, unknowable.
-
If for example, Christianity had not developed, what would the 2 billion people across the globe be today?
No one is denying that numerically christianity has been successful. But so what, that doesn't mean it is a force for good or successful in other ways. And in terms of unity christianity has been far from a unifying force over many centuries as the huge numbers who have died in sectarian conflicts can attest (well of course they can't as they died for being the 'wrong type of christian').
-
If for example, Christianity had not developed, what would the 2 billion people across the globe be today?
Given that the prevalence of Christianity contributed to the rise of Islam, and we therefore might well not have that creed either, I'd wager on average that people would be less homophobic, less misogynist, and with fewer hang ups about sex in general. Just a first impression.
O.
-
Given that the prevalence of Christianity contributed to the rise of Islam, and we therefore might well not have that creed either, I'd wager on average that people would be less homophobic, less misogynist, and with fewer hang ups about sex in general. Just a first impression.
O.
Given you are an atheist though, then just as I do, you have to assume that religions are man made. So whatever homophobia etc arises from us and is only manifested in religion. So I don't see that any wager there makes sense.
-
Like what? Life expectancy, infant mortality, educational outcomes, access to communication and travel, moves towards more social equity? It's not finished, obviously, but the trend is towards improvement.
slowing down and going the other way apparently. Only you could suggest that global warming and species extinction was due to unrealised progress rather than a by product of “Progress”.
-
Given you are an atheist though, then just as I do, you have to assume that religions are man made. So whatever homophobia etc arises from us and is only manifested in religion. So I don't see that any wager there makes sense.
Having two global organisations that actively foster these behaviours can be presumed to increase the likelihood of any given individual expressing them, though, right?
O.
-
Given you are an atheist though, then just as I do, you have tl assume that religions are man made. So whatever homophobia etc arises from us and is only manifested in religion. So I don't see that any wager there makes sense.
Sure, as an atheist, I think that religions are man made.
But they are incredibly powerful social constructs and have some features about them that make them distinct from many other societal constructs. They have developed methods to promulgate a social norm generation to generation, but that doesn't make them distinct. What makes them distinct is the claim to be divinely inspired and therefore sit outside the normal societal expectations and customs. In effect that they are divinely 'correct'. That make it much harder to challenge when the normal riposte of 'well that's just your view, you are only human' is countered with 'ah, but it isn't, it is god's view'.
So it is the combination of the ability to promulgate, for example homophobia, coupled with the claim that this isn't a human view but god's view which is particularly toxic.
-
slowing down and going the other way apparently. Only you could suggest that global warming and species extinction was due to unrealised progress rather than a by product of “Progress”.
I didn't say it was a product of unrealised progress, I said it was a byproduct of actual advances that have been made.
As to the idea that progress is slowing down, perhaps it is, perhaps we're fighting off a resurgence from the last dying thrashings of outdated philosophies?
O.
-
Having two global organisations that actively foster these behaviours can be presumed to increase the likelihood of any given individual expressing them, though, right?
O.
I would suggest that the modern attitude is live and let live.
As we have learned from Covid and the forgiveness of the Tories, the flip side of that is Live and let die.
-
Only you could suggest that global warming and species extinction was due to unrealised progress rather than a by product of “Progress”.
Which major religions have been pretty well absent in leadership terms in trying to prevent. Indeed in many cases actively supporting parents having more children to drive human population growth which is probably the most damaging thing you can possibly do to the planet.
-
As we have learned from Covid and the forgiveness of the Tories, the flip side of that is Live and let die.
Ah, and there we have it Vlad - the reality is that the current downward trajectory of the UK is largely politically driven and nothing to do with decreasing religiosity. Except for the (inconvenient for you Vlad) fact that there is a clear correlation between being religious, and in particular christian, and likelihood to vote Tory (and indeed to support brexit). So were it not for the religious in the UK then we'd likely have neither 12 years of Tory government nor brexit.
-
Sure, as an atheist, I think that religions are man made.
But they are incredibly powerful social constructs and have some features about them that make them distinct from many other societal constructs. They have developed methods to promulgate a social norm generation to generation, but that doesn't make them distinct. What makes them distinct is the claim to be divinely inspired and therefore sit outside the normal societal expectations and customs. In effect that they are divinely 'correct'. That make it much harder to challenge when the normal riposte of 'well that's just your view, you are only human' is countered with 'ah, but it isn't, it is god's view'.
So it is the combination of the ability to promulgate, for example homophobia, coupled with the claim that this isn't a human view but god's view which is particularly toxic.
Religions haven't done anything. People created all of them. It makes no difference what they claim. The homophobia etc come from the people.
-
Sure, as an atheist, I think that religions are man made.
But they are incredibly powerful social constructs and have some features about them that make them distinct from many other societal constructs. They have developed methods to promulgate a social norm generation to generation, but that doesn't make them distinct. What makes them distinct is the claim to be divinely inspired and therefore sit outside the normal societal expectations and customs. In effect that they are divinely 'correct'. That make it much harder to challenge when the normal riposte of 'well that's just your view, you are only human' is countered with 'ah, but it isn't, it is god's view'.
So it is the combination of the ability to promulgate, for example homophobia, coupled with the claim that this isn't a human view but god's view which is particularly toxic.
Being a middle class academic, working class, secular homophobia is probably unknown to you.
-
Being a middle class academic, working class, secular homophobia is probably unknown to you.
Where have I ever said that. But this largely comes from very long-range societal norms, which in the UK are underpinned by our christian religious heritage.
Do you really think that were we to have had a dominant religion for the past 1000 years that was completely relaxed about homosexuality that we'd retain embedded and endemic homophobia, regardless of whether that is from people that are, as you claim working class!
-
Ah, and there we have it Vlad - the reality is that the current downward trajectory of the UK is largely politically driven and nothing to do with decreasing religiosity. Except for the (inconvenient for you Vlad) fact that there is a clear correlation between being religious, and in particular christian, and likelihood to vote Tory (and indeed to support brexit). So were it not for the religious in the UK then we'd likely have neither 12 years of Tory government nor brexit.
No, Christians are a minority, read your census. You yourself have said that eliminating nominal Christians only a few percent take it seriously. You cannot have it both ways.
-
Being a middle class academic, working class, secular homophobia is probably unknown to you.
How terribly patronising. Nope Vlad, homophobia exists in all areas of our society, although perhaps more in some than others. Why - because we have long range embedded societal homophobia ... and why might that be Vlad?
-
How terribly patronising. Nope Vlad, homophobia exists in all areas of our society, although perhaps more in some than others. Why - because we have long range embedded societal homophobia ... and why might that be Vlad?
That will be because society was made up of people who were homophobic.
-
No, Christians are a minority, read your census. You yourself have said that eliminating nominal Christians only a few percent take it seriously. You cannot have it both ways.
You do the maths Vlad.
Does it require a majority of voters to shift a 52:48 vote for brexit on a 72% turnout? Nope all that would have been required would have been for less than 1% of the population to have voted the other way.
-
That will be because society was made up of people who were homophobic.
Err and what would have made them homophobic - I doubt they'd have been born that way - is there a homophobia gene NS? They would have learnt to be homophobic by being brought up within a societal culture that was, itself, homophobic.
-
Err and what would have made them homophobic - I doubt they'd have been born that way - is there a homophobia gene NS? They would have learnt to be homophobic by being brought up within a societal culture that was, itself, homophobic.
They may well have learned their homophobia but that would be from other people. Society isn't a thing outside of people. It is created by people.
-
How terribly patronising. Nope Vlad, homophobia exists in all areas of our society, although perhaps more in some than others. Why - because we have long range embedded societal homophobia ... and why might that be Vlad?
I know of people who would cheerfully shoe a ‘Bible Basher’ and Round it off with a homosexual.
-
I know of people who would cheerfully shoe a ‘Bible Basher’ and Round it off with a homosexual.
I could never eat a whole one.
-
I know of people who would cheerfully shoe a ‘Bible Basher’ and Round it off with a homosexual.
And where might they have got that attitude from Vlad? Do they have a particular 'bash a bible-basher and a homosexual' gene Vlad. Or is it perhaps because the society in which they were brought up implicitly condones this type of prejudice because it has been embedded for centuries.
-
And where might they have got that attitude from Vlad? Do they have a particular 'bash a bible-basher and a homosexual' gene Vlad. Or is it perhaps because the society in which they were brought up implicitly condones this type of prejudice because it has been embedded for centuries.
All behaviour is in the end genetic, not all behaviour is a gene.
-
Religions like Hinduism and Buddhism have no specific scriptural issues regarding homosexuals. So...it is wrong to talk of religions in general as regards homophobia.
-
All behaviour is in the end genetic, not all behaviour is a gene.
Really - that would be news to those who are experts in such matters.
It is beyond doubt that environment plays a hugely important role, alongside genetics in determining behaviour.
-
You do the maths Vlad.
Does it require a majority of voters to shift a 52:48 vote for brexit on a 72% turnout? Nope all that would have been required would have been for less than 1% of the population to have voted the other way.
As far as I can make out the GBP have returned 2 conservative governments since Brexit.
-
Really - that would be news to those who are experts in such matters.
It is beyond doubt that environment plays a hugely important role, alongside genetics in determining behaviour.
That's why I used the term 'in the end'. And I note you ignored the point that asking was there a gene for a specific behaviour was vacuously stupid.
-
Prof,
Absolutely - religion has been a major, perhaps the major, source of conflict over the centuries. And it continues to be a key factor in many conflicts across the globe.
But if we become a little more local - I fail to see much 'uniting' rather than 'dividing' amongst adherents of the most widely followed religion in the UK, namely christianity. So in my local area, presuming it is fairly typical, perhaps 5% of local people might be active christians who attend worship. Are these people all united - not a bit of it. Within easy walking distance of my house I can think of at least eight separate christian denominations, each of which will consider their interpretation of dogma and practice to be correct and the other seven to be faulty in some respect. So much for unity.
And even amongst one denomination - CofE, there isn't much evidence of unity. There are nine CofE churches within about a 30 minute walk from me - I know plenty of people who are CofE worshippers. Do they go to the most conveniently located church? Not a bit of it, nope they attend the church that most closely aligns with their narrower interpretation still. So the evangelicals ignore perhaps three nearer churches to attend the most evangelical. The high-church cathedral types won't worship in more lowly churches, only the Abbey and so on.
And, of course each denominations wants its own schools to divide even further.
I still think the old Emo Philips joke put this best:
“Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too!
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.”
-
Religions like Hinduism and Buddhism have no specific scriptural issues regarding homosexuals. So...it is wrong to talk of religions in general as regards homophobia.
For once we are going to agree, religions come in many forms. Many don't have central god given positions, some forms of Buddhism are effectively atheist. Many non religious ideologies come with effective central authorities - ser Mao and Stalin.
-
Prof,
I still think the old Emo Philips joke put this best:
“Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too!
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.”
It's one of my favourite jokes BUT could be rephrased as political ideology splits.
-
Prof,
I still think the old Emo Philips joke put this best:
“Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too!
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.”
Apparently Emo Phillips couldn’t Perform once because he felt a little bit funny. His manager told him to get on stage quickly before it wore off.
-
As far as I can make out the GBP have returned 2 conservative governments since Brexit.
First past the post makes this a specious argument in terms of majorities of people.
-
That's why I used the term 'in the end'.
What do you mean by 'in the end'.
I think this is about individuals and the impact that the societal culture they were brought up in has. Unless you can convince me that were you to take an individual with a particular genetic (actually genomic) make up and place them into a different society for their upbringing that they would develop the exactly the same behavioural patterns then you cannot claim that this is entirely genetic, whatever 'in the end' means.
-
I would suggest that the modern attitude is live and let live.
Thank you, genuinely. Unfortunately, a not insignificant number of your fellow believers are not so accommodating.
As we have learned from Covid and the forgiveness of the Tories, the flip side of that is Live and let die.
Whilst we might arrive there from differing starting points, I suspect our mutual distaste for Tory policy and historical achievements is common ground.
O.
-
NS,
Given you are an atheist though, then just as I do, you have to assume that religions are man made. So whatever homophobia etc arises from us and is only manifested in religion. So I don't see that any wager there makes sense.
You’ve argued for this before, but I’m not sure it’s right. Yes of course religions are man-made (though often a proponent of any one such will claim that only all the others are man-made, whereas his is the word of the one true god) so at some point(s) people codified them. Ethical codes though became embedded as dogma, typically reified as facts and often taught that way to children in particular. Would the product of a hard line fundie school for example have turned out to be a homophobe in any case, or does the dogma stand in its own right as a cause notwithstanding its authorship maybe millennia before?
I think it’s the latter – the bad stuff manifested in religions may well have arisen originally from the authors, but religions are also take on a life in their own right so I’m not so sure the homophobia “arises from us” as such.
-
What do you mean by 'in the end'.
I think this is about individuals and the impact that the societal culture they were brought up in has. Unless you can convince me that were you to take an individual with a particular genetic (actually genomic) make up and place them into a different society for their upbringing that they would develop the exactly the same behavioural patterns then you cannot claim that this is entirely genetic, whatever 'in the end' means.
So you're just going to ignore why you question about a specific gene was vacuous. Ok, I can understand that. If I had said something that stupid, I might well try and ignore it being pointed out.
The reason why I used the term 'in the end' is that while behaviour is about the interection of the individual and the environment, if you remove the individual there is no behaviour.
Oh and I see you still haven't dealt with the issue that homophobia must come from people as society, like Soylent Green, is people.
-
NS,
It's one of my favourite jokes BUT could be rephrased as political ideology splits.
Yes of course, but that "BUT" implies a tu quoque, whereas an "AND" instead would not.
-
NS,
You’ve argued for this before, but I’m not sure it’s right. Yes of course religions are man-made (though often a proponent of any one such will claim that only all the others are man-made, whereas his is the word of the one true god) so at some point(s) people codified them. Ethical codes though became embedded as dogma, typically reified as facts and often taught that way to children in particular. Would the product of a hard line fundie school for example have turned out to be a homophobe in any case, or does the dogma stand in its own right as a cause notwithstanding its authorship maybe millennia before?
I think it’s the latter – the bad stuff manifested in religions may well have arisen originally from the authors, but religions are also take on a life in their own right so I’m not so sure the homophobia “arises from us” as such.
'Religions take on a life of their own' eh? What do you think that means? What sort of 'life'? And presumably as so often covered about the vacuous Weinberg quote, yoo mean ideologies?
Leaving aside that if the homophobia does not arise from people, how could it arise?
-
So you're just going to ignore why you question about a specific gene was vacuous.
Actually I don't think it was vacuous as people often talk of a 'gay' gene or a 'religious' gene etc - meaning a genetic trait which determines or predisposes people towards a particular phenotype. In some cases, of course, this may be just that - a single gene. But in other cases it may be a cluster of genes that work together in that manner.
But my point was that Vlad (and seemingly you perhaps too) seem to be implying that genetics (or actually genomics) rather than society is determinative in behavioural terms. In which case it is perfectly reasonable to ask what genetic (or genomic) fingerprint determines that behavioural trait.
-
NS,
Yes of course, but that "BUT" implies a tu quoque, whereas an "AND" instead would not.
Don't see the point you are making.
-
Actually I don't think it was vacuous as people often talk of a 'gay' gene or a 'religious' gene etc - meaning a genetic trait which determines or predisposes people towards a particular phenotype. In some cases, of course, this may be just that - a single gene. But in other cases it may be a cluster of genes that work together in that manner.
But my point was that Vlad (and seemingly you perhaps too) seem to be implying that genetics (or actually genomics) rather than society is determinative in behavioural terms. In which case it is perfectly reasonable to ask what genetic (or genomic) fingerprint determines that behavioural trait.
That other people have made vacuous statements like your's does not stop the statements being vacuous
As to your second point, you are missing the point, possibly because you left it out of here when you quoted, even though I raised it specifically
'Oh and I see you still haven't dealt with the issue that homophobia must come from people as society, like Soylent Green, is people'
-
That other people have made vacuous statements like your's does not stop the statements being vacuous
But at a fundamental level it isn't vacuous as there are behavioural traits that are very closely linked to genomics where environment plays a limited role. If that is what you are arguing then back to you (or Vlad) to provide evidence for those genomic traits that would be determinative in terms of homophobia to the extent that they would over-ride societal cultural environment.
-
As to your second point, you are missing the point, possibly because you left it out of here when you quoted, even though I raised it specifically
Nope - you've lost me entirely here - please can you specific as to what you are talking about.
-
'Oh and I see you still haven't dealt with the issue that homophobia must come from people as society, like Soylent Green, is people'
Why is this in '...'?
But society can make people act in a manner that they wouldn't were they on their own or were they living in a different society. The societal norms are just that, they create boundaries as to what behaviour is deemed acceptable and what is not deemed acceptable and individuals very often fold in to those societal norms in terms of their own behaviour.
Were you any I living in England in the middle ages do you really think we'd have exactly the same attitude towards gay people and women as we do living in the early 21stC. I doubt it.
-
Nope - you've lost me entirely here - please can you specific as to what you are talking about.
Your editing of posts is making this quote hard to woek out what you are saying. So one of the bots you cut out, was me putting in the bit that you had cut put previously which the bit that you left in referred - so I will again put that in here - which will be the third and you might then respond
'Oh and I see you still haven't dealt with the issue that homophobia must come from people as society, like Soylent Green, is people'
-
Your editing of posts is making this quote hard to woek out what you are saying. So one of the bots you cut out, was me putting in the bit that you had cut put previously which the bit that you left in referred - so I will again put that in here - which will be the third and you might then respond
'Oh and I see you still haven't dealt with the issue that homophobia must come from people as society, like Soylent Green, is people'
Can you just say what you mean, and what you'd like me to respond to please. All this stuff about editing etc isn't helping.
Bottom line - what actually is your point.
-
Why is this in '...'?
But society can make people act in a manner that they wouldn't were they on their own or were they living in a different society. The societal norms are just that, they create boundaries as to what behaviour is deemed acceptable and what is not deemed acceptable and individuals very often fold in to those societal norms in terms of their own behaviour.
Were you any I living in England in the middle ages do you really think we'd have exactly the same attitude towards gay people and women as we do living in the early 21stC. I doubt it.
It was in '..' because was me quoting me in one of the bits that you cut put of the post you replied to and was referred to in the comment in the post you then replied to which referres to this. Have you sneaked the extra strong egg nog into the Christmas party because your basic comprehension skills, not helped by your random editing is making coherent discussion impossible.
-
Can you just say what you mean, and what you'd like me to respond to please. All this stuff about editing etc isn't helping.
Bottom line - what actually is your point.
It's you doing the editing. So for the fourth time:
'Oh and I see you still haven't dealt with the issue that homophobia must come from people as society, like Soylent Green, is people'
-
NS,
'Religions take on a life of their own' eh? What do you think that means? What sort of 'life'? And presumably as so often covered about the vacuous Weinberg quote, yoo mean ideologies?
Leaving aside that if the homophobia does not arise from people, how could it arise?
It means that people have been born, lived and then died entirely embedded in religious dogmas that determined for them various ethical positions – that homosexuality is a “sin” for example. There’s no need to recreate these positions for that to be the case, just some clerical enforcers of the faith to deal with heretics. As I said, no-one disputes that the homophobia (for example) arose from the corporeal authors, but no subsequent repetition of authorship was needed for the same phenomenon to occur down the generations. It took on a life of its own.
-
If for example, Christianity had not developed, what would the 2 billion people across the globe be today?
Coming back...if Christianity (2 billion), Islam (1.5 billion), Hinduism(1 billion) and Buddhism (0.4 billion).....the main religions.... had not developed, what would all these 5 billion people be? How much more disunity and differences between them would there be?!
The fact that 5 billion people on the planet are united under just four groups, across geography, race, language, economic status.... is a great situation. I don't think you people are able to appreciate this simple fact.
-
It's you doing the editing. So for the fourth time:
'Oh and I see you still haven't dealt with the issue that homophobia must come from people as society, like Soylent Green, is people'
I've already addressed your comment - see reply 55.
-
NS,
Don't see the point you are making.
The point is that “BUT” implies a critique of the point he joke was making (a tu quoque) whereas an “AND” would not.
-
Coming back...if Christianity (2 billion), Islam (1.5 billion), Hinduism(1 billion) and Buddhism (0.4 billion).....the main religions.... had not developed, what would all these 5 billion people be?
Potentially grouped in other large blocks.
How much more disunity and differences between them would there be?!
Are you nuts - on what planet has err our planet been a paragon of peace and unity for the past 1400 years when these religions have dominated.
The fact that 5 billion people on the planet are united under just four groups, across geography, race, language, economic status.... is a great situation. I don't think you people are able to appreciate this simple fact.
Isn't that exactly the same attitude that imperialists have adopted throughout history. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we imposed our view across the world - I think the Brits tried to do this in the Indian sub-continent, didn't they.
Why is it desirable for people to all think the same - I think diversity of thought is not only desirable, but essential as it is diversity of thought which provides new lines of thinking and progress.
-
I think the point NS is making is that religions are human creations. Homophobia has to therefore be a human creation that is born out of social issues. Blaming it on religions doesn't make sense. Many religions like Hinduism don't have any scriptural issues with homosexuality. There are many non religious institutions that also are homophobic.
-
NS,
The point is that “BUT” implies a critique of the point he joke was making (a tu quoque) whereas an “AND” would not.
No, as said I like the joke. The But is critiquing your use of it here to make a point that I think is invalid.
-
I've already addressed your comment - see reply 55.
That's just you repeating your mistake in reifying society as something that does stuff somehow outside of people. How would 'it' do that?
-
I think the point NS is making is that religions are human creations.
Homophobia has to therefore be a human creation that is born out of social issues. Blaming it on religions doesn't make sense. Many religions like Hinduism don't have any scriptural issues with homosexuality. There are many non religious institutions that also are homophobic.
But they aren't new human creations generation after generation. Rather they are promulgated to the next generation through developed societal and cultural norms. You are quite right that not all societies and not all religions adopt and promulgate homophobia across generations, but many do. And in many societies over centuries religion has been a highly dominant force in creating, perpetuating and promulgating those societal norms.
And there is my further point that (many) religions claim that their homophobia isn't human derived but god derived, which is a hugely powerful tool for control of society - effectively it isn't us saying this, but god saying this and if you disobey god you will be damned forever.
It is a toxic combination that is arguably unrivalled within other societal institutions that don't claim their view is god-driven.
-
That's just you repeating your mistake in reifying society as something that does stuff somehow outside of people. How would 'it' do that?
Oh you've become Thatcher now NS - no such thing as society, just individuals. Not that she actually said that, but you get my drift.
-
Oh you've become Thatcher now NS - no such thing as society, just individuals. Not that she actually said that, but you get my drift.
And she was right. Trying to say Thatcher said something, ergo it's wrong is a fallacy. Care to try with an argument about why society is not just what people do?
-
But they aren't new human creations generation after generation. Rather they are promulgated to the next generation through developed societal and cultural norms. You are quite right that not all societies and not all religions adopt and promulgate homophobia across generations, but many do. And in many societies over centuries religion has been a highly dominant force in creating, perpetuating and promulgating those societal norms.
And there is my further point that (many) religions claim that their homophobia isn't human derived but god derived, which is a hugely powerful tool for control of society - effectively it isn't us saying this, but god saying this and if you disobey god you will be damned forever.
It is a toxic combination that is arguably unrivalled within other societal institutions that don't claim their view is god-driven.
All of it done by people.
If religions happen to be an effective 'meme', they are still just a meme.
-
NS,
All of it done by people.
If religions happen to be an effective 'meme', they are still just a meme.
(Accepting for now the use of "meme"), why "just"? Memes can be powerful, persistent things whose real world effects continue long after their creators have gone. That's rather the "life of its own" point - no fresh inputs or authorships are needed for the same moral rules (for example) originally drafted by people to keep going, sometimes for millennia.
-
NS,
(Accepting for now the use of "meme"), why "just"? Memes can be powerful, persistent things whose real world effects continue long after their creators have gone. That's rather the "life of its own" point - no fresh inputs or authorships are needed for the same moral rules (for example) originally drafted by people to keep going, sometimes for millennia.
I think you are abusing the term life there using it an entirely metaphorical sense to somehow imply that it exists outside of people. It doesn't.
-
NS,
I think you are abusing the term life there using it an entirely metaphorical sense to somehow imply that it exists outside of people. It doesn't.
No, I’m using the term “life” to mean something like “existence that has real effects on real people without the need of human intervention beyond its original authorship”. Whether the "entity" involved is a meme or something else isn’t relevant – which I why I asked you “why “just?””.
-
NS,
No, I’m using the term “life” to mean something like “existence that has real effects on real people without the need of human intervention beyond its original authorship”. Whether the "entity" involved is a meme or something else isn’t relevant – which I why I asked you “why “just?””.
That's not in any sense a usual meaning of 'life', and given the normal meaning of life. And removing people it has no 'existence'.
-
NS,
That's not in any sense a usual meaning of 'life', and given the normal meaning of life. And removing people it has no 'existence'.
Of course it is - "life" is used colloquially in all sorts of contexts ("Beethoven's fifth has taken on a life of its own" etc).
Anyway, the point here is that various entities (including memes) can have real world effects on real people with no real time human intervention involved. Religions are a good example of that, albeit among many other examples.
-
NS,
Of course it is - "life" is used colloquially in all sorts of contexts ("Beethoven's fifth has taken on a life of its own" etc).
Anyway, the point here is that various entities (including memes) can have real world effects on real people with no real time human intervention involved. Religions are a good example of that, albeit among many other examples.
I've already covered that there is a metaphorical idea of life that doesn't mean that that is commonly regarded as 'existence that has real effects on real people without the need of human intervention beyond its original authorship'
And you've now added 'real time' and assumed it as an entity.
-
Coming back...if Christianity (2 billion), Islam (1.5 billion), Hinduism(1 billion) and Buddhism (0.4 billion).....the main religions.... had not developed, what would all these 5 billion people be? How much more disunity and differences between them would there be?!
The fact that 5 billion people on the planet are united under just four groups, across geography, race, language, economic status.... is a great situation. I don't think you people are able to appreciate this simple fact.
Christianity isn't one united group. I would argue that most of the violence caused by religion was actually sectarian violence between groups within a single religion. For example most of the religious violence of Christians in the last millennium (excluding maybe the 20th century) was directed at other Christians. I think the same applies to Muslims.
-
NS,
Of course it is - "life" is used colloquially in all sorts of contexts ("Beethoven's fifth has taken on a life of its own" etc).
Anyway, the point here is that various entities (including memes) can have real world effects on real people with no real time human intervention involved. Religions are a good example of that, albeit among many other examples.
This "life" you are talking about...is it an emergent property of religion or what?
-
Christianity isn't one united group. I would argue that most of the violence caused by religion was actually sectarian violence between groups within a single religion. For example most of the religious violence of Christians in the last millennium (excluding maybe the 20th century) was directed at other Christians. I think the same applies to Muslims.
Violence is a part of some peoples lives. They just need an excuse. There is violence within some families...doesn't mean that families by their very nature encourage violence or are responsible for it. Families are a unifying and essential unit...violence is just an aberration. Similarly with religions.
Religions have been responsible for a feeling of oneness among diverse groups across geography and other differences. The feeling of kinship among people within a religion is far more pervasive and far more powerful than any differences or violence among them.
Also, many of the modern humanistic values that civilized people (including atheists) promote has been taught and enforced by religions. These values are today an essential part of civilized societies because of the social control brought about by religions. The transition from tribal values to universal values of humanism, love, honesty, non-violence, charity, service above self and so on....have been possible largely because of religions.
Today many of these values could exist outside religions but they have been enforced and spread across the world largely by religions, over the centuries.
-
Violence is a part of some peoples lives. They just need an excuse. There is violence within some families...doesn't mean that families by their very nature encourage violence or are responsible for it. Families are a unifying and essential unit...violence is just an aberration. Similarly with religions.
Religions have been responsible for a feeling of oneness among diverse groups across geography and other differences. The feeling of kinship among people within a religion is far more pervasive and far more powerful than any differences or violence among them.
Also, many of the modern humanistic values that civilized people (including atheists) promote has been taught and enforced by religions. These values are today an essential part of civilized societies because of the social control brought about by religions. The transition from tribal values to universal values of humanism, love, honesty, non-violence, charity, service above self and so on....have been possible largely because of religions.
Today many of these values could exist outside religions but they have been enforced and spread across the world largely by religions, over the centuries.
A good summary of your case.
-
Religions haven't done anything. People created all of them. It makes no difference what they claim. The homophobia etc come from the people.
I believe it was Chief Rabbi Sachs who observed that if Christianity were true it could be true without any adherents but there could be no Judaism without people.
-
Violence is a part of some peoples lives. They just need an excuse. There is violence within some families...doesn't mean that families by their very nature encourage violence or are responsible for it. Families are a unifying and essential unit...violence is just an aberration. Similarly with religions.
I agree with you on one point: religions are an aberration.
Religions have been responsible for a feeling of oneness among diverse groups across geography and other differences. The feeling of kinship among people within a religion is far more pervasive and far more powerful than any differences or violence among them.
Where the 'us and and them', and consequent 'othering', has been a prime cause of human conflict over millenia.
Also, many of the modern humanistic values that civilized people (including atheists) promote has been taught and enforced by religions. These values are today an essential part of civilized societies because of the social control brought about by religions. The transition from tribal values to universal values of humanism, love, honesty, non-violence, charity, service above self and so on....have been possible largely because of religions.
Today many of these values could exist outside religions but they have been enforced and spread across the world largely by religions, over the centuries.
To a degree perhaps, though I don't think religions can lay claim to ethics and morality. But what about the unethical and immoral social values promulgated by religion - institutional misogyny for example?
-
That will be because society was made up of people who were homophobic.
I think your argument is a version of the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument. The problem with that argument is that guns make it a lot easier to kill people.
Similarly, people might be homophobic without religion, but a religion that tells you homosexuality is a sin makes it a lot easier to justify your homophobia to yourself and others and makes it easier to go out and be cruel to gay people.
-
I agree with you on one point: religions are an aberration.
Where the 'us and and them', and consequent 'othering', has been a prime cause of human conflict over millenia.
To a degree perhaps, though I don't think religions can lay claim to ethics and morality. But what about the unethical and immoral social values promulgated by religion - institutional misogyny for example?
I said ...violence is an aberration. The two world wars were not caused by religions nor is the Ukraine war.
The 'us' and 'them' feeling would have been much more without the unifying major religions. Local communities were always suspicious of other communities. Suspicion and violence are a natural part of instinctive survival issues. The major religions in fact reduced these mutual suspicions by unifying people under a single doctrine and also by teaching them tolerance, love and brotherhood.
Misogyny is present in many societies regardless of religion. Trafficking and exploitation of women are present world over today. Thugs and the mafia are responsible for this.
No religion teaches exploitation of women. Some religions (not all) probably restrict the movement of women because of social conditions and possibilities of exploitation and rape under ancient and medieval conditions.
-
I think your argument is a version of the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument. The problem with that argument is that guns make it a lot easier to kill people.
Similarly, people might be homophobic without religion, but a religion that tells you homosexuality is a sin makes it a lot easier to justify your homophobia to yourself and others and makes it easier to go out and be cruel to gay people.
Exactly - the notion that an individual will act in exactly the same manner if they live on one societal culture compared to a different societal culture is completely bonkers. How we behave is a combination of our innate beliefs and the overlaying impact of societal expectations. And even those innate beliefs will largely be driven by that societal overlay, but at the most 'local level' of parental expectation but also a much wider societal view of the limits of what is, and is not, acceptable.
-
I think your argument is a version of the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument. The problem with that argument is that guns make it a lot easier to kill people.
Similarly, people might be homophobic without religion, but a religion that tells you homosexuality is a sin makes it a lot easier to justify your homophobia to yourself and others and makes it easier to go out and be cruel to gay people.
Bzz Mission creep and bad analogy. Guns were always intended to kill. Religion not so. I have long contended that campaigning atheism has weaponised homosexuality which is now seen for its utility in sticking one on a fast reducing number of churches rather than anything else.
In other words boys, when the church is tolerant of guys you can concentrate on missing secular homophobia.
-
No religion teaches exploitation of women.
Really - I was at a school christmas concert a couple of nights ago that included the standard bible readings used for that purpose, which includes the start of Genesis which included the following words (note girls and boys were present):
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Some religions (not all) probably restrict the movement of women because of social conditions and possibilities of exploitation and rape under ancient and medieval conditions.
Sure there are extreme examples, but certainly in the UK the major christian denominations do not support equality for women. So, of course RCC allows only men to become priests and therefore attain levels of hierarchy in the church. Sure the CofE allows women priests, bishops etc but there still isn't equality as parishes and individual priests can refuse to accept the authority of a bishop if she is a woman, but they cannot refuse to accept the authority of a male bishop.
-
First past the post makes this a specious argument in terms of majorities of people.
The Conservative party is evil and there are no signs of repentance. Nobody should be voting for them so it should be irrelevant what the voting system is or how it's gamed.
-
Really - I was at a school christmas concert a couple of nights ago that included the standard bible readings used for that purpose, which includes the start of Genesis which included the following words (note girls and boys were present):
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Sure there are extreme examples, but certainly in the UK the major christian denominations do not support equality for women. So, of course RCC allows only men to become priests and therefore attain levels of hierarchy in the church. Sure the CofE allows women priests, bishops etc but there still isn't equality as parishes and individual priests can refuse to accept the authority of a bishop if she is a woman, but they cannot refuse to accept the authority of a male bishop.
But hang on...the nativity narrative in the Bible where the key decision in the foundation of the gospel and church is made
by Mary stands in contradiction to what you are suggesting in that bible passage.
-
But hang on...the nativity narrative in the Bible where the key decision in the foundation of the gospel and church is made
Not really - the need for redemption is based on the concept of collective inherited guilt, which comes exactly from that section of Genesis. That's why that particular text in Genesis is read as part of the standard nine lessons and carols.
by Mary stands in contradiction to what you are suggesting in that bible passage.
No she doesn't, quite the reverse. The story of Mary, as written in the NT is one of someone ordered to do something over which she is given absolutely no choice. Sounds smack on consistent with the 'and he shall rule over thee' text in Genesis. And also the whole 'virgin' part is also entirely linked to the perceived sexually-inspired threat and deceit by women towards men.
-
Not really - the need for redemption is based on the concept of collective inherited guilt, which comes exactly from that section of Genesis. That's why that particular text in Genesis is read as part of the standard nine lessons and carols.
No she doesn't, quite the reverse. The story of Mary, as written in the NT is one of someone ordered to do something over which she is given absolutely no choice. Sounds smack on consistent with the 'and he shall rule over thee' text in Genesis. And also the whole 'virgin' part is also entirely linked to the perceived sexually-inspired threat and deceit by women towards men.
I mean in terms of human decisions which had to be made.
Your interpretation of Mary's decision is caricature and I'm not sure about your interpretation of genesis.
That said, did you tackle anybody on the matter?
-
I mean in terms of human decisions which had to be made.
No idea what you mean - the whole notion of the need for redemption of sins by Jesus is entirely based on Genesis, which is where the notion that we are all born in sin comes from. No Genesis, no need for Jesus.
Your interpretation of Mary's decision is caricature and I'm not sure about your interpretation of genesis.
Not at all - where is Mary given any say in the matter. I'm unaware that she consents to being impregnated - I think we have a term for that. And the immaculate (i.e. without sin) notion for Mary and that she is portrayed as a virgin is entirely consistent with the concept in Genesis that sin comes from the sexuality of women.
That said, did you tackle anybody on the matter?
Nope - because this is largely a music event, run by the music department and involving musical performances but in the traditional format of lessons and carols - the readings are traditional and as a non-religious school no-one would expect them to be taken literally or seriously. The ethos of the school is very clearly that students are treated equally regardless of sex.
-
The Conservative party is evil and there are no signs of repentance. Nobody should be voting for them so it should be irrelevant what the voting system is or how it's gamed.
That statement might be correct, and I agree nobody should be voting for them (no surprise there), but it is a stupid statement. It flies in the face of reality and human behaviour. People will vote for them because they perceive things differently from you and me. Until the voting system is changed we are always likely to suffer governments that do not more accurately reflect the will of the people.
-
But hang on...the nativity narrative in the Bible where the key decision in the foundation of the gospel and church is made
by Mary stands in contradiction to what you are suggesting in that bible passage.
What? You mean where she agrees to get knocked up by God?
That doesn't sound very contradictory to me.
-
No idea what you mean
That Mary's consent is from one point of view the most important historical decision any believer has had to make making the decisions of the popes historical footnotes - the whole notion of the need for redemption of sins by Jesus is entirely based on Genesis, which is where the notion that we are all born in sin comes from. No Genesis, no need for Jesus.
That isn't right. Jesus according to Paul undoes the consequence of Adam. Western Christianity has this reversal imputed at baptism but in any case the route(jesus)back to God is reopened. Also there are numerous biblical references to Jesus saving people from ''their sins'' ''Your sins'' and where people do not take the route back to God as opened by Jesus dying in ''their sins''.
Not at all - where is Mary given any say in the matter. I'm unaware that she consents to being impregnated
First of all you do realise don't you that Mary is not already pregnant when the angel encounters her? The Angel explains a future conception. The encounter throughout which Mary remains not pregnant ends with Mary saying 'Let it be' this article explains it https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/let-it-be-marys-radical-declaration-of-consent/266616/ And the immaculate (i.e. without sin) notion for Mary and that she is portrayed as a virgin is entirely consistent with the concept in Genesis that sin comes from the sexuality of women.
Not a doctrine that is universal in christianity and inconsistent with the import of Adam's sin in any case.
-
What? You mean where she agrees to get knocked up by God?
That doesn't sound very contradictory to me.
You what?
-
You what?
Mary is used by a male patriarchal god as a breeding mare in the Bible. Pregnancy was quite dangerous in those days, not to mention there would have been severe social repercussions for a woman pregnant out of wedlock. This is not a contradiction of the men ruling over women passage in Genesis, it is an affirmation.
-
That statement might be correct, and I agree nobody should be voting for them (no surprise there), but it is a stupid statement. It flies in the face of reality and human behaviour. People will vote for them because they perceive things differently from you and me. Until the voting system is changed we are always likely to suffer governments that do not more accurately reflect the will of the people.
Yes and the point is, are religions or voting systems or any number of abstract ''things'' to blame or is it people?
The will of the people is that some vote for parties other than tories but most people are happy to let the tories win or vote for them to win....and somehow Humanists UK are optimistic!
-
That Mary's consent is from one point of view the most important historical decision any believer has had to make
How many women did God appear to in a dream and ask to have sex with before Mary said yes?
-
Mary is used by a male patriarchal god as a breeding mare in the Bible. Pregnancy was quite dangerous in those days, not to mention there would have been severe social repercussions for a woman pregnant out of wedlock. This is not a contradiction of the men ruling over women passage in Genesis, it is an affirmation.
Bollocks and wankfantasy
-
Bollocks and wankfantasy
So you can't refute the point.
-
How many women did God appear to in a dream and ask to have sex with before Mary said yes?
More bollocks and wankfantasy...hoping for likes Jeremy?
-
More bollocks and wankfantasy...hoping for likes Jeremy?
Hoping you might have a coherent response. But sadly, it appears not.
-
So you can't refute the point.
Of course, how can conceiving by the holy spirit be described as sex? It's like talking about ''raunchy cloning''. Absolutely potty notion. Breed mare, a mysoginistic sleight on Mary perhaps.
-
but most people are happy to let the tories win or vote for them to win
Bluntly, bollocks.
-
Bluntly, bollocks.
I sincerely hope you're right at the next election.
-
NS,
I've already covered that there is a metaphorical idea of life that doesn't mean that that is commonly regarded as 'existence that has real effects on real people without the need of human intervention beyond its original authorship'
And you've now added 'real time' and assumed it as an entity.
That’s wrong I think. Take the example of Beethoven’s fifth again. Clearly a person authored it, but centuries later people are still affected by it. Or, to put it another way, it has an “existence that has real effects on real people without the need of human intervention beyond its original authorship”. Call that a meme, call it a life of its own, call it what you like – it’s still unarguably the case though.
-
Violence is a part of some peoples lives. They just need an excuse. There is violence within some families...doesn't mean that families by their very nature encourage violence or are responsible for it. Families are a unifying and essential unit...violence is just an aberration. Similarly with religions.
Violence an aberration? It is part of our animal nature and origins... a major component of the universe itself. Religion seems to arise out of a need to justify or accommodate us to its necessity.
Religions have been responsible for a feeling of oneness among diverse groups across geography and other differences. The feeling of kinship among people within a religion is far more pervasive and far more powerful than any differences or violence among them.
Also, many of the modern humanistic values that civilized people (including atheists) promote has been taught and enforced by religions. These values are today an essential part of civilized societies because of the social control brought about by religions. The transition from tribal values to universal values of humanism, love, honesty, non-violence, charity, service above self and so on....have been possible largely because of religions.
Today many of these values could exist outside religions but they have been enforced and spread across the world largely by religions, over the centuries.
This is fantasy ... better to look at the development of emotional behaviour and instincts of cooperation, fairness, love ... etc - again, from our animal nature.
-
Of course, how can conceiving by the holy spirit be described as sex? It's like talking about ''raunchy cloning''. Absolutely potty notion.
What about having to carry God's child for nine months?
Breed mare, a mysoginistic sleight on Mary perhaps.
That is the point. That is exactly how God treated her, according to Matthew and Luke, at any rate.
-
What about having to carry God's child for nine months?
That is the point. That is exactly how God treated her, according to Matthew and Luke, at any rate.
I don’t get a male misogynistic God from the NewTestament, rather a radical move of women into positions of great import in God’s plan.
9 months describes a duration of a pregnancy not a sex act. Are you one of these folks who think Jesus should have come on earth as a grown up?
-
Violence an aberration? It is part of our animal nature and origins... a major component of the universe itself. Religion seems to arise out of a need to justify or accommodate us to its necessity.
This is fantasy ... better to look at the development of emotional behaviour and instincts of cooperation, fairness, love ... etc - again, from our animal nature.
You seem to be saying we are violent but loving with it, but isn’t there a conflict here?
-
I don’t get a male misogynistic God from the NewTestament, rather a radical move of women into positions of great import in God’s plan.
The point was about the message in the Nativity story.
9 months describes a duration of a pregnancy not a sex act. Are you one of these folks who think Jesus should have come on earth as a grown up?
The phrase I used was "knocked up" which means "made pregnant". The method by which this happened is not the point. In fact, you seem to be denying that Mary had sex with God, which means he must have used artificial insemination instead. Sounds even more like treating her as a breeding mare.
-
You seem to be saying we are violent but loving with it, but isn’t there a conflict here?
We have both behaviours (and others). This is what tribal and ancient mythologies, the origin of most current day religions, codify and relate.
-
The point was about the message in the Nativity story. The phrase I used was "knocked up" which means "made pregnant". The method by which this happened is not the point. In fact, you seem to be denying that Mary had sex with God, which means he must have used artificial insemination instead. Sounds even more like treating her as a breeding mare.
More and more ridiculous. You are confusing getting pregnant with being pregnant. Of course God didn't have sex with Mary, I don't think you know what a breeding mare is( bad analogy again) and how Mary signally fails to meet the requirements of being one.
You are treating God as a man. How is conceiving by the Holy Spirit sex or artificial insemination?
-
We have both behaviours (and others). This is what tribal and ancient mythologies, the origin of most current day religions, codify and relate.
So what happens now we are free from the constraints of religion in terms of the tension and contradictions of being violent and loving?
-
Vlad,
I don’t get a male misogynistic God from the NewTestament, rather a radical move of women into positions of great import in God’s plan.
9 months describes a duration of a pregnancy not a sex act. Are you one of these folks who think Jesus should have come on earth as a grown up?
You think non-consensual impregnation of a minor is ok? Wow.
Lucky for all concerned that it’s a myth then I guess, albeit a morally unpleasant one.
-
Vlad,
So what happens now we are free from the constraints of religion in terms of the tension and contradictions of being violent and loving?
Sweden?
-
Vlad,
You think non-consensual impregnation of a minor is ok? Wow.
The burden of proof is on you to justify the accusations contained in here
Lucky for all concerned that it’s a myth then I guess, albeit a morally unpleasant one.
another burden of proof required here too, waiter
Now I know where you come from in Essex........Strawmanningtree.
-
Vlad,
The burden of proof is on you to justify the accusations contained in here
You never have understood the principle of the burden of proof have you. The “God impregnated Mary” account is a story – the only burden of proof here therefore is to show that the Christian story is that God impregnated Mary, something I assume you accept to be the case?
another burden of proof required here too, waiter
Now I know where you come from in Essex........Strawmanningtree.
Wrong again. The story has the characteristics of a myth, not of historical fact. Therefore it’s right to call it a myth until and unless that status ever changes – starting I guess with some evidence that there was a “god” to start with.
-
More and more ridiculous.
Not really. I seem to have hit a nerve judging by your posts.
You are confusing getting pregnant with being pregnant. Of course God didn't have sex with Mary, I don't think you know what a breeding mare is( bad analogy again) and how Mary signally fails to meet the requirements of being one.
If Mary was pregnant, she must first have got pregnant. How are you going to explain that. Not that it matters, the point is that she was made pregnant by God and had to carry his baby with all the risks and and problems any woman would have had at that time, especially when getting pregnant out of wedlock.
You are treating God as a man.
Why should God get a free pass to treat women badly just because he is a god?
How is conceiving by the Holy Spirit sex or artificial insemination?
You are the one claiming it wasn't normal sex, not me.
-
Vlad,
You never have understood the principle of the burden of proof have you. The “God impregnated Mary” account is a story – the only burden of proof here therefore is to show that the Christian story is that God impregnated Mary, something I assume you accept to be the case?
Wrong again. The story has the characteristics of a myth, not of historical fact. Therefore it’s right to call it a myth until and unless that status ever changes – starting I guess with some evidence that there was a “god” to start with.
You've taught me enough Hillside to know that you need to justify your recent accusation. Justify or retract.
-
Vlad,
You never have understood the principle of the burden of proof have you. The “God impregnated Mary” account is a story – the only burden of proof here therefore is to show that the Christian story is that God impregnated Mary, something I assume you accept to be the case?
Wrong again. The story has the characteristics of a myth, not of historical fact. Therefore it’s right to call it a myth until and unless that status ever changes – starting I guess with some evidence that there was a “god” to start with.
No, saying something is a myth is a positive assertion therefore justify.
-
Wrong again. The story has the characteristics of a myth, not of historical fact. Therefore it’s right to call it a myth until and unless that status ever changes – starting I guess with some evidence that there was a “god” to start with.
Stories - plural. There are two birth narratives. They both have God getting Mary up the duff but in most other respects they cannot be reconciled. They are clearly mythical.
Anyway, that's not relevant. This all stems from PD's nativity play in which a composite of the two stories was presented to/by young children. The church is still teaching that women must be subservient to men.
-
Not really. I seem to have hit a nerve judging by your posts.If Mary was pregnant, she must first have got pregnant. How are you going to explain that. Not that it matters, the point is that she was made pregnant by God and had to carry his baby with all the risks and and problems any woman would have had at that time, especially when getting pregnant out of wedlock.Why should God get a free pass to treat women badly just because he is a god?You are the one claiming it wasn't normal sex, not me.
She was pregnant with jesus conceived by the Holy spirit....again, how is that sex or artificial insemination? Stop trying to shift the burden of proof from your positive assertion that it is sex or artificial insemination.
-
Vlad,
You've taught me enough Hillside to know that you need to justify your recent accusation. Justify or retract.
Then prepare to keep learning…
I’ve always been rather fond of the Greek myths – the myth of Prometheus and the Theft of Fire for example:
“One day, Zeus distributed gifts to all the gods, but he didn't care much for humans. The Titan Prometheus, however, because he loved and felt sorry for humans, climbed up on Olympus and stole the fire from Hephaestus' workshop, put it in a hollow reed and gifted it to the humans. This way, humans could create fire, warm up and make tools. Zeus became very angry when he heard about this. He took Prometheus to a high mountain, the Caucasus, and chained him on a rock with thick chains made by the smith god, Hephaestus. And every day, Zeus would send an eagle that ate Prometheus’ liver. For thirty years Prometheus remained bound in the Caucasus, until the great hero Hercules, Zeus’ demigod son, released him finally from his torment.”
Cracking story right? You’ll notice though that I (and to my knowledge every other person who cites it) call it a myth. Do you think all of us have a burden of proof too to justify using that term therefore, or are you special pleading for it for the Christian “God impregnated Mary” story just because you happen to be personally invested in that myth?
"Myth" is one term used for stories that fail the tests of historicity ("legend", "fable" etc are others). Try to remember that for future reference.
You're welcome.
-
Vlad,
She was pregnant with jesus conceived by the Holy spirit....again, how is that sex or artificial insemination? Stop trying to shift the burden of proof from your positive assertion that it is sex or artificial insemination.
It's non-consensual impregnation of a minor, whatever the method (about which the myth is understandably coy). You might think non-consensual impregnation of a minor is morally good; I don't.
-
Vlad,
Then prepare to keep learning…
Not from you, you are a shit teacher.
-
Vlad,
It's non-consensual impregnation of a minor, whatever the method (about which the myth is understandably coy). You might think non-consensual impregnation of a minor is morally good; I don't.
Just repeating the accusation doesn't justify it. What about the other accusations?
-
Vlad,
Not from you, you are a shit teacher.
Given how little you've learned, perhaps you're right.
-
Vlad,
Just repeating the accusation doesn't justify it. What about the other accusations?
What accusation? Does the Christian story of the conception of Christ entail the non-consensual impregnation of a minor by a god or not?
It's a simple enough question isn't it?
-
Vlad,
What accusation? Does the Christian story of the conception of Christ entail the non-consensual impregnation of a minor by a god or not?
It's a simple enough question isn't it?
You have to prove it since you are asserting it. Other than that I have better things to do than waste my time with your manchild behaviour.
-
Vlad,
You have to prove it since you are asserting it. Other than that I have better things to do than waste my time with your manchild behaviour.
A certain irony there from someone spitting the dummy because he can’t rebut an argument, but in any case – prove what? That the story says what I say it says? Fair enough:
Matthew 1:18-25
"Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…"
Luke 1:26-38
"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."
But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"
The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God."
Not sure why I have to look this stuff up for you (it's your myth after all, not mine), but in any case you’ll notice no doubt that in the story Mary (who was perhaps thirteen or fourteen at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary) wasn’t asked whether she was up for it – she was told it had happened/would happen regardless. That sounds like the non-consensual impregnation of a minor to me – doesn’t it to you?
So is that really morally fine in your opinion?
Really though?
-
Vlad,
A certain irony there from someone spitting the dummy because he can’t rebut an argument, but in any case – prove what? That the story says what I say it says? Fair enough:
Matthew 1:18-25
"Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…"
Luke 1:26-38
"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."
But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"
The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God."
Not sure why I have to look this stuff up for you (it's your myth after all, not mine), but in any case you’ll notice no doubt that in the story Mary (who was perhaps thirteen or fourteen at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary) wasn’t asked whether she was up for it – she was told it had happened/would happen regardless. That sounds like the non-consensual impregnation of a minor to me – doesn’t it to you?
So is that really morally fine in your opinion?
Really though?
If you are going to quote Luke1:26-38 QUOTE ALL OF IT AND DON'T EDIT OUT THE BIT THAT DESTROYS YOUR CASE
Let me include that bit here.
verse 38 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Since the conception by the holy spirit is subsequent to this Mary has given consent in the very passage you missed out.
I find nothing else here that supports your accusation and you have been shown to be a suppressor of evidence.
-
If you are going to quote Luke1:26-38 QUOTE ALL OF IT AND DON'T EDIT OUT THE BIT THAT DESTROYS YOUR CASE
Let me include that bit here.
verse 38 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Since the conception by the holy spirit is subsequent to this Mary has given consent in the very passage you missed out.
I find nothing else here that supports your accusation and you have been shown to be a suppressor of evidence.
Vlad - you do understand that consent must be voluntary. If there is pressure or coercion or a 'power relationship' that makes an individual feel obliged to agree or that they have no choice then there is no consent.
There is one hell of a power relationship going on here, and that Mary considers herself to be god's 'servant' clearly indicates that she felt that she had no alternative but to agree. Under those circumstances there is no consent.
At best Mary acquiesces to the arrangement, but that is a world away from consent.
And of course the earlier passage makes it clear what will happen to Mary - there is no indication that Mary has any choice in the matter.
-
Vlad - you do understand that consent must be voluntary.
And it is in verse 38 Mary has made a spiritual commitment to serve God. We know that to be a prior commitment to consent to work with God. As for '' pressure or coercion or a 'power relationship' that makes an individual feel obliged to agree or that they have no choice then there is no consent.''
well, if you are asserting that, you need to prove it, bearing in mind Hillside suppressed the evidence against his case.
There is one hell of a power relationship going on here,
But a consentual one and that Mary considers herself to be god's 'servant' clearly indicates that she felt that she had no alternative but to agree.
Again you must make a case.
There would have been people who had chosen not to be God's servant and we have no record of them being approached only a record of someone committed to God and she has in verse 38 agreed to be part of God's mission. There is no consequent record of Mary making a complaint to the authorities of coercion.
I think you are still labouring under a compulsion to treat God like a powerful man with all man's vices and lusts and the conception of Jesus to be sex or some kind of insemination which this isn't.
I think this is also a case of specially taking the bible seriously where you think there is a loophole and coming up with excuses for where you cannot see an opportunity for one.
-
If you are going to quote Luke1:26-38 QUOTE ALL OF IT AND DON'T EDIT OUT THE BIT THAT DESTROYS YOUR CASE
Let me include that bit here.
verse 38 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Since the conception by the holy spirit is subsequent to this Mary has given consent in the very passage you missed out.
I find nothing else here that supports your accusation and you have been shown to be a suppressor of evidence.
God and a carpenter's fiancée. That's a really unhealthy power dynamic in that relationship. It puts Ross Geller's relationship with Elizabeth Stevens into perspective.
-
God and a carpenter's fiancée. That's a really unhealthy power dynamic in that relationship. It puts Ross Geller's relationship with Elizabeth Stevens into perspective.
An example of an unhealthy power dynamic is Hillside and his wee wizards who he continually bamboozles. Today though, he has been roundly exposed....and with that bit of triumphalism, i'mmmmmmoutofhere!
-
An example of an unhealthy power dynamic is Hillside and his wee wizards who he continually bamboozles. Today though, he has been roundly exposed....and with that bit of triumphalism, i'mmmmmmoutofhere!
I think you'd do better to come up with some arguments for your point of view rather than harping on about other posters.
-
Vlad,
If you are going to quote Luke1:26-38 QUOTE ALL OF IT AND DON'T EDIT OUT THE BIT THAT DESTROYS YOUR CASE
Let me include that bit here.
verse 38 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Since the conception by the holy spirit is subsequent to this Mary has given consent in the very passage you missed out.
I find nothing else here that supports your accusation and you have been shown to be a suppressor of evidence.
Actually I just googled “conception of Jesus” and copied and pasted from a US (I assume from the spelling) website. Anyway, let’s see whether you’ve “DESTROYED MY CASE” shall we?
First Matthew makes no reference to consent: “…an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…” is in the past tense. Mary had already been impregnated before an “Angel of the Lord” (fuck me, do people really take this stuff seriously?) decided to tell Joseph about it. What’s your thinking here – that when an angel also showed up beforehand to ask Mary whether it was ok for God to knock her up, she agreed but then forgot to tell Joseph about it?
Second, as to Luke here’s 29 – 35 inclusive:
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.
31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,
33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called b the Son of God.
So, so far this angel is telling her what is going to happen – not asking whether it would be ok if it did happen.
And then after all that here’s 36 – 38:
36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.
37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
So, according to the myth, a perhaps 13-14-year-old is told by an “Angel of the Lord” that she will will “conceive and give birth to a son”, she’s told what to call him (“…you are to call him Jesus…”) and she’s told that Jesus will be the “Son of God”. She’s not though apparently told that she has the option to say no if she doesn’t fancy it.
And when Mary acquiesces that’s your idea of "consent" is it? Seriously? Not even close – acquiescence by a servant to the envoy of a universe-creating god is one thing, but consent in any meaningful sense would require the freedom and capacity to make a choice unencumbered by an epically asymmetric power dynamic.
If an "Angel of the Lord" knocked on your door and told you “Almighty God” wanted you to sell your house to him for £10 and you did it, would you have given your consent or just rolled over in your view?
PS As you’ve just run away from your earlier set of errors re burden of proof, can I assume you’ve “consented” to being wrong about that (again)?
-
I think your argument is a version of the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument. The problem with that argument is that guns make it a lot easier to kill people.
Similarly, people might be homophobic without religion, but a religion that tells you homosexuality is a sin makes it a lot easier to justify your homophobia to yourself and others and makes it easier to go out and be cruel to gay people.
I think that only works if religions can exist without people. Guns can exist even if all the people in the world die. Religions can't.
Also, religions are not telling people anything - it requires people to interpret and communicate religious ideas on a constant basis. Without that constant interpretation and communication mechanism of ideas by people, religions will have no effect on individuals and therefore on society.
As NS says people communicate ideas during their interactions with other people e.g. that homosexuality is a sin. They could have said "nice weather we're having today or 'let's feed those poor hungry refugees and welcome them into the country' but some people when they talk to other people choose to say "homosexuality is a sin" instead. And other people choose to believe them. Nothing forces people to believe someone who says "God says XYZ is a sin". If they believe in a God and believe that God said it is a sin, it is because something in them has a desire to believe in a God who thinks that way and because they agree with the idea that homosexuality is a sin - it seems to appeal to their nature in some way to believe it.
Or they might choose to come up with ideas to convince themselves that God does not think it is a sin or that God is forgiving of all sins or some such thing, because it appeals to their nature to be nice to people regardless of the person's sexuality.
-
Really - I was at a school christmas concert a couple of nights ago that included the standard bible readings used for that purpose, which includes the start of Genesis which included the following words (note girls and boys were present):
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
When you say the above quote is the starting point of Islam - what are you basing that on? What do you mean by "starting point"?
-
And it is in verse 38 Mary has made a spiritual commitment to serve God. We know that to be a prior commitment to consent to work with God.
So what - a prior consent to one things does not and cannot imply consent to something different at a later point. So the consent of a woman to marry a man cannot be seen as consent to have sex with that man whenever the man wishes, regardless of whether the woman also wishes to. Or vice versa.
We need to focus on whether there is firstly any evidence to suggest that Mary actually had a choice - in other words whether she was being asked whether she wanted a particular thing to happen to her or whether she was being told that a particular thing was going to happen to her. And it is pretty clear that we are dealing with the latter, hence the 'will' in:
'You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.'
If there is no actual choice Mary's opinion becomes in effect irrelevant as there can be no consent as consent implies a genuine ability of the individual to choose between outcomes.
But nonetheless let's actually look at the so-called 'consent' - this is nothing of the sort. There is no evidence that Mary was able to make a genuinely voluntary decision as she has described herself as a servant. Being in servitude is, by definition, a situation in which you must acquiesce to the view of another more powerful person or entity regardless of your own view. If you are in servitude you, definitionally, cannot give consent.
There is also the rather inconvenient issue of Mary's age - if the general view is accepted that she was very young then she probably lacked the capacity to consent.
-
It is silly to go on and on about God taking Mary's consent. Whether you believe in him or not...God is God. He didn't take any ones consent before creating the world or creating individuals. Did Mary (or anyone else) give consent to be born (and as male or female)? ::)
-
It is silly to go on and on about God taking Mary's consent.
Actually it is all just a story - there is no a shred of credible evidence that it actually happened.
Whether you believe in him or not...God is God.
What a non-sense statement - the whole point about atheism is that you don't believe that god exists and therefore god isn't god but something that doesn't exist.
He didn't take any ones consent before creating the world or creating individuals. Did Mary (or anyone else) give consent to be born (and as male or female)? ::)
Not really relevant - we typically accept the notion of consent being important in terms of autonomous decision making by those who have the capacity to make such decisions - hence your comment about choosing to be born has no relevance. But it is perfectly reasonable to ask the hypothetical question that were we to believe what is written in that text to be what happened (it didn't - see above) then would Mary have given consent. And the answer to that hypothetical question is clearly, no she didn't give consent.
-
Vlad,
Actually I just googled “conception of Jesus” and copied and pasted from a US (I assume from the spelling) website. Anyway, let’s see whether you’ve “DESTROYED MY CASE” shall we?
First Matthew makes no reference to consent: “…an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…” is in the past tense. Mary had already been impregnated before an “Angel of the Lord” (fuck me, do people really take this stuff seriously?) decided to tell Joseph about it. What’s your thinking here – that when an angel also showed up beforehand to ask Mary whether it was ok for God to knock her up, she agreed but then forgot to tell Joseph about it?
Second, as to Luke here’s 29 – 35 inclusive:
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.
31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,
33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called b the Son of God.
So, so far this angel is telling her what is going to happen – not asking whether it would be ok if it did happen.
And then after all that here’s 36 – 38:
36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.
37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
So, according to the myth, a perhaps 13-14-year-old is told by an “Angel of the Lord” that she will will “conceive and give birth to a son”, she’s told what to call him (“…you are to call him Jesus…”) and she’s told that Jesus will be the “Son of God”. She’s not though apparently told that she has the option to say no if she doesn’t fancy it.
And when Mary acquiesces that’s your idea of "consent" is it? Seriously? Not even close – acquiescence by a servant to the envoy of a universe-creating god is one thing, but consent in any meaningful sense would require the freedom and capacity to make a choice unencumbered by an epically asymmetric power dynamic.
If an "Angel of the Lord" knocked on your door and told you “Almighty God” wanted you to sell your house to him for £10 and you did it, would you have given your consent or just rolled over in your view?
PS As you’ve just run away from your earlier set of errors re burden of proof, can I assume you’ve “consented” to being wrong about that (again)?
I'm sorry but my reading is out of the New testament where as you are reading things in and editing out. What we get from verse 38 is someone who is a committed follower of God who here in the magnificat later shows she is conversant with God's plan, consents to it in her Let it Be and someone who is fully aware of the personal, theological and global implications of what she is welcoming. This is a switched on person of spiritual ,intellectual and personal maturity. We know that people at this level of access to God's mission can and do deviate from God's plan vis Jonah, but there is none of that from Mary who faces her mission with enthusiasm.
Abusive power relationships, minority, zero consent, victimhood are all themes you are reading in.
Of course this argument you make is not an atheistic argument but an antitheistic one. I see in your posts evidence of you having to remind yourself at intervals that you are in fact an atheist.
-
So what - a prior consent to one things does not and cannot imply consent to something different at a later point. So the consent of a woman to marry a man cannot be seen as consent to have sex with that man whenever the man wishes, regardless of whether the woman also wishes to. Or vice versa.
We need to focus on whether there is firstly any evidence to suggest that Mary actually had a choice - in other words whether she was being asked whether she wanted a particular thing to happen to her or whether she was being told that a particular thing was going to happen to her. And it is pretty clear that we are dealing with the latter, hence the 'will' in:
'You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.'
If there is no actual choice Mary's opinion becomes in effect irrelevant as there can be no consent as consent implies a genuine ability of the individual to choose between outcomes.
But nonetheless let's actually look at the so-called 'consent' - this is nothing of the sort. There is no evidence that Mary was able to make a genuinely voluntary decision as she has described herself as a servant. Being in servitude is, by definition, a situation in which you must acquiesce to the view of another more powerful person or entity regardless of your own view. If you are in servitude you, definitionally, cannot give consent.
There is also the rather inconvenient issue of Mary's age - if the general view is accepted that she was very young then she probably lacked the capacity to consent.
The only documentation we have on this is the New Testament. Anything you bring in is by definition speculation with antitheist prejudice evident in it's attempt to bring humanist points of view into an incident of divinity. i.e. You want a richly and sweetly confected antitheistic argument but you want an atheistic argument as well. Poor fit, i'm afraid. See my answer to Bluehillside.
-
She was pregnant with jesus conceived by the Holy spirit....again, how is that sex or artificial insemination? Stop trying to shift the burden of proof from your positive assertion that it is sex or artificial insemination.
Either you're maintaining the traditional view that Mary was a virgin at the time, in which case however it was achieved this was not a natural conception and is therefore artificial - supernatural, in this instance, rather than achieved by science. Or, you think that the virgin nonsense is just that, nonsense, in which case the Holy Spirit just indulged in extra-marital sex - now my understanding is that that's not technically forbidden in the Old Testament, but it does fly against the teachings of the sequel (or, at the very least, most of the adherents of the sequel).
If you think it's somehow neither natural insemination (i.e. sexual intercourse) or artificial insemination (i.e. not sexual intercourse) then I'm intrigued to know what the other options might be?
O.
-
I'm sorry but my reading is out of the New testament where as you are reading things in and editing out.
Actually it was you who started the selective quoting back in reply 96 where you selectively only include 'let it be', rather than the actual full quote which is:
'Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.'
If you are in servitude to someone who has power over you and to whom you are obliged to acquiesce, you cannot consent as 'voluntariness' element which is required for consent is not present.
-
The only documentation we have on this is the New Testament.
And all I am using here is the words from the new testament and applying them to the well established principles of consent which require, capacity to consent, sufficient information and voluntariness. And you put the two together and the text in the new testament clearly fails as evidence for consent, certainly due to the voluntariness, but also (although we don't have that evidence directly from the text) probably on capacity to consent.
-
What a non-sense statement - the whole point about atheism is that you don't believe that god exists and therefore god isn't god but something that doesn't exist.
So this God who you can make disappear just like that is the same God you say that can force himself of anybody in an abusive disparity of power?
-
And all I am using here is the words from the new testament and applying them to the well established principles of consent which require, capacity to consent, sufficient information and voluntariness. And you put the two together and the text in the new testament clearly fails as evidence for consent, certainly due to the voluntariness, but also (although we don't have that evidence directly from the text) probably on capacity to consent.
No, what you are doing is heavy endogesis which completely ignores Mary's awareness of the personal, theological and Global implications and knows as exactly what she is doing in her theological, spiritual, personal and global maturity and then consents with her Let it be and later magnificat. This is what elevates her above the apostles and popes and Billy Grahams and Justin Welbys. There is not only no evidence for your version of Mary, the record is contradictory to it.
-
Vlad,
I'm sorry but my reading is out of the New testament where as you are reading things in and editing out. What we get from verse 38 is someone who is a committed follower of God who here in the magnificat later shows she is conversant with God's plan, consents to it in her Let it Be and someone who is fully aware of the personal, theological and global implications of what she is welcoming. This is a switched on person of spiritual ,intellectual and personal maturity. We know that people at this level of access to God's mission can and do deviate from God's plan vis Jonah, but there is none of that from Mary who faces her mission with enthusiasm.
Abusive power relationships, minority, zero consent, victimhood are all themes you are reading in.
Of course this argument you make is not an atheistic argument but an antitheistic one. I see in your posts evidence of you having to remind yourself at intervals that you are in fact an atheist.
Fun as it is watching twist in the wind as you attempt to defend the indefensible, either you’ll address the difference between acquiescence and consent or you won’t. Throwing irrelevancies like “atheistic’/”antitheistic” around as an ad hom instead doesn’t get you off that hook. Mary (according to the myth) may have acquiesced, but there’s no reading from the texts that I can see to suggest consent in any meaningful sense.
-
Vlad,
Fun as it is watching twist in the wind as you attempt to defend the indefensible, either you’ll address the difference between acquiescence and consent or you won’t. Throwing irrelevancies like “atheistic’/”antitheistic” around as an ad hom instead doesn’t get you off that hook. Mary (according to the myth) may have acquiesced, but there’s no reading from the texts that I can see to suggest consent in any meaningful sense.
Not half as much fun as you editing out verse 38 and getting found out and then proceeding as if we can dispense with the let it be. No mere acquiescence Hillside a resounding and enthusiastic Let it be and highly mature spiritual and intellectual,personal and understanding of God's future plan.
mary also makes a statement that in her previous commitment to God this is what she has consented to. Double consent if you wish.
-
VG,
I think that only works if religions can exist without people. Guns can exist even if all the people in the world die. Religions can't.
Just out of interest, why do you think that? Religions exist in their artefacts as well as in their practices, just as art and music and literature do. Say you washed up on a desert island as a child to find the Bible, the Mona Lisa, a CD of the late Beethoven quartets and the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. Why would you any less affected by the first of these (perhaps in your ethical behaviour) than you would by the others?
-
Vlad,
Not half as much fun as you editing out verse 38 and getting found out and then proceeding as if we can dispense with the let it be.
Lying about that isn’t helping you here.
No mere acquiescence Hillside a resounding and enthusiastic Let it be and highly mature spiritual and intellectual,personal and understanding of God's future plan.
Oh dear. Now who’s just making shit up eh? Anyway, you miss the point: “…resounding and enthusiastic” or not, consent has certain characteristics that cannot have applied for an underage servant girl being told by the envoy of an all-powerful, universe-creating god that she “will” be impregnated by Him.
If I approach you wearing a balaclava late at night down a dark alley, stick a knife in your chest and demand your wallet in exchange for your life you may well acquiesce. You may even do it “resoundingly and enthusiastically” if you thought it would save your life.
Let’s say too that I was caught, and my defence in court was “but Vlad consented to giving me his wallet”.
Would you agree? Why not?
mary also makes a statement that in her previous commitment to God this is what she has consented to. Double consent if you wish.
Not even close – consent and coercive control are not the same thing (see above).
-
No, what you are doing is heavy endogesis which completely ignores Mary's awareness of the personal, theological and Global implications and knows as exactly what she is doing in her theological, spiritual, personal and global maturity and then consents with her Let it be and later magnificat.
She is, at best, what 16 when she has Jesus? There are damned few 16 year olds with the insight to have a clear understanding of their own personal circumstances. No-one can nail down the slippery 'theological implications' of pretty much anything, let alone a relatively poor girl with little formal education. Global implications? At best she might have had an understanding of regional impications, the Roman Empire of which the Holy Land was a part at the time had limited understanding of the Far East, no appreciation of the Americas at all. Mary's global perspectives is right up there alongside 'Theology' as empty sets.
This is what elevates her above the apostles and popes and Billy Grahams and Justin Welbys. There is not only no evidence for your version of Mary, the record is contradictory to it.
There is little evidence for any Mary, and the evidence we do have has to be considered at best questionable given the multiple subsequent edits that still manage to leave us with nonsense like 'a virgin birth'.
O.
-
She is, at best, what 16 when she has Jesus? There are damned few 16 year olds with the insight to have a clear understanding of their own personal circumstances. No-one can nail down the slippery 'theological implications' of pretty much anything, let alone a relatively poor girl with little formal education. Global implications? At best she might have had an understanding of regional impications, the Roman Empire of which the Holy Land was a part at the time had limited understanding of the Far East, no appreciation of the Americas at all. Mary's global perspectives is right up there alongside 'Theology' as empty sets.
There is little evidence for any Mary, and the evidence we do have has to be considered at best questionable given the multiple subsequent edits that still manage to leave us with nonsense like 'a virgin birth'.
O.
Evidence?
-
Vlad,
Lying about that isn’t helping you here.
Oh dear. Now who’s just making shit up eh? Anyway, you miss the point: “…resounding and enthusiastic” or not, consent has certain characteristics that cannot have applied for an underage servant girl being told by the envoy of an all-powerful, universe-creating god that she “will” be impregnated by Him.
If I approach you wearing a balaclava late at night down a dark alley, stick a knife in your chest and demand your wallet in exchange for your life you may well acquiesce. You may even do it “resoundingly and enthusiastically” if you thought it would save your life.
Let’s say too that I was caught, and my defence in court was “but Vlad consented to giving me his wallet”.
Would you agree? Why not?
Not even close – consent and coercive control are not the same thing (see above).
Not only did you remove verse 38 even though you said you'd listed ....but with no verse numbers.
You have made pisspoor analogies....knives, alleys, stabbings?
What are you thinking of?
-
Vlad,
Not only did you remove verse 38 even though you said you'd listed ....but with no verse numbers.
As I told you, I just copied and pasted from a US website. It doesn't matter either way though - when you introduced the later bits, that fell apart like a cheap suit too.
You have made pisspoor analogies....knives, alleys, stabbings?
What are you thinking of?
Just calling something “pisspoor” doesn’t make it so. I was just explaining to you (forgetting that you struggle with the concept of analogies) that sometimes people do things non-consensually – but they acquiesce to them for a variety of reasons nonetheless. The virgin birth story as set out in the texts is one such case. It’s not that an underage servant girl being told by an “Angel of the Lord” that she “will” be impregnated by “Him” and give birth to “the Son of the Most High” did not give consent; she could not have given consent in a meaningful sense.
-
Evidence?
Yes, exactly. You don't have any.
Mary's age is a presumption from the generally accepted Jewish claims of how long Mary lived after the purported execution of Jesus and the typical age at death of women in that era.
The lack of education is based upon her likely social class and circumstance, again for a woman in that era. Her social class is interpreted from the clues in the story.
Is it possible there's more to the tale than we've been told? Yes, perhaps. If you want more definitive conclusions, I'm afraid you're going to have to find more, and more reliable, sources, I'm afraid.
O.
-
Actually it is all just a story - there is no a shred of credible evidence that it actually happened.
What a non-sense statement - the whole point about atheism is that you don't believe that god exists and therefore god isn't god but something that doesn't exist.
Not really relevant - we typically accept the notion of consent being important in terms of autonomous decision making by those who have the capacity to make such decisions - hence your comment about choosing to be born has no relevance. But it is perfectly reasonable to ask the hypothetical question that were we to believe what is written in that text to be what happened (it didn't - see above) then would Mary have given consent. And the answer to that hypothetical question is clearly, no she didn't give consent.
This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.
-
Either you're maintaining the traditional view that Mary was a virgin at the time, in which case however it was achieved this was not a natural conception and is therefore artificial - supernatural, in this instance, rather than achieved by science. Or, you think that the virgin nonsense is just that, nonsense, in which case the Holy Spirit just indulged in extra-marital sex - now my understanding is that that's not technically forbidden in the Old Testament, but it does fly against the teachings of the sequel (or, at the very least, most of the adherents of the sequel).
If you think it's somehow neither natural insemination (i.e. sexual intercourse) or artificial insemination (i.e. not sexual intercourse) then I'm intrigued to know what the other options might be?
O.
Insemination involves the introduction of sperm. Is there evidence that in this Biblical story sperm was introduced into this conception?
-
VG,
This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.
No. Ordinarily I’d agree re the anachronistic use of moral codes, but you’ve forgotten here that in the story the impregnating was done by a morally perfect God. That means either that you think modern morality re informed consent is wrong, or that God (and his “angel”) behaved immorally.
-
VG,
Insemination involves the introduction of sperm. Is there evidence that in this Biblical story sperm was introduced into this conception?
That's a subsidiary question. Impregnation occurred (according to the myth) so the debate is about whether Mary exercised (indeed, could have exercised) consent notwithstanding the method by which it happened.
-
This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.
It isn't a non-sense argument at all.
Firstly let's recognise that it is Vlad claiming that the NT account provided evidence for consent - not 1stC consent, but consent. That is why we are discussing it - specifically whether the text in the NT is sufficient to support Vlad's claim that she gave consent - it clearly isn't and the 'power relationship' and servitude elements are red flags that indicate there was no consent (not of course that there is any evidence that what is claimed actually happened).
But actually I don't there has been any meaningful change in what we consider to be consent over the centuries. It is, and always has been a decision made by someone who has the capacity to consent, with knowledge of what that decision is and made voluntarily.
The issue isn't that consent was different centuries ago, but that we had a different view on the importance of consent. The historical shift is that in many cases we used not to give a damn about whether someone consented to a whole range on things, but now we do. We have moved from a position where it was common for decisions to be made on behalf of people (i.e. without consent) to ones where we expect the decision to be taken by the person themselves (i.e. with consent). But the notion of what consent is, is largely unchanged.
So had Vlad claimed that it was all OK because in the 1stC people were pretty relaxed about whether a woman consented to sex or not so why is the NT text any different, then perhaps he'd have a point. But that isn't his claim - his claim is that the NT text is sufficient to conclude that Mary consented - it isn't.
-
Insemination involves the introduction of sperm. Is there evidence that in this Biblical story sperm was introduced into this conception?
Without sperm you don't get conception, you get menstruation, so I'd say if you take the core element of the story as being a pregnancy and a baby then, yes, you have evidence of insemination.
O.
-
Yes, exactly. You don't have any.
I have the text Outrider....You don't have evidence, merely speculation based on a 21st century humanistic reinterpretation of a divine situation and that is how it stands i'm afraid
-
VG,
Just out of interest, why do you think that? Religions exist in their artefacts as well as in their practices, just as art and music and literature do. Say you washed up on a desert island as a child to find the Bible, the Mona Lisa, a CD of the late Beethoven quartets and the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. Why would you any less affected by the first of these (perhaps in your ethical behaviour) than you would by the others?
I think that because your stated objection to religion is with the ideas they propagate that influence your ethical choices towards other people and within society. So to show that religion is the issue separate from people's nature/nurture from other environmental factors, you would have to find a way to show the child read the Bible and that their interpretations of moral values in the Bible were not caused by their nature or other environmental factors.
-
Without sperm you don't get conception, you get menstruation, so I'd say if you take the core element of the story as being a pregnancy and a baby then, yes, you have evidence of insemination.
O.
I think cloning engineers would take issue with you but before you say they didn't have that technology then God did.
-
VG,
No. Ordinarily I’d agree re the anachronistic use of moral codes, but you’ve forgotten here that in the story the impregnating was done by a morally perfect God. That means either that you think modern morality re informed consent is wrong, or that God (and his “angel”) behaved immorally.
You've yet to establish that there was no informed consent. Editing out verse 38 doesn't count. The text shows that Mary was very informed. It's good to see though that you've come round to absolute morality, or is this morality by date....and last of all, I would have thought that the underhand removal of verse 38 disqualified the perpetrator from this case(we are after all in the court of pseudo law) let alone pontificate about the morality of it.
-
VG,
No. Ordinarily I’d agree re the anachronistic use of moral codes, but you’ve forgotten here that in the story the impregnating was done by a morally perfect God. That means either that you think modern morality re informed consent is wrong, or that God (and his “angel”) behaved immorally.
It means neither actually. Informed consent is a legal term that means a person voluntarily consents to an action having full information available of the consequences and is a reflection of a modern cultural norm around personal autonomy. I think it's correct in relation to medical procedures related to pregnancy but I would not apply the legal test or the modern cultural norms about personal autonomy to a religious story about a supernatural non-sexual pregnancy that was written centuries ago in order to demonstrate supernatural phenomena or Mary's religious devotion. The whole premise of the story is that Mary is religiously devoted therefore the pregnancy and the birth of Jesus is a blessing. This story you are all quoting from is not presented in a way to be used as rebuttal against a legal charge of rape or a medical procedure without informed consent etc so this line of argument is complete nonsense. I'm amazed that supposedly intelligent people are wasting their time digging into a Biblical story for evidence of consent.
-
Without sperm you don't get conception, you get menstruation, so I'd say if you take the core element of the story as being a pregnancy and a baby then, yes, you have evidence of insemination.
O.
It's presented as a supernatural event. In a supernatural event why can't you have conception without insemination?
-
VG,
I think that because your stated objection to religion is with the ideas they propagate that influence your ethical choices towards other people and within society. So to show that religion is the issue separate from people's nature/nurture from other environmental factors, you would have to find a way to show the child read the Bible and that their interpretations of moral values in the Bible were not caused by their nature or other environmental factors.
No you wouldn’t, but no problem in any case. Just change the thought experiment to 100 children on 100 islands with bibles, and a different 100 on other islands with no bibles. Come back in a bit and compare the morality of the two groups. You might also put two control groups on different islands, some with Beethoven recordings and some without and compare the results re music appreciation later on.
The point here is that you (presumably) accept that parts of culture like art and music and literature can through their artefacts affect people without human intervention, but you exclude the part of culture that is religion doing the same thing with its artefacts (the Bible for example). I just wondered why.
-
It isn't a non-sense argument at all.
Firstly let's recognise that it is Vlad claiming that the NT account provided evidence for consent - not 1stC consent, but consent. That is why we are discussing it - specifically whether the text in the NT is sufficient to support Vlad's claim that she gave consent - it clearly isn't and the 'power relationship' and servitude elements are red flags that indicate there was no consent (not of course that there is any evidence that what is claimed actually happened).
But actually I don't there has been any meaningful change in what we consider to be consent over the centuries. It is, and always has been a decision made by someone who has the capacity to consent, with knowledge of what that decision is and made voluntarily.
The issue isn't that consent was different centuries ago, but that we had a different view on the importance of consent. The historical shift is that in many cases we used not to give a damn about whether someone consented to a whole range on things, but now we do. We have moved from a position where it was common for decisions to be made on behalf of people (i.e. without consent) to ones where we expect the decision to be taken by the person themselves (i.e. with consent). But the notion of what consent is, is largely unchanged.
So had Vlad claimed that it was all OK because in the 1stC people were pretty relaxed about whether a woman consented to sex or not so why is the NT text any different, then perhaps he'd have a point. But that isn't his claim - his claim is that the NT text is sufficient to conclude that Mary consented - it isn't.
It quite clearly is a nonsense argument. This is a Biblical story not a witness deposition. The story is presented in a way to convey an idea as most stories are. In this case it is presented to show Mary's religious devotion and the supernatural origins of Jesus. The whole point of being religiously devoted is to use the metaphor of being a servant of a higher power to demonstrate your belief, loyalty, steadfastness, constancy, faithfulness etc because you believe the power is a force for good and is just and merciful etc etc
Of course you can be devoted to other things without seeing yourself as being a servant, but religious devotion uses that metaphor to show that your devotion is to something you consider to be higher than yourself.
The NT text is not going to be sufficient to show evidence of a crime being committed or for the defence of a crime, given the NT text is presenting a story not being used as evidence for legal proceedings.
-
VG,
No you wouldn’t, but no problem in any case. Just change the thought experiment to 100 children on 100 islands with bibles, and a different 100 on other islands with no bibles. Come back in a bit and compare the morality of the two groups. You might also put two control groups on different islands, some with Beethoven recordings and some without and compare the results re music appreciation later on.
The point here is that you (presumably) accept that parts of culture like art and music and literature can through their artefacts affect people without human intervention, but you exclude the part of culture that is religion doing the same thing with its artefacts (the Bible for example). I just wondered why.
No I don't accept that because as soon as you have people, there is human intervention, because the human brain is interpreting information and the brain does not interpret information in a vacuum but in the context of its nurture/nature - it interprets words and forms moral thoughts and ideas and values based on prior information already stored in the brain from genetic and various environmental sources including cultural sources, separate and independent from the words in the Bible.
-
It quite clearly is a nonsense argument.
No it isn't - see below.
This is a Biblical story not a witness deposition.
Of course, but the argument is to challenge Vlad's view that the story, as written, is sufficient to indicate that Mary consented. I'm not arguing about whether was is written actually happened, but if it happened as described whether there would be evidence for consent. There isn't and strong evidence against consent on the basis of lack of voluntariness.
The story is presented in a way to convey an idea as most stories are. In this case it is presented to show Mary's religious devotion and the supernatural origins of Jesus. The whole point of being religiously devoted is to use the metaphor of being a servant of a higher power to demonstrate your belief, loyalty, steadfastness, constancy, faithfulness etc because you believe the power is a force for good and is just and merciful etc etc
I don't disagree - but that isn't the issue - Vlad thinks the story provides evidence of consent - that is non-sense to anyone who has any understanding of what consent is, and indeed what consent was considered to be in the 1stC, which is pretty well identical to how we see it now. Indeed Plato and Aristotle wrote on consent in a manner that is completely recognisible today and the Roman's embedded the same concepts into their laws. The notion of what consent is hasn't really changed over millennia - what has changed is when and where we consider it to be important.
-
VG,
It means neither actually. Informed consent is a legal term that means a person voluntarily consents to an action having full information available of the consequences and is a reflection of a modern cultural norm around personal autonomy. I think it's correct in relation to medical procedures related to pregnancy but I would not apply the legal test or the modern cultural norms about personal autonomy to a religious story about a supernatural non-sexual pregnancy that was written centuries ago in order to demonstrate supernatural phenomena or Mary's religious devotion.
Why not? If you think the modern definition of informed consent is morally better than what preceded it (basically servants doing as they were told) and you accept that in the virgin birth story there was not/could not have been informed consent and that the God who did the impregnating (by whatever means) is morally perfect then somewhere in there you have a contradiction. Either current morality is better than the version god practised (therefore god is not morally perfect); or god is morally perfect, therefore modern morality is wrong re informed consent. You can have either, but you can’t have both.
The whole premise of the story is that Mary is religiously devoted therefore the pregnancy and the birth of Jesus is a blessing.
So you’re suggesting that behaving in a way you’d find morally wrong is ok when the end justifies the means? Hasn’t that been the rationale for misogynistic behaviour especially down the ages?
This story you are all quoting from is not presented in a way to be used as rebuttal against a legal charge of rape or a medical procedure without informed consent etc so this line of argument is complete nonsense. I'm amazed that supposedly intelligent people are wasting their time digging into a Biblical story for evidence of consent.
You’re deflecting here. The central issue is that a young girl was impregnated when she could not have given informed consent to the impregnation. This story is presented as “presented” as morally good. I don’t think it is.
-
Informed consent ...
Hmm - ethics 101 failed. Tell me what uninformed consent is VG?
... is a legal term ...
No it isn't - the term is valid consent, which needs to meet all of the three required elements for consent.
... that means a person voluntarily consents ...
Again oxymoron - what is non-voluntary consent?.
... to an action having full information available of the consequences ...
Nope - common misnomer - consent doesn't require 'full' information, which is often both impossible and can act against the basis of consent - effectively being unable to see the wood for the trees. Valid consent requires there to be sufficient information to support the voluntary decision making of a person who has the capacity to consent.
Hey VG, my ethics module will start again in late January - perhaps you should come along. Looks like you need a bit of updating on understanding of consent.
-
VG,
No I don't accept that because as soon as you have people, there is human intervention, because the human brain is interpreting information and the brain does not interpret information in a vacuum but in the context of its nurture/nature - it interprets words and forms moral thoughts and ideas and values based on prior information already stored in the brain from genetic and various environmental sources including cultural sources, separate and independent from the words in the Bible.
You’re missing the point. The only people here are the audience, but the delivery mechanism doesn’t need people too. Real people are affected by religions whether or not clerics or RE teachers or anyone else are involved, just as real people are affected by Beethoven CDs whether or not musicians or music teachers or anyone else are involved. Religions, music etc have a “life of their own” in that sense as their effects carry on long after original authorship. Calling the mechanisms by which it happens artefacts, memes, whatever doesn’t really matter for this purpose. It still happens.
-
No it isn't - see below.
Of course, but the argument is to challenge Vlad's view that the story, as written, is sufficient to indicate that Mary consented. I'm not arguing about whether was is written actually happened, but if it happened as described whether there would be evidence for consent. There isn't and strong evidence against consent on the basis of lack of voluntariness.
I don't disagree - but that isn't the issue - Vlad thinks the story provides evidence of consent - that is non-sense to anyone who has any understanding of what consent is, and indeed what consent was considered to be in the 1stC, which is pretty well identical to how we see it now. Indeed Plato and Aristotle wrote on consent in a manner that is completely recognisible today and the Roman's embedded the same concepts into their laws. The notion of what consent is hasn't really changed over millennia - what has changed is when and where we consider it to be important.
The story as written isn't evidence for much more than the character's (Mary's) religious devotion and the supernatural origins of the Jesus character. Is Vlad arguing that the NT text is evidence that the events described actually happened? I thought Vlad had expressed the opinion that this was a matter of faith and belief? If you use the the story to conjecture about morality relating to consent then it is equally valid to use the same story to argue against that conjecture.
-
VG,
Why not? If you think the modern definition of informed consent is morally better than what preceded it (basically servants doing as they were told) ...
No - I think you are falling in the VG trap. The modern point is that now we consider consent to be important in a much wider range of scenarios than was the case in 1stC cultures. It isn't that those cultures defined consent in a different manner - how the ancient Greeks and Romans saw consent retains exactly the same elements as we use to define it.
First - person must have capacity to consent - ancient cultures recognised this which is why there was then (as there is now) ages at which children were deemed to take their own decisions.
Second - voluntariness - Plato wrote of consent being a quality of a free person.
Thirdly - information - Hippocrates also talked of the need to provide information to patients.
The issue isn't that consent was defined differently back then - nope the issue is that back then society considered consent to be unimportant in many situations where now we would consider it to be essential and without consent unlawful.
-
Is Vlad arguing that the NT text is evidence that the events described actually happened?
he will have to answer for himself, but my reading of his comments is, yes, he does consider that the events actually happened.
I thought Vlad had expressed the opinion that this was a matter of faith and belief? If you use the the story to conjecture about morality relating to consent then it is equally valid to use the same story to argue against that conjecture.
On consent - Vlad is arguing that the NT text provides sufficient evidence that Mary consented, presuming that what is described happened as described. That is complete non-sense. What is described is, at best, an acquiescence by a person to a decision taken by someone else that she clearly felt unable to refuse, hence the servant bit. And there is no evidence that she was even being given a choice - hence the 'will' in:
'You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.'
If there is no actual choice then there can be no consent as consent implies a genuine ability of the individual to choose between outcomes.
-
Actually it is all just a story - there is no a shred of credible evidence that it actually happened.
What a non-sense statement - the whole point about atheism is that you don't believe that god exists and therefore god isn't god but something that doesn't exist.
Not really relevant - we typically accept the notion of consent being important in terms of autonomous decision making by those who have the capacity to make such decisions - hence your comment about choosing to be born has no relevance. But it is perfectly reasonable to ask the hypothetical question that were we to believe what is written in that text to be what happened (it didn't - see above) then would Mary have given consent. And the answer to that hypothetical question is clearly, no she didn't give consent.
Maybe it is just a story. According to the story however, God is all knowing, the creator of the universe, creator of all life and the world moves to his will. He creates and destroys at his will. Why the heck would such a God ask for consent before impregnating a woman? ::)
-
VG,
Why not? If you think the modern definition of informed consent is morally better than what preceded it (basically servants doing as they were told)
What is morally wrong with servants doing as they are told, on the basis that someone wants to become a servant and be told what to do? Plus as I already said the word 'servant' is a metaphor in religious terms - so what is morally wrong with wanting to serve?
and you accept that in the virgin birth story there was not/could not have been informed consent
Why would I accept there could not have been informed consent in a story worded to demonstrate religious devotion?
and that the God who did the impregnating (by whatever means) is morally perfect then somewhere in there you have a contradiction.
No you don't. You just have a story about a supernatural event and religious devotion.
Either current morality is better than the version god practised (therefore god is not morally perfect); or god is morally perfect, therefore modern morality is wrong re informed consent. You can have either, but you can’t have both.
You can have neither, given this is a story to demonstrate a supernatural event and religious devotion. It is not a story to demonstrate the morals of informed consent.
So you’re suggesting that behaving in a way you’d find morally wrong is ok when the end justifies the means? Hasn’t that been the rationale for misogynistic behaviour especially down the ages?
Nope, haven't suggested that. You do get that this story is not to illustrate the morality of consent in human interactions right?
You’re deflecting here. The central issue is that a young girl was impregnated when she could not have given informed consent to the impregnation. This story is presented as “presented” as morally good. I don’t think it is.
Nope, not deflecting. You do know that simply stating I am deflecting is meaningless - you are entitled to your opinion of course but I'll just disagree with it and state my own opinion.
The central issue in this story is not about consent but about religious devotion. I would suggest you check with the authors of the story but of course you can't. Your next option is to check with the people who repeat the story what it is they are trying to convey when they tell it.
You are of course free to interpret the story how you want and to try to shoehorn concepts such as consent and personal autonomy into it but others will have different interpretations of the story e.g. it's a story to demonstrate a girl/ woman's religious devotion and a supernatural event. Whatever Mary's age is supposed to be in the story - again you will have to ask the authors or the people who tell the story how old she is supposed to be - the idea being conveyed is that she is of an age where in that time period she would marry and have children. The authors might want to convey the idea of youth because it may have been a metaphor for innocence and purity, who knows or whoever translated the text could have had that idea in their minds.
My youngest just had an interview for Oxford university and was presented with a piece translated from Latin into English and in response to a question she made the point to the professors who were interviewing her that translations are subjective depending on the background / context of the person doing the translating, which could lead to be variations in the translation of a particular word.
-
Maybe it is just a story. According to the story however, God is all knowing, the creator of the universe, creator of all life and the world moves to his will. He creates and destroys at his will. Why the heck would such a God ask for consent before impregnating a woman? ::)
Sure it is just a story, but you are of course correct that a god as described (and importantly described by 1stC writers for whom consent would have been far less important than we consider it today) is likely to be completely disinterested in whether Mary consented.
But Vlad seems to think that the text, as written, somehow shows god asking Mary whether, or not, she agrees in a manner that supports consent (i.e. she has capacity, sufficient information and is genuinely free to choose voluntarily free from pressure, coercion etc). That simply does not exist in the text - what we have is Mary being told what will happen to her and her meekly acquiescing as a servant, which definitionally means being controlled by someone else, which makes consent impossible.
-
Hmm - ethics 101 failed. Tell me what uninformed consent is VG?
No it isn't - the term is valid consent, which needs to meet all of the three required elements for consent.
Again oxymoron - what is non-voluntary consent?.
Nope - common misnomer - consent doesn't require 'full' information, which is often both impossible and can act against the basis of consent - effectively being unable to see the wood for the trees. Valid consent requires there to be sufficient information to support the voluntary decision making of a person who has the capacity to consent.
Hey VG, my ethics module will start again in late January - perhaps you should come along. Looks like you need a bit of updating on understanding of consent.
If you need help understanding informed consent try here PD https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment/
Defining consent
For consent to be valid, it must be voluntary and informed, and the person consenting must have the capacity to make the decision.
The meaning of these terms are:
voluntary – the decision to either consent or not to consent to treatment must be made by the person, and must not be influenced by pressure from medical staff, friends or family
informed – the person must be given all of the information about what the treatment involves, including the benefits and risks, whether there are reasonable alternative treatments, and what will happen if treatment does not go ahead
capacity – the person must be capable of giving consent, which means they understand the information given to them and can use it to make an informed decision
If an adult has the capacity to make a voluntary and informed decision to consent to or refuse a particular treatment, their decision must be respected.
-
What is morally wrong with servants doing as they are told, on the basis that someone wants to become a servant and be told what to do?
Whether or not that is morally right or wrong is a completely different matter to whether it is consent. If a servant feels obliged to follow the decision of someone else then there is no consent, as consent requires that individual to be in a position to make the choice themselves.
-
If you need help understanding informed consent try here PD https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment/
Defining consent
For consent to be valid, it must be voluntary and informed, and the person consenting must have the capacity to make the decision.
The meaning of these terms are:
voluntary – the decision to either consent or not to consent to treatment must be made by the person, and must not be influenced by pressure from medical staff, friends or family
informed – the person must be given all of the information about what the treatment involves, including the benefits and risks, whether there are reasonable alternative treatments, and what will happen if treatment does not go ahead
capacity – the person must be capable of giving consent, which means they understand the information given to them and can use it to make an informed decision
If an adult has the capacity to make a voluntary and informed decision to consent to or refuse a particular treatment, their decision must be respected.
Thanks VG - I'm well aware of that and an awful lot more than what is in your teeny tiny lay-person summary. If you were one of my students (who need to understand these issues in a professional capacity rather than as a lay person) you'd lose marks as follows.
On information - the standard is 'sufficient' or 'adequate' information, not 'full' information (which is likely impossible or at the very least impractical) - those element you describe would certainly be expected in sufficient or adequate information, but there is no requirement to provide information on every conceivable risk, however unlikely. The 'legal' test is the reasonable person test, but with the added safeguard of ensuring that a patient can ask questions so they can 'tune' the information to their own needs.
On capacity - sure, but to get full marks you'd need also to include the requirement to be able to retain the information, to believe the information and that the test only requires a person to be able to come to a decision, the 'reasonableness' of that decision is irrelevant.
All this will be covered in weeks 1-3 of my module. Perhaps you'd enjoy it. The students will need to write an information sheet for a hypothetical case study - this makes them consider the difference between 'sufficient' or 'adequate' information and 'full' information. It is a common failure for students at the beginning of the module to think that full information needs to be provided - this coursework soon makes them realise this isn't possible, nor desirable.
-
Sure it is just a story, but you are of course correct that a god as described (and importantly described by 1stC writers for whom consent would have been far less important than we consider it today) is likely to be completely disinterested in whether Mary consented.
But Vlad seems to think that the text, as written, somehow shows god asking Mary whether, or not, she agrees in a manner that supports consent (i.e. she has capacity, sufficient information and is genuinely free to choose voluntarily free from pressure, coercion etc). That simply does not exist in the text - what we have is Mary being told what will happen to her and her meekly acquiescing as a servant, which definitionally means being controlled by someone else, which makes consent impossible.
Given the situation, where is the question of consent? Why are you going on and on about it? We are not talking of Weinstein here for heavens sake!
-
Given the situation, where is the question of consent? Why are you going on and on about it? We are not talking of Weinstein here for heavens sake!
Because Vlad claims there is evidence in the text sufficient to conclude that Mary consented. There isn't.
If you don't think there is evidence of consent - then that's great, you and I agree. But I suggest you take that up with Vlad.
-
Because Vlad claims there is evidence in the text sufficient to conclude that Mary consented. There isn't.
If you don't think there is evidence of consent - then that's great, you and I agree. But I suggest you take that up with Vlad.
I am saying that consent is irrelevant given the characters involved...
-
Why the heck would such a God ask for consent before impregnating a woman? ::)
Because it's the polite thing to do?
If you are positing a God that can't even show some basic respect, I'm really not interested.
-
Thanks VG - I'm well aware of that and an awful lot more than what is in your teeny tiny lay-person summary. If you were one of my students (who need to understand these issues in a professional capacity rather than as a lay person) you'd lose marks as follows.
On information - the standard is 'sufficient' or 'adequate' information, not 'full' information (which is likely impossible or at the very least impractical) - those element you describe would certainly be expected in sufficient or adequate information, but there is no requirement to provide information on every conceivable risk, however unlikely. The 'legal' test is the reasonable person test, but with the added safeguard of ensuring that a patient can ask questions so they can 'tune' the information to their own needs.
On capacity - sure, but to get full marks you'd need also to include the requirement to be able to retain the information, to believe the information and that the test only requires a person to be able to come to a decision, the 'reasonableness' of that decision is irrelevant.
All this will be covered in weeks 1-3 of my module. Perhaps you'd enjoy it. The students will need to write an information sheet for a hypothetical case study - this makes them consider the difference between 'sufficient' or 'adequate' information and 'full' information. It is a common failure for students at the beginning of the module to think that full information needs to be provided - this coursework soon makes them realise this isn't possible, nor desirable.
If you want to lecture on the ethics of consent I suggest you start a thread on that topic rather than derailing this topic. I think the ethics of consent would be an interesting discussion and very informative. The NHS concept of consent that I linked to and quoted from (so it's not my definition of consent but the NHS website definition of consent) is sufficient for the points that have been made about lack of consent to pregnancy on this thread, which I personally think is irrelevant to the story.
As an aside, your frequent need to keep presenting your supposed credentials to try to bolster your arguments could be interpreted as you feeling insecure about the arguments you make ....not that it matters, your arguments stand or fall here on their own merits. Your profession is irrelevant.
-
Prof,
No - I think you are falling in the VG trap. The modern point is that now we consider consent to be important in a much wider range of scenarios than was the case in 1stC cultures. It isn't that those cultures defined consent in a different manner - how the ancient Greeks and Romans saw consent retains exactly the same elements as we use to define it.
With respect, I don’t think I am. It’s got nothing to do with the morality of ancient Greeks and Romans. The relevant character in this story is “god”, who we’re told is morally perfect. Thus what this god did (ie, impregnate an under-age Palestinian servant) must also have been morally perfect too. What “He” did though conflicts with modern ideas about consent, so either god was wrong or our current position on consent is wrong. It’s either/or, but can’t be both.
First - person must have capacity to consent - ancient cultures recognised this which is why there was then (as there is now) ages at which children were deemed to take their own decisions.
Second - voluntariness - Plato wrote of consent being a quality of a free person.
Thirdly - information - Hippocrates also talked of the need to provide information to patients.
Yes I know. According to the story though “god” drove a coach and four through all that. That’s the point.
The issue isn't that consent was defined differently back then - nope the issue is that back then society considered consent to be unimportant in many situations where now we would consider it to be essential and without consent unlawful.
Again, yes I know. But now we're putting our current consideration of the role of consent against that of a morally perfect god. Forget society back then – that’s nothing to do with it. It’s god vs modern us, Alien vs Predator. Who wins morally?
(Ok, maybe not that last pair…).
-
he will have to answer for himself, but my reading of his comments is, yes, he does consider that the events actually happened.
That isn't what I asked. I asked if Vlad was arguing that the modern day translation of the NT is evidence that the events actually happened. I know Vlad believes that Mary was a virgin who gave birth to Jesus, who is the son of God/ God in human form or some variation of this. But I was under the impression that he believed this as a matter of faith and that he thinks the NT stories are evidence that other people also believed that Mary was a virgin who gave birth to etc etc
On consent - Vlad is arguing that the NT text provides sufficient evidence that Mary consented, presuming that what is described happened as described. That is complete non-sense. What is described is, at best, an acquiescence by a person to a decision taken by someone else that she clearly felt unable to refuse, hence the servant bit. And there is no evidence that she was even being given a choice - hence the 'will' in:
'You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.'
If there is no actual choice then there can be no consent as consent implies a genuine ability of the individual to choose between outcomes.
Per my earlier point, if you are going to use the words in a NT story written to convey religious devotion, to assert that the story is demonstrating a lack of consent, then it is equally valid for Vlad to assert the opposite using the words in the same story.
Your interpretation of the words may be that "she clearly felt unable to refuse". Interpretations are varied due to bias, therefore alternative interpretations of the words are available. Another interpretation is that she wanted to serve and felt the hardships and sacrifices she would face was worth it to be given the opportunity to serve God and her community by carrying and giving birth to someone who "will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High....holy...Son of God" etc etc. People often do choose to make heroic sacrifices and face significant hardships for others and there are many stories floating around conveying this idea.
-
If you want to lecture on the ethics of consent ...
Which is exactly what I will be doing, starting in mid January to a bunch of about 60 masters-level students.
I suggest you start a thread on that topic rather than derailing this topic.
I don't think it is a derail as it leads directly from Vlad claim that the NT text provides sufficient evidence that Mary consented (which I don't agree with) and the suggestions that the nature/definition of consent was somehow radically different in the 1stC compared to now (which I also don't agree with, although I fully accept that the scope of when and where consent is considered to be key has changed dramatically).
I think the ethics of consent would be an interesting discussion and very informative.
Yup, it is interesting, which is why I enjoy discussing it with my students.
The NHS concept of consent that I linked to is sufficient for the points that have been made about lack of consent to pregnancy on this thread ...
Up to a point - the NHS info doesn't explicitly cover the whole issue of power relationships which is critical to understanding voluntariness in consent. And is particularly relevant to a situation where (hypothetically) a god tells someone that something will happen to them, when that person considers themselves in servitude to that god.
... which I personally think is irrelevant to the story.
To an extent I agree - I don't think the writers of the NT gave a second though to the need for consent as that would have been completely alien to them in those times and circumstances. However, Vlad claimed there to be evidence of consent - that's the starting point for the discussion.
As an aside, your frequent need to keep presenting your supposed credentials to try to bolster your arguments could be interpreted as you feeling insecure about the arguments you make ....not that it matters, your arguments stand or fall here on their own merits.
Right back at you - you often make snide comments about my credentials. On this thread:
'Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.' - you will note that I made no mention of my professional involvement in this area prior to your snide comment. But if you want to try to undermine my credibility beyond this MB, I will respond in kind.
Your profession is irrelevant.
No it isn't - you are beginning to sound like Gove 'we've had enough of experts'.
I think the notion that someone is professionally qualified in a particular field and teaches in that field is highly relevant in a discussion about that particular field.
Would you say that it is irrelevant in a discussion about cancer treatment that a person may professionally be a cancer specialist?
-
Which is exactly what I will be doing, starting in mid January to a bunch of about 60 masters-level students.
I don't think it is a derail as it leads directly from Vlad claim that the NT text provides sufficient evidence that Mary consented (which I don't agree with) and the suggestions that the nature/definition of consent was somehow radically different in the 1stC compared to now (which I also don't agree with, although I fully accept that the scope of when and where consent is considered to be key has changed dramatically).
Yup, it is interesting, which is why I enjoy discussing it with my students.
Up to a point - the NHS info doesn't explicitly cover the whole issue of power relationships which is critical to understanding voluntariness in consent. And is particularly relevant to a situation where (hypothetically) a god tells someone that something will happen to them, when that person considers themselves in servitude to that god.
To an extent I agree - I don't think the writers of the NT gave a second though to the need for consent as that would have been completely alien to them in those times and circumstances. However, Vlad claimed there to be evidence of consent - that's the starting point for the discussion.
Right back at you - you often make snide comments about my credentials. On this thread:
'Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.' - you will note that I made no mention of my professional involvement in this area prior to your snide comment. But if you want to try to undermine my credibility beyond this MB, I will respond in kind.
No it isn't - you are beginning to sound like Gove 'we've had enough of experts'.
I think the notion that someone is professionally qualified in a particular field and teaches in that field is highly relevant in a discussion about that particular field.
Would you say that it is irrelevant in a discussion about cancer treatment that a person may professionally be a cancer specialist?
I just edited my post to include "so it's not my definition of consent but the NHS website definition of consent" but you had already quoted my post.
It's not relevant that you teach a particular field if you make a bad argument. The argument stands or falls on its own merits.
-
Prof,
With respect, I don’t think I am. It’s got nothing to do with the morality of ancient Greeks and Romans. The relevant character in this story is “god”, who we’re told is morally perfect. Thus what this god did (ie, impregnate an under-age Palestinian servant) must also have been morally perfect too. What “He” did though conflicts with modern ideas about consent, so either god was wrong or our current position on consent is wrong. It’s either/or, but can’t be both.
That's not how it works though. Our current modern idea of consent will change, and keep changing as new information comes to light or social norms change. For example the legal age of consent is different in different countries and what you can and cannot consent to changes depending on the country or over time. Often this depends on factors such as what the latest judges in a particular geographic location interpret as law or what the Legislative passes as law or how much influence is exerted by stakeholders e.g. lobby groups. What is right or wrong keeps changing.
-
VG,
What is morally wrong with servants doing as they are told, on the basis that someone wants to become a servant and be told what to do?
Did you actually just say “on the basis that someone wants to become a servant and be told what to do?”. How do you suppose that worked then – Mary turned up at the job centre one Monday morning, and the clerk said: ”OK, let’s see what we’ve got today. Ooh, Emperor –that’s a good one. Several senator positions going begging too I see, plus we have something open as the chief architect for temples that might interest you. What’s that you say Mary – “have we got something more in the servant line?” Well yes, if that’s your choice I’m sure we could find something for you. Are you sure though? After all, with these other jobs you’d have servants of your own, plus chariots and wine and free tickets to the circus and stuff? No?...“sounds great, but you really fancy giving servanting a go” do you? Well, on your head be it then...”
Plus as I already said the word 'servant' is a metaphor in religious terms - so what is morally wrong with wanting to serve?
“Wanting”? “Wanting”!!!
You do say he darndest things sometimes Gabriella…
Why would I accept there could not have been informed consent in a story worded to demonstrate religious devotion?
Age and power dynamic for two starters.
No you don't. You just have a story about a supernatural event and religious devotion.
That’s presented as morally good remember?
You can have neither, given this is a story to demonstrate a supernatural event and religious devotion. It is not a story to demonstrate the morals of informed consent.
Either you think it’s a story presented as morally good or you don’t. As it’s presented in the Bible though do you not think the intention was the former rather than to describe god’s morally bad act?
Nope, haven't suggested that. You do get that this story is not to illustrate the morality of consent in human interactions right?
That’s just what you suggested, and that’s exactly what’s baked in to the story – “god did it, therefore it was morally good”.
Nope, not deflecting. You do know that simply stating I am deflecting is meaningless - you are entitled to your opinion of course but I'll just disagree with it and state my own opinion.
It’s not simply stating – it’s showing you what you did, but ok…
The central issue in this story is not about consent but about religious devotion. I would suggest you check with the authors of the story but of course you can't. Your next option is to check with the people who repeat the story what it is they are trying to convey when they tell it.
You are of course free to interpret the story how you want and to try to shoehorn concepts such as consent and personal autonomy into it but others will have different interpretations of the story e.g. it's a story to demonstrate a girl/ woman's religious devotion and a supernatural event. Whatever Mary's age is supposed to be in the story - again you will have to ask the authors or the people who tell the story how old she is supposed to be - the idea being conveyed is that she is of an age where in that time period she would marry and have children. The authors might want to convey the idea of youth because it may have been a metaphor for innocence and purity, who knows or whoever translated the text could have had that idea in their minds.
My youngest just had an interview for Oxford university and was presented with a piece translated from Latin into English and in response to a question she made the point to the professors who were interviewing her that translations are subjective depending on the background / context of the person doing the translating, which could lead to be variations in the translation of a particular word.
Yeah, and Aesop’s fable of the hare and the tortoise was only about two animals racing each other. Oh no, wait, it’s was about other things too. Well blow me down – turns out stories can have multiple meanings! Who’d have thought it eh?
The Bible is to god as the Telegraph is to the Tory party. It’s a fan mag. Any references to god are all about what a great guy he is/was. If god impregnated an underage Palestinian servant girl then by its own definition of a morally perfect deity that must therefore have been a morally good thing to do! Whoopee!
Here’s the thing though: by modern lights it was a morally contemptible thing to do. Whose morality wins then – ours, or the god of the Bible’s?
-
I just edited my post to include "so it's not my definition of consent but the NHS website definition of consent" but you had already quoted my post.
Actually it isn't the NHS's definition of consent either as they don't 'own' the definition of consent. What is on the NHS page you provided is a brief summary of consent for the lay-person. And as with brief summaries for the lay-person it is somewhat simplified and lacking in detail. If you want the details and the whole picture you need something aimed at professionals. Hmm, maybe the sort of thing that a professional in this field might deliver in an post-graduate educational/training context to others who wish to be professionals where consent is a key professional issue.
It's not relevant that you teach a particular field if you make a bad argument. The argument stands or falls on its own merits.
What bad argument?
My argument is that a key element for consent is voluntariness - is that a bad argument?
Secondly that when you go into detail on voluntariness as an element of consent the notion that power relationships may act to nullify voluntariness is absolutely front and centre - is that a bad argument?
Thirdly that for there to be voluntariness that the individual must genuinely feel that they are empowered to make a decision either way free from pressure/coercion etc - is that a bad argument?
And therefore someone who is hypothetically visited by god (or an angel from god) who tells them that something will happen to them is being subjected to the most hum-dinger of power relationships - is that a bad argument?
And that if that person states that they are subservient to the will of god that they therefore consider themselves unable to act in a way that is counter to that will of god - is that a bad argument?
And under those circumstances the thresholds for voluntariness in consent are not met, meaning there is no valid consent - is that a bad argument?
I suspect you are just being ... well ... argumentative VG ;)
-
VG,
That's not how it works though. Our current modern idea of consent will change, and keep changing as new information comes to light or social norms change. For example the legal age of consent is different in different countries and what you can and cannot consent to changes depending on the country or over time. Often this depends on factors such as what the latest judges in a particular geographic location interpret as law or what the Legislative passes as law or how much influence is exerted by stakeholders e.g. lobby groups. What is right or wrong keeps changing.
Yes I know. And when it changes the societies that change it think they’re changing it for the better. That’s the point. The morality of each society is the best they think it can be at the time they enact it. They don’t say, “we know that slavery thing we used to have was shit, but let’s give it another go anyway”. Currently in the UK (as elsewhere) we’ve decided that consent is morally better than non-consent.
The god of the Bible on the other hand drove a coach and horses through our modern position on consent, yet we’re also told that “He” was morally perfect and so therefore must have been everything he did.
Can you see it now? Either this morally perfect god behaved morally well (in which case our current position on consent is wrong), or “He” behaved morally badly (in which case our position on consent is cool and god isn't morally perfect).
As I said – you can have either, but you can’t have both.
-
They don’t say, “we know that slavery thing we used to have was shit, but let’s give it another go anyway”.
The slavery analogy is actually quite a good one.
By and large we still define slavery in the same manner as we did 2000 years ago. The issue isn't a re-definition of slavery, but that it was once deemed largely acceptable in many contexts, but now isn't.
So the same applies to consent - we still define consent by and large how Plato or Hyppocrites would have understood it. The issue isn't a re-definition of consent - nope, the issue is that consent was once deemed unnecessary, or even undesirable in many contexts, but now we consider it, ethically, to be essential in all sorts of settings and contexts.
And this is why Vlad's arguments are so non-sensical. So firstly, anyone with any modicum of understanding of consent would recognise that the NT text doesn't demonstrate consent what so ever, quite the reverse. But, and other people have pointed this out too, in the context of 1stC thinking the writers wouldn't have given a second thought to consent. My (and others it appears) reading of:
"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
is that it is all about demonstrating Mary's devotion and submission to authority, which is the complete opposite of autonomy manifested through consent.
-
Prof,
The slavery analogy is actually quite a good one.
By and large we still define slavery in the same manner as we did 2000 years ago. The issue isn't a re-definition of slavery, but that it was once deemed largely acceptable in many contexts, but now isn't.
So the same applies to consent - we still define consent by and large how Plato or Hyppocrites would have understood it. The issue isn't a re-definition of consent - nope, the issue is that consent was once deemed unnecessary, or even undesirable in many contexts, but now we consider it, ethically, to be essential in all sorts of settings and contexts.
And this is why Vlad's arguments are so non-sensical. So firstly, anyone with any modicum of understanding of consent would recognise that the NT text doesn't demonstrate consent what so ever, quite the reverse. But, and other people have pointed this out too, in the context of 1stC thinking the writers wouldn't have given a second thought to consent. My (and others it appears) reading of:
"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
is that it is all about demonstrating Mary's devotion and submission to authority, which is the complete opposite of autonomy manifested through consent.
I agree with all that, but the point here still I think is that, regardless of their contemporary moral precepts, the authors presumably thought they were describing accurately the action of a morally perfect god. By modern, Western standards that action was morally contemptible, but if we take the account at face value (yeah I know, but anyway…) either the god of the story was morally right to act as he did (so current morality is wrong), or our current position on consent is morally better (so god was wrong). It can't be both though.
-
VG,
Did you actually just say “on the basis that someone wants to become a servant and be told what to do?”. How do you suppose that worked then – Mary turned up at the job centre one Monday morning, and the clerk said: ”OK, let’s see what we’ve got today. Ooh, Emperor –that’s a good one. Several senator positions going begging too I see, plus we have something open as the chief architect for temples that might interest you. What’s that you say Mary – “have we got something more in the servant line?” Well yes, if that’s your choice I’m sure we could find something for you. Are you sure though? After all, with these other jobs you’d have servants of your own, plus chariots and wine and free tickets to the circus and stuff? No?...“sounds great, but you really fancy giving servanting a go” do you? Well, on your head be it then...”
It works like this. You believe in the concept of a hierarchy and you believe in a particular form of hierarchy being something you want to join and be part of because you believe the benefits outweigh the costs, You then believe that within that hierarchical oranisation/ movement/ social group/ tribe etc you want to join, specific people or a person - or in the case of religions, a supernatural entity or entities - has/have the right to tell you what to do. You then decide to go along with doing what they tell you to do...except when you decide you don't want to and then you stop doing what they tell you to do. There may be consequences to your refusal - e.g. you may be socially excluded/ fired from a job/ leave an organisation/ be ex-communicated from a church/ be court-martialled/ / feel liberated/ feel in yourself you have failed in your religious/ moral/ social/ political duty/ be judged by others to have failed etc etc
“Wanting”? “Wanting”!!!
You do say he darndest things sometimes Gabriella…
Not sure what your point is. Lots of people want to serve various causes. Nuns, priests, religious devotees, or soldiers wanting to serve and sacrifice for abstract concepts such as honour or freedom
Age and power dynamic for two starters.
What is wrong with Mary's age? In that time and context of when the story was written, her age seems to be the usual age to marry, and we don't actually know her age. Maybe her age constantly changes depending on who is telling the story and the society they are relating the story to and the year the story is being related. Or maybe people don't really care what age she is supposed to be as that is not the point of the story.
Power dynamic - what about it? If the story is presented as a story of religious devotion to religiously-inclined people who believe in a higher power that has created everything, then the power of this "higher power" would have to be a key element of the story for the story to be of interest to the people it is aimed at.
That’s presented as morally good remember?
Either you think it’s a story presented as morally good or you don’t. As it’s presented in the Bible though do you not think the intention was the former rather than to describe god’s morally bad act?
I think the story is presented by its authors with the intention of being seen as morally good on the basis of the beliefs of its authors and their target audience.
That’s just what you suggested, and that’s exactly what’s baked in to the story – “god did it, therefore it was morally good”.
Nope, I didn't suggest that "behaving in a way you’d find morally wrong is ok when the end justifies the means".
It’s not simply stating – it’s showing you what you did, but ok…
Again it's just your opinion that you showed me what I did. I don't think you showed me what I did because I don't think I deflected. You can think I deflected if you want to though.
Yeah, and Aesop’s fable of the hare and the tortoise was only about two animals racing each other. Oh no, wait, it’s was about other things too. Well blow me down – turns out stories can have multiple meanings! Who’d have thought it eh?
As I said, you can interpret any story how you want. However, demanding that other people interpret stories the same way you do hasn't worked. People will just disagree with your interpretation, as has happened here.
The Bible is to god as the Telegraph is to the Tory party. It’s a fan mag. Any references to god are all about what a great guy he is/was. If god impregnated an underage Palestinian servant girl then by its own definition of a morally perfect deity that must therefore have been a morally good thing to do! Whoopee!
The Bible would present creation by a higher power as a morally good thing, regardless of the hardships that follow on from creation. Presumably because in this religious value system, along with the belief in a higher creator power that created life, is the belief that the higher power has the right to take life away, make life difficult etc etc
Here’s the thing though: by modern lights it was a morally contemptible thing to do.
No idea what you mean by that sentence. There isn't one modern view about what is or isn't morally contemptible for a god to do.
Whose morality wins then – ours, or the god of the Bible’s?
Dunno - depends who you ask I suppose.
-
Prof,
I agree with all that, but the point here still I think is that, regardless of their contemporary moral precepts, the authors presumably thought they were describing accurately the action of a morally perfect god. By modern, Western standards that action was morally contemptible, but if we take the account at face value (yeah I know, but anyway…) either the god of the story was morally right to act as he did (so current morality is wrong), or our current position on consent is morally better (so god was wrong). It can't be both though.
Yes - that's about right. I think by the standards of the writers of the story this was perfectly accepted, indeed expected. That their god could do as they wish and the job of humans was to submit to that will, however (to our modern standards) morally reprehensible.
1stC writers would have given a second thought to consent in this context - to would have been completely irrelevant to them. Which is why Vlad trying to claim the text shows evidence of consent is revisionist non-sense, as well as fundamentally misunderstanding what consent actually is.
-
Actually it isn't the NHS's definition of consent either as they don't 'own' the definition of consent. What is on the NHS page you provided is a brief summary of consent for the lay-person. And as with brief summaries for the lay-person it is somewhat simplified and lacking in detail. If you want the details and the whole picture you need something aimed at professionals. Hmm, maybe the sort of thing that a professional in this field might deliver in an post-graduate educational/training context to others who wish to be professionals where consent is a key professional issue.
Again, as already mentioned, the arguments presented about consent from the limited information in the Bible story were brief summaries for lay-people, therefore the response will also be a brief summary for lay people. If you want to have a more detailed discussion on consent, then start a new thread rather than derailing this one. Sriram's OP and the discussions that followed were mostly all lay-persons' brief summaries about consent.
What bad argument?
My argument is that a key element for consent is voluntariness - is that a bad argument?
Secondly that when you go into detail on voluntariness as an element of consent the notion that power relationships may act to nullify voluntariness is absolutely front and centre - is that a bad argument?
Thirdly that for there to be voluntariness that the individual must genuinely feel that they are empowered to make a decision either way free from pressure/coercion etc - is that a bad argument?
And therefore someone who is hypothetically visited by god (or an angel from god) who tells them that something will happen to them is being subjected to the most hum-dinger of power relationships - is that a bad argument?
And that if that person states that they are subservient to the will of god that they therefore consider themselves unable to act in a way that is counter to that will of god - is that a bad argument?
And under those circumstances the thresholds for voluntariness in consent are not met, meaning there is no valid consent - is that a bad argument?
I suspect you are just being ... well ... argumentative VG ;)
I suggest you start a new thread on the voluntariness of consent and we can discuss your arguments there. It's an interesting topic. I don't know if you want to narrow it to the voluntariness of consent in a religious context e.g. if you can't choose beliefs are your religious beliefs and actions based on your beliefs voluntary e.g. an adult who gets circumcised because he thinks it is required by his religious beliefs and so he feels a sense of obligation to be circumcised?
Or widen the discussion out to how voluntary consent is if you join various hierarchical organisations e.g. if you join the army and are told you have to participate in the gas chamber test where you "voluntarily" expose yourself to CS gas. Or you voluntarily expose yourself to biological weapons on the battlefield and do not leave your post etc etc. If you feel under a sense of obligation/ duty/ societal pressure to adhere to a moral code and therefore participate in these activities, was your choice really voluntary?
-
Again, as already mentioned, the arguments presented about consent from the limited information in the Bible story were brief summaries for lay-people, therefore the response will also be a brief summary for lay people.
Not sure I get your argument. Are you suggesting that both the NHS web-page and the text in the NT are brief summaries for lay people. This may be true, but there is an important distinction. For the NHS information - while this may be a lay summary, we can readily go to the wealth of more detailed stuff, perhaps aimed at professionals from which the lay summary is derived.
By contrast for the NT text we cannot do the same as this is all the information we have - we cannot go to the more detailed 'source' material, because it either never existed and/or has been lost in the mists of time.
-
Power dynamic - what about it?
It is absolutely critical if we are considering consent.
Any power dynamic which means that an individual fetters their discretion to choose one course of action over another because they feel obligated to act in accordance with an authority figure means that the voluntariness element of consent it lost. And if the voluntary element is lost then there is no consent.
And actually this isn't anything new in terms of understanding of consent. As far as I am aware Plato considered that people in servitude were simply unable to consent as they were unable to take their own decisions.
-
Yes - that's about right. I think by the standards of the writers of the story this was perfectly accepted, indeed expected. That their god could do as they wish and the job of humans was to submit to that will, however (to our modern standards) morally reprehensible.
1stC writers would have given a second thought to consent in this context - to would have been completely irrelevant to them. Which is why Vlad trying to claim the text shows evidence of consent is revisionist non-sense, as well as fundamentally misunderstanding what consent actually is.
So it’s pseudohistory now? What evidence are you drawing this sweeping statement about 1st century writers from?
-
It is absolutely critical if we are considering consent.
Any power dynamic which means that an individual fetters their discretion to choose one course of action over another because they feel obligated to act in accordance with an authority figure means that the voluntariness element of consent it lost. And if the voluntary element is lost then there is no consent.
And actually this isn't anything new in terms of understanding of consent. As far as I am aware Plato considered that people in servitude were simply unable to consent as they were unable to take their own decisions.
Verse 38 renders this objection erroneous. You cannot dismiss implied consent and coercion cannot be demonstrated, voluntary decision is.
Your argument is therefore solely based on your caricature of the supposed subservience of first century Jews.
-
Not sure I get your argument. Are you suggesting that both the NHS web-page and the text in the NT are brief summaries for lay people. This may be true, but there is an important distinction. For the NHS information - while this may be a lay summary, we can readily go to the wealth of more detailed stuff, perhaps aimed at professionals from which the lay summary is derived.
By contrast for the NT text we cannot do the same as this is all the information we have - we cannot go to the more detailed 'source' material, because it either never existed and/or has been lost in the mists of time.
Yes that's true - there is more information available today if we want to have a discussion on consent in professional contexts such as medical procedures or participation in medical research etc.
There are various legal cases and guidance on the need for informed consent to medical care and procedures https://www.graysons.co.uk/medical-negligence/informed-consent-and-the-new-law/
And guidance on whether consent is voluntary or whether the lack of meaningful choice or pressure being applied on a person invalidates their consent.
But that wasn't the focus of the Nativity story. The story mentions that Mary said "Let it be" or similar words when according to the story the angel foretold God's plan for Mary to carry a son created by God rather than conceived the usual way. But the authors did not elaborate on whether or not Mary's "Let it be" was due to feeling pressured to agree to the pregnancy, since the main focus was not consent to the health risks of pregnancy or consent to being pregnant. It seems to have been written and translated with the focus being on emphasising religious devotion and supernatural events.
I am therefore suggesting that posters are wasting their time trying to find evidence for or against consent in the words of the Nativity story as there is not enough material to make a finding either way, as consent was not what the story sought to illustrate. Hence having a detailed discussion using the Nativity story is not possible due to lack of information, and people were discussing the issue of consent in layman's terms.
In any story where it is narrated that God has indicated a preference for a course of action, and a believer in that God then follows that course of action, it would be a bit tedious if we kept discussing consent and power dynamics. If you want a discussion about the religious beliefs around the power dynamics between a higher power (creator) and its creation, why not start a thread on that. It might be interesting to understand why such power dynamics in religion appeal to some people and alienate others.
-
Verse 38 renders this objection erroneous. You cannot dismiss implied consent and coercion cannot be demonstrated, voluntary decision is.
There is no implied consent in verse 38, let alone explicit consent.
"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
I a clear expression of submission to authority, which is the diametric opposite of consent.
-
So it’s pseudohistory now? What evidence are you drawing this sweeping statement about 1st century writers from?
From the huge amount of information from historians about how various societies operated in the 1stC.
Sure consent was a thing, but its impact was very limited and indeed was in many cases actively discouraged in decision making (see Plato). And where it did operate it was restricted to those in established positions of authority, largely men in privileged positions. Someone in Mary's position - young, female, not from a wealthy/privileged background would be expected to submit to authority in terms of decision making rather than be in a position to take those decisions herself.
Why do you think that the writers of the NT would have strayed from the overarching societal norms of the time?
-
. If you want a discussion about the religious beliefs around the power dynamics between a higher power (creator) and its creation, why not start a thread on that. It might be interesting to understand why such power dynamics in religion appeal to some people and alienate others.
I agree considering the Bases of Davey and Hillsides arguments are huge themes like Immoral God, God as abusive Cult leader, the subservience of first century Palestine and professor Davey's use of Greece and Rome as a moral reference point #reply 182
-
There is no implied consent in verse 38, let alone explicit consent.
"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
I a clear expression of submission to authority, which is the diametric opposite of consent.
But this entails prior commitment with God, a free will act of consent and Mary makes it clear what the transaction has entailed both here and in the magnificat.
Also Mary gives her let it be prior to conception.
-
But this entails prior commitment with God, a free will act of consent and Mary makes it clear what the transaction has entailed both here and in the magnificat.
You really don't understand consent do you Vlad - it is a process, not a one off thing. That Mary may have (or may not have, we don't really know) consented previously to a commitment to god has no bearing on whether she consented in this specific circumstance, unless at that moment she is in a position where she has a genuine choice, free for her to take voluntarily without pressure coercion, a power relationship or submission to authority.
You can consent to join the army - at that point you have a genuine choice between outcomes - either join or not join. But once you have joined and effectively 'signed up' to obey orders you are no longer consenting to those specific orders as you have no genuine choice in the matter as you are required to obey. Someone can, of course, agree no longer to be given the opportunity to consent, through submission to authority but that means that later decision are not on the basis of individual consent.
Also Mary gives her let it be prior to conception.
Irrelevant - god via the angel tells Mary what will happen from a position of the highest authority, Mary submits to authority. That isn't consent - it is miles away from consent.
-
You really don't understand consent do you Vlad - it is a process, not a one off thing. That Mary may have (or may not have, we don't really know) consented previously to a commitment to god has no bearing on whether she consented in this specific circumstance, unless at that moment she is in a position where she has a genuine choice, free for her to take voluntarily without pressure coercion, a power relationship or submission to authority.
You can consent to join the army - at that point you have a genuine choice between outcomes - either join or not join. But once you have joined and effectively 'signed up' to obey orders you are no longer consenting to those specific orders as you have no genuine choice in the matter as you are required to obey. Someone can, of course, agree no longer to be given the opportunity to consent, through submission to authority but that means that later decision are not on the basis of individual consent.
Irrelevant - god via the angel tells Mary what will happen from a position of the highest authority, Mary submits to authority. That isn't consent - it is miles away from consent.
There is no evidence of Mary regretting consent at any stage here. Were the firm of Hillside, Davey and Turdpolish to take up a case of coercion Mary would have declined. As I said there are is consent to follow God, Consent to remain with God, Consent to follow God's laws and the let it be so I am not suggesting a one of. I don't see how your partnership has a case considering she is obviously appraised of the plan prior to conception and gives
her let it be and confirms her let it be in the magnificat.
Your argument is based on a view of God(Atheism's Giant Man) and a view of Mary's psychology both of which are eminently debateable rather than the text. In other words a distinctive and again debateable methodology.
-
Vlad,
There is no evidence of Mary regretting consent at any stage here. Were the firm of Hillside, Davey and Turdpolish to take up a case of coercion Mary would have declined. As I said there are is consent to follow God, Consent to remain with God, Consent to follow God's laws and the let it be so I am not suggesting a one of. I don't see how your partnership has a case considering she is obviously appraised of the plan prior to conception and gives
her let it be and confirms her let it be in the magnificat.
Your argument is based on a view of God(Atheism's Giant Man) and a view of Mary's psychology both of which are eminently debateable rather than the text. In other words a distinctive and again debateable methodology.
You still don’t get it. Our current understanding of consent (actually based on some ancient thinking, as the Prof has said) is at odds with “god’s” act as described in Matthew/Luke. The facts of the story as told mean that Mary could not have given consent as we understand it. She could no more have consented to divine impregnation than you could have consented to handing over your wallet to a mugger in exchange for your life. You’d have both acquiesced, but not consented.
What that means is that either our current position on consent is wrong (and god acted morally perfectly), or our current understanding of consent is right, and god acted immorally. You can have either one, but not both.
-
There is no evidence of Mary regretting consent at any stage here. Were the firm of Hillside, Davey and Turdpolish to take up a case of coercion Mary would have declined. As I said there are is consent to follow God, Consent to remain with God, Consent to follow God's laws and the let it be so I am not suggesting a one of. I don't see how your partnership has a case considering she is obviously appraised of the plan prior to conception and gives
her let it be and confirms her let it be in the magnificat.
Your argument is based on a view of God(Atheism's Giant Man) and a view of Mary's psychology both of which are eminently debateable rather than the text. In other words a distinctive and again debateable methodology.
There is no evidence for the virgin birth outside of the story in the Bible.
-
Vlad,
You still don’t get it. Our current understanding of consent (actually based on some ancient thinking, as the Prof has said) is at odds with “god’s” act as described in Matthew/Luke. The facts of the story as told mean that Mary could not have given consent as we understand it. She could no more have consented to divine impregnation than you could have consented to handing over your wallet to a mugger in exchange for your life. You’d have both acquiesced, but not consented.
What that means is that either our current position on consent is wrong (and god acted morally perfectly), or our current understanding of consent is right, and god acted immorally. You can have either one, but not both.
No, all we have is your insistence that consent was not given based on a debateable view of God as you understand it, not we.
Mary gave her let it be prior to conception. So your understanding of God is not Mary's understanding of the text, wallets, muggers and live's threatened is just propoganda sleighting all concerned in sly manner.
I am just going from this text and the magnificat.
Moving from there one wonders whether a mugger God would bother with the niceties and inclusive explanation of the scheme as are found in the text
-
VG,
It works like this. You believe in the concept of a hierarchy and you believe in a particular form of hierarchy being something you want to join and be part of because you believe the benefits outweigh the costs, You then believe that within that hierarchical oranisation/ movement/ social group/ tribe etc you want to join, specific people or a person - or in the case of religions, a supernatural entity or entities - has/have the right to tell you what to do. You then decide to go along with doing what they tell you to do...except when you decide you don't want to and then you stop doing what they tell you to do. There may be consequences to your refusal - e.g. you may be socially excluded/ fired from a job/ leave an organisation/ be ex-communicated from a church/ be court-martialled/ / feel liberated/ feel in yourself you have failed in your religious/ moral/ social/ political duty/ be judged by others to have failed etc etc
You have a remarkably romanticised understanding of servitude. Does it not occur to you that servants actually became servants because they had no choice in the matter – indeed were often born into servitude?
Not sure what your point is. Lots of people want to serve various causes. Nuns, priests, religious devotees, or soldiers wanting to serve and sacrifice for abstract concepts such as honour or freedom
Servants? Slaves? Street prostitutes? Latrine cleaners? You actually think these people and more had the opportunities to pick more pleasant occupations but chose the shitty ones instead because they believed in the system? Go give your head a wobble will you?
What is wrong with Mary's age? In that time and context of when the story was written, her age seems to be the usual age to marry, and we don't actually know her age. Maybe her age constantly changes depending on who is telling the story and the society they are relating the story to and the year the story is being related. Or maybe people don't really care what age she is supposed to be as that is not the point of the story.
She was a minor, and “in that time” had nothing to do with it. The story concerns a morally perfect god remember, so “He” would have paid no mind to contemporary Palestinian morality.
Power dynamic - what about it? If the story is presented as a story of religious devotion to religiously-inclined people who believe in a higher power that has created everything, then the power of this "higher power" would have to be a key element of the story for the story to be of interest to the people it is aimed at.
Everything about it, as the Professor has explained to you. The critical part of consent of voluntariness is lost when the person feels obligated to follow the orders of an authority figure.
I think the story is presented by its authors with the intention of being seen as morally good on the basis of the beliefs of its authors and their target audience.
But Christians will tell that the “authors” were actually reporters of facts – thus that “god” acted as he did regardless of their moral precepts. That’s the point.
Nope, I didn't suggest that "behaving in a way you’d find morally wrong is ok when the end justifies the means".
Yes you did. That’s what “god knows best” entails.
Again it's just your opinion that you showed me what I did. I don't think you showed me what I did because I don't think I deflected. You can think I deflected if you want to though.
I do.
As I said, you can interpret any story how you want. However, demanding that other people interpret stories the same way you do hasn't worked. People will just disagree with your interpretation, as has happened here.
You’re still not getting it. The “authors” reported as fact an all-powerful, universe-creating god impregnating an under-age Palestinian servant. There’s no interpretation needed to understanding the story. The question then becomes whether or not “god” behaved morally well (ie, contrary to our current understanding of consent), of if “god" behaved morally badly (ie, consistent with our current understanding of consent).
Which of the two options do you pick?
The Bible would present creation by a higher power as a morally good thing, regardless of the hardships that follow on from creation. Presumably because in this religious value system, along with the belief in a higher creator power that created life, is the belief that the higher power has the right to take life away, make life difficult etc etc
Or, to put it another way, the end justified the means. Non-consensual impregnation of an under-age servant girl was fine because the bigger picture was “creation by a higher power as a morally good thing”. Well, it’s a view – though I have no idea why you think a god couldn’t have "created" without then having to act morally badly down the line.
No idea what you mean by that sentence. There isn't one modern view about what is or isn't morally contemptible for a god to do.
As you know, I was referring broadly to the contemporary Western position on consent.
Dunno - depends who you ask I suppose.
I was asking you. Do you think our current position on consent is morally better than the god’s impregnating act as described in the biblical texts, or vice versa?
-
There is no implied consent in verse 38, let alone explicit consent.
"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
PD - you do know you can't just assert a moral belief about consent without justifying your position right?
I a clear expression of submission to authority, which is the diametric opposite of consent.
PD - you do know you can't just assert something without evidence right? Why is voluntary submission to authority the opposite of consent? Submission is a willingness to adhere to the wishes of someone else that you consider has authority over you. Provided no one is forcing you to enter a relationship where you are giving someone authority over you. According to the story, Mary describes herself as a servant of God, presumably due to her beliefs and prayers and acts of worship (all of which are voluntary submission to God's authority) and her "Let it be" is a continuation of her wish to serve God and her agreement to becoming pregnant. That's good enough for me to consider it to be consent in relation to a supernatural entity she believes is her creator.
Also, what is morally wrong with submission to authority? We submit to authority all the time in this country. No one seeks our consent for every act of submission to authority. People are 'coerced' into paying taxes for example on penalty of fines and imprisonment if they don't.
-
Vlad,
No, all we have is your insistence that consent was not given based on a debateable view of God as you understand it, not we.
Mary gave her let it be prior to conception. So your understanding of God is not Mary's understanding of the text, wallets, muggers and live's threatened is just propoganda sleighting all concerned in sly manner.
I am just going from this text and the magnificat.
Moving from there one wonders whether a mugger God would bother with the niceties and inclusive explanation of the scheme as are found in the text
You’re still not getting it. The story is reported as fact. As reportage. As an accurate account of what happened.
If we take that story at face value therefore (however ludicrous) then it tells us that a universe-creating, all-powerful, all-knowing and morally perfect god impregnated an under-age Palestinian servant girl. Those are the “facts” as reported in the story.
The modern Western position on consent is that, no matter what Mary may have said, it was impossible for her to give consent for the reasons Prof Davey has set out. That's why adult men who impregnate under-age teenagers go to pokey, regardless of whether the girls involved acquiesced.
Still with me? OK then..
So what this means is that either “god” acted morally perfectly (and so our position on consent is wrong), or that our position on consent is correct (and so “god” acted immorally).
Which of these only two option do you pick?
-
There is no evidence of Mary regretting consent at any stage here.
What on earth has regret got to do with this Vlad.
You do realise that it is perfectly possible to give valid consent to something that you might bitterly regret doing with hindsight. And likewise looking back it is perfectly possible to consider something to be the best thing that ever happened with was foisted on you without consent.
Consent has nothing to do with whether a decision is, in due course, considered the right one or the wrong one. Consent is about who makes that decision and the basis on which they make it.
-
PD - you do know you can't just assert a moral belief about consent without justifying your position right?
This isn't anything to do with moral belief VG - merely giving a view on whether, on the basis of the information available, something meets the criteria for consent or does not. And I'm doing this from the perspective of someone who has been professionally involved in assessing the process of consent for some 25 years.
Here is an interesting little snippet from the Crown Prosecution Service on the matter:
'It is important to make a distinction between consent and mere submission, acquiescence or compliance.'
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-6-consent
So just because someone appears to agree to a course of action does not mean that there is consent - particular in cases where that individual is merely submitted themselves to what an authority figure expects.
-
Also, what is morally wrong with submission to authority? We submit to authority all the time in this country. No one seeks our consent for every act of submission to authority. People are 'coerced' into paying taxes for example on penalty of fines and imprisonment if they don't.
I'm not arguing that we don't submit to authority all the time - but if we do so we are not giving consent to that particular decision.
The discussion is about whether Mary consented - from the text it is pretty clear that she was submitting to authority in a highly imbalanced situation where there was a huge power differential between her and the authority telling her what was going to happen - note telling her, not asking her for her permission.
But on the moral argument - are you really arguing that it is morally acceptable for someone to become pregnant without their consent just because someone else wants them to be pregnant, on the basis of 'submission to authority'. I mean, really VG - do you think that is morally acceptable. I sure as hell don't.
-
VG,
You have a remarkably romanticised understanding of servitude. Does it not occur to you that servants actually became servants because they had no choice in the matter – indeed were often born into servitude?
You have a remarkably prejudiced and patronising view of servants. Does it not occur to you that many servants don't need your developed-world, idle concern for their well-being from your privileged, ivory tower, while you pat yourself on the back pretending to care while you do absolutely nothing of any value that might inconvenience you to solve their day to day problems of needing food, shelter, employment etc?
Servants? Slaves? Street prostitutes? Latrine cleaners? You actually think these people and more had the opportunities to pick more pleasant occupations but chose the shitty ones instead because they believed in the system? Go give your head a wobble will you?
As entertaining as your hysterics are, let's stick with talking about servants instead of digressing.
She was a minor, and “in that time” had nothing to do with it. The story concerns a morally perfect god remember, so “He” would have paid no mind to contemporary Palestinian morality.
You have absolutely no idea if she was a minor, given the definition of a minor changes from time period to time period and geographical location.
Everything about it, as the Professor has explained to you. The critical part of consent of voluntariness is lost when the person feels obligated to follow the orders of an authority figure.
You do know both you and PD can't just assert things on here without providing some evidence or justification right? You are both entitled to hold that opinion if you want. Other opinions are available.
But Christians will tell that the “authors” were actually reporters of facts – thus that “god” acted as he did regardless of their moral precepts. That’s the point.
What, all Christians will tell you that will they? You're just being daft now.
Yes you did. That’s what “god knows best” entails.
No I didn't. For a start I don't remember saying "God knows best" but if you want to quote where I said it if you think I said it, that would be helpful.
And no "God knows best" doesn't entail that. "God knows best" as used by Muslims means there is a disagreement between people over what would be the best course of action, so only God would be able to be the arbiter, not the people who are disagreeing.
I do.
I don't.
You’re still not getting it. The “authors” reported as fact an all-powerful, universe-creating god impregnating an under-age Palestinian servant. There’s no interpretation needed to understanding the story. The question then becomes whether or not “god” behaved morally well (ie, contrary to our current understanding of consent), of if “god" behaved morally badly (ie, consistent with our current understanding of consent).
Which of the two options do you pick?
I'm getting it just fine. What you appear not to be getting is that someone disagreeing with you in a debate about morality is not because they don't get it, but because they think you are wrong. It's worrying considering the forum you are on, that you appear to think everyone agrees on morality.
The authors narrated a story that God's angel appeared to a believer who had been voluntarily engaged in prayers and acts of worship of an entity she believed to be her creator and who advised her that she would be blessed with a supernatural event whereby she would become pregnant while a virgin by the will of the God she worshipped and she replied that serving the will of her creator was her primary goal so let it happen. The authors were keeping it brief so they did not elaborate on the nuances of the psychology behind those words. If you want to interpret that story based on your prejudices and claim it shows lack of consent without presenting a detailed argument on what is and isn't voluntary consent, that's up to you. What you assert about your current understanding of consent is just that - your current understanding. Your current understanding is subjective and is not by any stretch of the imagination a universal understanding of consent.
Or, to put it another way, the end justified the means. Non-consensual impregnation of an under-age servant girl was fine because the bigger picture was “creation by a higher power as a morally good thing”. Well, it’s a view – though I have no idea why you think a god couldn’t have "created" without then having to act morally badly down the line.
You can describe it whichever way you wish - that's up to you how you view the situation. I don't view it as the end justifies the means.
As you know, I was referring broadly to the contemporary Western position on consent.
You do know you can't just assert on here that you view is the broadly the contemporary Western position on consent right? You're getting very lazy at this debate thing. You actually have to present a detailed argument and evidence on the different contemporary Western philosophical and legal positions on consent,
I was asking you. Do you think our current position on consent is morally better than the god’s impregnating act as described in the biblical texts, or vice versa?
Don't be lazy. First present some evidence and arguments on the different positions on consent currently available. It keeps evolving over time with higher courts over-ruling lower courts and policy and guidance by healthcare organisations changing based on the outcome of court cases. Then we can look at the different views on the morality of a believer submitting themselves to god's will and whether this even comes into the realm of the court cases or philosophical arguments on consent . And then we'll have something to discuss.
-
What on earth has regret got to do with this Vlad.
You do realise that it is perfectly possible to give valid consent to something that you might bitterly regret doing with hindsight. And likewise looking back it is perfectly possible to consider something to be the best thing that ever happened with was foisted on you without consent.
What has that got to do with a case where there has been consent. You are the one trying to build a case of coercion and invalidity of the consent from outside the text, you are appealing to the coercion from God and Coercion in Mary, no sign of it ad Mary's lack of regret does not aid your case. As before I am happy to discuss your model of God as the lecturer who gives good grades for er, favours, elsewhere
-
VG,
You have a remarkably prejudiced and patronising view of... etc
Even for you this and what follows is a bizarre set of deflections, straw men, non sequiturs and ad homs. If you really want to stick to any of it I suggest you pick whichever point you think is your strongest and I'll deal with it. Your Gish Gallop approach of ever-expanding side bars makes debate in any practical sense impossible though.
Try instead to focus on the central point here: the contemporary Western position on consent requires various component parts to be present (capacity, voluntariness etc). When some or all of these components are not in place consent cannot occur no matter what the acquiescing party may say or do. That last part is important (and is where Vlad keeps going wrong) so you need to grasp it.
Still with me? OK then...
In the Bible texts a story is presented as reportage of actual events in which a morally perfect god impregnates an under-age (the Christian sites I've looked at suggest likely around 13 - 14) Palestinian servant girl. In such a case, the current position on consent is that it cannot have been given no matter what Mary said or did. It just couldn't on the plain "facts" of the case, regardless of what was said before or afterwards. That's why there's no defence at all now for an adult man impregnating, say, a 14-year-old no matter how consenting she may have thought she was.
So we have a story reported as factual about a morally perfect god impregnating someone who could not by dint of the facts of the story have given consent by modern standards. This means either that "god" acted morally perfectly (and the modern standard is therefore wrong), or that the modern standard is right (and "god" is not therefore morally perfect). There is no third option.
I was asking you therefore which of these only two options you would opt for - albeit with little expectation that you won't keep looking for more bolt holes instead rather than answer the question. Go on though - surprise me.
-
Vlad,
What has that got to do with a case where there has been consent...
Again, it's not that there was no consent but rather that there cannot have been consent by modern standards.
Try to understand this.
-
Vlad,
If we take that story, editing out verse 38 and including an unevidenced statement about Mary's minority, at face value therefore (however ludicrous) then it tells us that a universe-creating, all-powerful, all-knowing and morally perfect god impregnated an under-age Palestinian servant girl. Those are the “facts” as reported in the story.
There Hillside, I've corrected it for you.
-
Vlad,
There Hillside, I've corrected it for you.
As ever, lying won't help you here. Can you understand why it is that by modern standards, no matter what she said or did, Mary cannot have given consent - ie, why verse 38 has no relevance at all?
-
Vlad,
As ever, lying won't help you here. Can you understand why it is that by modern standards, no matter what she said or did, Mary cannot have given consent - ie, why verse 38 has no relevance at all?
Sorry Hillside you were caught red handed and in the modern standard of morality, that's unforgiveable.
Just a warning, I may not necessarily be replying to all your posts just to say.
-
Vlad,
Sorry Hillside you were caught red handed and in the modern standard of morality, that's unforgiveable.
Just a warning, I may not necessarily be replying to all your posts just to say.
I don’t know why you keep lying about this. I told you that I just copied and pasted the text from a website, but in any case I’ve dispensed with v38 as irrelevant without rebuttal. Either address your mistake or don’t, but your “look over there, a squirrel” tactic isn’t working.
PS Here's a link to a website with the text. Different font from the one I cut and pasted from, but it too stops before v38. No idea why, but several of them do it:
https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/christ-conceived-by-the-holy-spirit
PPS Given your long history of near-pathological lying here by the way and your unwavering devotion to the straw man especially do you not think wrongly accusing someone else of dishonesty is pushing your luck more than a tad?
-
This isn't anything to do with moral belief VG - merely giving a view on whether, on the basis of the information available, something meets the criteria for consent or does not. And I'm doing this from the perspective of someone who has been professionally involved in assessing the process of consent for some 25 years.
So you keep saying - but it would be more useful to look at whether your arguments are strong enough to stand on their own merits rather than needing your supposed credentials to try to bolster them. The information provided is inconclusive. That you keep asserting that in your opinion it is clear what the conclusion should be isn't convincing. What would be more useful than you asserting what you think is current thinking on consent in medical ethics, is if you linked to the different opinions in philosophy and ethics about voluntary consent in relation to hierarchical organisations that people voluntarily join. For example as I mentioned before a member of the army's consent to expose themselves to biological weapons on the battlefield by staying at their post rather than deserting.
Or you could link to your lecture notes on children consenting to circumcision for religious reasons. This BMJ guidance from 2004 https://jme.bmj.com/content/30/3/259 says there are many different and opposing views on non-therapeutic male circumcision, even amongst its own members. On the issue of children consenting to their own circumcision it says:
4.2.1. Children’s own consent
All children who are capable of expressing a view should be involved in decisions about whether they should be circumcised, and their wishes taken into account. The BMA cannot envisage a situation in which it is ethically acceptable to circumcise a competent, informed young person who consistently refuses the procedure. As with any form of medical treatment, doctors must balance the harms caused by violating a child’s refusal with the harm caused by not circumcising. Often surgery for non-medical reasons is deferred until children have sufficient maturity and understanding to participate in the decision about what happens to their bodies, and those that are competent to decide are entitled in law to give consent for themselves. When assessing competence to decide, doctors should be aware that parents can exert great influence on their child’s view of treatment. That is not to say that decisions made with advice from parents are necessarily in doubt, but that it is important that the decision is the child’s own independent choice.
It would be useful to know how the BMJ guidance and our modern understanding of consent to religious and lawful ABH has developed.
Mary voluntarily sees herself as a servant of God. Many other religious people also use that phrasing. Millions of people, including children, fast during Ramadan because they see that as a act of submission to God's will. Schools seem to have accepted that the children consent to deny themselves food and any liquid including water from dawn to sunset, which if I remember when my eldest daughter was doing her GCSEs, she was voluntarily fasting for example from about 3.45 am until 9.15pm (sunset) on exam days.
Fascinating what these religious types voluntarily consent to, according to our modern understanding of the word, when it comes to gods and what is considered valid consent by children based on our modern understanding. Unfortunately, still no closer to getting any BMJ guidance on consent to supernatural pregnancies, but interesting nevertheless.
So how relevant is your professional involvement in some capacity to do with consent to medical procedures when it comes to submission in the religious context in reference to a Biblical story about a supernatural pregnancy? If you want to link to some of your lecture notes to your Masters level students on voluntary consent to supernatural pregnancies, feel free, and we can assess for ourselves what the different perspectives are on consenting to supernatural pregnancies by servants of God.
Here is an interesting little snippet from the Crown Prosecution Service on the matter:
'It is important to make a distinction between consent and mere submission, acquiescence or compliance.'
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-6-consent
So just because someone appears to agree to a course of action does not mean that there is consent - particular in cases where that individual is merely submitted themselves to what an authority figure expects.
I went to your link but unfortunately could not see the line you quoted. Could you please quote a bigger paragraph so I can find it? This consent presumably is in relation to sexual acts, not supernatural events that did not involve sexual acts.
Reading other parts of your link I note it says that whether there was consent or not is a matter for a jury to decide, so do you have links from the CPS on a jury's verdict on consenting to supernatural pregnancies where no sexual act has occurred?
I note your link says in relation to consent that "Agreement is a state of mind and does not need to be verbalised." We do not have in depth information on Mary's state of mind, other than the brief lines in the story. So your opinion that it is clear there is no valid consent seems to be mere assertion and does not follow the in-depth processes set out in the BMJ or the CPS guidance.
-
VG,
Even for you this and what follows is a bizarre set of deflections, straw men, non sequiturs and ad homs. If you really want to stick to any of it I suggest you pick whichever point you think is your strongest and I'll deal with it. Your Gish Gallop approach of ever-expanding side bars makes debate in any practical sense impossible though.
Yes this is the usual response I have come to expect from you when you have made a series of un-evidenced and unconvincing assertions. So basically you are unable to answer the points made and are running away from them as usual.
Try instead to focus on the central point here: the contemporary Western position on consent requires various component parts to be present (capacity, voluntariness etc). When some or all of these components are not in place consent cannot occur no matter what the acquiescing party may say or do. That last part is important (and is where Vlad keeps going wrong) so you need to grasp it.
Still with me? OK then...
First, try to focus on what you were asked rather than continuing with your un-evidenced assertions. If you want to provide a link to the contemporary western position on consent and show how it has been applied to a supernatural pregnancy or serving gods, then we can talk about the morality of it. That's where you keep going wrong BHS - you seem to think your assertions are convincing - they aren't. Still with me? Ok then...
In the Bible texts a story is presented as reportage of actual events in which a morally perfect god impregnates an under-age (the Christian sites I've looked at suggest likely around 13 - 14) Palestinian servant girl.
Firstly, "suggest" and "likely" are not evidence of Mary being under-age and secondly "under-age" according to whom? It changes depending on time and location. If you're in Sweden or France today it's 15, if you're in Syria or India it's 18, if you're in the UK or Spain it's 16. It varies state by state in the USA. It's 21 in Bahrain. In 5 years time the ages of consent in these countries might change. Age of consent for marriage (sexual intercourse) was set at 12 years old for maidens (girls) and 14 years old for youths (boys), under English common law until 1875 when it was raised to 13 years for girls. In the Netherlands a law, passed in November 1990, permitted sexual intercourse for young people between 12 and 16, but allowed a challenge by parents based on erosion of parental authority or child exploitation, which would be heard by a Council for the Protection of Children. So your idea that there is some kind of straight-forward single view in modern times on consent is nonsense.
In such a case, the current position on consent is that it cannot have been given no matter what Mary said or did. It just couldn't on the plain "facts" of the case, regardless of what was said before or afterwards. That's why there's no defence at all now for an adult man impregnating, say, a 14-year-old no matter how consenting she may have thought she was.
Why is current UK law, which could change at any given moment to a lower/higher age of consent, of any relevance to a Bible story set thousands of years ago, especially since you have no idea how old Mary actually was?
Also, consent in your example relating to UK law is not in relation to supernatural impregnation - it is in relation to a sexual act. There was no sexual act in the story of Mary's pregnancy, hence this is irrelevant.
So we have a story reported as factual about a morally perfect god impregnating someone who could not by dint of the facts of the story have given consent by modern standards. This means either that "god" acted morally perfectly (and the modern standard is therefore wrong), or that the modern standard is right (and "god" is not therefore morally perfect). There is no third option.
Your "either or" scenarios are not valid since there is no modern standard regarding consent to supernatural pregnancies that do not involve sexual acts.
I was asking you therefore which of these only two options you would opt for - albeit with little expectation that you won't keep looking for more bolt holes instead rather than answer the question. Go on though - surprise me.
It's fairly obvious that these are not the only 2 options, as already explained many times. That you cannot comprehend this is not a surprise to me.
-
I'm not arguing that we don't submit to authority all the time - but if we do so we are not giving consent to that particular decision.
I think the government will disagree with you on that. The idea of consent of the governed in political philosophy is that a government 's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised. Here is a response to a query on how we remove our consent to be governed; https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/how_do_we_remove_concent_to_be_g
"There is only one way to 'remove' or withdraw 'consent to be governed' and that is to cease to be a citizen of the UK.
A declaration of being a 'Stateless Person', or the formal surrender of citizenship would be sufficient."
The discussion is about whether Mary consented - from the text it is pretty clear that she was submitting to authority in a highly imbalanced situation where there was a huge power differential between her and the authority telling her what was going to happen - note telling her, not asking her for her permission.
From the text it is pretty clear that she voluntarily submits to the higher authority. As with any submission to gods, it's pretty easy to withdraw your submission at any time - you just decide to not do whatever you believe your god wants you to do. I don't read the text the same way you do - it's a story about God - they make it sound like it's a done deal with the word WILL for dramatic effect to make it sound like a prophecy (I'm picturing a BOOMING voice courtesy of DEATH in Terry Pratchett), but if Mary had said "nah you're alright, I don't fancy it" then I'm guessing poof - no baby Jesus.
But on the moral argument - are you really arguing that it is morally acceptable for someone to become pregnant without their consent just because someone else wants them to be pregnant, on the basis of 'submission to authority'. I mean, really VG - do you think that is morally acceptable. I sure as hell don't.
I am arguing that Mary consented to the pregnancy. But let's see if the CPS think there is sufficient evidence of a crime being committed and evidence of lack of consent in order to charge God and then get a jury together and see what they think. I believe that is the guidance of the CPS - that whether there was consent or not should be a matter for a jury to decide.
ETA: Sorry made a mistake - the link to the issue of consent of the governed had a response from a contributor about how to remove consent. The consent of the governed is from the US Declaration of Independence and elaborated on in philosophy https://democracyweb.org/consent-of-the-governed-history
-
Or you could link to your lecture notes on children consenting to circumcision for religious reasons. This BMJ guidance from 2004 https://jme.bmj.com/content/30/3/259 says there are many different and opposing views on non-therapeutic male circumcision, even amongst its own members. On the issue of children consenting to their own circumcision it says:
4.2.1. Children’s own consent
All children who are capable of expressing a view should be involved in decisions about whether they should be circumcised, and their wishes taken into account. The BMA cannot envisage a situation in which it is ethically acceptable to circumcise a competent, informed young person who consistently refuses the procedure. As with any form of medical treatment, doctors must balance the harms caused by violating a child’s refusal with the harm caused by not circumcising. Often surgery for non-medical reasons is deferred until children have sufficient maturity and understanding to participate in the decision about what happens to their bodies, and those that are competent to decide are entitled in law to give consent for themselves. When assessing competence to decide, doctors should be aware that parents can exert great influence on their child’s view of treatment. That is not to say that decisions made with advice from parents are necessarily in doubt, but that it is important that the decision is the child’s own independent choice.
My own module is based on research ethics, so the issue of circumcision isn't a topic of discussion. However the broader issue of children and consent is covered in detail, and it is complex.
The first point is assessing whether a child has the capacity to consent - being so-called 'Gillick' competent. This doesn't arise miraculously at a particular 'age of consent', although the law may make certain acts illegal below a particular age. No it is based on the individual child's own development and maturity - so one 14 year old may be deemed competent while another might not. It is also situation specific - so a child may be considered to be able to consent to something that is relatively simple and easy to understand but not in another situation which is much more complex in terms of understanding the potential outcomes.
There is a common misconception that for a young child parents are able to consent on behalf of that child if the child does not have capacity themselves. While this is useful for lay understanding, strictly speaking it isn't really the case and this 'proxy consent' does not carry the same weight as actual valid consent. In principle, no-one can 'consent' on behalf of someone else - however people can authorise activities, e.g. treatment, on behalf of someone unable to give consent. And in these cases authorisation must be on the basis of what it is the best interests of the person unable to consent.
In the case of children it is of course the parents who are usually considered to be best able to understand what is in the best interests of their child, and therefore usually it is the parents who authorise treatment etc. However this isn't a guarantee and there have been many cases where parents and medical teams may disagree on course of treatment and in these cases the court becomes the ultimate arbiter of what is in that child's best interest.
The most obvious and settled cases in a religious context are situations where parents refuse life-saving blood transfusions for their child. The case law is pretty settled - if the child cannot consent then a transfusion will be considered to be in the child's best interests. if, on the other hand the child is Gillick competent - then that child can refuse a blood transfusion. But, as your quote implies, the courts will need to be convinced that there is not only capacity to consent, but that the child can freely make that choice without parental pressure sufficient to negate the voluntariness requirement for consent.
-
...
From the text it is pretty clear that she voluntarily submits to the higher authority. As with any submission to gods, it's pretty easy to withdraw your submission at any time - you just decide to not do whatever you believe your god wants you to do. I don't read the text the same way you do - it's a story about God - they make it sound like it's a done deal with the word WILL for dramatic effect to make it sound like a prophecy (I'm picturing a BOOMING voice courtesy of DEATH in Terry Pratchett), but if Mary had said "nah you're alright, I don't fancy it" then I'm guessing poof - no baby Jesus.
...
Sort of reminded about the story of the man standing on a street corner propositioning every woman that passed by ... bound to strike lucky eventually.
But .. how could Mary "just decide not do whatever" when the supernatural entity can make her pregnant without any action on her part and without any sex act?
I suspect we would have ended up with all the stories about Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed etc no matter whether they ever existed as individuals or not.
-
My own module is based on research ethics, so the issue of circumcision isn't a topic of discussion. However the broader issue of children and consent is covered in detail, and it is complex.
The first point is assessing whether a child has the capacity to consent - being so-called 'Gillick' competent. This doesn't arise miraculously at a particular 'age of consent', although the law may make certain acts illegal below a particular age. No it is based on the individual child's own development and maturity - so one 14 year old may be deemed competent while another might not. It is also situation specific - so a child may be considered to be able to consent to something that is relatively simple and easy to understand but not in another situation which is much more complex in terms of understanding the potential outcomes.
There is a common misconception that for a young child parents are able to consent on behalf of that child if the child does not have capacity themselves. While this is useful for lay understanding, it isn't really the case. No-one can 'consent' on behalf of someone else - however people can authority activities, e.g. treatment, on behalf of someone unable to give consent. And in these cases authorisation must be on the basis of what it is the bast interests of the person unable to consent.
In the case of children it is of course the parents who are usually considered to be best able to understand what is in the best interests of their child, and therefore usually it is the parents who authorise treatment etc. However this isn't a guarantee and there have been many cases where parents and medical teams may disagree on course of treatment and in these cases the court becomes the ultimate arbiter of what is in that child's best interest.
The most obvious and settled cases in a religious context are situations where parents refuse life-saving blood transfusions for their child. The case law is pretty settled - if the child cannot consent then a transfusion will be considered to be in the child's best interests. if, on the other hand the child is Gillick competent - then that child can refuse a blood transfusion. But, as your quote implies, the courts will need to be convinced that there is not only capacity to consent, but that the child can freely make that choice without parental pressure sufficient to negate the voluntariness requirement for consent.
I note the BMA guidance on circumcision also considers identity and social belonging to be a factor. "Where a child is living in a culture in which circumcision is required for all males, the increased acceptance into a family or society that circumcision can confer is considered to be a strong social or cultural benefit. Exclusion may cause harm by, for example, complicating the individual’s search for identity and sense of belonging. Clearly, assessment of such intangible risks and benefits is complex."
-
I note the BMA guidance on circumcision also considers identity and social belonging to be a factor. "Where a child is living in a culture in which circumcision is required for all males, the increased acceptance into a family or society that circumcision can confer is considered to be a strong social or cultural benefit. Exclusion may cause harm by, for example, complicating the individual’s search for identity and sense of belonging. Clearly, assessment of such intangible risks and benefits is complex."
Indeed - but that is in the context of considering best interests where someone else (e.g. parents) authorise a procedure on behalf of a child who doesn't have the capacity to consent. And the significance of the procedure will also be critical - so see the difference between circumcision and FGM.
But this isn't really about consent as in this context there is no consent, rather there is authorisation on the basis of best interests.
But if the child does have the capacity to consent, clearly the decision is theirs to make and consent requires the ability to make that decision as a genuine choice free from undue pressure or coercion. Hence the point about ensuring the decision is the child's independent choice.
So while the courts may be comfortable with a decision to circumcise authorised by parents for a child unable to consent (e.g. a baby) they may also consider that consent may not be valid for an older child who has capacity if there is undue parental or societal pressure to make a choice in one direction.
-
Sort of reminded about the story of the man standing on a street corner propositioning every woman that passed by ... bound to strike lucky eventually.
But .. how could Mary "just decide not do whatever" when the supernatural entity can make her pregnant without any action on her part and without any sex act?
I would say it depends on how the story is presented and interpreted. Stories about gods from ancient Roman and Greek texts portray gods as acting regardless of the wishes of the humans. It's a bit more nuanced in Christian and Islamic texts where some of the teachings and narrative and stories seem to portray a god that we have to seek out and sign up to and choose to submit to through our thoughts, intentions and the choices we make in our daily lives. With lots of human weakness / imperfection / sinning (i.e. not obeying god) and repentance and asking for forgiveness baked into the religious teachings. Therefore, this type of narrative indicates a believer has a choice whether to reject god's commands. It's difficult to know which way to interpret it, hence I mentioned Terry Pratchett's satirical observations in the Discworld novels, which highlighted that language is used for dramatic effect and to convey a sense of majesty in stories but then we also have language in the text and teachings that indicate freedom to choose.
I suspect we would have ended up with all the stories about Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed etc no matter whether they ever existed as individuals or not.
Yes true - there will also be multiple different interpretations of the stories depending on the way they are told, context, the culture of the society they are broadcast in, the understanding of the individual person based on their nature/ nurture.
-
I think cloning engineers would take issue with you but before you say they didn't have that technology then God did.
Cloning, I think you'll find, is artificial... and there was sperm there, it was just longer ago than usual.
And a clone of Mary would have been female...
O.
-
It's presented as a supernatural event. In a supernatural event why can't you have conception without insemination?
If you're claiming supernatural then don't co-opt the technical terminology of conception - there wasn't a 'conception' there was just no baby then baby. Trying to normalise claims of 'magic' by understating them as just some unconventional version of an everyday mechanic is disingenuous.
O.
-
I have the text Outrider....You don't have evidence, merely speculation based on a 21st century humanistic reinterpretation of a divine situation and that is how it stands i'm afraid
The text - you mean the selectively edited fairy tale poetically translated at least twice from the original which was, at best, third or fourth hand accounts? As to the evidence that I don't have - every single other birth in human history which hasn't involved magic, and many of which have been far more exhaustively reviewed and investigated than this one.
We know a huge amount of how conception, pregnancy and childbirth work.
O.
-
The text - you mean the selectively edited fairy tale poetically translated at least twice from the original which was, at best, third or fourth hand accounts? As to the evidence that I don't have - every single other birth in human history which hasn't involved magic, and many of which have been far more exhaustively reviewed and investigated than this one.
We know a huge amount of how conception, pregnancy and childbirth work.
O.
The special pleading on behalf of Vlad, and potentially VG is staggering.
We have astonishing amounts of evidence to support the notion that human conception occurs through fertilisation of a sperm and an egg - we have exactly zero evidence that it can occur via other methods, although hypothetically it may be possible via somatic cell nuclear transfer, but this is a recent technology and has only been demonstrated to generate the earliest stages of development.
Yet apparently for Vlad and VG all that is needed for them to accept some kind of supernatural conception is that someone (we don't actually know who), who wasn't there at the time and likely never met Mary, wrote it in a text from about 100 years after the event.
VG talks of CPS type evidence - if you took that to the CPS they'd laugh so long they'd probably pass out.
There is no evidence for a supernatural conception - all there is is an unevidenced claim.
-
If you're claiming supernatural then don't co-opt the technical terminology of conception - there wasn't a 'conception' there was just no baby then baby. Trying to normalise claims of 'magic' by understating them as just some unconventional version of an everyday mechanic is disingenuous.
O.
I didn't co-opt it. The people who translated the Bible did. They are the ones stating in the text that: ...behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit."... Matthew 1:18
Go take it up with them for using the word "conceived". Though I suspect you won't have much joy, and they will tell you that they will use language as they see fit, and if you don't like it, that is very much your problem to come to terms with as you see fit.
-
The special pleading on behalf of Vlad, and potentially VG is staggering.
We have astonishing amounts of evidence to support the notion that human conception occurs through fertilisation of a sperm and an egg - we have exactly zero evidence that it can occur via other methods, although hypothetically it may be possible via somatic cell nuclear transfer, but this is a recent technology and has only been demonstrated to generate the earliest stages of development.
Yet apparently for Vlad and VG all that is needed for them to accept some kind of supernatural conception is that someone (we don't actually know who), who wasn't there at the time and likely never met Mary, wrote it in a text from about 100 years after the event.
VG talks of CPS type evidence - if you took that to the CPS they'd laugh so long they'd probably pass out.
There is no evidence for a supernatural conception - all there is is an unevidenced claim.
PD - as has been demonstrated many times on here before, your ability to comprehend English and form an argument can be prone to error. Where have I said that I think what is written in text is evidence of a supernatural conception?
We were actually discussing your errors in arguing that a few words written in a Bible story was evidence for any clear conclusion of anything. I was also pointing out your error in attempting to claim that you could decide what is and isn't consent based on your supposed credentials as some kind of lecturer in the field of research ethics. Sure, you can have an opinion but it's no more valid than anyone else's opinion. You quoted something from the CPS about the issue of consent, and I pointed out that the CPS guidance is that consent should be a matter for a jury to decide.
That you would not want to admit your error is not surprising - you're not known for admitting when you are wrong.
-
I didn't co-opt it. The people who translated the Bible did. They are the ones stating in the text that: ...behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit."... Matthew 1:18
Go take it up with them for using the word "conceived". Though I suspect you won't have much joy, and they will tell you that they will use language as they see fit, and if you don't like it, that is very much your problem to come to terms with as you see fit.
They're dead, you're here and can choose to parrot or interpret as you see fit. That they misused the phrase doesn't mean that you have to.
O.
-
Where have I said that I think what is written in text is evidence of a supernatural conception?
'This consent presumably is in relation to sexual acts, not supernatural events that did not involve sexual acts.'
'Reading other parts of your link I note it says that whether there was consent or not is a matter for a jury to decide, so do you have links from the CPS on a jury's verdict on consenting to supernatural pregnancies where no sexual act has occurred?
'Unfortunately, still no closer to getting any BMJ guidance on consent to supernatural pregnancies, but interesting nevertheless.'
If you want to link to some of your lecture notes to your Masters level students on voluntary consent to supernatural pregnancies, feel free, and we can assess for ourselves what the different perspectives are on consenting to supernatural pregnancies by servants of God.'
Your "either or" scenarios are not valid since there is no modern standard regarding consent to supernatural pregnancies that do not involve sexual acts.'
' If you want to provide a link to the contemporary western position on consent and show how it has been applied to a supernatural pregnancy or serving gods, then we can talk about the morality of it.'
'Also, consent in your example relating to UK law is not in relation to supernatural impregnation - it is in relation to a sexual act. There was no sexual act in the story of Mary's pregnancy, hence this is irrelevant.'
You do seem rather obsessed with the distinction between supernatural pregnancies and those initiated by sexual acts. Why would that be unless you considered that supernatural pregnancies were actually a thing. Where exactly are you getting your view that supernatural pregnancies are a thing except from the text which claims them to be in the NT and which is a major topic of the ongoing discussion.
-
They're dead, you're here and can choose to parrot or interpret as you see fit. That they misused the phrase doesn't mean that you have to.
O.
Funnily enough I am not big on people telling me how to speak or what phrases I can and cannot use.
Like I said, if you don't like me using the phrase i.e. quoting from the translations of religious text, that's very much your problem to deal with as you see fit.
-
You quoted something from the CPS about the issue of consent, and I pointed out that the CPS guidance is that consent should be a matter for a jury to decide.
Ultimately - but of course the CPS take the decision as to whether to prosecute on the basis of likelihood of obtaining a conviction. And how do they take that decision - well by assessing the evidence in the case.
Are you really claiming that if there was evidence in the form of a pregnant woman with the claim that this may have arisen due to non-consensual sex that the evidence in the NT would be sufficient for the CPS to conclude that there was no case to answer and therefore dismiss the case, cos someone 100 years on wrote that the pregnancy was supernatural and/or that there is a claim (with no verification) that the woman said - "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
Now the CPS may well drop the case because there is basically no credible evidence of anything - however they wouldn't drop the case on the basis that there is credible evidence that either:
1. There was a supernatural pregnancy and the law doesn't apply to supernatural pregnancies or
2. That there was evidence of consent - not mere submission, acquiescence or compliance but actual valid consent
-
Funnily enough I am not big on people telling me how to speak or what phrases I can and cannot use.
I'm not telling you that you can't, I'm suggesting that you shouldn't because it's a misuse, and I've explained why. You can choose to correct me, choose to correct your usage, or continue to try to deflect, that's also up to you. People will, of course, draw their own conclusions on your choice.
Like I said, if you don't like me using the phrase i.e. quoting from the translations of religious text, that's very much your problem to deal with as you see fit.
I thought you were wrong before, you've not in any way done anything to amend that opinion, so I'm perfectly happy to keep thinking that you're wrong. Doesn't seem like that's my problem from here...
O.
-
'This consent presumably is in relation to sexual acts, not supernatural events that did not involve sexual acts.'
'Reading other parts of your link I note it says that whether there was consent or not is a matter for a jury to decide, so do you have links from the CPS on a jury's verdict on consenting to supernatural pregnancies where no sexual act has occurred?
'Unfortunately, still no closer to getting any BMJ guidance on consent to supernatural pregnancies, but interesting nevertheless.'
If you want to link to some of your lecture notes to your Masters level students on voluntary consent to supernatural pregnancies, feel free, and we can assess for ourselves what the different perspectives are on consenting to supernatural pregnancies by servants of God.'
Your "either or" scenarios are not valid since there is no modern standard regarding consent to supernatural pregnancies that do not involve sexual acts.'
' If you want to provide a link to the contemporary western position on consent and show how it has been applied to a supernatural pregnancy or serving gods, then we can talk about the morality of it.'
'Also, consent in your example relating to UK law is not in relation to supernatural impregnation - it is in relation to a sexual act. There was no sexual act in the story of Mary's pregnancy, hence this is irrelevant.'
You do seem rather obsessed with the distinction between supernatural pregnancies and those initiated by sexual acts. Why would that be unless you considered that supernatural pregnancies were actually a thing. Where exactly are you getting your view that supernatural pregnancies are a thing except from the text which claims them to be in the NT and which is a major topic of the ongoing discussion.
You seem to be mistaking me analysing the religious text for me claiming it to be evidence for a supernatural pregnancy having actually occurred. I explicitly said that the Bible story is just a story to convey an idea and can't be used as evidence of the absence or presence of consent or supernatural pregnancies.
Hence I said in #181:
"Is Vlad arguing that the NT text is evidence that the events described actually happened? I thought Vlad had expressed the opinion that this was a matter of faith and belief?"
You then responded in #183 "he will have to answer for himself, but my reading of his comments is, yes, he does consider that the events actually happened."
And I responded in #196:
"That isn't what I asked. I asked if Vlad was arguing that the modern day translation of the NT is evidence that the events actually happened. I know Vlad believes that Mary was a virgin who gave birth to Jesus, who is the son of God/ God in human form or some variation of this. But I was under the impression that he believed this as a matter of faith and that he thinks the NT stories are evidence that other people also believed that Mary was a virgin who gave birth to etc etc"
-
I was also pointing out your error in attempting to claim that you could decide what is and isn't consent based on your supposed credentials as some kind of lecturer in the field of research ethics.
Oh dear - yet more snide comments from VG - why do you feel the need to do this, does it make you feel better to try to discredit my credentials in this field.
VG - I don't have supposed credentials, I have actual credentials both in terms of qualifications and also over a quarter of a century of experience in assessing applications on ethics committees, where one of the main elements to be assessed is the process for obtaining valid consent, plus also having taught masters level students medical ethics, with of course a heavy dollop of post-graduate level knowledge of consent.
VG - I am not some kind of lecturer in the field of research ethics - I am a lecturer in the field of research ethics and have been for nigh on 20 years. Indeed I actually just confirmed the dates for course work hand in for the module which will start again in late January - the topic of the coursework, well that would be obtaining valid consent to participate in a research trial.
Sure, you can have an opinion but it's no more valid than anyone else's opinion.
Would you say that if you were discussing medical matters with a qualified and experienced medic or discussing legal matters with a qualified and experienced lawyer?
You really have become Michael Gove, haven't you.
-
I'm not telling you that you can't, I'm suggesting that you shouldn't because it's a misuse, and I've explained why. You can choose to correct me, choose to correct your usage, or continue to try to deflect, that's also up to you. People will, of course, draw their own conclusions on your choice.
Sure - you're entitled to your opinions and interpretations of what you think I am doing.
I intend to keep quoting the religious text, because funnily enough your opinions are pretty irrelevant. Other people's conclusions are a matter for them and also not my problem.
I thought you were wrong before, you've not in any way done anything to amend that opinion, so I'm perfectly happy to keep thinking that you're wrong. Doesn't seem like that's my problem from here...
O.
See above.
-
You seem to be mistaking me analysing the religious text for me claiming it to be evidence for a supernatural pregnancy having actually occurred.
So do you accept that there was no supernatural pregnancy then VG. Indeed that there are no supernatural pregnancies.
If so why would you make all sorts of statements that imply an important distinction between supernatural ones and ones from sexual acts - if you don't think the former exist the whole notion of some kind of distinction is completely moot.
-
I explicitly said that the Bible story is just a story to convey an idea and can't be used as evidence of the absence or presence of consent or supernatural pregnancies.
Still leaving the door ajar I see - implying that supernatural pregnancies are a thing, merely arguing that the NT text may or may not provide evidence.
Get off the fence VG - are supernatural pregnancies a thing?
-
Oh dear - yet more snide comments from VG - why do you feel the need to do this, does it make you feel better to try to discredit my credentials in this field.
I don't need to discredit your credentials because I have not seen any evidence to support your credentials. Consider me a sceptic in the absence of actual evidence. You calling yourself "ProfessorDavey" on a forum doesn't count as evidence. I could change my name to the Dalai Lama but it doesn't make me the Dalai Lama.
VG - I don't have supposed credentials, I have actual credentials both in terms of qualifications and also over a quarter of a century of experience in assessing applications on ethics committees, where one of the main elements to be assessed is the process for obtaining valid consent, plus also having taught masters level students medical ethics, with of course a heavy dollop of post-graduate level knowledge of consent.
VG - I am not some kind of lecturer in the field of research ethics - I am a lecturer in the field of research ethics and have been for nigh on 20 years. Indeed I actually just confirmed the dates for course work hand in for the module which will start again in late January - the topic of the coursework, well that would be obtaining valid consent to participate in a research trial.
So you keep claiming. My doubt is based on your tendency sometimes when making arguments on here, to jump to conclusions and make assumptions supported by very little evidence. Followed by you stating that conclusions you jump to are clear. I would assume that someone who really was in the research field or an academic would, just through basic experience and competency, be a lot more cautious about jumping to conclusions.
Would you say that if you were discussing medical matters with a qualified and experienced medic or discussing legal matters with a qualified and experienced lawyer?
You really have become Michael Gove, haven't you.
Yes absolutely - regardless of qualifications and experience, people make mistakes. That's why people tend to get 2nd opinions and medics disagree with each other, and people also do their own research. You really are very naive if you think qualified, experienced people can't make errors.
I've personally experienced a GP deciding I had asthma without sending me for any tests, a 2nd qualified and experienced hospital consultant, presented with an x-ray of my lungs, advising me that I didn't have TB, when I did. An NHS hospital lab not finding TB from an analysis of my bronchial wash, and then following me demanding further investigation a 2nd wash of my lungs revealing that I did in fact have TB, which was a logical explanation for my prolonged cough, significant weight-loss, and generally feeling very unwell.
-
Sure - you're entitled to your opinions and interpretations of what you think I am doing.
I intend to keep quoting the religious text, because funnily enough your opinions are pretty irrelevant. Other people's conclusions are a matter for them and also not my problem.
See above.
OK, so you're wrong, we both know it, and neither of us has an issue with that, is how I see it now.
O.
-
So do you accept that there was no supernatural pregnancy then VG. Indeed that there are no supernatural pregnancies.
That is a positive claim. Do you have any evidence for your claim?
You don't seem to be very good at this science thing and the process of drawing conclusions.
If so why would you make all sorts of statements that imply an important distinction between supernatural ones and ones from sexual acts - if you don't think the former exist the whole notion of some kind of distinction is completely moot.
I made the distinction, because the Bible story was a story about a supernatural pregnancy, so trying to bring in current laws relating to consent to sexual acts into a Bible story about a miracle was a pointless exercise.
If you're going to drill down into the law, then you should be aware that the law is quite technical and is applied by qualified, experienced people carefully to a specific set of circumstances. Your experience in lecturing in ethics doesn't suddenly make you an expert or qualified in the field of law.
And this whole discussion seemed to start with the idea that Mary's pregnancy was evidence of misogyny in the Bible.
The whole point of Bible stories is to convey the idea of a hierarchy, with God at the top and angels, humans (men and women) etc seeking to serve God = good, and turning away from God = bad. Being a servant of a higher power is one of the key themes in religion.
So the idea that Mary considering herself a servant of God by agreeing to become pregnant = misogyny seems a bit strange. Considering yourself a servant of God applies to both men and women and men weren't exactly known for their ability to become pregnant so for the miraculous story to work it needs to be Mary. Getting pregnant thousands of years ago isn't evidence of exploitation - some women then and now actually want to become pregnant, despite the known health risks.
-
That is a positive claim. Do you have any evidence for your claim?
Nope - it is a question, posed to you.
So why don't you actually answer the question VG.
VG - are supernatural pregnancies a thing?
-
If you're going to drill down into the law, then you should be aware that the law is quite technical and is applied by qualified, experienced people carefully to a specific set of circumstances. Your experience in lecturing in ethics doesn't suddenly make you an expert or qualified in the field of law.
It might if your qualification was in medical ethics and law ... as it is.
But you cannot teach applied medical ethics, without understanding the law. My module isn't some kind of theoretical gish gallop through a whole range of ethical theories, although we do briefly touch on them. Nope it is designed to allow professionals to apply the highest ethical standards to their medical research and to ensure that they remain legal in their practice.
-
VG,
I don’t know perhaps whether some damaging event happened to you at a formative age but you seem determined to spit the dummy at anyone who disagrees with you rather than to address their arguments. It’s unedifying, and it serves only to deflect from the arguments themselves (which presumably is your intent).
Rather than respond to you in kind then, let’s see whether instead I can get you to return to the question. The Bible story concerns a morally perfect god impregnating an under-age servant girl.
By modern standards however that act would not be considered morally good for the same reasons that, say, a headmaster impregnating one of his 14-year-old pupils wouldn’t be considered morally good (regardless of whether she acquiesced). That is, valid consent would not have been possible.
So the question you’re being asked to address concerns which moral position you think is correct: God’s or the contemporary Western one?
-
I made the distinction, because the Bible story was a story about a supernatural pregnancy, so trying to bring in current laws relating to consent to sexual acts into a Bible story about a miracle was a pointless exercise.
Only if you consider supernatural pregnancies to be a thing. A question you keep seeming to duck or skirt around.
If you do not believe supernatural pregnancies to be a thing then any consideration that our laws potentially do not apply to supernatural pregnancies is as pointless as arguing that we need altered burglary laws to deal with situations where someone's property supernaturally disappears from the owner's house and supernaturally reappears in someone else's house.
-
So the idea that Mary considering herself a servant of God by agreeing to become pregnant = misogyny seems a bit strange.
Oh dear VG - you really are getting yourself into an awful twist aren't you. Where have I ever mentioned misogyny?
I think you need to at least get the basics right - by making sure you make a repost to the poster who has been making that point rather than a completely different poster who has never brought up that topic at all.
-
The whole point of Bible stories is to convey the idea of a hierarchy, with God at the top and angels, humans (men and women) etc seeking to serve God = good, and turning away from God = bad. Being a servant of a higher power is one of the key themes in religion.
So was Mary's pregnancy supernatural VG?
Are supernatural pregnancies a thing?
-
You really are very naive if you think qualified, experienced people can't make errors.
Who ever said that - certainly not me.
And medical negligence is, of course, also an element of my module. And we've already discussed this in the context of consent, if you bothered to read what I wrote.
-
It might if your qualification was in medical ethics and law ... as it is.
But you cannot teach applied medical ethics, without understanding the law. My module isn't some kind of theoretical gish gallop through a whole range of ethical theories, although we do briefly touch on them. Nope it is designed to allow professionals to apply the highest ethical standards to their medical research and to ensure that they remain legal in their practice.
So you claim. But back to the arguments rather than your rather uninteresting supposed credentials.
-
I've personally experienced a GP deciding I had asthma without sending me for any tests, a 2nd qualified and experienced hospital consultant, presented with an x-ray of my lungs, advising me that I didn't have TB, when I did. An NHS hospital lab not finding TB from an analysis of my bronchial wash, and then following me demanding further investigation a 2nd wash of my lungs revealing that I did in fact have TB, which was a logical explanation for my prolonged cough, significant weight-loss, and generally feeling very unwell.
So you'd clearly be better off trusting your ongoing medical care to Jim, the landlord of your local or perhaps the woman who works on the tills in Tesco.
That sometimes highly qualified people make mistakes doesn't mean that you should give equal credence to experts practicing within their field of expertise and some chap down the road with neither training nor experience. You really are Michael Gove.
-
Nope - it is a question, posed to you.
So why don't you actually answer the question VG.
VG - are supernatural pregnancies a thing?
Nope it's a positive claim. You said "So do you accept that there was no supernatural pregnancy then VG. Indeed that there are no supernatural pregnancies."
I can't accept that there was/ are no supernatural pregnancy until someone proves they did not/ cannot take place. There is no method for proving or disproving supernatural events. Therefore, I can only say what I believe or do not believe.
-
So you claim. But back to the arguments rather than your rather uninteresting supposed credentials.
You really can't help yourself can you VG. It is almost like a pathological trait.
Do you know what VG - sometimes you might learn something by actually considering what people who might have specific training, qualifications and experience in a topic have to say on that particular topic, rather than thinking that somehow a quick bit of googling makes you equally knowledgable.
-
Nope it's a positive claim. You said "So do you accept that there was no supernatural pregnancy then VG. Indeed that there are no supernatural pregnancies."
Nope they are questions VG - sue me for failing to include a question mark.
I can't accept that there was/ are no supernatural pregnancy until someone proves they did not/ cannot take place. There is no method for proving or disproving supernatural events. Therefore, I can only say what I believe or do not believe.
And what do you believe VG - and what evidence do you use to support your belief.
Note that not believing in something does not provide any onus on that non-believer to provide evidence for that lack of belief. But if you believe in something that is a positive claim and therefore the onus is on you to provide evidence in support of that belief.
And for the record - I do not believe that supernatural pregnancies are a thing on the basis that I have seen no credible evidence to support me believing that they exist. Exactly the same as my lack of belief in the existence of god.
-
VG,
I don’t know perhaps whether some damaging event happened to you at a formative age but you seem determined to spit the dummy at anyone who disagrees with you rather than to address their arguments. It’s unedifying, and it serves only to deflect from the arguments themselves (which presumably is your intent).
Right back at you. You digressed to "Servants? Slaves? Street prostitutes? Latrine cleaners? You actually think these people and more had the opportunities to pick more pleasant occupations but chose the shitty ones instead because they believed in the system? Go give your head a wobble will you?" in #222 when I disagreed with you.
Rather than respond to you in kind then, let’s see whether instead I can get you to return to the question. The Bible story concerns a morally perfect god impregnating an under-age servant girl.
By modern standards however that act would not be considered morally good for the same reasons that, say, a headmaster impregnating one of his 14-year-old pupils wouldn’t be considered morally good (regardless of whether she acquiesced). That is, valid consent would not have been possible.
So the question you’re being asked to address concerns which moral position you think is correct: God’s or the contemporary Western one?
I already responded to this - see #237 (and also #205,#228 if you want to go back further). If you don't like these responses, try not to spit the dummy again. I don’t know perhaps whether some damaging event happened to you at a formative age but you seem determined to spit the dummy at anyone who disagrees with you rather than to address their arguments. It’s unedifying, and it serves only to deflect from the arguments themselves (which presumably is your intent)
-
I don’t know perhaps whether some damaging event happened to you at a formative age but you seem determined to spit the dummy at anyone who disagrees with you rather than to address their arguments. It’s unedifying, and it serves only to deflect from the arguments themselves (which presumably is your intent)
Dear, oh dear VG - at least come up with your own retorts.
-
VG,
I can't accept that there was/ are no supernatural pregnancy until someone proves they did not/ cannot take place. There is no method for proving or disproving supernatural events. Therefore, I can only say what I believe or do not believe.
But that’s true of any causal event so you’re attempting a false difference between “accept” and “believe” here. You “accept” that women give birth to babies, but you do not “accept” that invisible storks deliver them instead. The stork speculation cannot be falsified either though, so whence your confidence in the difference between “accept” and “believe”?
What you’re actually saying here is that you accept your beliefs to be true (or true enough to be useable), which is tautological.
-
VG,
But that’s true of any causal event so you’re attempting a false difference between “accept” and “believe” here. You “accept” that women give birth to babies, but you do not “accept” that invisible storks deliver them instead. The stork speculation cannot be falsified either though, so whence your confidence in the difference between “accept” and “believe”?
What you’re actually saying here is that you accept your beliefs to be true (or true enough to be useable), which is tautological.
VG is squirming, desperately trying not to address the issue - presumably because:
A) If she indicates she does believe in supernatural pregnancies the onus will be smack on her to justify that positive claim, and given that we've been discussing text that makes that claim it tends toward her having to accept that as 'evidence' ... or
B) She indicates she does not believe in supernatural pregnancies in which case all her guff about the law, and ethics only considering natural pregnancies and not supernatural pregnancies (that she continually puts in a separate category - see my list of her quotes) becomes totally pointless.
-
VG,
Right back at you. You digressed to "Servants? Slaves? Street prostitutes? Latrine cleaners? You actually think these people and more had the opportunities to pick more pleasant occupations but chose the shitty ones instead because they believed in the system? Go give your head a wobble will you?" in #222 when I disagreed with you.
Because, as is your way, you essay a ludicrous position and then spit the dummy when it’s challenged. Clearly more bosses would rather be the bosses than their servants, and more servants would rather be their bosses than the servants too. Your “where’s your evidence?” for the bleeding obvious is just time wasting, presumably because it allows you to deflect from the actual question.
I already responded to this - see #237 (and also #205,#228 if you want to go back further). If you don't like these responses, try not to spit the dummy again. I don’t know perhaps whether some damaging event happened to you at a formative age but you seem determined to spit the dummy at anyone who disagrees with you rather than to address their arguments. It’s unedifying, and it serves only to deflect from the arguments themselves (which presumably is your intent
You’re embarrassing yourself now. That’s called the “no you are” response beloved of small children through the ages.
The question is clear enough. In the example given, which position do you think is morally better:
A. God’s?
B. Modern Western Society’s?
I’ve made it as simple as I can for you – all you need do to answer that is to reply either A or B.
-
Oh dear VG - you really are getting yourself into an awful twist aren't you. Where have I ever mentioned misogyny?
I think you need to at least get the basics right - by making sure you make a repost to the poster who has been making that point rather than a completely different poster who has never brought up that topic at all.
This is what you're reduced to focusing on?
My response was on a separate line about the wider discussion going on in this thread.
You brought up the school Christmas concert and Bible text about men ruling over women in #88 in response to Sriram saying that no religion teaches the exploitation of women. Are you saying that you don't consider the idea of men ruling over women as misogynistic? Good to know.
You also claimed that the Genesis quote was the starting point of Islam and didn't respond when I asked you what you meant and for evidence of this claim.
One of the reasons why your claims of being a Professor aren't very credible - you make claims you don't provide evidence for.
-
Dear, oh dear VG - at least come up with your own retorts.
Why would I waste my time doing that when BHS's comments aren't worth the effort.
-
I don't need to discredit your credentials because I have not seen any evidence to support your credentials. Consider me a sceptic in the absence of actual evidence.
Hmm - let's see shall we - perhaps a little glance at the current thread might indicate that I do know just a little bit about consent. Along with many people I prefer to keep my actual name etc private - that's my prerogative. There is no requirement to reveal your actual name etc, still less to provide certificates of qualifications etc.
But I suspect most people here with an ounce of balance would regonise that what I claim is actually the case.
Consider me a sceptic in the absence of actual evidence. You calling yourself "ProfessorDavey" on a forum doesn't count as evidence.
What would you like VG - shall I send you photos of my inaugural lecture which I gave after I was awarded my Chair in 2004. Perhaps you'd like to chat to the exceptionally eminent medical ethicist who taught me during my MA in medical ethics and law which I completed in 2000. Maybe I should provide you with guest access to the materials for my medical ethics module which I have run every year since 2004.
Frankly I think your denial as to my background tells us much more about you than it does about me.
I could change my name to the Dalai Lama but it doesn't make me the Dalai Lama.
You could indeed, but it would be pretty easy to disprove your claim to be the Dalai Lama.
On the other hand I am a university professor - I have qualifications in medical ethics and law, although this isn't my main research area. However I maintain my professional practice in this area through teaching and my involvement in ethics committees. If you want to deny this, that's your business, but it makes you look both a bit silly and also rather petulant. I know this to be true.
-
You brought up the school Christmas concert and Bible text about men ruling over women in #88 in response to Sriram saying that no religion teaches the exploitation of women. Are you saying that you don't consider the idea of men ruling over women as misogynistic?
Where have I use the word misogyny on this thread VG - oh actually twice (and a third time below) in response to you aiming a comment at me which was clearly meant for BHS as it was about his views on Mary, god etc and nothing to do with Genesis which is where my comment in reply88 led from.
And misogyny and patriarchy aren't the same thing. What is in Genesis is an appeal to patriarchy.
-
VG,
But that’s true of any causal event so you’re attempting a false difference between “accept” and “believe” here. You “accept” that women give birth to babies, but you do not “accept” that invisible storks deliver them instead. The stork speculation cannot be falsified either though, so whence your confidence in the difference between “accept” and “believe”?
What you’re actually saying here is that you accept your beliefs to be true (or true enough to be useable), which is tautological.
Not really sure what the issue is here. I thought this was fairly standard stuff.
I accept that women give birth to babies because that is supported by evidence and my personal experience.
I do not accept that men give birth to babies, because I have no evidence to support this happening, unless we change the definition of "men" to include "women".
I do not accept that invisible storks deliver babies, because I have no evidence or personal experience to support this happening, unless we change the definition of "invisible storks" to include midwives and doctors.
But that does not mean I accept there are no invisible storks as that is a positive claim, for which there is no way of testing - we don't have a method to test magic to prove or disprove it.
-
Not really sure what the issue is here. I thought this was fairly standard stuff.
I accept that women give birth to babies because that is supported by evidence and my personal experience.
I do not accept that men give birth to babies, because I have no evidence to support this happening, unless we change the definition of "men" to include "women".
I do not accept that invisible storks deliver babies, because I have no evidence or personal experience to support this happening, unless we change the definition of "invisible storks" to include midwives and doctors.
But that does not mean I accept there are no invisible storks as that is a positive claim, for which there is no way of testing - we don't have a method to test magic to prove or disprove it.
Stop skirting around the issue VG.
Very simple question - do you believe that supernatural pregnancies are a thing?
Or we can even phrase it as you have - which is pretty well identical to how I phrased it originally.
Do you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing?
-
I do not accept that invisible storks deliver babies, because I have no evidence or personal experience to support this happening ...
I'll help you out here VG.
I do not accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing, because I have no evidence or personal experience to support this happening ...
Over to you.
-
Hmm - let's see shall we - perhaps a little glance at the current thread might indicate that I do know just a little bit about consent. Along with many people I prefer to keep my actual name etc private - that's my prerogative. There is no requirement to reveal your actual name etc, still less to provide certificates of qualifications etc.
But I suspect most people here with an ounce of balance would regonise that what I claim is actually the case.
Glad you only suspect it. It's an improvement from you saying "It is clear that I am what I claim I am"
What would you like VG - shall I send you photos of my inaugural lecture which I gave after I was awarded my Chair in 2004. Perhaps you'd like to chat to the exceptionally eminent medical ethicist who taught me during my MA in medical ethics and law which I completed in 2000. Maybe I should provide you with guest access to the materials for my medical ethics module which I have run every year since 2004.
Frankly I think your denial as to my background tells us much more about you than it does about me.
Yes it tells you that I'm a sceptic when people make claims about their qualifications on an anonymous Message Board. I think that's a sensible approach to claims made on the internet. Up to you what you want to do to try to substantiate your claims.
You could indeed, but it would be pretty easy to disprove your claim to be the Dalai Lama.
On the other hand I am a university professor - I have qualifications in medical ethics and law, although this isn't my main research area. However I maintain my professional practice in this area through teaching and my involvement in ethics committees. If you want to deny this, that's your business, but it makes you look both a bit silly and also rather petulant. I know this to be true.
So you keep claiming. What I can't understand is why you care what I think about your un-evidenced claims. Just argue the points in the discussion - your supposed qualifications are irrelevant to the strength of your argument.
-
VG is squirming, desperately trying not to address the issue - presumably because:
A) If she indicates she does believe in supernatural pregnancies the onus will be smack on her to justify that positive claim, and given that we've been discussing text that makes that claim it tends toward her having to accept that as 'evidence' ...
Very strange argument from you. It really doesn't seem credible that you could be a Professor based on these arguments that you are putting forward. Or maybe your professorship was one you bought online from someone who claimed on the internet that they were a university.
I've repeatedly said on here I am a theist and a Muslim and that this is belief based on faith. Why would I need to justify faith-based beliefs, when faith is a belief that I can't provide evidence for? Like my belief in Allah.
-
Up to you what you want to do to try to substantiate your claims.
Weird isn't it.
I have nothing to substantiate your claims that you are a woman, that you are a muslim and that you were brought up in a different faith. All of that could be load of hogwash.
However, given that I have nothing to disprove those claims I am more than happy to engage with you on the basis that you are, in fact, as you claim a woman, that you are a muslim and that you were brought up in a different faith.
Why are you so unwilling to extend the same courtesy to me VG.
-
Very strange argument from you. It really doesn't seem credible that you could be a Professor based on these arguments that you are putting forward. Or maybe your professorship was one you bought online from someone who claimed on the internet that they were a university.
Oh dear, yet more snide comments.
I've repeatedly said on here I am a theist and a Muslim and that this is belief based on faith.
So why should I accept these claims, while you seem desperate to deny my claims. Seems a bit rude to me. By the way I am totally happy accepting your claims to be a woman and a muslim and having been brought up in another faith - why on earth wouldn't I.
Why would I need to justify faith-based beliefs, when faith is a belief that I can't provide evidence for? Like my belief in Allah.
But you are dismissing other faith-based claims (e.g. storks) due to lack of evidence. A bit of consistency wouldn't go amiss.
-
VG,
Not really sure what the issue is here. I thought this was fairly standard stuff.
The issue is that “accept” and “believe” mean the same thing, so “I can't accept that there was/ are no supernatural pregnancy until someone proves they did not/ cannot take place. There is no method for proving or disproving supernatural events. Therefore, I can only say what I believe or do not believe” is drawing a distinction without a difference.
Ultimately there’s no method of “proving or disproving” natural events either (see Hume), and so what you “accept’/”do not accept” and “believe”/”do not believe” are the same.
Oh, and if you do change your mind re telling us which of either the God of the Bible or the modern Western standard re impregnating an under-age servant girl is morally better in your opinion all you have to do is to press either "A" or "B".
-
Weird isn't it.
I have nothing to substantiate your claims that you are a woman, that you are a muslim and that you were brought up in a different faith. All of that could be load of hogwash.
However, given that I have nothing to disprove those claims I am more than happy to engage with you on the basis that you are, in fact, as you claim a woman, that you are a muslim and that you were brought up in a different faith.
Why are you so unwilling to extend the same courtesy to me VG.
I find you jump to conclusions and make assumptions in discussions, that aren't supported by sufficient evidence. Ok you could be a professor who also jumps to conclusions and makes assumptions based on very little evidence. It just seems a bit weird that you think that saying you are a professor makes your argument more credible, when the problem with the argument is that you are jumping to conclusions and making assumptions.
I'm not sure it matters in the context of a discussion, whether I am a woman, a Muslim, or was brought up in a different faith, does it?
When I mention any of these things, it is to give my perspective, not to bolster my argument or to claim that my perspective should be taken as correct and no other perspectives are valid. I often say that I am just giving my understanding or interpretation of Islam, but that there are multiple interpretations and other Muslims / women/ converts would disagree with me.
But yes, I could be lying about being a woman, a Muslim or a convert. I guess you will never know unless you meet me in person and do a background check. And even then I could just be pretending to have converted. I could still be an atheist...
-
I've repeatedly said on here I am a theist and a Muslim and that this is belief based on faith. Why would I need to justify faith-based beliefs, when faith is a belief that I can't provide evidence for? Like my belief in Allah.
Still refusing to answer the question - by playing the age old game of answering a question that wasn't actually asked. So let's return to what we know so far:
a). You accept that women give birth to babies because that is supported by evidence and your personal experience (note I am paying you the respect of accepting that your claim to be a woman is true).
b). You do not accept that invisible storks deliver babies, because you have no evidence or personal experience to support this happening.
You accept b) to be a faith based claim (that you do not accept) as you clearly indicate that you do not and cannot have actual evidence to disprove the faith-based stork theory.
So what about supernatural pregnancies - another faith based claim like the stork, which you were happy to state that you did not accept due to lack of evidence.
So do you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing VG?
Simply yes/no is all that is needed.
-
Oh dear, yet more snide comments.
But you are dismissing other faith-based claims (e.g. storks) due to lack of evidence. A bit of consistency wouldn't go amiss.
Lack of evidence and lack of personal experience or rather my interpretations of my personal experiences cause my lack of belief in invisible storks while leading to me becoming a theist.
I thought we had covered all this over the years during the discussions on this forum. Why are we back to asking what causes some beliefs to be accepted and others not?
-
I find you jump to conclusions and make assumptions in discussions, that aren't supported by sufficient evidence.
Other opinions are available and may well be rather more popular VG.
Ok you could be a professor who also jumps to conclusions and makes assumptions based on very little evidence.
Or I could be a professor whose conclusions, based on evidence and argument, you don't like/agree with.
It just seems a bit weird that you think that saying you are a professor makes your argument more credible ...
Of course it makes a difference when the topic of discussion is one of my professional areas of expertise. As demonstrated by your entry level googling on the matter there is a huge amount about valid consent that you really don't understand. I get that, it isn't your area of professional expertise. But it is mine - why do you find it so hard to respect that.
And while we are on the subject - there are loads of topics on which I have no more training, knowledge, experience than anyone else here, in many cases far less. I don't 'wave' my credentials around then. That would be both pointless and also unethical - as a quick check on any professional ethical code of conduct would likely reveal. And in those cases I'm just as much an armchair googler as you are VG. And I enjoy that because I actually learn quite a lot. But if there is someone on this MB who had professional expertise in that area of armchair googling, of course I'd respect their expertise and actually would hope to learn more from them.
But when it is a discussion that is in my professional area of expertise, that final word is important ... expertise.
-
Still refusing to answer the question - by playing the age old game of answering a question that wasn't actually asked. So let's return to what we know so far:
a). You accept that women give birth to babies because that is supported by evidence and your personal experience (note I am paying you the respect of accepting that your claim to be a woman is true).
I could have just meant I had seen a woman giving birth. Maybe I'm actually a man...
b). You do not accept that invisible storks deliver babies, because you have no evidence or personal experience to support this happening.
You accept b) to be a faith based claim (that you do not accept) as you clearly indicate that you do not and cannot have actual evidence to disprove the faith-based stork theory.
So what about supernatural pregnancies - another faith based claim like the stork, which you were happy to state that you did not accept due to lack of evidence.
So do you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing VG?
Simply yes/no is all that is needed.
Yes but it's so much more fun to leave you hanging as it seems to matter to you....
You're married right? Surely you're used to the experience of not getting your own way when you demand it. I'll let you know my beliefs when I feel in the mood to do so. Which is probably when you stop demanding that I tell you what my beliefs are.
-
Yes ...
Finally - so there we have it folks.
VG accepts that supernatural births are a thing.
Next question - why do you accept this?
Given that you've rejected magic storks due to lack of evidence. In order to be consistent VG surely you'd need to argue that the difference between magic storks and supernatural pregnancies would be evidence. So where is your evidence - surely you must have this or you are being completely inconsistent in the difference in argument between magic storks and supernatural pregnancies.
-
VG,
The issue is that “accept” and “believe” mean the same thing, so “I can't accept that there was/ are no supernatural pregnancy until someone proves they did not/ cannot take place. There is no method for proving or disproving supernatural events. Therefore, I can only say what I believe or do not believe” is drawing a distinction without a difference.
Ultimately there’s no method of “proving or disproving” natural events either (see Hume), and so what you “accept’/”do not accept” and “believe”/”do not believe” are the same.
Oh, and if you do change your mind re telling us which of either the God of the Bible or the modern Western standard re impregnating an under-age servant girl is morally better in your opinion all you have to do is to press either "A" or "B".
And your positive assertion that Mary was an underage
Servant girl is proved how Hillside?
Between you and Davey do we have two male, pale? atheist and stale.one superannuated,guys dictating what a woman should have done with her body. That would be a turn up.
-
You're married right?
Not entirely sure the relevance but yes. However I expect a demand to see a marriage certificate from you VG.
Surely you're used to the experience of not getting your own way when you demand it.
Marriage is about compromise and not demands - so of course there are times when we decide not to go down the route I would have ideally liked, and at other times we decide not to go down the route my wife would have ideally liked. That's what compromise is all about and it doesn't involve demands.
And I image you have no experience of the world of academia - why would you. But academia is entirely stuffed with argument, debate, compromise, persuasion etc. Drives people in other walks of life batty - they cannot understand why we don't have such clear line managerial structures that if your line manager demands it, that is what happens. The common analogy for required approach to leadership in academia is herding cats.
-
Between you and Davey do we have two male, pale? atheist and stale.one superannuated,guys dictating what a woman should have done with her body. That would be a turn up.
And there was me thinking that my main argument was about the critical importance of valid consent. You know the concept where an individual gets to choose what happens to them, free from pressure from others.
In this completely hypothetical situation I am smack on the side of Mary being able to freely choose between becoming pregnant or not becoming pregnant without any pressure trying to push her one way or the other.
But in our hypothetical situation we have no evidence to support the notion that there was ever a choice, and plenty of support for the argument that the voluntariness threshold for valid consent was missed by a mile. And we won't even get into the issue of whether she even had capacity to consent in the first place.
-
Vlad,
And your positive assertion that Mary was an underage
Servant girl is proved how Hillside?
Oh dear. I make no such positive assertion (in my view it's more likely all a myth in any case). The only "positive assertion" I do make though is that that's what the Bible story says.
Try to remember the difference between statements about the real world and statements about the Bible's descriptions of the real world.
Between you and Davey do we have two male, pale? atheist and stale.one superannuated,guys dictating what a woman should have done with her body. That would be a turn up.
No-one has dictated anything, and that "woman" was an underage servant girl (according to the story) in a epically asymmetric power relationship (according to the story). By modern Western standards therefore valid consent (in the story) would have been impossible no matter what the girl's words or actions, yet (in the story) a morally perfect god impregnated her nonetheless.
So (and with no expectation of you ever answering this), in the story which in your opinion is morally better: God's act or the modern Western position about God's act?
-
Vlad,
Oh dear. I make no such positive assertion (in my view it's more likely all a myth in any case). The only "positive assertion" I do make though is that that's what the Bible story says.
Try to remember the difference between statements about the real world and statements about the Bible's descriptions of the real world.
No-one has dictated anything, and that "woman" was an underage servant girl (according to the story) in a epically asymmetric power relationship (according to the story). By modern Western standards therefore valid consent (in the story) would have been impossible no matter what the girl's words or actions, yet (in the story) a morally perfect god impregnated her nonetheless.
So (and with no expectation of you ever answering this), in the story which in your opinion is morally better: God's act or the modern Western position about God's act?
The Bible doesn't mention Mary's age Hillside.
-
The Bible doesn't mention Mary's age Hillside.
True, but the bible does clearly state that Mary considered herself to be a servant - specifically submitting herself to the authority of god.
But on age - the bible doesn't dictate this, but the bible does indicate that Mary was soon to be married and we know from other historical sources that the typical age for girl's being married in Jewish society of the time was typically 13 or 14, potentially as young as 12.
While we don't have direct evidence from the bible, we also have nothing to contradict the norm of the time. So why would we assume something outside of the norm of the day.
-
Vlad,
The Bible doesn't mention Mary's age Hillside.
No, but other sources suggest that 12-16 would be about right. Here for example:
“In this passage of Scripture, we are not told Mary’s age, yet we are told she was a virgin and was pledged to be married to Joseph. During this time in history, Jewish girls would have been betrothed (engaged) to their husbands as early as the age of 12-years-old. Scholars believe Mary would have been somewhere between 12-16 years old when she had Jesus (Ibid.).”
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/holidays/do-we-know-how-old-mary-was-when-she-had-jesus.html
You’re also changing horses mid-stream here from “she consented” to “ok, she couldn’t have consented but maybe she was older than we thought…”. You’re clutching straws, and in any case you still have the massively differential power dynamic to deal with.
So we have a story about a morally perfect god impregnating an underage Palestinian serving girl on a necessarily non-consensual basis, but we also have modern Western sensibilities that consider this behaviour to be morally reprehensible.
Which one do you think is morally better?
-
True, but the bible does clearly state that Mary considered herself to be a servant
So you do not have a case then. Christians would ideally place themselves as servants of God but are probably better known in employment terms as nurses, politicians, refuse collectors etc.
-
Vlad,
No, but other sources suggest that 12-16 would be about right. Here for example:
“In this passage of Scripture, we are not told Mary’s age, yet we are told she was a virgin and was pledged to be married to Joseph. During this time in history, Jewish girls would have been betrothed (engaged) to their husbands as early as the age of 12-years-old. Scholars believe Mary would have been somewhere between 12-16 years old when she had Jesus (Ibid.).”
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/holidays/do-we-know-how-old-mary-was-when-she-had-jesus.html
You’re also changing horses mid-stream here from “she consented” to “ok, she couldn’t have consented but maybe she was older than we thought…”. You’re clutching straws, and in any case you still have the massively differential power dynamic to deal with.
So we have a story about a morally perfect god impregnating an underage Palestinian serving girl on a necessarily non-consensual basis, but we also have modern Western sensibilities that consider this behaviour to be morally reprehensible.
Which one do you think is morally better?
other sources are not the Bible. And you claimed the Bible demonstrated minority.
As far as I’m aware no conviction in law is based on what is typical and the only documentary witness here is the bible. The hint of Mary’s possible age is not that she is betrothed but that she has a cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant beyond expected childbearing years and I would also add Mary’s spiritual and intellectual grasp all put her above mid teens in age. But since no age is given in the text my guess just remains excellent deduction.
-
So you do not have a case then. Christians would ideally place themselves as servants of God but are probably better known in employment terms as nurses, politicians, refuse collectors etc.
Complete non-sense.
We have no idea what 'job' Mary had - probably none, again from the historical understanding of the society of the time. But that is entirely irrelevant.
The point is that on the basis of the she claims to be a servant of god and presumably therefore to submit to god's authority - and, again on the basis of the text, it is god via an angel who tells Mary that she will become pregnant. There is nothing in the text to presume that god was offering a choice.
-
OK, so you're wrong, we both know it, and neither of us has an issue with that, is how I see it now.
O.
Or you're wrong, we both know it, is how I see it.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conceive
conceived; conceiving
transitive verb
1
a
: to become pregnant with (young)
conceive a child
Translated from the Greek
Matthew 1:20 V-APP-NNS
GRK: ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός
NAS: for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy
KJV: for that which is conceived in
INT: in her having been conceived from [the] Spirit
I read that some scholars view the capitalisng of holy spirit to the Holy Spirit happened in later years.
I would also add that there are many different interpretations of the meaning of words in religious text, and different stances taken by readers on whether words should be read literally or metaphorically.
Language in stories have many meanings so trying to insist that your reading of the word and your usage in language is the only correct way just makes you look foolish.
-
The hint of Mary’s possible age is not that she is betrothed but that she has a cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant beyond expected childbearing years ...
Blimey - you really are clutching at straws here Vlad. Firstly you will no doubt be aware that 'cousin' is simply one translation - others use 'relative', so there is no solid evidence that Elizabeth was actually Mary's cousin.
But even if she was, it is perfectly possible for cousins to have 25 or more years difference between them, particularly in a world where women had a lot of children, starting very young. And, of course if 'cousin' also covers second cousin, cousin first removed etc (all of which would be covered by the generic term cousin) then even greater age differences are entirely possible.
-
... and I would also add Mary’s spiritual and intellectual grasp all put her above mid teens in age.
And what would you base that on - have you interviewed Mary to determine her intellectual maturity.
You do realise that there is no credible evidence that Mary actually said the words in the NT text - these are words attributed to her by people writing nigh on 100 years later. And how exactly would her exact words have been recorded - from the text the only person present at the time was Mary, and I think she was occupied with being terrified. Rather unlikely, don't you think that she'd have had the presence of mind to write down the actual words spoken. Or perhaps you think she had a 1stC dictaphone.
And before you claim that the angel would have whipped out his notebook, what about the claimed words in the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth - who exactly was recording those words. The reality is that what we have in the NT are words attributed to individuals, there is no credible evidence that they ever actually spoke them.
-
VG,
Because, as is your way, you essay a ludicrous position and then spit the dummy when it’s challenged. Clearly more bosses would rather be the bosses than their servants, and more servants would rather be their bosses than the servants too. Your “where’s your evidence?” for the bleeding obvious is just time wasting, presumably because it allows you to deflect from the actual question.
Your way is to make assertions on here without supporting evidence, which is why your assertions are easily dismissed, and then you spit the dummy when challenged.
Not a ludicrous position at all. Not everyone wants to be a boss, some people prefer to be workers.
By the way, servants of God would not rather be bosses.
You’re embarrassing yourself now. That’s called the “no you are” response beloved of small children through the ages.
When you behave like a small child with some of the comments you make, I don't waste my time thinking of a response. I just parrot your childish response back to you.
The question is clear enough. In the example given, which position do you think is morally better:
A. God’s?
B. Modern Western Society’s?
I’ve made it as simple as I can for you – all you need do to answer that is to reply either A or B.
I already responded to this - see #237 (and also #205,#228 if you want to go back further). If you don't like these responses, try not to spit the dummy again. I don’t know perhaps whether some damaging event happened to you at a formative age but you seem determined to spit the dummy at anyone who disagrees with you rather than to address their arguments. It’s unedifying, and it serves only to deflect from the arguments themselves (which presumably is your intent)
I suggest you go and read it and respond to the points made rather than this childish sticking your fingers in your ears and asking the same question over and over again,
-
Indeed - but that is in the context of considering best interests where someone else (e.g. parents) authorise a procedure on behalf of a child who doesn't have the capacity to consent. And the significance of the procedure will also be critical - so see the difference between circumcision and FGM.
But this isn't really about consent as in this context there is no consent, rather there is authorisation on the basis of best interests.
But if the child does have the capacity to consent, clearly the decision is theirs to make and consent requires the ability to make that decision as a genuine choice free from undue pressure or coercion. Hence the point about ensuring the decision is the child's independent choice.
So while the courts may be comfortable with a decision to circumcise authorised by parents for a child unable to consent (e.g. a baby) they may also consider that consent may not be valid for an older child who has capacity if there is undue parental or societal pressure to make a choice in one direction.
So based on the BMA guidance, the courts may therefore consider an older child's consent to circumcision to be valid so long as the courts think that there has been no undue parental pressure and it is the child's own choice. So a child is capable of making their own choice under current thinking.
-
Complete non-sense.
We have no idea what 'job' Mary had - probably none, again from the historical understanding of the society of the time. But that is entirely irrelevant.
The point is that on the basis of the she claims to be a servant of god and presumably therefore to submit to god's authority - and, again on the basis of the text, it is god via an angel who tells Mary that she will become pregnant. There is nothing in the text to presume that god was offering a choice.
No, you don’t have a case. There is no finding of typically criminal in law.
You may accuse me of clutching at straws but yours of sexual impropriety, minority, servant girl are burned away. You have no case since you are unsure of what misdemenour to claim here. And as for claiming some western standard of morality, there is no western standard of morality here given variable ages of minority.
-
Finally - so there we have it folks.
VG accepts that supernatural births are a thing.
Do you routinely falsify your research too PD? If indeed you do any research or are in fact a professor.
Judging by this quote mining, I suspect the popular view might be that you are not really a professor and certainly not in any field of ethics.
Next question - why do you accept this?
Given that you've rejected magic storks due to lack of evidence.
I did not accept magic storks due to lack of evidence and lack of personal experience. Did you actually read my reply #284 in response to to your question about storks?
If you did, you're not very good and reading for comprehension and then making an argument based on what has been posted to you. Not sure why you expect me to believe you are a professor based on the evidence of your posts on here. Surely a real professor would have been trained to be more precise and to not jump to wrong conclusions.
In order to be consistent VG surely you'd need to argue that the difference between magic storks and supernatural pregnancies would be evidence. So where is your evidence - surely you must have this or you are being completely inconsistent in the difference in argument between magic storks and supernatural pregnancies.
I suggest you read what I wrote in #284 and have another go at forming a suitable response. If you want I can give you some lessons on how to go about comprehending what is written and forming responses based on the words actually written in the post. It might help you with your marking for your "students".
-
So based on the BMA guidance, the courts may therefore consider an older child's consent to circumcision to be valid so long as the courts think that there has been no undue parental pressure and it is the child's own choice.
Yes - but why are you focussing on circumcision which is a rather unusual medical procedure as in most cases there is no medical reason for it to happen, in other words is non therapeutic. There are also oddities in relation to parental 'consent' or authorisation. In most cases the agreement from one person with parental responsibility is sufficient for authorising a medical procedure. Non therapeutic circumcision requires authorisation from both parents. So in effect each parent has a veto. The only other circumstance where consent is required from both parents is within the world of assisted reproduction where both parents are required to consent to the generation of embryos by IVF and must both consent to future use, storage etc.
So a child is capable of making their own choice under current thinking.
It is a little bit more complicated as you need to consider both the ethical principles of consent and the legal position.
So if a child has capacity to consent (so-called Gillick competent), is provided with sufficient and adequate information and is permitted to make a choice free from undue pressure etc, then that is valid consent. However that doesn't mean that legally that child is permitted by law to engage in certain activities even if all the conditions for valid consent are met.
So perhaps the most obvious example is sex - while it is perfectly possible, under the ethical principles for people aged under 16 to provide valid consent, if the conditions above are met, this is still unlawful.
Other examples are blood donation (age 17) and tattoos (age 18).
Of course all of those things would be unlawful without consent at any age.
So you need to look at both the ethics of consent and the law to determine whether something is actually lawful.
-
Complete non-sense.
We have no idea what 'job' Mary had - probably none, again from the historical understanding of the society of the time. But that is entirely irrelevant.
The point is that on the basis of the she claims to be a servant of god and presumably therefore to submit to god's authority - and, again on the basis of the text, it is god via an angel who tells Mary that she will become pregnant. There is nothing in the text to presume that god was offering a choice.
Well that's rubbish. Many theists would use such language and describe themselves as servants of God - and they also have the freedom to not obey God despite describing themselves as servants of God. It's part of the religious language and thinking and widely accepted by many theists that we often fail to obey God.
The reason we can fail to obey is because we have a choice whether to obey or not.
-
Do you routinely falsify your research too PD? If indeed you do any research or are in fact a professor.
Please correct me if I am wrong but I read your response:
Yes but it's so much more fun to leave you hanging as it seems to matter to you....
As an answer to my oft repeated question, specifically your response was to this:
So do you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing VG?
Simply yes/no is all that is needed.
You chose to add to the simple yes/no, but that seemed pretty superfluous to your answer to the question.
If I have got this wrong and 'yes' wasn't an answer to my question, I apologise, but I need to ask you again whether you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing VG?
-
Well that's rubbish. Many theists would use such language and describe themselves as servants of God - and they also have the freedom to not obey God despite describing themselves as servants of God. It's part of the religious language and thinking and widely accepted by many theists that we often fail to obey God.
The reason we can fail to obey is because we have a choice whether to obey or not.
Where exactly in the text is there evidence that god via the angel is giving Mary a choice in the matter, rather than just informing her what will happen to her. I cannot see any evidence that a choice is being offered.
-
I did not accept magic storks due to lack of evidence and lack of personal experience.
Then why do you accept supernatural pregnancies then VG, assuming that your earlier 'yes' was a response to:
So do you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing VG?
-
Yes - but why are you focussing on circumcision which is a rather unusual medical procedure as in most cases there is no medical reason for it to happen, in other words is non therapeutic.
I am looking at circumcision as that is a procedure that we have guidance on in relation to a child's capacity to consent to what could be considered as Actual Bodily Harm if there was no valid consent. It is a most likely permanent, irreversible procedure that a child is considered capable of consenting to.
It is a little bit more complicated as you need to consider both the ethical principles of consent and the legal position.
So if a child has capacity to consent (so-called Gillick competent), is provided with sufficient and adequate information and is permitted to make a choice free from undue pressure etc, then that is valid consent. However that doesn't mean that legally that child is permitted by law to engage in certain activities even if all the conditions for valid consent are met.
So perhaps the most obvious example is sex - while it is perfectly possible, under the ethical principles for people aged under 16 to provide valid consent, if the conditions above are met, this is still unlawful.
Ok - so if the age of consent is lowered by Parliament say in 2025 to 14, do you hold the view that it becomes morally right to have sex at 14 but is morally wrong now? Do you think what we as a society thinks is morally right or wrong keeps changing depending on what point in history you pick?
Other examples are blood donation (age 17) and tattoos (age 18).
Of course all of those things would be unlawful without consent at any age.
So you need to look at both the ethics of consent and the law to determine whether something is actually lawful.
Do you consider what is lawful to be the same as what is morally right at any given time?
-
I did not accept magic storks due to lack of evidence and lack of personal experience. Did you actually read my reply #284 in response to to your question about storks?
If you did, you're not very good and reading for comprehension and then making an argument based on what has been posted to you. Not sure why you expect me to believe you are a professor based on the evidence of your posts on here. Surely a real professor would have been trained to be more precise and to not jump to wrong conclusions.
Do keep up VG - I read and agree with your response on magic storks.
My question is given you approach to determining whether you accept magic storks, why you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing (assuming your 'yes' was finally an answer to my oft asked question).
-
Where exactly in the text is there evidence that god via the angel is giving Mary a choice in the matter, rather than just informing her what will happen to her. I cannot see any evidence that a choice is being offered.
Maybe it wasn't written that way because the authors, who were presumably theists, felt it unnecessary to spell out that theists have a choice as to whether to obey God or not. They might have taken it for granted that having a choice was something everyone understood.
Given it is a Bible story, I doubt the people who wrote it chose their words on the expectation that it would be picked over as a witness statement to defend against accusations of the "crime" of non-consensual supernatural pregnancy. They probably chose their words based on what would invoke feelings of reverence / devotion / piety/ love etc etc
-
Do you routinely falsify your research too PD?
No
If indeed you do any research
Yes I do - I've published well over 100 primary research papers over my career - the most recent was published last week.
or are in fact a professor.
Indeed I am.
I suspect the popular view
Popular with who, VG.
... might be that you are not really a professor
Wrong.
and certainly not in any field of ethics.
As I've mentioned previously this isn't my primary research field, although I have published peer-reviewed articles in this field. My main professional engagement in this field is professional practice as member, and in one case, chair of research ethics committees, supporting the development of my university's policies and practice in research ethics and also teaching to masters level students.
-
Please correct me if I am wrong but I read your response:
Yes but it's so much more fun to leave you hanging as it seems to matter to you....
As an answer to my oft repeated question, specifically your response was to this:
So do you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing VG?
Simply yes/no is all that is needed.
You chose to add to the simple yes/no, but that seemed pretty superfluous to your answer to the question.
If I have got this wrong and 'yes' wasn't an answer to my question, I apologise, but I need to ask you again whether you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing VG?
The "Yes" was not in answer to your question about my beliefs about supernatural pregnancies. Apology accepted.
I assumed it was obvious that I wasn't answering "yes" to your question about my beliefs, given I also added in my response, which you edited out when quote-mining that "I'll let you know my beliefs when I feel in the mood to do so. Which is probably when you stop demanding that I tell you what my beliefs are."
But I guess either it wasn't obvious to you or you skimmed over it and did not comprehend it.
-
Maybe it wasn't written that way because the authors, who were presumably theists, felt it unnecessary to spell out that theists have a choice as to whether to obey God or not. They might have taken it for granted that having a choice was something everyone understood.
Or maybe it was written that way because the authors were recanting a story in which god, via an angel tells Mary what will happen to her, rather than recanting a story in which Mary is offered a choice in the matter.
You can attempt all kinds of contortions to try to get around this, but the uncomfortable fact is that the text, as written, provides no evidence that Mary is being offered a choice rather than being told what will happen to her.
-
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conceive
conceived; conceiving
transitive verb
1
a
: to become pregnant with (young)
conceive a child
Translated from the Greek
Matthew 1:20 V-APP-NNS
GRK: ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός
NAS: for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy
KJV: for that which is conceived in
INT: in her having been conceived from [the] Spirit
I read that some scholars view the capitalisng of holy spirit to the Holy Spirit happened in later years.
I would also add that there are many different interpretations of the meaning of words in religious text, and different stances taken by readers on whether words should be read literally or metaphorically.
Language in stories have many meanings so trying to insist that your reading of the word and your usage in language is the only correct way just makes you look foolish.
I don't see any references to magic in that...
O.
-
Yes but it's so much more fun to leave you hanging as it seems to matter to you....
This is what you said after my yes/no.
I'm struggling to see how my choosing not to include the bit in bold constitutes quote mining. I took this that you were finally answering my yes/no question in the affirmative. But then indicating that you've been playing a merry little game of refusing to answer but had finally succumbed.
-
Do keep up VG - I read and agree with your response on magic storks.
My question is given you approach to determining whether you accept magic storks, why you accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing (assuming your 'yes' was finally an answer to my oft asked question).
I have not said that I accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing. I'll let you know in due course what my belief is. It hasn't come up as something of importance to me as the birth of Jesus has no relevance to my day to day life. The historical stuff, which can neither be proved or disproved, is not something I spend a lot of time pondering on.
As I have often mentioned on here , some Muslims read the Quran and take the words and stories literally and some Muslims read the Quran and take the words and stories metaphorically or as an illustration of some point being made or a lesson being taught, and some do both - so they take some parts literally and some parts metaphorically.
You can see the wide range of views for example on this thread: https://www.religiousforums.com/threads/quran-literal-or-metaphoric.139444/
-
Popular with who, VG.
No idea - you said in #295 "Other opinions are available and may well be rather more popular VG.". Who did you mean when you mentioned "popular"?
As I've mentioned previously this isn't my primary research field, although I have published peer-reviewed articles in this field. My main professional engagement in this field is professional practice as member, and in one case, chair of research ethics committees, supporting the development of my university's policies and practice in research ethics and also teaching to masters level students.
Good for you. You have fun with that. Just remember not to jump to conclusions that aren't supported by the available evidence.
-
I have not said that I accept that supernatural pregnancies are a thing.
Why so coy VG - you are usually so opinionated.
I'll let you know in due course what my belief is.
Why not now, surely you have an opinion given that we have been discussing it on this thread for a while and it was, of course you, who numerous times kept implying that the law somehow doesn't apply to supernatural pregnancies. Very weird comments unless you had an opinion on whether supernatural pregnancies are a thing.
It hasn't come up as something of importance to me as the birth of Jesus has no relevance to my day to day life. The historical stuff, which can neither be proved or disproved, is not something I spend a lot of time pondering on.
Yes you seem to consider this to be rather important for the CPS, given all your quotes on the matter.
-
No idea - you said in #295 "Other opinions are available and may well be rather more popular VG.". Who did you mean when you mentioned "popular"?
With both other posters here and those that know me in the real world. Who were you considering VG.
Good for you. You have fun with that.
Yes - it is incredibly interesting at times. Other applications are deeply dull and sometimes really bad.
Just remember not to jump to conclusions that aren't supported by the available evidence.
I don't VG - just asserting something doesn't make it true VG. As a trained scientist (as well as a trained ethicist and with a modicum of legal training) my whole world is about using evidence in support of conclusions. How about you VG?
-
Or maybe it was written that way because the authors were recanting a story in which god, via an angel tells Mary what will happen to her, rather than recanting a story in which Mary is offered a choice in the matter.
You can attempt all kinds of contortions to try to get around this, but the uncomfortable fact is that the text, as written, provides no evidence that Mary is being offered a choice rather than being told what will happen to her.
Or maybe 2 different people with 2 different perspectives because of their nature/ nurture can read the same text and interpret it in 2 different ways and form different understandings of what took place in the story.
Not exactly a novel idea that this could lead to many different interpretations of information and words presented in legal, political, philosophical, social and religious discourse.
-
I don't see any references to magic in that...
O.
No idea what your point is. References to magic in what?
-
Vlad,
other sources are not the Bible. And you claimed the Bible demonstrated minority.
No, I said the Bible story was about the impregnation of an underage servant girl in a colossally asymmetric power relationship who was told what would happen rather than asked whether she consented. The “underage” part of that comes from commentaries and interpretations from religious sites, while the asymmetric power dynamic part is baked in to the story itself.
As far as I’m aware no conviction in law is based on what is typical and the only documentary witness here is the bible.
It’s not a “witness” it’s an account long after the event with all the problems of veracity that implies, but in any case we’re not talking about a conviction in law here. No theistic sites that I’m aware of dispute that by contemporary standards in the story Mary was underage, and unless you have some better records to show them to be wrong there’s no particular reason to question that.
The hint of Mary’s possible age is not that she is betrothed but that she has a cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant beyond expected childbearing years…
My wife became an Aunt at the age of six. So?
…and I would also add Mary’s spiritual and intellectual grasp all put her above mid teens in age.
You can make all the guesses you like about that, but it’s irrelevant. In my example of a headmaster impregnating one of his pupils, would “spiritual and intellectual grasp all put her above mid teens in age” be an acceptable defence (even if the pupil was the one who claimed it) in your opinion? Why not?
But since no age is given in the text my guess just remains excellent deduction.
Unqualified guessing that flies in the face of theistic scholarship isn’t “excellent deduction” – it’s just unqualified guessing that flies in the face of theistic scholarship
So anyway (and once again):
We have a story about a morally perfect god impregnating an underage Palestinian serving girl on a necessarily non-consensual basis, but we also have modern Western sensibilities that consider this behaviour to be morally reprehensible.
Which one do you think is morally better?
Why so coy?
-
This is what you said after my yes/no.
I'm struggling to see how my choosing not to include the bit in bold constitutes quote mining. I took this that you were finally answering my yes/no question in the affirmative. But then indicating that you've been playing a merry little game of refusing to answer but had finally succumbed.
I also wrote, which you did not include "I'll let you know my beliefs when I feel in the mood to do so. Which is probably when you stop demanding that I tell you what my beliefs are."
That changes the meaning of my "yes" so you interpreted it differently from how I intended it. Oh look a real time example of how different people can interpret the same words differently.
-
I also wrote, which you did not include "I'll let you know my beliefs when I feel in the mood to do so. Which is probably when you stop demanding that I tell you what my beliefs are."
Which appeared after some rather bemusing comments on being married, which I responded to.
That changes the meaning of my "yes" so you interpreted it differently from how I intended it. Oh look a real time example of how different people can interpret the same words differently.
So you say - but it is hardly clear if you say yes straight after a simple yes/no question and then make some later comment which you claim to imply that you actually weren't answering my question after some strange stuff about marriage.
Perhaps you need to be a little clearer in your communication VG.
-
Why so coy VG - you are usually so opinionated.
Given, there are lots of posts I do not respond to or have an opinion on, once again you seem to have jumped to an erroneous conclusion.
Why not now, surely you have an opinion given that we have been discussing it on this thread for a while and it was, of course you, who numerous times kept implying that the law somehow doesn't apply to supernatural pregnancies. Very weird comments unless you had an opinion on whether supernatural pregnancies are a thing.
Nope - I was just challenging the arguments made by you about the story of a supernatural pregnancy. I thought you were jumping to conclusions about lack of consent that weren't supported by the text, as it's a Bible story about a miracle.
Supernatural pregnancies are not something I have any personal experience of and it's irrelevant to me whether supernatural pregnancies are a thing or not. The concept does not affect my life so I have not formed an opinion as from my perspective it's unknowable. My brief thoughts on the matter are that religious stories talk about creation e.g. creation of Adam without fertilisation and pregnancies so it isn't really a novel idea in religions that people do not exist and then do exist without reference to processes identified by science.
Yes you seem to consider this to be rather important for the CPS, given all your quotes on the matter.
I was challenging your arguments, as you were bringing in the legal concept of consent into the argument.
-
VG,
Your way is to make assertions on here without supporting evidence, which is why your assertions are easily dismissed, and then you spit the dummy when challenged.
Not a ludicrous position at all. Not everyone wants to be a boss, some people prefer to be workers.
Stop it now – you’re embarrassing yourself. The majority of people would also prefer a nice slice of apple pie to a punch on the nose. Would you demand “evidence” for that statement of the bleeding obvious too? Why not?
By the way, servants of God would not rather be bosses.
And your evidence for that claim would be…? etc etc. See, it’s easy isn’t it just to try to derail by demanding evidence for uncontroversial statements. Assuming that people who think themselves to be servants of their various gods wouldn't rather be those gods, all that statement does is to reinforce the unequal power dynamic point that nullifies the possibility of valid consent.
When you behave like a small child with some of the comments you make, I don't waste my time thinking of a response. I just parrot your childish response back to you.
Pointing out your unpleasant behaviour here isn’t behaving like a small child (it’s the behaviour itself that does that) but it’s up to you I guess.
I already responded to this - see #237 (and also #205,#228 if you want to go back further). If you don't like these responses, try not to spit the dummy again. I don’t know perhaps whether some damaging event happened to you at a formative age but you seem determined to spit the dummy at anyone who disagrees with you rather than to address their arguments. It’s unedifying, and it serves only to deflect from the arguments themselves (which presumably is your intent)
Feeling better now? OK then – you may have “responded” in the sense that deflections are responses, but you haven’t answered it. By all means if you change your mind though have a go at it:
The question is clear enough. In the example given, which position do you think is morally better:
A. God’s?
B. Modern Western Society’s?
I’ve made it as simple as I can for you – all you need do to answer that is to reply either A or B.
I suggest you go and read it and respond to the points made rather than this childish sticking your fingers in your ears and asking the same question over and over again,
I have read it, why is why I know you were deflecting. Look, to be frank when your trademark nastiness is all you have then I don’t really much care to engage with it. If it make you feel good about yourself to behave this way, then so be it. If by some chance you do decide to give your head a wobble and to try to address the question you’ve actually been asked though then go right ahead.
-
I am looking at circumcision as that is a procedure that we have guidance on in relation to a child's capacity to consent to what could be considered as Actual Bodily Harm if there was no valid consent. It is a most likely permanent, irreversible procedure that a child is considered capable of consenting to.
But that applies to countless medical procedures and we have guidance on those too. The reason why I think circumcision isn't a great example to use for discussion on valid consent and/or authorisation by parents under best interests is that it is a very unusual case and there are considerations that aren't usually part of the standard approach to consent/authorisation. As I've pointed out, almost exclusively circumcision requires both parents agree - this in the case normally.
-
Which appeared after some rather bemusing comments on being married, which I responded to.
It was not a serious comment and I was not expecting a response. I was just making the point that experience of relationships must have led you to the observation that repeatedly demanding something from someone is very unlikely to get you the result you are after.
So you say - but it is hardly clear if you say yes straight after a simple yes/no question and then make some later comment which you claim to imply that you actually weren't answering my question after some strange stuff about marriage.
Perhaps you need to be a little clearer in your communication VG.
Perhaps. Given, language and communication are imperfect mechanisms for exchanging views it is not surprising that the meanings an author intends by the words that they use are interpreted or understood differently by someone else.
-
No idea what your point is. References to magic in what?
Your evidence that your usage is correct is to refer to a dictionary definition of 'conception' as though that's going to accommodate the poetic use of the term in a fairy story...
O.
-
Ok - so if the age of consent is lowered by Parliament say in 2025 to 14, do you hold the view that it becomes morally right to have sex at 14 but is morally wrong now? Do you think what we as a society thinks is morally right or wrong keeps changing depending on what point in history you pick?
Do you consider what is lawful to be the same as what is morally right at any given time?
Slide number 3 of my introduction to medical ethics lecture.
Ethical and Legal
Not the same
Things may be considered to be ethically wrong but not illegal
e.g. lying, discourtesy
Laws, rules and regulations often provide a minimum standard of behaviour
Laws should be tightly defined to allow proper enforcement -
Clearly what we broadly consider to be ethical/unethical should align with what is considered lawful/unlawful, but this isn't always the case. On the one hard the law often provides a minimum expected standard of behaviour, but we might consider that which is ethical to have a higher hurdle. So, as an example, someone might make snide, insulting and untrue comments about someone else (just plucking out of the air for one moment, perhaps about a person's professional expertise and conduct) and while this might be rather unethical behaviour the law wouldn't be interested unless it reached the threshold for libel.
But there is also the issue of how the law operates in practice - so in the example you use the law sets some basic lines in the sand on age around a range of procedures and activities. In doing so it therefore absents itself from the much more complex issue of determining whether there is valid consent or not. Largely the law is disinterested in valid consent for sex under the age of 16, because it is unlawful. Over the age of 16 the issue of valid consent is paramount, but as we see with the woeful prosecution rates for rape cases, can be very tricky to actually assess according to the thresholds of proof the law requires.
Of course, in a more practical sense the law tends to turn a blind eye to teenagers under 16 having consensual sex, but the law does provide a useful approach to asymmetric relationships involving much older person and an under 16 where there may be a power relationship. That under the age of 16 sex is unlawful means that the law doesn't have to go into the complexities of whether or not there was valid consent, it is unlawful regardless.
So to answer your question - changing the age of consent is a matter for the law, it isn't an ethical issue and it wouldn't change my opinion on whether a particular activity was ethical or not.
-
VG,
Stop it now – you’re embarrassing yourself. The majority of people would also prefer a nice slice of apple pie to a punch on the nose. Would you demand “evidence” for that statement of the bleeding obvious too? Why not?
I suggest you stop now BHS - you’re embarrassing yourself. There is no comparison between a punch on the nose and working for someone else.
And your evidence for that claim would be…? etc etc. See, it’s easy isn’t it just to try to derail by demanding evidence for uncontroversial statements. Assuming that people who think themselves to be servants of their various gods wouldn't rather be those gods, all that statement does is to reinforce the unequal power dynamic point that nullifies the possibility of valid consent.
My evidence would be that if you ask some of the theists on here if they want to be servants of God or a god themselves, and if they say no they do not want to be God, then you have some evidence that there are theists who do not want to be gods.
I'll start - I would rather be a servant of God than a God.
Nope - calling yourself a servant of God doesn't nullify the possibility of valid consent - as calling yourself a servant of God still means theists make decisions many times to not obey what they think are God's wishes.
Pointing out your unpleasant behaviour here isn’t behaving like a small child (it’s the behaviour itself that does that) but it’s up to you I guess.
If you find my behaviour unpleasant that's up to you. No one is forcing you to participate. If you want to post your opinion about my behaviour that's fine too. No one is forcing me to read it or take any notice of it. Likewise in pointing out your unpleasant behaviour on here. It's up to you too, if you decide to continue it.
Feeling better now? OK then – you may have “responded” in the sense that deflections are responses, but you haven’t answered it. By all means if you change your mind though have a go at it:
The question is clear enough. In the example given, which position do you think is morally better:
A. God’s?
B. Modern Western Society’s?
I’ve made it as simple as I can for you – all you need do to answer that is to reply either A or B.
If you had read the response I gave you, you would know that it said those are not the only 2 choices and why that is the case. You also did not answer the question about which modern western society position - there are so many different positions in modern western society. Are you talking about a particular country's legal position? If so, which country's, given there are so many different ages of consent in the Western world.
I have read it, why is why I know you were deflecting. Look, to be frank when your trademark nastiness is all you have then I don’t really much care to engage with it. If it make you feel good about yourself to behave this way, then so be it. If by some chance you do decide to give your head a wobble and to try to address the question you’ve actually been asked though then go right ahead.
If your opinion is that I am nasty, feel free to not engage. Your choice. I have addressed the question asked - you just don't like the answer.
-
With both other posters here and those that know me in the real world. Who were you considering VG.
Yes - it is incredibly interesting at times. Other applications are deeply dull and sometimes really bad.
I don't VG - just asserting something doesn't make it true VG. As a trained scientist (as well as a trained ethicist and with a modicum of legal training) my whole world is about using evidence in support of conclusions. How about you VG?
I was considering whoever you were considering - it was in response to your post.
I can't say that I am invested in my popularity on the internet so I wouldn't think to comment on whether I am popular amongst posters. I tend to advise young people I encounter, who seem caught up with social media, that I think it is not helpful to a person's mental health to worry about whether some strangers like you, given they do not really know your life and you do not know theirs and everyone only sees glimpses of information based on what is posted on the internet and not the reality of other aspects of each other's lives.
People are not always what they seem or what you interpret from their online posts.
-
Slide number 3 of my introduction to medical ethics lecture.
Ethical and Legal
Not the same
Things may be considered to be ethically wrong but not illegal
e.g. lying, discourtesy
Laws, rules and regulations often provide a minimum standard of behaviour
Laws should be tightly defined to allow proper enforcement -
Clearly what we broadly consider to be ethical/unethical should align with what is considered lawful/unlawful, but this isn't always the case. On the one hard the law often provides a minimum expected standard of behaviour, but we might consider that which is ethical to have a higher hurdle. So, as an example, someone might make snide, insulting and untrue comments about someone else (just plucking out of the air for one moment, perhaps about a person's professional expertise and conduct) and while this might be rather unethical behaviour the law wouldn't be interested unless it reached the threshold for libel.
That's a great example :-X
Would you say someone trying to use their professional credentials to support their argument on an anonymous online forum, when there is no way of posters being able to verify whether those credentials are in fact real, is rather unethical?
But there is also the issue of how the law operates in practice - so in the example you use the law sets some basic lines in the sand on age around a range of procedures and activities. In doing so it therefore absents itself from the much more complex issue of determining whether there is valid consent or not. Largely the law is disinterested in valid consent for sex under the age of 16, because it is unlawful. Over the age of 16 the issue of valid consent is paramount, but as we see with the woeful prosecution rates for rape cases, can be very tricky to actually assess according to the thresholds of proof the law requires.
Of course, in a more practical sense the law tends to turn a blind eye to teenagers under 16 having consensual sex, but the law does provide a useful approach to asymmetric relationships involving much older person and an under 16 where there may be a power relationship. That under the age of 16 sex is unlawful means that the law doesn't have to go into the complexities of whether or not there was valid consent, it is unlawful regardless.
So to answer your question - changing the age of consent is a matter for the law, it isn't an ethical issue and it wouldn't change my opinion on whether a particular activity was ethical or not.
Thanks for the information and your opinion.
So ignoring Mary's age, which we do not know and therefore cannot determine if she was under-age by whatever age of consent we choose to consider, is our difference of opinion on whether her consent was legally valid or whether she would be considered in a legal case to have been coerced, based on the text in the story? My opinion is we can't reach a legal conclusion based on the wording in the text, as there is not enough information to determine valid consent from a legal perspective.
-
I was considering whoever you were considering - it was in response to your post.
How on earth would you be able to assess the popularity of an opinion that I am a professor amongst those I know in the real world beyond this MB VG.
I can't say that I am invested in my popularity on the internet ...
No shit Sherlock - you are one step up (or maybe one step down) from Toby Young on the 'how to lose friends and alienate people' front. Just look at your engagement with BHS on this thread, let alone me.
... so I wouldn't think to comment on whether I am popular amongst posters.
Nice swerve into misrepresenting me. I never made any comment about whether I am popular amongst posters.
In response to your accusation:
I find you jump to conclusions and make assumptions in discussions, that aren't supported by sufficient evidence. I replied,
Other opinions are available and may well be rather more popular VG.
The point was whether your accusation would be a popular opinion compared to others, such as that I do not jump to conclusions and make assumptions in discussions, without sufficient evidence. This has nothing to do with my popularity personally.
You then, as per your obsession, lurched into claiming that it might be a popular view that I am not a professor:
Judging by this quote mining, I suspect the popular view might be that you are not really a professor and certainly not in any field of ethics.
Actually that isn't a matter on which one can have a view or an opinion as it is a matter of fact - I either am, or I am not. And the fact is that I am.
I fail to see where any of this is about personal popularity VG, but hey why not double down on the misrepresentation.
-
Would you say someone trying to use their professional credentials to support their argument on an anonymous online forum, when there is no way of posters being able to verify whether those credentials are in fact real, is rather unethical?
No - anyone on a forum can choose to be anonymous, or to fully or partially reveal themselves - that is our choice. That has no bearing on whether they bring their expertise and experience onto this MB. Otherwise none of us would be able to discuss our real-life experiences unless we de-anonymised ourselves.
As I have said previously you have indicated here that you are female, a muslim and were brought up in a different faith. I accept that - why wouldn't I. Why are you so unwilling to extend the same courtesy to me?
-
How on earth would you be able to assess the popularity of an opinion that I am a professor amongst those I know in the real world beyond this MB VG.
I can't assess it or reach a conclusion. I was just raising the possibility that it might be a popular view "that you are not really a professor and certainly not in any field of ethics".
No shit Sherlock - you are one step up (or maybe one step down) from Toby Young on the 'how to lose friends and alienate people' front. Just look at your engagement with BHS on this thread, let alone me.
Right back at you.
Nice swerve into misrepresenting me. I never made any comment about whether I am popular amongst posters.
Apologies you are right, you didn't.
In response to your accusation:
I find you jump to conclusions and make assumptions in discussions, that aren't supported by sufficient evidence. I replied,
Other opinions are available and may well be rather more popular VG.
The point was whether your accusation would be a popular opinion compared to others, such as that I do not jump to conclusions and make assumptions in discussions, without sufficient evidence. This has nothing to do with my popularity personally.
You then, as per your obsession, lurched into claiming that it might be a popular view that I am not a professor:
I wouldn't say it was an obsession - more a nice game to play to pass the time - e.g. a bit like these https://lifehacker.com/11-of-the-best-mindless-mobile-games-you-never-knew-you-1847504307
Judging by this quote mining, I suspect the popular view might be that you are not really a professor and certainly not in any field of ethics.
Actually that isn't a matter on which one can have a view or an opinion as it is a matter of fact - I either am, or I am not. And the fact is that I am.
I fail to see where any of this is about personal popularity VG, but hey why not double down on the misrepresentation.
Sorry, sometimes when playing games I don't always pay close attention, as the outcome isn't all that important.
-
No - anyone on a forum can choose to be anonymous, or to fully or partially reveal themselves - that is our choice. That has no bearing on whether they bring their expertise and experience onto this MB. Otherwise none of us would be able to discuss our real-life experiences unless we de-anonymised ourselves.
As I have said previously you have indicated here that you are female, a muslim and were brought up in a different faith. I accept that - why wouldn't I.
It's ok if you don't accept it, because it does not affect my argument.
Why are you so unwilling to extend the same courtesy to me?
Because I don't know whether you really are a professor. Though it is true that I could accept it as an act of faith in the absence of evidence. I don't think it matters though - I don't consider your arguments to carry more weight even if you are a professor.
-
So ignoring Mary's age, which we do not know and therefore cannot determine if she was under-age by whatever age of consent we choose to consider, is our difference of opinion on whether her consent was legally valid or whether she would be considered in a legal case to have been coerced, based on the text in the story? My opinion is we can't reach a legal conclusion based on the wording in the text, as there is not enough information to determine valid consent from a legal perspective.
I disagree - and again ignoring the age issue, from the text there is plenty of evidence that there cannot be valid consent. For example:
1. There is no indication that Mary has a choice and is free to choose whether or not to become pregnant. In order legally to avoid a claim of battery or more likely negligence it must be made patently clear to someone considering, for example, an elective medical procedure that it is for them to choose.
2. Where there is a clear power relationship active steps need to be taken to avoid pressure and soft coercion whereby an individual perceives that they must acquiesce to the opinion of the person in a position of power. There is one hell of a humdinger of a power relationship going on here. In fact Mary considers herself to be the servant of the person telling her what will happen.
3. Emotionally charged situations can mitigate against valid consent - if someone is scared, for example, if may mean that they are unable to freely choose between options. The text indicates that Mary is afraid and just saying 'don't be afraid' won't mitigate against this.
4. Lack of information - from the text, Mary clearly doesn't understand what is going on and there is virtually no information provided - this would never meet the legal standard of adequate and sufficient, as for example there is no mention of 'alternatives' - like Mary not becoming pregnant!
-
But that applies to countless medical procedures and we have guidance on those too.
All the other procedures are for health reasons presumably? Non-therapeutic circumcision is an instance where it is not for health reasons, where a child can still consent to it.
The reason why I think circumcision isn't a great example to use for discussion on valid consent and/or authorisation by parents under best interests is that it is a very unusual case and there are considerations that aren't usually part of the standard approach to consent/authorisation. As I've pointed out, almost exclusively circumcision requires both parents agree - this in the case normally.
Yes and we were discussing the issue of Mary's consent in unusual circumstances, including the issue of whether throwing a God into the mix automatically means undue influence was brought to bear, invalidating the consent.
I was pointing out that even where a child has been advised by parents about circumcision, the guidance indicates that this does not automatically invalidate the child's consent despite the power dynamics of parent and child and it being a non-therapeutic procedure for cultural or religious reasons.
-
I disagree - and again ignoring the age issue, from the text there is plenty of evidence that there cannot be valid consent.
I disagree that there is evidence from the text to conclude anything on the issue of consent.
For example:
1. There is no indication that Mary has a choice and is free to choose whether or not to become pregnant. In order legally to avoid a claim of battery or more likely negligence it must be made patently clear to someone considering, for example, an elective medical procedure that it is for them to choose.
2. Where there is a clear power relationship active steps need to be taken to avoid pressure and soft coercion whereby an individual perceives that they must acquiesce to the opinion of the person in a position of power. There is one hell of a humdinger of a power relationship going on here. In fact Mary considers herself to be the servant of the person telling her what will happen.
3. Emotionally charged situations can mitigate against valid consent - if someone is scared, for example, if may mean that they are unable to freely choose between options. The text indicates that Mary is afraid and just saying 'don't be afraid' won't mitigate against this.
4. Lack of information - from the text, Mary clearly doesn't understand what is going on and there is virtually no information provided - this would never meet the legal standard of adequate and sufficient, as for example there is no mention of 'alternatives' - like Mary not becoming pregnant!
All this indicates is that the authors did not include any information on this because this was a story and not something to be used to decide the issue of legal consent.
-
Because I don't know whether you really are a professor.
Nor does anyone else on these MB except me - well perhaps the mods would be able to unpick this, but they shouldn't be doing this. But you seem to be the only one obsessed with not believing me. Why, it is really, really odd behaviour.
Though it is true that I could accept it as an act of faith in the absence of evidence.
I don't see it as a matter of faith - more one of courtesy - why would I do anything other than accept that you are a female muslim brought up in a different faith. But courtesy cuts both ways, or at least it should.
I don't think it matters though - I don't consider your arguments to carry more weight even if you are a professor.
They don't carry more weight because I am a professor per se, but I think they do carry more weight when those opinions are backed up by a level of professional knowledge and expertise that comes with being a professor (but of course only in the fields in which I have expertise).
If you want to know about cancer do you not think that the opinion of an eminent professional cancer specialist might just carry more weight due to their years of built-up knowledge and expertise compared to someone who has spent the afternoon as an armchair googler.
-
I disagree that there is evidence from the text to conclude anything on the issue of consent.
All this indicates is that the authors did not include any information on this because this was a story and not something to be used to decide the issue of legal consent.
I agree - the authors weren't really interested in consent whatsoever.
But that doesn't mean that we should somehow accept (as Vlad wishes us to do) that the text contains robust evidence that there was consent. It doesn't - it doesn't come close to indicating that there was consent and largely the text we have suggests there was no consent.
-
Nor does anyone else on these MB except me - well perhaps the mods would be able to unpick this, but they shouldn't be doing this. But you seem to be the only one obsessed with not believing me. Why, it is really, really odd behaviour.
As I said previously:
I wouldn't say it was an obsession - more a nice game to play to pass the time - e.g. a bit like these https://lifehacker.com/11-of-the-best-mindless-mobile-games-you-never-knew-you-1847504307
I don't see it as a matter of faith - more one of courtesy - why would I do anything other than accept that you are a female muslim brought up in a different faith. But courtesy cuts both ways, or at least it should.
They don't carry more weight because I am a professor per se, but I think they do carry more weight when those opinions are backed up by a level of professional knowledge and expertise that comes with being a professor (but of course only in the fields in which I have expertise).
When you post links to the professional knowledge and expertise, I often look at them. I don't need to know whether or not you are a professor in order to read and try to understand the links you post.
If you want to know about cancer do you not think that the opinion of an eminent professional cancer specialist might just carry more weight due to their years of built-up knowledge and expertise compared to someone who has spent the afternoon as an armchair googler.
Depends on what information the eminent professional cancer specialist linked to if they were on an anonymous internet forum. I wouldn't just take their word for it on the internet that they were an eminent professional cancer specialist and I would attempt to critically assess their opinions, regardless of their claims of professional expertise.
-
I agree - the authors weren't really interested in consent whatsoever.
But that doesn't mean that we should somehow accept (as Vlad wishes us to do) that the text contains robust evidence that there was consent. It doesn't - it doesn't come close to indicating that there was consent and largely the text we have suggests there was no consent.
I do not know whether Vlad thought there was robust evidence. Nor do I know if he was disputing a conclusion by another poster that there was robust evidence of a lack of consent. I can't be bothered to go back and look.
I disagree that the text we have suggests no consent. I don't think there is sufficient information on that.
-
I disagree that the text we have suggests no consent.
Presuming you mean valid consent (not that there is any other form) - the text certainly fails to provide any evidence of valid consent. The key reason being that there is nothing to suggest that Mary is actaully being offered a choice for her to make, rather than being told what will happen to her.
But then I guess assessing the process for obtaining valid consent isn't something you've given much thought to VG, whereas I spend quite a lot of my professional time doing exactly that.
-
As I said previously:
I wouldn't say it was an obsession - more a nice game to play to pass the time - e.g. a bit like these https://lifehacker.com/11-of-the-best-mindless-mobile-games-you-never-knew-you-1847504307
When you post links to the professional knowledge and expertise, I often look at them. I don't need to know whether or not you are a professor in order to read and try to understand the links you post.
Depends on what information the eminent professional cancer specialist linked to if they were on an anonymous internet forum. I wouldn't just take their word for it on the internet that they were an eminent professional cancer specialist and I would attempt to critically assess their opinions, regardless of their claims of professional expertise.
Would you also mindlessly and childishly continually try to wind them up? So you have your doubts about the Prof really being a prof. We get that. We got it the first time you said it ages back. To keep banging on about it makes you sound a bit odd, and a bit - sad.
You strike me as a slightly better educated version of Vicky Pollard. Apparently your "Yes" means something like "Yeah but, no but, so SHAAUP"
-
I wouldn't say it was an obsession
Seems like that to me - and a rather tedious and discourteous one at that.
When you post links to the professional knowledge and expertise, I often look at them. I don't need to know whether or not you are a professor in order to read and try to understand the links you post.
Depends on what information the eminent professional cancer specialist linked to if they were on an anonymous internet forum. I wouldn't just take their word for it on the internet that they were an eminent professional cancer specialist and I would attempt to critically assess their opinions, regardless of their claims of professional expertise.
You seem to have a rather odd view about what knowledge and expertise entails - it isn't just about posting interesting links - frankly anyone can do that. It is about having a level of knowledge and expertise that can be directly imparted, rather than via a third party link. I think you'd be pretty unimpressed if your cancer doctor didn't actual allow you directly to benefit from their knowledge of cancer and treatment options, but sent you off to do your own homework without providing their knowledge directly.
Of course when you are a specialist within a field you tend to work within the realm of specialist professional literature which can be pretty off putting to the lay person.
So I could directly you to Medical Law by Kennedy & Grubb which remains one of the most respected and comprehensive texts that covers legal issues of consent. It is, however over 2000 pages long with tiny dense text that gets tinier when reporting case law - a veritable cube of a book. However I suspect that most people would find it completely impenetrable.
-
VG,
I have addressed the question asked - you just don't like the answer.
“Addressing” and “deflecting from by disappearing down rabbit holes” are not the same thing. I guess we’ll never know then whether you prefer the morality of the impregnating god of the bible story or the morality of modern Western societies. Oh well.
-
VG,
I disagree that the text we have suggests no consent. I don't think there is sufficient information on that.
Yes we have. The story concerns an all-powerful, universe-creating god who sends an “angel” to tell an underage (according to various Christian commentary sites) Palestinian servant girl what “will” happen to her. On the bare facts of that story as presented, by modern standards the issue isn’t that valid consent wasn’t given – it’s that valid consent could not have been given.
Again: imagine that your local paper ran a story about a headmaster impregnating one of his 14-year-old pupils. Would you also respond with: “I disagree that the text we have suggests no consent. I don't think there is sufficient information on that”?
Why not?
-
Blimey - you really are clutching at straws here Vlad. Firstly you will no doubt be aware that 'cousin' is simply one translation - others use 'relative', so there is no solid evidence that Elizabeth was actually Mary's cousin.
But even if she was, it is perfectly possible for cousins to have 25 or more years difference between them, particularly in a world where women had a lot of children, starting very young. And, of course if 'cousin' also covers second cousin, cousin first removed etc (all of which would be covered by the generic term cousin) then even greater age differences are entirely possible.
So it would be possible but atypical for Elizabeth to not be a first cousin thus it would be possible but atypical for Elizabeth and Mary to be so distant in age.
And yet your case is based on typical age of betrothal. A clear case of hypocrisy, humbug and special pleading on your part
-
So it would be possible but atypical for Elizabeth to not be a first cousin thus it would be possible but atypical for Elizabeth and Mary to be so distant in age.
But we have no evidence that Elizabeth was her cousin - that is likely to be sloppy translation.
The word in Greek is συγγενής - that translates to relative, not cousin.
So on the basis of the original Greek Elizabeth was simply a relative which makes you argument about age difference completely irrelevant.
-
VG,
Yes we have. The story concerns an all-powerful, universe-creating god who sends an “angel” to tell an underage (according to various Christian commentary sites) Palestinian servant girl what “will” happen to her. On the bare facts of that story as presented, by modern standards the issue isn’t that valid consent wasn’t given – it’s that valid consent could not have been given.
Again: imagine that your local paper ran a story about a headmaster impregnating one of his 14-year-old pupils. Would you also respond with: “I disagree that the text we have suggests no consent. I don't think there is sufficient information on that”?
Why not?
There is also another bit which we haven't addressed yet.
When Mary questions how this could happen, the angel says 'no word from god will ever fail'. So it is pretty clear that god's word is that Mary will become pregnant and that is what is going to happen, because 'no word from god will ever fail'.
She isn't being offered any choice in the matter.
-
But we have no evidence that Elizabeth was her cousin - that is likely to be sloppy translation.
The word in Greek is συγγενής - that translates to relative, not cousin.
So on the basis of the original Greek Elizabeth was simply a relative which makes you argument about age difference completely irrelevant.
Are you saying then that a cousin is not a relative?
-
And yet your case is based on typical age of betrothal. A clear case of hypocrisy, humbug and special pleading on your part
So we have demolished your argument on Elizabeth and Mary on the basis that this is a mistranslation.
So what is left is special pleading on the basis of exceptionalism on your part that someone Mary would not be of a similar age to most girls betrothed to be married within that societal structure.
And actually that she was not actually married but engaged to be married suggests she might be younger still, on the basis that if the typical age for marriage was 13-14 then clearly girls would be younger than that when engaged but not actually married yet.
-
Are you saying then that a cousin is not a relative?
No but not all relatives are cousins. Your argument is based on Elizabeth and Mary being cousins, but that isn't what the text actually says - it just says they were relatives. Sure they could have been cousins but we have no evidence to support this, but Elizabeth could just as well have been Mary's great Aunt.
-
I disagree - and again ignoring the age issue, from the text there is plenty of evidence that there cannot be valid consent. For example:
1. There is no indication that Mary has a choice and is free to choose whether or not to become pregnant. In order legally to avoid a claim of battery or more likely negligence it must be made patently clear to someone considering, for example, an elective medical procedure that it is for them to choose.
2. Where there is a clear power relationship active steps need to be taken to avoid pressure and soft coercion whereby an individual perceives that they must acquiesce to the opinion of the person in a position of power. There is one hell of a humdinger of a power relationship going on here. In fact Mary considers herself to be the servant of the person telling her what will happen.
3. Emotionally charged situations can mitigate against valid consent - if someone is scared, for example, if may mean that they are unable to freely choose between options. The text indicates that Mary is afraid and just saying 'don't be afraid' won't mitigate against this.
4. Lack of information - from the text, Mary clearly doesn't understand what is going on and there is virtually no information provided - this would never meet the legal standard of adequate and sufficient, as for example there is no mention of 'alternatives' - like Mary not becoming pregnant!
You are ruling out any consent to God and this means we are shaking hands with Calvinism and it’s determinism. However we could also appeal to Molinism where God knows what the will of someone will be and, applied to this situation, here God is going to someone he knows will cooperate with the plan and give the consent of verse 38.......would you mind typing verse38 in full in your reply, thank you.
In terms of fear that obviously and in the text subsides and certainly there is no sign of it in the Magnificat.
-
In terms of fear that obviously and in the text subsides and certainly there is no sign of it in the Magnificat.
Which are words attributed to Mary by some author (we don't actually know who) nigh on 100 years after the event. There is no credible evidence that Mary ever uttered those words.
-
No but not all relatives are cousins. Your argument is based on Elizabeth and Mary being cousins, but that isn't what the text actually says - it just says they were relatives. Sure they could have been cousins but we have no evidence to support this, but Elizabeth could just as well have been Mary's great Aunt.
You yourself have come up with a contingent answer recognising they could be cousins and it is an atypical solution. And we are now back to appeal to the typical.A cousin is a relative as you say.
-
You are ruling out any consent to God and this means we are shaking hands with Calvinism and it’s determinism. However we could also appeal to Molinism where God knows what the will of someone will be and, applied to this situation, here God is going to someone he knows will cooperate with the plan and give the consent of verse 38.......would you mind typing verse38 in full in your reply, thank you.
So let's be clear shall we.
According to the text a young girl (we don't know quite how young) is told by god that she will become pregnant. According to the text she is offered no choice in the matter, indeed the angel rather sinisterly warns that 'For no word from God will ever fail' - in this case the word in question is Mary becoming pregnant.
Mary then submits to the authority of god - v38 in full '“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.". This isn't consent - it is at best acquiescence by a person submitting to the authority of someone else (in this case god) have been clearly told that what god says will happen ... err ... will happen ('For no word from God will ever fail').
-
You yourself have come up with a contingent answer recognising they could be cousins and it is an atypical solution. And we are now back to appeal to the typical.A cousin is a relative as you say.
But not the only relative - your argument was that Mary must be older because Elizabeth was her cousin and was at the end of childbearing age. That argument only cuts any ice (and even then pretty thin ice) if Elizabeth is her cousin. But the correct translation is 'relative' - Elizabeth, as I've pointed out could just as easily have been her great Aunt.
-
Vlad,
You are ruling out any consent to God…
Yes, and not only that but ruling out the possibility of “consent to God” for reasons that keep being explained to you. By modern Western standards on the bare facts of the story as presented valid consent could not have been given.
-
So let's be clear shall we.
According to the text a young girl (we don't know quite how young) is told by god that she will become pregnant. She is offered no choice in the matter, indeed the angel rather sinisterly warns that 'For no word from God will ever fail' - in this case the word in question is Mary becoming pregnant.
Mary then submits to the authority of god - v38 in full '“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.". This isn't consent - it is at best acquiescence by a person submitting to the authority of someone else (in this case god) have been clearly told that what god says will happen ... err ... will happen ('For no word from God will ever fail').
The word Almah means a young woman so we can ask why you have opted for young girl.
God, in the Molinistic view, has not in this case chosen a Jonah or a Judas but someone who is quite capable of understanding the intellectual, spiritual theological and personal ramification and consents in the words you have outlined prior to it happening.
When explaining a plan many people talk in the manner of the angel. I’m sure football managers talk about what the team will do.
Mary submits to the authority of God? I’m sure that happened before this point.
-
Vlad,
The word Almah means a young woman so we can ask why you have opted for young girl.
God, in the Molinistic view, has not in this case chosen a Jonah or a Judas but someone who is quite capable of understanding the intellectual, spiritual theological and personal ramification and consents in the words you have outlined prior to it happening.
When explaining a plan many people talk in the manner of the angel. I’m sure football managers talk about what the team will do.
Mary submits to the authority of God? I’m sure that happened before this point.
Fun as it is watching you indulge in special pleading, confirmation bias and defending the indefensible the central point you keep missing (deliberately?) is that, by modern standards, valid consent could not have been given because of either the likely under-age component of the story or because of the epic power relationship differential component of the story. Or because of both.
So which moral standard do you prefer: that of a servant girl-impregnating all-powerful god, or the current Western standard on such matters?
-
The word Almah means a young woman so we can ask why you have opted for young girl.
Jewish tradition was that a girl became a woman when she reached puberty and that was also the point at which a girl/woman was considered to be able to marry. So they would have described a 12 year old who had reached puberty as a woman. We, of course, would describe her as a girl.
The very etymology of the word is extricably linked to puberty.
-
Vlad,
Yes, and not only that but ruling out the possibility of “consent to God” for reasons that keep being explained to you. By modern Western standards on the bare facts of the story as presented valid consent could not have been given.
Unless the impossibility is due to God not existing you are making an antitheistic argument with all the ad homing and muddied water that surrounds that sort, or a ultracalvinist/ultradeterministic
Where there can be non consent, there can be consent.
-
When explaining a plan many people talk in the manner of the angel.
Not in the world of valid consent - that kind of language would be totally inappropriate. Valid consent is about choice and decision making by the person to whom that decision applies, not about a plan that someone else has for that person.
-
Jewish tradition was that a girl became a woman when she reached puberty and that was also the point at which a girl/woman was considered to be able to marry. So they would have described a 12 year old who had reached puberty as a woman. We, of course, would describe her as a girl.
The very etymology of the word is extricably linked to puberty.
linked to childbearing you mean. Youth extends beyond puberty you know. So does marriagabilty. You are being somewhat selective in order to maintain the sexual misconduct overtone.
You and Hillside with his God as Wicked sir Jasper and his serving girl schtick.
-
Vlad,
Fun as it is watching you indulge in special pleading, confirmation bias and defending the indefensible the central point you keep missing (deliberately?) is that, by modern standards, valid consent could not have been given because of either the likely under-age component of the story or because of the epic power relationship differential component of the story. Or because of both.
So which moral standard do you prefer: that of a servant girl-impregnating all-powerful god, or the current Western standard on such matters?
You are assuming that Mary is a minor on Zero grounds. You seem to have no idea where to place any immorality or have any fixed definition of immorality having tried coercion, sexual assault. You haven’t established these but also there is no western definition of minority as was pointed out to you several posts ago.
You cannot claim a moral zeitgeist or moral consensus elsewhere and then specially plead the opposite here and remain credibly neutral or balanced.
-
The word Almah means a young woman so we can ask why you have opted for young girl.
The word Almah in the original Hebrew of Isaiah's prophecy meant young woman. However, the gospel writers took their version of the OT from the Septuagint, where the word was translated as 'parthenos', which more specifically meant a girl who was a virgin. It's obvious they thought Mary was a young girl virgin - that's the whole inspiration behind the gospel narratives of the Annunciation and Incarnation in the first place; the idea being to suggest that the Christ child was extremely special in having no human father. After all, what the hell is unusual or striking in a prophecy which states "Behold a young woman will conceive"? Big deal.
-
linked to childbearing you mean. Youth extends beyond puberty you know. So does marriagabilty.
Nope - links to puberty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almah
Almah (עַלְמָה ‘almā, plural: עֲלָמוֹת ‘ălāmōṯ, from a root implying the vigour of puberty.
And the term is considered to be used for a girl/woman who had reached puberty but not yet had a child.
-
You are assuming that Mary is a minor on Zero grounds.
We do not know for sure how old Mary was, but that doesn't mean that assumptions have zero weight.
From the text we can conclude that Mary had reached puberty, but had not yet been married. Given that girls were typically married by the age of 13-15 we can take a reasonable starting point assumption based on knowledge of the culture and society of the time that Mary would likely have been between 12 and 15. That could, of course, be entirely wrong, but it is a reasonable assumption.
You, on the other hand, have nothing to support an assumption that she was considerably older than this.
-
Nope - links to puberty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almah
Almah (עַלְמָה ‘almā, plural: עֲלָמוֹת ‘ălāmōṯ, from a root implying the vigour of puberty.
And the term is considered to be used for a girl/woman who had reached puberty but not yet had a child.
The use of the word girl is yours Davey and even then your equation with puberty alone is wrong as you admit in your last sentence.
Appeal to some kind of typical again,
-
Nope - links to puberty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almah
Almah (עַלְמָה ‘almā, plural: עֲלָמוֹת ‘ălāmōṯ, from a root implying the vigour of puberty.
And the term is considered to be used for a girl/woman who had reached puberty but not yet had a child.
The Hebrew word עלמה (al-mah’) is often erroneously translated as “virgin.” A betulah’ (virgin) can be an al-mah (young sexually mature woman) and vice versa; but these two words are not synonymous! A betulah’ is not necessarily a young woman and a young woman is not necessarily a virgin.
https://weareisrael.org/spiritual-seed-2/male-child/betulah-vs-alm…
We really need to forget the Hebrew for the purposes of the above argument: it's the what the gospel writers thought the Greek parthenos meant that is the issue.
And to clarify that, Luke 1:34 tells us exactly what they thought it meant.
-
We do not know for sure how old Mary was, but that doesn't mean that assumptions have zero weight.
From the text we can conclude that Mary had reached puberty, but had not yet been married. Given that girls were typically married by the age of 13-15 we can take a reasonable starting point assumption based on knowledge of the culture and society of the time that Mary would likely have been between 12 and 15. That could, of course, be entirely wrong, but it is a reasonable assumption.
You, on the other hand, have nothing to support an assumption that she was considerably older than this.
Again taking a typical and turning it into an absolute and yet you have already made an appeal to the atypical. What are you going for typical or atypical or both when it suits. You need to check what it is you are accusing God of and whether there is reason to doubt your assumed contentions...hint there is.
-
Again taking a typical and turning it into an absolute and yet you have already made an appeal to the atypical. What are you going for typical or atypical or both when it suits. You need to check what it is you are accusing God of and whether there is reason to doubt your assumed contentions...hint there is.
I am not turning it into an absolute - I am turning it into a reasonable assumption.
Over to you to justify your assumption that Mary was atypical in being much older.
-
I am not turning it into an absolute - I am turning it into a reasonable assumption.
Over to you to justify your assumption that Mary was atypical in being much older.
Yes, I have explained why based on the text. Mary could be older based on any bell curve... do you have one?
-
Yes, I have explained why based on the text.
No you haven't - you have made a claim based on a rookie error of mistranslation, thinking the text said that Elizabeth was Mary's cousin, when that is not what the text said at all.
You have also claimed that the words attributed to Mary suggested she was intellectually mature but you, of course, have absolutely no credible evidence that the words attributed to her were actually spoken by her.
And basically that is the sum total of your argument.
-
Yes, I have explained why based on the text. Mary could be older based on any bell curve... do you have one?
Why would you assume Mary is an outlier. And anyhow, this won't be a bell curve as there will be a skewed distribution.
-
Yes, I have explained why based on the text. Mary could be older based on any bell curve... do you have one?
No, you haven't. You've just singled out a few words and given either dodgy or inappropriate translations for them, based no doubt on a misunderstanding of how the New Testament came to be written.
Beyond saying that, though, I have to say that I think this whole discussion pretty jejune. As I've hinted at above, the whole infancy narratives were conjured up out of imagination and misunderstood prophecy, in order to suggest the divine origin of Jesus. There's certainly nothing in the later narratives to suggest these mythical narratives had much truth, and plenty to directly contradict them - not least the peculiar amnesia of Jesus' parents.
-
I have to say that I think this whole discussion pretty jejune. As I've hinted at above, the whole infancy narratives were conjured up out of imagination and misunderstood prophecy, in order to suggest the divine origin of Jesus. There's certainly nothing in the later narratives to suggest these mythical narratives had much truth, and plenty to directly contradict them - not least the peculiar amnesia of Jesus' parents.
I would agree with that. Relating it to the vehemence of the discussion, it does give a clue as to what 'Religions have succeeded' at.
-
- not least the peculiar amnesia of Jesus' parents.
Sorry - what do you mean by that DU?
-
As I've hinted at above, the whole infancy narratives were conjured up out of imagination and misunderstood prophecy, in order to suggest the divine origin of Jesus.
Indeed - the whole thing appears as reverse engineering to get to a point they felt they needed to get to.
-
Vlad,
Unless the impossibility is due to God not existing you are making an antitheistic argument with all the ad homing and muddied water that surrounds that sort, or a ultracalvinist/ultradeterministic
Where there can be non consent, there can be consent.
I’ve schooled you on this already, so why have you returned to the same error?
There is a story in the Bible. The story concerns an all-powerful god sending an angelic envoy to a servant girl who was likely underage by today’s standards to tell her that she would be impregnated by this god.
The same Bible also tells us elsewhere that this god is morally perfect.
That’s the story remember?
By modern Western standards however this god of the story could not have acted morally well because the girl could not have given valid consent. She could not have given valid consent not because it’s all just a story (ie, your mistake) but, with respect to the content of the story, because of the likely age and relative power dynamics between this god and the girl.
Even if it is all myth (as seems likely), it’s a myth held up as a moral good whereas it seems to me that, by modern standards, it’s anything but.
Do you get it now?
-
Vlad,
I’ve schooled you on this already, so why have you returned to the same error?
There is a story in the Bible. The story concerns an all-powerful god sending an angelic envoy to a servant girl who was likely underage by today’s standards to tell her that she would be impregnated by this god.
The same Bible also tells us elsewhere that this god is morally perfect.
That’s the story remember?
By modern Western standards however this god of the story could not have acted morally well because the girl could not have given valid consent. She could not have given valid consent not because it’s all just a story (ie, your mistake) but, with respect to the content of the story, because of the likely age and relative power dynamics between this god and the girl.
Even if it is all myth (as seems likely), it’s a myth held up as a moral good whereas it seems to me that, by modern standards, it’s anything but.
Do you get it now?
Can't disagree with any of this.
-
Sorry - what do you mean by that DU?
They were both, apparently, told by the Angel Gabriel that Mary would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and the child would be the Son of the most High (or some such). Yet subsequently they are recorded as being surprised when he begins to behave in an unconventional manner, starting with his visit to the temple at the age of twelve, and at the start of his ministry, they, and other relatives wonder whether he is mad. Now, if you've been told by an angel that your son is the Incarnation of God, you might perhaps be prepared for certain rather unusual behaviour in his subsequent life.
-
Can't disagree with any of this.
Ditto
-
They were both, apparently, told by the Angel Gabriel that Mary would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and the child would be the Son of the most High (or some such). Yet subsequently they are recorded as being surprised when he begins to behave in an unconventional manner, starting with his visit to the temple at the age of twelve, and at the start of his ministry, they, and other relatives wonder whether he is mad. Now, if you've been told by an angel that your son is the Incarnation of God, you might perhaps be prepared for certain rather unusual behaviour in his subsequent life.
Ah yes - good point. Almost as if someone made up the nativity story much later.
-
Vlad,
You are assuming that Mary is a minor on Zero grounds.
No, I’m “assuming” the Mary of the story was a minor on the basis of the scholarship available to me. Try googling “How old was Mary?” and you’ll see it for yourself. These are religious websites by the way, not part of the paranoid antitheist conspiracy you keep trying to conjure into existence.
You seem to have no idea where to place any immorality or have any fixed definition of immorality having tried coercion, sexual assault. You haven’t established these but also there is no western definition of minority as was pointed out to you several posts ago.
Morality and legislation don’t always align, but if we take the latter as our starting point yes there is (in the UK it’s in the Sexual Offences Act 2003; Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008; Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009; Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005), and other Western countries have their own legislation. Scholarship on the age of Mary suggests she was younger than these lower limits enshrined in law.
You cannot claim a moral zeitgeist or moral consensus elsewhere and then specially plead the opposite here and remain credibly neutral or balanced.
Straw man noted. I don’t claim moral absolutes at all. What I do claim though is contemporary moral standards and positions that are misaligned with the behaviour of the god of the Bible story.
You’ll never answer this I know, but I just wondered which moral position you prefer – your god’s or your society’s?
-
Presuming you mean valid consent (not that there is any other form) - the text certainly fails to provide any evidence of valid consent.
Why would it - it's unlikely the authors were intending this story to be about the issue of consent. Just because the authors have not gone into any detail in a Bible story is not sufficient evidence to conclude that consent was absent.
The key reason being that there is nothing to suggest that Mary is actaully being offered a choice for her to make, rather than being told what will happen to her.
That is one interpretation. Another is that Mary is being told about a future plan and could have said she was not onboard for a supernatural pregnancy.
But then I guess assessing the process for obtaining valid consent isn't something you've given much thought to VG, whereas I spend quite a lot of my professional time doing exactly that.
So you keep claiming, but given that you seem to think you can make any kind of useful assessment from a few lines in a Bible story that is not meant to be about the issue of consent, I do not see any evidence of your claim being true. On the other hand, maybe you are just really bad at carrying out assessments.
-
Why would it - it's unlikely the authors were intending this story to be about the issue of consent.
True - but the starting point of the conversation was Vlad's assertion that v38 demonstrated that Mary gave valid consent. It doesn't.
Just because the authors have not gone into any detail in a Bible story is not sufficient evidence to conclude that consent was absent.
Why would you assume that further detail would have demonstrated consent - given that consent wouldn't have been a particular issue for the societies and cultures involved I'm struggling to see why this information would be in the material 'on the cutting room floor' so to speak.
That is one interpretation. Another is that Mary is being told about a future plan and could have said she was not onboard for a supernatural pregnancy.
But in the story the angel tells her that god's word is that Mary will become pregnant and that is what is going to happen, because 'no word from god will ever fail'. Not room for a 'thanks but no thanks' from Mary is there really.
-
VG,
Why would it - it's unlikely the authors were intending this story to be about the issue of consent. Just because the authors have not gone into any detail in a Bible story is not sufficient evidence to conclude that consent was absent.
Yes it is. The story describes the act of a god the Bible also states to be morally perfect, and the story is clear about what this god (via his angelic envoy) did.
Whether the authors intended the story to be about consent is neither here nor there – the question of consent is baked in to the basic “facts” the authors produceds notwithstanding. That’s why it’s legitimate to ask whether, on the basis of the story as it’s set out, the morally perfect god character acted in accordance with today’s understanding of consent.
That is one interpretation. Another is that Mary is being told about a future plan and could have said she was not onboard for a supernatural pregnancy.
No - the word used in the translations I’ve seen is “will”. Mary will be impregnated, she will give birth etc. There’s no ambiguity in that “will” - she was told, not asked.
So you keep claiming, but given that you seem to think you can make any kind of useful assessment from a few lines in a Bible story that is not meant to be about the issue of consent, I do not see any evidence of your claim being true. On the other hand, maybe you are just really bad at carrying out assessments.
No – see above. You can make a “useful assessment” of the Bible story every bit as much as you can make a useful assessment of one of Aesop’s fables, and the intention of the authors re consent is irrelevant – indeed it’s quite possible that the moral question about consent would have been meaningless to them. That’s not the point though.
-
No - the word used in the translations I’ve seen is “will”. Mary will be impregnated, she will give birth etc. There’s no ambiguity in that “will” - she was told, not asked.
And the angel tells her that 'no word from god will ever fail' - effectively if god wills it that is what is going to happen.
-
Why would you assume Mary is an outlier. And anyhow, this won't be a bell curve as there will be a skewed distribution.
I am not making any assumptions since no ages are given in the bible. There are competing estimations of age ranges of betrothal and subsequent marriage and then subsequent pregnancy so even with low marriage age you could be 17 but then it would be unreasonable to discount 18 or 19.
There is no sufficient reason for an assumption. I suggest a slightly older Mary for reasons derived from the new testament rather than your derivation from ancient sociology.
-
So you keep claiming, but given that you seem to think you can make any kind of useful assessment from a few lines in a Bible story that is not meant to be about the issue of consent, I do not see any evidence of your claim being true.
But this is what we are discussing - through assessment of the NT text, does it support the notion that Mary provided valid consent, or that valid consent was absent. And the assessment leads to the latter conclusion.
On the other hand, maybe you are just really bad at carrying out assessments.
Yawn - yet more snide comments from VG.
Of and by the way any chance of you answering the question on supernatural pregnancies - I've not 'demanded' this all afternoon (actually I never demanded it at all, merely asked). I'm sure we'd all love to know your view on the matter.
-
Vlad,
No, I’m “assuming” the Mary of the story was a minor on the basis of the scholarship available to me. Try googling “How old was Mary?” and you’ll see it for yourself. These are religious websites by the way, not part of the paranoid antitheist conspiracy you keep trying to conjure into existence.
Morality and legislation don’t always align, but if we take the latter as our starting point yes there is (in the UK it’s in the Sexual Offences Act 2003; Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008; Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009; Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005), and other Western countries have their own legislation. Scholarship on the age of Mary suggests she was younger than these lower limits enshrined in law.
Straw man noted. I don’t claim moral absolutes at all. What I do claim though is contemporary moral standards and positions that are misaligned with the behaviour of the god of the Bible story.
You’ll never answer this I know, but I just wondered which moral position you prefer – your god’s or your society’s?
But Hillside,what sexual offence has God committed?
I suppose artificial insemination on farms could under your logic be charged with bestiality and people that clone sheep too.
So you are also hoping people forget your previous commitment to relative morality, zeitgeist and moral concensus by culture.
-
Would you also mindlessly and childishly continually try to wind them up? So you have your doubts about the Prof really being a prof. [We get that. We got it the first time you said it ages back. To keep banging on about it makes you sound a bit odd, and a bit - sad.
Nothing wrong with being a bit odd and a bit sad. I have plenty of company on here, including you.
But in any case my comments were aimed at PD, when he tries to bring his credentials into posts, so feel free to skim past our conversation. I made a comment on Page 7 stating "This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board."
So no mention there in my comment of PD not being a professor.
When PD followed that by posting "Hey VG, my ethics module will start again in late January - perhaps you should come along. Looks like you need a bit of updating on understanding of consent." I naturally assumed he wanted to discuss his credentials. And our conversation about his credentials, in which PD and I both engaged, and which you were not invited to participate in, continued from there.
Yet here you are DU, only irritated by one person's contribution to a conversation. I wonder what that says about you and your biases and prejudices.
If you feel the need to weigh on PD's behalf, I can only assume it is because you think he needs help. You obviously don't rate his standard of argument very highly either.
You strike me as a slightly better educated version of Vicky Pollard. Apparently your "Yes" means something like "Yeah but, no but, so SHAAUP"
You strike me as a colossal snob. What makes you think I am slightly better educated than Vicki Pollard? Maybe Vicky Pollard is also claiming to be a professor, like PD here.
-
When PD followed that by posting "Hey VG, my ethics module will start again in late January - perhaps you should come along. Looks like you need a bit of updating on understanding of consent." I naturally assumed he wanted to discuss his credentials.
Weird - there was me thinking this was an opportunity to discuss valid consent, a topic I have a strong professional interest and experience in.
And our conversation about his credentials, in which PD and I both engaged, and which you were not invited to participate in, continued from there.
Who are you to say who is, and who is not, invited to participate in a discussion. This is a forum, not a private conversation (you can do that via other routes) and therefore everyone is invited to join the conversation.
Actually when I asked about whether certain opinions were popular or not, in a rather light touch manner, I was specifically opening up to others to voice their own opinions about firstly whether I tend to base my opinions on evidence, and secondly whether others doubt that I am a professor.
-
Vlad,
Yes, I have explained why based on the text. Mary could be older based on any bell curve... do you have one?
That’s unintentionally hilarious by the way. A bell curve describes a normal probability distribution whose underlying standard deviations from the mean create the curved bell shape. Based on the historical information we do have, the mean age for 1st century Palestinian girls to get engaged and to have their first pregnancy was around 12 - 14. This age range would therefore be at the centre of the bell curve, with the largest number of subjects under it. The outliers at the tails though – say 7 - 9 year-olds on one side and 16 - 18 year-olds on the other – would each have the fewest numbers of subjects.
What that means is that, even with no information at all about Mary, probabilistically she’d have been more likely to be in the larger mean age group than to be in one of the smaller outlier groups.
-
Maybe Vicky Pollard is also claiming to be a professor, like PD here.
I don't claim to be a professor VG.
-
Nothing wrong with being a bit odd and a bit sad. I have plenty of company on here, including you.
But in any case my comments were aimed at PD, when he tries to bring his credentials into posts, so feel free to skim past our conversation. I made a comment on Page 7 stating "This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board."
So no mention there in my comment of PD not being a professor.
When PD followed that by posting "Hey VG, my ethics module will start again in late January - perhaps you should come along. Looks like you need a bit of updating on understanding of consent." I naturally assumed he wanted to discuss his credentials. And our conversation about his credentials, in which PD and I both engaged, and which you were not invited to participate in, continued from there.
Yet here you are DU, only irritated by one person's contribution to a conversation. I wonder what that says about you and your biases and prejudices.
If you feel the need to weigh on PD's behalf, I can only assume it is because you think he needs help. You obviously don't rate his standard of argument very highly either.
You strike me as a colossal snob. What makes you think I am slightly better educated than Vicki Pollard? Maybe Vicky Pollard is also claiming to be a professor, like PD here.
Well, that rant was totally predictable.
-
Well, that rant was totally predictable.
Sadly so.
-
Vlad,
But Hillside,what sexual offence has God committed?
Non-consensual impregnation of a minor.
I suppose artificial insemination on farms could under your logic be charged with bestiality and people that clone sheep too.
What on earth are you talking about?
So you are also hoping people forget your previous commitment to relative morality, zeitgeist and moral concensus by culture.
Why are you lying again? To the contrary I’m content for anyone to remember anything I’ve said in the past as it’s entirely consistent with what I’m saying now.
-
But this is what we are discussing - through assessment of the NT text, does it support the notion that Mary provided valid consent, or that valid consent was absent. And the assessment leads to the latter conclusion.
That wasn't the starting point of the discussion.
The discussion was based on your response to Sriram posting that no religion teaches the exploitation of women. You responded in #88 about the Christmas concert you were at where they quoted from Genesis "'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
You then said "And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam."
I asked you what you meant about that quote being the starting point of Islam, and you did not respond.
Vlad then responded to your point about the quote being used as part of the Christmas concert, by saying that the nativity narrative in the Bible that shows Mary as a key decision-maker in the foundation of the Gospel, contradicts the line about men ruling over women.
And your response was that the Bible NT text was showing God was ruling over Mary.
Does that mean you agree with Vlad that men weren't ruling over Mary, given that God and men are not the same in the NT.
You then stated that "The story of Mary, as written in the NT is one of someone ordered to do something over which she is given absolutely no choice." You are free to assert this, but your evidence was quoting a story that had very limited information.
So you started the discussion with the claim that the NT text supports the notion that Mary had no choice, and yet there was little evidence from the text to support your claim. Your opinion was that the word "will" indicates lack of choice. Other interpretations and opinions are available, such as that it was a prophetic statement, and Mary's choice to be a servant of God indicated her choice to agree to fulfil the prophecy. You said there was a power imbalance that negated consent, yet Christians who claim to be servants of God do so claiming they have a choice whether to act according to their understanding of God's wishes or not. Hence the thread on free will. So once again, there are opinions that contradict your opinion that the NT text shows Mary did not have a choice.
You may want to switch the discussion to an assessment of the NT text, to see if it supports the notion that Mary provided valid consent, but I already said I didn't think the text provided enough information to reach a conclusion for your claim of no consent, nor for any claim of valid consent. So why have you conveniently forgotten your claim that the NT text shows there was no consent?
By the way, you also mentioned in #88 the "perceived sexually-inspired threat and deceit by women towards men".
The idea of women being ruled over by men and women threatening and deceiving men sounds very misogynistic to me - but you claim it is merely patriarchal and not misogynistic. I think you're wrong. If you can't see the misogyny in those 2 line, that's up to you, but I read it as being misogynistic.
Yawn - yet more snide comments from VG.
I wanted to give your snobby friend DU an opportunity to respond with more childish rants about Vicky Pollard. He seemed to be enjoying himself there.
Of and by the way any chance of you answering the question on supernatural pregnancies - I've not 'demanded' this all afternoon (actually I never demanded it at all, merely asked). I'm sure we'd all love to know your view on the matter.
Any chance of you answering my question about the starting point of Islam being men ruling over women? What evidence are you using to assess the basis for the starting point of Islam?
-
Any chance of you answering my question about the starting point of Islam being men ruling over women? What evidence are you using to assess the basis for the starting point of Islam?
Which isn't what I said.
But are you denying that Islam is an Abrahamic religion - one that both references the Torah (which of course includes Genesis) in the Quran and as far as I understand it also considers the Torah to have been revealed by god. Are you denying that many of the stories originally in the Torah also appear in the Quran, albeit sometimes with differing interpretations. Are you denying that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have a range of central characters in common, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and indeed Jesus. Each religion may differ in its interpretations but they are fundamentally interlinked.
And why might this be - well because, like Christianity, Islam also grew out of Judaism. So without Judaism there would be no Islam - and the starting point of Judaism is Genesis, which is therefore the starting point not just of Judaism, but also of Christianity and Islam.
There you go - I've answered your question - over to you VG.
-
True - but the starting point of the conversation was Vlad's assertion that v38 demonstrated that Mary gave valid consent. It doesn't.
No the starting point of the discussion was your claim that the NT text shows there was no consent. It doesn't. There is not enough information to reach a conclusion.
Why would you assume that further detail would have demonstrated consent - given that consent wouldn't have been a particular issue for the societies and cultures involved I'm struggling to see why this information would be in the material 'on the cutting room floor' so to speak.
I haven't assumed that any further detail would have demonstrated consent. That is a bizarre interpretation of what I wrote. I said there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that consent was absent. I didn't speculate about what might have been written to show consent was given - how can anyone possibly speculate about what an unknown author might have written? How would anyone ever know?
But in the story the angel tells her that god's word is that Mary will become pregnant and that is what is going to happen, because 'no word from god will ever fail'. Not room for a 'thanks but no thanks' from Mary is there really.
How are you adding a "because" to what the angel said in the story? And what do you mean by "no word from god will ever fail"? The text just has Mary asking how she will become pregnant as she is a virgin, and the angel says it will happen by the holy spirit etc etc and Mary says let it happen as described.
-
Well, that rant was totally predictable.
As was your rant. Welcome to the ranting club. You're just the kind of member the club is looking for, with that childish Vicky Pollard comment. Well done you.
-
I said there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that consent was absent.
I think there is plenty of evidence to indicate that consent was absent - for example the failure to indicate there is a choice and the grossy lop-sided power relationship between on the one hand, an all powerful god, and on the other a person (age is irrelevant) who considers themselves to be the servant of god. Under those circumstances there can be no valid consent unless very, very great care is taken to mitigate against that power relationship. No such mitigation is apparent.
-
Which isn't what I said.
That is exactly what you said in #88. Why lie about it?
You said and I quote:
Really - I was at a school christmas concert a couple of nights ago that included the standard bible readings used for that purpose, which includes the start of Genesis which included the following words (note girls and boys were present):
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
But are you denying that Islam is an Abrahamic religion - one that both references the Torah (which of course includes Genesis) in the Quran and as far as I understand it also considers the Torah to have been revealed by god. Are you denying that many of the stories originally in the Torah also appear in the Quran, albeit sometimes with differing interpretations. Are you denying that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have a range of central characters in common, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and indeed Jesus. Each religion may differ in its interpretations but they are fundamentally interlinked.
And why might this be - well because, like Christianity, Islam also grew out of Judaism. So without Judaism there would be no Islam - and the starting point of Judaism is Genesis, which is therefore the starting point not just of Judaism, but also of Christianity and Islam.
There you go - I've answered your question - over to you VG.
No you haven't answered the question. And your little speech about the origins of Islam is not answering the question. You made a positive claim. So justify it. Where in the Quran does it say: 'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
If you want to learn some views on the pain of childbirth from an Islamic perspective, here are some thoughts on the matter:
https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/39386/does-islam-have-an-explanation-for-the-pain-of-childbirth
There is too much stuff related to Islamic views about the relationship between men and women to go into here. I can start a thread on the Muslim board if you are genuinely interested.
-
I think there is plenty of evidence to indicate that consent was absent - for example the failure to indicate there is a choice and the grossy lop-sided power relationship between on the one hand, an all powerful god, and on the other a person (age is irrelevant) who considers themselves to be the servant of god.
That is not evidence to indicate that consent was absent. That is just evidence that the authors did not write about the issue of consent in any detail. Under those circumstances there can be no valid consent unless very, very great care is taken to mitigate against that power relationship. No such mitigation is apparent.
Except those aren't the circumstances if the all-powerful god gives people a choice as to whether to act according to God's wishes or not. Which is the choice that many theists believe they are given according to their understanding of religious teachings.
Much like being a child of parents who want you to be circumcised does not automatically lead to the conclusion that the child's consent to circumcision is invalid or that the child did not have a choice.
Based on religious teachings, many theists also believe that considering themselves a servant of God does not mean they can't consider themselves able to go against God's wishes. The teachings include the idea of not following God's wishes and trying to follow God's wishes and not succeeding.
-
Really - I was at a school christmas concert a couple of nights ago that included the standard bible readings used for that purpose, which includes the start of Genesis which included the following words (note girls and boys were present):
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Just added a little emphasis to aid your understanding.
Genesis is the first chapter of the Torah - this is from the start of Genesis - hence this is the very starting point of all three religions, as it is literally the starting point for Judaism and as Christianity and Islam grew out of Judaism and both recognise the Torah (including Genesis) to be revealed by god then it is the very starting point of them too.
How hard is that to understand.
Question answered - your turn VG
-
Just added a little emphasis to aid your understanding.
Genesis is the first chapter of the Torah - this is from the start of Genesis - hence this is the very starting point of all three religions, as it is literally the starting point for Judaism and as Christianity and Islam grew out of Judaism and both recognise the Torah (including Genesis) to be revealed by god then it is the very starting point of them too.
How hard is that to understand.
Question answered - your turn VG
No you haven't answered the question. And your little speech about the origins of Islam is not answering the question. You made a positive claim. So justify it. Where in the Quran does it say: 'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
If you want to learn some views on the pain of childbirth from an Islamic perspective, here are some thoughts on the matter:
https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/39386/does-islam-have-an-explanation-for-the-pain-of-childbirth
There is too much stuff related to Islamic views about the relationship between men and women to go into here. I can start a thread on the Muslim board if you are genuinely interested.
ETA - where do you get that the idea that Islam recognises Genesis in the Torah in its current form as the word of God? I suggest you read the differences between the Quran and Genesis. Part of many Islamic teachings is that the Torah and Gospels in current form have been changed by writers.
-
VG,
Yes it is. The story describes the act of a god the Bible also states to be morally perfect, and the story is clear about what this god (via his angelic envoy) did.
Whether the authors intended the story to be about consent is neither here nor there – the question of consent is baked in to the basic “facts” the authors produceds notwithstanding. That’s why it’s legitimate to ask whether, on the basis of the story as it’s set out, the morally perfect god character acted in accordance with today’s understanding of consent.
Disagree with your opinion. Whether the authors intended the story to be about consent and whether, therefore, they gave sufficient detail to make an assessment, is one of the main points of this discussion.
No - the word used in the translations I’ve seen is “will”. Mary will be impregnated, she will give birth etc. There’s no ambiguity in that “will” - she was told, not asked.
That is one interpretation. Others are available. "Will" could indicate that it's a future event and not that there is no choice. Mary's response could indicate that she confirmed her willingness to go along with it and therefore she perceived a choice.
No – see above. You can make a “useful assessment” of the Bible story every bit as much as you can make a useful assessment of one of Aesop’s fables, and the intention of the authors re consent is irrelevant – indeed it’s quite possible that the moral question about consent would have been meaningless to them. That’s not the point though.
You can form an opinion. Others are available.
If you are forming an opinion based on the words the authors chose to include in their narrative, and they chose not put in much detail about consent, then the intention of the authors re consent is not irrelevant.
-
Seems like that to me - and a rather tedious and discourteous one at that.
I find your constant claims of being a professor and therefore that your opinion should carry more weight on any specific issue that you claim to teach, quite tedious as well. But it's a free country - you carry on claiming to be a professor if you want to.
You seem to have a rather odd view about what knowledge and expertise entails - it isn't just about posting interesting links - frankly anyone can do that. It is about having a level of knowledge and expertise that can be directly imparted, rather than via a third party link. I think you'd be pretty unimpressed if your cancer doctor didn't actual allow you directly to benefit from their knowledge of cancer and treatment options, but sent you off to do your own homework without providing their knowledge directly.
I think I would be pretty unimpressed with my cancer doctor if he just expected me to take his word for it that he was a cancer doctor and whined about me looking for proof of his credentials.
Of course when you are a specialist within a field you tend to work within the realm of specialist professional literature which can be pretty off putting to the lay person.
So I could directly you to Medical Law by Kennedy & Grubb which remains one of the most respected and comprehensive texts that covers legal issues of consent. It is, however over 2000 pages long with tiny dense text that gets tinier when reporting case law - a veritable cube of a book. However I suspect that most people would find it completely impenetrable.
You could. I actually meant that when you express your opinions on here that you do more than just post assertions.
-
Your evidence that your usage is correct is to refer to a dictionary definition of 'conception' as though that's going to accommodate the poetic use of the term in a fairy story...
O.
The reference to the dictionary is to show that one meaning of the word "conception" is to become pregnant. You objected to the use of the word "conceived" in the translation of the Bible and to me using the word when referring to the story about Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus.
If I looked up the word "carpet" in the dictionary it also would not mention magic in its definition, but stories can still accommodate the idea of carpets being magic. Or are you going to start telling me Terry Pratchett was wrong to use the word "carpet" and I should not refer to magic carpets when discussing Discworld stories?
Don't you have something better to contribute to this discussion than nit-picking about the use of the word "conceived"? Though having said that, it is a stupid discussion initiated by PD about consent in supernatural pregnancies in a Bible story.
-
No it isn't - you are beginning to sound like Gove 'we've had enough of experts'.
I meant to go back and correct you on this PD.
What Gove actually said in 2016 was:
"I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong."
If experts keep getting it wrong, their opinions will not carry much weight. Even if they continue to call themselves experts and can actually prove they have academic credentials. Which you have not done on here.
-
So you'd clearly be better off trusting your ongoing medical care to Jim, the landlord of your local or perhaps the woman who works on the tills in Tesco.
That sometimes highly qualified people make mistakes doesn't mean that you should give equal credence to experts practicing within their field of expertise and some chap down the road with neither training nor experience. You really are Michael Gove.
Sorry PD - also missed responding to this post from you to me from earlier. Are you going to respond to some of the questions I asked you?
Try not to quote-mine this response, as it would be dishonest.
Given I never said I am better off trusting my ongoing care to Jim, the landlord or that I give equal credence etc etc this is a bizarre misrepresentation of my post and further evidence of your basic inability to argue a point made to you or evidence of your dishonesty or both.
Which, given the number of times you get things wrong on here, it would not be surprising if you have "got it wrong" about being a professor. Maybe you are a plonker with 2 GCEs.
Over to you Dicky U for your customary rant....
-
Weird - there was me thinking this was an opportunity to discuss valid consent, a topic I have a strong professional interest and experience in.
Just not enough experience to realise that lack of information in the story means you can't come to any definitive conclusions by trying to apply legal tests about consent to a Bible story about supernatural pregnancies.
Who are you to say who is, and who is not, invited to participate in a discussion. This is a forum, not a private conversation (you can do that via other routes) and therefore everyone is invited to join the conversation.
Sure, everyone is invited to participate. I am not commenting on whether people have a right to participate, my comment was about how stupid they look whining about having to read posts on a forum as though they were forced to participate or anyone requested their participation. DU could just scroll past the posts where you bring up your credentials and me questioning your credentials if he finds these comments by you and me tedious.
Actually when I asked about whether certain opinions were popular or not, in a rather light touch manner, I was specifically opening up to others to voice their own opinions about firstly whether I tend to base my opinions on evidence, and secondly whether others doubt that I am a professor.
Oh good for you that your little friend DU popped up to support you then. Pity he did not cite any evidence for why he thought you were a real professor.
-
I meant to go back and correct you on this PD.
What Gove actually said in 2016 was:
"I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong."
If experts keep getting it wrong, their opinions will not carry much weight. Even if they continue to call themselves experts and can actually prove they have academic credentials. Which you have not done on here.
Thanks for reminding us of this infamous quote from Gove - but you need to place this in context.
Gove made this point in the run up to the Brexit referendum in an attempt to discredit the expert opinion of many economists that Brexit would be damaging to the UK economy. This was part of the so-called project fear agenda.
The problem for Gove is that rather than the experts from organisations with acronyms getting it consistently wrong they actually got it broadly right. We can now look back over 6 years and it is incontrovertible that Brexit has had a detrimental effect on the UK economy, and that effect is largely as predicted by the experts.
So guess what - experts actually know stuff within their field of expertise and typically get things right.
And how hollow Gove's words sound now when we critically relied on experts to get us through covid - the expert evidence-based voices of Vallance, Whitty, Van Tam and others. The experts who developed and rolled out the vaccines.
What we have learned over the past 3 years is that we need to listen to experts more and the likes of Gove less.
-
So justify it. Where in the Quran does it say: 'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
I have emphasised the bit I emphasised in the original post as this was the bit I wanted to focus on - the guff about child birth isn't what I was talking about but the credibility of major religions in gender equality.
Do these exact words appear in the Quran - nope I don't believe they do, although they appear in the Torah which is recognised and specifically mentioned within the Quran. However these words do appear in the Quran.
'Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allâh has made one of them to excel the other'
Now, no doubt you'll claim that I don't understand this verse and frankly I'm not interested in a sterile debate over interpretation of verses in religious text when considering gender equality. Nor am I interested in whether religions claim gender equality in principle - nope I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and support gender equality.
So here is some evidence. The World Economic Forum produces their Gender Equality Index to compare countries across the globe on the basis of gender equality - it covers among four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. So is pretty broad:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gender-equality-by-country
Scroll down and you'll see the full list top to bottom. Notice anything VG. Perhaps I can help
The top 30 countries (working from top down) - notice anything missing:
Iceland
Finland
Norway
New Zealand
Sweden
Namibia
Rwanda
Lithuania
Ireland
Switzerland
Germany
Nicaragua
Belgium
Spain
Costa Rica
Philippines
France
South Africa
Serbia
Latvia
Austria
United Kingdom
Portugal
Canada
Albania
Burundi
Barbados
Denmark
Moldova
United States
The bottom 30 countries (working from bottom up) - anything jump out at you VG:
Tunisia
Gambia
Maldives
Egypt
Bhutan
Turkey
Jordan
Lebanon
Ivory Coast
Papua New Guinea
Algeria
Bahrain
Niger
Nigeria
India
Vanuatu
Qatar
Kuwait
Morocco
Oman
Mauritania
Saudi Arabia
Chad
Mali
Iran
Dr Congo
Syria
Pakistan
Iraq
Yemen
Afghanistan
There are 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - not a single one is in the top 50 for gender equality, and just six are in the top half. By contrast 30 of the bottom 35 are Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries.
-
Which, given the number of times you get things wrong on here, it would not be surprising if you have "got it wrong" about being a professor. Maybe you are a plonker with 2 GCEs.
Hmm - beyond you rather tedious and rants claims that I'm not a professor you do seem to focus on two matters in your attacks on me.
Firstly that don't base my conclusions on evidence.
Secondly that I cannot be a professor because I keep getting stuff wrong.
Yet, hypocritically you never actually provide evidence to support your claim that I keep getting things wrong. All we ever get is unevidenced assertion. Now in the context of being a professor the 'getting things wrong' stuff would need to apply to my areas of expertise.
So over to you VG - let's have all these examples where I have 'got stuff wrong' in the discussion of the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent (one of my areas of professional expertise). And remember that having an opinion that you don't like isn't 'getting it wrong'. Let's have the VG - all those examples where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent.
I could point out a numbers of examples where you have made rookie errors, clearly getting stuff wrong on valid consent. But you are an armchair googler on the matter, you have no professional expertise so that's to be expected. But in you mind you and I are somehow equivalent in terms of our understanding, knowledge and professional experience of the topic.
-
VG,
Disagree with your opinion. Whether the authors intended the story to be about consent and whether, therefore, they gave sufficient detail to make an assessment, is one of the main points of this discussion.
Your disagreement is neither here nor there (as my “opinion” is neither here nor there). The story concerns an all-powerful god impregnating a (likely by modern standards) underage servant girl, who’s unfailingly told in advance that it will happen. That’s it. What the authors intended, or whether consent was even a meaningful concept at the time is a red herring – what this is about is whether by contemporary standards about consent the god of the story could be deemed to have acted morally well.
If we take the analogous example you keep ignoring of a headmaster impregnating one of his (say) 14-year old pupils, there is no possible further detail that would mitigate his guilt (other perhaps than mental incapacity, which is not a defence of “God” many Christians would want to attempt I suppose). Valid consent could not have been possible in either case no matter what "detail" is added, and that's the end of it.
I can see why you’d want to keep disappearing down the rabbit hole of the authors’ silence about consent, but it’s still a rabbit hole nonetheless.
That is one interpretation. Others are available. "Will" could indicate that it's a future event and not that there is no choice.
“It’s a future event” means there is no choice (especially when said by a god whose word cannot fail). “It could be a future event”, “would you agree to it being a future event?” etc might introduce some uncertainty, but “it will happen” from an unfailing god is a statement of certainty. Again – Mary was told, not asked.
Mary's response could indicate that she confirmed her willingness to go along with it and therefore she perceived a choice.
It’s as if you haven’t read a word that’s been said to you. By contemporary standards, “Mary’s response” is neither here nor there. The 14-year-old schoolgirl’s word would be neither here nor there too, even if she was deeply in love with the headmaster and desperately wanted his child. Try to grasp this: on the “facts” of the story as set out, by contemporary standards Mary’s valid consent was impossible no matter what she said or did.
You can form an opinion. Others are available.
Wrong again. It’s not my opinion that matters here; it’s the “opinion” of contemporary Western standards about valid consent.
If you are forming an opinion based on the words the authors chose to include in their narrative, and they chose not put in much detail about consent, then the intention of the authors re consent is not irrelevant.
Dealt with – see above. What the authors did or did not choose to say about consent has absolutely no relevance to the point that, on the “facts” of the story, by contemporary standards a god we’re told is morally perfect behaved morally badly. Why? Because on the “facts” of the story valid consent could not have been possible no matter what the authors thought or said about consent.
-
... supernatural pregnancies ...
So are they a thing VG?
Do you accept or do you not accept supernatural pregnancies are a thing?
Another day, another day without an answer to what should surely be a simple question for you as you seem to be clear that the law in the UK isn't really addressing this important topic.
-
Oh good for you that your little friend DU popped up to support you then.
That's rather a patronising comment. I'm sure that DU is perfectly capable of thinking for himself - if he supports me that would be because he likely agrees with my points. I think he does at times, other times he doesn't.
Pity he did not cite any evidence for why he thought you were a real professor.
Actually I'm not sure that DU has ever expressed an opinion on the matter - indeed it seems to be only you who has ever commented on the matter - but I guess your obsession with it makes up for everyone else's - 'sure, whatever' approach to the matter.
-
ETA - where do you get that the idea that Islam recognises Genesis in the Torah in its current form as the word of God?
What I actual said VG was that Islam recognises the Torah to have been revealed by god.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah_in_Islam
From the wiki page:
The Tawrat (Arabic: توراة), also romanized as Tawrah or Taurat, is the Arabic-language name for the Torah within its context as an Islamic holy book believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel.
And from the Quran
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to God] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of God, and they were witnesses thereto.
and
But how do they come to you for decision while they have the Tawrat (Torah), in which is the (plain) Decision of Allah
-
Thanks for reminding us of this infamous quote from Gove - but you need to place this in context.
Gove made this point in the run up to the Brexit referendum in an attempt to discredit the expert opinion of many economists that Brexit would be damaging to the UK economy. This was part of the so-called project fear agenda.
The problem for Gove is that rather than the experts from organisations with acronyms getting it consistently wrong they actually got it broadly right. We can now look back over 6 years and it is incontrovertible that Brexit has had a detrimental effect on the UK economy, and that effect is largely as predicted by the experts.
So guess what - experts actually know stuff within their field of expertise and typically get things right.
And how hollow Gove's words sound now when we critically relied on experts to get us through covid - the expert evidence-based voices of Vallance, Whitty, Van Tam and others. The experts who developed and rolled out the vaccines.
What we have learned over the past 3 years is that we need to listen to experts more and the likes of Gove less.
Yes, let's place it in context. Gove was saying that the voters should not blindly trust experts that have already been wrong in the past in their predictions or opinions as the experts he was referring to wanted Britain to join the single currency and they also did not predict the 2008 financial crisis.
If an expert has been wrong in their opinions or predictions in the past, then it makes sense to find out where they went wrong and be cautious about whether they are now making predictions that can be justified by the available information, or if their opinions or predictions could be inaccurate because they do not take into account currently unknowable factors, or they are influenced by bias and preferences that may not be shared by voters.
Are you suggesting that even when experts have made incorrect predictions or been wrong in their opinions in the past, we should not exercise caution and investigate the opinions and predictions they are making now?
As for Covid, experts were disagreeing with each other on the predicted outcomes. I think it's worrying that you see experts as some kind of united voice all saying the same thing. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/04/i-didnt-think-vaccines-would-work-scientists-admit-their-covid-mistakes
Professor Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College: I honestly didn’t think vaccines were going to work. There had been no example of a vaccine for a human coronavirus and the vaccines for animal coronavirus were not that good. We mentioned vaccines in our first report on Covid from Academy of Medical Sciences and said it was unlikely that anything would be available in the near future. So I was completely bowled over when those first trials came through in the run-up to Christmas 2020 and we got this wonderful gift. They were so much more effective than I’d hoped. As a person who has been studying immunity to viruses for 30 years, I should have been able to predict that, if anyone could. Hats off the to the Oxford team, they’re fantastic people and came up trumps.
-
Yes, let's place it in context. Gove was saying that the voters should not blindly trust experts that have already been wrong in the past in their predictions or opinions as the experts he was referring to wanted Britain to join the single currency and they also did not predict the 2008 financial crisis.
What Gove was doing was to use disinformation to try to create a cake and eat it narrative that we could leave the EU and there would be no economic impacts. He was effectively saying - 'Don't listen to them, they know nothing, it's just project fear'. But guess what, those experts were right - as is so often the case.
And sure you may find the odd dissenting voice, which is why we don't just rely on a single expert, but we engage with a range of experts and work towards a consensus expert view. And of course we expect those experts to base their views on evidence.
And most recently Truss proposed economic policies that the vast consensus of economic experts said would crash the economy. She and her chancellor carried on regardless and guess what happened - they crashed the economy. As tends to be the case, the experts got it right.
-
i]Professor Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College: I honestly didn’t think vaccines were going to work. There had been no example of a vaccine for a human coronavirus and the vaccines for animal coronavirus were not that good. We mentioned vaccines in our first report on Covid from Academy of Medical Sciences and said it was unlikely that anything would be available in the near future. So I was completely bowled over when those first trials came through in the run-up to Christmas 2020 and we got this wonderful gift. They were so much more effective than I’d hoped. As a person who has been studying immunity to viruses for 30 years, I should have been able to predict that, if anyone could. Hats off the to the Oxford team, they’re fantastic people and came up trumps.
[/i]
Lovely bit of quote mining - he is actually making the specific point that experts rely on evidence and when the evidence supports a different conclusion they will change their mind. They aren't chained to dogma. So here is the key bit you selectively chopped from the quote as it doesn't support your assertions:
As a scientist you relish having your view changed by the facts. That’s different from politics where you’ve occupied a citadel, where it’s viewed as a failure if you concede ground.
-
I have emphasised the bit I emphasised in the original post as this was the bit I wanted to focus on - the guff about child birth isn't what I was talking about but the credibility of major religions in gender equality.
Do these exact words appear in the Quran - nope I don't believe they do, although they appear in the Torah which is recognised and specifically mentioned within the Quran.
Quran Chapter 2 has a lot to say about the Torah, including that bits if it has been changed by people in the intervening years since it was revealed to the Jews and the Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohamed (verses 62 -75). So your claim that Islam has the Torah as it's starting point is incorrect. And making simplistic statements about religions hasn't worked out for you before so why do you keep doing it?
However these words do appear in the Quran.
'Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allâh has made one of them to excel the other'
Now, no doubt you'll claim that I don't understand this verse and frankly I'm not interested in a sterile debate over interpretation of verses in religious text when considering gender equality. Nor am I interested in whether religions claim gender equality in principle - nope I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and support gender equality.
Yes I could say a lot about a cherry-picked verse and I am not an expert. Off the top of my head I could say the following:
Presumably you saw there are various translations of that verse e.g.
“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because of what Allah has preferred one with over the other and because of what they spend to support them from their wealth.” [Sûrah an-Nisâ’: 34]
Any further reading into what this means is based on the discretion, understanding and perspective of the individual.
It does not say that men rule over women - so not sure what point you are making about gender equality. It is fairly uncontroversial that equality does not mean men and women are exactly the same. The trans debate has made it clear that men and women are not the same and that women should be accorded certain protections that are different from men.
It's a translation of Quranic Arabic, and Arabic words have multiple meanings that may not necessarily correspond to the meaning used in English, and the translator has picked a meaning in English they prefer.
Therefore the translation does not say men excel over women, it has also been translated as "preferred", which could mean women are preferred over men in certain aspects and men are preferred over women in certain aspects. It does not specify the areas they are preferred in - for example men are on average taller and stronger than women so it makes sense that men would have a responsibility to protect women on that basis. Women are being protected by men so women's safety is being preferred over men's feelings of not wanting to put themselves at risk or disadvantage or hardship in order to protect women. The saying "women and children first" or the idea of men being protective and chivalrous towards women is not against Western sentiments of gender equality is it?
You could look into the grammar of the Arabic words for "protect" and "maintain" to see that the grammar is for repetitive action done repeatedly and that the word for "maintain" has also been translated as "repeatedly stand up for"
I could keep going but why bother - you have already made up your mind about your beliefs and are not about to let information that does not support your pre-conceived notions on religion influence your thinking.
So here is some evidence. The World Economic Forum produces their Gender Equality Index to compare countries across the globe on the basis of gender equality - it covers among four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. So is pretty broad:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gender-equality-by-country
Scroll down and you'll see the full list top to bottom. Notice anything VG. Perhaps I can help
The top 30 countries (working from top down) - notice anything missing:
Iceland
Finland
Norway
New Zealand
Sweden
Namibia
Rwanda
Lithuania
Ireland
Switzerland
Germany
Nicaragua
Belgium
Spain
Costa Rica
Philippines
France
South Africa
Serbia
Latvia
Austria
United Kingdom
Portugal
Canada
Albania
Burundi
Barbados
Denmark
Moldova
United States
The bottom 30 countries (working from bottom up) - anything jump out at you VG:
Tunisia
Gambia
Maldives
Egypt
Bhutan
Turkey
Jordan
Lebanon
Ivory Coast
Papua New Guinea
Algeria
Bahrain
Niger
Nigeria
India
Vanuatu
Qatar
Kuwait
Morocco
Oman
Mauritania
Saudi Arabia
Chad
Mali
Iran
Dr Congo
Syria
Pakistan
Iraq
Yemen
Afghanistan
There are 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - not a single one is in the top 50 for gender equality, and just six are in the top half. By contrast 30 of the bottom 35 are Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries.
You said the quote from Genesis was the starting point of Islam. I am still waiting for you to provide evidence to justify that statement. Giving me a list of Muslim societies is not evidence. There is a difference between the principles in a religion or religious text and the societies that practise religions. Are you trying to argue that there are no other factors that affect how a society develops than the principles in religious texts?
-
VG,
You said the quote from Genesis was the starting point of Islam. I am still waiting for you to provide evidence to justify that statement. Giving me a list of Muslim societies is not evidence. There is a difference between the principles in a religion or religious text and the societies that practise religions. Are you trying to argue that there are no other factors that affect how a society develops than the principles in religious texts?
So to be clear, of the global 35 worst performing countries across a range of gender equality measures (economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment) 30 of them are Islamic states to varying degrees, yet Islam mandates no such inequalities so for societal reasons all 30 practise their religion not according to its principles but contrary to them.
Is that really what you want to claim?
Really though?
-
You said the quote from Genesis was the starting point of Islam.
Stop misrepresenting what I said. I've already addressed this in reply422.
You might not like my response - but frankly that is your issue VG.
-
There is a difference between the principles in a religion or religious text and the societies that practise religions. Are you trying to argue that there are no other factors that affect how a society develops than the principles in religious texts?
Which is exactly why I said: 'I'm not interested in a sterile debate over interpretation of verses in religious text when considering gender equality. Nor am I interested in whether religions claim gender equality in principle - nope I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and support gender equality.'
So perhaps you'd like to address why Islamic societies are so woeful at supporting gender equality in practice. To such an extent that 30 out of 35 of the worst performing countries for gender equality as Islamic countries.
-
VG,
So to be clear, of the global 35 worst performing countries across a range of gender equality measures (economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment) 30 of them are Islamic states to varying degrees, yet Islam mandates no such inequalities so for societal reasons all 30 practise their religion not according to its principles but contrary to them.
Is that really what you want to claim?
Really though?
Islam may claim that they think men and women are equal, but when we look at this in practice, in countries run along Islamic lines, the evidence is very clear. Islamic societies are absolutely woeful at embedding gender equality.
-
Hmm - beyond you rather tedious and rants claims that I'm not a professor you do seem to focus on two matters in your attacks on me.
Firstly that don't base my conclusions on evidence.
Secondly that I cannot be a professor because I keep getting stuff wrong.
Yet, hypocritically you never actually provide evidence to support your claim that I keep getting things wrong. All we ever get is unevidenced assertion. Now in the context of being a professor the 'getting things wrong' stuff would need to apply to my areas of expertise.
So over to you VG - let's have all these examples where I have 'got stuff wrong' in the discussion of the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent (one of my areas of professional expertise). And remember that having an opinion that you don't like isn't 'getting it wrong'. Let's have the VG - all those examples where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent.
I could point out a numbers of examples where you have made rookie errors, clearly getting stuff wrong on valid consent. But you are an armchair googler on the matter, you have no professional expertise so that's to be expected. But in you mind you and I are somehow equivalent in terms of our understanding, knowledge and professional experience of the topic.
I am sure I have made errors all over this forum. I'm here to learn, not to try to present myself as an expert and an authority on anything. I have learned an incredible amount about Islam just by being part of this forum.
Examples of where you were wrong, just on this thread alone:
You were wrong to conclude that it was clear there was no consent based on limited information in a Bible story for multiple reasons.
You were wrong to try to argue that your field of expertise is ethics around consent so your opinion on the matter carries any more weight than anyone else's, and then introduce a line from CPS guidance that I could not even find in the link, and which might have been taken out of context, to support your argument. Given you could not back it up with any examples of actual court cases with similar evidence, where a jury decided consent was absent.
It's a stupid argument to try to shoehorn consent as a legal term into a Bible story about a supernatural being. Try bringing a case against a supernatural being and you may find that legal experts will tell you that the law only applies to human beings.
It is not a story about sexual acts, nor is it a story about acts taking place between 2 people, so legal concepts that govern consent to sexual relationships between people are irrelevant to a story with a supernatural being in it.
Even if you are trying to argue that legal rules about consent can be applied to supernatural entities, the Bible story was not written for the purposes of demonstrating the existence of consent so concluding there was no consent from the lack of detail about consent in the story is illogical.
The story is hearsay and we have no idea if it is authentic.
There is no evidence to determine Mary's age. So you can't argue that she was a minor for the time period in which she supposedly lived.
If you are arguing that the consent is not in relation to a sexual act but is consent to pregnancy without sex ie a medical procedure, there is not sufficient evidence in the story to conclude that Mary could not have refused to go along with God's plan of pregnancy. Calling herself a servant of God is not sufficient evidence to conclude that she was coerced. Submission to God is a voluntary act based on belief and can be revoked at every decision a theist makes. If parental input into a child's decision to be circumcised does not automatically invalidate the child's informed consent to circumcision, then it can be argued that someone calling themselves a servant of someone or something does not automatically invalidate their consent if there it is not proved that the someone or something had undue influence or coerced them.
If you are arguing that the word "will" is proof that Mary had no choice - again it's not possible to conclude that given the different possible interpretations of the word "will" in the context of the story, and that Mary had said "Let it happen", which could be interpreted as Mary agreeing or consenting to God's plan.
So it is not possible based simply on the words of the text to prove that consent was given or not given as the text is ambiguous.
-
You were wrong to conclude that it was clear there was no consent based on limited information in a Bible story for multiple reasons.
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.
You were wrong to try to argue that your field of expertise is ethics around consent so your opinion on the matter carries any more weight than anyone else's,
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.
and then introduce a line from CPS guidance that I could not even find in the link, and which might have been taken out of context, to support your argument.
Perhaps you didn't look hard enough - but again this isn't being wrong in fact - indeed it is correct in fact because that line is most definitely in the CPS guidance.
Given you could not back it up with any examples of actual court cases with similar evidence, where a jury decided consent was absent.
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.
It's a stupid argument to try to shoehorn consent as a legal term into a Bible story about a supernatural being. Try bringing a case against a supernatural being and you may find that legal experts will tell you that the law only applies to human beings.
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. And it may be your opinion that my argument is stupid (hardly the best debating position) - other opinions are available.
It is not a story about sexual acts, nor is it a story about acts taking place between 2 people, so legal concepts that govern consent to sexual relationships between people are irrelevant to a story with a supernatural being in it.
Even if you are trying to argue that legal rules about consent can be applied to supernatural entities, the Bible story was not written for the purposes of demonstrating the existence of consent so concluding there was no consent from the lack of detail about consent in the story is illogical.
The story is hearsay and we have no idea if it is authentic.
There is no evidence to determine Mary's age. So you can't argue that she was a minor for the time period in which she supposedly lived.
If you are arguing that the consent is not in relation to a sexual act but is consent to pregnancy without sex ie a medical procedure, there is not sufficient evidence in the story to conclude that Mary could not have refused to go along with God's plan of pregnancy. Calling herself a servant of God is not sufficient evidence to conclude that she was coerced. Submission to God is a voluntary act based on belief and can be revoked at every decision a theist makes. If parental input into a child's decision to be circumcised does not automatically invalidate the child's informed consent to circumcision, then it can be argued that someone calling themselves a servant of someone or something does not automatically invalidate their consent if there it is not proved that the someone or something had undue influence or coerced them.
If you are arguing that the word "will" is proof that Mary had no choice - again it's not possible to conclude that given the different possible interpretations of the word "will" in the context of the story, and that Mary had said "Let it happen", which could be interpreted as Mary agreeing or consenting to God's plan.
So it is not possible based simply on the words of the text to prove that consent was given or not given as the text is ambiguous.
Now you are back into rant mode.
So to conclude you haven't provided a single example where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent, the topic where I have considerable professional expertise and experience.
And of course while we are on 'opinions' which seems to be the only thing you focus on - whose opinions are likely to carry greater weight - a person with a quarter of a century of professional training, expertise and practical experience in the assessment of valid consent or ... err ... an armchair googler.
-
VG,
So to be clear, of the global 35 worst performing countries across a range of gender equality measures (economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment) 30 of them are Islamic states to varying degrees, yet Islam mandates no such inequalities so for societal reasons all 30 practise their religion not according to its principles but contrary to them.
Is that really what you want to claim?
Really though?
This just goes back to the original discussion you had with NS, which I have already contributed to.
Muslims define and determine theological interpretation and how Islam is practised, so tribal culture and patriarchal attitudes, economic factors, geography etc all has influence on how Islam is interpreted and practised. The evidence shows there are widely different interpretations of Islam and rules and that the practices of the religion vary from sect to sect, community to community, country to country.
Bit like what is currently going on in Holyrood with different interpretations of the Equality Act 2010 and the word "woman".
The countries listed at the bottom of the Gender Equality Index have been affected by colonialism, wars, poverty, weapons sold to civilians, violence, breakdown in law and order, resource stripping, corruption, tribal culture, lack of teachers and doctors and health facilities in remote rural areas due to lack of funds for transport and infrastructure. All of these will have an impact on how people interpret and practise moral values and rules derived from philosophy, ethics, religion.
If you present an actual argument I will respond with more detail - I suggest you do it on the Muslim Board if you want to focus specifically on Muslims.
-
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.
Perhaps you didn't look hard enough - but again this isn't being wrong in fact - indeed it is correct in fact because that line is most definitely in the CPS guidance.
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. And it may be your opinion that my argument is stupid (hardly the best debating position) - other opinions are available.
Now you are back into rant mode.
So to conclude you haven't provided a single example where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent, the topic where I have considerable professional expertise and experience.
And of course while we are on 'opinions' which seems to be the only thing you focus on - whose opinions are likely to carry greater weight - a person with a quarter of a century of professional training, expertise and practical experience in the assessment of valid consent or ... err ... an armchair googler.
I am not really interested in what you asked for, given that I have repeatedly stated on here that I doubted your credentials based on your arguments, not based on errors of fact about ethics.
My position on here was that I doubt your credentials based on your tendency sometimes when making arguments on here, to jump to conclusions and make assumptions supported by very little evidence. Followed by you stating that conclusions you jump to are clear. I would assume that someone who really was in the research field or an academic would, just through basic experience and competency, be a lot more cautious about jumping to conclusions. Maybe that's just a sign of your arrogance rather than a lack of credentials.
I also doubt your credentials based on your argument that we should blindly give more weight to the opinions of someone who claims to be an expert on an anonymous internet forum. Not sure why a scientist is surprised that a complete stranger would be sceptical of claims about credentials on an anonymous forum, in the absence of evidence of your credentials.
Even if there was evidence of your credentials, it still does not prevent you using some proven facts to make a bad argument based on your biases or lack of knowledge of areas connected to those facts.
It is not a rant to present a series of arguments or points. However, you calling it a rant is a way for you to avoid addressing the points raised. Not really seeing why you think your opinions would be considered to carry any more weight than anyone else's opinions if you refuse to engage with the points raised.
-
I am not really interested in what you asked for, given that I have repeatedly stated on here that I doubted your credentials based on your arguments, not based on errors of fact about ethics.
You kept saying I got stuff wrong - that must be based on something beyond an opinion. You might think my opinion is wrong, I might think your opinion is wrong, but they are just opinions - they aren't something that is a matter of right/wrong.
If you make a claim that I say things that are wrong that needs to be substantiated. But you have demonstrated that you can't.
And you claim I make assertions without evidence to back them up - pot/kettle.
-
It is not a rant to present a series of arguments or points. However, you calling it a rant is a way for you to avoid addressing the points raised.
Seems pretty ranty to me.
I asked you to justify your claim that I get stuff wrong by providing examples where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent, the topic where I have considerable professional expertise and experience.
You start off by providing a series of points where you disagree with my opinion - which is irrelevant to a claim that I get stuff wrong - it just means that our opinions are different. And then you descend into stuff who doesn't even try to address the issue that you have asserted that I get stuff wrong, but you are unable to provide credible evidence for this. And guess what, you still aren't.
-
You kept saying I got stuff wrong - that must be based on something beyond an opinion. You might think my opinion is wrong, I might think your opinion is wrong, but they are just opinions - they aren't something that is a matter of right/wrong.
I suggest you quote where I said you got stuff wrong and then we can clarify in what context I said it.
If you make a claim that I say things that are wrong that needs to be substantiated. But you have demonstrated that you can't.
And you claim I make assertions without evidence to back them up - pot/kettle.
I will wait for your quotes of what I actually said and in what context before responding.
ETA: If you are focusing on the word "stuff" then my use of the word "stuff" meant conclusions that you came and how you tried to apply facts to form conclusions when there was not sufficient information in a Bible story.
-
Seems pretty ratty to me.
I asked you to justify your claim that I get stuff wrong by providing examples where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent, the topic where I have considerable professional expertise and experience.
You start off by providing a series of points where you disagree with my opinion - which is irrelevant to a claim that I get stuff wrong - it just means that our opinions are different. And then you descend into stuff who doesn't even try to address the issue that you have asserted that I get stuff wrong, but you are unable to provide credible evidence for this. And guess what, you still aren't.
And one of the points I made was that you were wrong to use ethical and legal aspects of valid consent between humans to a few verses of a Bible story written many centuries ago about a supernatural event. Consent doctrines were not developed to apply to supernatural entities and the authors of the story are not even claiming they were at the event. If you don't know in what circumstances you can apply your knowledge, you can't really expect your claims of expertise to be taken seriously.
-
Lovely bit of quote mining - he is actually making the specific point that experts rely on evidence and when the evidence supports a different conclusion they will change their mind. They aren't chained to dogma. So here is the key bit you selectively chopped from the quote as it doesn't support your assertions:
As a scientist you relish having your view changed by the facts. That’s different from politics where you’ve occupied a citadel, where it’s viewed as a failure if you concede ground.
Why would this quote contradict my position? This quote supports my position that experts can get it wrong. The professor's expert prediction was wrong as shown by subsequent data. So not every expert will get it right so the ordinary lay person should not automatically assume that the opinion of someone claiming to be an expert carries more weight.
-
VG,
Your disagreement is neither here nor there (as my “opinion” is neither here nor there). The story concerns an all-powerful god impregnating a (likely by modern standards) underage servant girl, who’s unfailingly told in advance that it will happen. That’s it. What the authors intended, or whether consent was even a meaningful concept at the time is a red herring – what this is about is whether by contemporary standards about consent the god of the story could be deemed to have acted morally well.
If we take the analogous example you keep ignoring of a headmaster impregnating one of his (say) 14-year old pupils, there is no possible further detail that would mitigate his guilt (other perhaps than mental incapacity, which is not a defence of “God” many Christians would want to attempt I suppose). Valid consent could not have been possible in either case no matter what "detail" is added, and that's the end of it.
Which specific law did the headmaster break? How does this law apply to the circumstances of this supernatural pregnancy?
“It’s a future event” means there is no choice (especially when said by a god whose word cannot fail). “It could be a future event”, “would you agree to it being a future event?” etc might introduce some uncertainty, but “it will happen” from an unfailing god is a statement of certainty. Again – Mary was told, not asked.
I already asked you in my previous response where you are getting the line "whose word cannot fail". I don't see a response to that. And nor do I see how God choosing not to do something is considered failing. If Mary did not want to become pregnant and theists have a choice about serving God and God chooses not to make her pregnant, where is the problem?
It’s as if you haven’t read a word that’s been said to you. By contemporary standards, “Mary’s response” is neither here nor there. The 14-year-old schoolgirl’s word would be neither here nor there too, even if she was deeply in love with the headmaster and desperately wanted his child. Try to grasp this: on the “facts” of the story as set out, by contemporary standards Mary’s valid consent was impossible no matter what she said or did.
It's as if you haven't listened to a word that has been said to you. Contemporary standards on age of consent are different from country to country, even within Europe, and different from state to state even within a country like the USA. We don't know Mary's age. Assuming that Mary was in her teens, what was acceptable in that time for people in their teens is not the same as what is acceptable now, because society and the options and life-choices available to teens now in the UK is very different from what was available centuries ago in Palestine. What is an acceptable choice is based on what options and choices are available to you at the time you made your choice.
Wrong again. It’s not my opinion that matters here; it’s the “opinion” of contemporary Western standards about valid consent.
There is no single contemporary Western standard. It varies depending on geographical location. Standards regarding consent in the UK are not the same standards that are applied elsewhere in the world.
Dealt with – see above. What the authors did or did not choose to say about consent has absolutely no relevance to the point that, on the “facts” of the story, by contemporary standards a god we’re told is morally perfect behaved morally badly. Why? Because on the “facts” of the story valid consent could not have been possible no matter what the authors thought or said about consent.
Valid consent could have been possible based on the society and the options and life-choices available to teens in the time the story was set.
-
VG,
Boy, you can sure pack a lot of wrong into one reply. As briefly as I can then:
Examples of where you were wrong, just on this thread alone:
You were wrong to conclude that it was clear there was no consent based on limited information in a Bible story for multiple reasons.
No he wasn’t. There could have been no valid consent by modern Western standards because of the basic constituents of the story as presented. Why? Because of the (likely) underage part, because of the (explicit) asymmetric power dynamic part, and because of the no alternative part.
It's a stupid argument to try to shoehorn consent as a legal term into a Bible story about a supernatural being. Try bringing a case against a supernatural being and you may find that legal experts will tell you that the law only applies to human beings.
No it isn’t. The events described being “supernatural” changes nothing about the basic critique of the morality of the story. The story is presented as morally good – just as the lessons learned from visitations by ghosts in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is presented as having a morally beneficial effect on (the also fictional) Ebenezer Scrooge. So what?
It is not a story about sexual acts, nor is it a story about acts taking place between 2 people, so legal concepts that govern consent to sexual relationships between people are irrelevant to a story with a supernatural being in it.
Good grief. It’s a story about a (likely) underage girl by modern standards beings told she “will” be impregnated and carry to term a baby whose father is an all-powerful god. Whether the conception in the story happened sexually or by some other means is about the least important part of that story.
Imagine that, say, one day someone invented a sperm pill that if ingested would cause women to conceive – would it be fine and dandy for them to be given no choice in the matter because no sex was involved in your view? Why not?
Even if you are trying to argue that legal rules about consent can be applied to supernatural entities, the Bible story was not written for the purposes of demonstrating the existence of consent so concluding there was no consent from the lack of detail about consent in the story is illogical.
I’ve corrected you on this error already, so why are you repeating it here? It doesn’t matter why the bible was written – all that matters is the content of the story as told being presented as morally good when seen through the lens of modern sensibilities. You’ve told us that you have children, so I assume they studied English and had to do some literary criticism? Imagine then that, say, they were asked to write post-feminist analysis of Hamlet’s treatment of women in the play. Would they have answered, “but I can’t answer that because Shakespeare had never heard of post-feminism”, or maybe “I can’t answer that because there’s a supernatural ghost in the play”? Why not?
The story is hearsay and we have no idea if it is authentic.
So what? Whether it’s written as reportage or written as complete fiction its content can still be analysed though any subsequent lens we wish to apply – including that of modern Western sensibilities.
There is no evidence to determine Mary's age. So you can't argue that she was a minor for the time period in which she supposedly lived.
Probabilistically yes you can. The story likely concerns an underage girl by modern standards. Whether there ever was a Mary and whether she was older than the mean for the time makes no difference at all – it’s the story that’s being analysed, not verifiable historical facts.
If you are arguing that the consent is not in relation to a sexual act but is consent to pregnancy without sex ie a medical procedure, there is not sufficient evidence in the story to conclude that Mary could not have refused to go along with God's plan of pregnancy. Calling herself a servant of God is not sufficient evidence to conclude that she was coerced. Submission to God is a voluntary act based on belief and can be revoked at every decision a theist makes. If parental input into a child's decision to be circumcised does not automatically invalidate the child's informed consent to circumcision, then it can be argued that someone calling themselves a servant of someone or something does not automatically invalidate their consent if there it is not proved that the someone or something had undue influence or coerced them.
Wrong again. By contemporary Western standards the story as written means that “Mary” could not have given valid consent. By those standards, it was just impossible.
If you are arguing that the word "will" is proof that Mary had no choice - again it's not possible to conclude that given the different possible interpretations of the word "will" in the context of the story, and that Mary had said "Let it happen", which could be interpreted as Mary agreeing or consenting to God's plan.
Nope. The story uses “will” (unfailingly so too we’re told), which allows for no possibility at all of a different outcome.
So it is not possible based simply on the words of the text to prove that consent was given or not given as the text is ambiguous.
Yes it is possible, and no it’s not “ambiguous” – see above. The story is the story no matter how much you try to pare it into bite-size pieces for special pleading. Any story – A Christmas Carol and Hamlet included – can raise questions about the intentions of the authors, what their purpose was, uncertainty about historical veracity and no doubt many other issues too. For this purpose though none of that matters. All that matters is that the Biblical conception story, A Christmas Carol and Hamlet alike as they are presented can all be analysed on their own terms through any subsequent moral lens we happen to choose.
It would help if you’d try to understand this.
-
Vlad,
No, I’m “assuming” the Mary of the story was a minor on the basis of the scholarship available to me. Try googling “How old was Mary?” and you’ll see it for yourself. These are religious websites by the way, not part of the paranoid antitheist conspiracy you keep trying to conjure into existence.
No one knows Mary’s age and therefore there is no case. There are competing sociologies describing this time period which makes any appeal to scholarship less sound. In fact given in some of these sociologies there could be two or three years between betrothal and consummation that means there is negative scope to conclude Mary’s minority in modern terms. I see no basis for assuming anything here and it would not fly in law.
Morality and legislation don’t always align, but if we take the latter as our starting point yes there is (in the UK it’s in the Sexual Offences Act 2003; Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008; Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009; Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005), and other Western countries have their own legislation. Scholarship on the age of Mary suggests she was younger than these lower limits enshrined in law.
Do you understand what sex is Hillside. God does not have a body. In fact the divine person of the trinity involved is, big hint here, the Holy Spirit. There is no penis or semen in fact what has happened is a form of asexual reproduction.
An American court I believe ruled that God is not legally an individual or company.
-
VG,
Boy, you can sure pack a lot of wrong into one reply. As briefly as I can then:
No he wasn’t. There could have been no valid consent by modern Western standards because of the basic constituents of the story as presented. Why? Because of the (likely) underage part, because of the (explicit) asymmetric power dynamic part, and because of the no alternative part.
No it isn’t. The events described being “supernatural” changes nothing about the basic critique of the morality of the story. The story is presented as morally good – just as the lessons learned from visitations by ghosts in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is presented as having a morally beneficial effect on (the also fictional) Ebenezer Scrooge. So what?
Good grief. It’s a story about a (likely) underage girl by modern standards beings told she “will” be impregnated and carry to term a baby whose father is an all-powerful god. Whether the conception in the story happened sexually or by some other means is about the least important part of that story.
Imagine that, say, one day someone invented a sperm pill that if ingested would cause women to conceive – would it be fine and dandy for them to be given no choice in the matter because no sex was involved in your view? Why not?
I’ve corrected you on this error already, so why are you repeating it here? It doesn’t matter why the bible was written – all that matters is the content of the story as told being presented as morally good when seen through the lens of modern sensibilities. You’ve told us that you have children, so I assume they studied English and had to do some literary criticism? Imagine then that, say, they were asked to write post-feminist analysis of Hamlet’s treatment of women in the play. Would they have answered, “but I can’t answer that because Shakespeare had never heard of post-feminism”, or maybe “I can’t answer that because there’s a supernatural ghost in the play”? Why not?
So what? Whether it’s written as reportage or written as complete fiction its content can still be analysed though any subsequent lens we wish to apply – including that of modern Western sensibilities.
Probabilistically yes you can. The story likely concerns an underage girl by modern standards. Whether there ever was a Mary and whether she was older than the mean for the time makes no difference at all – it’s the story that’s being analysed, not verifiable historical facts.
Wrong again. By contemporary Western standards the story as written means that “Mary” could not have given valid consent. By those standards, it was just impossible.
Nope. The story uses “will” (unfailingly so too we’re told), which allows for no possibility at all of a different outcome.
Yes it is possible, and no it’s not “ambiguous” – see above. The story is the story no matter how much you try to pare it into bite-size pieces for special pleading. Any story – A Christmas Carol and Hamlet included – can raise questions about the intentions of the authors, what their purpose was, uncertainty about historical veracity and no doubt many other issues too. For this purpose though none of that matters. All that matters is that the Biblical conception story, A Christmas Carol and Hamlet alike as they are presented can all be analysed on their own terms through any subsequent moral lens we happen to choose.
It would help if you’d try to understand this.
BHS - your conclusions are still wrong for the reasons I have already explained. Repeating your assertions about Mary likely being underage, assumed power dynamics etc doesn't change my opinion that your opinion is wrong.
-
VG,
BHS - your conclusions are still wrong for the reasons I have already explained. Repeating your assertions about Mary likely being underage, assumed power dynamics etc doesn't change my opinion that your opinion is wrong.
I explained to you point-by-point and with arguments why you were wrong at every step. If you just ant to run way from that's that's up to you.
-
Why would this quote contradict my position?
You point was that experts disagreed - but the whole point of the piece from Openshaw, when you read the entire post, is that the experts came to agreement on the basis of the evidence, which is entirely different to your conclusion that the experts disagreed.
But of course if you chop out the bit about coming to agreement you can make Openshaw's quote appear to provide an entirely different conclusion than the actual conclusion - experts coming to an agreement based on the evidence. I think there is a term for selective quoting to try to imply the conclusion to be something other than it is when the full piece is considered.
-
No one knows Mary’s age and therefore there is no case.
Not so - legally if we do not know whether a person is a minor or not, we would not presume they are not a minor. Indeed whether there is a credible case to be made that the individual could well be a minor (as is the case here) the law would likely take that position as its starting point on the basis of duty of care.
-
VG,
I explained to you point-by-point and with arguments why you were wrong at every step. If you just ant to run way from that's that's up to you.
And I have already gone through it point by point to explain why your arguments are wrong at every step. Repeating your wrong arguments is not going to change the outcome. You're still wrong.
-
Not so - legally if we do not know whether a person is a minor or not, we would not presume they are not a minor. Indeed whether there is a credible case to be made that the individual could well be a minor (as is the case here) the law would likely take that position as its starting point on the basis of duty of care.
Credible case for what Davey?
-
Credible case for what Davey?
A credible case that the individual could be a minor. If this were unclear I don't think that the legal system would simply presume the individual is not a minor as that may well be a dereliction of duty of care to that individual.
-
You point was that experts disagreed - but the whole point of the piece from Openshaw, when you read the entire post, is that the experts came to agreement on the basis of the evidence, which is entirely different to your conclusion that the experts disagreed.
No because the point I was making is that Openshaw only changed his mind after the first set of vaccines were produced and they seemed to work much better than he had predicted. At the time that experts were considering the course of action to take to tackle Covid he was wrong in his prediction about Covid vaccines, despite being considered an expert. My point was that at a particular moment in time an expert opinion can be wrong, so claiming expertise does not automatically mean that your opinion carries more weight.
But of course if you chop out the bit about coming to agreement you can make Openshaw's quote appear to provide an entirely different conclusion than the actual conclusion - experts coming to an agreement based on the evidence. I think there is a term for selective quoting to try to imply the conclusion to be something other than it is when the full piece is considered.
There was no selective quoting that would alter the meaning. Openshaw admitted he got it wrong at the time he gave his expert opinion on whether vaccines would be effective.
-
A credible case that the individual could be a minor. If this were unclear I don't think that the legal system would simply presume the individual is not a minor as that may well be a dereliction of duty of care to that individual.
I’m not sure a prosecution or conviction would stand if the alleged minor was deceased for two thousand years or at least absent and there was no prosecution by either authority whose jurisdiction the person fell under. Is there a duty of care for a deceased person, i’m not sure. We are therefore quite deeply into “what if” territory...What if Mary was a minor, what if this had happened in 21st century Britain*, What if God was a man.
It would not happen in 21st century Britain because of the impossibility of finding 3 wise men.
-
A credible case that the individual could be a minor. If this were unclear I don't think that the legal system would simply presume the individual is not a minor as that may well be a dereliction of duty of care to that individual.
Why would the law as it currently stands get involved in a supernatural pregnancy? What current law would that break?
So what you are saying is that in the story, there is no evidence that Mary was underage, but if the CPS investigated further, beyond the story they may or may not find she is underage? So currently, on the information in the story, we don't know her age and we have nothing to indicate she had not reached the age of majority at the time of the story. So it is not clear from the story that there was no consent, based on Mary's age? I suggest you find some proof that Mary was under-age for artificial pregnancies and then we can re-look at the issue.
You also haven't been able to show in the story that Mary was forced against her will, that she objected to the pregnancy, or that she felt threatened by violence into consenting.
-
What I actual said VG was that Islam recognises the Torah to have been revealed by god.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah_in_Islam
From the wiki page:
The Tawrat (Arabic: توراة), also romanized as Tawrah or Taurat, is the Arabic-language name for the Torah within its context as an Islamic holy book believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel.
And from the Quran
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to God] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of God, and they were witnesses thereto.
and
But how do they come to you for decision while they have the Tawrat (Torah), in which is the (plain) Decision of Allah
Missed seeing this response.
The Quran recognises the Torah but Quranic verses imply the Torah has been changed. The Quran recognises that Jews follow the Torah and it refers to the laws of Moses but states that Muslims should follow the Quran and that the Quran differs from the Torah - hence in the verse below it mentions the Book (Quran) and "confirming whatever of the Book was revealed before" (Torah) and "For each of you, We have appointed a Law and a way of life" :
“Then We revealed the Book to you with Truth, confirming whatever of the Book was revealed before, and protecting and guarding over it. Judge, then, between them in accordance by what Allah has revealed, and do not follow their desires in disregard of the Truth which has come to you. For each of you, We have appointed a Law and a way of life. And had Allah commanded, He would surely have made you one single community; instead, (He gave each of you a Law and a way of life) in order to test you by what He gave you. Vie, then, one with another in good works. Unto Allah is the return of all of you, and He will then inform you concerning that on which you disagreed.” (Al-Ma’ida/ The Feast, 5:48).
This article goes into it in more detail: https://www.whyislam.org/islams-stance-on-the-gospel-and-torah/
The Quran actually confirms the original revelation that was given to Prophet Moses called the Tawrah (Torah) and the Enjeel (the Gospel) that was revealed to Prophet Jesus. Other scriptures that are mentioned in the Quran include the Zabure revealed to Prophet David and the Suhuf revealed to Prophet Abraham. The idea that the Quran confirms the Bible, the Old Testament or the New Testament is incorrect. Even then when we take a term like Torah, it isn’t the exact equivalent in understanding the scriptures between Muslims and Jews and Christians, for example. Among the Jews and Christians the Torah is believed to be the first five books, beginning with Genesis, in the Bible.
However, if you look carefully into these books, you’ll find many of them don’t really represent revelation given to Moses but are biographies of Moses. Also, towards the end of chapter 34 in the book of Deuteronomy, which is part of the Torah it talks of Moses’ death and being buried, which obviously is not of the work of Moses nor is it the revelation given to him on Mount Sinai as Muslims believe. As such even the definition of Torah in the Judea-Christian literature is not like the Quranic reference to the Torah, or law, specifically the revelation given to prophet Moses not biographies about him.
-
A credible case that the individual could be a minor. If this were unclear I don't think that the legal system would simply presume the individual is not a minor as that may well be a dereliction of duty of care to that individual.
What is this 'minor' and 'major' you keep referring to?! During biblical times, children as young as 6 were married off. Sex was usually based on puberty. Puberty was the deciding age for adult or child.
18 years that many countries today follow as age of majority, is of recent origin and actually has no basis in medical terms. It is adhoc.
-
No because the point I was making is that Openshaw only changed his mind after the first set of vaccines were produced and they seemed to work much better than he had predicted.
No - the point you were making was that experts disagreed - presumably when they were giving expert opinion, not down the pub.
Firstly I doubt that any credible expert scientist would voice an opinion on the results of a clinical trial before those results are available. So as far as I am aware in advance of the clinical data being available Oppershaw never gave an expert opinion that the vaccine would not work, and on the flip side I doubt very much that Sarah Gilbert would have given expert opinion that the vaccine would work prior to the evidence being available.
So over to you - show me where Oppenshaw publicly expressed the expert opinion that the vaccines wouldn't work in the months before the clinical trial data were available. As far as I can see his expert opinion was never than, and actually focussed on his expertise which isn't vaccine development (he isn't a vaccinologist) but the potential clinical management of infection with an effective vaccine (because he is a clinical virologist).
So these quotes from his expert opinion submission to the Science & Technology select committee in June 2020, before the trials had even started:
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/557/html/
'Our hope for a vaccine is that we could induce even better immune responses than can be induced by the virus itself. If the virus is indeed neutralising multiple checkpoints in the immune system to its own advantage, a vaccine might be able to induce a good immune response while not interfering with the host’s immune response in the way that a live virus would. This is all a bit speculative because, again, this virus is relatively new to us.'
' I am hopeful that at least one of the many vaccine approaches that are being developed, and which you will hear more about later today, will produce some good, solid, protective immunity and will not cause this immune enhancement.'
'As I say, certain areas of the virus surface proteins are essential for them to gain entry via the receptors that they are adapted to bind to. By targeting those areas with vaccines, we should be able to develop vaccines that confer some immunity from which the virus cannot easily escape.
Privately he may have worried, as I'm sure a lot of people did, that the vaccine would not work but I can't see any evidence that he expressed this in expert opinion. That would firstly be crazy as it would not be evidence based because the trial hadn't happened at that point. And as a virologist, rather than a vaccinologist, you will note that his responses largely focus on his area of expertise, which isn't actually vaccine design and manufacture.
-
What is this 'minor' and 'major' you keep referring to?! During biblical times, children as young as 6 were married off. Sex was usually based on puberty. Puberty was the deciding age for adult or child.
18 years that many countries today follow as age of majority, is of recent origin and actually has no basis in medical terms. It is adhoc.
We are talking about valid consent Sriram - that is an entirely different matter than the legal age at which people can marry. A society may allow a 6 year old to be married, but that would not involve valid consent as a 6 year old would not have the capacity to consent to such an arrangement.
-
Missed seeing this response.
The Quran recognises the Torah but Quranic verses imply the Torah has been changed. The Quran recognises that Jews follow the Torah and it refers to the laws of Moses but states that Muslims should follow the Quran and that the Quran differs from the Torah - hence in the verse below it mentions the Book (Quran) and "confirming whatever of the Book was revealed before" (Torah) and "For each of you, We have appointed a Law and a way of life" :
“Then We revealed the Book to you with Truth, confirming whatever of the Book was revealed before, and protecting and guarding over it. Judge, then, between them in accordance by what Allah has revealed, and do not follow their desires in disregard of the Truth which has come to you. For each of you, We have appointed a Law and a way of life. And had Allah commanded, He would surely have made you one single community; instead, (He gave each of you a Law and a way of life) in order to test you by what He gave you. Vie, then, one with another in good works. Unto Allah is the return of all of you, and He will then inform you concerning that on which you disagreed.” (Al-Ma’ida/ The Feast, 5:48).
This article goes into it in more detail: https://www.whyislam.org/islams-stance-on-the-gospel-and-torah/
The Quran actually confirms the original revelation that was given to Prophet Moses called the Tawrah (Torah) and the Enjeel (the Gospel) that was revealed to Prophet Jesus. Other scriptures that are mentioned in the Quran include the Zabure revealed to Prophet David and the Suhuf revealed to Prophet Abraham. The idea that the Quran confirms the Bible, the Old Testament or the New Testament is incorrect. Even then when we take a term like Torah, it isn’t the exact equivalent in understanding the scriptures between Muslims and Jews and Christians, for example. Among the Jews and Christians the Torah is believed to be the first five books, beginning with Genesis, in the Bible.
However, if you look carefully into these books, you’ll find many of them don’t really represent revelation given to Moses but are biographies of Moses. Also, towards the end of chapter 34 in the book of Deuteronomy, which is part of the Torah it talks of Moses’ death and being buried, which obviously is not of the work of Moses nor is it the revelation given to him on Mount Sinai as Muslims believe. As such even the definition of Torah in the Judea-Christian literature is not like the Quranic reference to the Torah, or law, specifically the revelation given to prophet Moses not biographies about him.
Which effectively supports my view, specifically.
That Islam grew out of Judaism and that Islam recognised the Torah as a holy text, albeit with differing interpretations - that why we ultimately have Islam as a distinct religion from Judaism. But they are inextricably linked historically and theologically. So the starting point of Islam is Judaism as Islam grew out of Judaism, and the starting point of Judaism, certainly textually, is Genesis. Therefore the text which is close to the beginning of Genesis is at the starting point of three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
-
The countries listed at the bottom of the Gender Equality Index have been affected by colonialism, wars, poverty, weapons sold to civilians, violence, breakdown in law and order, resource stripping, corruption, tribal culture, lack of teachers and doctors and health facilities in remote rural areas due to lack of funds for transport and infrastructure. All of these will have an impact on how people interpret and practise moral values and rules derived from philosophy, ethics, religion.
But those criteria apply to many countries, including a bunch that sit higher up the list, such as:
Namibia (6th), Rwanda (7th), Nicaragua (12th), Burundi (26th), Mozambique (32nd), Mexico (34th), Argentina (35th), Loas (36th), Cuba (38th), Jamaica (40th), Ecuador (42nd), El Salvador (43rd), Panama (44th), Zimbabwe (47th) - I could go on. So countries with significant current and historic issues as you describe, but all sit comfortably in the top half for gender equality. So there is no reason to consider that these social and societal challenges necessarily impact gender equality. So I think you might want to look for something else that is absent from these highly challenged countries in the top half, that might be present in nearly every country smack at the bottom of the list.
Anything you might note from those countries in comparison with the 30 countries sitting in the bottom 35 that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
And of course there are countries right down the bottom of that list that sit amongst the wealthiest countries in the world by GDP per capita - e.g. Qatar (141st out of 155), Saudi Arabia (146th), Kuwait (142nd)
-
Which effectively supports my view, specifically.
That Islam grew out of Judaism and that Islam recognised the Torah as a holy text, albeit with differing interpretations - that why we ultimately have Islam as a distinct religion from Judaism. But they are inextricably linked historically and theologically. So the starting point of Islam is Judaism as Islam grew out of Judaism, and the starting point of Judaism, certainly textually, is Genesis. Therefore the text which is close to the beginning of Genesis is at the starting point of three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Probably off-topic (though I'm not sure if this thread still has one), but this just seems wrong. Islam actually seems to have developed based on ideas of (now considered heretic) Christian god-men. There is no clear direct connection to Judaism.
I'd recommend Tom Holland's "In the shadow of the sword" on this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Sword_(book)
-
Probably off-topic (though I'm not sure if this thread still has one), but this just seems wrong. Islam actually seems to have developed based on ideas of (now considered heretic) Christian god-men. There is no clear direct connection to Judaism.
I'd recommend Tom Holland's "In the shadow of the sword" on this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Sword_(book)
That makes no sense - if Islam arose from christianity then there is, of course, a direct link to Judaism as christianity arose from Judaism. If there is no link why does Islam recognise the Torah and include a whole bunch of the same prophets.
-
That makes no sense - if Islam arose from christianity then there is, of course, a direct link to Judaism as christianity arose from Judaism. If there is no link why does Islam recognise the Torah and include a whole bunch of the same prophets.
By direct I mean without intermediate steps.
Islam arose in communities caught in wars between Christian and Persian empires and pulled in ideas from multiple religious schools, the connection to Judaism is via the Jewish origin of Christianity. Though I should say that this would not be supported by most Muslims, who believe in a personal revelation to an uneducated/illiterate prophet.
-
No - the point you were making was that experts disagreed - presumably when they were giving expert opinion, not down the pub.
Firstly I doubt that any credible expert scientist would voice an opinion on the results of a clinical trial before those results are available. So as far as I am aware in advance of the clinical data being available Oppershaw never gave an expert opinion that the vaccine would not work, and on the flip side I doubt very much that Sarah Gilbert would have given expert opinion that the vaccine would work prior to the evidence being available.
So over to you - show me where Oppenshaw publicly expressed the expert opinion that the vaccines wouldn't work in the months before the clinical trial data were available. As far as I can see his expert opinion was never than, and actually focussed on his expertise which isn't vaccine development (he isn't a vaccinologist) but the potential clinical management of infection with an effective vaccine (because he is a clinical virologist).
So these quotes from his expert opinion submission to the Science & Technology select committee in June 2020, before the trials had even started:
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/557/html/
'Our hope for a vaccine is that we could induce even better immune responses than can be induced by the virus itself. If the virus is indeed neutralising multiple checkpoints in the immune system to its own advantage, a vaccine might be able to induce a good immune response while not interfering with the host’s immune response in the way that a live virus would. This is all a bit speculative because, again, this virus is relatively new to us.'
' I am hopeful that at least one of the many vaccine approaches that are being developed, and which you will hear more about later today, will produce some good, solid, protective immunity and will not cause this immune enhancement.'
'As I say, certain areas of the virus surface proteins are essential for them to gain entry via the receptors that they are adapted to bind to. By targeting those areas with vaccines, we should be able to develop vaccines that confer some immunity from which the virus cannot easily escape.
Privately he may have worried, as I'm sure a lot of people did, that the vaccine would not work but I can't see any evidence that he expressed this in expert opinion. That would firstly be crazy as it would not be evidence based because the trial hadn't happened at that point. And as a virologist, rather than a vaccinologist, you will note that his responses largely focus on his area of expertise, which isn't actually vaccine design and manufacture.
No - the point I was making was a quote from Professor Openshaw where he said "We mentioned vaccines in our first report on Covid from Academy of Medical Sciences and said it was unlikely that anything would be available in the near future."
In contrast to an actual report, your input on this forum is very much like discussing things down the pub. You may consider yourself an expert but why would I take your word for it?
-
VG,
And I have already gone through it point by point to explain why your arguments are wrong at every step. Repeating your wrong arguments is not going to change the outcome. You're still wrong.
I don’t know whether you’re deliberately lying or simply cannot grasp the arguments that falsify you. Either way though, arguments they remain with examples and analogies included too to help you. I’ll even post them again at the end of this Reply for you to address or to ignore again as you wish.
If nonetheless you want to remain with the notion that you cannot apply a contemporary moral analysis to stories that have supernatural components, that don’t have as much “detail” a you’d like, that were written by people whose intentions are not clear to you (ie, effectively a great swathe of literary criticism) I would suggest you get on to Amazon and try the following for starters:
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Christmas Carol
Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter
Never Let Me Go
The Count of Monte Cristo
Aesop’s Fables
Pride and Prejudice
Crime and Punishment
Of Mice and Men
There are many other works that bear subsequent moral analysis of course, and indeed there are novels written by moral philosophers too (try Iris Murdoch for example) but these should get you started.
You’re welcome.
Boy, you can sure pack a lot of wrong into one reply. As briefly as I can then:
No he wasn’t. There could have been no valid consent by modern Western standards because of the basic constituents of the story as presented. Why? Because of the (likely) underage part, because of the (explicit) asymmetric power dynamic part, and because of the no alternative part.
No it isn’t. The events described being “supernatural” changes nothing about the basic critique of the morality of the story. The story is presented as morally good – just as the lessons learned from visitations by ghosts in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is presented as having a morally beneficial effect on (the also fictional) Ebenezer Scrooge. So what?
Good grief. It’s a story about a (likely) underage girl by modern standards beings told she “will” be impregnated and carry to term a baby whose father is an all-powerful god. Whether the conception in the story happened sexually or by some other means is about the least important part of that story.
Imagine that, say, one day someone invented a sperm pill that if ingested would cause women to conceive – would it be fine and dandy for them to be given no choice in the matter because no sex was involved in your view? Why not?
I’ve corrected you on this error already, so why are you repeating it here? It doesn’t matter why the bible was written – all that matters is the content of the story as told being presented as morally good when seen through the lens of modern sensibilities. You’ve told us that you have children, so I assume they studied English and had to do some literary criticism? Imagine then that, say, they were asked to write post-feminist analysis of Hamlet’s treatment of women in the play. Would they have answered, “but I can’t answer that because Shakespeare had never heard of post-feminism”, or maybe “I can’t answer that because there’s a supernatural ghost in the play”? Why not?
So what? Whether it’s written as reportage or written as complete fiction its content can still be analysed though any subsequent lens we wish to apply – including that of modern Western sensibilities.
Probabilistically yes you can. The story likely concerns an underage girl by modern standards. Whether there ever was a Mary and whether she was older than the mean for the time makes no difference at all – it’s the story that’s being analysed, not verifiable historical facts.
Wrong again. By contemporary Western standards the story as written means that “Mary” could not have given valid consent. By those standards, it was just impossible.
Nope. The story uses “will” (unfailingly so too we’re told), which allows for no possibility at all of a different outcome.
Yes it is possible, and no it’s not “ambiguous” – see above. The story is the story no matter how much you try to pare it into bite-size pieces for special pleading. Any story – A Christmas Carol and Hamlet included – can raise questions about the intentions of the authors, what their purpose was, uncertainty about historical veracity and no doubt many other issues too. For this purpose though none of that matters. All that matters is that the Biblical conception story, A Christmas Carol and Hamlet alike as they are presented can all be analysed on their own terms through any subsequent moral lens we happen to choose.
It would help if you’d try to understand this.
-
Which effectively supports my view, specifically.
That Islam grew out of Judaism and that Islam recognised the Torah as a holy text, albeit with differing interpretations - that why we ultimately have Islam as a distinct religion from Judaism. But they are inextricably linked historically and theologically. So the starting point of Islam is Judaism as Islam grew out of Judaism, and the starting point of Judaism, certainly textually, is Genesis. Therefore the text which is close to the beginning of Genesis is at the starting point of three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
So to clarify, when you quoted this line from Genesis in the Bible:
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And then directly after that quote you commented:
"And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam."
Are you now trying to claim that the word "this" in your comment didn't mean the quote from the Bible at all and you were not trying to say that this quote was the starting point of Islam?
And are you claiming that your use of the word "this" was intended to be a general reference to some version of the Torah that may have been altered since it was supposedly revealed to Moses according to Muslim beliefs and that the starting point of Islam does not include the words you quoted, as Islam does not endorse this quote as being something Muslims need to follow?
-
Sriram,
What is this 'minor' and 'major' you keep referring to?! During biblical times, children as young as 6 were married off. Sex was usually based on puberty. Puberty was the deciding age for adult or child.
18 years that many countries today follow as age of majority, is of recent origin and actually has no basis in medical terms. It is adhoc.
We’ve covered this already. “Minor” by contemporary Western standards. The comparison isn’t between those standards and the standards of 1st century Palestinian society, it’s between those standards and the standards of a morally perfect god (according to the Bible story).
You can think either one to be morally better than the other, but you can’t have both.
-
What do you mean, 'morally perfect' God?
Morality applies only to humans who live in a society. God by biblical definitions is above all laws, rules and morality. He is the creator of all that is and the concept of 'morally perfect' does not even make sense to someone who can create and destroy at will .
-
VG,
Why would the law as it currently stands get involved in a supernatural pregnancy? What current law would that break?
There is no law against non-consensual supernatural impregnation because supernatural impregnation isn’t a thing. Nor is there a law against Tooth Fairies flying too close to airports, because Tooth Fairies aren’t a thing.
What point do you think you are making?
So what you are saying is that in the story, there is no evidence that Mary was underage,…
No, in the story she probably was because that’s what most people in her circumstances were at that time.
…but if the CPS investigated further, beyond the story they may or may not find she is underage? So currently, on the information in the story, we don't know her age and we have nothing to indicate she had not reached the age of majority at the time of the story. So it is not clear from the story that there was no consent, based on Mary's age?
What we have “to indicate that she had not reached the age of majority at the time of the story” is the story itself that we can treat a describing the contemporary archetype of a “Mary”. The story doesn’t tell us what she had for breakfast either, but if most people in that time and place had porridge then it would be reasonable to assume she aligned with that archetype too (albeit that a much smaller number had muesli or bacon & eggs). We’re dealing effectively with Lit Crit here remember, not a forensic analysis of what would or wouldn't be sufficient for a conviction in a court of law.
I suggest you find some proof that Mary was under-age for artificial pregnancies and then we can re-look at the issue.
Why? Would you also demand some proof of Jacob Marley’s existence before we could look at the moral implications of A Christmas Carol?
You also haven't been able to show in the story that Mary was forced against her will, that she objected to the pregnancy, or that she felt threatened by violence into consenting.
All that’s necessary is to show that, by contemporary standards, Mary’s impregnation was non-consensual. By those standards Mary’s impregnation was necessarily non-consensual no matter what she said or did for several reasons (differential power dynamic, absence of choice etc) and the likely underage component is also sufficient for non-consent but not necessary for it.
-
Sriram,
What do you mean, 'morally perfect' God?
Morality applies only to humans who live in a society. God by biblical definitions is above all laws, rules and morality. He is the creator of all that is and the concept of 'morally perfect' does not even make sense to someone who can create and destroy at will .
Matthew 5:48
“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”
See here for more:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/gods_perfection
-
So to clarify, when you quoted this line from Genesis in the Bible:
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And then directly after that quote you commented:
"And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam."
Are you now trying to claim that the word "this" in your comment didn't mean the quote from the Bible at all and you were not trying to say that this quote was the starting point of Islam?
Why are you selectively quoting yet again VG - what I actually said was:
'Really - I was at a school christmas concert a couple of nights ago that included the standard bible readings used for that purpose, which includes the start of Genesis which included the following words (note girls and boys were present):
'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'
And this is the very starting point of three of the major religions in the world today - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.'
I can understand that when reading this you might be confused as to whether my 'starting point' in the final sentence was meant to refer to the specific quote or to the broader Genesis. I actually meant the latter - hence I also used the word 'start' in my reference to Genesis.
However I'm struggling to see why this makes any difference - Islam and Christianity are inextricably linked to Judaism - without Judaism there would be no Christianity and there would be no Islam. Further more, both Islam and Christianity recognise the Torah to be an important holy text (although there may be differences in interpretation between the three religions). In theological chronology Genesis represents the start of Judaism and hence, as they are all linked is the starting point for both Christianity and Islam.
-
But those criteria apply to many countries, including a bunch that sit higher up the list, such as:
Namibia (6th), Rwanda (7th), Nicaragua (12th), Burundi (26th), Mozambique (32nd), Mexico (34th), Argentina (35th), Loas (36th), Cuba (38th), Jamaica (40th), Ecuador (42nd), El Salvador (43rd), Panama (44th), Zimbabwe (47th) - I could go on. So countries with significant current and historic issues as you describe, but all sit comfortably in the top half for gender equality. So there is no reason to consider that these social and societal challenges necessarily impact gender equality. So I think you might want to look for something else that is absent from these highly challenged countries in the top half, that might be present in nearly every country smack at the bottom of the list.
Anything you might note from those countries in comparison with the 30 countries sitting in the bottom 35 that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
And of course there are countries right down the bottom of that list that sit amongst the wealthiest countries in the world by GDP per capita - e.g. Qatar (141st out of 155), Saudi Arabia (146th), Kuwait (142nd)
No all those criteria do not apply to Namibia, Rwanda etc. Some of the ones at the bottom of the list have been considered as failed states https://www.csis.org/analysis/afghanistan-iraq-syria-libya-and-yemen
Pakistan patriarchal tribal culture is very conservative, whereby many people celebrate the birth of a son, but not a daughter, and feed and educate a son better than a daughter, leading to men getting better jobs, more money and are therefore perceived as more valuable to financially support parents and family. This is reflected in their interpretation and practice of Islam.
For example, the responsibility or duty in Islam for providing economically for the family is placed on the man so what a husband earns is to be used to support the family, but this is not a duty for the wife as what she earns is for herself but can if she chooses be spent on supporting the family. There are many verses and traditional sayings of Prophet Muhammad and examples exhorting equal treatment as economic support is not considered as being more valuable in Islam than other acts and contributions in society. The traditional story is that when Prophet Mohammed was asked by a man who was most deserving of his good behaviour, he was told it was his mother and when he asked "who next", he was told his mother and when asked "who next" he was told his mother, and when asked for the 4th time who next after his mother, he was told his father.
It seems the verses in the Quran and hadith that promote female education have not made much inroads into this conservative mindset of both men and women in Pakistan.
A man being physically stronger than a woman, it makes sense where economic output involved working in dangerous and physically challenging circumstances and situations, that a man had a greater responsibility to economically support the family. Similarly as women would become pregnant and breastfeed and be primary care-givers, again it made sense to put the primary responsibility for financial support on the man. This responsibility on the man does not prevent women from being educated and working and female education was a feature of Muslim societies historically https://onwardforafghanwomen.org/policy/girls-education-and-islam-a-divine-command-with-historical-precedent/
“Education is the only way to empower them [girls], improve their status, ensure their participation in the development of their respective societies, and activate their role to be able to take responsibility for future generations.”
– Dr. Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
As technology and education has improved such that physical strength and endurance is less of a factor, and men take on more child-care duties, there is less need to value a man's physical strength. But in conservative societies such as Pakistan, with it's honour culture and attitudes to men's sexual gratification, girls and women are prevented from participating in education and work outside the home because of fears of sexual activity and rape and unwanted pregnancies and dishonour.
And Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait's Arabic cultural interpretation of Islam is not something that had much of a following in non-Arab Muslims, until Arab petrodollars started funding religious institutions in other parts of the world or until people from other countries went to work as labourers and domestic servants in Saudi and brought back cultural religious practices.
-
And are you claiming that your use of the word "this" was intended to be a general reference to some version of the Torah that may have been altered since it was supposedly revealed to Moses according to Muslim beliefs and that the starting point of Islam does not include the words you quoted, as Islam does not endorse this quote as being something Muslims need to follow?
The quote in question, presumably being the bit I bolded, in other words:
'... and he shall rule over thee.'
In other words justifying gender inequality. Now, of course, as I pointed out there are also quotes in the Quran that certainly also appear to justify gender inequality as well as this one from the Torah, which is recognised by Islam.
So presumably if you think Islam does not endorse this quote as being something Muslims need to follow then presumably Islamic societies would be paragons of gender equality, while Jewish and Christian societies would be hotbeds of gender inequality. And this is about what happens in practice, rather than sterile theological argument over the meaning of ancient texts.
So let's look at the evidence on gender equality. Well we have only one Jewish country - Israel - comes in 60th on the gender equality index, so not great but not awful, just in the top half.
Nominally Christian countries are scattered through the index but largely absent from the bottom 35 or so places.
So which countries are massively disproportionately at the bottom - that would be all the Islamic countries. So I'm not really interested in whether you consider that '... and he shall rule over thee.' is a quote that Islam does not endorse as being something Muslims need to follow in theory. It is pretty clear that Islamic societies are practicing gender inequality to a much more extreme degree compared to other societies.
-
No all those criteria do not apply to Namibia, Rwanda etc. Some of the ones at the bottom of the list have been considered as failed states https://www.csis.org/analysis/afghanistan-iraq-syria-libya-and-yemen
Pakistan patriarchal tribal culture is very conservative, whereby many people celebrate the birth of a son, but not a daughter, and feed and educate a son better than a daughter, leading to men getting better jobs, more money and are therefore perceived as more valuable to financially support parents and family. This is reflected in their interpretation and practice of Islam.
For example, the responsibility or duty in Islam for providing economically for the family is placed on the man so what a husband earns is to be used to support the family, but this is not a duty for the wife as what she earns is for herself but can if she chooses be spent on supporting the family. There are many verses and traditional sayings of Prophet Muhammad and examples exhorting equal treatment as economic support is not considered as being more valuable in Islam than other acts and contributions in society. The traditional story is that when Prophet Mohammed was asked by a man who was most deserving of his good behaviour, he was told it was his mother and when he asked "who next", he was told his mother and when asked "who next" he was told his mother, and when asked for the 4th time who next after his mother, he was told his father. it seems the verses in the Quran have not made much inroads into this mindset of both men and women:
A man being physically stronger than a woman, it makes sense where economic output involved working in dangerous and physically challenging circumstances and situations, that a man had a greater responsibility to economically support the family. Similarly as women would become pregnant and breastfeed and be primary care-givers, again it made sense to put the primary responsibility for financial support on the man. This responsibility on the man does not prevent women from being educated and working and was a female education was a feature of Muslim societies historically https://onwardforafghanwomen.org/policy/girls-education-and-islam-a-divine-command-with-historical-precedent/
“Education is the only way to empower them [girls], improve their status, ensure their participation in the development of their respective societies, and activate their role to be able to take responsibility for future generations.”
– Dr. Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic
As technology and education has improved such that physical strength and endurance is less of a factor, and men take on more child-care duties, there is less need to value a man's physical strength. But in conservative societies such as Pakistan, with it's honour culture and attitudes to men's sexual gratification, girls and women are prevented from participating in education and work outside the home because of fears of sexual activity and rape and unwanted pregnancies and dishonour.
And Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait's Arabic cultural interpretation of Islam is not something that had much of a following in non-Arab Muslims, until Arab petrodollars started funding religious institutions in other parts of the world or until people from other countries went to work as labourers and domestic servants in Saudi and brought back cultural religious practices.
It really is rather pitiful seeing you trying to squirm out of the obvious conclusion - the key defining feature of virtually every country that has the worst record of gender equality is that they are Islamic.
-
It really is rather pitiful seeing you trying to squirm out of the obvious conclusion - the key defining feature of virtually every country that has the worst record of gender equality is that they are Islamic.
Once again demonstrating that your grasp of academic study and evidence to support conclusions is pitiful to non-existent.
-
Once again demonstrating that your grasp of academic study and evidence to support conclusions is pitiful to non-existent.
Yawn.
I've provided evidence in the form of the gender equality index to support my opinion. And that evidence demonstrates that Islamic countries are massively disproportionately to be found right at the bottom of the pile for gender quality.
Now you can try to argue that it has nothing to do with the Islamic nature of those countries, but you are really struggling. And just to be clear the fragile state index (not failed state that terminology is no longer used) shows that in the top 20 or so most fragile countries reside countries such as Burundi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique which are comfortably in the top half for gender equality. Conversely Qatar, Oman, Kuwait are near the bottom of the fragile state index but are right near the bottom on gender equality.
I mean VG - are you seriously trying to argue that Islamic societies don't have a major problem with gender equality.
-
VG,
I don’t know whether you’re deliberately lying or simply cannot grasp the arguments that falsify you. Either way though, arguments they remain with examples and analogies included too to help you. I’ll even post them again at the end of this Reply for you to address or to ignore again as you wish.
If nonetheless you want to remain with the notion that you cannot apply a contemporary moral analysis to stories that have supernatural components, that don’t have as much “detail” a you’d like, that were written by people whose intentions are not clear to you (ie, effectively a great swathe of literary criticism) I would suggest you get on to Amazon and try the following for starters:
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Christmas Carol
Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter
Never Let Me Go
The Count of Monte Cristo
Aesop’s Fables
Pride and Prejudice
Crime and Punishment
Of Mice and Men
There are many other works that bear subsequent moral analysis of course, and indeed there are novels written by moral philosophers too (try Iris Murdoch for example) but these should get you started.
You’re welcome.
Boy, you can sure pack a lot of wrong into one reply. As briefly as I can then:
No he wasn’t. There could have been no valid consent by modern Western standards because of the basic constituents of the story as presented. Why? Because of the (likely) underage part, because of the (explicit) asymmetric power dynamic part, and because of the no alternative part.
No it isn’t. The events described being “supernatural” changes nothing about the basic critique of the morality of the story. The story is presented as morally good – just as the lessons learned from visitations by ghosts in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is presented as having a morally beneficial effect on (the also fictional) Ebenezer Scrooge. So what?
Good grief. It’s a story about a (likely) underage girl by modern standards beings told she “will” be impregnated and carry to term a baby whose father is an all-powerful god. Whether the conception in the story happened sexually or by some other means is about the least important part of that story.
Imagine that, say, one day someone invented a sperm pill that if ingested would cause women to conceive – would it be fine and dandy for them to be given no choice in the matter because no sex was involved in your view? Why not?
I’ve corrected you on this error already, so why are you repeating it here? It doesn’t matter why the bible was written – all that matters is the content of the story as told being presented as morally good when seen through the lens of modern sensibilities. You’ve told us that you have children, so I assume they studied English and had to do some literary criticism? Imagine then that, say, they were asked to write post-feminist analysis of Hamlet’s treatment of women in the play. Would they have answered, “but I can’t answer that because Shakespeare had never heard of post-feminism”, or maybe “I can’t answer that because there’s a supernatural ghost in the play”? Why not?
So what? Whether it’s written as reportage or written as complete fiction its content can still be analysed though any subsequent lens we wish to apply – including that of modern Western sensibilities.
Probabilistically yes you can. The story likely concerns an underage girl by modern standards. Whether there ever was a Mary and whether she was older than the mean for the time makes no difference at all – it’s the story that’s being analysed, not verifiable historical facts.
Wrong again. By contemporary Western standards the story as written means that “Mary” could not have given valid consent. By those standards, it was just impossible.
Nope. The story uses “will” (unfailingly so too we’re told), which allows for no possibility at all of a different outcome.
Yes it is possible, and no it’s not “ambiguous” – see above. The story is the story no matter how much you try to pare it into bite-size pieces for special pleading. Any story – A Christmas Carol and Hamlet included – can raise questions about the intentions of the authors, what their purpose was, uncertainty about historical veracity and no doubt many other issues too. For this purpose though none of that matters. All that matters is that the Biblical conception story, A Christmas Carol and Hamlet alike as they are presented can all be analysed on their own terms through any subsequent moral lens we happen to choose.
It would help if you’d try to understand this.
I suggest you post an example of a modern literary criticism of a moral standard in a story to make it clear what you are getting at.
If you are asking for my opinion on whether it was ok for Mary to be pregnant in the society she was in, then my answer is yes. In the circumstances of that society, teenage pregnancy was normal.
If you are asking me what I think about teenagers being pregnant in Britain today, I would say my opinion is there are better options if you want to improve your education and earning power than taking time out to be pregnant and look after a baby. If the teenager was going to give the baby up for adoption, there is less disruption to becoming a cog in the capitalist system, but the pregnancy would still cause a disruption.
I am not sure if it's healthier for a teen to be pregnant than out binge-drinking, taking drugs and sleeping around but if any or all of those activities can be combined with being economically productive, I guess it would be her choice.
Not sure what your point is though.
-
Yawn.
I've provided evidence in the form of the gender equality index to support my opinion. And that evidence demonstrates that Islamic countries are massively disproportionately to be found right at the bottom of the pile for gender quality.
Now you can try to argue that it has nothing to do with the Islamic nature of those countries, but you are really struggling. And just to be clear the fragile state index (not failed state that terminology is no longer used) shows that in the bottom 20 or so most fragile countries reside countries such as Burundi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique which are comfortably in the top half for gender equality. Conversely Qatar, Oman, Kuwait are near the bottom of the fragile state index but are right near the bottom on gender equality.
I mean VG - are you seriously trying to argue that Islamic societies don't have a major problem with gender equality.
Does the gender equality index report you posted come to the same conclusion as you - that the cause is Islam?
-
Does the gender equality index report you posted come to the same conclusion as you - that the cause is Islam?
I'm presenting the facts - you are the one trying to argue that the fact that 30 of the 35 worst countries on gender equality are Islamic societies has nothing to do with them being ... err ... Islamic.
That is for you to justify with your own evidence. Good luck with that - your attempts so far have been rather pitiful.
-
I'm presenting the facts - you are the one trying to argue that the fact that 30 of the 35 worst countries on gender equality are Islamic societies has nothing to do with them being ... err ... Islamic.
That is for you to justify with your own evidence. Good luck with that - your attempts so far have been rather pitiful.
What you said was "I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and support gender equality" but you have not shown any evidence to support your conclusion that these are Islamic societies or that Islam is failing to nurture gender equality. You haven't shown how you have isolated Islam as the defining feature of the society and its institutional and social practices, and that other factors and influences such as tribal culture, conservative mindsets, colonialism, war, corruption, resource stripping, poverty, poor educational and health facilities and infrastructure etc are not in fact the defining features of these societies.
-
What you said was "I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and support gender equality" ...
But it is demonstrably true that Islamic societies are are really poor at supporting gender equality - the gender equality index demonstrates that beyond doubt - 30 out of the 35 worst performers are Islamic societies.
Now if you want to argue that it has nothing to do with them being Islamic societies go right ahead - but you'd need to provide evidence to back up your assertions. Merely stating a bunch of other attributes, which also exist in countries with a good record of gender equality, doesn't really cut it.
-
But it is demonstrably true that Islamic societies are are really poor at supporting gender equality - the gender equality index demonstrates that beyond doubt - 30 out of the 35 worst performers are Islamic societies.
Now if you want to argue that it has nothing to do with them being Islamic societies go right ahead - but you'd need to provide evidence to back up your assertions. Merely stating a bunch of other attributes, which also exist in countries with a good record of gender equality, doesn't really cut it.
As you are the one making the claim that it is Islam that is the cause of the gender inequality, it is up to you to provide evidence of this. I am sure as an "academic" and a "scientist" you are well aware of the absolute basic rule that correlation does not imply causation. Or did they leave that part out when you were earning your "qualification"?
-
As you are the one making the claim that it is Islam that is the cause of the gender inequality, ...
Oh dear - further misrepresentation.
I have posed the following question - is there evidence that Islamic societies have a better, worse or similar record to non Islamic societies in terms of gender equality?
In order to assess this I have looked at this on a country by country level - defining an Islamic society as a country that is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (which seems perfectly reasonable). I have then looked for any specific trends when looking at these countries records in gender equality - again reasonably using the Index of Gender Equality.
What I have found, and is pretty well indisputable is that member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have a disproportionately poor record on gender equality - to such an extent they they take 30 out of the bottom 35 positions on gender equality.
So far, so completely evidence bases and factual.
Now as far as I am aware I have gone no further than this - my conclusion is that Islamic societies, defined as being members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have a disproportionately poor record on gender equality. I don't see that is under dispute.
You are the one that has gone further - postulating a range of reasons (not involving Islam) for this inconvenient (for you) fact. The onus is on you then to provide evidence to support your assertion that the reason for poor gender equality is for example; tribal culture, conservative mindsets, colonialism, war, corruption, resource stripping, poverty, poor educational and health facilities and infrastructure.
It is for you to provide that evidence - albeit I have provided my own evidence to demonstrate that there isn't anything like a clear correction between poor gender equality and poverty, being a fragile state etc as there is with being an Islamic society, defined as a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and having a poor record on gender equality.
-
Sriram,
Matthew 5:48
“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”
See here for more:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/gods_perfection
So...what does perfect mean? Either God alone would know or the people who wrote that sentence would have surmised based on their values at that time. It would surely have nothing to do with our present day ideas of consent or minor or whatever.....
-
Oh dear - further misrepresentation.
Ok so you are not claiming Islam is the cause of the gender inequality in the list on the Index of Gender Equality. Good to know.
Now as far as I am aware I have gone no further than this - my conclusion is that Islamic societies, defined as being members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have a disproportionately poor record on gender equality. I don't see that is under dispute.
I agree, if that is the conclusion you have reached.
-
VG,
I suggest you post an example of a modern literary criticism of a moral standard in a story to make it clear what you are getting at.
It’s hard to know whether you’re serious here – or perhaps you’re just not aware of the canon of writing about moral ideas and implications in literature from the ancient Greeks through to later fables, mediaeval morality plays, Elizabethan drama, the great 19th century novels and so on?
Here for example (from countless examples of the genre) is a short discussion from a philosophy site about the moral implications of line: “If God is dead, then everything is permitted” that Dostoevsky gives to Dmitri Karamazov in the novel The Brothers Karamazov.
https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/if-god-dead-why-isnt-everything-permitted
Note here that it’s quite possible to have discussions of this kind whether or not the characters in the story were real, without further “details” required, regardless of the intentions of the author, and without forensic-level information about the characters involved. It also wouldn't matter if Dostoevsky had made Dmitri a ghost by the way.
If you are asking for my opinion on whether it was ok for Mary to be pregnant in the society she was in, then my answer is yes. In the circumstances of that society, teenage pregnancy was normal.
I’m not.
If you are asking me what I think about teenagers being pregnant in Britain today, I would say my opinion is there are better options if you want to improve your education and earning power than taking time out to be pregnant and look after a baby. If the teenager was going to give the baby up for adoption, there is less disruption to becoming a cog in the capitalist system, but the pregnancy would still cause a disruption.
I am not sure if it's healthier for a teen to be pregnant than out binge-drinking, taking drugs and sleeping around but if any or all of those activities can be combined with being economically productive, I guess it would be her choice.
I’m not.
Not sure what your point is though.
Why not? Here it is again:
By modern Western standards, the character “god” of the Bible story as presented acted morally badly. The Bible also though describes the character god as morally perfect. This means either:
A. Modern Western moral standards are morally defective; or
B. The god of the Bible character isn’t morally perfect.
(For completeness both A and B could also be true, but that’s a different matter).
Just as you would feel able to comment on the moral implications of Karamazov’s question, the question therefore here was and remains which of A or B you opt for on the basis of the story as presented set against your understanding of current Western position(s) on such matters.
-
Sriram,
So...what does perfect mean? Either God alone would know or the people who wrote that sentence would have surmised based on their values at that time. It would surely have nothing to do with our present day ideas of consent or minor or whatever.....
Not my problem – ask a Christian perhaps?
The point here is that the Bible (that Christians deem to be true) tells us that the character “god” is morally perfect. What that has to do with modern positions on morality is that they conflict with what the story tells us this morally perfect god did. The question therefore is which one is morally better: the current Western standard for behaviour, or god’s behaviour?
-
I agree ...
I need to double check please VG - because last tie I thought you had answered a question you then claimed you hadn't after all.
So just to be clear.
Do you accept that Islamic societies, defined as being members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have a disproportionately poor record on gender equality?
Simple yes/no please VG
-
VG,
It’s hard to know whether you’re serious here – or perhaps you’re just not aware of the canon of writing about moral ideas and implications in literature from the ancient Greeks through to later fables, mediaeval morality plays, Elizabethan drama, the great 19th century novels and so on?
Here for example (from countless examples of the genre) is a short discussion from a philosophy site about the moral implications of line: “If God is dead, then everything is permitted” that Dostoevsky gives to Dmitri Karamazov in the novel The Brothers Karamazov.
https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/if-god-dead-why-isnt-everything-permitted
Note here that it’s quite possible to have discussions of this kind whether or not the characters in the story were real, without further “details” required, regardless of the intentions of the author, and without forensic-level information about the characters involved. It also wouldn't matter if Dostoevsky had made Dmitri a ghost by the way.
So you wanted a discussion like this one that you have linked to rather than a multiple choice answer even though you kept posing your question as a multiple choice, which made no sense.
By modern Western standards, the character “god” of the Bible story as presented acted morally badly. The Bible also though describes the character god as morally perfect. This means either:
A. Modern Western moral standards are morally defective; or
B. The god of the Bible character isn’t morally perfect.
(For completeness both A and B could also be true, but that’s a different matter).
Just as you would feel able to comment on the moral implications of Karamazov’s question, the question therefore here was and remains which of A or B you opt for on the basis of the story as presented set against your understanding of current Western position(s) on such matters.
Firstly, I already answered in #237 that the 2 options you have presented are not the only 2 options. You have now presented a 3rd option, which is both statements are true. There is a 4th option - both statements could be false. Because if God did not force Mary to be pregnant and she had a choice, then it is not immoral. I don't think the story shows Mary was forced or unduly influenced, whereas you do. We'll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of the word "will".
If it is based on Mary's age - we disagree on whether Mary was old enough to consent. I have no information from the story to say she was under-age. If she was under-age for that time, then yes I think her becoming pregnant is wrong. What constitutes under-age changes from country to country and time-period based on the available options at that time and the views of society. So some European countries it is lower than the UK e.g. Iceland it is 15 years, and in Germany it is 14 years.
I already discussed that in #237 that Option A does not work because there is not a single agreed Western standard of morality.
If your standard of morality refers to age but not to sexual acts, the BMA guidance shows that in the UK children can consent to medical procedures such as circumcision. You mentioned above that your question is not about a sexual act and mentioned the morality of a sperm pill that could make women pregnant. In your question you asked if it was ok to force a woman to take the pill. The obvious answer is no to using force. This is our point of disagreement - whether Mary was forced or coerced or had no choice.
The West disagrees on various standards of morality around consent, hence whether there was valid consent to an artificial pregnancy would probably be decided by a jury. Evidence of force or undue influence would need to be presented. So which standard are you referring to? Do you have a case you can link to?
We don't need to wait for a pill. A teen could be impregnated or impregnate herself with her consent at home with a home-kit bought at on Amazon. I have no idea what the Western standard of morality around allowing teens to buy these kits online or in the shops are and if there is a minimum age to buy and use them. And if an adult can be prosecuted for buying one for someone below that minimum age e.g. to use with someone else's sperm.
If the issue is that Mary's age invalidates consent to pregnancy, so consenting to administering a syringe to herself to get pregnant, I am not sure if this is a moral standard in the West. Do you have any information on this?
Are you suggesting that in the story if Mary had been 20 years old, her consent to the pregnancy is fine? Or was she still forced in your opinion?
Regarding Option B: The character God in the Bible story is not morally perfect.
No idea - I wouldn't claim to know what morally perfect is in order to judge.
But if you are asking me do I think the character God was wrong in the story - as I said above, my reading of the story is no force used and Mary was not under-age, so no.
-
I need to double check please VG - because last tie I thought you had answered a question you then claimed you hadn't after all.
So just to be clear.
Do you accept that Islamic societies, defined as being members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have a disproportionately poor record on gender equality?
Simple yes/no please VG
If you are defining Islamic societies as those countries that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), then I agree that members of OIC are also many of the countries listed in the bottom 30 of the what seems to be 155 countries rated in the Gender Equality Index.
Syria's membership of OIC was suspended in 2012 in response to the government’s violent suppression of the revolt in the country.
Many of the top 10 Failed States are also in the bottom 30 of the Gender Equality Index e.g. Yemen, Afghanistan, Chad, DR Congo, Syria
Some of the failed states don't make it on the Gender Equality Index e.g. South Sudan, Sudan, Central African Republic (not members of OIC) and Somalia and Sudan (members of OIC) are all not in the Gender Equality List.
Top 10 Failed States 2022:
Rank State
1 Yemen
2 Somalia
3 Syria
4 South Sudan
5 Central African Republic
6 DR Congo
7 Sudan
8 Afghanistan
9 Chad
10 Myanmar
Interesting correlation.
-
VG,
Firstly, I already answered in #237 that the 2 options you have presented are not the only 2 options.
No you didn’t – you deflected.
You have now presented a 3rd option, which is both statements are true.
That’s just a technical point in logic, and in any case it still gives you an immoral god so it doesn’t help you.
There is a 4th option - both statements could be false. Because if God did not force Mary to be pregnant and she had a choice, then it is not immoral. I don't think the story shows Mary was forced or unduly influenced, whereas you do. We'll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of the word "will".
If it is based on Mary's age - we disagree on whether Mary was old enough to consent. I have no information from the story to say she was under-age. If she was under-age for that time, then yes I think her becoming pregnant is wrong. What constitutes under-age changes from country to country and time-period based on the available options at that time and the views of society. So some European countries it is lower than the UK e.g. Iceland it is 15 years, and in Germany it is 14 years.
Bullshit. You’ve heard of Aesop’s fable of the hare and the tortoise I assume? If I asked you about its moral implications presumably you’d come up with “pride comes before a fall”, “slow and steady wins the race” or similar.
Here’s what you wouldn’t do though. You wouldn’t say something like “there’s nothing in the story to say the hare was forced to run so fast”, or “maybe the tortoise was a special racing tortoise – I don’t have enough details”, or “I don’t know what Aesop intended so I can’t comment” or any other of the endless prevarications and obfuscations you keep trying here. No, what you’d actually do would be to answer the question on the basis of the story in front of you as it’s presented.
It gets worse. The Bible story doesn’t refer to Mary’s age specifically, but we know from other sources what the mean age of someone in her circumstance would be. Now consider again Dmitri Karamazov, who for a while was a military officer. Dostoevsky doesn’t tell us much about his military experience, but at a Lit Crit seminar someone might well say, “well, he was in military service so in the heat of battle he’d likely have seen terrible things that would have made him question where god was in all that suffering, which informs his question later concerning…” etc. Can you see what’s happening here? For analytical purposes people take the “facts” made explicit in the story as published, and then make deductions about what those facts would also imply – and that includes the “facts” about 1st century Palestinian Mary being a recently engaged virgin servant girl. What those “facts” imply is a mean age around 12 – 14, which is all that’s needed for the thought experiment about whether the god character would behaved morally well by impregnating her. Note though that that still leaves you free to add a caveat along the lines of, "if however the Mary of the story was not typical of the archetype and was an an outlier of older age, then that criterion for non-consent would fall away and we'd be left to consider the other ones".
I already discussed that in #237 that Option A does not work because there is not a single agreed Western standard of morality.
If your standard of morality refers to age but not to sexual acts, the BMA guidance shows that in the UK children can consent to medical procedures such as circumcision. You mentioned above that your question is not about a sexual act and mentioned the morality of a sperm pill that could make women pregnant. In your question you asked if it was ok to force a woman to take the pill. The obvious answer is no to using force. This is our point of disagreement - whether Mary was forced or coerced or had no choice.
No I didn’t. As you keep disappearing down irrelevant rabbit holes (about there being no sexual act involved etc) I asked you whether in your view non-consensual (not forced) impregnation would therefore be ok. What if, say, the pill was slipped into your daughter’s drink without her knowledge such that she then became pregnant and caried the child to term? Would you be good with that – after all, no sex was involved right? Of course you wouldn’t. Why? Again, no consent.
The West disagrees on various standards of morality around consent, hence whether there was valid consent to an artificial pregnancy would probably be decided by a jury. Evidence of force or undue influence would need to be presented. So which standard are you referring to? Do you have a case you can link to?
You’re confusing forensics with ethics here. For acts done to or with another person “The West” agrees that valid consent is essential for moral good. Consent is agreed to be valid according to various criteria (that the Prof has already set out for you here): capacity, voluntariness, knowledge of and access to other options etc. The Bible story does not meet these criteria.
We don't need to wait for a pill. A teen could be impregnated or impregnate herself with her consent at home with a home-kit bought at on Amazon. I have no idea what the Western standard of morality around allowing teens to buy these kits online or in the shops are and if there is a minimum age to buy and use them. And if an adult can be prosecuted for buying one for someone below that minimum age e.g. to use with someone else's sperm.
And if someone else introduced the home kit without the teen’s consent? That’s the point remember?
If the issue is that Mary's age invalidates consent to pregnancy, so consenting to administering a syringe to herself to get pregnant, I am not sure if this is a moral standard in the West. Do you have any information on this?
Madness. If you want to go down a rabbit hole of whether an underage person can “consent” to do something to herself knock yourself out, but it’s got nothing to do with the issue here of “person” A doing something to person B.
Are you suggesting that in the story if Mary had been 20 years old, her consent to the pregnancy is fine? Or was she still forced in your opinion?
No. As I keep explaining to you, one (but only one) of the criteria that invalidates valid consent is a massively unequal power dynamic.
Regarding Option B: The character God in the Bible story is not morally perfect.
No idea - I wouldn't claim to know what morally perfect is in order to judge.
Whoosh! Have you really forgotten already that not knowing what “morally perfect” means has no relevance at all? All that matters is that we have one suite of standards broadly described as “modern Western” that set out criteria for valid consent, and then we have the behaviour of the character “god” in the Bible story that fails those criteria. That’s it. That’s all you need to know to take a view on which of the two you think to be morally better.
Simple right?
But if you are asking me do I think the character God was wrong in the story - as I said above, my reading of the story is no force used and Mary was not under-age, so no.
That’s called a non-sequitur. Non-valid consent (ie, acquiescence at best) does not have to entail force. It can simply for example involve a significantly asymmetric power dynamic. Try to remember this.
-
VG,
No you didn’t – you deflected.
That’s just a technical point in logic, and in any case it still gives you an immoral god so it doesn’t help you.
Bullshit. You’ve heard of Aesop’s fable of the hare and the tortoise I assume? If I asked you about its moral implications presumably you’d come up with “pride comes before a fall”, “slow and steady wins the race” or similar.
Here’s what you wouldn’t do though. You wouldn’t say something like “there’s nothing in the story to say the hare was forced to run so fast”, or “maybe the tortoise was a special racing tortoise – I don’t have enough details”, or “I don’t know what Aesop intended so I can’t comment” or any other of the endless prevarications and obfuscations you keep trying here. No, what you’d actually do would be to answer the question on the basis of the story in front of you as it’s presented.
It gets worse. The Bible story doesn’t refer to Mary’s age specifically, but we know from other sources what the mean age of someone in her circumstance would be. Now consider again Dmitri Karamazov, who for a while was a military officer. Dostoevsky doesn’t tell us much about his military experience, but at a Lit Crit seminar someone might well say, “well, he was in military service so in the heat of battle he’d likely have seen terrible things that would have made him question where god was in all that suffering, which informs his question later concerning…” etc. Can you see what’s happening here? For analytical purposes people take the “facts” made explicit in the story as published, and then make deductions about what those facts would also imply – and that includes the “facts” about 1st century Palestinian Mary being a recently engaged virgin servant girl. What those “facts” imply is a mean age around 12 – 14, which is all that’s needed for the thought experiment about whether the god character would behaved morally well by impregnating her. Note though that that still leaves you free to add a caveat along the lines of, "if however the Mary of the story was not typical of the archetype and was an an outlier of older age, then that criterion for non-consent would fall away and we'd be left to consider the other ones".
No I didn’t. As you keep disappearing down irrelevant rabbit holes (about there being no sexual act involved etc) I asked you whether in your view non-consensual (not forced) impregnation would therefore be ok. What if, say, the pill was slipped into your daughter’s drink without her knowledge such that she then became pregnant and caried the child to term? Would you be good with that – after all, no sex was involved right? Of course you wouldn’t. Why? Again, no consent.
You’re confusing forensics with ethics here. For acts done to or with another person “The West” agrees that valid consent is essential for moral good. Consent is agreed to be valid according to various criteria (that the Prof has already set out for you here): capacity, voluntariness, knowledge of and access to other options etc. The Bible story does not meet these criteria.
And if someone else introduced the home kit without the teen’s consent? That’s the point remember?
Madness. If you want to go down a rabbit hole of whether an underage person can “consent” to do something to herself knock yourself out, but it’s got nothing to do with the issue here of “person” A doing something to person B.
No. As I keep explaining to you, one (but only one) of the criteria that invalidates valid consent is a massively unequal power dynamic.
Whoosh! Have you really forgotten already that not knowing what “morally perfect” means has no relevance at all? All that matters is that we have one suite of standards broadly described as “modern Western” that set out criteria for valid consent, and then we have the behaviour of the character “god” in the Bible story that fails those criteria. That’s it. That’s all you need to know to take a view on which of the two you think to be morally better.
Simple right?
That’s called a non-sequitur. Non-valid consent (ie, acquiescence at best) does not have to entail force. It can simply for example involve a significantly asymmetric power dynamic. Try to remember this.
There are competing sociologies describing consent, betrothal and marriage in 1st century Palestine, there is no physical contact here let alone sexual contact in fact the nearest thing which describes this is a parthenogenesis. Marriage is subsequent to a betrothal by a year so as you have been told Mary could have reached modern
majority by her marriage. We don't know. Your settling on an average does not fly in law and would set quite a dangerous precedent. So your arguments are firmly in ''what if'' territory
God it must be remembered deals with morally imperfect people in a fallen world comprising more often than not of greater of lesser evils evils and unseen consequences for any decision.
If you believe in the moral zeitgeist as the final arbiter of morality as you seem to then i'm afraid that any statement you make may be taken down and used in evidence against you when the moral zeitgeist has moved on.
-
For analytical purposes people take the “facts” made explicit in the story as published, and then make deductions about what those facts would also imply – and that includes the “facts” about 1st century Palestinian Mary being a recently engaged virgin servant girl. What those “facts” imply is a mean age around 12 – 14, which is all that’s needed for the thought experiment about whether the god character would behaved morally well by impregnating her. Note though that that still leaves you free to add a caveat along the lines of, "if however the Mary of the story was not typical of the archetype and was an an outlier of older age, then that criterion for non-consent would fall away and we'd be left to consider the other ones".
See above - I said if she was under-age for the time the story was set then it would have been wrong for her to be impregnated.
No I didn’t. As you keep disappearing down irrelevant rabbit holes (about there being no sexual act involved etc) I asked you whether in your view non-consensual (not forced) impregnation would therefore be ok. What if, say, the pill was slipped into your daughter’s drink without her knowledge such that she then became pregnant and caried the child to term? Would you be good with that – after all, no sex was involved right? Of course you wouldn’t. Why? Again, no consent.
See above - I said we disagreed on the word "will" in the story. You read it as Mary not having a choice to say no, I don't read it that way.
You’re confusing forensics with ethics here. For acts done to or with another person “The West” agrees that valid consent is essential for moral good. Consent is agreed to be valid according to various criteria (that the Prof has already set out for you here): capacity, voluntariness, knowledge of and access to other options etc. The Bible story does not meet these criteria.
Disagree for reasons already given about the interpretation of the word "will" and Mary not being under-age for the time period, Mary had capacity to say no and other options as considering yourself a servant of God is a voluntary choice and does not mean you have to obey God - you're not a robot and theists who consider themselves servants of God break rules all the time, including teenage theists now and centuries ago in Palestine.
And if someone else introduced the home kit without the teen’s consent? That’s the point remember?
Covered above - I read it that Mary had a choice whether to go along with God's plan.
No. As I keep explaining to you, one (but only one) of the criteria that invalidates valid consent is a massively unequal power dynamic.
And I keep explaining to you people who consider themselves servants of God don't do what they think God would like them to do. It happens a lot, including amongst teens.
Whoosh! Have you really forgotten already that not knowing what “morally perfect” means has no relevance at all? All that matters is that we have one suite of standards broadly described as “modern Western” that set out criteria for valid consent, and then we have the behaviour of the character “god” in the Bible story that fails those criteria. That’s it. That’s all you need to know to take a view on which of the two you think to be morally better.
See above - don't agree that the god character fails the criteria for valid consent for reasons given,
That’s called a non-sequitur. Non-valid consent (ie, acquiescence at best) does not have to entail force. It can simply for example involve a significantly asymmetric power dynamic. Try to remember this.
Try to remember that I keep explaining to you that people who consider themselves servants of God don't do what they think God would like them to do. It happens a lot, including amongst teens. So not much asymmetric power dynamic going on if you can just ignore what you think God wants and do what you want instead.
-
Vlad,
There are competing sociologies describing consent, betrothal and marriage in 1st century Palestine,…
Relevance?
…there is no physical contact here let alone sexual contact in fact the nearest thing which describes this is a parthenogenesis.
Relevance? If someone invented a pregnancy pill and slipped it into your daughter’s drink without her knowledge such that she then became pregnant you’d be ok with that then would you, what with there being “no physical contact here let alone sexual contact” and all?
Marriage is subsequent to a betrothal by a year so as you have been told Mary could have reached modern
majority by her marriage. We don't know.
The Mary character in the story could have been anything. That’s not the point though. The point is that, on the basis of what the story says and of the reasonable deductions that leads to, it was probably the case that the story concerns a Mary who was underage by current standards. That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.
Your settling on an average does not fly in law and would set quite a dangerous precedent. So your arguments are firmly in ''what if'' territory
We‘re talking about morality here not legal standards, and Lit Crit generally is in “what if” territory.
God it must be remembered deals with morally imperfect people in a fallen world comprising more often than not of greater of lesser evils evils and unseen consequences for any decision.
And your point would be?
If you believe in the moral zeitgeist as the final arbiter of morality as you seem to then i'm afraid that any statement you make may be taken down and used in evidence against you when the moral zeitgeist has moved on.
As the king of the straw man I guess it’s fitting that you end the year with one of your most epic. Any post I’ve ever made about morality has said the precise opposite of my believing "in the moral zeitgeist as the final arbiter of morality”.
Happy Christmas.
-
BHS
Even in terms of literary criticism, I find your comparison of Mary to a 14 year old today extremely odd, especially the comparison to a 14 year old who is being seduced by her headmaster or slipped a pregnancy pill.
It's like reading about teenage military leaders such as Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great or Muhammad Bin Qasim, and comparing them to children being recruited by county lines drug gangs today and asking if our morals today are better because we don't let children join gangs .
If a literary critic started wondering whether Joan of Arc was capable of consenting to going to war under today's standards, and claiming today's morality is superior, my response would be: "who cares whether teenagers such as Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great would have been allowed to go to war under today's moral standards. The days of teenagers raising armies, fighting in battles and conquering people have long gone so that kind of activity would be frowned upon now. But when they did it, it seems quite remarkable."
The Bible story is not about any random teenager but about a specific individual, Mary, who is considered exceptional. In the story Mary is being told about an important cause or future event and asked to play an important part. Being pregnant seems less risky and arduous than going to war, and it isn't problematic for me that despite being under-age by today's standards, people in the distant past were willing to endanger their lives for important causes.
Actually, even relatively recently teens have been willing to risk their lives for a cause: https://listverse.com/2017/06/13/top-10-remarkable-teenagers-of-world-war-ii/.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2499832/Sidney-Lewis-Youngest-WW1-soldier-fought-Somme-aged-13.html
In the Bible story, there seems very little similarity between Mary and a vapid snowflake 14 year old today, whose ambitions probably run to earning likes on social media and becoming an influencer. You kept characterising Mary as some strange combination of a meek Palestinian servant girl and an average 14 year old today. I didn't make that same assumption when I read the story - I thought the story was conveying that Mary was an exceptional young woman.
-
Vlad,
Relevance? If someone invented a pregnancy pill and slipped it into your daughter’s drink without her knowledge such that she then became pregnant you’d be ok with that then would you, what with there being “no physical contact here let alone sexual contact” and all?
Sending the archangel Gabriel is hardly the equivalent slipping a pill unbeknownst to a person. That must put you in the running for the worst analogy of 2023 even if it still is 2022.
Happy Christmas.
-
Happy Christmas everyone!
I guess everyone is convinced that religions have indeed succeeded which is why the discussion has digressed into an elaborate one about consent and such other.... :)
-
Happy Christmas everyone!
I guess everyone is convinced that religions have indeed succeeded which is why the discussion has digressed into an elaborate one about consent and such other.... :)
I guess you really shouldn't speak for anyone but yourself.
-
VG,
See above - I said if she was under-age for the time the story was set then it would have been wrong for her to be impregnated.
That’s not the point. The point is that if she’d be underage by current standards then either current standards are wrong, or the god character was wrong.
See above - I said we disagreed on the word "will" in the story. You read it as Mary not having a choice to say no, I don't read it that way.
Well, it’s hard to read much ambiguity into “will”, but again that’s not the point. You essayed an alibi of no sexual contact being involved, and I merely gave you an analogous example (the pill slipped into a drink) to show you that the sexual act part isn’t key – the non-consensual impregnation (by whatever means) part is.
Disagree for reasons already given about the interpretation of the word "will" and Mary not being under-age for the time period, Mary had capacity to say no and other options as considering yourself a servant of God is a voluntary choice and does not mean you have to obey God - you're not a robot and theists who consider themselves servants of God break rules all the time, including teenage theists now and centuries ago in Palestine.
Gee whizz. Look, on the basis of deduction made from what the story does tell us, underage by current standards is probabilistically the case. If the Mary character was an outlier probabilistically though, then the underage component of Mary’s non-consent - but only that component of Mary’s non-consent – would fall away. You’d still though have the epic power relationship differential to deal with that, even on its own, would make valid consent by current standards impossible.
Covered above - I read it that Mary had a choice whether to go along with God's plan.
Hardly, but in any case the “pregnancy pill” thought experiment was just to demolish your notion that a non-sexual act aspect of impregnation would get the god character off the hook.
It doesn’t. Not one bit.
And I keep explaining to you people who consider themselves servants of God don't do what they think God would like them to do. It happens a lot, including amongst teens.
You’re still not getting it. It’s the mere fact of the massive power differential that’s enough to make impossible valid consent, no matter what speculations you might make about how the Mary character may have responded to it.
See above - don't agree that the god character fails the criteria for valid consent for reasons given,
See above for why you’re wrong about that.
Try to remember that I keep explaining to you that people who consider themselves servants of God don't do what they think God would like them to do. It happens a lot, including amongst teens. So not much asymmetric power dynamic going on if you can just ignore what you think God wants and do what you want instead.
Oh dear. The story has an all-powerful, universe-creating god on one side and a (likely) underage 1st century Palestinian servant girl on the other. That’s the mother of all asymmetric power relationships. That alone is enough to make valid consent impossible by current standards, no matter what guesses you want to make about what the Mary character may have thought about that.
-
VG,
Even in terms of literary criticism, I find your comparison of Mary to a 14 year old today extremely odd, especially the comparison to a 14 year old who is being seduced by her headmaster or slipped a pregnancy pill.
It's like reading about teenage military leaders such as Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great or Muhammad Bin Qasim, and comparing them to children being recruited by county lines drug gangs today and asking if our morals today are better because we don't let children join gangs .
If a literary critic started wondering whether Joan of Arc was capable of consenting to going to war under today's standards, and claiming today's morality is superior, my response would be: "who cares whether teenagers such as Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great would have been allowed to go to war under today's moral standards. The days of teenagers raising armies, fighting in battles and conquering people have long gone so that kind of activity would be frowned upon now. But when they did it, it seems quite remarkable."
It’s as if I’d made the same argument several times and yet you still haven’t understood a word of it. Yet again then…
…the comparison ISN’T between the character Mary in the story and a 14-year-old today. It’s between the supposedly morally good behaviour of the character “god” as described in the story and the how we’d view that god's behaviour with modern sensibilities.
Please try to understand this. I’m not sure I can explain it to you any more clearly.
The Bible story is not about any random teenager but about a specific individual, Mary, who is considered exceptional. In the story Mary is being told about an important cause or future event and asked to play an important part. Being pregnant seems less risky and arduous than going to war, and it isn't problematic for me that despite being under-age by today's standards, people in the distant past were willing to endanger their lives for important causes.
Actually, even relatively recently teens have been willing to risk their lives for a cause: https://listverse.com/2017/06/13/top-10-remarkable-teenagers-of-world-war-ii/.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2499832/Sidney-Lewis-Youngest-WW1-soldier-fought-Somme-aged-13.html
Whoosh! Seriously though?
Again... it’s quite possible that the Mary of the story behaved in a way that she believed to be morally good. After all, and all-powerful and all-knowing god had told her what would happen to her, so who was she to disobey right?
All good so far? OK then…
...the POINT though isn’t Mary’s actions – it’s the decision of the supposedly morally perfect god character to behave in a way that meant that, by current standards, Mary could not have given valid consent.
In the Bible story, there seems very little similarity between Mary and a vapid snowflake 14 year old today, whose ambitions probably run to earning likes on social media and becoming an influencer. You kept characterising Mary as some strange combination of a meek Palestinian servant girl and an average 14 year old today. I didn't make that same assumption when I read the story - I thought the story was conveying that Mary was an exceptional young woman.
Groan…
-
BHS
You haven't made an argument. You have repeatedly made various assertions. Instead of you repeatedly asserting that valid consent is impossible, why don't you demonstrate this with an example of a modern day case, where someone who isn't underage consented to doing something legal, and the courts found there wasn't valid consent because of a power differential.
-
VG,
That’s not the point. The point is that if she’d be underage by current standards then either current standards are wrong, or the god character was wrong.
Well, it’s hard to read much ambiguity into “will”, but again that’s not the point. You essayed an alibi of no sexual contact being involved, and I merely gave you an analogous example (the pill slipped into a drink) to show you that the sexual act part isn’t key – the non-consensual impregnation (by whatever means) part is.
Gee whizz. Look, on the basis of deduction made from what the story does tell us, underage by current standards is probabilistically the case. If the Mary character was an outlier probabilistically though, then the underage component of Mary’s non-consent - but only that component of Mary’s non-consent – would fall away. You’d still though have the epic power relationship differential to deal with that, even on its own, would make valid consent by current standards impossible.
Hardly, but in any case the “pregnancy pill” thought experiment was just to demolish your notion that a non-sexual act aspect of impregnation would get the god character off the hook.
It doesn’t. Not one bit.
You’re still not getting it. It’s the mere fact of the massive power differential that’s enough to make impossible valid consent, no matter what speculations you might make about how the Mary character may have responded to it.
See above for why you’re wrong about that.
Oh dear. The story has an all-powerful, universe-creating god on one side and a (likely) underage 1st century Palestinian servant girl on the other. That’s the mother of all asymmetric power relationships. That alone is enough to make valid consent impossible by current standards, no matter what guesses you want to make about what the Mary character may have thought about that.
A lot of if in your argument Hillside.
-
Vlad,
Sending the archangel Gabriel is hardly the equivalent slipping a pill unbeknownst to a person. That must put you in the running for the worst analogy of 2023 even if it still is 2022.
You’re using the “pill rebuttal” of one bad argument (“but there was no sex involved, therefore impregnation fine”) in relation to the different bad argument “but god sent an angel first to tell Mary what would happen to her, so all fine” as if the Headmaster sending the PE teacher to tell the pupil that she’d be impregnated by the Headmaster made it ok when it happened.
Bad idea.
A lot of if in your argument Hillside.
Not really, and in any case that’s how Lit Crit and thought experiments work.
-
VG,
You haven't made an argument.
You’re still not getting it. I don’t have to make an argument for a sufficiently asymmetric power relationship making valid consent impossible. I don’t even have to agree with that proposition. All I have to show is that that’s what contemporary Western ethics says. Here for example:
“Consent cannot be given by individuals who are underage, intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or asleep or unconscious. If someone agrees to an activity under pressure of intimidation or threat, that isn’t considered consent because it was not given freely. Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee or student, also mean that consent cannot be freely given” (emphasis added).
https://www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent
Broadly incidentally unequal power dynamics like this fall under the heading “structural coercion” – essentially the decisions of the actors are considered a second order issue to the structural context in which they are made. Just as the schoolgirl in the headmaster case might protest “but I really love him and want his child”, it’s the headmaster/pupil power dynamic that invalidates her "consent" nonetheless.
You have repeatedly made various assertions. Instead of you repeatedly asserting that valid consent is impossible, why don't you demonstrate this with an example of a modern day case, where someone who isn't underage consented to doing something legal, and the courts found there wasn't valid consent because of a power differential.
And the confusion continues…
… you’re conflating (again) ethics and morality with legal proceedings. To go back to our pupil/headmaster case, if the pupil was underage then the headmaster would be fired and prosecuted for having sex with a minor. If she was over the age of consent though he’d still be fired for behaving unethically (and likely in breach of contract), he wouldn’t be prosecuted because there’s no law against it.
-
Vlad,
You’re using the “pill rebuttal” of one bad argument (“but there was no sex involved, therefore impregnation fine”) in relation to the different bad argument “but god sent an angel first to tell Mary what would happen to her, so all fine” as if the Headmaster sending the PE teacher to tell the pupil that she’d be impregnated by the Headmaster made it ok when it happened.
Bad idea.
Not really, and in any case that’s how Lit Crit and thought experiments work.
Your analogy remains a bad one, analogising a furtive drink spiker with someone sending the singing telegram to end all singing telegrams. Your post ignores verse 38 where Mary gives consent.
-
VG,
That’s not the point. The point is that if she’d be underage by current standards then either current standards are wrong, or the god character was wrong.
Whoosh! It's as if you haven't read a single word I've been saying. Your attempt at 'either or' is wrong. The option you keep missing is that both standards could be right for the time and circumstances in which they were adopted. Currently UK society's preference is 16 so that is right for now. In 5 years time, depending on the situation, UK society might prefer the standard to be 14 yrs like Germany is currently or 18 years like Saudi is currently, so either of those would be the right standard for 5 years time.
In the time the story is set, we assume the standard was right for that society. What is morally right can change according to the situation and circumstances. I don't know why you are finding it hard to grasp this.
Well, it’s hard to read much ambiguity into “will”, but again that’s not the point.
No it's easy because language is ambiguous and the meaning changes depending on the context in which a word is used. Mary's response of saying 'let it happen' can be read as permission or consent.
Have you noticed there is a transgender debate going on, where there is lots of ambiguity about the word "woman" and that is a noun. The verb "will" is more ambiguous than a noun. Despite being repeatedly asked you have yet to show how using the verb "will" to indicate a future event, means the God character cannot change the course of the future if Mary does not want to become pregnant. Some women on becoming pregnant may decide to terminate the pregnancy, but the story does not give any indication that Mary considered doing this.
Your argument seems to be to assert that Mary did not have the capacity to consent to any action she thought would serve God because any decisions, actions, behaviour by theists based on their belief in the concept of an omnipresent, omnipotent etc supernatural entity is evidence of theists being either unduly influenced or are in a coercively controlling relationship with God. You can certainly assert that all theists are being unduly influenced or in coercively controlled relationships with God, but as yet that characterisation of theist belief has not been adopted as a current moral value by Western society. In any court case on consent, the CPS would have to present evidence or testimony to demonstrate lack of valid consent - without evidence of undue influence or coercion, people in authority do not automatically assume there is not valid consent. So when you keep referring to the current modern Western standard of morality, what is that you think you are referring to that you think would apply in the story of Mary and God?
Are there any statements by Mary in the story indicating she did not want to take part in the pregnancy but did so because she was not brave enough to say no to God?
You have made an assumption about gods ruling theists through fear or undue influence, yet the reality is that there are so many theists that do not obey the rules of their gods. So is there anything actually attributed to the Mary character in the story to indicate she agreed to the pregnancy out of fear or was unduly influenced?
Gee whizz. Look, on the basis of deduction made from what the story does tell us, underage by current standards is probabilistically the case. If the Mary character was an outlier probabilistically though, then the underage component of Mary’s non-consent - but only that component of Mary’s non-consent – would fall away. You’d still though have the epic power relationship differential to deal with that, even on its own, would make valid consent by current standards impossible.
Only if it can be demonstrated that a person consented out of fear or from coercion.
You’re still not getting it. It’s the mere fact of the massive power differential that’s enough to make impossible valid consent, no matter what speculations you might make about how the Mary character may have responded to it.
You will be demonstrating evidence that modern Western society has adopted this as a moral belief I assume?
Oh dear. The story has an all-powerful, universe-creating god on one side and a (likely) underage 1st century Palestinian servant girl on the other. That’s the mother of all asymmetric power relationships. That alone is enough to make valid consent impossible by current standards, no matter what guesses you want to make about what the Mary character may have thought about that.
I assume that you will be providing evidence that this is what British juries have decided about consent in court cases rather than just asserting it?
-
VG,
You’re still not getting it. I don’t have to make an argument for a sufficiently asymmetric power relationship making valid consent impossible. I don’t even have to agree with that proposition. All I have to show is that that’s what contemporary Western ethics says. Here for example:
“Consent cannot be given by individuals who are underage, intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or asleep or unconscious. If someone agrees to an activity under pressure of intimidation or threat, that isn’t considered consent because it was not given freely. Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee or student, also mean that consent cannot be freely given” (emphasis added).
https://www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent
Broadly incidentally unequal power dynamics like this fall under the heading “structural coercion” – essentially the decisions of the actors are considered a second order issue to the structural context in which they are made. Just as the schoolgirl in the headmaster case might protest “but I really love him and want his child”, it’s the headmaster/pupil power dynamic that invalidates her "consent" nonetheless.
And the confusion continues…
… you’re conflating (again) ethics and morality with legal proceedings. To go back to our pupil/headmaster case, if the pupil was underage then the headmaster would be fired and prosecuted for having sex with a minor. If she was over the age of consent though he’d still be fired for behaving unethically (and likely in breach of contract), he wouldn’t be prosecuted because there’s no law against it.
You have linked to an article that asserts that where a person has sex with an employee there would not be valid consent. You are also bringing up sexual relations between a headmaster and an over-age pupil. In the story about Mary, there is not a sexual relationship so do you have any evidence of any other act, other than sex, where consent is invalidated by the person being an employee or pupil , in the absence of any actual evidence of coercion or undue influence in the relationship?
Even if we do look at sexual acts, and even if you want to assert that a theist's relationship with God is similar to an employer/ employee relationship, do you have any evidence that in the absence of a complaint by an employee or any evidence of coercion, that modern society considers that consent is automatically invalidated in any sexual activity with an employee?
-
Vlad,
Your analogy remains a bad one, analogising a furtive drink spiker with someone sending the singing telegram to end all singing telegrams.
See my last reply for where you’ve gone wrong about this.
Again: the “furtive drink spiker” was just in relation to your (frankly bizarre) notion that, if no sex is involved, then the impregnation part is fine. I just explained to you with a thought experiment that non-sexual impregnation (ie, the drink spiker) wouldn’t make the impregnation fine at all. Not even close.
As for sending the envoy to tell the Mary character what would happen to her, that’s a different matter entirely and in any case would no more make it ok than the headmaster sending the PE teacher along first to tell the pupil that the headmaster will father her child.
Your post ignores verse 38 where Mary gives consent
Yes, because that was long since addressed and dispensed with. If the pupil said, “but I wanted to carry his child” would that get the headmaster off the hook in your view? Why not?
-
VG,
Whoosh! It's as if you haven't read a single word I've been saying.
Is it your playtime already?
Your attempt at 'either or' is wrong. The option you keep missing is that both standards could be right for the time and circumstances in which they were adopted. Currently UK society's preference is 16 so that is right for now. In 5 years time, depending on the situation, UK society might prefer the standard to be 14 yrs like Germany is currently or 18 years like Saudi is currently, so either of those would be the right standard for 5 years time.
In the time the story is set, we assume the standard was right for that society. What is morally right can change according to the situation and circumstances. I don't know why you are finding it hard to grasp this.
FFS. No I don’t. I don’t “keep missing” that at all. In fact I agree with it: the moral standards of 1st century Palestine felt right to them, and the moral standards of the 21st century West especially feel right to us.
Please tell me that you can see that I acknowledge this, and have done so throughout?
OK, good. Once again: THAT’S NOT THE BLOODY POINT THOUGH!!!
The point isn’t about a comparison of two different time- and place-specific moral positions at all; it’s about a comparison between one time-and place-specific moral position (ours) AND THE ACTIONS OF A MORALLY PERFECT GOD CHARACTER.
Please though. Seriously. I can’t be expected to correct you on this again. This is a plainly as I can explain the point to you – if you fail to grasp it again, I just can’t help you.
No it's easy because language is ambiguous and the meaning changes depending on the context in which a word is used. Mary's response of saying 'let it happen' can be read as permission or consent.
No, that kind of linguistic relativism just make any discussion of texts impossible. You’re special pleading “will” possibly to mean “might” or some such with no rationale to support you (eg other texts when “will” didn’t mean will) and if you want to go down that road nonetheless I could equally say the same of any other word whose implications I happened not to like. ““God knows everything” you say? Well maybe “everything” could really mean “nothing”, therefore…” etc.
Have you noticed there is a transgender debate going on, where there is lots of ambiguity about the word "woman" and that is a noun. The verb "will" is more ambiguous than a noun. Despite being repeatedly asked you have yet to show how using the verb "will" to indicate a future event, means the God character cannot change the course of the future if Mary does not want to become pregnant. Some women on becoming pregnant may decide to terminate the pregnancy, but the story does not give any indication that Mary considered doing this.
See above. Have you noticed that there are very few debates about the ambiguity between “banana” and “breeze block”? You can’t just select one example of terminological debate and retro-fit that phenomenon to any other term because it suits you to do so. If you want to claim that the “will” in the story doesn’t really mean “will” after all, then you need to make an argument for that on its own terms – perhaps with reference to later texts when the meaning changed. Your problem here though is that there aren’t any.
Your argument seems to be to assert that Mary did not have the capacity to consent to any action she thought would serve God because any decisions, actions, behaviour by theists based on their belief in the concept of an omnipresent, omnipotent etc supernatural entity is evidence of theists being either unduly influenced or are in a coercively controlling relationship with God. You can certainly assert that all theists are being unduly influenced or in coercively controlled relationships with God, but as yet that characterisation of theist belief has not been adopted as a current moral value by Western society. In any court case on consent, the CPS would have to present evidence or testimony to demonstrate lack of valid consent - without evidence of undue influence or coercion, people in authority do not automatically assume there is not valid consent. So when you keep referring to the current modern Western standard of morality, what is that you think you are referring to that you think would apply in the story of Mary and God?
It's not my argument – it’s what the ethical guidelines say, and moreover it has nothing to do with “theists being unduly influenced”. The current standards is that consent can't be valid when the power difference between the actors is sufficiently great to invalidate it necessarily. Examples given are teacher/pupil, employer/employee though the power differential between the actors in the Bible story are of course unfathomably greater than those.
Are there any statements by Mary in the story indicating she did not want to take part in the pregnancy but did so because she was not brave enough to say no to God?
Irrelevant - see above.
You have made an assumption about gods ruling theists through fear or undue influence, yet the reality is that there are so many theists that do not obey the rules of their gods. So is there anything actually attributed to the Mary character in the story to indicate she agreed to the pregnancy out of fear or was unduly influenced?
No I haven’t – I’ve just told you (with a link) what the current standard is concerning the impossibility of valid consent in some structural contexts. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Please try to grasp this – I can’t keep saying it over and over in the hope it finally sinks in.
Only if it can be demonstrated that a person consented out of fear or from coercion.
AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!
You will be demonstrating evidence that modern Western society has adopted this as a moral belief I assume?
Yes. You can look it up for yourself too though.
I assume that you will be providing evidence that this is what British juries have decided about consent in court cases rather than just asserting it?
No, because the moral Zeitgeist has fuck all to do with what British juries have decided. How many times do I have to explain to you the difference between moral standards and forensics? Really though...
You have linked to an article that asserts that where a person has sex with an employee there would not be valid consent. You are also bringing up sexual relations between a headmaster and an over-age pupil. In the story about Mary, there is not a sexual relationship so do you have any evidence of any other act, other than sex, where consent is invalidated by the person being an employee or pupil , in the absence of any actual evidence of coercion or undue influence in the relationship?
I did wonder whether you’d make that mistake, and sure enough as night follows day you went straight down the rabbit hole. No, I don’t have examples of ethics guidelines that deal with supernatural impregnation. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be:
A. Because supernatural impregnation is fine no matter the context so there’s no need for guidelines that set out circumstances in which it’s not fine; or
B. Because supernatural impregnation isn’t a thing?
Gee whizz – its genuinely hard to tell when you post something like this whether you’re trolling or just not thinking. Are you seriously suggesting that, if ever supernatural impregnation did become a thing, the guideline wouldn’t be amended to include both types?
Even if we do look at sexual acts, and even if you want to assert that a theist's relationship with God is similar to an employer/ employee relationship, do you have any evidence that in the absence of a complaint by an employee or any evidence of coercion, that modern society considers that consent is automatically invalidated in any sexual activity with an employee?
Yes - read the guidelines I linked to. If you don’t like those ones, there are plenty of others online too. Try reading up on structural coercion too. Again, it’s the fact of the context that nullifies the possibility of valid consent, not the decisions and actions of the individuals involved.
-
Vlad,
See my last reply for where you’ve gone wrong about this.
Again: the “furtive drink spiker” was just in relation to your (frankly bizarre) notion that, if no sex is involved, then the impregnation part is fine. I just explained to you with a thought experiment that non-sexual impregnation (ie, the drink spiker) wouldn’t make the impregnation fine at all. Not even close.
As for sending the envoy to tell the Mary character what would happen to her, that’s a different matter entirely and in any case would no more make it ok than the headmaster sending the PE teacher along first to tell the pupil that the headmaster will father her child.
Yes, because that was long since addressed and dispensed with. If the pupil said, “but I wanted to carry his child” would that get the headmaster off the hook in your view? Why not?
You have yet to show minority. The text shows maturity.
You have yet to demonstrate invalid consent due to power relationship.
Violent Gabriella clearly has the march on your continual piss poor analogies.
I don't think you can avoid legal aspects or that moral zeitgeist drives western morality.
-
Vlad,
ou have yet to show minority.
No I don’t. I just have to deduce it from the context, and even if the deduction is “wrong” the other grounds for non-consent remain.
The text shows maturity.
Where?
You have yet to demonstrate invalid consent due to power relationship.
Not true. By current ethical standards valid consent would have been impossible.
Violent Gabriella clearly has the march on your continual piss poor analogies.
Very funny.
I don't think you can avoid legal aspects...
Wrong again. Being unfaithful to your spouse for example is generally considered immoral, but there’s no law against it.
...or that moral zeitgeist drives western morality
What?
-
VG,
Is it your playtime already?
It seems my playtime coincides with your playtime. What a coincidence. Isn't it time for your milk-break?
FFS. No I don’t. I don’t “keep missing” that at all. In fact I agree with it: the moral standards of 1st century Palestine felt right to them, and the moral standards of the 21st century West especially feel right to us.
Please tell me that you can see that I acknowledge this, and have done so throughout?
OK, good. Once again: THAT’S NOT THE BLOODY POINT THOUGH!!!
The point isn’t about a comparison of two different time- and place-specific moral positions at all; it’s about a comparison between one time-and place-specific moral position (ours) AND THE ACTIONS OF A MORALLY PERFECT GOD CHARACTER.
Please though. Seriously. I can’t be expected to correct you on this again. This is a plainly as I can explain the point to you – if you fail to grasp it again, I just can’t help you.
Again, as I have said before, not seeing the problem with what the God character did. No matter how many times you explain it, we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the God character's morals were wrong.
No, that kind of linguistic relativism just make any discussion of texts impossible. You’re special pleading “will” possibly to mean “might” or some such with no rationale to support you (eg other texts when “will” didn’t mean will) and if you want to go down that road nonetheless I could equally say the same of any other word whose implications I happened not to like. ““God knows everything” you say? Well maybe “everything” could really mean “nothing”, therefore…” etc.
If you find discussion impossible because other people do not interpret language the same way you do, I guess that means you are going to find some discussions on here are going to be impossible for you.
See above. Have you noticed that there are very few debates about the ambiguity between “banana” and “breeze block”? You can’t just select one example of terminological debate and retro-fit that phenomenon to any other term because it suits you to do so. If you want to claim that the “will” in the story doesn’t really mean “will” after all, then you need to make an argument for that on its own terms – perhaps with reference to later texts when the meaning changed. Your problem here though is that there aren’t any.
You are the person making the claim that "will" can only mean the God character is unable or unwilling to change course. You're welcome to assert that but why not support it with evidence?
It's not my argument – it’s what the ethical guidelines say, and moreover it has nothing to do with “theists being unduly influenced”. The current standards is that consent can't be valid when the power difference between the actors is sufficiently great to invalidate it necessarily. Examples given are teacher/pupil, employer/employee though the power differential between the actors in the Bible story are of course unfathomably greater than those.
You were going to provide evidence that an employer cannot have a relationship with an employee because consent will always automatically be invalid.
No I haven’t – I’ve just told you (with a link) what the current standard is concerning the impossibility of valid consent in some structural contexts. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Please try to grasp this – I can’t keep saying it over and over in the hope it finally sinks in.
One link to an organisation making an assertion on the internet is not convincing evidence. Do you have any evidence of an actual moral consensus relating to a sexual or non-sexual act where consent is not valid because of an employer- employee relationship? And I am not talking about supernatural pregnancies. I just said a non-sexual act.
Yes. You can look it up for yourself too though.
It's your argument that an employer-employee sexual or non-sexual relationship is automatically structural coercion - it's up to you to provide the evidence that this is the current Western moral standard. No point telling me to look it up - why would I?
No, because the moral Zeitgeist has fuck all to do with what British juries have decided. How many times do I have to explain to you the difference between moral standards and forensics? Really though...
You need to provide evidence of what the moral zeitgeist is. One link to someone else's assertion isn't evidence of a modern Western moral zeitgeist on structural coercion.
I did wonder whether you’d make that mistake, and sure enough as night follows day you went straight down the rabbit hole. No, I don’t have examples of ethics guidelines that deal with supernatural impregnation. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be:
A. Because supernatural impregnation is fine no matter the context so there’s no need for guidelines that set out circumstances in which it’s not fine; or
B. Because supernatural impregnation isn’t a thing?
Gee whizz – its genuinely hard to tell when you post something like this whether you’re trolling or just not thinking. Are you seriously suggesting that, if ever supernatural impregnation did become a thing, the guideline wouldn’t be amended to include both types?
I did not mention supernatural pregnancies.
Yes - read the guidelines I linked to. If you don’t like those ones, there are plenty of others online too. Try reading up on structural coercion too. Again, it’s the fact of the context that nullifies the possibility of valid consent, not the decisions and actions of the individuals involved.
I did read your link. It contained an unevidenced assertion about consent in the case of a sexual relationship with an employee. Posting someone else's unevidenced assertion about having sex with an employee is no different to posting your own unevidenced assertion. Do you have any actual evidence of a moral consensus on structural coercion whereby consent is invalidated in a sexual relationship between employer and employee?
-
FFS. No I don’t. I don’t “keep missing” that at all. In fact I agree with it: the moral standards of 1st century Palestine felt right to them, and the moral standards of the 21st century West especially feel right to us.
Please tell me that you can see that I acknowledge this, and have done so throughout?
OK, good. Once again: THAT’S NOT THE BLOODY POINT THOUGH!!!
The point isn’t about a comparison of two different time- and place-specific moral positions at all; it’s about a comparison between one time-and place-specific moral position (ours) AND THE ACTIONS OF A MORALLY PERFECT GOD CHARACTER.
Please though. Seriously. I can’t be expected to correct you on this again. This is a plainly as I can explain the point to you – if you fail to grasp it again, I just can’t help you.
Just wanted to pick up on this point of the comparison between one time-and place-specific moral position (ours) AND THE ACTIONS OF A MORALLY PERFECT GOD CHARACTER. Are you suggesting that if the god character is morally perfect, all moral rules from the god character related to humans and the rules they live by must never change over time?
Or are you suggesting that any action by a morally perfect entity should be considered equally moral for a human to do?
-
Vlad,
No I don’t. I just have to deduce it from the context, and even if the deduction is “wrong” the other grounds for non-consent remain.
Where?
Not true. By current ethical standards valid consent would have been impossible.
Very funny.
Wrong again. Being unfaithful to your spouse for example is generally considered immoral, but there’s no law against it.
What?
As far as I’m aware a divorce can be legally obtained on the grounds of infidelity.
How can you deduce immorality on the grounds of competing sociologies rather than referral to the text and then for some unexplained reason deduce a modern western unified morality as a reference when we live in a time when thousands can be sacrificed to a virus and schoolboys act as drug mules on county lines?And that’s before we start on the bonkers caricatures you invoke vis drug spiking head teachers.
Your deduction is more like the application of a sus law.
-
Happy Christmas everyone!
I guess everyone is convinced that religions have indeed succeeded which is why the discussion has digressed into an elaborate one about consent and such other.... :)
Hi Sriram
Hope you had a good Christmas. I agree with you that it doesn't really make sense to critique consent and power dynamics in a story about God, who according to the concept can pretty much do anything, so the story would be focused on what God did rather than focusing on whether the necessary elements of consent had been established in the nativity story. It's going to get rather tedious if BHS is going to critique God on not obtaining the consent of humans in relation to every Bible story e.g. consent in the Noah's Ark story to flooding the earth etc. After all, what's interesting about a story of humans not moderating their excesses and not following certain moral values, leading to a disastrous impact on the climate and widespread flooding? BHS seems to find it far more interesting to focus on whether humans can consent to a flood and if causing or allowing a flood was a morally perfect action on the part of the god character. Each to their own I suppose.
Regarding your assertion about religions succeeding. Humans seem to organise social systems and assert moral values, which they try to impose on others to regulate human interaction, as can be seen in the current transgender debate and in the discussions on here about what is morally right or wrong.
Everyone has their opinion and pass judgements on others about what is a morally good or bad action/ perspective/ value or thought. It doesn't seem like religion is necessary for this - but religion can be a useful way to organise and disseminate ideas to mass audiences and to try to create cohesive productive units to work towards a common goal, especially in times of uncertainty and danger. I can certainly see it would be useful to leaders trying to organise societies to have a system or concept with a supernatural entity that was all the omnis and also benevolent, merciful and just. I think it helped speed the process of organising hierarchies in society, and perhaps made the process more ruthlessly efficient than without the gods.
-
VG,
It seems my playtime coincides with your playtime. What a coincidence. Isn't it time for your milk-break?
The point being that your habit of just reflecting back the criticisms you receive is juvenile. It does you no credit.
Again, as I have said before, not seeing the problem with what the God character did. No matter how many times you explain it, we'll have to agree to disagree on whether the God character's morals were wrong.
You’re really struggling for comprehension again here. I didn’t say that the god character’s behaviour was morally wrong – what I said was that either the god character’s behaviour was morally wrong (and current sensibilities are better), or it’s the other way around (or, both are wrong). This must be the case because the behaviour of the god character on the Bible story and current sensibilities are misaligned. I was asking you therefore which of the options on the table you thought to be morally better.
If you find discussion impossible because other people do not interpret language the same way you do, I guess that means you are going to find some discussions on here are going to be impossible for you.
Wrong again. You’re not “interpreting” anything. You’re just finding one term with a plain meaning (“will”) to be discommodious, so you’ve decided that your get out of jail free card will be to say you “interpret” it differently. Doesn’t work though. If you want to interpret a term differently from its standard meaning, then you need to reason to justify the revision – some scholarship about later usage for example. Without that you're lost in the territory of, say, you saying the earth orbits the sun, and me telling you that you’re wrong about that because I “interpret” “orbits” differently from you (and therefore “If you find discussion impossible because other people do not interpret language the same way you do, I guess that means you are going to find some discussions on here are going to be impossible for you”.)
And no, before you return to your previous rabbit hole, just pointing out that the meanings of some words have changed over time doesn’t for one moment justify the blanket application of that phenomenon to any word that you happen to find inconvenient for your thesis. If you think the “will” of the Bible story doesn’t mean “will” after all, then you need to justify that claim on its own terms, or try a different tack.
You are the person making the claim that "will" can only mean the God character is unable or unwilling to change course. You're welcome to assert that but why not support it with evidence?
Especially when an “angel” assures the Mary character that god’s word cannot fail, yes. The “evidence” is in any dictionary - that’s what the word means. If you want to claim it to mean something else, then you need to stop shifting the burden of proof and provide evidence of your own of different usage. So far, all you’ve done is to assert it to mean something else – is that really all you have?
You were going to provide evidence that an employer cannot have a relationship with an employee because consent will always automatically be invalid.
And I did. I even emboldened the relevant part. Did you not read it, or do you just find it inconvenient so now you’re asking for something else?
One link to an organisation making an assertion on the internet is not convincing evidence. Do you have any evidence of an actual moral consensus relating to a sexual or non-sexual act where consent is not valid because of an employer- employee relationship? And I am not talking about supernatural pregnancies. I just said a non-sexual act.
“Convincing” to whom? Why not? So when you don’t like the evidence you’re given you do indeed just keep asking for more right? It’s not just “an organisation making an assertion on the internet” – interpersonal ethics are an evolving field that’s developing all the time. There are guidelines, books, academic articles about this wherever you look (try googling “structural coercion” for example), and you know full well that this thinking is already pretty much embedded in real world life – the headmaster in the example for instance would be fired, either the employer or the employee (or both) would be let go or at least the managerial line would be broken. That’s what the evidence for “moral consensus” in practice looks like, and it’s all around you.
It's your argument that an employer-employee sexual or non-sexual relationship is automatically structural coercion - it's up to you to provide the evidence that this is the current Western moral standard. No point telling me to look it up - why would I?
I already have. I was merely telling you that you’re as capable of looking it up as I am.
You need to provide evidence of what the moral zeitgeist is. One link to someone else's assertion isn't evidence of a modern Western moral zeitgeist on structural coercion.
How many links to how many sets of guidelines all saying pretty much the same thing would constitute evidence to your mind? 10? 100? 1,000? How about the number of times people have lost their jobs because the power relationship with the employee/pupil etc was deemed to mean valid consent wasn’t possible – 1,000? 100,000? What you’re actually saying here is that no amount of evidence will be enough when it’s troublesome for you thesis so you’ll just keep demanding more until the problem goes away.
I did not mention supernatural pregnancies.
So other type did you have in mind?
I did read your link. It contained an unevidenced assertion about consent in the case of a sexual relationship with an employee. Posting someone else's unevidenced assertion about having sex with an employee is no different to posting your own unevidenced assertion. Do you have any actual evidence of a moral consensus on structural coercion whereby consent is invalidated in a sexual relationship between employer and employee?
FFS. To a large extent, moral statements are “unevidenced assertions”. You think murder is wrong? Fine – where’s you evidence for that? You seem to be lost in a world of endlessly demanding “evidence” (and then demanding more when it doesn’t suit you). Ethics though isn’t evidence-apt – it concerns the rational justifications for judgments about what’s morally right or wrong, just or unjust. The only evidence I need to show (and have shown, and could show many times over) is that these position exist at all, and that they they’ve been broadly incorporated into human interactions – a trivially simple thing to do – just open a newspaper for example.
And that’s called the Zeitgeist.
-
Vlad,
As far as I’m aware a divorce can be legally obtained on the grounds of infidelity.
But no-one can be convicted for infidelity, which is the mistake both you and VG keep making – demanding examples of jury convictions as evidence of immorality when there are countless acts considered immoral that have nothing to do with the law.
How can you deduce immorality on the grounds of competing sociologies rather than referral to the text and then for some unexplained reason deduce a modern western unified morality as a reference when we live in a time when thousands can be sacrificed to a virus and schoolboys act as drug mules on county lines?
What are you even trying to say here?
And that’s before we start on the bonkers caricatures you invoke vis drug spiking head teachers.
Except there’s nothing bonkers about it at all as a means of detonating your “but non-consensual impregnation would be fine provided there’s no sex involved” attempt.
Your deduction is more like the application of a sus law.
Wrong again. The deduction at issue here is just a deduction about the likely age of the Mary character given the time and place in which the Bible story is set. That’s all.
-
Hi Sriram
Hope you had a good Christmas. I agree with you that it doesn't really make sense to critique consent and power dynamics in a story about God, who according to the concept can pretty much do anything, so the story would be focused on what God did rather than focusing on whether the necessary elements of consent had been established in the nativity story. It's going to get rather tedious if BHS is going to critique God on not obtaining the consent of humans in relation to every Bible story e.g. consent in the Noah's Ark story to flooding the earth etc. After all, what's interesting about a story of humans not moderating their excesses and not following certain moral values, leading to a disastrous impact on the climate and widespread flooding? BHS seems to find it far more interesting to focus on whether humans can consent to a flood and if causing or allowing a flood was a morally perfect action on the part of the god character. Each to their own I suppose.
Regarding your assertion about religions succeeding. Humans seem to organise social systems and assert moral values, which they try to impose on others to regulate human interaction, as can be seen in the current transgender debate and in the discussions on here about what is morally right or wrong.
Everyone has their opinion and pass judgements on others about what is a morally good or bad action/ perspective/ value or thought. It doesn't seem like religion is necessary for this - but religion can be a useful way to organise and disseminate ideas to mass audiences and to try to create cohesive productive units to work towards a common goal, especially in times of uncertainty and danger. I can certainly see it would be useful to leaders trying to organise societies to have a system or concept with a supernatural entity that was all the omnis and also benevolent, merciful and just. I think it helped speed the process of organising hierarchies in society, and perhaps made the process more ruthlessly efficient than without the gods.
Yes VG...we took my grandson to a mall to see the lights and to meet Santa. Hope you had a good time too.
I think the discussion about consent is pointless because it is about the behavior of someone who is (by definition) above morality and ethics. Whose consent does God take before earthquakes and tsunamis and pandemics...? His actions are believed to be inscrutable and beyond understanding.
-
VG,
Hope you had a good Christmas. I agree with you that it doesn't really make sense to critique consent and power dynamics in a story about God, who according to the concept can pretty much do anything, so the story would be focused on what God did rather than focusing on whether the necessary elements of consent had been established in the nativity story.
Except of course many Christians precisely do focus on the supposed moral perfection of their god as the exemplar for how they too should behave. You could try I suppose to persuade all of Christendom to look instead just at what the god character of the Bible supposedly did because he could “do anything”, but you’d have a tough job I think.
It's going to get rather tedious if BHS is going to critique God on not obtaining the consent of humans in relation to every Bible story e.g. consent in the Noah's Ark story to flooding the earth etc. After all, what's interesting about a story of humans not moderating their excesses and not following certain moral values, leading to a disastrous impact on the climate and widespread flooding? BHS seems to find it far more interesting to focus on whether humans can consent to a flood and if causing or allowing a flood was a morally perfect action on the part of the god character. Each to their own I suppose.
Would you mind not misrepresenting me quite to egregiously. I’ve neither said nor implied any such thing, as I suspect you well know.
Regarding your assertion about religions succeeding. Humans seem to organise social systems and assert moral values, which they try to impose on others to regulate human interaction, as can be seen in the current transgender debate and in the discussions on here about what is morally right or wrong.
Everyone has their opinion and pass judgements on others about what is a morally good or bad action/ perspective/ value or thought. It doesn't seem like religion is necessary for this - but religion can be a useful way to organise and disseminate ideas to mass audiences and to try to create cohesive productive units to work towards a common goal, especially in times of uncertainty and danger. I can certainly see it would be useful to leaders trying to organise societies to have a system or concept with a supernatural entity that was all the omnis and also benevolent, merciful and just. I think it helped speed the process of organising hierarchies in society, and perhaps made the process more ruthlessly efficient than without the gods.
Except of course blurring the lines from “these myths have useful social functions” to “these myths aren’t just myths. They’re factually true” has arguably led to far more “ruthless efficiency” in appalling ways than would otherwise have been the case.
-
Sriram,
I think the discussion about consent is pointless because it is about the behavior of someone who is (by definition) above morality and ethics. Whose consent does God take before earthquakes and tsunamis and pandemics...? His actions are believed to be inscrutable and beyond understanding.
If you want to argue for an amoral god "above morality and ethics" – ie, who could be behave morally well, morally appallingly or morally anything else in between by our standards – that's up to you, but you'd have a huge amount of Christian theology against you that as I understand it prefers instead the idea of a god who's only morally perfect.
Good luck with it though.
-
Sriram,
If you want to argue for an amoral god "above morality and ethics" – ie, who could be behave morally well, morally appallingly or morally anything else in between by our standards – that's up to you, but you'd have a huge amount of Christian theology against you that as I understand it prefers instead the idea of a god who's only morally perfect.
Good luck with it though.
I am sure that even devout Christians will not be able to explain natural disasters, children developing serious illnesses, being born retarded, children getting molested and murdered....etc.etc. They will only attribute it to God's infinite wisdom. They will not judge God....
We all live in society as equals...God doesn't. Morality as it applies to us, is irrelevant to God.
-
Sriram,
I am sure that even devout Christians will not be able to explain natural disasters, children developing serious illnesses, being born retarded, children getting molested and murdered....etc.etc. They will only attribute it to God's infinite wisdom. They will not judge God....
We all live in society as equals...God doesn't. Morality as it applies to us, is irrelevant to God.
Christians (and other theists with gods of their own) have a huge challenge with “the problem of evil” – ie, how to explain bad things happening to innocent people when there’s a god of the omnis in charge. That’s why they have to tie themselves in such knots (“god knows best”, “it’s a mystery”, “that way the babies with brain cancer meet god even sooner” etc). It’s the apologetics of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin so far as I can see, but in any case it’s not a problem atheists have to address (let alone to finesse).
-
VG,
The point being that your habit of just reflecting back the criticisms you receive is juvenile. It does you no credit.
And my point being that the way you word your criticisms is juvenile and they deserve the response I am giving them. Any credit it does me is a mirror reflection of the credit your juvenile remarks do you. So if you want to play, sure let's play.
You’re really struggling for comprehension again here. I didn’t say that the god character’s behaviour was morally wrong – what I said was that either the god character’s behaviour was morally wrong (and current sensibilities are better), or it’s the other way around (or, both are wrong). This must be the case because the behaviour of the god character on the Bible story and current sensibilities are misaligned. I was asking you therefore which of the options on the table you thought to be morally better.
And I responded that god's behaviour could have been morally right for that situation, and our behaviour could be morally right for now. I also asked you the question as to why you thought that the morals of the god character in that story need to be aligned with the morals of humans today. Unless you are claiming that morals should not change depending on the situation and circumstances and/or that human moral behaviour in their interactions with other humans should be the same as the morality of the god character.
Wrong again. You’re not “interpreting” anything. You’re just finding one term with a plain meaning (“will”)
You can assert that it has a plain meaning but others disagree with you. You have provided no evidence to show that your meaning is the only possible meaning. Oh well. Guess we'll have to keep agreeing to disagree.
Especially when an “angel” assures the Mary character that god’s word cannot fail, yes.
The angel has not said God cannot change course. So once again we just have your interpretation of the meaning of the words in the story that is different from the meanings other people have interpreted. You have provided no evidence to show that your meaning is the only possible meaning. Oh well. Guess we'll have to keep agreeing to disagree.
And I did. I even emboldened the relevant part. Did you not read it, or do you just find it inconvenient so now you’re asking for something else?
All you put in bold was someone else's assertion on the internet, which is no more convincing than if you asserted it. If one organisation's assertion from the internet is your idea of evidence of a currently accepted moral standard, I can see why you are struggling to make your case. There are so many surveys online where people say that they not only had relationships with employees, but think work is the place where many people meet their partners, that I can't even be bothered to link to them. The advice online is that employers should have policies in relation to relationships in order to protect the business in case it gets sued for sexual harassment or discrimination if things go wrong or the relationship creates a conflict of interest. Not sure what policy civil servants are required to follow in terms of relationships with colleagues or their managers. As you are so focused on the word "servant" it might be worth you checking if any civil servants have consented to relationships that, according to you, it is impossible to give valid consent for.
“Convincing” to whom? Why not? So when you don’t like the evidence you’re given you do indeed just keep asking for more right? It’s not just “an organisation making an assertion on the internet” – interpersonal ethics are an evolving field that’s developing all the time. There are guidelines, books, academic articles about this wherever you look (try googling “structural coercion” for example), and you know full well that this thinking is already pretty much embedded in real world life – the headmaster in the example for instance would be fired, either the employer or the employee (or both) would be let go or at least the managerial line would be broken. That’s what the evidence for “moral consensus” in practice looks like, and it’s all around you.
No I don't know full well - in fact I completely disagree with you that employees are routinely let go for dating in the workplace. There are some companies that have this as a rule, but not a lot of companies. And the reason for these rules are to protect the business from a lawsuit.
What is not convincing, is you asserting there is a moral consensus but not being able to provide evidence of a moral consensus.
We're not talking about a headmaster as you said the moral standard applied even when people were not under-age.
I already have. I was merely telling you that you’re as capable of looking it up as I am.
No you haven't - you linked to one organisation online that made an assertion and told me to Google structural coercion. That's rubbish in terms of evidence to support your assertions. You spend lots of time on here telling other people how evidence works, I suggest you school yourself on the basics of evidence.
How many links to how many sets of guidelines all saying pretty much the same thing would constitute evidence to your mind? 10? 100? 1,000? How about the number of times people have lost their jobs because the power relationship with the employee/pupil etc was deemed to mean valid consent wasn’t possible – 1,000? 100,000? What you’re actually saying here is that no amount of evidence will be enough when it’s troublesome for you thesis so you’ll just keep demanding more until the problem goes away.
What you're doing here is misrepresenting me because you can't come up with evidence that there is an accepted moral standard that you will be fired for dating in the workplace. If there were so many links to so many guidelines and so much evidence of people losing their jobs merely for dating, you presumably could have done better than linking to one US organisation that just asserted the same claim as you. And as I keep saying, if there were a few companies that have terminated employment just for dating, it was to protect the business from potential future lawsuits.
So other type did you have in mind?
Why even look at pregnancies at all - it isn't illegal or exploitative to get pregnant. The issue that might make a pregnancy problematic is the issue of consent. Why not come up with any act that isn't intrinsically illegal or exploitative to demonstrate your claims about valid consent in an employer / employee relationship.
FFS. To a large extent, moral statements are “unevidenced assertions”. You think murder is wrong? Fine – where’s you evidence for that? You seem to be lost in a world of endlessly demanding “evidence” (and then demanding more when it doesn’t suit you). Ethics though isn’t evidence-apt – it concerns the rational justifications for judgments about what’s morally right or wrong, just or unjust. The only evidence I need to show (and have shown, and could show many times over) is that these position exist at all, and that they they’ve been broadly incorporated into human interactions – a trivially simple thing to do – just open a newspaper for example.
And that’s called the Zeitgeist.
Not true. I was asking for evidence for the Western standard you claimed existed about consent. Especially the one that you linked to which said "Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee... also mean that consent cannot be freely given." All I see when I look at media reports is lots of discussion and disagreement about consent - was there valid consent to puberty blockers or other medical procedures or relationships, discussions about children consenting to non-therapeutic circumcision, whether the age of consent should be lowered etc etc
-
VG,
Except of course many Christians precisely do focus on the supposed moral perfection of their god as the exemplar for how they too should behave. You could try I suppose to persuade all of Christendom to look instead just at what the god character of the Bible supposedly did because he could “do anything”, but you’d have a tough job I think.
No doubt we have various examples of Christians who claim the role of God as the judge of what is morally acceptable, and even kill people who they think have sinned, because religious texts have stories of God killing people. There are also Christians who believe, based on their interpretation of their religious texts and traditions, that only God can take another person's life - so just because Chritians believe as a faith claim that God is morally perfect, they certainly aren't advocating that humans can do whatever God does.
Given there are societies with death penalties and societies that have abolished that punishment, no matter how horrendous the crime, it seems people disagree on the morality of killing people - no requirement for gods to be involved.
Except of course blurring the lines from “these myths have useful social functions” to “these myths aren’t just myths. They’re factually true” has arguably led to far more “ruthless efficiency” in appalling ways than would otherwise have been the case.
I'm pretty sure religion has a greater influence on our behaviour if we believe it's more than a myth, so I would think if we want to increase the social usefulness of religion we would have to have more faith in it than just believing it to be a myth. I guess we'll never know, since there are so many other variables apart from religion that would have influenced people's behaviour.
-
Sriram,
Christians (and other theists with gods of their own) have a huge challenge with “the problem of evil” – ie, how to explain bad things happening to innocent people when there’s a god of the omnis in charge. That’s why they have to tie themselves in such knots (“god knows best”, “it’s a mystery”, “that way the babies with brain cancer meet god even sooner” etc). It’s the apologetics of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin so far as I can see, but in any case it’s not a problem atheists have to address (let alone to finesse).
The issue is the inscrutable nature of life itself...not just evil. To understand evil...we must understand life. No one understands the purpose or meaning of life. It really is a mystery...whether we attribute it to a God or otherwise.
Scientists might brush it all off as randomness or chance or having no purpose. That doesn't mean it is true. For most people that sort of nonchalance is not enough. They would rather believe in a God (with all its baggage) than accept it all as just chance.
-
Sriram,
Christians (and other theists with gods of their own) have a huge challenge with “the problem of evil” – ie, how to explain bad things happening to innocent people when there’s a god of the omnis in charge. That’s why they have to tie themselves in such knots (“god knows best”, “it’s a mystery”, “that way the babies with brain cancer meet god even sooner” etc). It’s the apologetics of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin so far as I can see, but in any case it’s not a problem atheists have to address (let alone to finesse).
Until evil doesn't exist it is a problem for everyone and only simpletons have the excuse of stearing clear of the questions what and why it seems to me.
You seem to be claiming comfortable agnosticism for atheists and denying that for everybody else.
Fry seems to be eliminating man made environmental causes in the case of juvenile cancers. Presumably when challenged he uses his dramatic skills and patrician tone to counteract challenge.
Like everything else we are entitled to ask atheists, what is the non religious explanation of evil?
-
Sriram,
Christians (and other theists with gods of their own) have a huge challenge with “the problem of evil” – ie, how to explain bad things happening to innocent people when there’s a god of the omnis in charge. That’s why they have to tie themselves in such knots (“god knows best”, “it’s a mystery”, “that way the babies with brain cancer meet god even sooner” etc). It’s the apologetics of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin so far as I can see, but in any case it’s not a problem atheists have to address (let alone to finesse).
Seems reasonable to me to say "it's a mystery why bad things happen to innocent people". Believing in an omniscient god does not mean theists become omniscient too.
Cancer is a biological issue - not sure I would describe something that has no moral capacity as evil. Humans fulfil many of their basic needs for food, shelter, protection, emotional connections etc through interaction with other humans Most humans seem to have the capacity to make moral choices. Many humans have questions about their place in the universe, their purpose, what is good and evil in this context of human interaction. Religion is one way for humans to explore and regulate that capacity for moral choice on an individual level as well as a family / community / society level.
-
Vlad,
Atheists don't have to address the problem of explaining why 'evil' exists when there is supposed to be a god of the omnis for obvious reasons.
However Your question 'Like everything else we are entitled to ask atheists, what is the non religious explanation of evil?' has been answered many times by the atheists on this forum. So, I would have thought that you would have been aware of their responses. Here is one of the later discussions on the subject.
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=18734.0
-
Vlad,
Atheists don't have to address the problem of explaining why 'evil' exists when there is supposed to be a god of the omnis for obvious reasons.
If atheists are saying there is something wrong with theist explanations on the problem of evil then we are entitled to ask why and how atheists think theists are wrong. In terms of making a challenge on the grounds of God of the Omnis there is a clear category error made by atheists when they use the same methodology for all loving as they do for say omniscience or omnipresence. I wonder if you can spot the issue here.
However Your question 'Like everything else we are entitled to ask atheists, what is the non religious explanation of evil?' has been answered many times by the atheists on this forum. So, I would have thought that you would have been aware of their responses. Here is one of the later discussions on the subject.
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=18734.0
If atheists have accepted the challenge then the claim we don’t have to....seems like a bit of arrogant bravado. Until atheists tackle the aforementioned category issue they have answered nothing.
-
If atheists are saying there is something wrong with theist explanations on the problem of evil then we are entitled to ask why and how atheists think theists are wrong. In terms of making a challenge on the grounds of God of the Omnis there is a clear category error made by atheists when they use the same methodology for all loving as they do for say omniscience or omnipresence. I wonder if you can spot the issue here.If atheists have accepted the challenge then the claim we don’t have to....seems like a bit of arrogant bravado. Until atheists tackle the aforementioned category issue they have answered nothing.
There are lots of reasons why people do bad things. Self interest, lack of empathy, bad upbringing, mental illness etc etc
The point some atheists make is why does God allow bad things to happen to people if he has the power to intervene and prevent those things?
-
If atheists are saying there is something wrong with theist explanations on the problem of evil then we are entitled to ask why and how atheists think theists are wrong. In terms of making a challenge on the grounds of God of the Omnis there is a clear category error made by atheists when they use the same methodology for all loving as they do for say omniscience or omnipresence. I wonder if you can spot the issue here.If atheists have accepted the challenge then the claim we don’t have to....seems like a bit of arrogant bravado. Until atheists tackle the aforementioned category issue they have answered nothing.
If one believes in a god of the omnis then it's up to that person to explain how or why this god allows bad things to happen in the world, not me. So far I've not seen any convincing explanation. If you are one of those people then it's your problem, not mine.
-
If one believes in a god of the omnis then it's up to that person to explain how or why this god allows bad things to happen in the world, not me. So far I've not seen any convincing explanation. If you are one of those people then it's your problem, not mine.
No I think it is incumbent on the person making the assertion “Bad things happen” to complete that picture first.
-
No I think it is incumbent on the person making the assertion “Bad things happen” to complete that picture first.
If you say bad things happen all you need to do to complete the picture is to show bad things happen. We all know they do. What is needed beyond that? Are you talking about defining bad?
-
If you say bad things happen all you need to do to complete the picture is to show bad things happen. We all know they do. What is needed beyond that? Are you talking about defining bad?
But surely it is here that we run into the various atheist views of what is bad. Is evil not a thing, is evil in the opinion of the beholder or what? A similar problem occurs with what we mean by love in the term all loving, where it is clear that it’s not clear cut like defining say, omnipresence.
-
But surely it is here that we run into the various atheist views of what is bad. Is evil not a thing, is evil in the opinion of the beholder or what? A similar problem occurs with what we mean by love in the term all loving, where it is clear that it’s not clear cut like defining say, omnipresence.
What's clear cut about defining omnipresence?
-
No I think it is incumbent on the person making the assertion “Bad things happen” to complete that picture first.
I'll give you several examples.
The 2004 tsunami. Killed many thousands. Why did a god of the omnis allow it to happen?
Childhood leukemia. Why does a god of the omnis allow it to happen?
Persons born with serious incapacities. Why does a god of the omnis allow it to happen?
The Moors murderers. Why did a a god of the omnis not protect the innocent?
All these, I would suggest, are 'bad things' and all these things happen or have happened, and many people would call them 'evil' be they either natural or moral evils.
Over to you.
-
I'll give you several examples.
The 2004 tsunami. Killed many thousands. Why did a god of the omnis allow it to happen?
He allows the natural forces which shape us without continual intervention. There is no malice about this 0n the part of nature and human error. The root of us considering these things to be bad is what i’d Call the separation of communion...with selves, with life, with loved ones, with community and with God. Before the fall this separation was not a thing merely a transition.
Childhood leukemia. Why does a god of the omnis allow it to happen?
Persons born with serious incapacities. Why does a god of the omnis allow it to happen?
For reasons given above. These are often down to the workings of natural forces although leukaemia and berth defects have also been down to man made sources.
The Moors murderers. Why did a a god of the omnis not protect the innocent?
And here we get on to real evil and where moral realism and stories of the fall are imho a better explanatory than moral relativism. In this respect then Humanists have a harder time justifying the intrinsic goodness of mankind
All these, I would suggest, are 'bad things' and all these things happen or have happened, and many people would call them 'evil' be they either natural or moral evils.
It looks as though I am more apt to distinguish deliberate human evil and natural evil and human error than your bundling of all evil.
-
He allows the natural forces which shape us without continual intervention. There is no malice about this 0n the part of nature and human error. The root of us considering these things to be bad is what i’d Call the separation of communion...with selves, with life, with loved ones, with community and with God. Before the fall this separation was not a thing merely a transition. For reasons given above. These are often down to the workings of natural forces although leukaemia and berth defects have also been down to man made sources. And here we get on to real evil and where moral realism and stories of the fall are imho a better explanatory than moral relativism. In this respect then Humanists have a harder time justifying the intrinsic goodness of mankind It looks as though I am more apt to distinguish deliberate human evil and natural evil and human error than your bundling of all evil.
If I could have stopped the Moors Murders, I would have. Your god, in your fucked beliefs, could have chosen to stop it and didn't. That makes it culpable for the child rapes and torture. And you worship it for it.
-
If I could have stopped the Moors Murders, I would have. Your god, in your fucked beliefs, could have chosen to stop it and didn't. That makes it culpable for the child rapes and torture. And you worship it for it.
I rather think your post makes you culpable of letting Brady and Hindley off the hook.
-
I rather think your post makes you culpable of letting Brady and Hindley off the hook.
There appears no evidence for the first three words in your post
-
He allows the natural forces which shape us without continual intervention. There is no malice about this 0n the part of nature and human error. The root of us considering these things to be bad is what i’d Call the separation of communion...with selves, with life, with loved ones, with community and with God. Before the fall this separation was not a thing merely a transition.
Even the good Samaritan in your own holy book didn't turn away from helping. I suppose it's one rule for humans, but another for God. Maybe He had much more pressing things to consider than the fallout from a mere tsunami even though He had set up all the conditions for it to happen. Responsibility is obviously not a word that He takes very much notice of, at least when it comes to His own machinations, that is.
For reasons given above. These are often down to the workings of natural forces although leukaemia and berth defects have also been down to man made sources.
The natural forces which were created by this God, I believe. However, yet again that embarrassing word 'responsibility' seems to play no part in his moral framework, except for others, of course.
And here we get on to real evil and where moral realism and stories of the fall are imho a better explanatory than moral relativism. In this respect then Humanists have a harder time justifying the intrinsic goodness of mankind
I'm not trying to justify 'the intrinsic goodness of mankind', that's a strawman of your own making. I'm suggesting that the bottom line is that, according to the God of the omnis, He created Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. He knew what they were like, He knew what they would do and did nothing about it. Whether supposed free will was given to humans or not, he bears full and ultimate responsibility. At the very least, according to all the pronouncements of the love He is supposed to show towards humanity, this was a dereliction of duty on his part.
It looks as though I am more apt to distinguish deliberate human evil and natural evil and human error than your bundling of all evil.
Notice, the one thing that is absent in all these examples and the billions of other examples I could have given, is that, according to you, He accepts no responsibility and hence takes no action to put right or obviate such things that most people would call 'bad'. I wonder why? certainly your responses, for me, fall into the category of 'epic fail'.
-
But surely it is here that we run into the various atheist views of what is bad. Is evil not a thing, is evil in the opinion of the beholder or what? A similar problem occurs with what we mean by love in the term all loving, where it is clear that it’s not clear cut like defining say, omnipresence.
Evil isn't a thing as in an entity but it can have those associations hence the reluctance sometimes to use it as a term to mean very bad things. Evil probably is in the eye of the beholder - those doing really bad things mostly don't think of them as such. I have no idea what all loving means to be honest.
-
He allows the natural forces which shape us without continual intervention. There is no malice about this 0n the part of nature and human error. The root of us considering these things to be bad is what i’d Call the separation of communion...with selves, with life, with loved ones, with community and with God. Before the fall this separation was not a thing merely a transition. For reasons given above. These are often down to the workings of natural forces although leukaemia and berth defects have also been down to man made sources. And here we get on to real evil and where moral realism and stories of the fall are imho a better explanatory than moral relativism. In this respect then Humanists have a harder time justifying the intrinsic goodness of mankind It looks as though I am more apt to distinguish deliberate human evil and natural evil and human error than your bundling of all evil.
Can't see how your stories are a better explanation.
-
If I could have stopped the Moors Murders, I would have. Your god, in your fucked beliefs, could have chosen to stop it and didn't. That makes it culpable for the child rapes and torture. And you worship it for it.
I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.
-
I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.
and yet you worship God for what it does. It allows child rape and torture. You worship it for that.
-
Does God answer prayers? If so, will intervene if asked enough or in the right way. Is that right?
-
and yet you worship God for what it does. It allows child rape and torture. You worship it for that.
As I said - I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.
-
Does God answer prayers? If so, will intervene if asked enough or in the right way. Is that right?
No idea. Prayer helps me though.
-
No idea. Prayer helps me though.
In what way?
-
As I said - I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.
You worship a god for choosing pain.
-
In what way?
I think I have described it before on here. I feel calmer, happier, it increases my sense of self-discipline so I am more productive, helps focus my thoughts, change my perspective if something is upsetting me or if I am worried about something. If I am angry with someone I feel less annoyed after I pray and able to let the issue go without making a big deal about it.
Twice I remember feeling really upset and in emotional pain but felt it was pointless trying to talk to anyone about it and when I prayed (I wasn't expecting prayer to help but I figured I would give it a try) I felt an instant release - best way I can describe it is like the scene in Towering Inferno when the water tanks were blown up and water suddenly cascaded down though the building and extinguished the fire almost instantaneously.
-
You worship a god for choosing pain.
As I said before I wouldn't say it was for it. It's probably more accurate to say I worship God despite it.
-
As I said before I wouldn't say it was for it. It's probably more accurate to say I worship God despite it.
And yet your god chooses it and you worship your god.
-
And yet your god chooses it and you worship your god.
Yes - as I said earlier I don't claim to know why pain is part of the process of reacting and adapting for relatively complex organisms or why pain needs to be part of injury, illness or dying and therefore part of living. Physical and emotional pain seems to be something to be endured and to cope with and adapt to. If there is a point to it, not sure what it is, and it doesn't make it any less unpleasant.
Having been an atheist, I don't remember it changing anything - almost everyone still feels pain, natural disasters still happen, babies still die of cancer or are murdered, some people still treat others horrendously. Not clear what your point is - my worship or lack of worship doesn't alter the levels of pain and suffering in the rest of the world.
Having experienced some pain, I just try to be aware that I can consciously choose from the range of impulses I have and could therefore choose how I treat others, including how I react to my pain and the pain of others. I probably make the wrong choices a lot of the time and there were probably better choices I could have made on many occasions. But I find it helpful to know that I have a choice in how I react and that I can learn and improve. I have not had to face real hardship and suffering so I have no idea what it is like and can't comment on those people who have faced it and who still find strength and comfort from their religious faith. I find religious faith helps me, with the relatively minor hardships I have had to go through.
-
I think I have described it before on here. I feel calmer, happier, it increases my sense of self-discipline so I am more productive, helps focus my thoughts, change my perspective if something is upsetting me or if I am worried about something. If I am angry with someone I feel less annoyed after I pray and able to let the issue go without making a big deal about it.
Twice I remember feeling really upset and in emotional pain but felt it was pointless trying to talk to anyone about it and when I prayed (I wasn't expecting prayer to help but I figured I would give it a try) I felt an instant release - best way I can describe it is like the scene in Towering Inferno when the water tanks were blown up and water suddenly cascaded down though the building and extinguished the fire almost instantaneously.
Yes...it does feel like a waterfall suddenly extinguishing all anxiety..... It can also be experienced as a feeling of love. It comes from ones inner self when the ego self is down.
-
Even the good Samaritan in your own holy book didn't turn away from helping. I suppose it's one rule for humans, but another for God. Maybe He had much more pressing things to consider than the fallout from a mere tsunami even though He had set up all the conditions for it to happen. Responsibility is obviously not a word that He takes very much notice of, at least when it comes to His own machinations, that is.
To answer your post I shall be writing from what I believe. First of all who is it who tells us about the Good Samaritan?It is the second person of the trinity incarnate as Jesus. The Good Samaritan exemplifies the highest in how moral a person can act.
Jesus is God identifying with humanity in the most comprehensive way possible...in a human life and he in turn takes the moral line of laying down his life, in his case, for humanity.
God of course does not need to do this of course and an evil God would delight in the chaos,misery, death and futility of existence. But of course the universe isn’t like that.
The natural forces which were created by this God,
And it is these forces which have given us life and what we do have and our potential to share that. I wonder if you aren’t moved by your prophet Richard Dawkins when he declares the wonder of existing at all or Carl Sagan’s widow when she talks about the kindness of chance. I disagree with the provider here but if you are going to blame God for bad chance then you must credit him with good chance. ]However, yet again that embarrassing word 'responsibility' seems to play no part in his moral framework, except for others, of course.
Jesus takes sin and it’s ultimate consequences upon himself. That is more practical than taking responsibility which is what Boris Johnson did and Matt Hancock has done
I'm not trying to justify 'the intrinsic goodness of mankind', that's a strawman of your own making. I'm suggesting that the bottom line is that, according to the God of the omnis, He created Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. He knew what they were like, He knew what they would do and did nothing about it. Whether supposed free will was given to humans or not, he bears full and ultimate responsibility. At the very least, according to all the pronouncements of the love He is supposed to show towards humanity, this was a dereliction of duty on his part.
God, and especially in Christ has done his duty, he has created a universe which works, he has, through the universe, created a humanity free to love and restored the freedom to love God
Notice, the one thing that is absent in all these examples and the billions of other examples I could have given, is that, according to you, He accepts no responsibility and hence takes no action to put right or obviate such things that most people would call 'bad'. I wonder why? certainly your responses, for me, fall into the category of 'epic fail'.
The universe and human existence a failure? Hopefully, now you have received some of what was missing from your picture of God.
But if you feel you must continue with what is basically not an atheist argument you need to take this up with God.
-
Can't see how your stories are a better explanation.
They get to the crux of the issue without kicking things into the long grass or explaining things away or steering things away from self examination imho.
-
VG,
The conversation has moved on so briefly only now:
And I responded that god's behaviour could have been morally right for that situation, and our behaviour could be morally right for now. I also asked you the question as to why you thought that the morals of the god character in that story need to be aligned with the morals of humans today. Unless you are claiming that morals should not change depending on the situation and circumstances and/or that human moral behaviour in their interactions with other humans should be the same as the morality of the god character.
No – if, say, current moral thinking is that not preventing unnecessary suffering is wrong, then by that standard it’s wrong whether it happened now or 2,000 years ago. There’s no magic factor that would make, say, giving brain cancer to babies wrong now but just fine at some time previously.
You can assert that it has a plain meaning but others disagree with you. You have provided no evidence to show that your meaning is the only possible meaning. Oh well. Guess we'll have to keep agreeing to disagree.
Wrong again. Dictionaries for example describe the standard usage of words, including the word “will” – if you want to “interpret” that word differently then it’s you job to justify your different meaning. When you can’t do that (and you can’t) you just go nuclear on any argument because anyone can say they “interpret” a word differently from their interlocuter’s use of the word, so their argument fails. Hence: “I interpret the word “orbit” differently to you, therefore your argument that the Earth orbits the Sun is wrong” etc.
Either justify your “interpretation” of “will” meaning something other than “will”, or give up the assertion.
The angel has not said God cannot change course. So once again we just have your interpretation of the meaning of the words in the story that is different from the meanings other people have interpreted. You have provided no evidence to show that your meaning is the only possible meaning. Oh well. Guess we'll have to keep agreeing to disagree.
The “angel” of the story told Mary what “will” happen, that what “will” happen is “God’s word” and that “God’s word” is “unfailing”. My “interpretation” of these words is just their standard use – if you still want to play your get out of jail free card of absolute linguistic relativism – ie, just claiming without justification to “interpret” any way that suits you any word you find inconvenient – you just collapse any possibility of discourse even in principle. “It gets dark at night time” you say? No, you’re wrong about that because I “interpret” “dark”, “night time” etc differently from you albeit with no justification at all.
Can you see the problem you create here?
All you put in bold was someone else's assertion on the internet, which is no more convincing than if you asserted it. If one organisation's assertion from the internet is your idea of evidence of a currently accepted moral standard, I can see why you are struggling to make your case. There are so many surveys online where people say that they not only had relationships with employees, but think work is the place where many people meet their partners, that I can't even be bothered to link to them. The advice online is that employers should have policies in relation to relationships in order to protect the business in case it gets sued for sexual harassment or discrimination if things go wrong or the relationship creates a conflict of interest. Not sure what policy civil servants are required to follow in terms of relationships with colleagues or their managers. As you are so focused on the word "servant" it might be worth you checking if any civil servants have consented to relationships that, according to you, it is impossible to give valid consent for.
“Someone else’s assertion” is actually from the guidelines published by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the largest anti-sexual violence organisation in the US. They operate a nationwide sexual assault hotline and work with more than 1,000 sexual assault service providers, and they provide sexual assault-related support to various Government agencies including the US Department of Defence. In the last 27 years RAINN have supported some 3.7. sexual assault survivors and their families. They’re the largest and best-regarded organisation oof this type that I could find.
Oh, and if you want to use “assertion” pejoratively as part of your ad hom you should understand that that all ethical positions are to some degree “assertions”, albeit as here well-argued, widely accepted and practically implemented in many real world situations.
No I don't know full well - in fact I completely disagree with you that employees are routinely let go for dating in the workplace. There are some companies that have this as a rule, but not a lot of companies. And the reason for these rules are to protect the business from a lawsuit.
What is not convincing, is you asserting there is a moral consensus but not being able to provide evidence of a moral consensus.
We're not talking about a headmaster as you said the moral standard applied even when people were not under-age.
The ”moral consensus” is documented in guidelines, academic articles, workplace policies and the like that have been widely adopted across Western democratic societies. Of course they’re not applied universally and consistently – workplace ethics especially is a constantly developing field; just think of the different dates that smoking in offices was banned for example – but it’s nonetheless nonsense to suggest that the consensus doesn’t exist at all.
No you haven't - you linked to one organisation online that made an assertion and told me to Google structural coercion. That's rubbish in terms of evidence to support your assertions. You spend lots of time on here telling other people how evidence works, I suggest you school yourself on the basics of evidence.
Wrong again – se above. Its apparent that you will dismiss without grounds as “rubbish” any evidence that falsifies your beliefs, so what’s the point of asking for it in the first place?
What you're doing here is misrepresenting me because you can't come up with evidence that there is an accepted moral standard that you will be fired for dating in the workplace. If there were so many links to so many guidelines and so much evidence of people losing their jobs merely for dating, you presumably could have done better than linking to one US organisation that just asserted the same claim as you. And as I keep saying, if there were a few companies that have terminated employment just for dating, it was to protect the business from potential future lawsuits.
Not “fired for dating” – action will be taken (sometimes including firing, but not always when another solutions are available) when the power relationship means that valid consent is deemed not to be possible. Not every company, school, hospital etc will do this (at least not yet) but those that have adopted the guidelines they think most appropriate will. That at some tine in the past you may have had experience of a company that didn’t do this is irrelevant, just as my once knowing a company that still allowed smoking in the office is irrelevant.
Why even look at pregnancies at all - it isn't illegal or exploitative to get pregnant. The issue that might make a pregnancy problematic is the issue of consent. Why not come up with any act that isn't intrinsically illegal or exploitative to demonstrate your claims about valid consent in an employer / employee relationship.
Oh dear. It’s not that the “act” is “intrinsically illegal or exploitative”, it’s that the context in which it happens makes it intrinsically illegal or exploitative.
Not true. I was asking for evidence for the Western standard you claimed existed about consent. Especially the one that you linked to which said "Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee... also mean that consent cannot be freely given." All I see when I look at media reports is lots of discussion and disagreement about consent - was there valid consent to puberty blockers or other medical procedures or relationships, discussions about children consenting to non-therapeutic circumcision, whether the age of consent should be lowered etc etc
Why are you doing this to yourself? You seem to have no awareness of how badly out of your depth you are but as you’d simply copy and paste a “no you are” reply I see no point in telling you why. “Western standards” about these matters are developing and, as always, their real world implementation follows behind – and it sometimes does so fitfully and inconsistently too. We’ve come a long way since the days of women being expected to resign when they became pregnant for example, but denying that change was happening just because it took a while is stupid.
-
VG,
I think I have described it before on here. I feel calmer, happier, it increases my sense of self-discipline so I am more productive, helps focus my thoughts, change my perspective if something is upsetting me or if I am worried about something. If I am angry with someone I feel less annoyed after I pray and able to let the issue go without making a big deal about it.
That’s nice for you. I Imagine that members of the Hitler Youth got a lot from all that camping and free sailing too.
-
Vlad,
If atheists are saying there is something wrong with theist explanations on the problem of evil then we are entitled to ask why…
Because certain theists claim a god who knows everything, can do anything and is infinitely good but yet horrible things often happen to good people.
…and how atheists think theists are wrong.
They’re “wrong” inasmuch as observable reality and their “god of the omnis” claims contradict each other.
In terms of making a challenge on the grounds of God of the Omnis there is a clear category error made by atheists when they use the same methodology for all loving as they do for say omniscience or omnipresence. I wonder if you can spot the issue here.
No. If your god could prevent unnecessary suffering, why doesn’t he?
If atheists have accepted the challenge then the claim we don’t have to....seems like a bit of arrogant bravado.
What “challenge”? Bad things happen to good people. That’s just what you’d expect to see in an indifferent, godless universe.
Until atheists tackle the aforementioned category issue they have answered nothing.
You mentioned it, but you didn’t tell us what you think it is. And atheists don’t need to “answer” anything here – if you think there’s something called “evil” that causes bad things to happen to good people then it’s your job to tell us why your god of the omnis doesn’t prevent it.
-
VG,
The conversation has moved on so briefly only now:
No – if, say, current moral thinking is that not preventing unnecessary suffering is wrong, then by that standard it’s wrong whether it happened now or 2,000 years ago. There’s no magic factor that would make, say, giving brain cancer to babies wrong now but just fine at some time previously.
Define "unnecessary" and "suffering", given what you perceive as "unnecessary suffering" could be viewed differently by someone else. So what "unnecessary suffering" are you talking about?
Wrong again. Dictionaries for example describe the standard usage of words, including the word “will” – if you want to “interpret” that word differently then it’s you job to justify your different meaning. When you can’t do that (and you can’t) you just go nuclear on any argument because anyone can say they “interpret” a word differently from their interlocuter’s use of the word, so their argument fails. Hence: “I interpret the word “orbit” differently to you, therefore your argument that the Earth orbits the Sun is wrong” etc.
Either justify your “interpretation” of “will” meaning something other than “will”, or give up the assertion.
The “angel” of the story told Mary what “will” happen, that what “will” happen is “God’s word” and that “God’s word” is “unfailing”. My “interpretation” of these words is just their standard use – if you still want to play your get out of jail free card of absolute linguistic relativism – ie, just claiming without justification to “interpret” any way that suits you any word you find inconvenient – you just collapse any possibility of discourse even in principle. “It gets dark at night time” you say? No, you’re wrong about that because I “interpret” “dark”, “night time” etc differently from you albeit with no justification at all.
Can you see the problem you create here?
I can see you still seem to be having a problem with how the English language works and grasping that all of the above is just your interpretation of a story.
I can say that you will stop making unevidenced assertions and poor attempts at arguments about the word "will" and then you can still come along and try to assert that your interpretation of the use of English is the only possible interpretation, despite all the evidence of how the word "will" is commonly used in the English language.
Or I could say that we will agree to disagree about the interpretation of the nativity story to give you a chance to see we're going round and round in circles and stop posting on this point as we're clearly never going to agree, and when you decide to continue with your unevidenced assertions, I could decide to respond to your response with my own claim.
Do you see now how the word "will" can be used when writing English?
So the angel can say what "will" happen but if God then wills it not to happen, it won't happen.
“Someone else’s assertion” is actually from the guidelines published by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the largest anti-sexual violence organisation in the US. They operate a nationwide sexual assault hotline and work with more than 1,000 sexual assault service providers, and they provide sexual assault-related support to various Government agencies including the US Department of Defence. In the last 27 years RAINN have supported some 3.7. sexual assault survivors and their families. They’re the largest and best-regarded organisation oof this type that I could find.
This is an argument from authority. Some actual evidence for your/ their assertion that there can be no valid consent in an employer /employee sexual relationship would be more convincing.
Oh, and if you want to use “assertion” pejoratively as part of your ad hom you should understand that that all ethical positions are to some degree “assertions”, albeit as here well-argued, widely accepted and practically implemented in many real world situations.
The ”moral consensus” is documented in guidelines, academic articles, workplace policies and the like that have been widely adopted across Western democratic societies. Of course they’re not applied universally and consistently – workplace ethics especially is a constantly developing field; just think of the different dates that smoking in offices was banned for example – but it’s nonetheless nonsense to suggest that the consensus doesn’t exist at all.
Wrong again – se above. Its apparent that you will dismiss without grounds as “rubbish” any evidence that falsifies your beliefs, so what’s the point of asking for it in the first place?
Not “fired for dating” – action will be taken (sometimes including firing, but not always when another solutions are available) when the power relationship means that valid consent is deemed not to be possible. Not every company, school, hospital etc will do this (at least not yet) but those that have adopted the guidelines they think most appropriate will. That at some tine in the past you may have had experience of a company that didn’t do this is irrelevant, just as my once knowing a company that still allowed smoking in the office is irrelevant.
Oh dear. It’s not that the “act” is “intrinsically illegal or exploitative”, it’s that the context in which it happens makes it intrinsically illegal or exploitative.
Why are you doing this to yourself? You seem to have no awareness of how badly out of your depth you are but as you’d simply copy and paste a “no you are” reply I see no point in telling you why. “Western standards” about these matters are developing and, as always, their real world implementation follows behind – and it sometimes does so fitfully and inconsistently too. We’ve come a long way since the days of women being expected to resign when they became pregnant for example, but denying that change was happening just because it took a while is stupid.
Briefly then as the topic has moved on - no evidence for your assertion about a Western consensus on the issue of there being no valid consent. Ok.
-
VG,
That’s nice for you. I Imagine that members of the Hitler Youth got a lot from all that camping and free sailing too.
Not sure what camping and sailing have to do with introspection, but given your other juvenile comments at least you're nothing if not predictable.
I imagine the Hitler Youth also enjoyed making unevidenced assertions that commonly used words and sentences only had one meaning - theirs.
-
I think I have described it before on here. I feel calmer, happier, it increases my sense of self-discipline so I am more productive, helps focus my thoughts, change my perspective if something is upsetting me or if I am worried about something. If I am angry with someone I feel less annoyed after I pray and able to let the issue go without making a big deal about it.
Twice I remember feeling really upset and in emotional pain but felt it was pointless trying to talk to anyone about it and when I prayed (I wasn't expecting prayer to help but I figured I would give it a try) I felt an instant release - best way I can describe it is like the scene in Towering Inferno when the water tanks were blown up and water suddenly cascaded down though the building and extinguished the fire almost instantaneously.
Thanks. Do you think this calming effect is external or internal?
-
They get to the crux of the issue without kicking things into the long grass or explaining things away or steering things away from self examination imho.
I can see that they are a better explanation for you but don't really see the issues you see - kicking things into the long grass, explaining things away or steering things away from self examination. You think very differently from me it's clear, and often don't understand where you are coming from - but interesting to chat :)
-
Thanks. Do you think this calming effect is external or internal?
As I have no way of knowing I am open to the possibility of it being either or both.
It can be interesting to speculate about mechanisms but in relation to the brain producing complex or abstract thoughts, there seems to be so much we currently don't know or can't test for that I focus more on the result or effect on me rather than the mechanism. If you allow the possibility of a supernatural element in the mechanism, then not seeing how that possibility can be tested.
-
Vlad,
Because certain theists claim a god who knows everything, can do anything and is infinitely good but yet horrible things often happen to good people.
please define ‘good’ and ‘horrible’
They’re “wrong” inasmuch as observable reality and their “god of the omnis” claims contradict each other.
The God of the omnis’ is more the God of Greek philosophy isn’t he? Let’s see omnipotent yes he could be all powerful which means he can do what he darn well wants. Funny then how we get statements like “If God were all powerful, he would do this or that”. Omnipresent....no problem with that after all that is what is claimed for the laws of nature. Omniscient and omnibenevolent? Oh no I have a problem here... and the problem is do the definitions lie with you Hillside or do they lie with God
No. If your god could prevent unnecessary suffering, why doesn’t he?
please define unnecessary sufferingWhat “challenge”? Bad things happen to good people. That’s just what you’d expect to see in an indifferent, godless universe.
But the mystery here is why you think these things are bad rather than merely indifferent. And if the universe is indifferent where does good and bad come from?
-
As I have no way of knowing I am open to the possibility of it being either or both.
It can be interesting to speculate about mechanisms but in relation to the brain producing complex or abstract thoughts, there seems to be so much we currently don't know or can't test for that I focus more on the result or effect on me rather than the mechanism. If you allow the possibility of a supernatural element in the mechanism, then not seeing how that possibility can be tested.
I agree that testing for the supernatural is difficult! Have you tried other meditative type practices and if so did you get the same effects?
-
I can see that they are a better explanation for you but don't really see the issues you see - kicking things into the long grass, explaining things away or steering things away from self examination. You think very differently from me it's clear, and often don't understand where you are coming from - but interesting to chat :)
Morality is hard for everybody I would move, go down one line of thought and the issues remain unaddressed, go down another and you’ve explained it out the door, take another and it affects others but not ourselves.
-
I agree that testing for the supernatural is difficult! Have you tried other meditative type practices and if so did you get the same effects?
I used to do a lot of Kung Fu / Sholin kick-boxing so part of the training involved Qigong sessions.
I find praying a lot easier than qigong. Both praying and qigong incorporates the idea of something external that is bigger than you, but with praying I find I get a greater sense of my insignificance and mistakes and short-comings both in the actions I perform and the meaning of the words I recite, so prayer feels more introspective. The actions of Muslim prayer probably help get the blood flowing too.
-
Morality is hard for everybody I would move, go down one line of thought and the issues remain unaddressed, go down another and you’ve explained it out the door, take another and it affects others but not ourselves.
I don't see those issues with, for example, the explanation for morality as a human construct due to us being social creatures with empathy for others. I know you do though.
-
I used to do a lot of Kung Fu / Sholin kick-boxing so part of the training involved Qigong sessions.
I find praying a lot easier than qigong. Both praying and qigong incorporates the idea of something external that is bigger than you, but with praying I find I get a greater sense of my insignificance and mistakes and short-comings both in the actions I perform and the meaning of the words I recite, so prayer feels more introspective. The actions of Muslim prayer probably help get the blood flowing too.
Thanks. I guess I see prayer as being something different. But since I don't pray, who am I to comment :)
-
VG,
Define "unnecessary" and "suffering", given what you perceive as "unnecessary suffering" could be viewed differently by someone else. So what "unnecessary suffering" are you talking about?
What would be the point in defining anything for you given your habit of unqualified “but I interpret these words differently” stock reply?
Anyway, try babies dying painfully of brain cancer when a god of the omnis could have prevented it for just one example.
I can see you still seem to be having a problem with how the English language works and grasping that all of the above is just your interpretation of a story.
No, you can’t see that at all. Just just assert it because you can't or won't address the arguments that undo you.
I can say that you will stop making unevidenced assertions and poor attempts at arguments about the word "will" and then you can still come along and try to assert that your interpretation of the use of English is the only possible interpretation, despite all the evidence of how the word "will" is commonly used in the English language.
Or I could say that we will agree to disagree about the interpretation of the nativity story to give you a chance to see we're going round and round in circles and stop posting on this point as we're clearly never going to agree, and when you decide to continue with your unevidenced assertions, I could decide to respond to your response with my own claim.
Do you see now how the word "will" can be used when writing English?
So the angel can say what "will" happen but if God then wills it not to happen, it won't happen.
You really struggle here don’t you. “Will” means “expressing an inevitable future event”. If you want it to mean something else, rather than just telling us that you want it to mean something else therefore it does mean something else (essentially all you’ve managed to do so far) then you need to justify your interpretation. When you continue not to do that you just open the door to anyone deciding they “interpret” words used by their interlocutor differently, therefore any argument their interlocutor musty be wrong (you know, the problem you keep running away from).
So, do you or do you not have an argument or evidence to support your alternative “interpretation” of “will”?
If you do then tell us what it is; if you don’t, then all you have is wishful thinking. Your choice.
This is an argument from authority. Some actual evidence for your/ their assertion that there can be no valid consent in an employer /employee sexual relationship would be more convincing.
I’ll add “argument from authority” to the terms you don’t understand then. An argument from authority in the fallacious sense means that if person X is an expert, then what person X says must be true regardless of whether person X is actually an expert, whether person X is expert in the relevant field, whether person X is just one expert in a contentious field etc.
In the non-fallacious sense on the other hand it means grounds for a claim on the basis of one or more experts whose opinions are likely to be true on the relevant issue. The opinions of such experts thus provides strong inductive support for the conclusion. While such arguments from authority can only strongly suggest what is true rather than prove it, that isn’t a problem here as there are no proofs in ethics.
The guidance I posted from RAINN satisfy these criteria, which is presumably why they’ve been so widely adopted at lest in the US.
Briefly then as the topic has moved on - no evidence for your assertion about a Western consensus on the issue of there being no valid consent. Ok.
Stop lying.
-
VG,
Not sure what camping and sailing have to do with introspection,….
Whoosh! NS told you why the god you worship is a murderous thug. Your response was to tell him how much better you feel about yourself when you pray to that god. Members of the Hitler Youth were in thrall to a murderous thug too – and if that had been said to them, the reply “but the camping and sailing is fun” would be analogous to your reply.
In analogies the objects (camping/introspection) are always different (that's the point), but the underlying argument is the same. As an example, in the analogy “a good man is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack”, a good man doesn’t have anything to do with a needle either, but it’s still a valid analogy.
Why do I have to explain this to you?
… but given your other juvenile comments at least you're nothing if not predictable.
Wrong again – see above. Still, as ad homs is all you seem to have when you can’t address an argument I guess that’s all we should expect from you right?
I imagine the Hitler Youth also enjoyed making unevidenced assertions that commonly used words and sentences only had one meaning - theirs.
Stop lying. The evidence of standard usage is in dictionaries. The only “unevidenced assertion” here is that you “interpret” inconvenient words differently from their dictionary meanings, but you can’t tell us why.
-
I don't see those issues with, for example, the explanation for morality as a human construct due to us being social creatures with empathy for others. I know you do though.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Human construct rather than biological necessity or something intrinsically human? I get the empathy but it rather suggests something constructed because of the failure of empathy.
You see to me that stands as an explaining away.
It seems morality is more fundamental than mere construct.
-
To answer your post I shall be writing from what I believe.
I appreciate that you are responding from a position of belief. I think I understood that from the start.
First of all who is it who tells us about the Good Samaritan?It is the second person of the trinity incarnate as Jesus. The Good Samaritan exemplifies the highest in how moral a person can act.
Jesus is God identifying with humanity in the most comprehensive way possible...in a human life and he in turn takes the moral line of laying down his life, in his case, for humanity.
Doesn't work. God/Jesus is telling people to help one another to the best of their ability but, as god of the omnis, he doesn't follow his own moral directives. It seems to be a case of do as I say, not as I do. If Jesus is identifying with humanity, as you believe, it seems to be a case of pure hypocrisy and callousness. He has deliberately made himself human in order to show compassion on a human scale but as God He isn't prepared to do anything on the scale which really matters. According to your own holy book, by the way, Jesus only gave up his life temporarily, not such a big deal compared with those who give up their lives permanently.
God of course does not need to do this of course and an evil God would delight in the chaos,misery, death and futility of existence. But of course the universe isn’t like that.
I think you are mixing me up with someone else. I didn't suggest that your God would delight in such things, I suggested that He doesn't take responsibility for his actions. At the very best the Christian God of the omnis doesn't seem to care. In human terms that shows a total lack of concern rather than a delight in inflicting misery etc.
And it is these forces which have given us life and what we do have and our potential to share that. I wonder if you aren’t moved by your prophet Richard Dawkins when he declares the wonder of existing at all or Carl Sagan’s widow when she talks about the kindness of chance. I disagree with the provider here but if you are going to blame God for bad chance then you must credit him with good chance.
So this God is happy that our lives and our potentials are fulfilled in the creation that He has given us, where random chance is the order of the day. Tell that to the parents of the children who died in the 2004 tsunami before their potentials had been realised. By the way, your incorrect statement about my 'prophet Richard Dawkins' needs correcting. He is not my 'prophet' and I don't view him particuarly as an inspired teacher. I was an atheist long before he wrote The Selfish Gene in 1976 and have not changed my views substantially since my early years. As far as the feelings of wonder and awe at the natural world are concerned, these remain with me still throughout my years on this earth, but as for relating to some form of god or entity, no, I do not feel and I have no reason to feel that this is so. As far the idea of chance is concerned, should I be grateful to a God who randomly decides who will survive and flourish and who will suffer and die? I think not.
Jesus takes sin and it’s ultimate consequences upon himself. That is more practical than taking responsibility which is what Boris Johnson did and Matt Hancock has done
No, taking responsibility, if you are a God of the omnis, means not making mistakes in the first place. If human beings were created with the ability and freedom to sin then it was not a mistake on this God's part, but a deliberate act and He bears ultimate responsibility for all the suffering that ensues. It seems to me that the idea of Jesus taking the consequences of sin upon himself was a failed enterprise. First of all, sin and the ensuing suffering continues apace so it failed in any constructive way, and secondly, the idea of dying to be resurrected doesn't seem a particularly genuine way of taking the ultimate consequences on board. It's a bit like (and you brought up the comparison) Boris Johnson resigning and then at a later date accepting the office of Prime minister again.
God, and especially in Christ has done his duty, he has created a universe which works, he has, through the universe, created a humanity free to love and restored the freedom to love God
And free to hate, and hurt and destroy. This is the humanity he is supposed to have created. And you think that He has done his duty? Let these humans get on with it. Brilliant if they love, have compassion and especially love the Christian God, but if they hurt, kill and care only for themselves, then His duty has been done, that's their problem. No responsibility for what he has created then.
The universe and human existence a failure? Hopefully, now you have received some of what was missing from your picture of God.
But if you feel you must continue with what is basically not an atheist argument you need to take this up with God.
It fails decisively for the reasons given from the point of view of believing in a God of the omnis. However as I don't have any belief in a God of the omnis, or any other god, then it would make no sense to take it up with a God I don't believe exists. No, I'll simply continue to take it up with those who do believe if and when I so choose.
-
VG,
What would be the point in defining anything for you given your habit of unqualified “but I interpret these words differently” stock reply?
It's not just me interpreting the words differently from you. It's a common theme in language that words can have different interpretations. Whether you want to accept this or not is up to you.
Anyway, try babies dying painfully of brain cancer when a god of the omnis could have prevented it for just one example.
So nothing to do with Mary and the nativity story then? No claims of unnecessary suffering there?
Regarding the brain cancer, I have already said that I don't know why pain is part of the human experience for babies or adults. We could have all developed in a way where no one will feel pain ever but we haven't. One way I can look at it is that maybe there is some point to the pain or reason for it that I can't appreciate. Another way of looking at is to not believe in a god of the omnis. Given I do believe in a god of the omnis, I'll have to go with the first option.
No, you can’t see that at all. Just just assert it because you can't or won't address the arguments that undo you.
Stop lying. You haven't made any arguments that undo me. You have made some assertions that you can't support with evidence though.
You really struggle here don’t you. “Will” means “expressing an inevitable future event”. If you want it to mean something else, rather than just telling us that you want it to mean something else therefore it does mean something else (essentially all you’ve managed to do so far) then you need to justify your interpretation. When you continue not to do that you just open the door to anyone deciding they “interpret” words used by their interlocutor differently, therefore any argument their interlocutor musty be wrong (you know, the problem you keep running away from).
So, do you or do you not have an argument or evidence to support your alternative “interpretation” of “will”?
If you do then tell us what it is; if you don’t, then all you have is wishful thinking. Your choice.
You are really struggling here with the common use and understanding of the word "will", which is that it is a prediction of a future event and that someone's prediction can change after being expressed. A large part of Christian/ Muslim/ Jewish religious teachings is that we will be held accountable for our choices, as opposed to behaviour being inevitable because people have no choice https://prayray.com/god-gives-freedom-choice-prayer/
So not sure what you mean by "inevitable" when you say that an "inevitable future event" is the only meaning of "will". I am surprised that I need to explain this to you and actually provide a link to a dictionary, since this is common usage. I thought you were just being difficult.
It does not need to be "inevitable" as you seem to be interpreting it - as in 'can never ever change once uttered'. The word "will" combined with another verb could be the expression of a future intent or plan or prediction. An intent, plan or prediction that can change.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/will
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/will
If you want to interpret "will" as meaning an intent once uttered that can never be changed, that's up to you.
I’ll add “argument from authority” to the terms you don’t understand then. An argument from authority in the fallacious sense means that if person X is an expert, then what person X says must be true regardless of whether person X is actually an expert, whether person X is expert in the relevant field, whether person X is just one expert in a contentious field etc.
In the non-fallacious sense on the other hand it means grounds for a claim on the basis of one or more experts whose opinions are likely to be true on the relevant issue. The opinions of such experts thus provides strong inductive support for the conclusion. While such arguments from authority can only strongly suggest what is true rather than prove it, that isn’t a problem here as there are no proofs in ethics.
The guidance I posted from RAINN satisfy these criteria, which is presumably why they’ve been so widely adopted at lest in the US.
I didn't realise that we in the UK were now looking to the US for guidance on morality - do you also advocate introducing the ownership of guns into the UK?
It seems I now also have to correct you on what the term "argument from authority" means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
https://proofed.co.uk/writing-tips/fallacies-arguments-from-authority/
So, how do you avoid arguments from authority? The simple answer is to always focus on evidence. If someone is known as an ‘authority’ in a certain subject area, that’s a great starting point. But you need to look at what they argue, not just who they are.
Stop lying.
You are really struggling with the concept of evidence despite the number of times I have had to school you on this. You even linked to an organisation's website that presented absolutely no evidence for its assertion about valid consent in employer / employee personal relationships and then doubled down on your fallacy by claiming that the size of the organisation and the work it has carried out means that its assertions about consent in an employer / employee relationship must be true, even if you can't present any evidence that society has implemented the assertion that "Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee mean that consent cannot be freely given" into policy norms at work.
I had a moment of hope when you claimed that this assertion has been widely adopted, in the US at least, that you were going to present some evidence of this but you seem to keep running away from linking to any actual evidence to prove that an employee's consent "cannot be freely given" has been widely adopted.
So, do you or do you not have an argument or evidence to support your above assertion?
If you do then tell us what it is; if you don’t, then all you have is wishful thinking. Your choice.
I don't know why you are doing this to yourself or why you seem so unaware of how out of your depth you are but let me help you out. Why don't you email the organisation in the US that you linked to and ask them for evidence.
I think that covers everything but I may have missed out one or two of your usual shtick.
-
VG,
Whoosh! NS told you why the god you worship is a murderous thug.
Uh no - I don't think NS said anything to me about worshipping a murdering thug god - you must be thinking of someone else.
I believe NS's comments to me were along the lines of:
- The god I worship allows child rape and torture and chooses pain for humans when he could have chosen no pain - presumably meaning humans could not have pain receptors or be aware of pain and yet we do, so that's not very benevolent of the god I worship to not dispense with them
- And, given we have pain receptors, the god I worship chooses not to intervene when humans cause each other pain (Moors murderers) when an all-powerful god should intervene if it is benevolent.
Your response was to tell him how much better you feel about yourself when you pray to that god.
Nope that was a response to Maeght who asked in what way prayer helps me, when I said I have no idea whether God answers prayers. Do try to keep up BHS. When I was responding to NS I quoted him in my replies.
My response to NS was "Having been an atheist, I don't remember it changing anything - almost everyone still feels pain, natural disasters still happen, babies still die of cancer or are murdered, some people still treat others horrendously. Not clear what your point is - my worship or lack of worship doesn't alter the levels of pain and suffering in the rest of the world."
And I finished my response to NS by saying that I try to do what I can to control my choices around inflicting pain on others. And that as I have not been through anything traumatic, I can't comment regarding people who have been through really traumatic experiences and seem to find comfort from their faith in a god of the omnis.
Members of the Hitler Youth were in thrall to a murderous thug too – and if that had been said to them, the reply “but the camping and sailing is fun” would be analogous to your reply.
In analogies the objects (camping/introspection) are always different (that's the point), but the underlying argument is the same. As an example, in the analogy “a good man is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack”, a good man doesn’t have anything to do with a needle either, but it’s still a valid analogy.
Why do I have to explain this to you?
Wrong again – see above. Still, as ad homs is all you seem to have when you can’t address an argument I guess that’s all we should expect from you right?
Stop lying. The evidence of standard usage is in dictionaries. The only “unevidenced assertion” here is that you “interpret” inconvenient words differently from their dictionary meanings, but you can’t tell us why.
Members of the Hitler Youth also made unevidenced assertions about the world and were convinced that only they were right and probably believed that if they just kept repeating their assertions that eventually those assertions would become convincing to other people - much like you on here it seems.
-
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Human construct rather than biological necessity or something intrinsically human? I get the empathy but it rather suggests something constructed because of the failure of empathy.
You see to me that stands as an explaining away.
It seems morality is more fundamental than mere construct.
I mean a sort of agreed pattern of behaviour which forms the basis of our society - behaviour which is seen as good or acceptable by the vast majority due to our nature as social creatures who need to form groups to survive. Possibly the way that we develop slowly into fully independent people is a factor, so caring for our young and working together is more important to us than to some other animals. I don't think it is unique to us but - some animals exhibit behaviours which could be seen as being 'good' i.e. actions which benefit the society more than themselves.
I don't understand the comment about a construction due to the failure of empathy.
Proposing a reason isn't explaining it away surely. You seem to want there to be more to it but there may not be anything more than what I have tried to describe. That could be the explanation. So you would say Explaining it rather than explaining it away. Nothing more fundamental behind it. I see no reason to think there is.
-
I mean a sort of agreed pattern of behaviour which forms the basis of our society - behaviour which is seen as good or acceptable by the vast majority due to our nature as social creatures who need to form groups to survive. Possibly the way that we develop slowly into fully independent people is a factor, so caring for our young and working together is more important to us than to some other animals. I don't think it is unique to us but - some animals exhibit behaviours which could be seen as being 'good' i.e. actions which benefit the society more than themselves.
I don't understand the comment about a construction due to the failure of empathy.
Proposing a reason isn't explaining it away surely. You seem to want there to be more to it but there may not be anything more than what I have tried to describe. That could be the explanation. So you would say Explaining it rather than explaining it away. Nothing more fundamental behind it. I see no reason to think there is.
concensus morality? Not sure making this a purely sociological issue isn't diverting from personal review.
Morality under your scheme seems then to be something invented to cope with the inevitable breakdown of empathy
-
concensus morality? Not sure making this a purely sociological issue isn't diverting from personal review.
Morality under your scheme seems then to be something invented to cope with the inevitable breakdown of empathy
What does diverting from personal review mean please? Do you mean the question of personal responsibility for bad deeds?
I wouldn't say it was invented but rather developed, at least initially but then such rules and expectations were more formalised. To some extent it does serve the purpose of dealing with individuals who lack empathy (and who do bad things for the reasons I gave earlier) - putting peer pressure on those to conform. Those who do and who follow societies rules would have had some survival advantages over those who broke the rules and were cast out.
-
What does diverting from personal review mean please? Do you mean the question of personal responsibility for bad deeds?
I mean if we take the sociological line we become the observer and this kind of puts us in a remote position. We are of course the subject and the right course is self review rather than study. In terms of taking responsibility what does that actually entail? Saying it? Taking punishment for it? how much? Repenting whatever?Who to ?how often.?
I wouldn't say it was invented but rather developed, at least initially but then such rules and expectations were more formalised. To some extent it does serve the purpose of dealing with individuals who lack empathy (and who do bad things for the reasons I gave earlier) - putting peer pressure on those to conform. Those who do and who follow societies rules would have had some survival advantages over those who broke the rules and were cast out.
A sociological statement with a built in division between those with empathy and those without, those who do bad things and those who don’t. One wonders the process by which those who came up with a way to deal with the imperfect discovered they were empathy positive.
-
I mean if we take the sociological line we become the observer and this kind of puts us in a remote position. We are of course the subject and the right course is self review rather than study. In terms of taking responsibility what does that actually entail? Saying it? Taking punishment for it? how much? Repenting whatever?Who to ?how often.?
A sociological statement with a built in division between those with empathy and those without, those who do bad things and those who don’t. One wonders the process by which those who came up with a way to deal with the imperfect discovered they were empathy positive.
Sorry, not much clearer.
As I say, I don't think anyone 'came up with' it but that it developed due to our nature and became part of our society.
-
Doesn't work. God/Jesus is telling people to help one another to the best of their ability but, as god of the omnis, he doesn't follow his own moral directives. It seems to be a case of do as I say, not as I do. If Jesus is identifying with humanity, as you believe, it seems to be a case of pure hypocrisy and callousness. He has deliberately made himself human in order to show compassion on a human scale but as God He isn't prepared to do anything on the scale which really matters. According to your own holy book, by the way, Jesus only gave up his life temporarily, not such a big deal compared with those who give up their lives permanently.
It seems to me that you are taking two lines here. A traditional atheist God as big man line and The God of the omnis line. Did you see my reply to Bluehillside regarding the omnis. Firstly these two approaches are contradictory since God cannot be just a huge superman and the God of the omnis at the same time.
Jesus crucifixion an act of hypocrisy? Why does Jesus die?so we can all have eternal life.So our deaths are not permanent either in terms of not being resurrected or us perpetually dying.
Also he takes on, in his death, the sins of the world. You may not believe Jesus has done these things but if you ignore them in your account of Christianity, you are merely making a caricature.I think you are mixing me up with someone else. I didn't suggest that your God would delight in such things, I suggested that He doesn't take responsibility for his actions. At the very best the Christian God of the omnis doesn't seem to care. In human terms that shows a total lack of concern rather than a delight in inflicting misery etc.
But this is a caricature since God wants to adopt us into his family and welcome us to eternal life with him as exemplified in the parable of the prodigal son. No murderer can take that offer from a person, neither natural disaster.
So this God is happy that our lives and our potentials are fulfilled in the creation that He has given us, where random chance is the order of the day. Tell that to the parents of the children who died in the 2004 tsunami before their potentials had been realised.
Our potential is only fulfilled when we have been restored to our original design intent or to put it another way it can only be restored once the image of God in us is restored. By the way, your incorrect statement about my 'prophet Richard Dawkins' needs correcting. He is not my 'prophet' and I don't view him particuarly as an inspired teacher. I was an atheist long before he wrote The Selfish Gene in 1976 and have not changed my views substantially since my early years. As far as the feelings of wonder and awe at the natural world are concerned, these remain with me still throughout my years on this earth, but as for relating to some form of god or entity, no, I do not feel and I have no reason to feel that this is so. As far the idea of chance is concerned, should I be grateful to a God who randomly decides who will survive and flourish and who will suffer and die? I think not.
I, on the other hand feel gratitude for the God given processes that give life and. Make a world and for the promise in Revelations for the new heaven and earth and the life to come made possible for us by God in Jesus. Once again you may not believe it but if you exclude it from your account of Christianity then your account is a caricature.
No, taking responsibility, if you are a God of the omnis, means not making mistakes in the first place. If human beings were created with the ability and freedom to sin then it was not a mistake on this God's part, but a deliberate act and He bears ultimate responsibility for all the suffering that ensues. It seems to me that the idea of Jesus taking the consequences of sin upon himself was a failed enterprise. First of all, sin and the ensuing suffering continues apace so it failed in any constructive way, and secondly, the idea of dying to be resurrected doesn't seem a particularly genuine way of taking the ultimate consequences on board. It's a bit like (and you brought up the comparison) Boris Johnson resigning and then at a later date accepting the office of Prime minister again.
It’s easy to overlook a paragraph like this as being an actual exoneration of wrong doing. As far as the consequences of sin is concerned we will not find that out until the judgment. If none are saved then it has been a failed exercise and who knows, some May successfully win their rebellion against God and successful reject Gods adoption of them. Again Jesus died and was resurrected so we can die and be resurrected to eternal life. And of course any account of Christianity must include this if it is not to be a caricature.
Has God made a mistake who is to judge. That seems to be God as big man thinking
And free to hate, and hurt and destroy. This is the humanity he is supposed to have created. And you think that He has done his duty? Let these humans get on with it. Brilliant if they love, have compassion and especially love the Christian God, but if they hurt, kill and care only for themselves, then His duty has been done, that's their problem. No responsibility for what he has created then.
It fails decisively for the reasons given from the point of view of believing in a God of the omnis. However as I don't have any belief in a God of the omnis, or any other god, then it would make no sense to take it up with a God I don't believe exists. No, I'll simply continue to take it up with those who do believe if and when I so choose.
Ah, the God of the omnis
Firstly, The God of the omnis is the God as constructed or envisaged by the Greek philosophers and I think the God of theology is slightly different Anselm introduces us to a God who is maximal rather than “Omni” in short, God doesn’t do the impossible.
But let’s look at the omnis
Omnipotent This mean God does what he likes so there can be no validity to statements such as if God we’re all powerful, he would do this or that
Omnipresent. No problem here
Omniscient If he is in all places at all times then why wouldn’t he know everything.
Omnibenevolent. It is not for us to know what enormously Good plan he has for a universe like ours we do know what Christ’s life death and resurrection promise us.
-
Sorry, not much clearer.
As I say, I don't think anyone 'came up with' it but that it developed due to our nature and became part of our society.
I think that by making morality a historical thing you are removing yourself from any role. Morality becomes then, just an intellectual study leading as it does in your post to a simplistic and debateable summary of what morality is about.
-
I think that by making morality a historical thing you are removing yourself from any role. Morality becomes then, just an intellectual study leading as it does in your post to a simplistic and debateable summary of what morality is about.
The origin may be historical but it is an ongoing process. What is acceptable and considered moral in society changes overtime.
What do you consider debateable about what i have said regarding what morality is about?
-
The origin may be historical but it is an ongoing process. What is acceptable and considered moral in society changes overtime.
Yes but that’s still merely a sociological statement rather than personal review or reflection of one’s own current moral status...don’t worry I’m not expecting public confession here.
What do you consider debateable about what i have said regarding what morality is about?
It’s suggestion that humanity is divided into empathetic folks, the good.....and the non empathetic folk, the bad.
-
Yes but that’s still merely a sociological statement rather than personal review or reflection of one’s own current moral status...don’t worry I’m not expecting public confession here.It’s suggestion that humanity is divided into empathetic folks, the good.....and the non empathetic folk, the bad.
Sorry, not really understanding what you mean in your first sentence.
I haven't said that humanity is divided into empathetic folks, the good.....and the non empathetic folk, the bad. I mentioned lack of empathy as one reason why people may do bad things, and would say lack of empathy is a scale i.e. everyone has different degrees of empathy.
But I repeat, lack of empathy is one cause of bad things but empathy is, in my view, part of the reason why we have developed a consensus moral code.
-
Thanks. I guess I see prayer as being something different. But since I don't pray, who am I to comment :)
Sorry - missed this. How do you see prayer?
Prayer would be experienced in different ways by different people and would also feel different at different times so anyone can comment. Prayer can be made up of multiple elements. My mind has various different thoughts during prayer.
-
Sorry - missed this. How do you see prayer?
Prayer would be experienced in different ways by different people and would also feel different at different times so anyone can comment. Prayer can be made up of multiple elements. My mind has various different thoughts during prayer.
No problem.
The Cambridge Dictionary says prayer is 'the act or ceremony of speaking to God or a god, esp. to express thanks or to ask for help, or the words used in this act' and I must say my view was more about the asking for help element - hence my initial question about prayers being answered.
-
No problem.
The Cambridge Dictionary says prayer is 'the act or ceremony of speaking to God or a god, esp. to express thanks or to ask for help, or the words used in this act' and I must say my view was more about the asking for help element - hence my initial question about prayers being answered.
That has always been my view - effectively that prayer (except in a colloquial sense) is directed towards a god - so it isn't the same as meditation or earnestly and deeply thinking about something or someone.
Hence you are in my 'thoughts and prayers' - they aren't the same thing, the latter is directed to god, the former isn't.
-
That has always been my view - effectively that prayer (except in a colloquial sense) is directed towards a god - so it isn't the same as meditation or earnestly and deeply thinking about something or someone.
Hence you are in my 'thoughts and prayers' - they aren't the same thing, the latter is directed to god, the former isn't.
What do you mean by 'colloquial' here? Having been brought up RC, the rosary is very mucg meditative. As was the 40 Hours adoration.
-
It seems to me that you are taking two lines here. A traditional atheist God as big man line and The God of the omnis line. Did you see my reply to Bluehillside regarding the omnis. Firstly these two approaches are contradictory since God cannot be just a huge superman and the God of the omnis at the same time.
No, I made it clear from my first post(540)that I was talking about the God of the omnis and again in post 543("If one believes in a god of the omnis then it's up to that person to explain how or why this god allows bad things to happen in the world, not me."), a point which was made abundantly clear in Blue's post to Sriram(534) and to which you replied to in post 538. Whether God is supposed to be a 'big man' is neither here nor there. So, no contradiction at all. Yes, I read your response to Blue(578) but if you are saying that He isn't a God of the omnis, then I have no argument. He would therefore be subject to the laws of nature and his omnibenovolence would be subject to same. However, that would make Him a rather limited God and would bring up the question of what exactly it is that He can do.
Jesus crucifixion an act of hypocrisy? Why does Jesus die?so we can all have eternal life.So our deaths are not permanent either in terms of not being resurrected or us perpetually dying.
Also he takes on, in his death, the sins of the world. You may not believe Jesus has done these things but if you ignore them in your account of Christianity, you are merely making a caricature.
I didn't say that Jesus's cruxifixion was an act of hypocrisy. What I did say was this:"If Jesus is identifying with humanity, as you believe, it seems to be a case of pure hypocrisy and callousness. He has deliberately made himself human in order to show compassion on a human scale but as God He isn't prepared to do anything on the scale which really matters." The idea of the resurrection, rather the cruxifixion, is only an adjunct to this.
And you seem to have no answer to the point I raised that a God of the omnis allows universal suffering and misery to be part of His plan whilst putting Himself on this earth in human form as a person of perfect moral character. Whether or not Jesus takes on the sins of the world and offers us redemption, the point still stands.
But this is a caricature since God wants to adopt us into his family and welcome us to eternal life with him as exemplified in the parable of the prodigal son. No murderer can take that offer from a person, neither natural disaster.
And yet, this God is quite prepared to allow suffering and misery to go on undiluted. Sorry, I don't find that convincing.
Our potential is only fulfilled when we have been restored to our original design intent or to put it another way it can only be restored once the image of God in us is restored.
That is according to you and your beliefs. I disagree. Any child that dies has been denied his full potential in this world and that's good enough for me. A God of the omnis denies this to some of His creations.
I, on the other hand feel gratitude for the God given processes that give life and. Make a world and for the promise in Revelations for the new heaven and earth and the life to come made possible for us by God in Jesus. Once again you may not believe it but if you exclude it from your account of Christianity then your account is a caricature.
I'm sure you do, but simply because I don't go along with your beliefs doesn't mean I am caricaturising God. How is feeling awe and wonder at the natural world caricaturising God? How is not believing in any god, including yours, caricaturising any god? How, assuming God has decided the process, is showing that chance can have bad results as well as good results(you brought up the chance idea), caricaturising God?
It’s easy to overlook a paragraph like this as being an actual exoneration of wrong doing. As far as the consequences of sin is concerned we will not find that out until the judgment. If none are saved then it has been a failed exercise and who knows, some May successfully win their rebellion against God and successful reject Gods adoption of them. Again Jesus died and was resurrected so we can die and be resurrected to eternal life. And of course any account of Christianity must include this if it is not to be a caricature.
From my point of view, if one accepts on the idea of 'sin' in human beings, then the God of the omnis is ultimately responsible for this. From my moral standpoint, if this God doesn't accept this, then the idea of the God of the omnis fails and the whole idea needs putting in the rubbish bin. If your idea of morality is different to mine and you also believe in a God of the omnis, then, of course, you will strongly disagree with me. I have no problem with this at all.
Has God made a mistake who is to judge. That seems to be God as big man thinking
If you mean that no one is able to judge whether this God made a mistake, I would disagree. A God of the omnis is incapable of making a mistake, hence anything He does must be deliberate. Other than that I haven't a clue what you mean by 'big man thinking'.
Ah, the God of the omnis
Firstly, The God of the omnis is the God as constructed or envisaged by the Greek philosophers and I think the God of theology is slightly different Anselm introduces us to a God who is maximal rather than “Omni” in short, God doesn’t do the impossible.
But let’s look at the omnis
Omnipotent This mean God does what he likes so there can be no validity to statements such as if God we’re all powerful, he would do this or that
Omnipresent. No problem here
Omniscient If he is in all places at all times then why wouldn’t he know everything.
Omnibenevolent. It is not for us to know what enormously Good plan he has for a universe like ours we do know what Christ’s life death and resurrection promise us.
I'm not suggesting that God does the impossible such as producing a squared circle. However if human beings can eradicate such a disease as small pox, then a God of the omnis could have done the same, or even better, not allowed it at all.
I simply say if a God of the four omnis exists then the whole idea seems to fail because he has created a world where bad things happen. Alternatively, If we do not know what God's good plan of our universe is, why does He not tell us then so that we can use our own mental abilities to judge whether we agree with Him or not. In the absence of such information I am inclined to make my own judgements and hence I come to the conclusion that either He is not an omnibenevolent God, or that He is something lesser or in the absence of any evidence for His presence, He doesn't exist at all. It is no secret which one I favour.
-
What do you mean by 'colloquial' here?
When people say thing like:
'They haven't got a prayer' to mean they haven't got a hope. Or when people use 'pray' merely to indicate something that they want badly, but with no actually prayer to god intended - 'I was really praying that we pulled a goal back before half time'.
Having been brought up RC, the rosary is very mucg meditative. As was the 40 Hours adoration.
Having not been brought up RC I've no idea what the rosary really entails - but I guess by the definition it would need to be directed to god to be a prayer. If it is purely personally meditative and with not direction to god then it wouldn't really be a prayer. Of course things can be both - i.e. personally reflective and meditative but also directed towards god.
-
VG,
It's not just me interpreting the words differently from you. It's a common theme in language that words can have different interpretations. Whether you want to accept this or not is up to you.
I don’t agree that it’s “a theme in language that words can have different interpretations” because I interpret the words “theme”, “language” and “different” differently from you. What’s that you say? “But to take a valid position on that you must also justify specifically why you interpret those words differently from their standard definitions”? Oh no no no – I can just ignore that problem, and instead keep making the same broad statement about some words sometimes changing their meanings over time as if that somehow gets me off the hook.
That is how this works right?
Oh wait, sorry – I forgot the snide little straw man at the end: ...whether you want to accept this or not is up to you.
There you go – job done.
On the other hand, you could I suppose stop deflecting and instead finally just tell us how you would justify your different interpretation of the god character’s use of “will” so we’d know that wishful thinking isn’t all you have after all. What’s stopping you?
So nothing to do with Mary and the nativity story then? No claims of unnecessary suffering there?
No, nothing at all to do with Mary – do you suppose though that that may just have something to do my with answering the question you actually asked me in the context of the problem of evil and a god of the omnis (ie, “Define "unnecessary" and "suffering", given what you perceive as "unnecessary suffering" could be viewed differently by someone else. So what "unnecessary suffering" are you talking about?”) rather than in the context of the previous exchanges about Mary?
You really have no shame at all have you.
Regarding the brain cancer, I have already said that I don't know why pain is part of the human experience for babies or adults. We could have all developed in a way where no one will feel pain ever but we haven't. One way I can look at it is that maybe there is some point to the pain or reason for it that I can't appreciate. Another way of looking at is to not believe in a god of the omnis. Given I do believe in a god of the omnis, I'll have to go with the first option.
Yes, you don’t have much choice about that – it’s a common piece of theistic casuistry to hand wave the problem away with “it’s a mystery”, “god knows best”, “that way, the babies get to meet god sooner” etc so you’re not alone in tying yourself in increasingly Gordian knots to explain why unnecessary suffering is part of god’s plan rather than just what you’d expect to see if there was no god at all (or at least not a theistic one). You might want to consider Occam’s razor about now though…
Stop lying. You haven't made any arguments that undo me. You have made some assertions that you can't support with evidence though.
Just responding to someone identifying your lying with “stop lying” doesn’t work. What you could try instead though is finally to try at least to deal with the arguments you’re given: why not finally for example tell us why you think “will” doesn’t mean “will” after all, or perhaps try something other than an ad hom to dismiss with no arguments at all the ethical guidelines of a respected organisation working extensively in the field whose policies have been adopted by various government agencies?
You are really struggling here with the common use and understanding of the word "will", which is that it is a prediction of a future event and that someone's prediction can change after being expressed. A large part of Christian/ Muslim/ Jewish religious teachings is that we will be held accountable for our choices, as opposed to behaviour being inevitable because people have no choice https://prayray.com/god-gives-freedom-choice-prayer/
So not sure what you mean by "inevitable" when you say that an "inevitable future event" is the only meaning of "will". I am surprised that I need to explain this to you and actually provide a link to a dictionary, since this is common usage. I thought you were just being difficult.
It does not need to be "inevitable" as you seem to be interpreting it - as in 'can never ever change once uttered'. The word "will" combined with another verb could be the expression of a future intent or plan or prediction. An intent, plan or prediction that can change.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/will
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/will
If you want to interpret "will" as meaning an intent once uttered that can never be changed, that's up to you.
Er, aren’t you forgetting something here? The “will” of the Bible story wasn’t said by some ordinary Joe who might have changed his mind later on or who overslept or who was just shooting the breeze. It was said (so we’re told) by an Angel who was passing on the unfailing message of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent god. What are you suggesting here – that a god who knows everything past, present and future might have changed his mind later on so when “He” "unfailingly" said “will” he actually meant something like, “with a bit of luck it might happen, but hey you can’t expect me to be unfailing about that because I’m only human after all not a god and, you know, new information might turn up that… oh no, wait a minute though…”?
This is the same mistake you made earlier on in this thread by the way re the god character’s morality (“morality changes over time” etc), forgetting that “god” is supposed to be morally perfect already – ie, precisely not changing over time (“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” James 1:17).
Perhaps if it would help you if you give your head a wobble about now?
I didn't realise that we in the UK were now looking to the US for guidance on morality - do you also advocate introducing the ownership of guns into the UK?
I guess when all you’ve got left is to attack the provenance of the evidence then all you can do it to attack the provenance of the evidence right? The only argument I had to substantiate though was that these standards exist at all and are followed – which I did. I don’t have to substantiate the content of the guidelines themselves, nor do I even have to agree with them. And having shown you that they do exist, the question you endlessly deflect from remains: do you find the morality of the guidelines or the morality of the god character to be better?
It seems I now also have to correct you on what the term "argument from authority" means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
https://proofed.co.uk/writing-tips/fallacies-arguments-from-authority/
So, how do you avoid arguments from authority? The simple answer is to always focus on evidence. If someone is known as an ‘authority’ in a certain subject area, that’s a great starting point. But you need to look at what they argue, not just who they are.
Oh dear. I set out clearly for you the fallacious and the non-fallacious use of the argument from authority – and if you’d bothered to read the articles you linked to you’d have seen the differences set out for you there too.
From the Wiki argument for example:
“Some consider that it is used in a cogent form if all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context,[2][3] …”
I explained to you too that the argument can be sound when the expertise is relevant, but unsound when the expertise is not in the field about which the inductive claim of likely reliability is made, and hilariously your second link makes exactly this point for me too:
“Isaac Newton was a great scientist and an alchemist, so we should take the discipline of alchemy seriously.
We would never deny that Newton was a great scientist. His work on gravity and optics? The boy done good. But Newton’s belief in alchemy doesn’t mean we can change lead into gold. To argue that this were possible, we would need evidence. And there is none.”
Thanks for the citations that agree with me, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t your intention right?
Look, let me try to make it simpler for you: imagine (heaven forfend) that you were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and were referred to a consultant for treatment advice. Would you:
A.Take that advice, perhaps seeking a second opinion too (note that word “opinion” rather than "evidence" here by the way) to be sure your consultant isn’t an outlier; or
B. Cancel the appointment, take a medical degree plus gain further academic qualifications, build a lab and undertake fundamental research of your own, have your results peer reviewed and published, commission a pharmaceutical company to design and manufacture from scratch the drugs you’d (re)discovered etc?
Or, to put it another way: would you accept the argument from authority as more likely true than not?
Can you see now what the non-fallacious use of the argument of authority actually looks like?
You are really struggling with the concept of evidence despite the number of times I have had to school you on this. You even linked to an organisation's website that presented absolutely no evidence for its assertion about valid consent in employer / employee personal relationships and then doubled down on your fallacy by claiming that the size of the organisation and the work it has carried out means that its assertions about consent in an employer / employee relationship must be true, even if you can't present any evidence that society has implemented the assertion that "Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee mean that consent cannot be freely given" into policy norms at work.
I had a moment of hope when you claimed that this assertion has been widely adopted, in the US at least, that you were going to present some evidence of this but you seem to keep running away from linking to any actual evidence to prove that an employee's consent "cannot be freely given" has been widely adopted.
So, do you or do you not have an argument or evidence to support your above assertion?
If you do then tell us what it is; if you don’t, then all you have is wishful thinking. Your choice.
I don't know why you are doing this to yourself or why you seem so unaware of how out of your depth you are but let me help you out. Why don't you email the organisation in the US that you linked to and ask them for evidence.
Such a shame that you have no grasp of irony – this collection of bad reasoning, straw men, false claims etc is an irony goldmine if you did but know it. Your epic, buttock-clenching, profoundly dim-witted mistake about continually demanding evidence and then (hysterically) claiming that someone else struggles with the concept is that you’re still looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
The only evidence I needed to produce here is that ethics guidelines exist, that they are authored by authoritative sources, that they say what I say they say, and that they have significant real-world effect because they’ve been adopted (for example by the US Department of Defense). I did that. You could do that too if you could be bothered to try.
What I don’t have to provide “evidence” for though is the validity or otherwise of what those guidelines actually say. Why not? Because ethics as a discipline isn’t evidence apt. Really try to understand this because until you do you’re like a moth endlessly flying into a lightbulb no matter how many windows I open for you. You might for example agree with the moral statement “murder is wrong”. What though if every time you said it I replied like a demented speak your weight machine with “where’s your evidence?”, “where’s your evidence?”?
Again, really try to understand this – you can have reasoning and argument and gut feel for ethical positions until they’re coming out of your ears, but what you can’t have just as a matter of principle is evidence.
I think that covers everything but I may have missed out one or two of your usual shtick.
Yes, you’ve got pretty much everything wrong again – see above.
-
VG,
Uh no - I don't think NS said anything to me about worshipping a murdering thug god - you must be thinking of someone else.
In Reply 557 NS said to you:
“and yet you worship God for what it does. It allows child rape and torture. You worship it for that.”
To which you responded in Reply 559:
“As I said - I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.”.
I believe NS's comments to me were along the lines of:
• The god I worship allows child rape and torture and chooses pain for humans when he could have chosen no pain - presumably meaning humans could not have pain receptors or be aware of pain and yet we do, so that's not very benevolent of the god I worship to not dispense with them
• And, given we have pain receptors, the god I worship chooses not to intervene when humans cause each other pain (Moors murderers) when an all-powerful god should intervene if it is benevolent.
Maybe so, though I’d have thought the point would be more to do with why babies are given and then permitted to die of brain cancer at all rather than why they have pain receptors for suffer needlessly when they do.
In any case though, your reply to NS’s was as I quoted it verbatim above: “As I said - I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.”
You choose to prioritise your personal upside of praying to this (supposed) god over concerning yourself with its savagery, but we’re built differently about that kind of thing I suppose.
Nope that was a response to Maeght who asked in what way prayer helps me, when I said I have no idea whether God answers prayers. Do try to keep up BHS. When I was responding to NS I quoted him in my replies.
In Reply 565 NS said:
“And yet your god chooses it and you worship your god.”
In your Reply 566 you ended with:
“I find religious faith helps me, with the relatively minor hardships I have had to go through.”
You also said something similar to Maeght, but I’ve kept up well enough thanks.
My response to NS was "Having been an atheist, I don't remember it changing anything - almost everyone still feels pain, natural disasters still happen, babies still die of cancer or are murdered, some people still treat others horrendously. Not clear what your point is - my worship or lack of worship doesn't alter the levels of pain and suffering in the rest of the world."
And I finished my response to NS by saying that I try to do what I can to control my choices around inflicting pain on others. And that as I have not been through anything traumatic, I can't comment regarding people who have been through really traumatic experiences and seem to find comfort from their faith in a god of the omnis.
Does it not occur to you that NS’s point was what he said it was, and that your reply above just deflected from that? The point here wasn’t about your choices – it was about your (supposed) god’s choices (ie, not to interevene to prevent pain when he could), and about how you turn a blind eye to those choices because you enjoy what you perceive as the benefits to you of worshipping that god notwithstanding?
Members of the Hitler Youth also made unevidenced assertions about the world and were convinced that only they were right and probably believed that if they just kept repeating their assertions that eventually those assertions would become convincing to other people - much like you on here it seems.
Even by your dismal standards that’s pathetic. You hand waved away the god you worship being a murderous thug by telling us how much better worshipping it makes you feel about yourself. I told you that that was analogous to a Hitler Youth member responding to a critique of Hitler by telling us about how much he enjoy the camping and sailing. You then fell apart by asking what camping and sailing have to do with introspection as if that was relevant to the analogy, so I corrected you by explaining how analogies work. And what did you do in reply? “OK, I get it now. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me” perhaps? Oh no – you just ignored the point completely and instead went into a bizarre straw man rant – presumably in the hope that no-one would notice while you made good your escape.
So now you’ve had your hissy fit, can you see why the analogy works and why complaining that camping and sailing aren’t comparable to introspection missed the point entirely?
-
I didn't say that Jesus's cruxifixion was an act of hypocrisy. What I did say was this:"If Jesus is identifying with humanity, as you believe, it seems to be a case of pure hypocrisy and callousness. He has deliberately made himself human in order to show compassion on a human scale but as God He isn't prepared to do anything on the scale which really matters." The idea of the resurrection, rather the cruxifixion, is only an adjunct to this.
God hasn't done anything on a scale that really matters? But your scale that really matters is that which occurs without the need for a God. An atheist's perceived life if you will. Why should we accept the atheistic life is all that matters. It seems you are betting the house on it.
And you seem to have no answer to the point I raised that a God of the omnis allows universal suffering and misery to be part of His plan whilst putting Himself on this earth in human form as a person of perfect moral character. Whether or not Jesus takes on the sins of the world and offers us redemption, the point still stands.
But as I have tried to point out to you, the God of the omnis is the God constructed by philosophers, up to and including those atheist philosophers who constructed one that just happened to fail. That being said the flaw with that approach is that said people and their followers treated omnibenevolence in the same way as they treated omnipotence, omniscience. As if they could define omnibenevolence with precision or authority they can't of course and we are still left ourselves to decide which of these two is more benevolent. A world with laws of nature, moral free will. Complete divine identification with humanity and restoration in relationship with God...or a world without?
And yet, this God is quite prepared to allow suffering and misery to go on undiluted. Sorry, I don't find that convincing.
And that is the caricature of the universe as it is on which I believe the rest of your argument begins to fail. Suffering and misery in life are not undiluted for there is the slight issue of the Good in the universe
That is according to you and your beliefs. I disagree. Any child that dies has been denied his full potential in this world and that's good enough for me. A God of the omnis denies this to some of His creations.
Then we have to disagree because nobody's potential can be fulfilled until the image of God is fully restored, something this world can never offer and often denies a person but that doesn't leave callousness since the bible portrays God as giving his only son to death and resurrection which is biblically that which befalls us all. There may be a second more sinister implication to your statement here though since there is an unintentional implied exoneration of murder
I'm sure you do, but simply because I don't go along with your beliefs doesn't mean I am caricaturising God. How is feeling awe and wonder at the natural world caricaturising God? How is not believing in any god, including yours, caricaturising any god?
I don't think I said it did, I said you may disagree but you shouldn't present a caricature of the God I believe in because you've rather ended up saddling ME with the God YOU don't believe in. How, assuming God has decided the process, is showing that chance can have bad results as well as good results(you brought up the chance idea), caricaturising God?
Chance is not the only decider of things though, human and divine will are the others
From my point of view, if one accepts on the idea of 'sin' in human beings, then the God of the omnis is ultimately responsible for this.
Not sure that is true when free will is introduced since humanity is given responsibility. What you are saying is that is impossible and here we disagree From my moral standpoint, if this God doesn't accept this, then the idea of the God of the omnis fails and the whole idea needs putting in the rubbish bin.
But as I have said the God of the omnis is the construction of the philosophers and was bound to fail...and fails in a way you haven't envisaged so I don't believe in the God of the omnis who is pre stymied by an expectation of doing the impossible and in his latter day incarnation, constructed to fail in any case
I'm not suggesting that God does the impossible such as producing a squared circle. However if human beings can eradicate such a disease as small pox, then a God of the omnis could have done the same, or even better, not allowed it at all.
I simply say if a God of the four omnis exists then the whole idea seems to fail because he has created a world where bad things happen. Alternatively, If we do not know what God's good plan of our universe is, why does He not tell us then so that we can use our own mental abilities to judge whether we agree with Him or not. In the absence of such information I am inclined to make my own judgements and hence I come to the conclusion that either He is not an omnibenevolent God, or that He is something lesser or in the absence of any evidence for His presence, He doesn't exist at all. It is no secret which one I favour.
But with the implicit exoneration of human evil in what you believe about God we have to question subconsciously why you and others and at one point myself favour it.
-
Vlad,
God hasn't done anything on a scale that really matters? But your scale that really matters is that which occurs without the need for a God. An atheist's perceived life if you will. Why should we accept the atheistic life is all that matters. It seems you are betting the house on it.
No-one says that you should accept that “an atheistic life is all that matters”. If your belief in your god or anyone else’s beliefs in their gods matter to them then so be it. That though tells you nothing about whether the objects of any of these beliefs are also real.
But as I have tried to point out to you, the God of the omnis is the God constructed by philosophers, up to and including those atheist philosophers who constructed one that just happened to fail. That being said the flaw with that approach is that said people and their followers treated omnibenevolence in the same way as they treated omnipotence, omniscience. As if they could define omnibenevolence with precision or authority they can't of course and we are still left ourselves to decide which of these two is more benevolent. A world with laws of nature, moral free will. Complete divine identification with humanity and restoration in relationship with God...or a world without?
Nope. The “god of the omnis” (including omnibenevolence) is constructed by theists (philosophical or otherwise). Here for example:
https://www.gotquestions.org/God-omnibenevolent.html
They in turn draw for authority on the Bible. Here for example:
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked. “Only God is truly good.”
Mark 10:18 — New Living Translation (NLT)
It’s quite an ambitious effort though: “Reality contradicts the god that theists claim to exist therefore it’s the fault of atheist philosophers or some such that the theistic model doesn’t work.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0PPfZIi6B8
Hmmm...
And that is the caricature of the universe as it is on which I believe the rest of your argument begins to fail. Suffering and misery in life are not undiluted for there is the slight issue of the Good in the universe
How exactly is, say, the suffering of families whose children are swept away in a tsunami “diluted” by your gran giving you a nice cheque for Christmas?
Then we have to disagree because nobody's potential can be fulfilled until the image of God is fully restored, something this world can never offer and often denies a person but that doesn't leave callousness since the bible portrays God as giving his only son to death and resurrection which is biblically that which befalls us all. There may be a second more sinister implication to your statement here though since there is an unintentional implied exoneration of murder
Ooh and he’s played the fallacy of reification card again there. Nice move!
I don't think I said it did, I said you may disagree but you shouldn't present a caricature of the God I believe in because you've rather ended up saddling ME with the God YOU don't believe in.
There’s no knowing which version of “god” you believe in because you’re so inconsistent about that, but what you call a “caricature” seems to be broadly in line with mainstream Christian theology as I understand it (see link above for example)
...and divine will are the others
Whoa! He’s only going for a reification fallacy double here! Can we perhaps expect the hat trick to come?
Not sure that is true when free will is introduced since humanity is given responsibility. What you are saying is that is impossible and here we disagree
Just remind me how the misapplication of “free” will gives babies brain cancer again?
But as I have said the God of the omnis is the construction of the philosophers and was bound to fail...and fails in a way you haven't envisaged so I don't believe in the God of the omnis who is pre stymied by an expectation of doing the impossible and in his latter day incarnation, constructed to fail in any case
Leaving aside the incoherence of most of that, if you “don’t believe in a god of the omnis” then you’d better take it up with the mainstream Christians theologians who do.
But with the implicit exoneration of human evil in what you believe about God we have to question subconsciously why you and others and at one point myself favour it.
Aw, and now he’s collapsed into total incoherence before he got the chance to score the reification fallacy hat trick! Such a shame that – I was quite looking forward to it.
Ah well. Next time perhaps…
-
Vlad,
No-one says that you should accept that “an atheistic life is all that matters”. If your belief in your god or anyone else’s beliefs in their gods matter to them then so be it. That though tells you nothing about whether the objects of any of these beliefs are also real.
Nope. The “god of the omnis” (including omnibenevolence) is constructed by theists (philosophical or otherwise). Here for example:
https://www.gotquestions.org/God-omnibenevolent.html
They in turn draw for authority on the Bible. Here for example:
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked. “Only God is truly good.”
Mark 10:18 — New Living Translation (NLT)
It’s quite an ambitious effort though: “Reality contradicts the god that theists claim to exist therefore it’s the fault of atheist philosophers or some such that the theistic model doesn’t work.”
Hmmm...
How exactly is, say, the suffering of families whose children are swept away in a tsunami “diluted” by your gran giving you a nice cheque for Christmas?
Ooh and he’s played the fallacy of reification card again there. Nice move!
There’s no knowing which version of “god” you believe in because you’re so inconsistent about that, but what you call a “caricature” seems to be broadly in line with mainstream Christian theology as I understand it (see link above for example)
Whoa! He’s only going for a reification fallacy double here! Can we perhaps expect the hat trick to come?
Just remind me how the misapplication of “free” will gives babies brain cancer again?
Leaving aside the incoherence of most of that, if you “don’t believe in a god of the omnis” then you’d better take it up with the mainstream Christians theologians who do.
in factr
Aw, and now he’s collapsed into total incoherence before he got the chance to score the reification fallacy hat trick! Such a shame that – I was quite looking forward to it.
Ah well. Next time perhaps…
In my experience many of those presenting themselves as expert witnesses in God's morality are moral relativists and when I read your post my first thought was ''oh no another one''and that was my second, third and fourth thought also. You show little evidence of knowing what mainstream theologians think.
-
Vlad,
In my experience many of those presenting themselves as expert witnesses in God's morality are moral relativists and when I read your post my first thought was ''oh no another one''and that was my second, third and fourth thought also. You show little evidence of knowing what mainstream theologians think.
Must be exhausting for you – all that ducking and diving. So yet again you've had your efforts dismantled in front of your eyes, and yet again you haven't even tried to address the problem. Ah well - 'twas ever thus I suppose.
As for your, "You show little evidence of knowing what mainstream theologians think" I'd have thought linking to the pages where they tell you themselves what they think would have done that job well enough don't you think?
-
God hasn't done anything on a scale that really matters? But your scale that really matters is that which occurs without the need for a God. An atheist's perceived life if you will. Why should we accept the atheistic life is all that matters.It seems you are betting the house on it.
On a scale of acting with compassion,He most certainly hasn't. Where Jesus did a few miracles, according to the gospels, humans have saved countless diabetic lives by dint of medical progress, something which a God of the omnis could have completely eradicated.
But as I have tried to point out to you, the God of the omnis is the God constructed by philosophers, up to and including those atheist philosophers who constructed one that just happened to fail. That being said the flaw with that approach is that said people and their followers treated omnibenevolence in the same way as they treated omnipotence, omniscience. As if they could define omnibenevolence with precision or authority they can't of course and we are still left ourselves to decide which of these two is more benevolent. A world with laws of nature, moral free will. Complete divine identification with humanity and restoration in relationship with God...or a world without?
As I have already said, and to which my original post made clear, I am speaking of the God of the omnis. Wiki describes such a God thus:
"In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith.[1] God is typically conceived as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, as well as having an eternal and necessary existence. God is often thought to be incorporeal, evoking transcendence or immanence."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God
If one is talking about any other type of God(e.g. one who is not omnipotent for instance) it's a whole new ballgame.
And that is the caricature of the universe as it is on which I believe the rest of your argument begins to fail. Suffering and misery in life are not undiluted for there is the slight issue of the Good in the universe
I didn't say that 'suffering and misery in life are not diluted'. I said that GOD is quite prepared to allow suffering and misery to go on undiluted. I made no mention, for instance, of what human beings may do to alleviate such suffering(which is considerable) but the bottom line is that there is no evidence of God doing anything.
Then we have to disagree because nobody's potential can be fulfilled until the image of God is fully restored, something this world can never offer and often denies a person but that doesn't leave callousness since the bible portrays God as giving his only son to death and resurrection which is biblically that which befalls us all. There may be a second more sinister implication to your statement here though since there is an unintentional implied exoneration of murder
We disagree indeed, because I am aware that a person's potential can only be achieved whilst they are alive. If I take your line that true potential can only be fulfilled when the image of God is fully restored and this is something which cannot happen in this world, then one has the clear problem of justifying why He put some humans on this earth to die in infancy needlessly, when they could have foregone any suffering and gone straight to heaven.
I don't think I said it did, I said you may disagree but you shouldn't present a caricature of the God I believe in because you've rather ended up saddling ME with the God YOU don't believe in.
I don't think I am. I am simply point out the failings in the approach of the God of the omnis. And I refute the idea that I'm presenting a caricature of this God. Also I can't possibly be saddling you with anything because, as I said, in a previous post, "but if you are saying that He isn't a God of the omnis, then I have no argument. He would therefore be subject to the laws of nature and his omnnbenovolence would be subject to same. However, that would make Him a rather limited God and would bring up the question of what exactly it is that He can do."
Chance is not the only decider of things though, human and divine will are the others
Indeed. I would not have brought up the whole idea of chance if you had not referred to it. I would simply say that for the God of the omnis, whatever happens is ultimately the responsibility of such a God.
Not sure that is true when free will is introduced since humanity is given responsibility. What you are saying is that is impossible and here we disagree
Ah, the old free will get out. I would say that in the scenario of the God of the omnis it was God who decided to give us free will and consequentially He should take on responsibility for any effects that He disapproves of.
But as I have said the God of the omnis is the construction of the philosophers and was bound to fail...and fails in a way you haven't envisaged so I don't believe in the God of the omnis who is pre stymied by an expectation of doing the impossible and in his latter day incarnation, constructed to fail in any case
I agree completely. I would suggest that you address your misgivings to those who talk about the omnipotence and omniscience of God in the same breath as talking about his all loving perfect goodness. The state of this world suggests otherwise.
But with the implicit exoneration of human evil in what you believe about God we have to question subconsciously why you and others and at one point myself favour it.
Nowhere have I exonerated human evil per se, but by its very nature that is what is suggested by the God of the omnis. Remember I don't believe in any god and, as I suggested in my opening post, I don't have the problem of explaining why 'evil' exists.
-
On a scale of acting with compassion,He most certainly hasn't. Where Jesus did a few miracles, according to the gospels, humans have saved countless diabetic lives by dint of medical progress, something which a God of the omnis could have completely eradicated.
As I have already said, and to which my original post made clear, I am speaking of the God of the omnis. Wiki describes such a God thus:
"In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith.[1] God is typically conceived as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, as well as having an eternal and necessary existence. God is often thought to be incorporeal, evoking transcendence or immanence."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God
If one is talking about any other type of God(e.g. one who is not omnipotent for instance) it's a whole new ballgame.
I didn't say that 'suffering and misery in life are not diluted'. I said that GOD is quite prepared to allow suffering and misery to go on undiluted. I made no mention, for instance, of what human beings may do to alleviate such suffering(which is considerable) but the bottom line is that there is no evidence of God doing anything.
We disagree indeed, because I am aware that a person's potential can only be achieved whilst they are alive. If I take your line that true potential can only be fulfilled when the image of God is fully restored and this is something which cannot happen in this world, then one has the clear problem of justifying why He put some humans on this earth to die in infancy needlessly, when they could have foregone any suffering and gone straight to heaven.
I don't think I am. I am simply point out the failings in the approach of the God of the omnis. And I refute the idea that I'm presenting a caricature of this God. Also I can't possibly be saddling you with anything because, as I said, in a previous post, "but if you are saying that He isn't a God of the omnis, then I have no argument. He would therefore be subject to the laws of nature and his omnnbenovolence would be subject to same. However, that would make Him a rather limited God and would bring up the question of what exactly it is that He can do."
Indeed. I would not have brought up the whole idea of chance if you had not referred to it. I would simply say that for the God of the omnis, whatever happens is ultimately the responsibility of such a God.
Ah, the old free will get out. I would say that in the scenario of the God of the omnis it was God who decided to give us free will and consequentially He should take on responsibility for any effects that He disapproves of.
I agree completely. I would suggest that you address your misgivings to those who talk about the omnipotence and omniscience of God in the same breath as talking about his all loving perfect goodness. The state of this world suggests otherwise.
Nowhere have I exonerated human evil per se, but by its very nature that is what is suggested by the God of the omnis. Remember I don't believe in any god and, as I suggested in my opening post, I don't have the problem of explaining why 'evil' exists.
Once you have blamed God for everything and you have then there is no further discussion to be had...That isn't my doing, it's yours.
Also it is difficult having a conversation with you as you flip flop between antitheistic arguments and atheist arguments of the oh well, I don't believe in God anyway variety. You present then as an atheist who is antigod.
Once again I feel I need to appeal to you...feel free to be an atheist but please don't saddle me with belief in a caricature God you have constructed either by commission or omission of attributes
-
On a scale of acting with compassion,He most certainly hasn't. Where Jesus did a few miracles, according to the gospels, humans have saved countless diabetic lives by dint of medical progress, something which a God of the omnis could have completely eradicated. So restoring the link between Mankind and God, since Jesus is God is way down on the scale of compassion? And the lives saved by humans are down to humans but the bad things are down to God?
-
VG,
I don’t agree that it’s “a theme in language that words can have different interpretations” because I interpret the words “theme”, “language” and “different” differently from you. What’s that you say? “But to take a valid position on that you must also justify specifically why you interpret those words differently from their standard definitions”? Oh no no no – I can just ignore that problem, and instead keep making the same broad statement about some words sometimes changing their meanings over time as if that somehow gets me off the hook
That is how this works right?
Oh wait, sorry – I forgot the snide little straw man at the end: ...whether you want to accept this or not is up to you.
There you go – job done.
Yes that is how it works. Finally you’ve managed to grasp that words can be interpreted differently. It took a while but we got there in the end.
I agree that it is up to me whether I want to accept that or not. If you find that a snide comment that’s up to you – there is no tone of voice on here so you can interpret whatever tone you like. I understand that since your style of posting on here is to mock people, you immediately interpret comments back to you as snide – it’s just a reflection of your own posting style.
On the other hand, you could I suppose stop deflecting and instead finally just tell us how you would justify your different interpretation of the god character’s use of “will” so we’d know that wishful thinking isn’t all you have after all. What’s stopping you?
Glad you have accepted the evidence from my links to online dictionaries that show the different meanings of “will” i.e. used with another verb to indicate future tense – a prediction.
Now that you have taken the first step of grasping that words in the English language can have multiple dictionary meanings and therefore stories are open to interpretation (something most students studying English at school have grasped by Year 6) we can move on to why I disagree with your interpretation.
I disagree based on reading the wide-ranging discussions amongst Muslims around the different meanings of a single verse in the Quran. The text many people read is not in the original language but is based on the translation of the text from root words in Arabic. Arabic words have multiple meanings, which can change the sense of how a word is used in different contexts and especially idioms that may have been understood in the original language by the original audience may change their meaning over time or when they are translated for a different audience. I assume the same is true of translations of the Bible from Greek.
Yes, you don’t have much choice about that – it’s a common piece of theistic casuistry to hand wave the problem away with “it’s a mystery”, “god knows best”, “that way, the babies get to meet god sooner” etc so you’re not alone in tying yourself in increasingly Gordian knots to explain why unnecessary suffering is part of god’s plan rather than just what you’d expect to see if there was no god at all (or at least not a theistic one). You might want to consider Occam’s razor about now though…
I’m not tying myself into knots by saying I don’t know the reason for suffering. Scientists and philosophers have been saying ‘don’t know’ for centuries.
It’s an interesting question regarding pain and suffering, but there is no point in me claiming to know something that it would be impossible for me to know. As a theist I don’t claim to have a hotline to God to get the answers to perplexing questions about why suffering and pain is part of the complexity of the human physiology and psychology and the world we inhabit.
I could hazard a guess but given it could be wrong not really sure what the point is. For example, suffering and patience as well as gratitude for lack of suffering or for the small and big joys in life could be part of the theme in the Quran of human religious spirituality and faith being tested by God – it says you can be tested by pain and also tested by happiness and good fortune.
If you don’t believe in religious spirituality and dismiss faith in an unseen entity, then you will probably see this as nonsense or a concept that is sadistic or masochistic involving a murderous thug god. So some theists may see a spiritual purpose in the suffering and some atheists may see it as “unnecessary suffering”. Great that we've shared our different moral values on this topic, and agreed to disagree on this issue. If you want to disagree with my moral values using mockery and snide comments, that's fine with me - trading snide comments with you is just a game.
Just responding to someone identifying your lying with “stop lying” doesn’t work.
Yes it does – and I suggest you stop lying that you “identified” me lying.
What you could try instead though is finally to try at least to deal with the arguments you’re given: why not finally for example tell us why you think “will” doesn’t mean “will” after all, or perhaps try something other than an ad hom to dismiss with no arguments at all the ethical guidelines of a respected organisation working extensively in the field whose policies have been adopted by various government agencies?
Oh and you were doing so well but now have regressed back to believing that only your interpretation of the word “will” is the correct one, despite the links to the online dictionary. I guess you can’t help what you believe, despite the evidence in the online dictionary that contradicts your belief that the only meaning of “will” is an inevitable action that cannot be altered.
As for your fallacious appeal to authority to bolster your claim that there is a modern Western consensus on consent, it doesn’t work.
Your claim of a moral consensus on consent, whether it is a modern Western variety or otherwise, has no evidence to support it. Forget a modern western consensus, there isn't even consensus among the people who work for the organisation that you linked to, regarding whether an employer fraternising with an employee means consent can never be freely given.
If you had just done what I instructed you to do and contacted the organisation you linked to, it would have helped you clear up some of your confusion and you wouldn't have ended up being humiliated on here.
You would have been told, as I was when I contacted RAINN, that these employer-employee situations are about morals, which are really hard and confusing sometimes;
and that the paragraph about consent on their website is just general guidance for visitors;
and that ultimately it is up to the 2 people in the relationship to communicate and define their experience and relationship, and that a relationship between an employer and employee could be appropriate and consensual;
and advised that employees should check the employing firm’s policy to see if there are any rules around fraternisation between employer and employee or a requirement to disclose the relationship.
Er, aren’t you forgetting something here? The “will” of the Bible story wasn’t said by some ordinary Joe who might have changed his mind later on or who overslept or who was just shooting the breeze. It was said (so we’re told) by an Angel who was passing on the unfailing message of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent god. What are you suggesting here – that a god who knows everything past, present and future might have changed his mind later on so when “He” "unfailingly" said “will” he actually meant something like, “with a bit of luck it might happen, but hey you can’t expect me to be unfailing about that because I’m only human after all not a god and, you know, new information might turn up that… oh no, wait a minute though…”?
This is the same mistake you made earlier on in this thread by the way re the god character’s morality (“morality changes over time” etc), forgetting that “god” is supposed to be morally perfect already – ie, precisely not changing over time (“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” James 1:17).
Perhaps if it would help you if you give your head a wobble about now?
Why do you keep doing this to yourself - it's embarrassing for you how out of your depth you are here. Like your true for you interpretation of “will”, you are also entitled to construct your own interpretation of what is required from a god of the omnis. What you won't get very far doing is claiming that your construct of a god of the omnis is true for everyone else.
It is possible for someone else's god of the omnis to know what a person will do when given a choice, but the person still had a choice to make. You might not like that aspect of someone else's god of the omnis but unfortunately you will just have to accept that other people define things differently from you.
My interpretation of a god of the omnis in Islam is one who can change pronouncements and moral rules as humans change e.g as the circumstances and understanding and faith of humans develop. For example, in relation to alcohol the instruction to abstain from alcohol completely is in Chapter 5 of the Quran. In earlier verses, there are warnings about alcohol but not an outright prohibition:
“They ask you about wine and gambling. Tell them, there are great sins in them, [even though they bring] some profit to the people, but their sin is greater than their profit.” Quran 2:219
Quran 4:43 “O You Who Believe! Do not perform prayer when you are intoxicated until you know what you say.”
“O You Who Believe! Indeed, wine, gambling, idols, and divining arrows (a way of gambling) are evil and of Satan’s act; therefore, leave them aside in order that you may prosper.” Quran 5:90
The Quran also says "Whatever a Verse (revelation) do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring a better one or similar to it. Know you not that Allah is able to do all things?” (Quran 2:106)
“Allah blots out what He wills and confirms (what He wills). And with Him is the Mother of the Book" (Quran 13:39)
“And when We change a Verse in place of another, and Allah knows the best of what He sends down” (Quran 16:101)
I guess when all you’ve got left is to attack the provenance of the evidence then all you can do it to attack the provenance of the evidence right? The only argument I had to substantiate though was that these standards exist at all and are followed – which I did. I don’t have to substantiate the content of the guidelines themselves, nor do I even have to agree with them. And having shown you that they do exist, the question you endlessly deflect from remains: do you find the morality of the guidelines or the morality of the god character to be better?
I refer you to my previous answers every time you asked me this question – it’s not an either/or scenario – I can think both morals are right depending on the circumstances.
More importantly, thanks for clarifying that you might not even agree with the guidelines of the organisation that you linked to, in support of your claim that there was a modern Western moral consensus on the issue of consent. So, I guess that means you are no longer claiming there is a Modern Western consensus and all we have then is some people discussing and having different moral values around the issue of consent.
Also, see above for the value of your evidence from RAINN. If one of the trained people who work for the organisation that you linked to told me that an employer having a sexual relationship with an employee can be appropriate and consensual and that morals can be hard and confusing, I suggest you contact the organisation yourself and find out some more information on what they have to say about consent between employer and employee relationships – do a bit of basic checks rather than committing the fallacy of blindly linking to something you read on the internet because it was on the website of a well-known organisation.
Such a shame that you have no grasp of irony – this collection of bad reasoning, straw men, false claims etc is an irony goldmine if you did but know it. Your epic, buttock-clenching, profoundly dim-witted mistake about continually demanding evidence and then (hysterically) claiming that someone else struggles with the concept is that you’re still looking down the wrong end of the telescope.
The only evidence I needed to produce here is that ethics guidelines exist, that they are authored by authoritative sources, that they say what I say they say, and that they have significant real-world effect because they’ve been adopted (for example by the US Department of Defense). I did that. You could do that too if you could be bothered to try.
What I don’t have to provide “evidence” for though is the validity or otherwise of what those guidelines actually say. Why not? Because ethics as a discipline isn’t evidence apt. Really try to understand this because until you do you’re like a moth endlessly flying into a lightbulb no matter how many windows I open for you. You might for example agree with the moral statement “murder is wrong”. What though if every time you said it I replied like a demented speak your weight machine with “where’s your evidence?”, “where’s your evidence?”?
Again, really try to understand this – you can have reasoning and argument and gut feel for ethical positions until they’re coming out of your ears, but what you can’t have just as a matter of principle is evidence.
Such a shame you didn’t do some basic checks before making a complete fool of yourself on this forum again. Anyway, now we have established that you have no evidence to back up your claim for a modern Western moral consensus on the issue of consent, I’ll let you get back to your histrionics – you seem to be enjoying yourself. Ah bless.
Yes, you’ve got pretty much everything wrong again – see above.
You certainly have got pretty much everything wrong again - see above.
-
VG,
In Reply 557 NS said to you:
“and yet you worship God for what it does. It allows child rape and torture. You worship it for that.”
To which you responded in Reply 559:
“As I said - I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.”.
Maybe so, though I’d have thought the point would be more to do with why babies are given and then permitted to die of brain cancer at all rather than why they have pain receptors for suffer needlessly when they do.
In any case though, your reply to NS’s was as I quoted it verbatim above: “As I said - I wouldn't say I worship God for it. More accurate to say I worship God despite the lack of intervention.”
You choose to prioritise your personal upside of praying to this (supposed) god over concerning yourself with its savagery, but we’re built differently about that kind of thing I suppose.
In Reply 565 NS said:
“And yet your god chooses it and you worship your god.”
In your Reply 566 you ended with:
“I find religious faith helps me, with the relatively minor hardships I have had to go through.”
You also said something similar to Maeght, but I’ve kept up well enough thanks.
Does it not occur to you that NS’s point was what he said it was, and that your reply above just deflected from that? The point here wasn’t about your choices – it was about your (supposed) god’s choices (ie, not to interevene to prevent pain when he could), and about how you turn a blind eye to those choices because you enjoy what you perceive as the benefits to you of worshipping that god notwithstanding?
Even by your dismal standards that’s pathetic. You hand waved away the god you worship being a murderous thug by telling us how much better worshipping it makes you feel about yourself. I told you that that was analogous to a Hitler Youth member responding to a critique of Hitler by telling us about how much he enjoy the camping and sailing. You then fell apart by asking what camping and sailing have to do with introspection as if that was relevant to the analogy, so I corrected you by explaining how analogies work. And what did you do in reply? “OK, I get it now. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me” perhaps? Oh no – you just ignored the point completely and instead went into a bizarre straw man rant – presumably in the hope that no-one would notice while you made good your escape.
So now you’ve had your hissy fit, can you see why the analogy works and why complaining that camping and sailing aren’t comparable to introspection missed the point entirely?
Lovely bit of quote-mining there. You really have no shame.
My response to NS in #566 was to say that I cannot comment on the people who, unlike me, are really suffering e.g as parents of babies who had died of cancer or who have cancer themselves and were in terrible pain, and yet they still find comfort in their religious faith. It was only after making the point that I can't comment on their pain and the role of their faith as a comfort to them, as I have no experience of their pain, did I say that “I find religious faith helps me, with the relatively minor hardships I have had to go through.”
But, if you would like to tell those people who are really suffering and drawing comfort from their religious faith about your analogy to the Hitler Youth's endorphins from outdoor pursuits, be my guest.
NS is also free to judge those parents based on his view that their god is a murderous thug and they worship their god for the pain he chooses to give them by killing their babies.
Yes, quite possibly you and NS are built differently from me. When I pray, I will remember to thank god for that. Diversity of thought, behaviour and moral values is no bad thing and probably increases the chances of human survival. Looking forward to your next hissy fit in response to this post.
-
Once you have blamed God for everything and you have then there is no further discussion to be had...That isn't my doing, it's yours.
Also it is difficult having a conversation with you as you flip flop between antitheistic arguments and atheist arguments of the oh well, I don't believe in God anyway variety. You present then as an atheist who is antigod.
Once again I feel I need to appeal to you...feel free to be an atheist but please don't saddle me with belief in a caricature God you have constructed either by commission or omission of attributes
How this all started was by you talking about the problem of evil and how it should be addressed by everyone.(post 538). That's what I replied to in post 540 and that is what I stuck to throughout. What type of God you believe in is entirely up to you, I made it plain that I was talking about the God of the omnis and how the problem of evil(both natural and man made) fits uncomfortably with it.
-
How this all started was by you talking about the problem of evil and how it should be addressed by everyone.(post 538). That's what I replied to in post 540 and that is what I stuck to throughout. What type of God you believe in is entirely up to you, I made it plain that I was talking about the God of the omnis and how the problem of evil(both natural and man made) fits uncomfortably with it.
And I outlined the problem with assessing whether God was omnibenevolent since there are many views of benevolence ranging from ice cream everyday to personal indestructability and all stations in between but as I said many people theist and atheist have contributed in the construction God of the omnis.
And if the God of the omnis is a human philosophical construct why shouldn't we also consider the God proposed by logic as the necessary entity thrown up by contingency and the principle of sufficient reason, or the God that people alleged to have experienced and listen carefully to those accounts.
I think then that the God of the Gaps argument which focuses on omnibebevolence is an antitheist rather than an atheist argument and you may well find omnibenevolence missing from the list of omnis theologians are willing to use due to the impossibility to agree terms.
Finally, one poster talks about unnecessary suffering and here we are back to what is necessary and what isn't and it occurs to me that only an entity which was omniscient could possibly know.
-
And I outlined the problem with assessing whether God was omnibenevolent since there are many views of benevolence ranging from ice cream everyday to personal indestructability and all stations in between but as I said many people theist and atheist have contributed in the construction God of the omnis.
And if the God of the omnis is a human philosophical construct why shouldn't we also consider the God proposed by logic as the necessary entity thrown up by contingency and the principle of sufficient reason, or the God that people alleged to have experienced and listen carefully to those accounts.
I think then that the God of the Gaps argument which focuses on omnibebevolence is an antitheist rather than an atheist argument and you may well find omnibenevolence missing from the list of omnis theologians are willing to use due to the impossibility to agree terms.
Finally, one poster talks about unnecessary suffering and here we are back to what is necessary and what isn't and it occurs to me that only an entity which was omniscient could possibly know.
Labelling an argument antitheist doesn’t make it go away. If you want to refute it, you need to address its substance, not give it a name.
-
Labelling an argument antitheist doesn’t make it go away. If you want to refute it, you need to address its substance, not give it a name.
I'm not trying to make it go away. I'm just pointing out that an antitheistic argument isn't necessarily an atheist one. E G God being a complete bastard tells us nothing of his existence or otherwise.
-
Labelling an argument antitheist doesn’t make it go away. If you want to refute it, you need to address its substance, not give it a name.
In terms of reputations....reread the thread.
-
I'm not trying to make it go away. I'm just pointing out that an antitheistic argument isn't necessarily an atheist one. E G God being a complete bastard tells us nothing of his existence or otherwise.
So, and let me get this straight, you're saying that a non-existant god could be a "complete bastard"?
-
So, and let me get this straight, you're saying that a non-existant god could be a "complete bastard"?
But let's remember that Vlad's great hero is C S Lewis who came out with a similarly non-sensical comment - claiming that when he was an atheist he was angry with god for not existing.
-
And I outlined the problem with assessing whether God was omnibenevolent since there are many views of benevolence ranging from ice cream everyday to personal indestructability and all stations in between but as I said many people theist and atheist have contributed in the construction God of the omnis.
As long as one holds that there is evil in the world and that God is all good, it does not matter what one considers benevolence, the problem remains.
And if the God of the omnis is a human philosophical construct why shouldn't we also consider the God proposed by logic as the necessary entity thrown up by contingency and the principle of sufficient reason, or the God that people alleged to have experienced and listen carefully to those accounts.
One can propose whatever god one wishes or/and whatever god they suggest that they have had some form of personal linkage with. That's up to the individual. Only if it involves the four omnis do I have an argument in this series of posts.
I think then that the God of the Gaps argument which focuses on omnibebevolence is an antitheist rather than an atheist argument and you may well find omnibenevolence missing from the list of omnis theologians are willing to use due to the impossibility to agree terms.
Think what you like. I am simply directing my arguments at those who believe in the God of the four omnis, and attempting to show the problems that follow from that.
Finally, one poster talks about unnecessary suffering and here we are back to what is necessary and what isn't and it occurs to me that only an entity which was omniscient could possibly know.
I think that you could say that about any god which is supposed to be omniscient, such as those found in the Hindu, Sikh and Abrahamic religions. In Jainism it is supposedly possible for the individual to attain omniscience. From my point of view, as a believer in none of these gods, I am inclined to make up my own mind based upon my own assessment. Hence, for me, suffering exists and any god who is all good would attempt to negate that suffering.
-
As long as one holds that there is evil in the world and that God is all good, it does not matter what one considers benevolence, the problem remains.
I look forward to your explanation of that. Given that it can be argued that not giving freedom to the universe could be considered the ultimate evil.
I would also be interested in your definitions of evil and benevolence. If you are hazarding that there is something wrong with the set up then we can be pretty sure you have a better one in mind. What is it ?
-
But let's remember that Vlad's great hero is C S Lewis who came out with a similarly non-sensical comment - claiming that when he was an atheist he was angry with god for not existing.
Ignoring Gordon's positive assertion that God is non existential and his inevitable refusal to justify that assertion. I think Lewis only realised he had anger issues with God when he became a Christian. Appeal to us being angry with God is after all to be found in Fry's arguments and also I would suggest finds it's way into Enki' arguments.
Is there any jigeree pokery turning an antitheist argument into an atheist argument? Not sure.
-
Ignoring Gordon's positive assertion that God is non existential and his inevitable refusal to justify that assertion.
I didn't assert that: I simply asked you a question based on what you actually posted - stop lying.
-
I didn't assert that: I simply asked you a question based on what you actually posted - stop lying.
Sorry, that should have read non existent.
-
So, and let me get this straight, you're saying that a non-existant god could be a "complete bastard"?
-
As long as one holds that there is evil in the world and that God is all good, it does not matter what one considers benevolence, the problem remains.
Depends on who is defining "good" and "evil" and how they are defining it.
The belief in human freedom of choice between competing impulses, combined with the complexity of moral choices, can of course be navigated without a belief in a supernatural component or religious spiritualty. Someone who does not believe in religious spirituality may define "good" as an absence of pain. But if someone has a belief in the supernatural and religious spirituality, then their definition of what is "good" in terms of their religious spirituality might include an acceptance of pain, so will be different from someone who has no belief in religious spirituality.
My understanding/ interpretation of Islamic teachings on the meaning of benevolence does not really equate "good" with meaning a complete absence of pain, illness etc. It seem to be more to do with Allah having a well-meaning, merciful, just intention for human spirituality in the context of humans having the freedom to choose between different options, including the option to do something that we might label as "morally bad" or "evil".
-
I'm not trying to make it go away. I'm just pointing out that an antitheistic argument isn't necessarily an atheist one. E G God being a complete bastard tells us nothing of his existence or otherwise.
No but evidence that any putative god is a bastard does tend to be highly embarrassing to those of his adherents who believe he is all-loving.
-
No but evidence that any putative god is a bastard does tend to be highly embarrassing to those of his adherents who believe he is all-loving.
Why do you think they think God is loving while all you can see is a bastard?
-
Why do you think they think God is loving while all you can see is a bastard?
That's easy. It's what they want to believe, so they make excuses or they ignore the evidence.
-
No problem.
The Cambridge Dictionary says prayer is 'the act or ceremony of speaking to God or a god, esp. to express thanks or to ask for help, or the words used in this act' and I must say my view was more about the asking for help element - hence my initial question about prayers being answered.
Yes agree that these elements are a part of prayer. I see the ritual of asking for help in prayer as an acknowledgement of human weakness and imperfection and the belief in a higher power. Acknowledging it can be helpful e.g. psychologically (or spiritually if you believe in the concept of religious spirituality).
I think when most people pray they are not necessarily expecting the specific help that they think they need, so they would probably believe that their need might be helped but the help manifests itself in an entirely different way from what they thought they needed or prayed for.
-
That's easy. It's what they want to believe, so they make excuses or they ignore the evidence.
Not sure what you mean by "want to believe". Are you saying that you think that people can choose their beliefs?
Evidence of what? Do you mean lack of repeatable, testable objective evidence for a supernatural entity? As opposed to subjective evidence that a theist interprets as evidence for a supernatural entity?
-
That's easy. It's what they want to believe, so they make excuses or they ignore the evidence.
We can not treat evidence for good or bad in the same way that we treat evidence for presence, power or knowledge, if we can even talk of evidence or measure good or bad.
I don't even know what you mean by omnibenevolent.
-
As long as one holds that there is evil in the world and that God is all good, it does not matter what one considers benevolence, the problem remains.
I look forward to your explanation of that. Given that it can be argued that not giving freedom to the universe could be considered the ultimate evil.
If God is all good(omnibenovolent) and there is evil in the world, then either a) God is not omnipotent or b) God is not omniscient or c)God is not ever present or d) there is no God. Not sure what you mean by 'freedom to the universe' but if you are talking about free will in the Biblical sense, then an omnibenovolent God would have eliminated the evils that spring from it as my argument has always been that He is ultimately responsible for humans exercising their free will.
I would also be interested in your definitions of evil and benevolence. If you are hazarding that there is something wrong with the set up then we can be pretty sure you have a better one in mind. What is it ?
Here is one definition of benovolence taken from a religious site:
The disposition to do good; good will; kindness; charitableness; the love,of mankind, accompanied with a desire to promote their happiness.
The benevolence of God is one of his moral attributes; that attribute which delights in the happiness of intelligent beings. "God is love." 1 John 4.
https://av1611.com/kjbp/kjv-dictionary/benevolence.html
As being relevant to what we are discussing, I find that quite acceptable.
As regards evil, I would suggest there are basically two forms. This site, as it appertains to this discussion, seems quite reasonable to me.
Moral evil is evil that is caused by human activity. Murder, rape, robbery, embezzlement, hatred, jealousy, etc., are all moral evils. When people, created in the image of God, choose to act in defiance of God’s law, the result is moral evil. Moral evil can also be linked to inaction—to purposefully ignore a cry for help is a moral evil.
Natural evil is that which causes pain and suffering to humanity but which is not due to direct human involvement. Congenital diseases, tsunamis, earthquakes, drought, and famine are all cases of natural evil. There is no morality involved in such events.
https://www.gotquestions.org/natural-moral-evil.html
As to what can be improved, I have already given you examples in past posts: tsunamis, leukemia, moors murderers, smallpox, diabetes. How many more examples do you want?
-
Not sure what you mean by "want to believe". Are you saying that you think that people can choose their beliefs?
Evidence of what? Do you mean lack of repeatable, testable objective evidence for a supernatural entity? As opposed to subjective evidence that a theist interprets as evidence for a supernatural entity?
The evidence shows that people who have a set point of view will use all kinds of techniques to distort their perception of reality to fit their preconceptions. They don't do it consciously and it's not limited to religious people. You've heard of terms like confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance I presume.
In terms of the evidence that God is a bastard: well the Bible portrays pretty much as one and, if you assume he exists, the evidence of day to day events tells us he is one too.
-
The evidence shows that people who have a set point of view will use all kinds of techniques to distort their perception of reality to fit their preconceptions. They don't do it consciously and it's not limited to religious people. You've heard of terms like confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance I presume.
In terms of the evidence that God is a bastard: well the Bible portrays pretty much as one and, if you assume he exists, the evidence of day to day events tells us he is one too.
So are you saying that morality is real? And this reality is being distorted? And know what's really right and wrong?Even though it has been said that we can't know that until the end of history?
-
The evidence shows that people who have a set point of view will use all kinds of techniques to distort their perception of reality to fit their preconceptions. They don't do it consciously and it's not limited to religious people. You've heard of terms like confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance I presume.
Your point of view about what - morals? And what reality are you referring to in relation to morals?
Your point of view on morals would presumably be formed based on your perception of reality. Are you saying you think can people decide to perceive someone else's reality instead of their own? How would you determine which reality is real?
In terms of the evidence that God is a bastard: well the Bible portrays pretty much as one and, if you assume he exists, the evidence of day to day events tells us he is one too.
Sounds like that's your set point of view and your perception of reality.
-
If God is all good(omnibenovolent) and there is evil in the world, then either a) God is not omnipotent or b) God is not omniscient or c)God is not ever present or d) there is no God. Not sure what you mean by 'freedom to the universe' but if you are talking about free will in the Biblical sense, then an omnibenovolent God would have eliminated the evils that spring from it as my argument has always been that He is ultimately responsible for humans exercising their free will.
Here is one definition of benovolence taken from a religious site:https://av1611.com/kjbp/kjv-dictionary/benevolence.html
As being relevant to what we are discussing, I find that quite acceptable.
As regards evil, I would suggest there are basically two forms. This site, as it appertains to this discussion, seems quite reasonable to me.https://www.gotquestions.org/natural-moral-evil.html
As to what can be improved, I have already given you examples in past posts: tsunamis, leukemia, moors murderers, smallpox, diabetes. How many more examples do you want?
Omnipotent is doing what you like God though doesn't do the impossible. Omnibenevolent is?...........over to you.
None of this is atheist argument.
I'm more God is the God of maximum, the most high. That seems more biblical, it follows a lot of Anselm's work so god is maximally benevolent, Maximally powerful, maximally present and maximally knowing. It certainly covers the human perspective better. It deals with impossibilities too in that they do not become necessary as in some omnigod arguments.
-
Omnipotent is doing what you like God though doesn't do the impossible.
Didn't say He did. Indeed, I made that clear in post 604.
Omnibenevolent is?...........over to you.
Did you not read the definition I gave you then in post 637?
None of this is atheist argument.
Indeed not, it's an argument illustrating the problem of those who hold to the idea of the God of the omnis, as I made clear from the beginning.
I'm more God is the God of maximum, the most high. That seems more biblical, it follows a lot of Anselm's work so god is maximally benevolent, Maximally powerful, maximally present and maximally knowing. It certainly covers the human perspective better. It deals with impossibilities too in that they do not become necessary as in some omnigod arguments.
That's up to you, but, for me, the many examples of human beings doing good things to prevent and alleviate suffering suggests that it wouldn't exactly be impossible for god to at least have done the same and prevent such suffering in the first place.
-
If God is all good(omnibenovolent) and there is evil in the world, then either a) God is not omnipotent or b) God is not omniscient or c)God is not ever present or d) there is no God. Not sure what you mean by 'freedom to the universe' but if you are talking about free will in the Biblical sense, then an omnibenovolent God would have eliminated the evils that spring from it as my argument has always been that He is ultimately responsible for humans exercising their free will.
Here is one definition of benovolence taken from a religious site:https://av1611.com/kjbp/kjv-dictionary/benevolence.html
As being relevant to what we are discussing, I find that quite acceptable.
As regards evil, I would suggest there are basically two forms. This site, as it appertains to this discussion, seems quite reasonable to me.https://www.gotquestions.org/natural-moral-evil.html
As to what can be improved, I have already given you examples in past posts: tsunamis, leukemia, moors murderers, smallpox, diabetes. How many more examples do you want?
Your link defining benevolence says one meaning is a disposition to do good. It does not define what "good" is. Nor does it suggest that the "omni" in omnibenevolence should be defined as keeping people in a permanent state of feeling happy or not allowing evil to exist in the world. Not allowing any evil is one possible interpretation. Alternatively benevolence could mean doing good by guiding people on how to learn to deal with evil that may follow from people having moral choices.
People who believe in a spiritual aspect to people's disposition may see good coming out of their unhappiness and if framed in a religious context will have a different perspective on the need for people to have moral choices or the good that can come from situations involving tsunamis, leukaemia, moors murderers, smallpox, diabetes. This would not usually seem contradictory and offensive to people with religious beliefs, although it might seem that way to someone who does not hold these beliefs.
-
Your link defining benevolence says one meaning is a disposition to do good. It does not define what "good" is. Nor does it suggest that the "omni" in omnibenevolence should be defined as keeping people in a permanent state of feeling happy or not allowing evil to exist in the world. Not allowing any evil is one possible interpretation. Alternatively benevolence could mean doing good by guiding people on how to learn to deal with evil that may follow from people having moral choices.
Hi VG,
I used that particular definition in response to Vlad's question, and, as I was talking about the problems associated with a God of the omnis, it seemed reasonable to give a definition which most Christians would accept. Of course one could pick holes in it though. E.g. what exactly does 'kindness' entail, what is meant by 'intelligent beings'?
People who believe in a spiritual aspect to people's disposition may see good coming out of their unhappiness and if framed in a religious context will have a different perspective on the need for people to have moral choices or the good that can come from situations involving tsunamis, leukaemia, moors murderers, smallpox, diabetes. This would not usually seem contradictory and offensive to people with religious beliefs, although it might seem that way to someone who does not hold these beliefs.
I'm sure you are right in that many people who accept a God of the omnis would try to explain the obvious problems in the idea that such a God allows bad things to happen by emphasising the good things that can also come from the same. However, I simply repeat what I said in post 543 to Vlad:
If one believes in a god of the omnis then it's up to that person to explain how or why this god allows bad things to happen in the world, not me. So far I've not seen any convincing explanation. If you are one of those people then it's your problem, not mine.
-
Hi VG,
I used that particular definition in response to Vlad's question, and, as I was talking about the problems associated with a God of the omnis, it seemed reasonable to give a definition which most Christians would accept. Of course one could pick holes in it though. E.g. what exactly does 'kindness' entail, what is meant by 'intelligent beings'?
I'm sure you are right in that many people who accept a God of the omnis would try to explain the obvious problems in the idea that such a God allows bad things to happen by emphasising the good things that can also come from the same. However, I simply repeat what I said in post 543 to Vlad:
Hi Enki
Sure, you could argue that humans should not have the capability of moral choices and that they should only be able to do good. And to prevent any kind of sadness or bad feeling, people would never be ill or die and there would be an endless supply of resources. After all, that is the picture some people have drawn for heaven so why not have a permanent heaven? So I can see why some people would not find it a convincing argument to say that this blissful situation cannot be the normal daily experience for everyone.
My view would be that I'm not sure there is a need for gods if humans did not have any capacity for bad traits or for making moral choices e.g. between good and bad. Gods are one way of articulating the concept of a final accountability for moral choices.
So in that context, I would think any higher power that did not allow bad things to exist in the world would make the concept of a higher power redundant. I think understanding/ experiencing suffering could in some people generate a feeling of gratitude for areas of their life that does not entail suffering, and this is one path that could lead to a belief in a higher power.
For gods to have any relevance, we would need to understand loss or hardship. Or, for example, we would need to have more wealth and good fortune in comparison to others, and be required to make moral choices. E.g. do you hoard it and feel entitled to it and make bad moral choices in order to keep from losing it, do you spend your time trying to maintain your wealth or do you spend your time and wealth helping people in the wider community who may be suffering even if it means depriving yourself of some of your own desires.
Of course you can make moral choices without inserting gods, but I don't see how inserting a god of the omnis would be workable without there still being a requirement for moral choices, in which case evil needs to exist, with a capacity for choosing good in the face of evil.
-
Hi Vg,
Unfortunately for me this approach runs into major difficulties. Why would such a god create a world where suffering and moral choices aren't necessarily related at all? What about babies and very young children who are not yet capable of making such choices? What about the suffering of animals? What about the many instances of natural disasters that seemingly cause indiscriminate suffering and/or death? What about those who do not understand loss or hardship yet live their lives in comfort and well being? How has humanity been able to relieve or eradicate some of the natural forms of suffering when such a god could surely have done as well as humanity at the very least?
Yes, I understand that many people can find comfort in a belief and yes, it may help them to make seemingly moral decisions, and yes, it may help them to withstand and deal with the hardships of life, but I don't see why a person's moral outlook has to be predicated on the bad things in a world which has been created by such a god.
-
I'm more God is the God of maximum, the most high. That seems more biblical, it follows a lot of Anselm's work so god is maximally benevolent, Maximally powerful, maximally present and maximally knowing. It certainly covers the human perspective better. It deals with impossibilities too in that they do not become necessary as in some omnigod arguments.
Sorry to interrupt, but doesn't that description of God leave ample space for fallibility? An omniscient God knows everything, but a maximally knowledgeable God has limits, and can therefore be questioned? Therefore 'mandates' from God, even if we accept that they've been transcribed/translated correctly, then they're just a viewpoint and there's always the scope for God to be wrong?
O.
-
Sorry to interrupt, but doesn't that description of God leave ample space for fallibility? An omniscient God knows everything, but a maximally knowledgeable God has limits, and can therefore be questioned? Therefore 'mandates' from God, even if we accept that they've been transcribed/translated correctly, then they're just a viewpoint and there's always the scope for God to be wrong?
O.
No, maximally means he knows all the knowledge that it is possible to know and more than anything else can know. How then can he questioned?
-
No, maximally means he knows all the knowledge that it is possible to know and more than anything else can know. How then can he questioned?
If he knows everything, that's omniscience, surely? I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're wanting to convey, here.
O.
-
No, maximally means he knows all the knowledge that it is possible to know and more than anything else can know. How then can he questioned?
Knowing everything is not the same as being omnipotent - an entity may know things but be unable to control them. Omnipotent means that the entity is able to do anything - that isn't the same as knowing everything.
-
Knowing everything is not the same as being omnipotent - an entity may know things but be unable to control them. Omnipotent means that the entity is able to do anything - that isn't the same as knowing everything.
If you know everything that there is to know then doesn't that include knowing how to control everything?
-
If he knows everything, that's omniscience, surely? I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're wanting to convey, here.
O.
If he knows everything, that's omniscience, surely? I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're wanting to convey, here.
O.
I said I preferred the word maximal because it limits to the possible whereas in the world of omni you can slip in some logical impossibilities. Whether I am doing the right thing or not but eliminating inclusion of logical impossibilities seems the responsible thing to do.
That said I did say earlier that Omipotentiality, omniscience and omnipresence are pretty straightforward to define. Not so omnibenevolence which is in a different category from the first 3 I would move.
Since the prefix Omni comes from Greek I'm not sure it is as thoroughly biblical as terms such as the most as in ''the most high'' and certainly Anselm's work suggests '' maximal''.
-
No, maximally means he knows all the knowledge that it is possible to know and more than anything else can know. How then can he questioned?
Hey God. Why didn't you ban slavery in the Ten Commandments?
Seems it's pretty easy to question your god no matter how omni-whatever he is.
-
Hi Vg,
Unfortunately for me this approach runs into major difficulties. Why would such a god create a world where suffering and moral choices aren't necessarily related at all? What about babies and very young children who are not yet capable of making such choices? What about the suffering of animals? What about the many instances of natural disasters that seemingly cause indiscriminate suffering and/or death? What about those who do not understand loss or hardship yet live their lives in comfort and well being? How has humanity been able to relieve or eradicate some of the natural forms of suffering when such a god could surely have done as well as humanity at the very least?
Hi Enki - yes would agree that the suffering and moral choices are not necessarily linked - I assume you mean that the people who suffer are not necessarily suffering because of a moral choice they have made i.e. bad things happen to innocent people.
So would agree that the belief is that god could have intervened and didn't.
Which leaves people with the options of not believing in the existence of a god, or deciding that if such a god did exist they are not worthy of worship, or believing in such a god and worshipping such a god despite the lack of intervention. I think taking any of those positions would be valid. The third option, which makes the least sense to you is valid if you believe in a higher power and accept a hierarchy. The not knowing why there was no intervention by the higher power is a component of the belief as the unknowable is I think part of the appeal of something that you consider higher than yourself.
Yes, I understand that many people can find comfort in a belief and yes, it may help them to make seemingly moral decisions, and yes, it may help them to withstand and deal with the hardships of life, but I don't see why a person's moral outlook has to be predicated on the bad things in a world which has been created by such a god.
If I have understood you correctly, then agree you don't need a god to be able to arrive at moral beliefs. After all, atheists can see bad things happen to good people, and they can and do help alleviate suffering.
I was trying to say that I think believing in a god who could intervene but doesn't would add a slightly different aspect to moral values - the hierarchy, the unknowable "why" , a final judgement as well as the other ideas that go along with the belief would I think alter a person's perspective. For example, from my understanding of Islamic teachings, Muslims have a concept of a day of judgement after death so may view their suffering here as a way of lessening the punishment for any moral failings on that day of judgement.
As I said above, I think it's perfectly reasonable to not want anything to do with such ideas of hierarchy and judgement. But if a person is ok with this kind of hierarchy and judgement and the idea of a higher power, that's presumably why they are ok with a higher power who could intervene but doesn't and they are ok with not knowing why god doesn't intervene.
-
Hey God. Why didn't you ban slavery in the Ten Commandments?
Seems it's pretty easy to question your god no matter how omni-whatever he is.
Are you asking him or me?
-
Hey God. Why didn't you ban slavery in the Ten Commandments?
Seems it's pretty easy to question your god no matter how omni-whatever he is.
Essentially he did, in Exodus 21:16. Perhaps we should interpret the other references to slavery in the light of that verse?
-
If you know everything that there is to know then doesn't that include knowing how to control everything?
Not necessary - as it may still be beyond your abilities.
-
Not necessary - as it may still be beyond your abilities.
Beyond the abilities of something that created the universe, spacetime, souls, life etc?
-
Essentially he did, in Exodus 21:16. Perhaps we should interpret the other references to slavery in the light of that verse?
It's a strange paradox for those who are quick to condemn the Old Testament for being more barbaric than the New (cf. Leviticus 19:33,34, which has parallel sentiments). In the NT, of course, we have Saint Paul calling for 'slaves to obey their masters'. This of course can be understood in the light of his oft repeated belief that the Second Coming was imminent, and therefore slaves would soon be released from their bonds (provided they were believers) and take their place among the redeemed. Unfortunately, with Christians indefinitely postponing the expected date of the Second Coming, this left a loophole for slave-holders down the centuries.
"Amazing Grace" indeed! Composed on a slave-ship, I believe.
-
So are you saying that morality is real? And this reality is being distorted? And know what's really right and wrong?Even though it has been said that we can't know that until the end of history?
That invokes questions of what constitutes a 'self', and whether we can talk about 'eternal selves' without reference to people's past sufferings, which most would say constitute what we are or what we have become, just as much as our pleasures and joys. If indeed the 'Lord shall wipe all the tears from their eyes' and 'The former things shall pass away', what is there to preserve any identity? Back to questions about immortal souls and their relation to this world.
-
I said I preferred the word maximal because it limits to the possible whereas in the world of omni you can slip in some logical impossibilities. Whether I am doing the right thing or not but eliminating inclusion of logical impossibilities seems the responsible thing to do.
That said I did say earlier that Omipotentiality, omniscience and omnipresence are pretty straightforward to define. Not so omnibenevolence which is in a different category from the first 3 I would move.
Since the prefix Omni comes from Greek I'm not sure it is as thoroughly biblical as terms such as the most as in ''the most high'' and certainly Anselm's work suggests '' maximal''.
Perhaps you should amplify Anselm's ideas for us. Seems to hinge on the idea of the most maximally perfect being that we can imagine, which of course would be less than a maximally perfect being that actually existed - and therefore.....
btw. pedantry alert - 'omni' comes from the Latin 'omnis'. 'Pan' is the Greek equivalent. I'll get me coat.
-
Beyond the abilities of something that created the universe, spacetime, souls, life etc?
But that is drifting into the territory of omnipotent isn't it.
I see no fundamental issue with something having full knowledge but for the things they have knowledge of to be outside of their ability to control.
-
But that is drifting into the territory of omnipotent isn't it.
I see no fundamental issue with something having full knowledge but for the things they have knowledge of to be outside of their ability to control.
The question I would ask then is are the things which cannot be controlled?
-
Perhaps you should amplify Anselm's ideas for us. Seems to hinge on the idea of the most maximally perfect being that we can imagine, which of course would be less than a maximally perfect being that actually existed - and therefore.....
btw. pedantry alert - 'omni' comes from the Latin 'omnis'. 'Pan' is the Greek equivalent. I'll get me coat.
Thank's for putting me straight linguistically, Pants. The thing here I am borrowing from Anselm is the term 'maximal' rather than his use of the term 'imagine'. The maximally perfect being I can imagine of course is Richard Dawkins who is not omniperfect because he has spawned many of the grotesque denizens of this message board........but near perfect and great hair.
-
Thank's for putting me straight linguistically, Pants. The thing here I am borrowing from Anselm is the term 'maximal' rather than his use of the term 'imagine'. The maximally perfect being I can imagine of course is Richard Dawkins who is not omniperfect because he has spawned many of the grotesque denizens of this message board........but near perfect and great hair.
Oh gawd. Not the bloody Dawkins obsession again!
-
Oh gawd. Not the bloody Dawkins obsession again!
I'm afraid so.
-
It's a strange paradox for those who are quick to condemn the Old Testament for being more barbaric than the New (cf. Leviticus 19:33,34, which has parallel sentiments). In the NT, of course, we have Saint Paul calling for 'slaves to obey their masters'. This of course can be understood in the light of his oft repeated belief that the Second Coming was imminent, and therefore slaves would soon be released from their bonds (provided they were believers) and take their place among the redeemed. Unfortunately, with Christians indefinitely postponing the expected date of the Second Coming, this left a loophole for slave-holders down the centuries.
"Amazing Grace" indeed! Composed on a slave-ship, I believe.
I can't find that anywhere in the NT. It is more for the sake of godly living that slaves are taught to obey their masters, and their heavenly reward.
The Israelites were commanded not to kidnap for the purpose of slavery, but someone could still find himself unjustly enslaved. They could also become a slave due to poverty.
-
I can't find that anywhere in the NT. It is more for the sake of godly living that slaves are taught to obey their masters, and their heavenly reward.
The Israelites were commanded not to kidnap for the purpose of slavery, but someone could still find himself unjustly enslaved. They could also become a slave due to poverty.
What can't you find anywhere in the New Testament?
-
What can't you find anywhere in the New Testament?
"Slaves, obey your masters because soon Jesus will return so you won't be slaves anymore".
-
"Slaves, obey your masters because soon Jesus will return so you won't be slaves anymore*.
I said it could clearly be interpreted in the light of St Paul's oft-repeated belief in the imminent return of Jesus. Likewise, St Paul's suggestion that the unmarried stay so, for the same reason. He of course added the proviso "It is better to marry than to burn" (if you can't control your urges).
-
Hi Enki - yes would agree that the suffering and moral choices are not necessarily linked - I assume you mean that the people who suffer are not necessarily suffering because of a moral choice they have made i.e. bad things happen to innocent people.
So would agree that the belief is that god could have intervened and didn't.
Which leaves people with the options of not believing in the existence of a god, or deciding that if such a god did exist they are not worthy of worship, or believing in such a god and worshipping such a god despite the lack of intervention. I think taking any of those positions would be valid. The third option, which makes the least sense to you is valid if you believe in a higher power and accept a hierarchy. The not knowing why there was no intervention by the higher power is a component of the belief as the unknowable is I think part of the appeal of something that you consider higher than yourself.
Hi VG,
I think you put your point of view very clearly and I have no objection to anything you say here. I basically agree that if I believed in this all powerful god then I too would probably take your third option. Can I just say though that my own lack of belief in any god is not as a result of the problem of evil, although it would, for me, create all the difficulties I have mentioned in previous posts.
If I have understood you correctly, then agree you don't need a god to be able to arrive at moral beliefs. After all, atheists can see bad things happen to good people, and they can and do help alleviate suffering.
Yes, nor necessarily does a person's morality depend on bad things.
I was trying to say that I think believing in a god who could intervene but doesn't would add a slightly different aspect to moral values - the hierarchy, the unknowable "why" , a final judgement as well as the other ideas that go along with the belief would I think alter a person's perspective. For example, from my understanding of Islamic teachings, Muslims have a concept of a day of judgement after death so may view their suffering here as a way of lessening the punishment for any moral failings on that day of judgement.
I do accept what you say of course but with one proviso, especially amongst some Christians, where this supposed 'day of judgement' is weaponised to try to instill fear into the unbeliever.
As I said above, I think it's perfectly reasonable to not want anything to do with such ideas of hierarchy and judgement. But if a person is ok with this kind of hierarchy and judgement and the idea of a higher power, that's presumably why they are ok with a higher power who could intervene but doesn't and they are ok with not knowing why god doesn't intervene.
Obviously not for me, but I do understand the idea that if one wholeheartedly believes in such a deity then it would follow that such problems as that of the presence of evil in the world could well be accepted as part of the mystery surrounding such a deity.
-
I said it could clearly be interpreted in the light of St Paul's oft-repeated belief in the imminent return of Jesus. Likewise, St Paul's suggestion that the unmarried stay so, for the same reason. He of course added the proviso "It is better to marry than to burn" (if you can't control your urges).
I think you're thinking of, *What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not" (1 Cor 7:29)?
My other point in #667 still stands.
-
I think you're thinking of, *What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not" (1 Cor 7:29)?
My other point in #667 still stands.
Well, he also wrote: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman" (well that may be a quote from some of his followers, but since quotation marks are missing in manuscripts, we can't know.) and "I wish that all were as I myself am" i.e. unmarried.
As for the slaves and masters relationship, by your interpretation you are making yourself complicit with those "Christians" down the centuries who have thought it within the morality of their beliefs to hold and trade in slaves. I, at least, was giving St Paul the benefit of the doubt by saying he was only suggesting that they did not come out in open rebellion, but hold on for a bit longer, since the world would soon come to an end and the whole system would be overthrown with the establishment of Christ's Kingdom. One could hardly claim that St Paul's doomsday thoughts were at the back of his mind, since he first expressed them in 1Thessalonians, his earliest epistle, and was still expressing them in Romans, his last.
-
Hi VG,
I think you put your point of view very clearly and I have no objection to anything you say here. I basically agree that if I believed in this all powerful god then I too would probably take your third option. Can I just say though that my own lack of belief in any god is not as a result of the problem of evil, although it would, for me, create all the difficulties I have mentioned in previous posts.
Yes, nor necessarily does a person's morality depend on bad things.
I do accept what you say of course but with one proviso, especially amongst some Christians, where this supposed 'day of judgement' is weaponised to try to instill fear into the unbeliever.
Obviously not for me, but I do understand the idea that if one wholeheartedly believes in such a deity then it would follow that such problems as that of the presence of evil in the world could well be accepted as part of the mystery surrounding such a deity.
Hi Enki - yes IMO the belief comes first based on some kind of interpretation of a personal experience, rather than people reasoning themselves into belief based on explanations of morality. Similar to you, my lack of belief was not due to the evil in the world. I think my lack of belief was because the concept had no appeal or coherence. Now I don't mind that it doesn't have coherence.
I am not sure what you mean by a person's morality not depending on bad things. How would we establish that? The world has always contained bad things so people cannot be free of being aware of the problems in the world that they or other individuals have to deal with and that would presumably have an influence on their morality?
Regarding the fear of judgement, I don't think it should be weaponised and used to beat people with but I think fear as an emotion can be healthy and quite a useful motivator in many areas of life, including religion, if it's not excessive and becomes crippling anxiety or prevents independent thought or questioning authority.
-
Well, he also wrote: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman" (well that may be a quote from some of his followers, but since quotation marks are missing in manuscripts, we can't know.) and "I wish that all were as I myself am" i.e. unmarried.
As for the slaves and masters relationship, by your interpretation you are making yourself complicit with those "Christians" down the centuries who have thought it within the morality of their beliefs to hold and trade in slaves. I, at least, was giving St Paul the benefit of the doubt by saying he was only suggesting that they did not come out in open rebellion, but hold on for a bit longer, since the world would soon come to an end and the whole system would be overthrown with the establishment of Christ's Kingdom. One could hardly claim that St Paul's doomsday thoughts were at the back of his mind, since he first expressed them in 1Thessalonians, his earliest epistle, and was still expressing them in Romans, his last.
Back to Jeremy's point, and I know it's a bit contentious but would like to have a go at it: on the one hand we have the command not to kidnap and enslave (Ex 21:16, 1 Tim 1:10). On the other hand we have Leviticus 25:44 where they were allowed to buy foreign slaves. So how do we reconcile these?
-
Why are ancient texts so important to us that we have to keep justifying them and trying to understand them? Someone wrote something that was relevant at that time (perhaps not to everyone even then). Why can't we just take what is relevant today, if at all, and disconnect from them?
-
Why are ancient texts so important to us that we have to keep justifying them and trying to understand them? Someone wrote something that was relevant at that time (perhaps not to everyone even then). Why can't we just take what is relevant today, if at all, and disconnect from them?
Hi Sriram
In the context of slavery, the Christian context still has repercussions. Here in Bristol, there was quite recently much controversy over the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, who became famous as a benefactor to the city. Unfortunately, his wealth derived from the fact that he was a slave trader.
Now you might say that Christianity has moved on from that dark past once and for all. However, it is quite likely that there are those of the Christian right in America at least who would like to see those days return, and would use biblical texts to justify this. In Britain such a situation is unlikely, but individual instances of slavery are still around, and may be increasing (the reasons for this are various) .
However, I don't think it would be wise to be blasé about religious fundamentalism. Margaret Attwood's books serve as a warning.
-
Hi Dicky,
I understand what you are saying...but I feel there is too much of dragging in the past, which polarizes communities. If Britain were to pay back every penny it benefited from its colonies....it would become bankrupt.
Lot of wrong things have happened in the past. The people who did it are not there now. Let it pass. Correct whatever we can and start afresh.
Maybe we are doing things today that future generations might want to correct. There is no end to this. Values change and there is never going to be a perfect society.
-
Why are ancient texts so important to us that we have to keep justifying them and trying to understand them? Someone wrote something that was relevant at that time (perhaps not to everyone even then). Why can't we just take what is relevant today, if at all, and disconnect from them?
With specific reference to Spud's attitude to ancient texts: I've certainly no sympathy with his attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable.
-
Hi Enki - yes IMO the belief comes first based on some kind of interpretation of a personal experience, rather than people reasoning themselves into belief based on explanations of morality. Similar to you, my lack of belief was not due to the evil in the world. I think my lack of belief was because the concept had no appeal or coherence. Now I don't mind that it doesn't have coherence.
I am not sure what you mean by a person's morality not depending on bad things. How would we establish that? The world has always contained bad things so people cannot be free of being aware of the problems in the world that they or other individuals have to deal with and that would presumably have an influence on their morality?
Regarding the fear of judgement, I don't think it should be weaponised and used to beat people with but I think fear as an emotion can be healthy and quite a useful motivator in many areas of life, including religion, if it's not excessive and becomes crippling anxiety or prevents independent thought or questioning authority.
It seems the only real bone of contention here is my suggestion that a person's morality doesn't necessarily depend on bad things. For instance, I see no reason why a person cannot be caring towards others quite naturally even if no bad things were affecting any judgements made. I would also suggest that a caring attitude towards others is often regarded as a moral attitude. I do think however that bad things can bring such a moral attitude into sharp relief. So my position is that while a person's moral attitudes can be influenced by bad things happening, I see no reason to think that they are necessarily dependent on such things.
-
It seems the only real bone of contention here is my suggestion that a person's morality doesn't necessarily depend on bad things. For instance, I see no reason why a person cannot be caring towards others quite naturally even if no bad things were affecting any judgements made. I would also suggest that a caring attitude towards others is often regarded as a moral attitude. I do think however that bad things can bring such a moral attitude into sharp relief. So my position is that while a person's moral attitudes can be influenced by bad things happening, I see no reason to think that they are necessarily dependent on such things.
Hi Enki
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/adolescent/chapter/influences-on-moral-development/
This article about moral development suggests that "Research on socioemotional development and prosocial development has identified several “moral emotions,” which are believed to motivate moral behavior and influence moral development (Eisenberg, 2000, for a review). The primary emotions consistently linked with moral development are guilt, shame, empathy, and sympathy."
Which leads me to wonder if a person can care about someone else if they are unable to comprehend or appreciate that the other person may feel bad, because the other person only ever experiences good things.
-
"Amazing Grace" indeed! Composed on a slave-ship, I believe.
I thought it was one of the Olney Hymns. Do expand on your belief.
-
I thought it was one of the Olney Hymns. Do expand on your belief.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace
-
I thought it was one of the Olney Hymns. Do expand on your belief.
Thanks to NS, I see that my assertion was not exactly correct. Newton was a slave trader when he called on God for mercy, but continued for several years as a slave trader after his conversion. The hymn itself was written several years later, after he had ceased trading, but no doubt alludes to the fact that he believed God's mercy had saved him years before. More about him than the slaves, I'd say. They were more of an afterthought.
-
Thanks to NS, I see that my assertion was not exactly correct. Newton was a slave trader when he called on God for mercy, but continued for several years as a slave trader after his conversion. The hymn itself was written several years later, after he had ceased trading, but no doubt alludes to the fact that he believed God's mercy had saved him years before. More about him than the slaves, I'd say. They were more of an afterthought.
That though is existential experience for you. The great cut off from the world to consider one's actual personal standing, rather than one's standing in culturally handed down social theory. He was obviously not perfected by God in one go and of course he was really foolish to ignore the witness of people two centuries in the future and carry on until doing work in anti-slavery.
-
Hi Enki
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/adolescent/chapter/influences-on-moral-development/
This article about moral development suggests that "Research on socioemotional development and prosocial development has identified several “moral emotions,” which are believed to motivate moral behavior and influence moral development (Eisenberg, 2000, for a review). The primary emotions consistently linked with moral development are guilt, shame, empathy, and sympathy."
Which leads me to wonder if a person can care about someone else if they are unable to comprehend or appreciate that the other person may feel bad, because the other person only ever experiences good things.
Hi Vg,
A late response to your post:
I have read the article you linked to and, apart from probably emphasising the importance of the natural emotions more than the article does I find no strong points of disagreement. For my own part, as I have mentioned in other threads on morality in the past, I see the idea of morality having a strong evolutionary basis. I accept that there is a 'potential' for morality, if it aids survival. For me, this is probably driven by such traits as empathy, sympathy, and natural feelings of co-operation and responsibility towards others. Culture, environment, experience, upbringing, and a rational approach, for me, superimpose upon those feelings. You might be right about not being able to care about the bad things if one is not exposed to them in some way but there again humans have very creative imaginations which could easily invent bad scenarios and empathetically respond to them.
I was originally taking a particular Christian viewpoint(God of the omnis) and trying to show some of the problems which result from that. Didn't God make Eden as a good place without such things as earthquakes, cancer or poverty? And was it not Aquinas who said, "Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good"? Hence, from such a Christian viewpoint, it was supposed to be human beings who let loose the bad things in the world, whereas I would put the responsibility squarely upon the shoulders of this God.
-
Hi Vg,
A late response to your post:
I have read the article you linked to and, apart from probably emphasising the importance of the natural emotions more than the article does I find no strong points of disagreement. For my own part, as I have mentioned in other threads on morality in the past, I see the idea of morality having a strong evolutionary basis. I accept that there is a 'potential' for morality, if it aids survival. For me, this is probably driven by such traits as empathy, sympathy, and natural feelings of co-operation and responsibility towards others. Culture, environment, experience, upbringing, and a rational approach, for me, superimpose upon those feelings. You might be right about not being able to care about the bad things if one is not exposed to them in some way but there again humans have very creative imaginations which could easily invent bad scenarios and empathetically respond to them.
I was originally taking a particular Christian viewpoint(God of the omnis) and trying to show some of the problems which result from that. Didn't God make Eden as a good place without such things as earthquakes, cancer or poverty? And was it not Aquinas who said, "Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good"? Hence, from such a Christian viewpoint, it was supposed to be human beings who let loose the bad things in the world, whereas I would put the responsibility squarely upon the shoulders of this God.
Do you leave any room for human originated evil?
-
Do you leave any room for human originated evil?
For ultimate responsibility, no.
-
For ultimate responsibility, no.
It seems to me that responsibility is binary. You either are or you aren't. The upshot being my belief that you are in fact relieving people of their responsibility.
I see in your position the chap who crashed his car on a mainline causing a train crash and putting it all down to Kismet and those who blame their parents for having them in the first place.
-
With specific reference to Spud's attitude to ancient texts: I've certainly no sympathy with his attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable.
I modified my last post, leaving the question open. Exodus 21:16 and Leviticus 25 show that God did ban slavery for Israel. In order for it to be eradicated in the rest of the world, all other countries would have to ban it too. You would end up with indentured servitude only, for the purpose of repaying debt or as punishment for crime. The foreign so-called slaves mentioned in Leviticus 25 were possibly assumed to be indentured, bought and sold by middle-men for practical reasons.
-
It seems to me that responsibility is binary. You either are or you aren't. The upshot being my belief that you are in fact relieving people of their responsibility.
I see in your position the chap who crashed his car on a mainline causing a train crash and putting it all down to Kismet and those who blame their parents for having them in the first place.
That's up to you. I would rather liken it to the Bhopal disaster where the people of Bhopal accuse Union Carbide and its offshoot Indian Union Carbide of overall corporate responsibility. This doesn't absolve people from making mistakes (e.g. Warren Anderson and seven former employees have been punished for their part in this disaster) . Similarly, if I believed in your Christian God, I would have to give him overall responsibility for any adverse happenings in His creation.
-
That's up to you. I would rather liken it to the Bhopal disaster where the people of Bhopal accuse Union Carbide and its offshoot Indian Union Carbide of overall corporate responsibility. This doesn't absolve people from making mistakes (e.g. Warren Anderson and seven former employees have been punished for their part in this disaster) . Similarly, if I believed in your Christian God, I would have to give him overall responsibility for any adverse happenings in His creation.
But the people of Bhopal were innocent. Now you are dividing Humanity into the innocent and the Guilty. This leads to a moral us and them where some are in need of forgiveness and others are spotless.
There are no born reprobate evil or bad people any more than there are morally spotless people.
There is no sink of depraved humans bothering the morally OK, everyone has the potential for nastiness. That is why the anglican books of prayer and orders of service talk about sins of commission and omission and also sins against our fellow man.
If you were to put God in the dock what could he be charged with?
Creating Gravity?, Allowing entropy? Creating free will? Intervening and circumventing free will? Not intervening and not circumventing free will?
e know that many criminals blame God or Satan for their own deeds.
If none of us are morally spotless, Might we be tempted?
-
Vlad,
If you were to put God in the dock what could he be charged with?
I'd start with the one most likely to result in a prosecution - genocide probably.
-
Vlad,
I'd start with the one most likely to result in a prosecution - genocide probably.
Proceed.
-
But the people of Bhopal were innocent. Now you are dividing Humanity into the innocent and the Guilty. This leads to a moral us and them where some are in need of forgiveness and others are spotless.
There are no born reprobate evil or bad people any more than there are morally spotless people.
There is no sink of depraved humans bothering the morally OK, everyone has the potential for nastiness. That is why the anglican books of prayer and orders of service talk about sins of commission and omission and also sins against our fellow man.
If you were to put God in the dock what could he be charged with?
Creating Gravity?, Allowing entropy? Creating free will? Intervening and circumventing free will? Not intervening and not circumventing free will?
e know that many criminals blame God or Satan for their own deeds.
If none of us are morally spotless, Might we be tempted?
All you are doing is restating the problem. Of course they were innocent, just as the victims of the Moors murders were innocent. So, why did this omnibenevolent God allow such things to happen? Where you put the blame squarely upon the potential for human beings to do bad things to others, I take the view that the ultimate blame lies with the God who created them in the first place.
-
All you are doing is restating the problem. Of course they were innocent, just as the victims of the Moors murders were innocent. So, why did this omnibenevolent God allow such things to happen? Where you put the blame squarely upon the potential for human beings to do bad things to others, I take the view that the ultimate blame lies with the God who created them in the first place.
The only problem here as far as I can see is the implied exoneration of people from their responsibility. Does omnibenevolence mean suspending free will, suspending gravity or the laws of chemistry? What makes you think it does?
The chemical industry after all is, as Pinker will gladly tell you part of a post religious enlightenment. What measure of responsibility does scientific advancement hold...or is science just there for the good things?
So the problem is God created us.
-
The only problem here as far as I can see is the implied exoneration of people from their responsibility. Does omnibenevolence mean suspending free will, suspending gravity or the laws of chemistry? What makes you think it does?
The chemical industry after all is, as Pinker will gladly tell you part of a post religious enlightenment. What measure of responsibility does scientific advancement hold...or is science just there for the good things?
So the problem is God created us.
The only problem that I can see is how one equates omnibenovolence with a God of the omnis when one regards the imperfect world we actually live in.
As an atheist, I don't have that problem at all, which was my original point back in post 540. :)
-
Hi Vg,
I was originally taking a particular Christian viewpoint(God of the omnis) and trying to show some of the problems which result from that. Didn't God make Eden as a good place without such things as earthquakes, cancer or poverty? And was it not Aquinas who said, "Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good"? Hence, from such a Christian viewpoint, it was supposed to be human beings who let loose the bad things in the world, whereas I would put the responsibility squarely upon the shoulders of this God.
That is Geocentric and material
Since we are evoking the bible here the emphasis is on the unbroken relationship between God and Man and the circumstances surrounding it's breakdown rather than the material paradise. Poverty is probably man made and a result of the Fall of Man.
-
The only problem that I can see is how one equates omnibenovolence with a God of the omnis when one regards the imperfect world we actually live in.
As an atheist, I don't have that problem at all, which was my original point back in post 540. :)
You seem to have an exoneration problem.
-
Vlad,
Proceed.
"According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a total of 227,898 people died.[1] Measured in lives lost, this is one of the ten worst earthquakes in recorded history, as well as the single worst tsunami in history. Indonesia was the worst affected area, with most death toll estimates at around 170,000.[100] An initial report by Siti Fadilah Supari, the Indonesian Minister of Health at the time, estimated the death total to be as high as 220,000 in Indonesia alone, giving a total of 280,000 fatalities.[101] However, the estimated number of dead and missing in Indonesia were later reduced by over 50,000. In their report, the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition stated, "It should be remembered that all such data are subject to error, as data on missing persons especially are not always as good as one might wish".[6] A much higher number of deaths has been suggested for Myanmar based on reports from Thailand.[102]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
-
Vlad,
"According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a total of 227,898 people died.[1] Measured in lives lost, this is one of the ten worst earthquakes in recorded history, as well as the single worst tsunami in history. Indonesia was the worst affected area, with most death toll estimates at around 170,000.[100] An initial report by Siti Fadilah Supari, the Indonesian Minister of Health at the time, estimated the death total to be as high as 220,000 in Indonesia alone, giving a total of 280,000 fatalities.[101] However, the estimated number of dead and missing in Indonesia were later reduced by over 50,000. In their report, the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition stated, "It should be remembered that all such data are subject to error, as data on missing persons especially are not always as good as one might wish".[6] A much higher number of deaths has been suggested for Myanmar based on reports from Thailand.[102]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
I would say you are incorrect here in the number who died of natural causes that year, your numbers are vastly conservative. Why have you only included these?
-
You seem to have an exoneration problem.
Nope. I find myself in agreement with the general principles and standards of good and bad behaviour which are held by most people. Given that extenuating circumstances should always be examined, I would hold that such behaviours are the responsibility of the person concerned.
-
Nope. I find myself in agreement with the general principles and standards of good and bad behaviour which are held by most people. Given that extenuating circumstances should always be examined, I would hold that such behaviours are the responsibility of the person concerned.
I did comment earlier about our cultural moral theory leading us to think about a division into good guys and bad guys. You've revealed another aspect, a moral majority of decent people.
Of course we are going to submerge our personal moral pondering into moral group think.
All we get from your analysis is that bad people are those who are not part of this moral majority.
-
I did comment earlier about our cultural moral theory leading us to think about a division into good guys and bad guys. You've revealed another aspect, a moral majority of decent people.
Of course we are going to submerge our personal moral pondering into moral group think.
All we get from your analysis is that bad people are those who are not part of this moral majority.
Well, I wouldn't use the word 'submerge' but rather 'align with'.
It's your idea that 'our cultural moral theory(is) leading us to think about a division into good guys and bad guys' not mine. It is not my analysis that 'bad people are those who are not part of this moral majority'. What I did say was about good and bad behaviours. This is a complex subject and there is no reason why you cannot have good and bad behaviours within the same individual or even within the same organization. Stop misrepresenting me.
From my point of view, this particular conversation is now at an end.
-
Vlad,
I would say you are incorrect here in the number who died of natural causes that year, your numbers are vastly conservative. Why have you only included these?
The tsunami killed 227,898 people, and was caused (or not prevented) by a God who we're told had the knowledge and power to prevent it. That sounds like genocide to me.
-
Vlad,
The tsunami killed 227,898 people, and was caused (or not prevented) by a God who we're told had the knowledge and power to prevent it. That sounds like genocide to me.
Not if death is not the end. If the soul gets liberated from body and bondage, at death...it could even be seen as a blessing....
-
Sriram,
Not if death is not the end. If the soul gets liberated from body and bondage, at death...it could even be seen as a blessing....
That's a particularly disgusting piece of casuistry that some theists try - "it's actually good that babies dies horribly and in pain, because that way they get to meet god sooner".
Why then would a benign god have them born in the first place, and why too bother with all the pain and suffering that "his" chosen method of, in this case, a tsunami entails?
-
Vlad,
The tsunami killed 227,898 people, and was caused (or not prevented) by a God who we're told had the knowledge and power to prevent it. That sounds like genocide to me.
But why single these people out as victims of natural death. If you aren't murdered or suffer an accident you have a natural death. Why aren't you including them? God has the power and the knowledge to prevent those far more numerous deaths. The question is why does God not suspend the laws of nature or climatic or geomorphological or astronomic processes?
How are you defining Genocide since you are putting God in the Dock, surely the defendent needs to hear your charges.
And finally a reminder. I am not the one in the dock here.
-
Sriram,
That's a particularly disgusting piece of casuistry that some theists try - "it's actually good that babies dies horribly and in pain, because that way they get to meet god sooner".
Why then would a benign god have them born in the first place, and why too bother with all the pain and suffering that "his" chosen method of, in this case, a tsunami entails?
The point is that...if a God exists and has created the world...we cannot possibly expect him to think like us and have the same values and priorities as we have. We will not be able to even comprehend his point of view.
He would know why he has created the world along with all its features....and he would know how to handle it.
So.....superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all.
-
The point is that...if a God exists and has created the world...we cannot possibly expect him to think like us and have the same values and priorities as we have. We will not be able to even comprehend his point of view.
He would know why he has created the world along with all its features....and he would know how to handle it.
So.....superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all.
Then anyone worshipping a god is wrong in your opinion?
-
But why single these people out as victims of natural death. If you aren't murdered or suffer an accident you have a natural death. Why aren't you including them? God has the power and the knowledge to prevent those far more numerous deaths. The question is why does God not suspend the laws of nature or climatic or geomorphological or astronomic processes?
How are you defining Genocide since you are putting God in the Dock, surely the defendent needs to hear your charges.
And finally a reminder. I am not the one in the dock here.
So prior to 'The Fall' there were different natural laws? Don't quite know how you view The Fall, but you do refer to it. Perhaps on the lines of "Mankind was involved in some terrible aboriginal calamity"? (T.S. Eliot?)
-
The point is that...if a God exists and has created the world...we cannot possibly expect him to think like us and have the same values and priorities as we have. We will not be able to even comprehend his point of view.
He would know why he has created the world along with all its features....and he would know how to handle it.
So.....superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all.
Similarly, just as we cannot know the mind of God, we cannot really know the mind of another person. People who were devoted followers of Saddam Hussein no doubt deployed the same sort of apologetics when he attacked villages with indiscriminate chemical weapons, managing to convince themselves that he was doing the 'right thing' somehow. It is a case of being blinded to the truth by emotional attachments.
-
We can't compare God to Saddam Hussein. For one thing Saddam is a human like all of us and is bound to conform to social norms and rules like all of us.
God is the creator. He sets the rules. He decides 'why' and 'why not'. So...within that context, we cannot impose our rules on him.
We are the 'gods' as far as computers and robots are concerned. (Some one has reported sometime back that a robot has indicated fear of death). This means that if any of us scrap our computer or destroy it, we are morally liable. But from our point of view that is ridiculous.
-
Then anyone worshipping a god is wrong in your opinion?
Worshiping God is not the same as superimposing our mindset on him....
-
Worshiping God is not the same as superimposing our mindset on him....
You worship something because you think it worthy of worship. That is precisely impising one's mindset on it. If you cannot judge god bad, you cannot judge it good either.
-
Then anyone worshipping a god is wrong in your opinion?
I don't think they are wrong but then I'm not one of the antitheist good guys.
-
So prior to 'The Fall' there were different natural laws? Don't quite know how you view The Fall, but you do refer to it. Perhaps on the lines of "Mankind was involved in some terrible aboriginal calamity"? (T.S. Eliot?)
I never said there were different physical laws. The fall changes our attitude to death and introduces the consciousness of loss, separation and judgement.
-
I don't think they are wrong but then I'm not one of the antitheist good guys.
What are you havering about?
-
What are you havering about?
I'm disagreeing with you. Nearly Sane.
Judging as good is not the same as being aware of holiness.
IMV.and the claim is that god is holy.
-
I'm disagreeing with you. Nearly Sane.
Judging as good is not the same as being aware of holiness.
IMV.and the claim is that god is holy.
What do you mean by that? And thinking something is worthy of worship is judging.
-
What do you mean by that? And thinking something is worthy of worship is judging.
You linked judging good with imposing one’s mind set with worship.
Worship of God may not start with the act and effort of judgment but with the experience of God’s holiness which tells you exactly where you stand in the moral landscape.
-
You worship something because you think it worthy of worship. That is precisely impising one's mindset on it. If you cannot judge god bad, you cannot judge it good either.
We worship God because he is all powerful and all knowing. We worship because we want to appeal to him to protect us.
We don't pray to impose our mindset onto him.....
-
Hi Vg,
A late response to your post:
I have read the article you linked to and, apart from probably emphasising the importance of the natural emotions more than the article does I find no strong points of disagreement. For my own part, as I have mentioned in other threads on morality in the past, I see the idea of morality having a strong evolutionary basis. I accept that there is a 'potential' for morality, if it aids survival. For me, this is probably driven by such traits as empathy, sympathy, and natural feelings of co-operation and responsibility towards others. Culture, environment, experience, upbringing, and a rational approach, for me, superimpose upon those feelings. You might be right about not being able to care about the bad things if one is not exposed to them in some way but there again humans have very creative imaginations which could easily invent bad scenarios and empathetically respond to them.
Hi Enki
I'm just expressing my thoughts rather than making a definite argument. Human offspring need care for a relatively long period until they mature sufficiently to look after themselves. So developing the ability to care for others seems to have been selected for. If there were no problems in the world would we really need the large brains we have? And if we didn't have large brains, we wouldn't need the level of care we currently need and we also we wouldn't be able to articulate abstract concepts including the supernatural.
You could certainly argue that a god could have created a world where we did not require care because there was nothing bad in that world to harm us. In theory we could have only feelings of love for other people. Not really sure how choosing family units, spouses, preferences for any individuals works in such a world where everyone is equally amenable and pleasant? My feeling is that in order to have the ability to appreciate the good stuff in life you have to have the bad - such a world makes sense to me. Whereas a world where bad things don't happen because no one has the freedom to do anything bad or there are no natural disasters to care about seems a bit like agreeing to becoming a post-lobotomy McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) before he is euthanised by Chief Bromden, as an act of what Bromden believes is benevolence for the good of McMurphy. Yes such a world is a form of living and many people might choose it but many people might not. And the dynamics, interaction and outcomes of such a world would be different from a world where bad things are allowed to happen.
I am not sure that any god I believe in includes the promise of no individual pain as part of benevolence. My understanding was that the benevolence was in relation to human benefit collectively, rather than to individuals not feeling any pain.
So, it seems valid to me to believe/ worship a god that allows the moral complexity of bad things happening, but given the moral complexity of such a world it also seems valid to not believe such a god exists, leaving you with just moral complexity.
I was originally taking a particular Christian viewpoint(God of the omnis) and trying to show some of the problems which result from that. Didn't God make Eden as a good place without such things as earthquakes, cancer or poverty? And was it not Aquinas who said, "Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good"? Hence, from such a Christian viewpoint, it was supposed to be human beings who let loose the bad things in the world, whereas I would put the responsibility squarely upon the shoulders of this God.
My view in such a story is that a God of the omnis can make a place like Eden, but having decided that the point of humans is to give them the freedom to choose from right and wrong, I'm not really seeing it as going against the logic of such a story or against omnibenevolence if humans choose bad sometimes and therefore occupy a habitat that reflects that same complexity of good and bad as their freedom of choice gives them.
-
We worship God because he is all powerful and all knowing. We worship because we want to appeal to him to protect us.
We don't pray to impose our mindset onto him.....
Saying something is all knowing and all powerful id exactly imposing your mindset. What's this god protecting you from?
Oh and saying something is all knowing is a claim to being all knowing oneself else how could you make such a claim with any validity.
-
You linked judging good with imposing one’s mind set with worship.
Worship of God may not start with the act and effort of judgment but with the experience of God’s holiness which tells you exactly where you stand in the moral landscape.
No, Sriram linked imposing a mindset on god. I merely pointed out that if by judging god you are imposing a mindset on it, then that applies to any judgement including that it is 'holy' whatever that means
What do you mean by holy/holiness.
-
Saying something is all knowing and all powerful id exactly imposing your mindset. What's this god protecting you from?
Oh and saying something is all knowing is a claim to being all knowing oneself else how could you make such a claim with any validity.
In what way? I would say Sriram's point in making the claim was to acknowledge his own limited knowledge. Comparing his own inferior knowledge to something that is higher than him. You can conceptualise entities that are better than you. In a monotheistic concept, whatever you come up with needs to be something that has no superior hence going for the term 'all-knowing'. Not sure though whether Sriram is going for the monotheistic concept.
-
In what way? I would say Sriram's point in making the claim was to acknowledge his own limited knowledge. Comparing his own inferior knowledge to something that is higher than him. You can conceptualise entities that are better than you. In a monotheistic concept, whatever you come up with needs to be something that has no superior hence going for the term 'all-knowing'. Not sure though whether Sriram is going for the monotheistic concept.
In order to judge something as all knowing as opposed to knowing more than oneself, one would have to have all knowledge. It's the same issue if you judge something infallible or inerrant.
-
You worship something because you think it worthy of worship.
Ok - am assuming you don't mean theists do an evaluation in the sense of a pros and cons list and if you reach a certain score it's probably worth worshipping. I would say evaluations are feelings-based - your sub-conscious brain has the desire to worship. Your conscious brain becomes aware of this desire and weighs up whether to act on it.
That is precisely impising one's mindset on it. If you cannot judge god bad, you cannot judge it good either.
I agree that if you think something is worthy of worship you see something good in it based on your own definitions of good and bad i.e. your own mindset. I think the evaluation uses your conscious and sub-conscious brain. I think people's brains discern different things i.e. they have their individual concepts of god, based on what appeals to them, even if they claim to worship one god.
-
In order to judge something as all knowing as opposed to knowing more than oneself, one would have to have all knowledge. It's the same issue if you judge something infallible or inerrant.
If any theists are claiming they have evaluated and judged something as having all-knowledge then yes, I would ask how they assessed this. I would think they mean it's a belief based on them allowing the concept that all-knowledge is possible.
-
If any theists are claiming they have evaluated and judged something as having all-knowledge then yes, I would ask how they assessed this. I would think they mean it's a belief based on them allowing the concept that all-knowledge is possible.
Their belief other than telling me that they have it is therefore worthless.
-
Their belief other than telling me that they have it is therefore worthless.
Depends how you define 'worthless'
-
Vlad,
But why single these people out as victims of natural death. If you aren't murdered or suffer an accident you have a natural death. Why aren't you including them? God has the power and the knowledge to prevent those far more numerous deaths. The question is why does God not suspend the laws of nature or climatic or geomorphological or astronomic processes?
How are you defining Genocide since you are putting God in the Dock, surely the defendent needs to hear your charges.
And finally a reminder. I am not the one in the dock here.
The god you claim to exists is benign, all-knowing and all-powerful. “He” could therefore have prevented the tsunami, and thus the colossal pain and misery and suffering that came with it. That a sociopath may have committed lots of genocides is not a reason not to prosecute him for any one of them.
-
Depends how you define 'worthless'
No justification
-
No justification
Not sure what you mean by justification. Do you mean a person should be able to Justify their belief to someone else through some kind of objective process? Given it's a belief in a supernatural concept, there isn't such a process?
-
Sriram,
The point is that...if a God exists and has created the world...we cannot possibly expect him to think like us and have the same values and priorities as we have. We will not be able to even comprehend his point of view.
He would know why he has created the world along with all its features....and he would know how to handle it.
So.....superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all.
This makes no sense. Theists (Christians in this case) “superimpose their mindsets” on their god every time they something about “Him” – whether good, bad or indifferent. If you want to claim one thing for “god” – being good for example – then there’s no inherent bar to being able to claim anything else. Your reasoning produces just a god about which nothing can be said (because, according to you, “we cannot possibly expect him to think like us and have the same values and priorities as we have”), which is more deistic than it is theistic.
-
Not sure what you mean by justification. Do you mean a person should be able to Justify their belief to someone else through some kind of objective process? Given it's a belief in a supernatural concept, there isn't such a process?
The no justification applies whether it's a for a supetnatural concept or not here. That said you are right if a supernatural claim is involved then there is no such process. I would suggest intersubjective rather than objective.
Since the belief is based on nothing, other than telling me what the person believes, it seens to have no value. What definition of worthless do you think means it isn't?
-
The no justification applies whether it's a for a supetnatural concept or not here. That said you are right if a supernatural claim is involved then there is no such process. I would suggest intersubjective rather than objective.
Since the belief is based on nothing, other than telling me what the person believes, it seens to have no value. What definition of worthless do you think means it isn't?
I would agree it has no value to you. I assume it has a value to the person who holds the belief otherwise they would not continue to hold the belief. So just clarifying it's a subjective assessment of 'worthless'. I would say the belief is based on something that cannot be demonstrated to someone else.
Also I would say that someone else might not necessarily see the value even if it could be demonstrated, including other theists as well as atheists. So a Christian might hold a particular belief about a supernatural entity, wouldn't be able to demonstrate the value of this belief to another Christian who holds a different belief, and even if they could demonstrate the value to them, it might not seem of value to the other Christian.
This could apply to all beliefs I suppose - even if you could justify or demonstrate how you arrived at your belief, your belief might not be of value to someone else, so they wouldn't adopt it as a belief they hold.
-
Vlad,
The god you claim to exists is benign, all-knowing and all-powerful. “He” could therefore have prevented the tsunami, and thus the colossal pain and misery and suffering that came with it. That a sociopath may have committed lots of genocides is not a reason not to prosecute him for any one of them.
But God if benign is benign on the Cosmic scale and even the zenith of your undoubted benignity “You, know what. It’s a beautiful Essex day i think I won’t give Vlad a hard time by playing him rather than the ball” isn’t a reference for cosmic benignity which we are told includes incarnation taking on the world sin on himself in order to fix our broken relationship with him and the resurrection to the life to come.
I don’t understand why you have singled out the tsunami here since it is not the greatest Accusation of Genocide. Since you haven’t brought up a definition of genocide and only mentioning a tsunami is a manipulation of data I have to question your suitability for the role of prosecutor. You are assuming guilt even though you haven’t specified the charges.
-
No, Sriram linked imposing a mindset on god. I merely pointed out that if by judging god you are imposing a mindset on it, then that applies to any judgement including that it is 'holy' whatever that means
What do you mean by holy/holiness.
Holiness is that aspect of God’s character, presence and nature which when encountered convict one of one’s real place in the moral landscape.
-
Holiness is that aspect of God’s character, presence and nature which when encountered convict one of one’s real place in the moral landscape.
I have no idea what you are saying here.
-
When you encounter God you realise how moral you really are because you have Him as the comparison.
Without him it's all guesswork.
-
When you encounter God you realise how moral you really are because you have Him as the comparison.
Without him it's all guesswork.
So having been saying people cannot judge god, you then judge god.
-
Vlad,
But God if benign is benign on the Cosmic scale and even the zenith of your undoubted benignity “You, know what. It’s a beautiful Essex day i think I won’t give Vlad a hard time by playing him rather than the ball” isn’t a reference for cosmic benignity which we are told includes incarnation taking on the world sin on himself in order to fix our broken relationship with him and the resurrection to the life to come.
You seem to have regurgitated a semi-digested bowl of alphabet soup. What on earth are you even trying to say here?
I don’t understand why you have singled out the tsunami here since it is not the greatest Accusation of Genocide.
Relevance? Whether or not you understand the choice of possible genocides is neither here nor there, and nor for that matter is choosing any one such rather than a different one.
Since you haven’t brought up a definition of genocide and only mentioning a tsunami is a manipulation of data I have to question your suitability for the role of prosecutor.
You didn’t ask for a definition and how on earth is quoting part of a Wiki entry verbatim “a manipulation of data”?
You are assuming guilt even though you haven’t specified the charges.
The “charge” is as I explained it: a (supposed) god who (supposedly) could have prevented it nonetheless sat idly by with arms folded as a tsunami killed a quarter of a million plus people, and thus allowed the colossal pain and misery and suffering that came with it. How much more fucking genocidal do you want?
-
Vlad,
When you encounter God you realise how moral you really are because you have Him as the comparison.
Without him it's all guesswork.
Leavis aside the utter bollocks of the sentiment, you’re contradicting yourself here. First you seem to agree with Sriram’s “superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all” and in the next breath you “superimpose” your “mindset” on your “god” by judging this (supposed) god to be morally perfect.
Which one do you intend to plump for, or do you plan to flip-flop between them?
-
You people are over intellectualizing the point. When we say that God is omniscient and omnipotent...we are relinquishing all ideas of what God could be. It automatically means that we are removing all our limitations from God. It means that he is much more than what we can imagine or comprehend.
Once this characterization of God is assumed....it doesn't make sense to impose our limited ideas of morality on to him and to judge him on that basis.
Saying that we humans are forming such ideas of God and thereby we are imposing our ideas and mindsets on him, doesn't make sense. All ideas and philosophies are thought out or imagined by humans only. That is obvious.... But by stating that God is beyond our comprehension we are removing this restriction.....
My personal ideas of God could be different which is besides the point.
-
Vlad,
Leavis aside the utter bollocks of the sentiment, you’re contradicting yourself here. First you seem to agree with Sriram’s “superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all” and in the next breath you “superimpose” your “mindset” on your “god” by judging this (supposed) god to be morally perfect.
Which one do you intend to plump for, or do you plan to flip-flop between them?
When you encounter God you are in the presence of the Judge and there is no intellectual weighing up of God's goodness or holiness only surrender to a new relationship...or flight.
-
You people are over intellectualizing the point. When we say that God is omniscient and omnipotent...we are relinquishing all ideas of what God could be. It automatically means that we are removing all our limitations from God. It means that he is much more than what we can imagine or comprehend.
Once this characterization of God is assumed....it doesn't make sense to impose our limited ideas of morality on to him and to judge him on that basis.
Saying that we humans are forming such ideas of God and thereby we are imposing our ideas and mindsets on him, doesn't make sense. All ideas and philosophies are thought out or imagined by humans only. That is obvious.... But by stating that God is beyond our comprehension we are removing this restriction.....
My personal ideas of God could be different which is besides the point.
I agree the abstract concepts of the omnis could be taken as relinquishing of ideas of what God could be. But in practice, whether gods exist or not, once a theist starts communicating ideas about their god that go beyond describing the omnis and saying god is unknowable, they give the impression that it is their mindset they are communicating. Religions seem to be a human attempt at articulating gods and morals in the languages and tools of communication available to people.
Given language is limited, as words can be interpreted in different ways by the speaker and listener based on their nature and nurture, language/ dialects change over time and location etc, context alters the meaning, and people don't communicate all the thoughts buzzing around their brains and in their sub-conscious that might give more nuance to their words, I think the intended meanings at the time of communication from one person to another could easily get lost in translation. As we don't have any other tools other than language the resulting ambiguity is part of the package. I think ambiguity is an unavoidable part of human communication when we talk about complex abstract concepts such as gods and morals.
-
When you encounter God you are in the presence of the Judge and there is no intellectual weighing up of God's goodness or holiness only surrender to a new relationship...or flight.
It's interesting that both you and Sriram have used the words intellectual/intellectualising pejoratively. I'm afraid you both sound as if you are saying that given you cannot provide any form of justification for your position, you'll just say justifications are bad.
It also means that you both perform a sort of bait and switch by saying judging a notional god is impossible but you know your god is fandabidozi but that's not a judgement. That you say you are not thinking rationally about is not a get out clause for being logically contradictory.
-
I agree the abstract concepts of the omnis could be taken as relinquishing of ideas of what God could be. But in practice, whether gods exist or not, once a theist starts communicating ideas about their god that go beyond describing the omnis and saying god is unknowable, they give the impression that it is their mindset they are communicating. Religions seem to be a human attempt at articulating gods and morals in the languages and tools of communication available to people.
Given language is limited, as words can be interpreted in different ways by the speaker and listener based on their nature and nurture, language/ dialects change over time and location etc, context alters the meaning, and people don't communicate all the thoughts buzzing around their brains and in their sub-conscious that might give more nuance to their words, I think the intended meanings at the time of communication from one person to another could easily get lost in translation. As we don't have any other tools other than language the resulting ambiguity is part of the package. I think ambiguity is an unavoidable part of human communication when we talk about complex abstract concepts such as gods and morals.
I agree with you.
God as a concept is one thing and God as an experience is another thing. When we philosophize, we describe God as omnipresent, omnipotent, universal etc. This is our attempt to understand 'God' intellectually.
But when we experience him it is more as a subtle inner presence. This is the personal God that some people experience. Describing this presence becomes difficult and therefore most people take recourse to religious imagery and traditional deities. Here the language becomes more emotional and a socially accepted one.
-
When you encounter God you are in the presence of the Judge and there is no intellectual weighing up of God's goodness or holiness only surrender to a new relationship...or flight.
I am not sure I understand what you mean by 'encountered'. Can't say I have the belief that I encountered God. Thinking about God and having feelings about God is as far as I get. So my experience has been an intellectual and emotional weighing up of God. I just come to different conclusions from the one I did when I was an atheist because my value system changed and now I recognise much more ambiguity and have less requirement for certainty based on having a feeling about God. If I didn't have that feeling, my value system wouldn't have changed to incorporate the ambiguity of a god.
I also didn't have your experience of surrender or flight. I have only had something that could possibly resemble that kind of emotional response once I had a belief in God. And 'flight' sounds a bit panicked. Whereas I don't feel that and don't remember feeling that when I was an atheist. When I was an atheist, a lot of the time I was just indifferent and had other things to think about that caught my attention. The concept of god just didn't have any appeal to me when I was an atheist but I can't say I felt I had to run from it.
Similar to my current bafflement about gender, I could grasp the ideas about gods and why some people believed and worshipped and why it mattered to them, but gods just didn't matter to me or add anything to my life,. I also remember sometimes feeling superior, condescending / patronising towards theists, feeling sorry for them, feeling irritated by them, thinking they were perpetuating a dangerous system, and thankful that I wasn't caught up in what I saw as a waste of time.
I feel the same way about gender currently as I did about gods when I was an atheist - I can grasp what is meant by gender and why it matters to some people but can't see how inserting this extra layer to human experience adds anything meaningful to my own life. I can see the point of biological sex but not gender. So I guess sometimes I feel superior to people caught up in this idea of gender, and somewhat condescending and patronising towards them, I sometimes feel sorry for them, I mostly would leave them to believe whatever they want but sometimes I am irritated or outraged by the ideas promoted by some extreme gender activists because I think they are promoting an idea that could be used by bad people for bad purposes, although most people would no doubt have benign intent.
-
It's interesting that both you and Sriram have used the words intellectual/intellectualising pejoratively. I'm afraid you both sound as if you are saying that given you cannot provide any form of justification for your position, you'll just say justifications are bad.
It also means that you both perform a sort of bait and switch by saying judging a notional god is impossible but you know your god is fandabidozi but that's not a judgement. That you say you are not thinking rationally about is not a get out clause for being logically contradictory.
I don't use the word intellectual perjoritively it's our daily modus in the world but some situations are not solved by it or conjured into being by it. In otherwords the encounter with God is past the moral pondering stage , it is settled by God's presence.
-
I don't use the word intellectual perjoritively it's our daily modus in the world but some situations are not solved by it or conjured into being by it. In otherwords the encounter with God is past the moral pondering stage , it is settled by God's presence.
And you illustrate exactly that you are using it pejoratively by describing it as ok for the quotidian but comoketely inadequate for something you see as higher. Though your 'method' for that is not a method. It's simply you saying 'I really really really believe this'.
-
I am not sure I understand what you mean by 'encountered'. Can't say I have the belief that I encountered God. Thinking about God and having feelings about God is as far as I get. So my experience has been an intellectual and emotional weighing up of God. I just come to different conclusions from the one I did when I was an atheist because my value system changed and now I recognise much more ambiguity and have less requirement for certainty based on having a feeling about God. If I didn't have that feeling, my value system wouldn't have changed to incorporate the ambiguity of a god.
I also didn't have your experience of surrender or flight. I have only had something that could possibly resemble that kind of emotional response once I had a belief in God. And 'flight' sounds a bit panicked. Whereas I don't feel that and don't remember feeling that when I was an atheist. When I was an atheist, a lot of the time I was just indifferent and had other things to think about that caught my attention. The concept of god just didn't have any appeal to me when I was an atheist but I can't say I felt I had to run from it.
Similar to my current bafflement about gender, I could grasp the ideas about gods and why some people believed and worshipped and why it mattered to them, but gods just didn't matter to me or add anything to my life,. I also remember sometimes feeling superior, condescending / patronising towards theists, feeling sorry for them, feeling irritated by them, thinking they were perpetuating a dangerous system, and thankful that I wasn't caught up in what I saw as a waste of time.
I feel the same way about gender currently as I did about gods when I was an atheist - I can grasp what is meant by gender and why it matters to some people but can't see how inserting this extra layer to human experience adds anything meaningful to my own life. I can see the point of biological sex but not gender. So I guess sometimes I feel superior to people caught up in this idea of gender, and somewhat condescending and patronising towards them, I sometimes feel sorry for them, I mostly would leave them to believe whatever they want but sometimes I am irritated or outraged by the ideas promoted by some extreme gender activists because I think they are promoting an idea that could be used by bad people for bad purposes, although most people would no doubt have benign intent.
You don't use the word emotional in the perjoritive I notice. What would you say elicited and elicits your emotions around your religion? Are you influenced at all by Sufism?
-
I agree with you.
God as a concept is one thing and God as an experience is another thing. When we philosophize, we describe God as omnipresent, omnipotent, universal etc. This is our attempt to understand 'God' intellectually.
But when we experience him it is more as a subtle inner presence. This is the personal God that some people experience. Describing this presence becomes difficult and therefore most people take recourse to religious imagery and traditional deities. Here the language becomes more emotional and a socially accepted one.
Yes - the only bit I am not sure I understand is what you mean by 'experiencing' God. I understand the point that people can believe they experienced God, and build their life and value system and social interaction based on that belief. I don't think that is different to building your life around other abstract moral beliefs that have value to you but mean nothing to someone else. But presumably no one would ever know if they did actually experience God or if what they experienced was a feeling produced by their ideas about God?
A concept that is similar for me is 'honour'. For example, I could have ideas about 'honour' and emotions and feelings that affect my behaviour based on the abstract concept and my thoughts about it. I could articulate what I mean by honour and the emotions/ feelings this concept induces in me and also say I feel the need to do something as a matter of personal honour but not be able to demonstrate to someone else that I have any honour. Other people may well think or say that I have no honour, based on their understanding and use of the term, but if I experienced the feeling and I identified it as related to my beliefs about 'honour', other people's opinions would not cause me to abandon my belief in my honour.
-
And you illustrate exactly that you are using it pejoratively by describing it as ok for the quotidian but comoketely inadequate for something you see as higher. Though your 'method' for that is not a method. It's simoly you saying 'I really really really believe this'.
You seem to be eliminating all possibility of an encounter with God and dismiss my account of the nature of the response whilst limiting your own response to intellectual judgment.
I suppose you are upset because you consider intellectual pondering to be the crowning experience or would intellectual evaluation be a suitable substitute?
-
Yes - the only bit I am not sure I understand is what you mean by 'experiencing' God. I understand the point that people can believe they experienced God, and build their life and value system and social interaction based on that belief. I don't think that is different to building your life around other abstract moral beliefs that have value to you but mean nothing to someone else. But presumably no one would ever know if they did actually experience God or if what they experienced was a feeling produced by their ideas about God?
A concept that is similar for me is 'honour'. For example, I could have ideas about 'honour' and emotions and feelings that affect my behaviour based on the abstract concept and my thoughts about it. I could articulate what I mean by honour and the emotions/ feelings this concept induces in me and also say I feel the need to do something as a matter of personal honour but not be able to demonstrate to someone else that I have any honour. Other people may well think or say that I have no honour, based on their understanding and use of the term, but if I experienced the feeling and I identified it as related to my beliefs about 'honour', other people's opinions would not cause me to abandon my belief in my honour.
If you act in a way that someone thinks is not with honour, and they say that to you, surely it's reasonable to use how you describe honour to illustrate where your actions might not be be in line with?
The issue I have with the use of the omnis is they are an attempt to justify worship but if you use them to point out logical issues with the position, you are suddenly told that people don't mean the words.
-
You seem to be eliminating all possibility of an encounter with God and dismiss my account of the nature of the response whilst limiting your own response to intellectual judgment.
I suppose you are upset because you consider intellectual pondering to be the crowning experience.
As so often what you suppose is incorrect. I've often written that Hume was right that no decision is made intellectually but factual claims like you make can inly be investigated on a rational basis.
I am not dimissing the possibility of you having an experience. I am not dismissing the possibility that it might be true. (Note those 2 statements are different). But in the absence of you being able to demonstrate the second there is no reason for me to think your statement is about reality. In addition if you use terms to describe your experience which when challenged on you say you don't actually mean in any logically consistent sense, then I'm not even being given anything coherent from you as a description.
-
I agree the abstract concepts of the omnis could be taken as relinquishing of ideas of what God could be. But in practice, whether gods exist or not, once a theist starts communicating ideas about their god that go beyond describing the omnis and saying god is unknowable, they give the impression that it is their mindset they are communicating. Religions seem to be a human attempt at articulating gods and morals in the languages and tools of communication available to people.
Given language is limited, as words can be interpreted in different ways by the speaker and listener based on their nature and nurture, language/ dialects change over time and location etc, context alters the meaning, and people don't communicate all the thoughts buzzing around their brains and in their sub-conscious that might give more nuance to their words, I think the intended meanings at the time of communication from one person to another could easily get lost in translation. As we don't have any other tools other than language the resulting ambiguity is part of the package. I think ambiguity is an unavoidable part of human communication when we talk about complex abstract concepts such as gods and morals.
........ probably why apophatic theology has a presence in many religions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
-
You don't use the word emotional in the perjoritive I notice. What would you say elicited and elicits your emotions around your religion? Are you influenced at all by Sufism?
I understand the caution about relying on emotion, whether it is about gods or moral values. As I got older I guess I just trusted myself more to utilise them in a way that was beneficial as I came to appreciate the benefits of emotional connections, and alternative value systems from the ones I previously employed.
I just don't think I can choose to feel an emotion about God. My experience was that I didn't believe and I opened the Quran because i was bored and wanted to get some enjoyment out of pointing out to my Muslim boyfriend (now husband) how silly it all was as he had introduced the topic. And I read a couple of lines and felt an emotional connection that I hadn't felt before based on the words in the book. I felt the emotion and that later prompted my inclination to explore the ideas further, both intellectually and emotionally. By intellectually, I don't mean by conducting repeatable, testable experiments, though I have no objection to people employing that approach in their lives and only selecting moral values based on their conclusions about objective, repeatable, testable data. By 'intellectual' I just mean by thinking about how applying the idea of God could have a qualitative effect on my behaviour and the outcomes of that behaviour.
I can't say my belief was strengthened based on Sufi practice but I like some of the Sufi ideas and philosophy.
I find a lot of the ideas and ideals of other people have strengthened my belief e.g. the ideas and explanations by scholars of Quranic Arabic and people who have studied the language, religion, the traditional stories about the life and character of Prophet Muhammad and his followers and the Caliphs who came after Prophet Muhammad, and the ideas of family and friends based on what they have read, understood, experienced, and practised.
-
........ probably why apophatic theology has a presence in many religions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
I remember having conversations with Wigginhall, erstwhile of this parish and much missed, about the drive people have to justify their belief in a god with rational reasons. On this I am reminded of Alan/Alien and his 5 reasons for believing in god, all of which seemed like rationalisations and nothing to do with his belief.
There's something similar going on when people use terms that when challenged on, they deny really apply. The problem is that if you don't try and f the ineffable, there really is nothing to say about it.
-
Sriram,
You people are over intellectualizing the point.
How can you “over intellectualise” an argument? If further and more supportable reasoning is available, why stop before that point for your position?
When we say that God is omniscient and omnipotent...we are relinquishing all ideas of what God could be. It automatically means that we are removing all our limitations from God. It means that he is much more than what we can imagine or comprehend.
No it doesn’t. Omniscience and omnipotence are themselves “limitations” – they limit this supposed god from partial knowledge and from partial power for example, but in any case these are features some ascribe to god while at the same time claiming that god to be “beyond human comprehension” or some such. A god beyond human comprehension is a god about whom nothing can reasonably be said, yet at the same time you’re trying to say something about that god (ie, that he has the omnis as features). These are contradictory position to take.
Once this characterization of God is assumed....it doesn't make sense to impose our limited ideas of morality on to him and to judge him on that basis.
How can you “assume” characteristics of a god that’s also "beyond human understanding"?
Saying that we humans are forming such ideas of God and thereby we are imposing our ideas and mindsets on him, doesn't make sense. All ideas and philosophies are thought out or imagined by humans only. That is obvious.... But by stating that God is beyond our comprehension we are removing this restriction.....
Still no. You can have all the “ideas and philosophies” you like, but if you also want to assert a “God…beyond our comprehension” then ipso facto none of them can apply to that god.
My personal ideas of God could be different which is besides the point.
And entirely irrelevant – as are anyone else’s “personal ideas of God” when in the same breath that want to claim a god beyond understanding.
-
Vlad,
When you encounter God you are in the presence of the Judge and there is no intellectual weighing up of God's goodness or holiness only surrender to a new relationship...or flight.
So few words, so many unqualified assertions…
If you want the claim of having “encountered God” to be taken seriously then you have a mountain of work ahead of you to establish A). “God” and B). that you “encountered” (rather than just imagined) it, and in any case deciding that this supposed god is a “Judge”, “holy”, “good” etc are features you’re ascribing to this god. How could you possible claim to know such things about a god that’s also unknowable?
-
I remember having conversations with Wigginhall, erstwhile of this parish and much missed, about the drive people have to justify their belief in a god with rational reasons. On this I am reminded of Alan/Alien and his 5 reasons for believing in god, all of which seemed like rationalisations and nothing to do with his belief.
There's something similar going on when people use terms that when challenged on, they deny really apply. The problem is that if you don't try and f the ineffable, there really is nothing to say about it.
That's it really. If Sriram, Walt/Vlad, ... have experience of god, and it is something beyond words and logic - why spend hours, months, or years trying to (incorrectly) justify it as a rational entity based on rational arguments and philosophy.
Would be more credible if the effort was spent on improving the world directly or generating art, music or poetry.
-
Sriram,
How can you “over intellectualise” an argument? If further and more supportable reasoning is available, why stop before that point for your position?
No it doesn’t. Omniscience and omnipotence are themselves “limitations” – they limit this supposed god from partial knowledge and from partial power for example, but in any case these are features some ascribe to god while at the same time claiming that god to be “beyond human comprehension” or some such. A god beyond human comprehension is a god about whom nothing can reasonably be said, yet at the same time you’re trying to say something about that god (ie, that he has the omnis as features). These are contradictory position to take.
How can you “assume” characteristics of a god that’s also "beyond human understanding"?
Still no. You can have all the “ideas and philosophies” you like, but if you also want to assert a “God…beyond our comprehension” then ipso facto none of them can apply to that god.
And entirely irrelevant – as are anyone else’s “personal ideas of God” when in the same breath that want to claim a god beyond understanding.
Goodness...! You are tying yourself in knots over this.... That is what I mean by over intellectualizing.
-
If you act in a way that someone thinks is not with honour, and they say that to you, surely it's reasonable to use how you describe honour to illustrate where your actions might not be be in line with?
My experience of people is that it is not clear cut. What they prioritise is not what I prioritise and it is often difficult to convince someone else that what you prioritise is what they should also prioritise, and vice versa. This may be partly due to the limitations of language in conveying your thoughts and the limitations of brain comprehension of what is being felt or said. But I think a large part of this disconnect is due to the differences in people's experiences and how they interpret those experiences and how they incorporate those interpretations into their lives.
For example, sometimes I see examples of parental love and sacrifice, and my emotional reaction is to hope I never feel that depth of emotion that would lead me to react or behave that way, while others feel humbled by it and aspire to behave in a similar way. I can't understand why anyone would celebrate those feelings. Whereas other people can't understand why I don't want to aspire to or celebrate those feelings. All we can do is acknowledge our beliefs and aspirations are different because of our different life experiences and interpretations and try to be tolerant of the other person's emotional and intellectual reaction.
The issue I have with the use of the omnis is they are an attempt to justify worship but if you use them to point out logical issues with the position, you are suddenly told that people don't mean the words.
I suppose it depends on the theist. I'm not sure why you would expect a uniform response since people would all have different experiences, reactions, interpretations and understanding of words they hear or read.
But yes I agree that if someone is attributing omnibenevolence to their god and says it means god loves you and that the meaning of god's love is that nothing bad will ever happen to you, then that is clearly illogical based on experience, and in conjunction with the other onmis.
If an onmi is used to indicate nothing greater is possible and the attribute of benevolence is used to mean beneficial to mankind's spiritual development, not their physical well-being, then it alters the logic. It also depends on how you define beneficial. I would say what is beneficial is not necessarily free from pain or sadness. I remember a psychologist on TV saying that indulging people and trying to ensure they never feel sad was a form of abuse. I think he was talking about parents and children. So essentially his point was that the outcomes he had observed from parents trying to ensure their children never feel sad, harmed the children's emotional development to the extent that it was to him a form of abuse. So words can be used in very different ways by different people.
Of course this idea of justice and judgement is based on the belief that there is an ultimate entity to assess and pass judgement on our spiritual development and the idea also depends on the definition of spiritual. But I would say that this belief in judgement in religions is articulated for our benefit. Some theists articulate spiritual in terms of a soul and seem to regard it as a distinct separate entity, some just talk about a judgment of our morals, emotions, thoughts and intentions linked to our sense of self.
If theists are saying we don't even know how to define the onmis because it's unknowable, but here's our best guess of how that might work given our limited understanding and given we want to communicate some sort of idea, isn't that religions incorporating the omnis because the idea of the omnis appeal to humans?
-
Sriram,
I agree with you.
God as a concept is one thing and God as an experience is another thing.
What makes you think there’s such a thing as “God as an experience” rather than just a belief in experiencing god(s)?
When we philosophize, we describe God as omnipresent, omnipotent, universal etc. This is our attempt to understand 'God' intellectually.
An attempt to understand a god we’re also told is beyond understanding”? Hmmm…
But when we experience him…
Whoa there Sparky. You’re reifying there. What makes you think anyone has “experienced” any of the countless gods in which they variously believe(d)?
…it is more as a subtle inner presence.
And you would justify that remarkable claim how?
This is the personal God that some people experience. Describing this presence becomes difficult and therefore most people take recourse to religious imagery and traditional deities. Here the language becomes more emotional and a socially accepted one.
No – if you want to claim that “some people experience” their gods rather than just reach for the most proximate religious beliefs to explain their experiences then you have all you work ahead of you to justify that. You might want to consider especially the “proximate” part of that too – Amazonian tribespeople have an “experience” and ascribe it to an animal spirit, Vlad has an “experience” and ascribes it to the Christian god, you have an “experience” and ascribe it to whichever god is culturally closest to you. None of you though have “experiences” and reach for your explanations to gods from each others’ cultures.
What do you think this implies?
-
Sriram,
Goodness...! You are tying yourself in knots over this.... That is what I mean by over intellectualizing.
Then you're still wrong about that for the reasons I set out. Which part of the argument is too difficult for you?
-
Vlad,
I don't use the word intellectual perjoritively it's our daily modus in the world but some situations are not solved by it or conjured into being by it. In otherwords the encounter with God is past the moral pondering stage , it is settled by God's presence.
Some textbook circular reasoning there.
-
Hi Enki
I'm just expressing my thoughts rather than making a definite argument. Human offspring need care for a relatively long period until they mature sufficiently to look after themselves. So developing the ability to care for others seems to have been selected for. If there were no problems in the world would we really need the large brains we have? And if we didn't have large brains, we wouldn't need the level of care we currently need and we also we wouldn't be able to articulate abstract concepts including the supernatural.
You could certainly argue that a god could have created a world where we did not require care because there was nothing bad in that world to harm us. In theory we could have only feelings of love for other people. Not really sure how choosing family units, spouses, preferences for any individuals works in such a world where everyone is equally amenable and pleasant? My feeling is that in order to have the ability to appreciate the good stuff in life you have to have the bad - such a world makes sense to me. Whereas a world where bad things don't happen because no one has the freedom to do anything bad or there are no natural disasters to care about seems a bit like agreeing to becoming a post-lobotomy McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) before he is euthanised by Chief Bromden, as an act of what Bromden believes is benevolence for the good of McMurphy. Yes such a world is a form of living and many people might choose it but many people might not. And the dynamics, interaction and outcomes of such a world would be different from a world where bad things are allowed to happen.
I am not sure that any god I believe in includes the promise of no individual pain as part of benevolence. My understanding was that the benevolence was in relation to human benefit collectively, rather than to individuals not feeling any pain.
So, it seems valid to me to believe/ worship a god that allows the moral complexity of bad things happening, but given the moral complexity of such a world it also seems valid to not believe such a god exists, leaving you with just moral complexity.
My view in such a story is that a God of the omnis can make a place like Eden, but having decided that the point of humans is to give them the freedom to choose from right and wrong, I'm not really seeing it as going against the logic of such a story or against omnibenevolence if humans choose bad sometimes and therefore occupy a habitat that reflects that same complexity of good and bad as their freedom of choice gives them.
I appreciate that you are simply expressing your thoughts, as I am. I know that the debate seems to have moved on to a discussion of natural evils(e.g. tsunamis, cancers) and I leave others to deal with this. My position, which I quite accept is different to yours, is that part of my moral framework is that, ideally, everyone should be responsible for their actions, and if there were a god who has moral standing, then that should also apply to him/her. As I see it, God is supposed to have created us. He was the one who decided to give us free will. He was the one who created the potential within us to do bad things as well as good things. Therefore He has ultimate responsibility for setting things up in this way. Unfortunately, in Christianity, it always seems that humanity gets the ultimate blame and God gets a free ride. The point about omnibenovolence is that Eden is supposed to have originally existed as a perfectly good place and that heaven, for those who make it there, is also a place of perfection. So, for me, the question remains, why did a so called omnibenovolent God see fit to make an imperfect earth and an imperfect set of humans in the first place, and why does He/She not take responsibility for His/Her actions?
-
Yes - the only bit I am not sure I understand is what you mean by 'experiencing' God. I understand the point that people can believe they experienced God, and build their life and value system and social interaction based on that belief. I don't think that is different to building your life around other abstract moral beliefs that have value to you but mean nothing to someone else. But presumably no one would ever know if they did actually experience God or if what they experienced was a feeling produced by their ideas about God?
A concept that is similar for me is 'honour'. For example, I could have ideas about 'honour' and emotions and feelings that affect my behaviour based on the abstract concept and my thoughts about it. I could articulate what I mean by honour and the emotions/ feelings this concept induces in me and also say I feel the need to do something as a matter of personal honour but not be able to demonstrate to someone else that I have any honour. Other people may well think or say that I have no honour, based on their understanding and use of the term, but if I experienced the feeling and I identified it as related to my beliefs about 'honour', other people's opinions would not cause me to abandon my belief in my honour.
The experience has nothing to do with ones concepts or ideas or even beliefs. It is just an inner energy that neutralizes all of ones anxieties and even thoughts.
If you really want to know more about it you could go through this link. Try at least the first two chapters...
https://sriramraot.wordpress.com/
Please message me separately if you want to discuss it.
-
My experience of people is that it is not clear cut. What they prioritise is not what I prioritise and it is often difficult to convince someone else that what you prioritise is what they should also prioritise, and vice versa. This may be partly due to the limitations of language in conveying your thoughts and the limitations of brain comprehension of what is being felt or said. But I think a large part of this disconnect is due to the differences in people's experiences and how they interpret those experiences and how they incorporate those interpretations into their lives.
For example, sometimes I see examples of parental love and sacrifice, and my emotional reaction is to hope I never feel that depth of emotion that would lead me to react or behave that way, while others feel humbled by it and aspire to behave in a similar way. I can't understand why anyone would celebrate those feelings. Whereas other people can't understand why I don't want to aspire to or celebrate those feelings. All we can do is acknowledge our beliefs and aspirations are different because of our different life experiences and interpretations and try to be tolerant of the other person's emotional and intellectual reaction.
I suppose it depends on the theist. I'm not sure why you would expect a uniform response since people would all have different experiences, reactions, interpretations and understanding of words they hear or read.
That seens to be an answer to a completely different question to the one I asked. If soneone wants to make an argument that you are not behaving in a manner that you would think is honourable, surely they will have more impact if they use your definitions of what that means?
But yes I agree that if someone is attributing omnibenevolence to their god and says it means god loves you and that the meaning of god's love is that nothing bad will ever happen to you, then that is clearly illogical based on experience, and in conjunction with the other onmis.
If an onmi is used to indicate nothing greater is possible and the attribute of benevolence is used to mean beneficial to mankind's spiritual development, not their physical well-being, then it alters the logic. It also depends on how you define beneficial. I would say what is beneficial is not necessarily free from pain or sadness. I remember a psychologist on TV saying that indulging people and trying to ensure they never feel sad was a form of abuse. I think he was talking about parents and children. So essentially his point was that the outcomes he had observed from parents trying to ensure their children never feel sad, harmed the children's emotional development to the extent that it was to him a form of abuse. So words can be used in very different ways by different people.
Of course this idea of justice and judgement is based on the belief that there is an ultimate entity to assess and pass judgement on our spiritual development and the idea also depends on the definition of spiritual. But I would say that this belief in judgement in religions is articulated for our benefit. Some theists articulate spiritual in terms of a soul and seem to regard it as a distinct separate entity, some just talk about a judgment of our morals, emotions, thoughts and intentions linked to our sense of self.
If theists are saying we don't even know how to define the onmis because it's unknowable, but here's our best guess of how that might work given our limited understanding and given we want to communicate some sort of idea, isn't that religions incorporating the omnis because the idea of the omnis appeal to humans?
Words can be used differently but if the person wjo uses the words then takes a position that they cannot explain what they mean by those words then those words become meaningless in any dialogue.
-
That seens to be an answer to a completely different question to the one I asked. If soneone wants to make an argument that you are not behaving in a manner that you would think is honourable, surely they will have more impact if they use your definitions of what that means?
Oh ok - yes agreed.
Words can be used differently but if the person wjo uses the words then takes a position that they cannot explain what they mean by those words then those words become meaningless in any dialogue.
Yes agreed.
-
Vlad,
You seem to be eliminating all possibility of an encounter with God…
No-one has done that. You’re straw manning again.
…and dismiss my account of the nature of the response whilst limiting your own response to intellectual judgment.
No, you can describe your “response” all you like, but the moment you want to essay an explanatory narrative for it then you must expect an “intellectual” response to test the claim. And that’s when the claim falls part as unjustified.
I suppose you are upset…
What makes you think anyone is upset?
…because you consider intellectual pondering to be the crowning experience or would intellectual evaluation be a suitable substitute?
“Intellectual pondering/evaluation” is neither a “crowning experience” nor a “suitable substitute”. It’s a means of enquiry used to test the claims of those who would reach (typically) for the most proximate religious narratives to explain the experiences. With the exception of the religious faith that’s most appealing to you you do it too – if I claimed to have “experienced” leprechauns would you just take my word for it, or would you “intellectually” ask some questions to test the likely veracity of my claim?
Would I then be entitled to say you did this "...because you consider intellectual pondering to be the crowning experience or would intellectual evaluation be a suitable substitute"?
-
Sriram,
The experience has nothing to do with ones concepts or ideas or even beliefs. It is just an inner energy that neutralizes all of ones anxieties and even thoughts.
If you really want to know more about it you could go through this link. Try at least the first two chapters...
https://sriramraot.wordpress.com/
Please message me separately if you want to discuss it.
The “experience” might have “nothing to do with ones concepts or ideas or even beliefs” but the moment the person who had the experience reaches for an explanation for it that involves a god then that has everything to do with “ones concepts or ideas or even beliefs”.
Your conflating here an “experience” with the explanation for it.
-
Sriram,
The “experience” might have “nothing to do with ones concepts or ideas or even beliefs” but the moment the person who had the experience reaches for an explanation for it that involves a god then that has everything to do with “ones concepts or ideas or even beliefs”.
Yes. That's exactly what I said earlier in reply to Dicky Underpants.
-
I remember having conversations with Wigginhall, erstwhile of this parish and much missed, about the drive people have to justify their belief in a god with rational reasons. On this I am reminded of Alan/Alien and his 5 reasons for believing in god, all of which seemed like rationalisations and nothing to do with his belief.
There's something similar going on when people use terms that when challenged on, they deny really apply. The problem is that if you don't try and f the ineffable, there really is nothing to say about it.
I think the rational part is if a person can see a net benefit, they might think the idea and practices are worth exploring further.
Also, if someone asks you the question about why you hold a particular belief, you feel obliged to communicate some kind of response. If as you practice your beliefs and incorporate them into your daily life, your family including children want some explanations or reasons for why you prioritise this over spending time with them doing something else, you have to articulate a response and yes it may well be an imperfect or not well-thought our response, but refusing to respond may be more damaging to relationships than a partial, somewhat incoherent response.
Plus, if you need the consent or support of the state to practice your beliefs due to bureaucracy, you have to come up with some kind of response as to why it's important. A lot of the reasons you might come up with seem to relate to abstract concepts such as dignity, respect, identity etc , which would be difficult to define or even incoherent, but the terms still have meaning for you even if they are not easy to define.
If I said why should we care or even talk about someone else's dignity or identity if really it's all in their head, the response would probably be we should care because it means something to them and that it has an impact on their emotional, mental and physical health and therefore has an impact on wider society and interactions between people in society. I'd say the same principle applies to religious ideas. We have to talk about it because religious identity has an impact on society.
-
Sriram,
Yes. That's exactly what I said earlier in reply to Dicky Underpants.
Where did you say that and, if you did, why have you now said something different?
Oh, and why have you just ignored every rebuttal I've given you?
-
Sriram,
Where did you say that and, if you did, why have you now said something different?
Oh, and why have you just ignored every rebuttal I've given you?
I have clarified quite clealy that the experience of 'God' is one thing and our concepts and philosophies are another. I'll search for my post to Dicky and let you know. I have said the same above in post 749 to VG.
-
I have clarified quite clealy that the experience of 'God' is one thing and our concepts and philosophies are another. I'll search for my post to Dicky and let you know. I have said the same above in post 749 to VG.
You are essentially saying your experience cannot be talked about coherently.
-
You are essentially saying your experience cannot be talked about coherently.
They can be talked about with people who have the same experience. But to explain it rationally to others in terms of known physical realities, is not possible.
We have to speculate, draw analogies and so on...to build some sort of a coherent philosophical idea.
-
They can be talked about with people who have the same experience. But to explain it rationally to others in terms of known physical realities, is not possible.
We have to speculate, draw analogies and so on...to build some sort of a coherent philosophical idea.
You have no idea that anyone has had the same experience since you rule out using concepts to discuss it, and that applies to speculation and analogies. You are contradicting yourself continually on this.
-
You have no idea that anyone has had the same experience since you rule out using concepts to discuss it, and that applies to speculation and analogies. You are contradicting yourself continually on this.
I have discussed this for many years with lots of people. I know what I am talking about. Don't get into a tizzy about it....please.
-
Sriram,
I have clarified quite clealy that the experience of 'God' is one thing and our concepts and philosophies are another. I'll search for my post to Dicky and let you know. I have said the same above in post 749 to VG.
But you’re still implying an “experience of 'God'” as being, well, an “experience of 'God'” rather than as just an episode of some sort for which “god” is a convenient but entirely unjustified explanation. If someone wants to tell us they had an emotional experience of some sort then fine, but the moment you stumble into “But when we experience him it is more as a subtle inner presence. This is the personal God that some people experience. Describing this presence becomes difficult and therefore most people take recourse to religious imagery and traditional deities” etc as you did you hit the quicksand. What “god”? What “presence”?
You’re also still stuck with your contradiction of using terms to “understand” a god that at the same time is you tell us “beyond understanding”. You need to make up your mind here: are you claiming a god about whom something can reasonably be said, or a god about whom nothing can reasonably be said?
-
I appreciate that you are simply expressing your thoughts, as I am. I know that the debate seems to have moved on to a discussion of natural evils(e.g. tsunamis, cancers) and I leave others to deal with this. My position, which I quite accept is different to yours, is that part of my moral framework is that, ideally, everyone should be responsible for their actions, and if there were a god who has moral standing, then that should also apply to him/her. As I see it, God is supposed to have created us. He was the one who decided to give us free will. He was the one who created the potential within us to do bad things as well as good things. Therefore He has ultimate responsibility for setting things up in this way. Unfortunately, in Christianity, it always seems that humanity gets the ultimate blame and God gets a free ride. The point about omnibenovolence is that Eden is supposed to have originally existed as a perfectly good place and that heaven, for those who make it there, is also a place of perfection. So, for me, the question remains, why did a so called omnibenovolent God see fit to make an imperfect earth and an imperfect set of humans in the first place, and why does He/She not take responsibility for His/Her actions?
Yes I would agree that such a God would have ultimate responsibility, even if that doesn't change my approach or religious beliefs.
If the scenario is that God gave humans the capacity to have a choice of responses rather than do as God wills - then God is ultimately responsible for giving humans the capacity for choice; and if we say that human choice is influenced by human desires and if God gave humans the capacity to have bad desires, God is responsible for giving them the capacity to have bad desires. In theory the moment they form the intent to choose something bad based on their desire, God could intervene to negate that desire but chooses not to, therefore God is ultimately responsible for the outcome of that bad desire.
The difference in our position is I think that unlike you, I am comfortable with the idea that the capacity for choice is necessary for spiritual development and therefore I don't turn away from religion despite the evidence that the capacity for choice leads to sometimes horrific individual negative outcomes from those choices. And I am comfortable with the idea that omnibenevolence relates to spiritually beneficial journeys rather than physically beneficial experiences. And I am comfortable or at least not repulsed by the idea that spiritual development could be a higher priority than physical well-being. Though as with most ideas, if the person who holds it has benign intent, then the outcome could potentially be tolerable or beneficial but if the person who holds it has bad intent then the idea could be used to inflict a lot of misery.
Presumably the idea of a Heaven is where people would not have those bad desires. Eden, on the other hand, if I understand the story correctly had a tree representing - not sure - bad desires? In Christianity I think they say it is a Tree of Knowledge - again presumably God created the tree so it all seems a metaphor that again makes God ultimately responsible. In the Quran it only says a tree of immortality. But the gist of the story is the same - I think the metaphor represents the idea that God gave an instruction, humans had the desire to not follow the instruction because God created both the capacity to have that desire to be disobedient and the capacity for choice, and so having followed their own desire they get kicked out of Eden to a place where they exercise choice and experience the positive and negative outcomes. And the story seems to be saying that the spiritual development humans have during their experiences while alive is judged by the entity with ultimate responsibility. You can certainly try to argue that you shouldn't be held accountable as you didn't choose to have any bad desires.
I don't take that as a literal interpretation where Eden and Heaven are actual places but other people may do. I am more interested in the ideas represented by the story - ideas about choice and consequences and justice. I like the idea of accountability, so I am not interested in arguing that I shouldn't be held accountable.
-
I have discussed this for many years with lots of people. I know what I am talking about. Don't get into a tizzy about it....please.
I'm not at all in a tizzy. I find your appeal to your own authority very funny.
-
Sriram,
They can be talked about with people who have the same experience. But to explain it rationally to others in terms of known physical realities, is not possible.
We have to speculate, draw analogies and so on...to build some sort of a coherent philosophical idea.
How do you know that anyone else has “had the same experience” as you and, worse yet, how do you know that any one of the countless explanations for these experiences people reach for (animal spirits for example) is any more or less likely than any other?
I have discussed this for many years with lots of people. I know what I am talking about. Don't get into a tizzy about it....please.
No-one is in a “tizzy”, and your claim to know what you’re talking about is undermined by the inherent contradictions and failures in reasoning for the claims you make.
-
Sriram,
But you’re still implying an “experience of 'God'” as being, well, an “experience of 'God'” rather than as just an episode of some sort for which “god” is a convenient but entirely unjustified explanation. If someone wants to tell us they had an emotional experience of some sort then fine, but the moment you stumble into “But when we experience him it is more as a subtle inner presence. This is the personal God that some people experience. Describing this presence becomes difficult and therefore most people take recourse to religious imagery and traditional deities” etc as you did you hit the quicksand. What “god”? What “presence”?
You’re also still stuck with your contradiction of using terms to “understand” a god that at the same time is you tell us “beyond understanding”. You need to make up your mind here: are you claiming a god about whom something can reasonably be said, or a god about whom nothing can reasonably be said?
The point is that...once we have the experience of the inner presence ....we don't bother about concepts anymore. You are just happy letting that presence dominate your life. The feeling of fulfillment is immense and most problems get sorted too.
Philosophies and ideas are just by the way. Something to satisfy the intellectual urge...nothing more. The experience is everything.
-
You have no idea that anyone has had the same experience since you rule out using concepts to discuss it, and that applies to speculation and analogies. You are contradicting yourself continually on this.
I think I understand what Sriram is saying, though obviously I can't know for sure if I understand his point.
I think he is saying you can discuss and connect with people by discussing experiences and ideas even if the ideas can only be partial explorations or even if you have no way of knowing if the other person really gets what you are trying to convey - all you have is partial explorations and imperfect language to represent feelings and ideas that might resonate with others.
I have had many enjoyable discussions about God too on that basis. I don't decide not to engage in enjoyable discussion just because there are limitations to the ideas.
-
Sriram,
How do you know that anyone else has “had the same experience” as you and, worse yet, how do you know that any one of the countless explanations for these experiences people reach for (animal spirits for example) is any more or less likely than any other?
No-one is in a “tizzy”, and your claim to know what you’re talking about is undermined by the inherent contradictions and failures in reasoning for the claims you make.
I am trying to explain to you that your attempt to understand it rationally is a waste of time. There is no contradiction.
From the experience it passes on to faith and.... in some people who are intellectually inclined....to philosophical speculation. The experience is the real thing.
-
I think I understand what Sriram is saying, though obviously I can't know for sure if I understand his point.
I think he is saying you can discuss and connect with people by discussing experiences and ideas even if the ideas can only be partial explorations or even if you have no way of knowing if the other person really gets what you are trying to convey - all you have is partial explorations and imperfect language to represent feelings and ideas that might resonate with others.
I have had many enjoyable discussions about God too on that basis. I don't decide not to engage in enjoyable discussion just because there are limitations to the ideas.
Except he's saying that you cannot use concepts to do so. It reminds me of what Frank Zappa said about writing about music is like dancing about architecture. He doesn't want people who disagree with him to use what he says to show why it is logically incoherent.
-
I am trying to explain to you that your attempt to understand it rationally is a waste of time. There is no contradiction.
From the experience it passes on to faith and.... in some people who are intellectually inclined....to philosophical speculation. The experience is the real thing.
Yes I would agree with that. I don't know what I actually experienced, but it doesn't matter because whatever it was it led to faith. Trying to articulate it or understand your faith rationally can be seen as a waste of time but it can also be seen as an interesting journey where you can change your views and interpretations many times, and where the journey can strengthen or weaken your faith at different times and depending on the circumstances of your life. And of course you can lose your faith as well.
-
Except he's saying that you cannot use concepts to do so. It reminds me of what Frank Zappa said about writing about music is like dancing about architecture. He doesn't want people who disagree with him to use what he says to show why it is logically incoherent.
I think he is saying you can't use concepts to rationally explain your experience or why it led to your faith, but you can use concepts to try to explain the religious and philosophical exploration of your faith once you realise you have faith.
The concept of the omnis is for your articulation of your faith to others but it doesn't justify your faith.
-
Sriram,
The point is that...once we have the experience of the inner presence ....
FFS! What “inner presence” would that be? People have subjective “experiences” sometimes when something feels as though it’s objectively real. Calling that a “presence” means there must be something to be present rather than just something that’s strongly imagined to be present.
…we don't bother about concepts anymore. You are just happy letting that presence dominate your life. The feeling of fulfillment is immense and most problems get sorted too.
Of course people “bother about concepts”. Gods are concepts, and people who think they’ve encountered them bother about them very much.
Philosophies and ideas are just by the way. Something to satisfy the intellectual urge...nothing more. The experience is everything.
Why are you not comprehending what’s being said to you here? The “experience” may be “everything” but the moment you overreach from the subjective to the objective (“presence”, “encounter” etc) you’re in all sorts of trouble.
Try to understand the difference here between an “experience” and a narrative attempted to explain it.
I am trying to explain to you that your attempt to understand it rationally is a waste of time. There is no contradiction.
If you want to assert both a god “beyond all understanding” and in the same breath a god you understand to be possessed of the “omnis” (for example) then you have a major contradiction.
From the experience it passes on to faith and.... in some people who are intellectually inclined....to philosophical speculation. The experience is the real thing.
What does “the real thing” even mean here? A chemical rush that just feels as though there was an actual “presence”? An actual presence? What?
-
I think he is saying you can't use concepts to rationally explain your experience or why it led to your faith, but you can use concepts to try to explain the religious and philosophical exploration of your faith once you realise you have faith.
The concept of the omnis is for your articulation of your faith to others but it doesn't justify your faith.
Which is simply begging the question. If you state that you cannot he challenged on the logical coherence of your position by those who disagree with it, you make discussion pointless.
-
Sriram,
FFS! What “inner presence” would that be? People have subjective “experiences” sometimes when something feels as though it’s objectively real. Calling that a “presence” means there must be something to be present rather than just something that’s strongly imagined to be present.
Of course people “bother about concepts”. Gods are concepts, and people who think they’ve encountered them bother about them very much.
Why are you not comprehending what’s being said to you here? The “experience” may be “everything” but the moment you overreach from the subjective to the objective (“presence”, “encounter” etc) you’re in all sorts of trouble.
Try to understand the difference here between an “experience” and a narrative attempted to explain it.
If you want to assert both a god “beyond all understanding” and in the same breath a god you understand to be possessed of the “omnis” (for example) then you have a major contradiction.
What does “the real thing” even mean here? A chemical rush that just feels as though there was an actual “presence”? An actual presence? What?
Forget it Blue.... We both will only be repeating ourselves endlessly...
-
Which is simply begging the question. If you state that you cannot he challenged on the logical coherence of your position by those who disagree with it, you make discussion pointless.
Sriram will have to answer on whether he is saying you can't be challenged. I assume he would not be on this forum if he had a problem with being challenged.
I read it as you can be challenged but challenges don't affect his faith position because you didn't arrive at faith through an articulation of concepts. I thought he was saying that's just the reality of holding a belief... until the day you stop holding that belief I suppose.
-
Sriram will have to answer on whether he is saying you can't be challenged. I assume he would not be on this forum if he had a problem with being challenged.
I read it as you can be challenged but challenges don't affect his faith position because you didn't arrive at faith through an articulation of concepts. I thought he was saying that's just the reality of holding a belief... until the day you stop holding that belief I suppose.
Read his reply #780
-
I understand the caution about relying on emotion, whether it is about gods or moral values. As I got older I guess I just trusted myself more to utilise them in a way that was beneficial as I came to appreciate the benefits of emotional connections, and alternative value systems from the ones I previously employed.
I just don't think I can choose to feel an emotion about God. My experience was that I didn't believe and I opened the Quran because i was bored and wanted to get some enjoyment out of pointing out to my Muslim boyfriend (now husband) how silly it all was as he had introduced the topic. And I read a couple of lines and felt an emotional connection that I hadn't felt before based on the words in the book. I felt the emotion and that later prompted my inclination to explore the ideas further, both intellectually and emotionally. By intellectually, I don't mean by conducting repeatable, testable experiments, though I have no objection to people employing that approach in their lives and only selecting moral values based on their conclusions about objective, repeatable, testable data. By 'intellectual' I just mean by thinking about how applying the idea of God could have a qualitative effect on my behaviour and the outcomes of that behaviour.
I can't say my belief was strengthened based on Sufi practice but I like some of the Sufi ideas and philosophy.
I find a lot of the ideas and ideals of other people have strengthened my belief e.g. the ideas and explanations by scholars of Quranic Arabic and people who have studied the language, religion, the traditional stories about the life and character of Prophet Muhammad and his followers and the Caliphs who came after Prophet Muhammad, and the ideas of family and friends based on what they have read, understood, experienced, and practised.
And where would you say the Divine was in your experience in terms of your emotions and ideas and enthusiasm for ideals?
-
And where would you say the Divine was in your experience in terms of your emotions and ideas and enthusiasm for ideals?
What do you mean by 'the Divine'?
-
Read his reply #780
Yes read it again. Can you elaborate on your interpretation of his post. He said:
They can be talked about with people who have the same experience. But to explain it rationally to others in terms of known physical realities, is not possible.
We have to speculate, draw analogies and so on...to build some sort of a coherent philosophical idea.
I agree he can't know if other people had the exact same experience as him so perhaps it should be worded slightly differently.
I read that as him saying you can talk about your experience with other people who claim to have similar experiences and you can't rationally explain the experience or define what it was you experienced, but you can discuss ideas about spirituality/ gods/ the supernatural/ feelings/ sensations etc that came to both of you from having had an experience.
The reality/ your reality is your brain sensed and registered an experience. All you can discuss with people is whatever you perceive and interpret as your reality.
-
Sriram,
Forget it Blue.... We both will only be repeating ourselves endlessly...
This is where we always get to when you run out of road - you just bail out.
Look, I've made some perfectly simple arguments that falsify your various statements. If I were you I'd either try to rebut them or, if I couldn't do that, I'd learn something from where I'd gone wrong. Why don't you?
-
And where would you say the Divine was in your experience in terms of your emotions and ideas and enthusiasm for ideals?
Not sure what you mean by the Divine. If you mean God, I connected with the words on the page and it felt like the words captured my inner thoughts - the ones I don't express out loud. And that felt like there was something worth exploring in the book and that led to me thinking there was something worth exploring by trying the religious practices. And both reading the book and following the practices seemed to benefit me, based on the outcomes and experiences I got.
So to sum up, I interpreted that as something knew what was beneficial for me even if I didn't know what was beneficial for me.
-
Yes read it again. Can you elaborate on your interpretation of his post. He said:
They can be talked about with people who have the same experience. But to explain it rationally to others in terms of known physical realities, is not possible.
We have to speculate, draw analogies and so on...to build some sort of a coherent philosophical idea.
I agree he can't know if other people had the exact same experience as him so perhaps it should be worded slightly differently.
I read that as him saying you can talk about your experience with other people who claim to have similar experiences and you can't rationally explain the experience or define what it was you experienced, but you can discuss ideas about spirituality/ gods/ the supernatural/ feelings/ sensations etc that came to both of you from having had an experience.
The reality/ your reality is your brain sensed and registered an experience. All you can discuss with people is whatever you perceive and interpret as your reality.
If they cannot be talked about with people who have not had the same experience, those that have had the same exerience being those that agree with Sriram, then he cannot be challenged in his views by those who do not.
-
If they cannot be talked about with people who have not had the same experience, those that have had the same exerience being those that agree with Sriram, then he cannot be challenged in his views by those who do not.
The experience can't be challenged - but isn't that true for all internal experiences?
I'm not sure how you would go abut challenging someone's internal experience. Their brains registered an experience that forms part of their reality and they can't really define it to you in order for you to challenge it. But you can challenge their interpretation of the experience.
I would say that the experience can't be talked with someone who hasn't claimed to have had a similar experience, but the interpretation can be talked about.
Talking about it might not change the interpretation the person takes away from it or alter their faith, but you can certainly talk about it. It might be a long discussion as no one is really sure what anyone else means by any of the terms they use for abstract concepts.
-
The experience can't be challenged - but isn't that true for all internal experiences?
I'm not sure how you would go abut challenging someone's internal experience. Their brains registered an experience that forms part of their reality and they can't really define it to you in order for you to challenge it. But you can challenge their interpretation of the experience.
I would say that the experience can't be talked with someone who hasn't claimed to have had a similar experience, but the interpretation can be talked about.
Talking about it might not change the interpretation the person takes away from it or alter their faith, but you can certainly talk about it. It might be a long discussion as no one is really sure what anyone else means by any of the terms they use for abstract concepts.
I disagree that Sriram is talking about the internal experience alone. And I don't think the challenges made here have been about the internal experience. Rather they have been about the logical contradiction of saying that people cannot challenge his use of explanatory language about the experience to point out issues with how that might relate to reality.
-
When two mothers talk about loving their babies....how do we know that they are talking about the same thing? Maybe they are talking about two different 'loves' altogether...... Or maybe one of them is actually hating her baby but thinks it is love... and so on and so forth! ::)
That is ridiculous! This is what I call over intellectualizing. We think we are talking something very intelligent and intriguing but are really tying ourselves in knots.
Anyway...as I have said earlier..... Please read my thread on Faith also.
Blind faith based on what someone else says is one thing. Real faith is different. It is based on real experience of an inner presence within ourselves. This faith gives rise to further beliefs and anthropomorphic imagery and so on. In intellectually inclined people it would give rise to philosophical musings.
There is nothing to discuss here about this because I cannot convince anyone here about the experience itself. That remains the domain of few people who have access to it.
-
The experience has nothing to do with ones concepts or ideas or even beliefs. It is just an inner energy that neutralizes all of ones anxieties and even thoughts.
If you really want to know more about it you could go through this link. Try at least the first two chapters...
https://sriramraot.wordpress.com/
Please message me separately if you want to discuss it.
I read Chapters 1-3. Though started skimming through the last part of Chapter 3. I like the way you wrote about your life. Reading about your life and spiritual journey was very interesting. Sparked some thoughts in my head and also got me seeing a few things from a different perspective. Thanks
-
What do you mean by 'the Divine'?
God.
-
I disagree that Sriram is talking about the internal experience alone. And I don't think the challenges made here have been about the internal experience. Rather they have been about the logical contradiction of saying that people cannot challenge his use of explanatory language about the experience to point out issues with how that might relate to reality.
Not sure what you mean. Which line of his reply #780 or the posts preceding are you referring to?
If we're discussing the supernatural, do you mean your reality, as opposed to his reality? How would we know what is reality in the context of such an experience? There are so many possibilities of what that experience could be.
-
Not sure what you mean. Which line of his reply #780 or the posts preceding are you referring to?
If we're discussing the supernatural, do you mean your reality, as opposed to his reality? How would we know what is reality in the context of such an experience? There are so many possibilities of what that experience could be.
These lines
'They can be talked about with people who have the same experience. But to explain it rationally to others in terms of known physical realities, is not possible.'
-
I read Chapters 1-3. Though started skimming through the last part of Chapter 3. I like the way you wrote about your life. Reading about your life and spiritual journey was very interesting. Sparked some thoughts in my head and also got me seeing a few things from a different perspective. Thanks
Thanks VG. Take care. :)
-
These lines
'They can be talked about with people who have the same experience. But to explain it rationally to others in terms of known physical realities, is not possible.'
Ok. I read that as saying you can't explain the experience or your faith with reference to objectively agreed upon realities. If you could explain faith based on objectively agreed upon realities, it would stop being faith. So where is the logical contradiction?
In #749 Sriram wrote "But when we experience him it is more as a subtle inner presence". Do you agree he is talking about an inner experience? As it would be too wordy for theists to keep writing this over and over again, I think his short-hand here means he experienced something and attributed his experience as being God.
I am not really getting what is illogical about saying you can't have clear definitions of an inner experience so rational explanations are going to be limited/ impossible because of this. Without clear, agreed definitions you're not going to make much progress on having a rational discussion.
ETA - I have no inner experience of gender - or rather whatever inner experiences I have had, I didn't identify them as relating to gender. I therefore would not be able to understand what someone else's inner experience of gender feels like or why they interpret it the way they do. I don't think there is any rational way they can explain it to me.
-
Sriram,
When two mothers talk about loving their babies....how do we know that they are talking about the same thing? Maybe they are talking about two different 'loves' altogether...... Or maybe one of them is actually hating her baby but thinks it is love... and so on and so forth!
That is ridiculous! This is what I call over intellectualizing. We think we are talking something very intelligent and intriguing but are really tying ourselves in knots.
Anyway...as I have said earlier..... Please read my thread on Faith also.
You’ve missed the point. When two mothers talk about their love engendered by their babies there are perfectly commonplace ways to determine beyond reasonable doubt that it was in fact babies they were “encountering”. When on the other hand they each express their love for their god(s) there’s no way to determine that they have actually encountered their own god(s), different god(s) or no god(s) at all. Rather “god(s)” is just a place marker for an explanation that’s justifiable.
Blind faith based on what someone else says is one thing. Real faith is different. It is based on real experience of an inner presence within ourselves. This faith gives rise to further beliefs and anthropomorphic imagery and so on. In intellectually inclined people it would give rise to philosophical musings.
Still wrong. “Blind” faith and “real” faith are the same thing – claims of explanatory truths with no means of verification. If you think there’s some way to distinguish them though by all means share.
There is nothing to discuss here about this because I cannot convince anyone here about the experience itself. That remains the domain of few people who have access to it.
This is your escape clause – when challenged about whether or not you’ve actually “experienced” the thing you think you’ve experienced, you dive down this rabbit hole. Doesn’t work though – when you want your reasoning for having encountered a “presence” (rather than, say just had an endorphin rush or similar) to be taken seriously, that reasoning can be examined on its own terms regardless of the experiences your interlocutor may or may not have had. The alternative of “I’ve had the experience so you just have to take my word for what I think caused it” opens the doors to all manner of gods, ghosts, spooks, ghouls, hobgoblins and, yes, leprechauns if you like too.
Can you see why that's a problem?
-
I don't know why you people get so frustrated and embittered....as though the rabbit has once again escaped from the trap....!
There is nothing to explain. It is just an experience. The experience makes us rethink about God and ourselves.
Spirituality is more about what 'we' are rather than about an external God. As we grow spiritually...we uncover different layers of our own consciousness. The idea of an external God becomes hazy and even unnecessary after a point.
Anyway these are more involved discussions and unless a person has a background in such matters, there is no point in elaborating.
-
Spirituality is more about what 'we' are rather than about an external God. As we grow spiritually...we uncover different layers of our own consciousness. The idea of an external God becomes hazy and even unnecessary after a point.
Sounds like a diversion rather than development.
-
Sriram,
This is your escape clause – when challenged about whether or not you’ve actually “experienced” the thing you think you’ve experienced, you dive down this rabbit hole. Doesn’t work though – when you want your reasoning for having encountered a “presence” (rather than, say just had an endorphin rush or similar) to be taken seriously, that reasoning can be examined on its own terms regardless of the experiences your interlocutor may or may not have had. The alternative of “I’ve had the experience so you just have to take my word for what I think caused it” opens the doors to all manner of gods, ghosts, spooks, ghouls, hobgoblins and, yes, leprechauns if you like too.
Can you see why that's a problem?
Endorphin rushes are a response. So where are people who get endorphin rushes from religion getting them from? Answer epiphany, religious techniques, the presence of God etc. Seems to me you are putting the horse of religious stimulus on top of the cart of endorphin response.
I'm minded of an actress who commented in a past Radio Times that when she was at the BBC, Dawkins was doing his cameo on the Doctor Who where Davros steals the Earth. She claims to have swooned when in his presence. That's Dawkins not Davros, of course (Although you might be hard pressed to know the difference.). So we know where she got her endorphin rush from.
-
Endorphin rushes are a response. So where are people who get endorphin rushes from religion getting them from? Answer epiphany, religious techniques, the presence of God etc. Seems to me you are putting the horse of religious stimulus on top of the cart of endorphin response.
I'm minded of an actress who commented in a past Radio Times that when she was at the BBC, Dawkins was doing his cameo on the Doctor Who where Davros steals the Earth. She claims to have swooned when in his presence. That's Dawkins not Davros, of course (Although you might be hard pressed to know the difference.). So we know where she got her endorphin rush from.
Sounds like Dawkins is god then. I mean I knew you were obsessed with him but this seems to be going a bit far even for you.
-
I don't know why you people get so frustrated and embittered....as though the rabbit has once again escaped from the trap....!
There is nothing to explain. It is just an experience. The experience makes us rethink about God and ourselves.
Spirituality is more about what 'we' are rather than about an external God. As we grow spiritually...we uncover different layers of our own consciousness. The idea of an external God becomes hazy and even unnecessary after a point.
Anyway these are more involved discussions and unless a person has a background in such matters, there is no point in elaborating.
I agree with your last sentence.
-
I'm minded of an actress who commented in a past Radio Times that when she was at the BBC, Dawkins was doing his cameo on the Doctor Who where Davros steals the Earth. She claims to have swooned when in his presence. That's Dawkins not Davros, of course (Although you might be hard pressed to know the difference.). So we know where she got her endorphin rush from.
Unless you're suggesting that either a) Professor Dawkins has some unique emanation which interacts with people's physiology or b) this actress had a physiology which she'd somehow trained to respond to the otherwise normal emanations of Professor Dawkins then the best explanations are either:
1 - she was engaging in hyperbole; or
2 - her own psyche created a feedback loop of excitement that wasn't actually dependent upon Professor Dawkins presence at all, merely her idea of it.
Similarly, religious 'experiences' aren't necessarily an indication that the object of faith is actually present, but rather that the idea of [insert deeply venerated concept] can have an effect on people.
O.
-
I don't know why you people get so frustrated and embittered....as though the rabbit has once again escaped from the trap....!
There is nothing to explain. It is just an experience. The experience makes us rethink about God and ourselves.
Spirituality is more about what 'we' are rather than about an external God. As we grow spiritually...we uncover different layers of our own consciousness. The idea of an external God becomes hazy and even unnecessary after a point.
Anyway these are more involved discussions and unless a person has a background in such matters, there is no point in elaborating.
I agree that experiences can make you think about God. There are so many different concepts of God even with the same religion - because humans are doing the thinking and humans are very diverse. I think religion is a journey. Our interpretations of our experiences, of the religious and philosophical texts we read, of the discussions we have with others, of the rituals and religious practices we engage in etc are all the products of our individual brains and personal to us, so it makes sense that we will form different views over time.
None of this was of interest to me when I was an atheist. And if a theist tried to explain it to me, at best I would politely listen while trying not to look at them like I thought they were mad - none of it meant anything to me.
-
Sriram,
I don't know why you people get so frustrated and embittered....as though the rabbit has once again escaped from the trap....!
Any frustration you detect is likely frustration at your refusal to address the arguments that falsify you, and no-one is embittered.
There is nothing to explain. It is just an experience. The experience makes us rethink about God and ourselves.
You’ve now retrenched from “god” via “presence” to “rethink about “God””. You’re almost there – it’s just one final step now to “rethink about the idea of “god(s)” and you’ll have got there.
Spirituality is more about what 'we' are rather than about an external God. As we grow spiritually...we uncover different layers of our own consciousness. The idea of an external God becomes hazy and even unnecessary after a point.
And no “presence” now either presumably?
Anyway these are more involved discussions and unless a person has a background in such matters, there is no point in elaborating.
Perhaps, but as I’ve explained to you already you don’t need “a background in such matters” to examine the reasoning you attempt to justify your claims and beliefs and to find it wanting.
-
Vlad,
Endorphin rushes are a response. So where are people who get endorphin rushes from religion getting them from?
Religion. Or chocolate. Or holding a new born. Or Arsenal winning the Premier League. Or whatever.
Answer epiphany, religious techniques, the presence of God etc. Seems to me you are putting the horse of religious stimulus on top of the cart of endorphin response.
How on earth did you get to “the presence of God” there rather than just “the persuasive belief that (a) god is present”?
I'm minded of an actress who commented in a past Radio Times that when she was at the BBC, Dawkins was doing his cameo on the Doctor Who where Davros steals the Earth. She claims to have swooned when in his presence. That's Dawkins not Davros, of course (Although you might be hard pressed to know the difference.). So we know where she got her endorphin rush from.
You seem to think that someone (or something) being real is necessary for an endorphin rush. Why?
-
I agree that experiences can make you think about God. There are so many different concepts of God even with the same religion - because humans are doing the thinking and humans are very diverse. I think religion is a journey. Our interpretations of our experiences, of the religious and philosophical texts we read, of the discussions we have with others, of the rituals and religious practices we engage in etc are all the products of our individual brains and personal to us, so it makes sense that we will form different views over time.
None of this was of interest to me when I was an atheist. And if a theist tried to explain it to me, at best I would politely listen while trying not to look at them like I thought they were mad - none of it meant anything to me.
We all change and learn as we grow... As our mind matures it opens up to lot of possibilities.
-
Sriram,
Any frustration you detect is likely frustration at your refusal to address the arguments that falsify you, and no-one is embittered.
You’ve now retrenched from “god” via “presence” to “rethink about “God””. You’re almost there – it’s just one final step now to “rethink about the idea of “god(s)” and you’ll have got there.
And no “presence” now either presumably?
Perhaps, but as I’ve explained to you already you don’t need “a background in such matters” to examine the reasoning you attempt to justify your claims and beliefs and to find it wanting.
What are you on about?! I have said many times that a belief in God is not necessary for spiritual development. Many religions and spiritual philosophies are atheistic. It is all about the Inner Self.. You just don't get it.
-
Sriram,
What are you on about?!
What I am on about is that when you make statements and claims like “Blind faith based on what someone else says is one thing. Real faith is different. It is based on real experience of an inner presence within ourselves”, “I have clarified quite clearly that the experience of 'God' is one thing”, “It means that he is much more than what we can imagine or comprehend”, “God as a concept is one thing and God as an experience is another thing”, “God is the creator. He sets the rules. He decides 'why' and 'why not'”, and “We worship God because he is all powerful and all knowing. We worship because we want to appeal to him to protect us” your justifying arguments are either wrong or aren’t bothered with at all.
And when you attempt an analogy and it falls apart (see above re mothers and babies) you just ignore the rebuttal as if it didn’t exist.
If you want to retrench now from “an experience of god”, encountering a “presence”, “blind faith vs “real” faith” etc to “spirituality” that you don’t try to map to objectively real causes outwith your subjective experience that’s fine, but that’s a different position to take.
I have said many times that a belief in God is not necessary for spiritual development.
But that’s not all you’ve said – see above.
Many religions and spiritual philosophies are atheistic.
Not sure how a religion can be atheistic (is deism a religion perhaps?) but ok…
It is all about the Inner Self..
No it isn’t – or at least it isn’t when you try to map your “inner self” experiences to eternal causal stimuli like gods and "presences".
You just don't get it.
Perhaps if you tried to be less incoherent, more specific and above all prepared to address the rebuttals you’re given I might “get it” though (assuming for now that there is something to get).
-
You are getting all mixed up with religious (especially Christian) concepts of God and my experiences.
Within the context of an omnipotent God you cannot decide how he should behave. You cannot dictate morality to him. That is a logical position given the context and the assumption of a certain God.
That has nothing to do with my experience of the Inner Self and personal ideas of God. For that you have to read my blogs in detail...which I don't think you are inclined.
Let us leave it at that please.
-
Sriram,
You are getting all mixed up with religious (especially Christian) concepts of God and my experiences.
That’s because you keep trying to map your “experiences” to “gods”, “presences”, “encounters” etc – I quoted where you’ve done this on various occasions. If what you actually meant all along though was something like, “sometimes people with subjective experiences find it helpful to relate them to their beliefs about gods, presences, encounters etc” then fine, but that’s different.
Within the context of an omnipotent God you cannot decide how he should behave. You cannot dictate morality to him. That is a logical position given the context and the assumption of a certain God.
I assume you meant here “within the context of the concept of an omnipotent god”? Even if so, your poor reasoning is letting you down again here. If you want to posit an all good god about which “you cannot decide how he should behave” then any discussion of morality at all is redundant. "If it happened it must be morally good because a morally perfect god wanted it that way, and he knows best". Can you see the problem with that though?
That has nothing to do with my experience of the Inner Self and personal ideas of God. For that you have to read my blogs in detail...which I don't think you are inclined.
Your blogs tend to be a mess of poor, contradictory or just absent reasoning for your beliefs so no, I’m not inclined to do that. Your “experience of the Inner Self and personal ideas of God” (different things that you keep conflating by the way) are a matter for you, and provided you don’t overreach into claims and assertions about an actual god should probably stay that way.
Let us leave it at that please.
Yes, I can see why you’d want to do that. If you change your mind and do want to engage with the rebuttals I’ve given you though I’m here to help ;)
-
And when you attempt an analogy and it falls apart (see above re mothers and babies) you just ignore the rebuttal as if it didn’t exist.
If you want to retrench now from “an experience of god”, encountering a “presence”,.........
Hmm.. speaking of people who ignore rebuttals as if they didn't exist, I notice you haven't responded to my post regarding your attempt an analogy which fell apart (see your Hitler Youth Attempt) and when you are caught out shamelessly quote-mining (see your previous Hitler Youth attempt) you just ignore the rebuttal as if it didn’t exist.
And when you attempt to make claims about a Western moral consensus on consent that you can't support with evidence and link to an organisation to try to support your claim of this 'mythical' consensus, and it is pointed out to you that even the people who work for the organisation you linked to indicate there is no moral consensus, you just ignore the rebuttal as if it didn't exist.
Perhaps if you tried to be less incoherent, more specific and above all prepared to address the rebuttals
Personally, I think no point Sriram wasting his time responding to your individual points when he can just follow your example instead and ignore them.
-
I'm minded of an actress who commented in a past Radio Times that when she was at the BBC, Dawkins was doing his cameo on the Doctor Who where Davros steals the Earth. She claims to have swooned when in his presence. That's Dawkins not Davros, of course (Although you might be hard pressed to know the difference.). So we know where she got her endorphin rush from.
Was that the one he eventually married?
A yes or no will do. I don't want you to get too excited over your love/hate relationship with him.
-
Was that the one he eventually married?
A yes or no will do. I don't want you to get too excited over your love/hate relationship with him.
Won't have been. Lalla Ward, who played Romana, was married to Dawkins long before the episode Vlad is referring to.
-
VG,
Hmm.. speaking of people who ignore rebuttals as if they didn't exist,
etc
You exited (albeit unwittingly) any further discussion when you decided that it was ok for you to "interpret" words any way that suited you. If when I say "banana" you decide that you want it to mean "ladder" any discussion is impossible.
I believe that, not co-incidentally, NS has made the same point to you more recently too.
-
Won't have been. Lalla Ward, who played Romana, was married to Dawkins long before the episode Vlad is referring to.
My life has been immeasurably enhanced by that information!
-
That's it really. If Sriram, Walt/Vlad, ... have experience of god, and it is something beyond words and logic - why spend hours, months, or years trying to (incorrectly) justify it as a rational entity based on rational arguments and philosophy.
Would be more credible if the effort was spent on improving the world directly or generating art, music or poetry.
It would help if there were some consistency in the theistic explanations offered by VG, Sriram, and Vlad (there's supposed to be a discipline (phenomenology) to help sort out things like this. As it is we have a supremely dogmatic approach exemplified by Vlad, based ultimately on his first 'encounter', of which he has made much, in a typical 'one size fits all approach'. His tersely expressed anecdote is typical:
When you encounter God you are in the presence of the Judge and there is no intellectual weighing up of God's goodness or holiness only surrender to a new relationship...or flight.
Sriram's approach is also rather dogmatic, often summarised in such words as "if you haven't had the experience, you wouldn't understand", and yet he has also related how he felt aware of the presence of God from his earliest years, which seems to suggest he felt as if he were one of the 'chosen', and perhaps other people who don't have this experience are deliberately blocking it out by over-intellectualising (Vlad, of course, would call this 'God-dodging', a concept I've always found laughable, when applied to my own life). But he's made it clear that his concept of the divine is different from the Christian one, and has castigated his critics for trying to apply the concepts of the Christian god to his own beliefs.
VG's approach is refreshingly mild and well-reasoned, and she found no real sympathy with Vlad's seemingly frightening experience of God as the Divine Judge. No doubt such experiences are not unknown in Islam - Mohammed's original experience of the Archangel Gabriel was apparently the most terrifying of his life up to that point, experiencing a being "whose form filled the whole horizon" (VG will have to tell us whether this description is considered the authentic account of Mohammed).
I have stated several times on this forum that I was always a 'seeker' until about my 50th year, when I decided it was all a wild goose chase. And I'd had a few 'experiences' in different contexts which were very disturbing, one at the age of eleven, when under the brainwashing of the Jehovah's Witnesses, I had a 'revelation' about human history and the truth of the Bible in explaining it. The second important one was as a young adult (I've related this to Sriram) when I 'went East' and did a lot of meditating. Yup, I thought I'd met God for a time.
They're just experiences, and in my opinion don't make a very good guide to life (particularly if you have a Jehovah's Witness conversion experience).
-
VG,
etc
You exited (albeit unwittingly) any further discussion when you decided that it was ok for you to "interpret" words any way that suited you. If when I say "banana" you decide that you want it to mean "ladder" any discussion is impossible.
Well that's one way of you ducking out of responding. Guess you're not surprised if people follow your example and don't respond to your points.
My recollection is that rather than discussing bananas and ladders, we were discussing the meaning of the word "will" in a story. I linked to the dictionary to show you the various possible meanings of the word "will" and you ignored this and decided that the only meaning of the word "will" was that a prediction was inevitable and can't be changed. When it was pointed out to you that "inevitability" was nothing more than an assumption on your part, you seem to have decided to not respond.
Also doesn't explain why you claimed there was a modern Western consensus on consent but had no supporting evidence to show any such consensus existed.
I believe that, not co-incidentally, NS has made the same point to you more recently too.
Please provide some evidence of this claim as I am not sure which post you are referring to. My last discussion with NS, we weren't discussing dictionary definitions. We were discussing how to rationally discuss a person's inner experiences with someone who hadn't had a similar experience.
-
Vlad,
Religion. Or chocolate. Or holding a new born. Or Arsenal winning the Premier League. Or whatever.
You seemed to have pitched a pair of trivial treats which require no commitment or conviction for a short term rush against the multigenerational tested practices of religion. Bad analogy and a sad indictment of what is important to and the ambitions of our increasingly secular society
How on earth did you get to “the presence of God” there rather than just “the persuasive belief that (a) god is present”?
I don't know. The persuasive belief would be mine, but the presence is His and I am merely aware of it. That is where the belief originates...because there is a persuasive God.
You seem to think that someone (or something) being real is necessary for an endorphin rush. Why?
Endorphin rushes are not guaranteed in spiritual experience. I know people whose experience brought no particular emotional response. I know of others for whom the Good news initial comes as Bad news since God's presence makes people aware of their place in the moral landscape what is known as conviction of sin. No initial endorphin there.
-
Unless you're suggesting that either a) Professor Dawkins has some unique emanation which interacts with people's physiology or b) this actress had a physiology which she'd somehow trained to respond to the otherwise normal emanations of Professor Dawkins then the best explanations are either:
1 - she was engaging in hyperbole; or
2 - her own psyche created a feedback loop of excitement that wasn't actually dependent upon Professor Dawkins presence at all, merely her idea of it.
One wonders whether she would have had the same response had it been Alan Titchmarsh.
-
That's it really. If Sriram, Walt/Vlad, ... have experience of god, and it is something beyond words and logic - why spend hours, months, or years trying to (incorrectly) justify it as a rational entity based on rational arguments and philosophy.
Basically because there are people who say that God and belief in him is irrational and that is not true.Would be more credible if the effort was spent on improving the world directly or generating art, music or poetry.
There is no reason why philosophy cannot be poetic.
-
VG,
Well that's one way of you ducking out of responding. Guess you're not surprised if people follow your example and don't respond to your points.
No it isn’t. If I decided that when, say, Vlad said “God” he really meant “elephant” I wouldn’t be surprised if he ducked out too.
My recollection is that rather than discussing bananas and ladders, we were discussing the meaning of the word "will" in a story.
Yes – banana/ladder was an analogy.
I linked to the dictionary to show you the various possible meanings of the word "will" and you ignored this and decided that the only meaning of the word "will" was that a prediction was inevitable and can't be changed. When it was pointed out to you that "inevitability" was nothing more than an assumption on your part, you seem to have decided to not respond.
And I explained to you that that works for the mortal use of “will” as in “I will be there at 2pm”, but not for an “unfailing” god of the omnis for whom “will” would mean without fail, not "I will be there but only provided the bus is on time" or some such.
Context is all here.
Also doesn't explain why you claimed there was a modern Western consensus on consent but had no supporting evidence to show any such consensus existed.
Yes I did, but as you decided that your interpretation of “consensus” was different you used that to deflect from the actual point that, consensus or not, there are clearly current, mostly Western moral positions that conflict with the behaviour of the god character in the story. You were invited to tell us which you preferred, but instead indulged in such endless hair-splitting and prevarication that the point was lost - which was presumably your intention.
Please provide some evidence of this claim as I am not sure which post you are referring to. My last discussion with NS, we weren't discussing dictionary definitions. We were discussing how to rationally discuss a person's inner experiences with someone who hadn't had a similar experience.
NS: “Words can be used differently but if the person who uses the words then takes a position that they cannot explain what they mean by those words then those words become meaningless in any dialogue.” (Reply 771)
Look, some advice that I’m sure you’ll ignore or just mirror back but nonetheless: I’ve been fortunate to know very few nasty people over the years, but something that struck me about each of them is that they actually didn’t like themselves very much.
My advice therefore: try to like yourself a little more.
-
VG's approach is refreshingly mild and well-reasoned, and she found no real sympathy with Vlad's seemingly frightening experience of God as the Divine Judge. No doubt such experiences are not unknown in Islam - Mohammed's original experience of the Archangel Gabriel was apparently the most terrifying of his life up to that point, experiencing a being "whose form filled the whole horizon" (VG will have to tell us whether this description is considered the authentic account of Mohammed).
I rather think that VG's reason for not accepting a 'presence' of God is not the same as your reason for not accepting the presence of God.
In Islam there are I believe theological reasons put forward as to why God's presence is not accepted. I suppose though VG will put us straight on that too.
-
NS: “Words can be used differently but if the person who uses the words then takes a position that they cannot explain what they mean by those words then those words become meaningless in any dialogue.” (Reply 771)
I felt my typing finger burning. Just to note that I did write this to VG but on the context of that post we were discussing others,' writing, Vlad and Sriram, rather than VG's.
-
NS,
I felt my typing finger burning. Just to note that I did write this to VG but on the context of that post we were discussing others,' writing, Vlad and Sriram, rather than VG's.
Your point (about the use of language) applies regardless of the author concerned I think, but fair enough - I stand corrected.
-
It would help if there were some consistency in the theistic explanations offered by VG, Sriram, and Vlad (there's supposed to be a discipline (phenomenology) to help sort out things like this. As it is we have a supremely dogmatic approach exemplified by Vlad, based ultimately on his first 'encounter', of which he has made much, in a typical 'one size fits all approach'. His tersely expressed anecdote is typical:
...
I have stated several times on this forum that I was always a 'seeker' until about my 50th year, when I decided it was all a wild goose chase. And I'd had a few 'experiences' in different contexts which were very disturbing, one at the age of eleven, when under the brainwashing of the Jehovah's Witnesses, I had a 'revelation' about human history and the truth of the Bible in explaining it. The second important one was as a young adult (I've related this to Sriram) when I 'went East' and did a lot of meditating. Yup, I thought I'd met God for a time.
They're just experiences, and in my opinion don't make a very good guide to life (particularly if you have a Jehovah's Witness conversion experience).
Indeed, agree entirely. I too saw myself as a "seeker" for many years, diving into esoterica, one rabbit hole after another. Then there was nothing to seek. The only experience is life ... just live it how you think is right.
-
It would help if there were some consistency in the theistic explanations offered by VG, Sriram, and Vlad (there's supposed to be a discipline (phenomenology) to help sort out things like this.
I'm curious as to why one would expect much consistency on abstract ideas, whether it is about the supernatural or about the moral / ethical. Even if we're discussing something we can see and touch e.g. trying to critique visual art - we can try to explain art's appeal but the way we experience art and the feelings it evokes are so open to interpretation and are influenced by personal preferences mostly from our sub-conscious, that any discussions can only touch the surface. So it makes sense to me that perspectives about abstract concepts are even more diverse, subjective and open to personal interpretation. I think discussing ideas about a god of the omnis has been pretty fun. I enjoy figuring out what I think on here about abstract / philosophical concepts such as gods, beliefs, faith, morals etc and listening to another person's POV.
Sriram's approach is also rather dogmatic, often summarised in such words as "if you haven't had the experience, you wouldn't understand",
My experience both as an atheist and a theist leaves me with the impression that it's not possible to rationally justify to someone else an internal experience that leads to belief. When I was an atheist, I don't think there could have been any argument that would have made gods seem possible to me.
VG's approach is refreshingly mild and well-reasoned, and she found no real sympathy with Vlad's seemingly frightening experience of God as the Divine Judge. No doubt such experiences are not unknown in Islam - Mohammed's original experience of the Archangel Gabriel was apparently the most terrifying of his life up to that point, experiencing a being "whose form filled the whole horizon" (VG will have to tell us whether this description is considered the authentic account of Mohammed).
Thanks and I personally haven't come across that particular description of the encounter, but I recall the story that he was very shaken by the encounter.
I myself don't know what I experienced but I wasn't afraid. My memory is that I felt a shock of recognition - probably my best attempt at the moment to put it into words - after reading a few words in a translation of an ancient Arabic poetic book that is regarded as a message. It caused maybe some clarity or recognition of human complexity.
I have stated several times on this forum that I was always a 'seeker' until about my 50th year, when I decided it was all a wild goose chase. And I'd had a few 'experiences' in different contexts which were very disturbing, one at the age of eleven, when under the brainwashing of the Jehovah's Witnesses, I had a 'revelation' about human history and the truth of the Bible in explaining it. The second important one was as a young adult (I've related this to Sriram) when I 'went East' and did a lot of meditating. Yup, I thought I'd met God for a time.
They're just experiences, and in my opinion don't make a very good guide to life (particularly if you have a Jehovah's Witness conversion experience).
If you have had disturbing experiences I can understand why you think it's a wild goose chase. I haven't had any disturbing experiences - if I did maybe I'd lose my belief. Personally, I wasn't chasing anything supernatural when I was an atheist - I wanted meaning in my life and connections to other people but I wasn't looking to some unevidenced supernatural concept to give it to me. I didn't think of myself as a seeker. I wasn't looking for something to help me make sense of my life spiritually or tell me how to live. I wasn't scared of dying and of that being the end - that seemed a whole better option than something beyond death. I was young and think I was scared of what I was going to do with my life - career, future etc - and scared of letting my parents down and I didn't have a clue what I wanted but at the time I thought I knew what I didn't want - and one of things I thought I definitely didn't want was a religion or a belief in anything supernatural, both of which I regarded as silly. No one was more surprised than me when completely unexpectedly I felt something change inside of me regarding belief.
I don't think it matters to me whether I can make sense of it or put it in a box, therefore an unknowable entity seems like a good fit as a concept, but of course I still try to relate to the concept in some way in order to find ways I could benefit or make sense of it using my human brain and the language available to me. The possibility of a god is enough for me to enjoy the experience of belief and the benefits it brings to my life, without it mattering if anyone else believes what I believe or if I can rationally justify my belief to someone else.
-
VG,
No it isn’t. If I decided that when, say, Vlad said “God” he really meant “elephant” I wouldn’t be surprised if he ducked out too.
How does that relate to a link to a dictionary with multiple meanings for what the "will" could mean in relation to a future event? I haven't come across a dictionary that lists "elephant" as a possible or substitute meaning of "God"
Yes – banana/ladder was an analogy.
A poor one - see above.
And I explained to you that that works for the mortal use of “will” as in “I will be there at 2pm”, but not for an “unfailing” god of the omnis for whom “will” would mean without fail, not "I will be there but only provided the bus is on time" or some such.
Context is all here.
Only if you make the assumption that a god of the onmis can't decide to change course. No reason for anyone to join you in making that assumption. I linked to the Quran to show examples of where the god of the onmis in the Quran does change course.
Yes I did, but as you decided that your interpretation of “consensus” was different you used that to deflect from the actual point that, consensus or not, there are clearly current, mostly Western moral positions that conflict with the behaviour of the god character in the story. You were invited to tell us which you preferred, but instead indulged in such endless hair-splitting and prevarication that the point was lost - which was presumably your intention.
Yes there clearly are current moral positions that conflict with the behaviour. Moral values are diverse so nothing surprising about this. My only intention was to dispute PD's and then your assertions that issues of consent are clear-cut in that story. It seems you consider someone challenging an unevidenced claim made by you as "hair splitting and prevarication" but when you challenge someone unsurprisingly you consider it perfectly legitimate. My research indicates there seems to be a Western moral position that consent seems to be something that people looking at the same set of circumstances might not always agree on. Hence, the issue of consent in many crimes is for a jury to decide in criminal trials.
The organisation you linked to, to support your claim about a consensus on consent between employer and employee (which is the comparison you were making to the story as Mary referred to herself as a servant of God) , advised me that employer - employee fraternisation is a moral issue rather than a criminal issue and that such moral issues can be hard to reach a conclusion on and that the people involved should define if their relationship is consensual.
NS: “Words can be used differently but if the person who uses the words then takes a position that they cannot explain what they mean by those words then those words become meaningless in any dialogue.” (Reply 771)
I agreed with NS. But since I did not say that I could not explain what I mean by the use of a word, not sure why this quote is relevant to our discussion. In our discussion, you insisted that only one of a number of possible meanings or interpretations of the word "will" in the story was possible. And I provided reasons why "will" in the context of the story does not automatically mean the outcome is inevitable and unchangeable, and why "inevitability" is an assumption on your part.
Look, some advice that I’m sure you’ll ignore or just mirror back but nonetheless: I’ve been fortunate to know very few nasty people over the years, but something that struck me about each of them is that they actually didn’t like themselves very much.
My advice therefore: try to like yourself a little more.
I find it strange that you think that someone on an internet discussion forum is nasty just because they disagree with you about the issue of consent... or was it the issue of a moral consensus.... or was it not agreeing with your view on the meaning of the word "will" or because I wouldn't answer your question about choosing my preference from the two moral behaviours regarding consent that you described? It's hard to keep up with all the issues we disagree on.
I also find it strange that you felt the need to post your opinion of me as a person. After all, your opinion of me is as irrelevant as my opinion of you. As you brought it up, maybe you're just projecting.
-
Hi everyone,
Our experiences come from within. If the experiences are peaceful and fulfilling their source needs to be identified.
What we imagine it to be is irrelevant. It works regardless of that.
Once we identify the source of the experience and know that it has a real impact in the external world (such as my trigonometry experience for example - VG and DU might know)....we should try to normalize it. This is important.
The point is that the experience does certain things repeatedly....
1. It removes all anxiety, anger, fear, jealousy, competition etc. instantaneously.
2. It leaves one feeling blissful, loving and fulfilled. One feels completely satiated.
3. It makes your body feel light (bouncy) and healthy.
4. One develops greater intuitive abilities. Greater foresight and broader vision....rather than a microscopic mindset. Our ability to understand deepens.
5. One becomes more inclusive and integrative....more morally careful.
6. Most important....things in the external world work out smoothly. Life takes on a natural flow without hindrances.
7. Even if there are hindrances , once we appeal to the inner source, they disappear.
8. Lots of miraculous events happen unexpectedly at different points of time.
This much I have experienced over the last 50 years....
What exactly this inner force is and how exactly it works...I have no idea. You can call it God, atman, Higher Self or whatever else you want.
Now, don't expect me to explain or elaborate on all this because it involves too much personal detail. If anyone is interested you could go through my blog in detail and it is possible that you may understand.
Thanks.
Sriram
-
Hi everyone,
Our experiences come from within. If the experiences are peaceful and fulfilling their source needs to be identified.
But you have just claimed that experiences come from within, so surely you've identified the source - they come from our physiology, and importantly our neurophysiology.
The point is that the experience does certain things repeatedly....
1. It removes all anxiety, anger, fear, jealousy, competition etc. instantaneously.
2. It leaves one feeling blissful, loving and fulfilled. One feels completely satiated.
3. It makes your body feel light (bouncy) and healthy.
4. One develops greater intuitive abilities. Greater foresight and broader vision....rather than a microscopic mindset. Our ability to understand deepens.
5. One becomes more inclusive and integrative....more morally careful.
6. Most important....things in the external world work out smoothly. Life takes on a natural flow without hindrances.
7. Even if there are hindrances , once we appeal to the inner source, they disappear.
8. Lots of miraculous events happen unexpectedly at different points of time.
Blimey - you are Pollyanna Sriram.
Sure experiences may lead to all the things you mention. But, of course they can also lead to the opposite - fear, anxiety, anger, depression etc, etc. Our experiences are often inextricably linked to the development of the most harmful mental illnesses.
Seeing only the positives, rather than both the positives and negatives linked to our experiences reminds me of those here who see all the good stuff as being due to god but none of the bad stuff.
-
But you have just claimed that experiences come from within, so surely you've identified the source - they come from our physiology, and importantly our neurophysiology.
Blimey - you are Pollyanna Sriram.
Sure experiences may lead to all the things you mention. But, of course they can also lead to the opposite - fear, anxiety, anger, depression etc, etc. Our experiences are often inextricably linked to the development of the most harmful mental illnesses.
Seeing only the positives, rather than both the positives and negatives linked to our experiences reminds me of those here who see all the good stuff as being due to god but none of the bad stuff.
Those people are just do experiencing badly. It's their own fault for their microscopic focus.
-
But you have just claimed that experiences come from within, so surely you've identified the source - they come from our physiology, and importantly our neurophysiology.
Blimey - you are Pollyanna Sriram.
Sure experiences may lead to all the things you mention. But, of course they can also lead to the opposite - fear, anxiety, anger, depression etc, etc. Our experiences are often inextricably linked to the development of the most harmful mental illnesses.
Seeing only the positives, rather than both the positives and negatives linked to our experiences reminds me of those here who see all the good stuff as being due to god but none of the bad stuff.
But mental illness can also result from the unresolved, the unfulfilled, denial of experiences.
God can disturb but is that necessarily a bad thing if it is the gateway to something better?
God may be getting us to face ourselves and important choices may be difficult.
I cannot and would not predict any bodies response to God and it would be improper of me to do so.
-
But mental illness can also result from the unresolved, the unfulfilled, denial of experiences.
I think mental illness can being very clearly associated with the recognition of experience, not just their denial. Someone who was abused as a child and experiences long term mental illness as a result isn't denying that experience at all. Sure treatment may attempt to provide mechanisms to reduce the impact of that experience but there isn't necessarily denial going on at all.
-
If you have had disturbing experiences I can understand why you think it's a wild goose chase. I haven't had any disturbing experiences - if I did maybe I'd lose my belief. Personally, I wasn't chasing anything supernatural when I was an atheist - I wanted meaning in my life and connections to other people but I wasn't looking to some unevidenced supernatural concept to give it to me. I didn't think of myself as a seeker. I wasn't looking for something to help me make sense of my life spiritually or tell me how to live. I wasn't scared of dying and of that being the end - that seemed a whole better option than something beyond death. I was young and think I was scared of what I was going to do with my life - career, future etc - and scared of letting my parents down and I didn't have a clue what I wanted but at the time I thought I knew what I didn't want - and one of things I thought I definitely didn't want was a religion or a belief in anything supernatural, both of which I regarded as silly. No one was more surprised than me when completely unexpectedly I felt something change inside of me regarding belief.
I don't think it matters to me whether I can make sense of it or put it in a box, therefore an unknowable entity seems like a good fit as a concept, but of course I still try to relate to the concept in some way in order to find ways I could benefit or make sense of it using my human brain and the language available to me. The possibility of a god is enough for me to enjoy the experience of belief and the benefits it brings to my life, without it mattering if anyone else believes what I believe or if I can rationally justify my belief to someone else.
Just one comment for now: when I said my experiences were 'disturbing', I didn't mean they were frightening particularly - in fact the one which occurred in meditation was blissful. I meant they disturbed the usual course of my life. It was further investigation of them, the attempt to make them relevant to my life, and what I found were contradictory elements in various religions which made me think religions could not be a source of ultimate truth. And questions of theodicy really sealed the matter.
-
God can disturb but is that necessarily a bad thing if it is the gateway to something better?
God may be getting us to face ourselves and important choices may be difficult.
I cannot and would not predict any bodies response to God and it would be improper of me to do so.
There is, of course, no evidence that god actually exists - so any discussion of what god may or may not do is completely moot until you demonstrate that god exists in the first place.
But religions, of course, do exist and typically promulgate what they consider god thinks to their congregations. And that can be both helpful and also highly destructive to those suffering from traumatic experience. In many cases the impact of religion can make matters worse - for example making victims of clergy abuse feel that they are the guilty party rather than the victim. Girls who have become pregnant made to feel that they are sinful rather than in need of support and help.
-
I think mental illness can being very clearly associated with the recognition of experience, not just their denial. Someone who was abused as a child and experiences long term mental illness as a result isn't denying that experience at all. Sure treatment may attempt to provide mechanisms to reduce the impact of that experience but there isn't necessarily denial going on at all.
I”m not denying what you say and a practitioner will be able to discriminate between whether something either needs to be accentuated or ameliorated. Practioners aren’t in denial but patients sometimes are.
-
I”m not denying what you say and a practitioner will be able to discriminate between whether something either needs to be accentuated or ameliorated. Practioners aren’t in denial but patients sometimes are.
Don't disagree with you in general, but there are plenty of cases where the patient isn't in denial, although broader society (and sometimes specific people who should be helping) are in denial refusing to accept the experiences of the individual and the negative impact that may have. The denial of broader society, organisations and those with a duty of care can sometimes make the mental illness being suffered by the individual worse, not better.
-
Sriram,
Hi everyone,
Our experiences come from within. If the experiences are peaceful and fulfilling their source needs to be identified.
What we imagine it to be is irrelevant. It works regardless of that.
What makes you think there’s a “source” as such rather than that you just feel better about yourself when you employ certain practices?
Once we identify the source of the experience and know that it has a real impact in the external world (such as my trigonometry experience for example - VG and DU might know)....we should try to normalize it. This is important.
What “trigonometry” would that be?
The point is that the experience does certain things repeatedly....
1. It removes all anxiety, anger, fear, jealousy, competition etc. instantaneously.
2. It leaves one feeling blissful, loving and fulfilled. One feels completely satiated.
3. It makes your body feel light (bouncy) and healthy.
If these outcomes happen for you, well and good. Others have different means of achieving some or all of these outcomes, but whatever works for you works for you.
4. One develops greater intuitive abilities. Greater foresight and broader vision....rather than a microscopic mindset. Our ability to understand deepens.
Ah, now you’re overreaching again. If “one” had “greater intuitive abilities. Greater foresight and broader vision” then you should see some real world effects. This “greater insight” for example should lead to smarter inventions, better argued philosophical treatises etc. Is there any evidence for any of this to your knowledge?
5. One becomes more inclusive and integrative....more morally careful.
Lots of people are admirably “inclusive and integrative..." and "morally careful” while making no claims to “spirituality”. Do you have any evidence to suggest that they would be even more so if they followed your practices? What if someone tried it and became so self-absorbed that they lessened these characteristics?
6. Most important....things in the external world work out smoothly. Life takes on a natural flow without hindrances.
Presumably you mean here something like “my way of dealing with things in the outside world” rather than the “things” themselves?
7. Even if there are hindrances , once we appeal to the inner source, they disappear.
For you perhaps and again – what “source”? I can see that practices like mindfulness, CBT etc may help some people navigate their lived experience, but claiming a “source” without qualification is overreaching again.
8. Lots of miraculous events happen unexpectedly at different points of time.
Er, no. If by “miraculous” you mean the colloquial use of the term (“Messi scored a miraculous solo goal” etc) then ok, but if you want to claim miracles in the religious sense then you have an epic job to justify that claim.
This much I have experienced over the last 50 years....
What exactly this inner force is and how exactly it works...I have no idea. You can call it God, atman, Higher Self or whatever else you want.
Of perhaps just some practices and exercises that some people find to be psychologically helpful with no “force” involved at all.
Now, don't expect me to explain or elaborate on all this because it involves too much personal detail. If anyone is interested you could go through my blog in detail and it is possible that you may understand.
I don’t expect you to. It’d be nice if you provided some arguments or evidence to justify your more outlandish claims though.
-
In fact spiritual practices (as different from rigorous religious practices) such as yoga, breathing techniques and meditations can actually alleviate mental illnesses. The mind becomes very stable and calm through such practices. Even many physical illnesses caused by stress and poor lifestyle, can be mitigated by following spiritual practices.
-
Vlad,
You seemed to have pitched a pair of trivial treats which require no commitment or conviction for a short term rush against the multigenerational tested practices of religion. Bad analogy and a sad indictment of what is important to and the ambitions of our increasingly secular society
Nope. If the effect is the same then elevating one cause over another because of the “commitment or conviction” it requires makes no sense. How would you know that, say, a dedicated Arsenal fan doesn’t derive just as much value from his fandom as you do from your religious convictions – more so perhaps (according to your "commitment or conviction" notion) for a third generation Gooner compared with your comparatively Johnny-come-lately conversion to a faith?
I don't know. The persuasive belief would be mine, but the presence is His and I am merely aware of it. That is where the belief originates...because there is a persuasive God.
Fallacies of reification and of circular reasoning in one sentence.
Endorphin rushes are not guaranteed in spiritual experience. I know people whose experience brought no particular emotional response. I know of others for whom the Good news initial comes as Bad news since God's presence makes people aware of their place in the moral landscape what is known as conviction of sin. No initial endorphin there.
Not necessarily endorphins (other hormones are available) but how would you know that the narratives you try for (“God's presence makes people aware of their place in the moral landscape” etc) aren’t just persuasive (but wrong) explanations for electro-chemical brain activities of various types?
-
In fact spiritual practices (as different from rigorous religious practices) such as yoga, breathing techniques and meditations can actually alleviate mental illnesses.
True - but this has nothing to do with 'spirituality' as similar breathing and mindfulness approaches also work that have no spiritual mumbo jumbo associated. Actually one of the very best activities you can engage in to reduce stress, anxiety etc is singing, and preferably communal singing.
-
Vlad,
Nope. If the effect is the same then elevating one cause over another because of the “commitment or conviction” it requires makes no sense. How would you know that, say, a dedicated Arsenal fan doesn’t derive just as much value from his fandom as you do from your religious convictions – more so perhaps (according to your "commitment or conviction" notion) for a third generation Gooner compared with your comparatively Johnny-come-lately conversion to a faith?
Fallacies of reification and of circular reasoning in one sentence.
Not necessarily endorphins (other hormones are available) but how would you know that the narratives you try for (“God's presence makes people aware of their place in the moral landscape” etc) aren’t just persuasive (but wrong) explanations for electro-chemical brain activities of various types?
Extreme Eliminative, physicalist and reductionist twaddle of your usual stamp which reduces God, Morality, consciousness, mind and thought to moles, amperes and volts AKA GCE O level science and that shows you are trying to introduce a bit of humiliation as well.
-
There is, of course, no evidence that god actually exists - so any discussion of what god may or may not do is completely moot until you demonstrate that god exists in the first place.
But religions, of course, do exist and typically promulgate what they consider god thinks to their congregations. And that can be both helpful and also highly destructive to those suffering from traumatic experience. In many cases the impact of religion can make matters worse - for example making victims of clergy abuse feel that they are the guilty party rather than the victim. Girls who have become pregnant made to feel that they are sinful rather than in need of support and help.
Unfortunately todays increasingly secular society is letting down all sorts of people so the great hope of humanism doesn't seem to be materialising vis commercial care homes, local and home office accommodation for immigrant children etc.
Secular organisations providing welfare and support seem to be having troubles of there own.
Secular society with it's advertising and social media seem to be doing a fine job of making people, the vulnerable especially think they are inadequate and not before God either but before their fellow human beings who are more with the programme. Obviously they've managed to smuggle all that past you.......and the rest of us.
-
Secular society with it's advertising and social media
The churches don't use social media?
Obviously they've managed to smuggle all that past you.......and the rest of us.
-
The churches don't use social media?
Not like some of the secular uses of it.
-
Not like some of the secular uses of it.
Do tell.....
-
I rather think that VG's reason for not accepting a 'presence' of God is not the same as your reason for not accepting the presence of God.
In Islam there are I believe theological reasons put forward as to why God's presence is not accepted. I suppose though VG will put us straight on that too.
Sorry - missed this Vlad.
As you probably know and I have mentioned a few times, there are many different schools of thought in Islam. I don't know whether God's presence is accepted from a theological sense - you will probably get different answers from different Muslims and I suspect most of them wouldn't have thought about it very deeply. How would you define "presence"?
In the Quran there seems to be verses that could imply presence (e.g. Quran 50:16 - Allah is closer to you than your jugular vein) as well as many verses suggesting Allah is unknowable (Quran 112:1-4: Say Allah is the one, the eternal, begets not nor was begotten, and nothing comparable to Allah). If there is nothing comparable to Allah then from my understanding, it is taken to mean that any physical attributes that are present in this world do not apply to Allah. This could therefore include physical or detectable presence not being applicable to Allah.
However, the Quran also says some verses are to be taken more literally and some to be taken allegorically / metaphorically and only Allah can be the final judge on which is which. (Quran 3:7 - He is the One Who has revealed to you ˹O Prophet˺ the Book, of which some verses are precise—they are the foundation of the Book—while others are elusive.1 Those with deviant hearts follow the elusive verses seeking ˹to spread˺ doubt through their ˹false˺ interpretations—but none grasps their ˹full˺ meaning except Allah.)
That's one of the reasons I find the Quran interesting - because metaphorical is a lot more interesting than literal and can be interpreted in many different ways. So I don't spend too much time worrying about Allah's "presence" as it is irrelevant to my belief or practice...and it's not like I could ever know one way or the other e.g. if I thought Allah was present, it could be my imagination or the presence off an idea rather than actual physical presence.
-
Vlad,
Extreme Eliminative, physicalist and reductionist twaddle of your usual stamp which reduces God, Morality, consciousness, mind and thought to moles, amperes and volts AKA GCE O level science and that shows you are trying to introduce a bit of humiliation as well.
Utter gibberish. Was there a coherent thought in there somewhere struggling to get out?
-
Sorry - missed this Vlad.
Many thanks for getting back
As you probably know and I have mentioned a few times, there are many different schools of thought in Islam. I don't know whether God's presence is accepted from a theological sense - you will probably get different answers from different Muslims and I suspect most of them wouldn't have thought about it very deeply.
That would suggest to me that either it's taken as read or it has been doctrinally excluded How would you define "presence"?
Something rather different from mere intellectual assent or God being another fact for me at my conversion God was the only thing in the room as it were in fact the room wasn't there in my everyday experience sense. Just me and God in my consciousness. Of course He was not there physically but he was asking me to follow him and the period of detachment ended after I had consented.
.In the Quran there seems to be verses that could imply presence (e.g. Quran 50:16 - Allah is closer to you than your jugular vein)
I would indeed be surprised if something like that was not there, otherwise the position would be more like deism where God's position as many atheists have told me is ''He has left the building and is not coming back.'' I am puzzled though how you can have ''proximity'' even metaphorical proximity that contains no sense of ''presence'' and I am moved to ask you how then anyone knows of God if some kind of contact hasn't been made as well as many verses suggesting Allah is unknowable
I think this though has found it's way into other monotheisms and at an earlier stage and is therefore common stock as it were. I wonder if here then we have the Doctrine that forbids sensing the presence of God (Quran 112:1-4: Say Allah is the one, the eternal, begets not nor was begotten, and nothing comparable to Allah).
Again, I would take incomparability as read. I don't suppose you've troubled yourself with much of what I write here but I am known(If only to a few) for promoting the non physicality of God. I think you'll find Jesus is eternally begotten, that is IMV a metaphor to say that Jesus was God and man and not merely a man who has been glorified( Something i'm not particularly drawn to of a man) If there is nothing comparable to Allah then from my understanding, it is taken to mean that any physical attributes that are present in this world do not apply to Allah. This could therefore include physical or detectable presence not being applicable to Allah.
My dilemma here is that that, for me, is similar to the limitations of the deists of what God can and cannot do.
That's one of the reasons I find the Quran interesting - because metaphorical is a lot more interesting than literal and can be interpreted in many different ways. So I don't spend too much time worrying about Allah's "presence" as it is irrelevant to my belief or practice...and it's not like I could ever know one way or the other e.g. if I thought Allah was present, it could be my imagination or the presence off an idea rather than actual physical presence.
I confess I did wonder if the doctrinal aspect of your faith prevented you from accepting the ''presence.''
I've always come back on atheists for considering Christians as mad and have chided them for taking the ''Oi, Nutter!'' approach to religious- non religious dialogue.
-
Vlad,
…at my conversion God was the only thing in the room…
Yes, as understand it people who have think they’ve felt the “presence” their various gods often find that they have that sensation too.
This might interest you though:
“The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience,[1] attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms.[2] It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural, states.
Proponents of the neuroscience of religion say there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious.[3] The field has formed the basis of several popular science books.[4][5][6]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_religion
-
Many thanks for getting backThat would suggest to me that either it's taken as read or it has been doctrinally excluded Something rather different from mere intellectual assent or God being another fact for me at my conversion God was the only thing in the room as it were in fact the room wasn't there in my everyday experience sense. Just me and God in my consciousness. Of course He was not there physically but he was asking me to follow him and the period of detachment ended after I had consented.
I would indeed be surprised if something like that was not there, otherwise the position would be more like deism where God's position as many atheists have told me is ''He has left the building and is not coming back.'' I am puzzled though how you can have ''proximity'' even metaphorical proximity that contains no sense of ''presence'' and I am moved to ask you how then anyone knows of God if some kind of contact hasn't been made
I don't suppose you've troubled yourself with much of what I write here but I am known(If only to a few) for promoting the non physicality of God.
Yes thoughts aren't physical so I can get what you mean about the non-physicality of God and that God's presence could mean God being in your consciousness. I think you'll find Jesus is eternally begotten, that is IMV a metaphor to say that Jesus was God and man and not merely a man who has been glorified( Something i'm not particularly drawn to of a man) My dilemma here is that that, for me, is similar to the limitations of the deists of what God can and cannot do.
I confess I did wonder if the doctrinal aspect of your faith prevented you from accepting the ''presence.''
I've always come back on atheists for considering Christians as mad and have chided them for taking the ''Oi, Nutter!'' approach to religious- non religious dialogue.
I always got the impression, given Muslims don't do deities, statues, idols or any physical representation of Allah, that Allah's physical presence was a definite no. This would then be one of the main reasons for the difference between Islam and Christianity - for Muslims, God being present in the form of a man would mean the man can't be God.
My impression, including from discussions with other Muslims, is that God might provide inspiration or revelations to prophets via dreams or as a voice in the case of Moses, but does not communicate with ordinary people except through the words / message of the Quran. The traditional belief is that all the revelations to Prophet Muhammad were via angel Gabriel. So am guessing there is no requirement for Muslims to think they are in God's presence, but they do believe God sees and knows all our actions and thoughts.
Having been an atheist, I'm not surprised by the "Oi Nutter" approach. From memory, it's a pretty standard response to the theist 'you're going to hell/ you're in denial/ you're running away from God/ you're lacking in some spiritual way' approach. It's actually a good thing because it means no atheist or theist is actually going to change their beliefs based on our delivery of our opinions on here. We can just relax and have a bit of fun with it.
-
Having been an atheist, I'm not surprised by the "Oi Nutter" approach. From memory, it's a pretty standard response to the theist 'you're going to hell/ you're in denial/ you're running away from God/ you're lacking in some spiritual way' approach. It's actually a good thing because it means no atheist or theist is actually going to change their beliefs based on our delivery of our opinions on here. We can just relax and have a bit of fun with it.
Having been an atheist I always thought christians were oddball. That was culturally ingrained. Imagine my surprise when attending church for the first time a week after converting at seeing several people I knew in the community who were, how can you put it? Normal.
God dodging I know about having been a God dodger myself.
-
Vlad,
Yes, as understand it people who have think they’ve felt the “presence” their various gods often find that they have that sensation too.
This might interest you though:
“The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience,[1] attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms.[2] It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural, states.
Proponents of the neuroscience of religion say there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious.[3] The field has formed the basis of several popular science books.[4][5][6]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_religion
You people keep on and on about neurological correlations with spiritual experiences. That only proves that the brain is involved in some way in these experiences..which is not disputed at all. Just as the axle and pistons of a car are involved in its movement. Point is that, that's not all....there is lots more.
-
You people keep on and on about neurological correlations with spiritual experiences. That only proves that the brain is involved in some way in these experiences..which is not disputed at all. Just as the axle and pistons of a car are involved in its movement. Point is that, that's not all....there is lots more.
You can't know that. All we know is that the brain is involved.
-
Having been an atheist I always thought christians were oddball.
Except as we well know Vlad, you were brought up christian - off to Sunday school for you, a bit of church attendance thrown in and some time at a faith school. During your upbringing as a christian did you consider yourself to be an 'oddball'.
For those of us of my age - mid 50s - I think the reality was very different. The default, the norm if you like, was that people believed in god and were, at the very least nominally, christian. The basic distinction was theist christians who went to church and theist christians who did not go to church. The 'oddballs' if you like were those that did not fit into those categories. That, of course, included the small minority of adherents to non christian religions. But also those who professed not the believe in god at all - indeed in UK society back then atheists were largely airbrushed from society entirely. As far as the UK society were concerned they basically didn't exist.
How would I know, well because I don't think I even realised that there was such a thing as atheism or atheists until I was probably 10, maybe even a teenager. These people (the atheists) were a subversive, dangerous group who impressionable children needed to be protected from by never telling them that they even existed. I imagine that atheists and atheism in the 1970s UK were akin to gay people and homosexuality in the 1950s - society ran itself as if they didn't exist.
-
Having been an atheist I always thought christians were oddball. That was culturally ingrained. Imagine my surprise when attending church for the first time a week after converting at seeing several people I knew in the community who were, how can you put it? Normal.
God dodging I know about having been a God dodger myself.
I didn't think Christians were any more odd than other theists. I thought the Hindus at the temple my parents insisted we go to every Friday evening were a bit odd once I stopped believing in a god. It must feel odd for anyone to be advised to follow a cause or movement or religion that involves belief in and worship of an unseen, unevidenced entity. It makes sense to people who believe and benefit from the practice but without belief, it just feels like an unwelcome intrusion on atheist freedom - I remember resenting having to show up for a hymn-singing assembly at school or going to the Hindu temple on Fridays.
Despite this, as an atheist I probably had a fair bit of respect for Christians, as missionaries had started excellent schools in Sri Lanka, without which Sri Lankans probably wouldn't have been able to get rid of the British and get independence in 1948.
I seem to remember around the time I left school (when I had been an atheist for about 5 or 6 years) the hymns at assembly and Bible-bashers were annoying but I respected that Christianity seemed to be cited as the inspiration for some of the people who gave up considerable time and money to help charitable causes e.g. adopting disabled Romanian orphans after Ceaușescu’s rule or the optometrist who gave them free eye care https://eu.vcstar.com/story/news/local/communities/camarillo/2017/02/17/romanian-orphans-see-better-thanks-camarillo-doctor/97155556/
-
Having been an atheist I always thought christians were oddball. That was culturally ingrained.
What, it was culturally ingrained in the Sunday School you attended and the Faith School you attended that christians were oddballs. I mean, really?!?
Imagine my surprise when attending church for the first time a week after converting ...
But you've told us previously that you used to attend church as a child - how can this be the first time you attended church then Vlad?
-
I seem to remember around the time I left school (when I had been an atheist for about 5 or 6 years) the hymns at assembly and Bible-bashers were annoying but I respected that Christianity seemed to be cited as the inspiration for some of the people who gave up considerable time and money to help charitable causes e.g. adopting disabled Romanian orphans after Ceaușescu’s rule or the optometrist who gave them free eye care https://eu.vcstar.com/story/news/local/communities/camarillo/2017/02/17/romanian-orphans-see-better-thanks-camarillo-doctor/97155556/
Sure christians are very good at telling us all about the great voluntary work they do, implying that they do more voluntary work than others, 'cos of their religion'. But, of course, it isn't true. Proper research on volunteering has found no difference in the rate of volunteering (both formal and informal) between religious and non religious people in the UK. And that is despite the fact that churches often run on volunteers doing stuff - so arranging flowers or handing out service sheets etc. But while these activities will be counted under 'volunteering' they are hardly equivalent to helping Romanian orphans.
-
What, it was culturally ingrained in the Sunday School you attended and the Faith School you attended that christians were oddballs. I mean, really?!?
There are lots of cultures and sub-cultures so wouldn't surprise me if Vlad felt it was culturally ingrained. At school, the Bible-bashers and practising Christians in our year at school were a minority so it was the culture of the pupils at my school to talk disparagingly of their beliefs behind their backs. We quoted Monty Python and there were a lot of shows on TV that we watched that made fun of religion.
But you've told us previously that you used to attend church as a child - how can this be the first time you attended church then Vlad?
Umm... it's fairly obvious that he meant when he attended church for the first time after he converted from atheism to Christianity as an adult, not the first time he attended church ever in his life.
-
Sure christians are very good at telling us all about the great voluntary work they do, implying that they do more voluntary work than others, 'cos of their religion'.
Dumb generalisation about Christians. I don't recall inferring that all Christians did more voluntary work than non-Christians, just because some Christians, if asked, spoke about the role their faith played in their charitable actions. Your inference may be due to your personal experiences and possibly some bias on your part.
But, of course, it isn't true. Proper research on volunteering has found no difference in the rate of volunteering (both formal and informal) between religious and non religious people in the UK. And that is despite the fact that churches often run on volunteers doing stuff - so arranging flowers or handing out service sheets etc. But while these activities will be counted under 'volunteering' they are hardly equivalent to helping Romanian orphans.
It's not a competition. Communities run because of the people (religious and non-religious) who volunteer to do the smaller tasks that are necessary for people to be able to connect with each other.
Loneliness is a huge problem for people, especially as they get older. Religious communities help contribute to the availability of valuable community services that provide ways for people to find some human connection and kindness, food, warmth etc. And a lot of these community groups also fundraise and contribute towards funding charitable projects for less fortunate people such as the Romanian orphans. Every link in the chain is important.
-
There are lots of cultures and sub-cultures so wouldn't surprise me if Vlad felt it was culturally ingrained.
Ingrained that christians are oddballs (not some christians are oddballs) at Sunday School and a Faith School. Come on VG?
At school, the Bible-bashers and practising Christians ...
Not the same thing of course, so not correct to lump them together. While 'bible bashers' as you call them may have been very overt and 'in your face' in their beliefs, I suspect there would have been plenty of church attenders whose attendance was completely unknown to you.
... in our year at school were a minority so it was the culture of the pupils at my school to talk disparagingly of their beliefs behind their backs.
Kids are often horrible at school to anyone perceived as 'different' - whether that be of a different ethnicity, religion, with a disability etc. That isn't really what we are talking about. And how about the 'atheists' - presumably these would have been in a minority to, although I suspect you wouldn't have know who most of them were which is kind of my point.
We quoted Monty Python and there were a lot of shows on TV that we watched that made fun of religion.
Blimey - scraping the barrel now - quoting Monty Python - sure 'he's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy' - yup we did it too along with the dead parrot sketch, and a little 'waffer thin mint' and plenty of others - none of this was aimed at christians.
Umm... it's fairly obvious that he meant when he attended church for the first time after he converted from atheism to Christianity as an adult, not the first time he attended church ever in his life.
But that isn't what he said, is it. And the point is that Vlad likes us not to recognise that he was brought up christian as it undermines his claimed massive conversion from atheism to christianity, which was in reality merely a reversion to the religion of his upbringing.
-
Dumb generalisation about Christians. I don't recall inferring that all Christians did more voluntary work than non-Christians, just because some Christians, if asked, spoke about the role their faith played in their charitable actions. Your inference may be due to your personal experiences and possibly some bias on your part.
Not really - it is an extremely common thread from the faith sector that charitable/voluntary work is effectively driven by religious people.
It's not a competition. Communities run because of the people (religious and non-religious) who volunteer to do the smaller tasks that are necessary for people to be able to connect with each other.
I agree which is why I why I have no truck with religious people who claim (wrongly) that they are more likely to be involved in voluntary work.
Loneliness is a huge problem for people, especially as they get older. Religious communities help contribute to the availability of valuable community services that provide ways for people to find some human connection and kindness, food, warmth etc.
You are falling into that well worn trap. The word 'religious' is entirely redundant at the beginning of your second sentence because, in reality, religious and non religious communities and individuals help in that manner. Adding the word religion, clearly gives the impression that this is what religious communities and individual do, but non religious communities and individuals don't.
The point is when you actually look at religious and non religious people they are equally involved in voluntary work, but from the media portrayal along with religions are cheerleaders you'd belief that at the least religious people were more involved in voluntary work.
-
Sriram,
You people...
Which people?
...keep on and on about neurological correlations with spiritual experiences.
No-one does that.
That only proves that the brain is involved in some way in these experiences..which is not disputed at all. Just as the axle and pistons of a car are involved in its movement.
A false analogy because no-one disputes that a car has more parts than axles and pistons, but ok...
Point is that, that's not all....there is lots more.
Why do you think that there's more than a neurological explanation?
-
What, it was culturally ingrained in the Sunday School you attended and the Faith School you attended that christians were oddballs. I mean, really?!? Dear old Davey, game as ever with his science tells us you couldn't possibly have lived THAT life schtick
But you've told us previously that you used to attend church as a child - how can this be the first time you attended church then Vlad?
the Sunday School you attended
And as you have been told, an early refuser although no doubt science tells you that my religious zealot parents tied me to their dogcart and whipped me into sunday school if I refused. I must also remind you that an hour on sunday isn't one's full exposure to culture and that were your theory correct we would not see the fall in numbers claiming religious adherence that we dothe Faith School you attended
Oh yes 10 minutes a morning assembly and a prayer at the end of the day.....Faith school where we learned the name of God...''Harold be thy name'' and learned about the two persons of the trinity from the hymn ''Immortal, invisible, God..Ernie wise. In light inaccessable hid from our eyes''
I said I was an early refuser of sunday school held away from the main body of the church I bet we all paid strange visits we didn't fully ''get'' to strange churches but the church I attended after conversion I'd never attended before.
-
I imagine that atheists and atheism in the 1970s UK were akin to gay people and homosexuality in the 1950s - society ran itself as if they didn't exist.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. I don't think i've read such an extreme and ridiculous and totally inaccurate assumption of victimhood in my life.
-
Vlad,
Dear old Davey...
etc
Quite a co-incidence though don't you think that the very god you think you "encountered" or some such as an adult just happened to be exactly the same god that these various organisations peddled to the young and impressionable you?
What are the chances eh?
-
Ingrained that christians are oddballs (not some christians are oddballs) at Sunday School and a Faith School. Come on VG?
I haven't been to either so don't know what cultures might have made an impression on Vlad when he attended.
Not the same thing of course, so not correct to lump them together. While 'bible bashers' as you call them may have been very overt and 'in your face' in their beliefs, I suspect there would have been plenty of church attenders whose attendance was completely unknown to you.
We called people Bible-bashers if they spoke about their faith. Sure there were people in our year who went to church for the community aspect, the parties and to snog boys, but were dismissive about Christianity. The people who spoke about their faith were in the minority. People attend churches or events for all kinds of reasons but it's what they say about it that I would take as the culture of the time.
Kids are often horrible at school to anyone perceived as 'different' - whether that be of a different ethnicity, religion, with a disability etc. That isn't really what we are talking about. And how about the 'atheists' - presumably these would have been in a minority to, although I suspect you wouldn't have know who most of them were which is kind of my point.
Our school did not really give the impression that kids were horrible - true, no one would have admitted to being gay in the 1980s in our school. But culturally, it was considered cool to be an atheist. The decline of religion amongst the pupils seemed pretty well-established. People used to scribble the names of their favourite bands etc on their white school lab coats. I had used a thick black marker pen to write in big Gothic script across the back of my school lab coat in the mid-80s: "God did not create Man, Man created God". I didn't get any grief about it and lots of pupils mentioned it. It upset someone - possibly a teacher, as a new rule came down soon after to say we all had to wash all the writing off our lab coats and no one was allowed to write on their lab coats
Blimey - scraping the barrel now - quoting Monty Python - sure 'he's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy' - yup we did it too along with the dead parrot sketch, and a little 'waffer thin mint' and plenty of others - none of this was aimed at christians.
Nope - not scraping the barrel at all - Life of Brian did really well at the box office. It was aimed at Christians and pretty much all theists and also political factions e.g. The People's Front of Judea vs the the Judean People's Front. Apart from films, Monty Python also did a lot of sketches satirising religion e.g. the Spanish Inquisition. Other popular shows on TV that satirised religion that I remember watching off the top of my head were Black Adder, Dave Allen's stand up, Spitting Image. It didn't seem like atheists were invisible when I was at school.
But that isn't what he said, is it.
Depends how you interpret it - he said first time attending church after converting - so I didn't interpret it as him saying he had never attended church before. And the point is that Vlad likes us not to recognise that he was brought up christian as it undermines his claimed massive conversion from atheism to christianity, which was in reality merely a reversion to the religion of his upbringing.
What "claimed massive conversion"?
Is that like you claiming to be an atheist on here but lying because you're still a massive Christian just in a little bit of denial? ;)
What is a "massive conversion" anyway....as opposed to any other type of conversion? What is the criteria for adding the word "massive"? And why does it matter whether it's massive or just a normal-sized conversion? What's your point?
-
There are lots of cultures and sub-cultures so wouldn't surprise me if Vlad felt it was culturally ingrained. At school, the Bible-bashers and practising Christians in our year at school were a minority so it was the culture of the pupils at my school to talk disparagingly of their beliefs behind their backs. We quoted Monty Python and there were a lot of shows on TV that we watched that made fun of religion. Umm... it's fairly obvious that he meant when he attended church for the first time after he converted from atheism to Christianity as an adult, not the first time he attended church ever in his life.
Exactly.
-
Vlad,
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. I don't think i've read such an extreme and ridiculous and totally inaccurate assumption of victimhood in my life.
Just to note that, as a pupil at a bog-standard comprehensive in the 1970s when school assemblies always included some element of religious BS there were always a few kids made to wait outside because their parents refused to let them participate. Not sure I would characterise them as “victims” as such, but they were considered the weirdos by the rest of us just for being an out group.
-
Vlad,
Just to note that, as a pupil at a bog-standard comprehensive in the 1970s when school assemblies always included some element of religious BS there were always a few kids made to wait outside because their parents refused to let them participate. Not sure I would characterise them as “victims” as such, but they were considered the weirdos by the rest of us just for being an out group.
Yes a very good friend of mine at school was the only chap I was conscious of of such a removal. The chap himself was very anti religious but we took it that was because his father was
I remember the RE teacher going off on one over my friend recasting the entry into Jerusalem by Jesus and the disciples as the Hole in the Wall gang riding into Tombstone.
-
Not really - it is an extremely common thread from the faith sector that charitable/voluntary work is effectively driven by religious people.
Yes really since you were responding to my post, where I had made no such claim. Just seems to be an excuse for you to air your bias.
I agree which is why I why I have no truck with religious people who claim (wrongly) that they are more likely to be involved in voluntary work.
Again so what? I hadn't claimed this in my post.
You are falling into that well worn trap. The word 'religious' is entirely redundant at the beginning of your second sentence because, in reality, religious and non religious communities and individuals help in that manner. Adding the word religion, clearly gives the impression that this is what religious communities and individual do, but non religious communities and individuals don't.
No it doesn't - just you showing your bias again. My first sentence was "Communities run because of the people (religious and non-religious) who volunteer" and then I said religious communities contribute to valuable community services that combat loneliness. This means the available community services are not just religious ones.
The point is when you actually look at religious and non religious people they are equally involved in voluntary work, but from the media portrayal along with religions are cheerleaders you'd belief that at the least religious people were more involved in voluntary work.
Again that was not what i said in my post. That's just your bias colouring your interpretation. Religious people might talk about their faith motivating them if asked by the media - 'what motivated you' is a standard media question. Not seeing the problem with people wanting to talk about their motivations or what inspired them to act, if asked.
-
Vlad,
etc
Quite a co-incidence though don't you think that the very god you think you "encountered" or some such as an adult just happened to be exactly the same god that these various organisations peddled to the young and impressionable you?
What are the chances eh?
Your brain makes sense of its experiences through the filter of stored information available to it. Brains rely on the previously 'stored information to create their reality. So it's logical that if a person thinks they 'experienced' something supernatural in a religious context, their brain would seek to make sense of it with the information they have been exposed to at various times in their life.
I like curry because my parents peddled curry to me when I was young and impressionable.
I connect with 80s music because various organisations peddled 80s music to a young and impressionable me.
I follow certain values and morals because various organisations including schools peddled those values and morals to the young and impressionable me.
I view history a certain way because various organisations peddled those historical views to the young and impressionable me.
Why should religion be any different? I became Muslim because my brain interpreted the words I read in the Quran based on previously stored information in my brain about religion, spirituality and God etc. For me to believe that Man created God when I was young, I must have had a concept of God that I had learnt from the culture around me - whether from Hindu, Christian or Muslim believers or from atheists. Were you expecting people to come up with entirely new concepts they have never previously encountered before, when they experience something?
-
VG,
Your brain makes sense of its experiences through the filter of stored information available to it. Brains rely on the previously 'stored information to create their reality. So it's logical that if a person thinks they 'experienced' something supernatural in a religious context, their brain would seek to make sense of it with the information they have been exposed to at various times in their life.
I like curry because my parents peddled curry to me when I was young and impressionable.
I connect with 80s music because various organisations peddled 80s music to a young and impressionable me.
I follow certain values and morals because various organisations including schools peddled those values and morals to the young and impressionable me.
I view history a certain way because various organisations peddled those historical views to the young and impressionable me.
Why should religion be any different? I became Muslim because my brain interpreted the words I read in the Quran based on previously stored information in my brain about religion, spirituality and God etc. For me to believe that Man created God when I was young, I must have had a concept of God that I had learnt from the culture around me - whether from Hindu, Christian or Muslim believers or from atheists. Were you expecting people to come up with entirely new concepts they have never previously encountered before, when they experience something?
What you “like”, “follow” etc are expressions of the subjective desires and preferences you have. “God made himself known to me” on the other hand is a claim of an objective fact about the universe (ie, “God”).
Your analogy fails accordingly.
-
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200909085942.htm
Excerpts..
***********
Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is a god who creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists at Georgetown University.
Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power," he adds.
"A really interesting observation was what happened between childhood and adulthood," explains Green. The data suggest that if children are unconsciously picking up on patterns in the environment, their belief is more likely to increase as they grow up, even if they are in a nonreligious household. Likewise, if they are not unconsciously picking up on patterns around them, their belief is more likely to decrease as they grow up, even in a religious household.
"Afghans and Americans may be more alike than different, at least in certain cognitive processes involved in religious belief and making meaning of the world around us. Irrespective of one's faith, the findings suggest exciting insights into the nature of belief."
"A brain that is more predisposed to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in which religious context," Green adds, though he cautions that further research is necessary.
"Optimistically," Green concludes, "this evidence might provide some neuro-cognitive common ground at a basic human level between believers of disparate faiths."
***********
-
Sriram,
Excerpts..
***********
Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is a god who creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists at Georgetown University.
Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power," he adds.
"A really interesting observation was what happened between childhood and adulthood," explains Green. The data suggest that if children are unconsciously picking up on patterns in the environment, their belief is more likely to increase as they grow up, even if they are in a nonreligious household. Likewise, if they are not unconsciously picking up on patterns around them, their belief is more likely to decrease as they grow up, even in a religious household.
"Afghans and Americans may be more alike than different, at least in certain cognitive processes involved in religious belief and making meaning of the world around us. Irrespective of one's faith, the findings suggest exciting insights into the nature of belief."
"A brain that is more predisposed to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in which religious context," Green adds, though he cautions that further research is necessary.
"Optimistically," Green concludes, "this evidence might provide some neuro-cognitive common ground at a basic human level between believers of disparate faiths."
None of which requires there actually to be a "god", a "presence", a "force" etc you'll notice.
-
VG,
What you “like”, “follow” etc are expressions of the subjective desires and preferences you have. “God made himself known to me” on the other hand is a claim of an objective fact about the universe (ie, “God”).
Your analogy fails accordingly.
How do you interpret it as a claim of objective fact about the universe and also as a supernatural claim? The supernatural is claimed to be outside the natural world, and not subject to the laws of the natural world.
Vlad's belief is that God made himself known to him and not as a physical presence, but present in his consciousness. True, Vlad's consciousness is in the universe. Are you suggesting that anything in anyone's consciousness is a claim of objective fact?
ETA - also the point was that many of my thoughts were peddled to me when I was young and impressionable by various people and organisations. That's the information my brain draws on to make sense of experiences and to form my views.
-
VG,
How do you interpret it as a claim of objective fact about the universe and also as a supernatural claim? The supernatural is claimed to be outside the natural world, and not subject to the laws of the natural world.
Vlad's belief is that God made himself known to him and not as a physical presence, but present in his consciousness. True, Vlad's consciousness is in the universe. Are you suggesting that anything in anyone's consciousness is a claim of objective fact?
It's still a claim of objective fact (a god who makes house calls) as opposed to a statement of subjective preference. The “about the universe” part is irrelevant for this purpose.
A. I grew up in a coffee drinking household. I now prefer coffee to tea.
B. I grew up in a dragonist household. There’s a noise coming from my garage – therefore there’s a dragon in my garage.
Can you see the qualitative difference between these statements?
-
VG,
It's still a claim of objective fact (a god who makes house calls) as opposed to a statement of subjective preference. The “about the universe” part is irrelevant for this purpose.
A. I grew up in a coffee drinking household. I now prefer coffee to tea.
But what about those who drank coffee and later discovered tea and stopped drinking coffee then much later developed a preference for coffeeB. I grew up in a dragonist household.
Do you mean me? I never grew up in a religious household although Davey seems to think science tells him that I did. What's your excuse? There’s a noise coming from my garage
– That'll be the Leprechauns.
-
Sriram,
None of which requires there actually to be a "god", a "presence", a "force" etc you'll notice.
It however requires that there are people whose 'brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment'. If people lack this ability they will not be able to pick up subconsciously, the hidden patterns in their environment and will probably become atheists!
It is not just about culture and background......
-
How do you interpret it as a claim of objective fact about the universe and also as a supernatural claim? The supernatural is claimed to be outside the natural world, and not subject to the laws of the natural world.
Vlad's belief is that God made himself known to him and not as a physical presence, but present in his consciousness. True, Vlad's consciousness is in the universe.
If the supernatural is outside the natural world how could it be experienced inside the natural world? As you say, consciousness is in the universe - so presumably it cannot be supernatural. How then can the natural experience the supernatural? How could God (supernatural) be present and act within the universe (natural)? This is all much too clever for me.
-
If the supernatural is outside the natural world how could it be experienced inside the natural world? As you say, consciousness is in the universe - so presumably it cannot be supernatural. How then can the natural experience the supernatural? How could God (supernatural) be present and act within the universe (natural)? This is all much too clever for me.
Floating boats is an analogy I find useful. If the universe is mechanistic then there is a connection between all things as in a machine however a boat is never part of the ocean it bobs up and down on.
-
Vlad,
But what about those who drank coffee and later discovered tea and stopped drinking coffee then much later developed a preference for coffee
What about them? They just changed their preference is all – they didn’t though overreach into a claim of one hot beverage being objectively better than the other.
Do you mean me? I never grew up in a religious household although Davey seems to think science tells him that I did. What's your excuse?
It doesn’t have to be a “household” – “culture”, “environment”, "Sunday school" etc do the job just as well.
– That'll be the Leprechauns.
If I’d grown up in a leprechaunist household/culture/environment and wasn’t given to much self-reflection I might conclude that, yes. There’s nothing special about you for likely doing the same thing.
-
Vlad,
Floating boats is an analogy I find useful. If the universe is mechanistic then there is a connection between all things as in a machine however a boat is never part of the ocean it bobs up and down on.
Provided the boat is the Flying Dutchman or similar rather than a material one presumably?
-
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. I don't think i've read such an extreme and ridiculous and totally inaccurate assumption of victimhood in my life.
It actually isn't about victimhood at all, rather an understanding about society and how it perceived and recognised different groups.
So in the 1950s the broad societal view was that although it was recognised that gay people existed society, in effect, pretended they didn't exist - so gay people weren't really able to, certainly not encouraged to, make themselves visible within society. And also society felt that children needed to be 'protected' so schools simply didn't acknowledge the existence of gay people, certainly didn't encourage those children who were gay to express themselves.
Sounds rather like my 1970s upbringing with regard to atheists and atheism - while I'm sure many people recognised that society included people who did not believe in god, those people were invisible and the societal default was that firstly there was a god and secondly that this god was the christian god. And to such an extent that you could grow up through the late 60s and early 70s, attending a non faith school and not even be aware that atheists and atheism even existed.
-
Religious people might talk about their faith motivating them if asked by the media - 'what motivated you' is a standard media question.
Once again why is the motivation of people seemingly only important if they are religious.
Now I'd actually argue that the motivations of people are varied and complex. Is the christian who volunteers for a shift in the McMillan Cancer shop being motivated by his/her faith or because someone close to them died of cancer and that particular charity was really helpful so they wanted to 'give back'. Or is the muslim who volunteers to help clean up a local pond motivated by his/her faith or because they are upset by the rubbish clogging the water and also enjoy doing a bit of work outdoors and the camaraderie of their fellow volunteers.
I suspect the reality is that for most people the motivation is simply that they want to help and think it is the right thing to do - and that will apply to religious and non religious people alike. In fact if the only motivation for wanting to help and to do the right thing is a religious belief rather than a general sense of empathy and community mindedness, then I would find that worrying.
-
VG,
It's still a claim of objective fact (a god who makes house calls) as opposed to a statement of subjective preference. The “about the universe” part is irrelevant for this purpose.
A. I grew up in a coffee drinking household. I now prefer coffee to tea.
B. I grew up in a dragonist household. There’s a noise coming from my garage – therefore there’s a dragon in my garage.
Can you see the qualitative difference between these statements?
Are you claiming that a God who is in people's consciousness is making house calls and that there is no difference between your consciousness and your garage?
-
If the supernatural is outside the natural world how could it be experienced inside the natural world? As you say, consciousness is in the universe - so presumably it cannot be supernatural. How then can the natural experience the supernatural? How could God (supernatural) be present and act within the universe (natural)? This is all much too clever for me.
We don't know whether there is a supernatural - there is no way to establish it. But if someone claims there is something outside the natural world, then it's anyone's guess how interaction occurs and what anyone means by 'presence'. They could mean some form of communication, an idea, an inspiration to make a change in your life? If thoughts are sensed internally by the person's consciousness how would we verify a thought or inspiration?
-
Once again why is the motivation of people seemingly only important if they are religious.
It isn't. Lots of people explain their motivation without mentioning religion. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13930976/captain-tom-raised-britains-spirit-nhs-walk/
Now I'd actually argue that the motivations of people are varied and complex. Is the christian who volunteers for a shift in the McMillan Cancer shop being motivated by his/her faith or because someone close to them died of cancer and that particular charity was really helpful so they wanted to 'give back'. Or is the muslim who volunteers to help clean up a local pond motivated by his/her faith or because they are upset by the rubbish clogging the water and also enjoy doing a bit of work outdoors and the comradely of their fellow volunteers.
I suspect the reality is that for most people the motivation is that they want to help and think it is the right thing to do - and that will apply to religious and non religious people alike. In fact if the only motivation for wanting to help and to do the right thing is a religious belief rather than a general sense of empathy and community mindedness, then I would find that worrying.
I would agree that people's motivations are varied and complex. Their interpretation of their religious faith may be a component but there would be other motivations too.
I've always made that point when people claim religion is the sole motivation for certain terrorist acts.
-
It isn't.
Then why mention it - why single out the importance of religion in terms of motivation but not:
humanism
family
upbringing
life experiences (good and bad)
feeling of challenge
previous support from the organisation being helped
And countless other reasons that you've failed to mention - you only seem interested in religion.
-
We don't know whether there is a supernatural - there is no way to establish it. But if someone claims there is something outside the natural world, then it's anyone's guess how interaction occurs and what anyone means by 'presence'. They could mean some form of communication, an idea, an inspiration to make a change in your life? If thoughts are sensed internally by the person's consciousness how would we verify a thought or inspiration?
Sorry. I had been under the impression you believed in God/supernatural and might therefore be able to make some sense of this. My mistake.
-
Lots of people explain their motivation without mentioning religion. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13930976/captain-tom-raised-britains-spirit-nhs-walk/
Err - probably because they aren't religious and/or because religion isn't a motivating factor. What exactly is your point. I'm sure lots of people will explain their motivation without mentioning humanism - presumably including a big dollop of people who ... err ... aren't humanists.
-
VG,
Are you claiming that a God who is in people's consciousness is making house calls and that there is no difference between your consciousness and your garage?
I don’t know what you mean by “a God who is in people's consciousness” (would that be an actual god or an imagined one?), but in any case I was just explaining to you the difference between environmentally determined/influenced feelings, preferences, tastes etc (about liking coffee over tea for example) and environmentally determined/influenced claims of objective fact (like there being a god for example).
That is, the analogy you attempted was a category error.
-
Then why mention it - why single out the importance of religion in terms of motivation but not:
humanism
family
upbringing
life experiences (good and bad)
feeling of challenge
previous support from the organisation being helped
And countless other reasons that you've failed to mention - you only seem interested in religion.
It was in response to a post where Vlad claimed people thought Christians were odd? I was pointing out that it wasn't that simple and that people may have multiple views of Christians, based on some Christians mentioning their faith as a motivating factor in their charitable behaviour.
-
Sorry. I had been under the impression you believed in God/supernatural and might therefore be able to make some sense of this. My mistake.
Why would you think I could make sense out of something for which there is no objective evidence?
What method would you use to evaluate any thoughts on the matter to see if they made sense to you? Given we are discussing the supernatural?
-
I was pointing out that it wasn't that simple and that people may have multiple views of Christians, based on some Christians mentioning their faith as a motivating factor in their charitable behaviour.
As you might imagine I always like my arguments to be evidence based, rather than just hand waving - so here you go, evidence on the motivations for charitable behaviour in the UK - see p14
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/r/53/yougov_white_paper_what_motivates_charitable_giving_0619.pdf
So 'Giving to charity is part of my religious beliefs' ranks bottom of the seven statements of motivation - noting that responders can select as many motivational statements as they wish. And as I would have expected 'I believe in the cause' comes top by a mile.
So basically why bang on about the importance of religion as motivation for charitable behaviour when it comes way, way down the pecking order of motivations.
-
VG,
I don’t know what you mean by “a God who is in people's consciousness” (would that be an actual god or an imagined one?),
I mean God is not a physical presence. Imagination is not the same as consciousness. What do you mean by imagined?
but in any case I was just explaining to you the difference between environmentally determined/influenced feelings, preferences, tastes etc (about liking coffee over tea for example) and environmentally determined/influenced claims of objective fact (like there being a god for example).
That is, the analogy you attempted was a category error.
And I was explaining to you that anything the brain conjures up to make sense of what it has sensed or experienced would be based on prior information stored in the brain. This includes tastes, preferences, values, morals etc. all peddled to us by parents and organisations when we were young and impressionable. So why would you not expect any concept of god to be similarly based on prior experience / knowledge / information? What's the alternative?
-
As you might imagine I always like my arguments to be evidence based, rather than just hand waving - so here you go, evidence on the motivations for charitable behaviour in the UK - see p14
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/r/53/yougov_white_paper_what_motivates_charitable_giving_0619.pdf
So 'Giving to charity is part of my religious beliefs' ranks bottom of the seven statements of motivation - noting that responders can select as many motivational statements as they wish. And as I would have expected 'I believe in the cause' comes top by a mile.
So basically why bang on about the importance of religion as motivation for charitable behaviour when it comes way, way down the pecking order of motivations.
What's your definition of banging on? I mentioned religious and non-religious motivation so if you think I'm banging on about religious motivation, that's just your interpretation based on your bias...again. Getting to be a bit of a habit for you.
-
VG,
I mean God is not a physical presence. Imagination is not the same as consciousness. What do you mean by imagined?
I didn’t know whether you were describing a god that someone just dreamt up, or a god that is real. I still don’t know, but in any case it’s not particularly relevant to the point.
And I was explaining to you that anything the brain conjures up to make sense of what it has sensed or experienced would be based on prior information stored in the brain. This includes tastes, preferences, values, morals etc. all peddled to us by parents and organisations when we were young and impressionable. So why would you not expect any concept of god to be similarly based on prior experience / knowledge / information? What's the alternative?
Not sure whether you’re being deliberately disingenuous here or you’re just not getting it. A subjective, imagined god may well be reified with characteristics “based on prior information stored in the brain”. An objectively real god on the other hand would bring something to the party – it would communicate something about itself that would shape the way it was perceived.
In any case, your analogy was a category error: preferring tea over coffee tells us something about you (ie about your subjective preference), but nothing about tea or coffee. Claims of objective facts on the other hand are all about their objects (in this case “god”). Both can be environmentally determined/influenced, but they are concerned with fundamentally different categories of knowledge.
-
What's your definition of banging on? I mentioned religious and non-religious motivation so if you think I'm banging on about religious motivation, that's just your interpretation based on your bias...again.
There you go - doing it again. You can't see beyond religious vs non religious - the very notion that you see things fundamentally in terms of religion vs not religion is clearly part of the issue here, particularly when I've demonstrated that religion is a very low level motivation for charitable behaviour in the UK.
Why not personal experience vs non personal experience, or humanism vs non humanism, or deprived childhood vs non deprived childhood etc etc. But no, it would appear that in your mind people sit in a box of religion vs non religion and your understanding of motivations seems to struggle to get beyond this I'm afraid VG.
-
It actually isn't about victimhood at all, rather an understanding about society and how it perceived and recognised different groups.
So in the 1950s the broad societal view was that although it was recognised that gay people existed society, in effect, pretended they didn't exist - so gay people weren't really able to, certainly not encouraged to, make themselves visible within society. And also society felt that children needed to be 'protected' so schools simply didn't acknowledge the existence of gay people, certainly didn't encourage those children who were gay to express themselves.
Sounds rather like my 1970s upbringing with regard to atheists and atheism - while I'm sure many people recognised that society included people who did not believe in god, those people were invisible and the societal default was that firstly there was a god and secondly that this god was the christian god. And to such an extent that you could grow up through the late 60s and early 70s, attending a non faith school and not even be aware that atheists and atheism even existed.
The analogy is not tremendous though Prof. In the fifties you could be arrested for being found homosexual. I don't believe that has been the case for at least a couple of centuries for atheists. Poor analogy I'd call it.
-
What is a "massive conversion" anyway....as opposed to any other type of conversion? What is the criteria for adding the word "massive"? And why does it matter whether it's massive or just a normal-sized conversion? What's your point?
But this is common knowledge, at least in the accounts of Christianity. True, there are some who become gradually interested in a particular religion, begin to practise it, find they like it and eventually commit themselves to it entirely (I suppose that approach would be something akin to your experience with Islam). Perhaps the 'thunderbolt' conversion is more common in Christian 'fundamentalist' type groups. It was certainly a well-known phenomenon in my experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so much so that they have special safeguards concerning it. People who had recently had some lightning conversion experience were known to be so excited that they could not stop talking about it to everyone around. This could of course become a great irritation to anyone who had to listen to all this, but the main worry as far as the JWs were concerned was that the new recruit, in their naive enthusiasm, might be spreading 'false doctrine'. Accounts of this type of experience can be found everywhere - I seem to remember one in a film about the life and conversion of a certain American porn star*, whose name escapes me.
In the light of this, it seems obvious to me from Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience that it was definitely of the 'massive' kind. But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.
*As if hit by a thunderbolt, the name came to me: Bettie Page
-
In the fifties you could be arrested for being found homosexual.
No you couldn't - being gay was not an offence in the 1950s, which is the equivalent of being atheist/atheism - it was certain types of homosexual acts that were unlawful and I think I'm right in thinking these laws only applied to male homosexuality.
And we should remember that blasphemy laws, which were often used to protect religions against criticism from atheists and atheist thought were repealed in the UK until 2008.
-
VG,
I didn’t know whether you were describing a god that someone just dreamt up, or a god that is real. I still don’t know, but in any case it’s not particularly relevant to the point.
I couldn't understand your question. How would we establish if a supernatural entity is real?
Not sure whether you’re being deliberately disingenuous here or you’re just not getting it. A subjective, imagined god may well be reified with characteristics “based on prior information stored in the brain”. An objectively real god on the other hand would bring something to the party – it would communicate something about itself that would shape the way it was perceived.
In any case, your analogy was a category error: preferring tea over coffee tells us something about you (ie about your subjective preference), but nothing about tea or coffee. Claims of objective facts on the other hand are all about their objects (in this case “god”). Both can be environmentally determined/influenced, but they are concerned with fundamentally different categories of knowledge.
I wasn't claiming objective fact as I have no method to establish any objective claims about the supernatural.
I'm getting it. Maybe you're not getting it. You made a point to Vlad in reply #882 that "the very god you think you "encountered" or some such as an adult just happened to be exactly the same god that these various organisations peddled to the young and impressionable you"
The point I made in response was that any discussion or sense of gods, whether they are objectively real or not, would have to be in terms based on prior information in the brain. Whatever the objectively real god brought to the party, the concept of the god forming in someone's brain - the person's thoughts - would be subjectively conceived based on past information stored in the brain. So whatever a person senses, I would expect that when they perceive that they sensed God, the thoughts in their brain would be based on their association with past information they have been exposed to. What's the alternative?
It's the same for how we conceive morals, values and our other subjective preferences such as tea and coffee - we link them to prior experience in our brains that was peddled to us when we were young and impressionable.
-
Dicky,
But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.
Yes – Vlad thinks he was “converted” by an objectively real god who only communicated to him what he’d been taught to believe already about “god”. That’s always the way though: no Amazonian tribesman has an “encounter” that gives him the hitherto unknown CV of the Christian god; no “Vlad” has an encounter that tells him all about a hitherto unknown Amazon animal spirit. Gods it seems feel the need to tell us only what we think we know about them already.
Does that mean that these gods/animal spirits aren’t real? Not necessarily, but it’s highly suggestive I think of people who have subjective “experiences” then simply reaching for explanations for them that just happen to be most proximate.
-
There you go - doing it again. You can't see beyond religious vs non religious - the very notion that you see things fundamentally in terms of religion vs not religion is clearly part of the issue here, particularly when I've demonstrated that religion is a very low level motivation for charitable behaviour in the UK.
Why not personal experience vs non personal experience, or humanism vs non humanism, or deprived childhood vs non deprived childhood etc etc. But no, it would appear that in your mind people sit in a box of religion vs non religion and your understanding of motivations seems to struggle to get beyond this I'm afraid VG.
It would be ridiculous to include your list in every point I make if it's not relevant to the point I am making. That you expect me to include your list is just your bias - you seem exceptionally sensitive to any mention of religion and have an uncontrollable knee-jerk reaction.
The sequence of events was that in #872 I responded to Vlad's #868 where he said "I always thought christians were oddball". So my response was about religious odd-balls. But I also said "that Christianity seemed to be cited as the inspiration for some of the people who gave up considerable time and money to help charitable causes". Why on earth would I mention humanism and deprived childhoods in my response when I was referring to some people who cited Christianity as their inspiration for a charitable action they carried out?
-
But this is common knowledge, at least in the accounts of Christianity. True, there are some who become gradually interested in a particular religion, begin to practise it, find they like it and eventually commit themselves to it entirely (I suppose that approach would be something akin to your experience with Islam). Perhaps the 'thunderbolt' conversion is more common in Christian 'fundamentalist' type groups. It was certainly a well-known phenomenon in my experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so much so that they have special safeguards concerning it. People who had recently had some lightning conversion experience were known to be so excited that they could not stop talking about it to everyone around. This could of course become a great irritation to anyone who had to listen to all this, but the main worry as far as the JWs were concerned was that the new recruit, in their naive enthusiasm, might be spreading 'false doctrine'. Accounts of this type of experience can be found everywhere - I seem to remember one in a film about the life and conversion of a certain American porn star*, whose name escapes me.
In the light of this, it seems obvious to me from Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience that it was definitely of the 'massive' kind. But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.
*As if hit by a thunderbolt, the name came to me: Bettie Page,
Christianity is the dominant form of religion in the world however like all religions I suppose, it has nominal adherence of the Kind that peels away. That kind of religion is probably the dominant British religion you are talking about and In your's truly it had certainly peeled away and that form of religion was not what I 'got' at my conversion.
Davey and Hillside seem to suggest a 'dangerous' level of exposure to religion at which conversion is almost sure and also exaggerate my exposure so their methodology isn't that sound.
Let's look at things another way. Christianity ceased to be socially useful for the nominal christian and so people moved to the new path of least social resistance...A kind of agnostic apatheism.
Some took the Dawkins path of evangelical atheism.
-
But this is common knowledge, at least in the accounts of Christianity. True, there are some who become gradually interested in a particular religion, begin to practise it, find they like it and eventually commit themselves to it entirely (I suppose that approach would be something akin to your experience with Islam). Perhaps the 'thunderbolt' conversion is more common in Christian 'fundamentalist' type groups. It was certainly a well-known phenomenon in my experience with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so much so that they have special safeguards concerning it. People who had recently had some lightning conversion experience were known to be so excited that they could not stop talking about it to everyone around. This could of course become a great irritation to anyone who had to listen to all this, but the main worry as far as the JWs were concerned was that the new recruit, in their naive enthusiasm, might be spreading 'false doctrine'. Accounts of this type of experience can be found everywhere - I seem to remember one in a film about the life and conversion of a certain American porn star*, whose name escapes me.
In the light of this, it seems obvious to me from Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience that it was definitely of the 'massive' kind. But curiously, as the Prof and blue point out, its outward form of expression in Vlad's life turned out to be the dominant religion of the society which he was brought up in from his earliest years.
*As if hit by a thunderbolt, the name came to me: Bettie Page
I can't recall Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience other than the post I responded to, where it seemed more of a gradual experience. Vlad said he was a god-denier so it sounded like he had been thinking about it for a while before he converted. He said the presence he felt was in his consciousness and not in the sense of a physical presence. Not my idea of a massive conversion where I would expect at the very least some yelling of a few "Hallelujahs" but it seems we differ in our interpretation of the word "massive".
ETA: I don't know how similar the flavour of Christianity he professes is to the one he was brought up with, but I don't think it's curious that there are some similar themes. He's not claiming to be a prophet or messiah with a whole new message. He just made sense of his experience in response to the information his brain had. I come from a country where lots of people converted from their religion to Christianity after Christian missionaries arrived and set up schools. They couldn't have done so if the missionaries and the surrounding environment from birth had not presented their brains with some information for the brain to work with to make sense of their experience and emotions.
-
VG,
I couldn't understand your question. How would we establish if a supernatural entity is real?
I have no idea. As I’m not proposing a supernatural entity though that’s not my problem (though it is for a proponent of such a thing who wants her claim to be taken seriously).
I wasn't claiming objective fact as I have no method to establish any objective claims about the supernatural.
But Vlad is, which is what this about. He thinks an objectively real god “converted” him.
I'm getting it. Maybe you're not getting it. You made a point to Vlad in reply #882 that "the very god you think you "encountered" or some such as an adult just happened to be exactly the same god that these various organisations peddled to the young and impressionable you"
The point I made in response was that any discussion or sense of gods, whether they are objectively real or not, would have to be in terms based on prior information in the brain. Whatever the objectively real god brought to the party, the concept of the god forming in someone's brain - the person's thoughts - would be subjectively conceived based on past information stored in the brain. So whatever a person senses, I would expect that when they perceive that they sensed God, the thoughts in their brain would be based on their association with past information they have been exposed to. What's the alternative?
Why are you ignoring the rebuttal you’ve been given? Your response tried to draw an analogy between claims of an objectively “real for everyone”, factual, non-imaginary, "out there" god and your personal, subjective preferences about curries, 80s music etc. That’s called a category error, which is why the analogy failed.
As for your “prior information” sidebar, as a separate matter if the (supposed) entity that shows up doesn’t communicate anything about itself that the visitee doesn’t believe already all that implies is confirmation bias – and total relativism (because any description of god’s characteristics would be as (in)valid as any other).
It's the same for how we conceive morals, values and our other subjective preferences such as tea and coffee - we link them to prior experience in our brains that was peddled to us when we were young and impressionable.
It absolutely isn’t. Morals, aesthetics, hot beverage preferences etc are all about the subjective. Claims of gods, dragons and leprechauns are all about the objective. These are fundamentally different categories of knowledge.
-
Vlad,
Christianity is the dominant form of religion in the world...
No it isn't.
-
Vlad,
Davey and Hillside seem to suggest a 'dangerous' level of exposure to religion at which conversion is almost sure and also exaggerate my exposure so their methodology isn't that sound.
“Hillside” (and, I suspect, the Prof) suggest no such thing. What I/we do suggest though is that any conversion event from any faith tradition will almost certainly light on the god with which the convertee is already most (or solely) familiar. Yours is one such.
This should give you pause at least.
-
I can't recall Vlad's accounts of his conversion experience other than the post I responded to, where it seemed more of a gradual experience. Vlad said he was a god-denier so it sounded like he had been thinking about it for a while before he converted. He said the presence he felt was in his consciousness and not in the sense of a physical presence. Not my idea of a massive conversion where I would expect at the very least some yelling of a few "Hallelujahs" but it seems we differ in our interpretation of the word "massive".
ETA: I don't know how similar the flavour of Christianity he professes is to the one he was brought up with, but I don't think it's curious that there are some similar themes. He's not claiming to be a prophet or messiah with a whole new message. He just made sense of his experience in response to the information his brain had. I come from a country where lots of people converted from their religion to Christianity after Christian missionaries arrived and set up schools. They couldn't have done so if the missionaries and the surrounding environment from birth had not presented their brains with some information for the brain to work with to make sense of their experience and emotions.
Since he said his experience was of God as Judge, and that the only responses were submission to him as Lord - or flight, that doesn't sound quite as cosy as you'd like to make it. Of course conversion experiences of all kinds begin with some kind of intellectual cogitation, but the experience itself is often recorded as overwhelming. Trouble is, you can read accounts of the religious experience of Lakota Indians which are themselves Shakespearean in grandeur, but telling a completely different narrative from any of the dominant world religions. Doesn't make any of them objectively true.
-
VG,
I have no idea. As I’m not proposing a supernatural entity though that’s not my problem (though it is for a proponent of such a thing who wants her claim to be taken seriously).
If reality is defined as something established through objectively testable evidence, I haven't made a claim of reality.
But Vlad is, which is what this about. He thinks an objectively real god “converted” him.
Could you link to a claim of reality - as far as I know neither Vlad nor I claimed to have objectively, testable evidence of a god who converted him?
Why are you ignoring the rebuttal you’ve been given? Your response tried to draw an analogy between claims of an objectively “real for everyone”, factual, non-imaginary, "out there" god and your personal, subjective preferences about curries, 80s music etc. That’s called a category error, which is why the analogy failed.
No I wasn't making any claim of an objectively real god, as I don't have any objectively testable evidence for one. The analogy therefore did not fail.
As for your “prior information” sidebar, as a separate matter if the (supposed) entity that shows up doesn’t communicate anything about itself that the visitee doesn’t believe already all that implies is confirmation bias – and total relativism (because any description of god’s characteristics would be as (in)valid as any other).
Why would you think the entity would communicate anything new - as far as I know Vlad isn't claiming to be a prophet or messiah with a new message? He just made sense of his experience using the information already stored in his brain, as does everyone when they come up with concepts or values or preferences.
It absolutely isn’t. Morals, aesthetics, hot beverage preferences etc are all about the subjective. Claims of gods, dragons and leprechauns are all about the objective. These are fundamentally different categories of knowledge.
Is Vlad claiming to have objectively testable evidence of his experience in order to establish reality or is Vlad claiming a belief and a faith?
-
Since he said his experience was of God as Judge, and that the only responses were submission to him as Lord - or flight, that doesn't sound quite as cosy as you'd like to make it.
Maybe you're right - only Vlad can answer in what sense he used those terms. God as Judge is pretty standard. Not sure what he meant by "flight" - whether he literally felt like running screaming from the room or something else.
Of course conversion experiences of all kinds begin with some kind of intellectual cogitation, but the experience itself is often recorded as overwhelming. Trouble is, you can read accounts of the religious experience of Lakota Indians which are themselves Shakespearean in grandeur, but telling a completely different narrative from any of the dominant world religions. Doesn't make any of them objectively true.
Sure I agree. Maybe Vlad did find it overwhelming and I haven't been paying attention. But I'm not surprised that people's brains make sense of their experiences based on prior information and experiences already in their brains.
-
Since he said his experience was of God as Judge, and that the only responses were submission to him as Lord - or flight, that doesn't sound quite as cosy as you'd like to make it.
Dicky, You seemed to have detected something discomforting in this around judgement and submission. I'm moved as with others in a similar position to suggest some personal exploration around this, maybe?
-
Vlad,
“Hillside” (and, I suspect, the Prof) suggest no such thing. What I/we do suggest though is that any conversion event from any faith tradition will almost certainly light on the god with which the convertee is already most (or solely) familiar. Yours is one such.
This should give you pause at least.
You exaggerate my personal faith tradition and certainly of the country which is really a kind of agnostic apatheism with Humanism and has perhaps been for decades.
That should give YOU pause given your theory of religion. To suggest that isn't based on exposure to religion is gaslighting on your part.
-
You exaggerate my personal faith tradition ...
BHS can speak for himself - but I don't think there is any exaggeration on my behalf. My understanding of your personal faith tradition is that you were born into a country that retained a long-standing christian tradition, which was at the time pretty endemic. And that personally your parents chose to send you to Sunday School and a christian Faith School and that as a child you attended church - that, to my mind is consistent with having a christian upbringing, on the basis that parents not bringing their children up christian tend not to send their kids to Sunday School, Faith Schools and have their children attend christian religious worship.
So your personal journey appears to be one of a christian upbringing within a broadly christian society, a relatively brief period where you moved away from the religion of your upbringing and then reversion back into the religion of your upbringing. This is simply based on the information about your upbringing you, specifically, have provided.
-
Vlad,
You exaggerate my personal faith tradition and certainly of the country which is really a kind of agnostic apatheism with Humanism and has perhaps been for decades.
Nope. Everything you think you know about the “god” you “encountered” you knew before the encounter anyway because you were enculturated to it. There’s not one scrap of the story that was revealed to you during the episode, which is just what you’d expect if there was actually no encounter at all.
That should give YOU pause given your theory of religion. To suggest that isn't based on exposure to religion is gaslighting on your part.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.
-
BHS can speak for himself - but I don't think there is any exaggeration on my behalf. My understanding of your personal faith tradition is that you were born into a country that retained a long-standing christian tradition, which was at the time pretty endemic. And that personally your parents chose to send you to Sunday School and a christian Faith School and that as a child you attended church - that, to my mind is consistent with having a christian upbringing, on the basis that parents not bringing their children up christian tend not to send their kids to Sunday School, Faith Schools and have their children attend christian religious worship.
So your personal journey appears to be one of a christian upbringing within a broadly christian society, a relatively brief period where you moved away from the religion of your upbringing and then reversion back into the religion of your upbringing. This is simply based on the information about your upbringing you, specifically, have provided.
This is biography by formula. You'll be after a patent on my life story next.
Your shocking claim that atheists suffered in the same way as those caught having homosexual physical relationships was certifiable bunkum but just thepinnacle of your historical revisionism
It may come as a surprise to you Davey but I knew my parents....Your statements are becoming so silly I feel bound to ask you if you are taking the piss or just, through the anonimity of the internet, Gaslighting me something rotten?
Lots of people had the same background as me and are not religious so your thesis is also a failed one. Christianity is the world's majority religion and the UK's faith position has been at most largely nominal and probably more realistically agnostic apatheist with humanist traits.
As for reversion. No, it was something new. I certainly have come across many who claim to have switched from christianity but their definitions of christianity do not match up with my experience and study and understanding as a christian but more of snatches of what might be understood to be christian by agnostic apatheists ( The clue here Davey is in the name there) who have had like me mere brushes with it as a child for an hour or so on sunday mornings probably not that given the attention span of a kid looking forward to Fireball XL5 or went to a rural C of E primary school or as you would put it, a fundamentalist christian Hothouse madrassa (I say C of E, it was also a local authority school).
-
Vlad,
Nope. Everything you think you know about the “god” you “encountered” you knew before the encounter anyway because you were enculturated to it. There’s not one scrap of the story that was revealed to you during the episode, which is just what you’d expect if there was actually no encounter at all.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.
It's amazing that with todays gas prices you are still caning it at this level of lighting.
-
VG,
If reality is defined as something established through objectively testable evidence, I haven't made a claim of reality.
But Vlad has, which is what this exchange is about. He thinks a real god really paid him a visit and thereby really converted him.
Could you link to a claim of reality - as far as I know neither Vlad nor I claimed to have objectively, testable evidence of a god who converted him?
I assume you’re joking. Just read any of his posts here.
No I wasn't making any claim of an objectively real god, as I don't have any objectively testable evidence for one. The analogy therefore did not fail.
You were responding to the argument about Vlad’s god also being the one to which he was the most enculturated remember, not your god. I don’t know whether you think your god is real or just a product of your imagination, but that’s not what this exchange is about so it doesn’t matter.
And yes the analogy did fail for the reason I’ve explained to you several times now – you conflated the subjective (preferring coffee etc) with the objective (“god is a fact” etc).
Why would you think the entity would communicate anything new - as far as I know Vlad isn't claiming to be a prophet or messiah with a new message?
You’re being too literal – just turning up would be communicating information, just as someone turning a light on communicates information.
He just made sense of his experience using the information already stored in his brain, as does everyone when they come up with concepts or values or preferences.
Which is the confirmation bias and ensuing relativism I talked about. If all that people who have moving episodes of some sort can do to explain them is to reach for the stories of the supernatural with which they happen to be most familiar then they explain nothing.
Is Vlad claiming to have objectively testable evidence of his experience in order to establish reality or is Vlad claiming a belief and a faith?
That’s called a false dichotomy. He thinks he has “evidence” but that turns out to be just bad arguments, but his “belief and a faith” is also a belief and faith that “god” is an objective fact.
Anyway, the point here remains that the god Vlad think is objectively, factually, “true for everyone”, “out there” real is also by a remarkable co-incidence the exact one he happens to know the most about from his upbringing, and when you conflate the subjective with the objective as if they’re epistemically the same you commit a category error.
-
Vlad,
It's amazing that with todays gas prices you are still caning it at this level of lighting.
Perhaps you should look up what "gaslighting" means before you attempt the term mistakenly again.
-
VG,
Quote
If reality is defined as something established through objectively testable evidence, I haven't made a claim of reality.
But Vlad has, which is what this exchange is about. He thinks a real god really paid him a visit and thereby really converted him.
You can only test this yourself, Hillside.
-
VG,
But Vlad has, which is what this exchange is about. He thinks a real god really paid him a visit and thereby really converted him.
I assume you’re joking. Just read any of his posts here.
You were responding to the argument about Vlad’s god also being the one to which he was the most enculturated remember, not your god. I don’t know whether you think your god is real or just a product of your imagination, but that’s not what this exchange is about so it doesn’t matter.
And yes the analogy did fail for the reason I’ve explained to you several times now – you conflated the subjective (preferring coffee etc) with the objective (“god is a fact” etc).
What he said was he sensed god's presence in his consciousness. Which part of that is objective testable evidence? So no the analogy didn't fail for the reasons already explained. Vlad didn't claim to have objectively testable evidence that god was present. He stated a subjective belief based on an inner experience.
You’re being too literal – just turning up would be communicating information, just as someone turning a light on communicates information.
What do you mean by 'turning up', given Vlad said he didn't believe in a physical god?
Which is the confirmation bias and ensuing relativism I talked about. If all that people who have moving episodes of some sort can do to explain them is to reach for the stories of the supernatural with which they happen to be most familiar then they explain nothing.
That's illogical. How can people retrieve information that their brain is not already familiar with? Where is the source of this information they reach for other than their brain?
That’s called a false dichotomy. He thinks he has “evidence” but that turns out to be just bad arguments, but his “belief and a faith” is also a belief and faith that “god” is an objective fact.
Can you link to where Vlad has claimed objectively testable evidence? He said the presence was in his consciousness. How is that a claim for having objectively testable evidence?
A belief in "god" just means that someone holds the idea that their concept of god is true. Whereas a fact is something that has empirical evidence to support it, until new evidence comes along that amends the fact. You do know the two are not the same right? The belief that something is true is subjective, whereas facts can be objectively tested.
Anyway, the point here remains that the god Vlad think is objectively, factually, “true for everyone”, “out there” real is also by a remarkable co-incidence the exact one he happens to know the most about from his upbringing, and when you conflate the subjective with the objective as if they’re epistemically the same you commit a category error.
You still haven't explained what's remarkable about it, despite me asking many times. Any sense he makes of an experience he has will be based on information already stored in his brain. What's remarkable about that and what's the alternative?
-
It is very clear that atheists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment. It is like born blind people denying the existence of light.
Believers are able to discern these patterns and are able to even discern the presence of higher levels of consciousness within themselves. How they interpret or imagine these experiences is related to their culture and religious background.
-
It is very clear that atheists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment. It is like born blind people denying the existence of light.
Not really - there is objectively testable evidence for light. Your belief that your subconscious can discern patterns has no objectively testable evidence to support it.
-
Not sure but this might be of interest:
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-gestalt-theory-and-perceptual-development.html
-
Not really - there is objectively testable evidence for light. Your belief that your subconscious can discern patterns has no objectively testable evidence to support it.
There is no way you can prove to a stubborn born blind man that light exists... He has to take it on faith one way or the other.
-
It is very clear that atheists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment. It is like born blind people denying the existence of light.
Blimey - now Sriram is being atheist is the equivalent of having a disability - FFS.
Believers are able to discern these patterns and are able to even discern the presence of higher levels of consciousness within themselves. How they interpret or imagine these experiences is related to their culture and religious background.
I don't think that the experiences of believers and atheists are fundamentally different - the difference comes from how believers and atheists interpret those experiences, which will be fundamentally different with believers attributing those experiences to god. And you are correct that the different interpretation is driven by upbringing, culture and society as religion/belief in god seems very clearly to be societally-driven learned behaviour.
-
There is no way you can prove to a stubborn born blind man that light exists... He has to take it on faith one way or the other.
But as VG has pointed out there is clear objective evidence that light exists. By contrast there is no credible evidence that god exists, which is why believers rely on ... err ... belief and faith.
So while a blind man may have to take the existence of light on faith (actually they don't as there is still evidence), the sighted person doesn't have to as they have objective evidence. In the case of belief or non belief in god no-one has evidence for the existence of god so everyone relies on belief or non belief.
-
Blimey - now Sriram is being atheist is the equivalent of having a disability - FFS.
I don't think that the experiences of believers and atheists are fundamentally different - the difference comes from how believers and atheists interpret those experiences, which will be fundamentally different with believers attributing those experiences to god. And you are correct that the different interpretation is driven by upbringing, culture and society as religion/belief in god seems very clearly to be societally-driven learned behaviour.
I think splitting interpretation of experiences into theists/atheists is incredibly simplistic.
-
There is no way you can prove to a stubborn born blind man that light exists... He has to take it on faith one way or the other.
Not sure what you mean. We have instruments to detect and record what we call 'light' and can convert energy from light into electric currents to power something and can make predictions of how light will interact with other substances that can then be tested and verified, so you have objective evidence and don't have to take it on faith, even if you're blind. I assume the blind man is not deaf and can listen to an explanation of what light is made up of and what is recorded by instruments etc
Do you have an instrument to record the patterns sensed by your sub-conscious?
-
And you are correct that the different interpretation is driven by upbringing, culture and society as religion/belief in god seems very clearly to be societally-driven learned behaviour.
I wonder if you are special pleading here what is special about believing in God. You mean belief in any weldbilt, world view or anything surely.
religion as learned behaviour? How does that work then since it seems the easiest thing to stop behaving as religious.
Frankly Davey you seem all over the shop on religion.
-
I don't think that the experiences of believers and atheists are fundamentally different - the difference comes from how believers and atheists interpret those experiences, which will be fundamentally different with believers attributing those experiences to god. And you are correct that the different interpretation is driven by upbringing, culture and society as religion/belief in god seems very clearly to be societally-driven learned behaviour.
We don't know whether the experiences are the same or different for different people as they are internal. You might be able to record some physiological components of the experience, but obviously it is possible there are components that can't be recorded.
People can of course decide, regardless of inner experiences, that what can't be recorded is not true/ real etc
ETA: Not sure how you equate belief with learned behaviour. How do you learn to believe?
-
Blimey - now Sriram is being atheist is the equivalent of having a disability - FFS.
I don't think that the experiences of believers and atheists are fundamentally different - the difference comes from how believers and atheists interpret those experiences, which will be fundamentally different with believers attributing those experiences to god. And you are correct that the different interpretation is driven by upbringing, culture and society as religion/belief in god seems very clearly to be societally-driven learned behaviour.
It seems to me Davey that to be an atheist of your brand you need to pretend you are in and commenting on the UK as if it is the USA.
This is not and hasn't been for decades a christian society.
Religious people are not closer to Bonobos than academic atheists and it is more appropriate to use anthropology and sociological methods on them rather than some Dawkinsian animal ethology the use of which caricatures religious people as sheep or imprinted ducklings in some humourous academic wankfest.
-
I think splitting interpretation of experiences into theists/atheists is incredibly simplistic.
In what way NS? Please explain yourself.
-
religion as learned behaviour? How does that work then since it seems the easiest thing to stop behaving as religious.
Absolutely - research suggests that unless you are brought up to believe in the tenets of a particular religion then your likelihood of becoming an adherent of that religion is pretty well zero. That suggests what we are looking at is learned behaviour. Clearly it isn't very effective as plenty of people brought up to believe a particular religion reject that belief. But that doesn't mean it is not learned behaviour as the key point is that no-one simply comes to a particular belief unless they have been taught it, and usually they need to be taught it as a child for it to be believable.
-
In what way NS? Please explain yourself.
It splits it into how atheists interpret experience abd how theists do as if they are both homogenous blocks. I've met many atheists who have very different from myself and each others interpretation of events, and theists whi have a similar interpretation of events to me and hugely different from other theists who also have multiple interpretations of events.
-
Absolutely - research suggests that unless you are brought up to believe in the tenets of a particular religion then your likelihood of becoming an adherent of that religion is pretty well zero. That suggests what we are looking at is learned behaviour. Clearly it isn't very effective as plenty of people brought up to believe a particular religion reject that belief. But that doesn't mean it is not learned behaviour as the key point is that no-one simply comes to a particular belief unless they have been taught it, and usually they need to be taught it as a child for it to be believable.
What does a likelihood of 'pretty well zero' mean in actual numbers? Please can you link to the research.
I'm interested in this idea of learning belief. I thought you can't choose your beliefs so what do you mean by learning a belief?
-
Absolutely - research suggests that unless you are brought up to believe in the tenets of a particular religion then your likelihood of becoming an adherent of that religion is pretty well zero. That suggests what we are looking at is learned behaviour. Clearly it isn't very effective as plenty of people brought up to believe a particular religion reject that belief. But that doesn't mean it is not learned behaviour as the key point is that no-one simply comes to a particular belief unless they have been taught it, and usually they need to be taught it as a child for it to be believable.
The trouble with this though is it does not explain how many world religions started from one person in the case of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, presumably Abraham too through a handful of people and on to world religion status.
One might also track the spread of atheism as similar since New Atheism was identified by David Wilson as a stealth religion although it seems to have panned recently.
-
It is very clear that atheists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment. It is like born blind people denying the existence of light.
Believers are able to discern these patterns and are able to even discern the presence of higher levels of consciousness within themselves. How they interpret or imagine these experiences is related to their culture and religious background.
I note it doesn't stop some believers from being patronising and cleaving to their own prejudices.
-
What does a likelihood of 'pretty well zero' mean in actual numbers? Please can you link to the research.
I'm interested in this idea of learning belief. I thought you can't choose your beliefs so what do you mean by learning a belief?
I think Davey is muddling the kind of programmable behaviour as described by animal ethology with some more sophisticated psychology to get the best of both worlds with something that is programmable in what he regards as the weak or lower minded but expendable in the more developed mind of the atheist.
-
It splits it into how atheists interpret experience abd how theists do as if they are both homogenous blocks. I've met many atheists who have very different from myself and each others interpretation of events, and theists whi have a similar interpretation of events to me and hugely different from other theists who also have multiple interpretations of events.
OK - I understand and I never intended to imply that theists are a homogeneous block, nor that atheists are a homogeneous block. This would be nonsense.
And that's why I think I described this as a 'fundamental' difference, rather than the only difference etc. What I mean is that if you are a theist your interpretation of an experience allows for the possibility that you are experiencing god, in the presence of god, experiencing the actions of god etc. If you are atheist your interpretation of what may be the very same experience does not allow for the possibility that you are experiencing god, in the presence of god, experiencing the actions of god etc. That is the fundamental difference. That does not mean that atheists will all interpret things the same, nor that theists will always interpret an experience as relating to god. But a theist will allow for that possibility while an atheist will not allow for that possibility.
Hope that is clearer now.
-
OK - I understand and I never intended to imply that theists are a homogeneous block, nor that atheists are a homogeneous block. This would be nonsense.
And that's why I think I described this as a 'fundamental' difference, rather than the only difference etc. What I mean is that if you are a theist your interpretation of an experience allows for the possibility that you are experiencing god, in the presence of god, experiencing the actions of god etc. If you are atheist your interpretation of what may be the very same experience does not allow for the possibility that you are experiencing god, in the presence of god, experiencing the actions of god etc. That is the fundamental difference. That does not mean that atheists will all interpret things the same, nor that theists will always interpret an experience as relating to god. But a theist will allow for that possibility while an atheist will not allow for that possibility.
Hope that is clearer now.
Partly but it doesn't seem to allow for any change so your position doesb't allow for an atheist to become a theist or vice versa. In addition, I know many theists who don't believe that they can experience god in that sense. I think your distinction is still flawed and tells us virtually nothing about people.
-
I think Davey is muddling the kind of programmable behaviour as described by animal ethology with some more sophisticated psychology to get the best of both worlds with something that is programmable in what he regards as the weak or lower minded but expendable in the more developed mind of the atheist.
The only person who seems to have covered people being 'weak or lower minded' here is Sriram. I take it you disagree with him?
-
What does a likelihood of 'pretty well zero' mean in actual numbers? Please can you link to the research.
I've posted this research many times - the key figure involved is David Voas, who is pretty well the most eminent academic researcher on religiosity in the UK. His research (and plenty of others) suggests that just 3% of children brought up in non religious households (note that is the household it doesn't take account of wider society, schooling etc) become religious as adults.
For completeness - for children brought up in a religious household where both parents are religious, 50% become religious as adults and 50% don't. And virtually all who retain a religiosity do so within the religion of their upbringing.
Where there is a 'mixed' household with one religious parent and one non religious parent the proportion that are religious as adults falls to 25% with three quarters being non religious as adults.
So VG, I think you represent a pretty rare demographic - in being someone brought up in one religion, but ending up an adherent of a different religion as an adult.
But the broad point remains - if a child isn't brought up in a religious household the likelihood of them becoming religious as an adult is pretty tiny - just 3%.
The other key finding is that, contrary to popular myth, people do not get more religious as they get older. In fact there is virtually no change in overall population-level religiosity as people get older, with overall religiosity pretty well set at early adulthood.
And this understanding of the almost perfect generational transmission of non-religiosity, and the 50:50 (at best) likelihood of transmission of religiosity is the reason why the numbers of religious people in the UK is falling and (barring the effects of immigration) will continue to fall for decades to come.
-
Not sure what you mean. We have instruments to detect and record what we call 'light' and can convert energy from light into electric currents to power something and can make predictions of how light will interact with other substances that can then be tested and verified, so you have objective evidence and don't have to take it on faith, even if you're blind. I assume the blind man is not deaf and can listen to an explanation of what light is made up of and what is recorded by instruments etc
Do you have an instrument to record the patterns sensed by your sub-conscious?
This is obvious VG... Why would a stubborn born blind man accept the existence of light entirely on someones explanations? How can any sound or vibration of any instrument (activated by light) convince him that light exists? He has to accept all this on faith. There is no way he can experience light by himself directly.
-
The only person who seems to have covered people being 'weak or lower minded' here is Sriram. I take it you disagree with him?
On the basis of changeability I would say yes I tend to disagree with them that and I believe God evasion is possible so we have people some of whom might know full well that God is there
However with some New atheists I detect a superior piss taking tone and of course the dead hand of Dawkins' ethological background.
-
This is obvious VG... Why would a stubborn born blind man accept the existence of light entirely on someones explanations? How can any sound or vibration of any instrument (activated by light) convince him that light exists? He has to accept all this on faith. There is no way he can experience light by himself directly.
What a blind man needs is someone to heal them of their blindness.
-
It is very clear that atheists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment. It is like born blind people denying the existence of light.
Believers are able to discern these patterns and are able to even discern the presence of higher levels of consciousness within themselves. How they interpret or imagine these experiences is related to their culture and religious background.
All minds discern patterns subconsciously, this is not a special talent that theists alone have. Almost all mind function is subconscious, remember ?
-
What a blind man needs is someone to heal them of their blindness.
So having said that you disagree with Sriram about being 'weak or lower minded', you are now agreeing and portraying atheists as 'disabled'.
-
I've posted this research many times - the key figure involved is David Voas, who is pretty well the most eminent academic researcher on religiosity in the UK. His research (and plenty of others) suggests that just 3% of children brought up in non religious households (note that is the household it doesn't take account of wider society, schooling etc) become religious as adults.
For completeness - for children brought up in a religious household where both parents are religious, 50% become religious as adults and 50% don't. And virtually all who retain a religiosity do so within the religion of their upbringing.
Where there is a 'mixed' household with one religious parent and one non religious parent the proportion that are religious as adults falls to 25% with three quarters being non religious as adults.
So VG, I think you represent a pretty rare demographic - in being someone brought up in one religion, but ending up an adherent of a different religion as an adult.
But the broad point remains - if a child isn't brought up in a religious household the likelihood of them becoming religious as an adult is pretty tiny - just 3%.
The other key finding is that, contrary to popular myth, people do not get more religious as they get older. In fact there is virtually no change in overall population-level religiosity as people get older, with overall religiosity pretty well set at early adulthood.
And this understanding of the almost perfect generational transmission of non-religiosity, and the 50:50 (at best) likelihood of transmission of religiosity is the reason why the numbers of religious people in the UK is falling and (barring the effects of immigration) will continue to fall for decades to come.
''Pretty well zero'' is pretty well an unscientific declaration.
The research seems to contradict your assumption that Britain is societally Christian. and of course still doesn't explain religions which start from a handful of adherents to world religion status.
-
So having said that you disagree with Sriram about being 'weak or lower minded', you are now agreeing and portraying atheists as 'disabled'.
I'm saying we are or were all blind and need a healer.
-
Absolutely - research suggests that unless you are brought up to believe in the tenets of a particular religion then your likelihood of becoming an adherent of that religion is pretty well zero. That suggests what we are looking at is learned behaviour. Clearly it isn't very effective as plenty of people brought up to believe a particular religion reject that belief. But that doesn't mean it is not learned behaviour as the key point is that no-one simply comes to a particular belief unless they have been taught it, and usually they need to be taught it as a child for it to be believable.
Check Post 890. It is science. Ok....for you I will copy it here again.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200909085942.htm
Excerpts..
***********
Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is a god who creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists at Georgetown University.
Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power," he adds.
"A really interesting observation was what happened between childhood and adulthood," explains Green. The data suggest that if children are unconsciously picking up on patterns in the environment, their belief is more likely to increase as they grow up, even if they are in a nonreligious household. Likewise, if they are not unconsciously picking up on patterns around them, their belief is more likely to decrease as they grow up, even in a religious household.
"Afghans and Americans may be more alike than different, at least in certain cognitive processes involved in religious belief and making meaning of the world around us. Irrespective of one's faith, the findings suggest exciting insights into the nature of belief."
"A brain that is more predisposed to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in which religious context," Green adds, though he cautions that further research is necessary.
"Optimistically," Green concludes, "this evidence might provide some neuro-cognitive common ground at a basic human level between believers of disparate faiths."
***********
It clearly states that children who have a subconscious awareness of hidden patterns grow up to believe in a God or superior being....regardless of their nonreligious upbringing. Similarly, if they are not unconsciously picking up on patterns around them, their belief is more likely to decrease as they grow up, even in a religious household.
There are also thousands of instances of people who grow up under one religion but who later choose to shift to another religion. Many people choose religions that are very different from the earlier ones...such as Christians becoming Hindus or Buddhists.
Your point about children being taught religious beliefs, is therefore clearly wrong.
-
I'm saying we are or were all blind and need a healer.
And that you have been healed so are portraying argeists as 'disabled'.
-
And that you have been healed so are portraying argeists as 'disabled'.
That is christ's offer to me and it is christ's offer to you.
-
What a blind man needs is someone to heal them of their blindness.
I suspect superior piss taking on your part, because I know you know God doesn't exist.
-
I suspect superior piss taking on your part, because I know you know God doesn't exist.
You have me at a disadvantage sir, who are you?
-
That is christ's offer to me and it is christ's offer to you.
But I'm 'blind', according to you so my inability to see ot cannot be 'dodging', and you still end up thinking that athiests are 'disabled'.
-
You have me at a disadvantage sir, who are you?
It's trentvoyager.
-
It's trentvoyager.
I didn't know he was into telepathy and mindreading.
-
But I'm 'blind', according to you so my inability to see ot cannot be 'dodging', and you still end up thinking that athiests are 'disabled'.
Maybe they should stop poking themselves in the eye.
-
Maybe they should stop poking themselves in the eye.
Now you think atheists are lying and 'disabled'.
-
Now you think atheists are lying and 'disabled'.
Some atheists could be or are you suggesting they can't lie?, Others don't really want a God(Krauss, Nagel). I don't really know what people who allege themselves to be agnostic but choose to act as atheist which seems to include posting ostensibly antitheistic sentiment are properly up to, but they seem to have taken a decision to action somewhere along the line.
-
VG,
What he said was he sensed god's presence in his consciousness. Which part of that is objective testable evidence?
None of it.
So no the analogy didn't fail for the reasons already explained. Vlad didn't claim to have objectively testable evidence that god was present. He stated a subjective belief based on an inner experience.
That’s a non sequitur. The fact that Vlad doesn’t have “objective testable evidence” (or any evidence at all for that matter) for his god does not imply that he doesn’t think his god is objectively real nonetheless – that is, he thinks that his “inner experience” (albeit justified with some very bad arguments) is a reliable guide to objective truths for all of us, only some of us haven’t had his good fortune of “encountering” it.
If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.
What do you mean by 'turning up', given Vlad said he didn't believe in a physical god?
Another non sequitur. He thinks he “encountered” an objectively real, ie non-imaginary god – that god would therefore have had to have made itself available by some means for that to be the case – ie, “turned up”.
That's illogical. How can people retrieve information that their brain is not already familiar with? Where is the source of this information they reach for other than their brain?
And that’s the non sequitur hat trick! That’s not what I said. What I said was that when anyone having an “experience” turns only to knowledge they are already enculturated to for their causal explanations for it there’s no reason to take those explanations seriously.
Can you link to where Vlad has claimed objectively testable evidence? He said the presence was in his consciousness. How is that a claim for having objectively testable evidence?
Why are you doing this? Try to focus here: he DOESN’T (to my knowledge) claim to have objectively testable evidence; he DOES though claim his god to be an objective fact for all of us nonetheless.
A belief in "god" just means that someone holds the idea that their concept of god is true. Whereas a fact is something that has empirical evidence to support it, until new evidence comes along that amends the fact. You do know the two are not the same right? The belief that something is true is subjective, whereas facts can be objectively tested.
Sometimes you post something so dim witted (as here) that I seriously wonder whether you’re just trolling. VLAD THINK HIS SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE THAT HE ASCRIBES TO “GOD” IS EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS THEREFORE A GOD.
It doesn’t matter for this purpose that he jumps straight from the subjective to the objective with no logic (or very poor logic) or evidence to bridge the gap – the salient fact is that he does it nonetheless.
You still haven't explained what's remarkable about it, despite me asking many times. Any sense he makes of an experience he has will be based on information already stored in his brain. What's remarkable about that and what's the alternative?
FFS. Try to focus here: the point that was made to him was that he (like all theists) explains his “experience” solely by reference to the information he has already about a “god”. He doesn’t though suddenly reach for information about, say, an Amazonian tribe’s animal spirit god or one of the gods of ancient Rome for his explanation. All these claims of god(s) are also claims of objective fact – there really is the Christian god; there really is an animal spirit god; there really is Neptune etc. They are claims about the objects of beliefs. They are claims of objectively true entities.
What you did though was to flag the effect of environment on subjective responses (tastes and preferences) to objectively true phenomena (tea, music etc). The statement “I prefer coffee to tea” is a claim of the subjective, but it’s not a claim about the objective fact of tea or coffee.
And that was your category error.
-
Some atheists could be or are you suggesting they can't lie?, Others don't really want a God(Krauss, Nagel). I don't really know what people who allege themselves to be agnostic but choose to act as atheist which seems to include posting ostensibly antitheistic sentiment are properly up to, but they seem to have taken a decision to action somewhere along the line.
Your generalised positive claim, your burden of proof. And I note you've accepted that you think atheists are 'disabled, Agnostic doesn't mean unsure, it's abour a claim to knowledge. . You can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist.
-
Sriram,
It is very clear that atheists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment.
How would you propose to justify that unqualified claim?
It is like born blind people denying the existence of light.
No it isn’t. You’ve been corrected on this before, so I don’t know why you’ve repeated the mistake. Your cheat here is to pick an established phenomenon (light) that some people can’t identify to draw an analogy with these supposed “patterns” you claim to discern. I may as well claim “It is very clear that a-leprechaunists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning leprechauns in their environment” and “It is like born leprechaun-blind people denying the existence of leprechauns”.
Believers are able to discern these patterns and are able to even discern the presence of higher levels of consciousness within themselves. How they interpret or imagine these experiences is related to their culture and religious background.
No – “believers” are able to believe they discern these supposed patterns, but that’s all. The clue is in the word “believers”. If you want to justify your claim about these supposed patterns then you need to make an argument (and better yet provide some evidence) for it.
-
I've posted this research many times - the key figure involved is David Voas, who is pretty well the most eminent academic researcher on religiosity in the UK. His research (and plenty of others) suggests that just 3% of children brought up in non religious households (note that is the household it doesn't take account of wider society, schooling etc) become religious as adults.
For completeness - for children brought up in a religious household where both parents are religious, 50% become religious as adults and 50% don't. And virtually all who retain a religiosity do so within the religion of their upbringing.
Where there is a 'mixed' household with one religious parent and one non religious parent the proportion that are religious as adults falls to 25% with three quarters being non religious as adults.
So VG, I think you represent a pretty rare demographic - in being someone brought up in one religion, but ending up an adherent of a different religion as an adult.
But the broad point remains - if a child isn't brought up in a religious household the likelihood of them becoming religious as an adult is pretty tiny - just 3%.
The other key finding is that, contrary to popular myth, people do not get more religious as they get older. In fact there is virtually no change in overall population-level religiosity as people get older, with overall religiosity pretty well set at early adulthood.
And this understanding of the almost perfect generational transmission of non-religiosity, and the 50:50 (at best) likelihood of transmission of religiosity is the reason why the numbers of religious people in the UK is falling and (barring the effects of immigration) will continue to fall for decades to come.
Given the number of people I personally know who have changed religion, it's a strange definition of rare. Including me, just among my sister-in-laws alone, there are 4 converts to Islam (1 Hindu, 1 Christian, 1 Buddhist and me who was atheist but brought up Hindu until age 12 or 13 yrs).
Then there are whole FB groups for converts to Islam - not that I have gone on them. It has been reported that religious conversion in Sri Lanka is common enough in Sri Lanka to lead to increased communal tensions https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/are-religious-conversions-taking-place-in-sri-lanka/
None of this explains what tips someone into belief.
-
Sriram,
How would you propose to justify that unqualified claim?
No it isn’t. You’ve been corrected on this before, so I don’t know why you’ve repeated the mistake. Your cheat here is to pick an established phenomenon (light) that some people can’t identify to draw an analogy with these supposed “patterns” you claim to discern. I may as well claim “It is very clear that a-leprechaunists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning leprechauns in their environment” and “It is like born leprechaun-blind people denying the existence of leprechauns”.
No – “believers” are able to believe they discern these supposed patterns, but that’s all. The clue is in the word “believers”. If you want to justify your claim about these supposed patterns then you need to make an argument (and better yet provide some evidence) for it.
You want me to copy Post 969 here again for you?!!
-
You have me at a disadvantage sir, who are you?
Trentvoyager of old. I'd have thought the number of times you've changed names you would have been able to work out my recent transformation.
-
Your generalised positive claim, your burden of proof. And I note you've accepted that you think atheists are 'disabled, Agnostic doesn't mean unsure, it's abour a claim to knowledge. . You can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist.
It's worse than saying atheists are disabled, your word introduced to portray me as anti-disabled perhaps?, I'm saying everyone needs Christ.
Did I define agnosticism? I don't think I did. I think agnostic atheism on here has led people to post the antitheist sentiment/bollocks that they do. I am not talking about their agnosticism but their stated commitment to the atheism as demonstrated on Religion ethics year after year after year after year etc.
-
All minds discern patterns subconsciously, this is not a special talent that theists alone have. Almost all mind function is subconscious, remember ?
I am not talking of theists or any specific belief. I am talking about a general and secular faith about some form of hidden intelligence that is working behind the scenes in our lives and in the entire environment. Refer to my thread on 'Faith'.
This basic 'faith' could later get translated into religious belief ....which is a different matter.
-
Trentvoyager of old. I'd have thought the number of times you've changed names you would have been able to work out my recent transformation.
Ahoy there, Artist formally known as Trentvoyager. I thought name changes were only performed by Aholes like me.
May one ask the derivation of yer new handle?
-
Sriram,
You want me to copy Post 969 here again for you?!!
You can if you like, but it doesn’t help you.
First, the article talks about recognising “complex patterns”. Thus the researchers (presumably) made sure there were some complex patterns to be identified, albeit patterns not apparent a sub-set of the participants. That is, no-one doubts the fact of these patterns (including presumably the people who couldn’t initially recognise them for themselves, but perhaps did so once they were explained).
You on the other hand just claim to “discern patterns” with no evidence that you are doing any such thing.
Second, that article’s tentative conclusion that people “may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power" isn’t a suggestion that there is a higher power. Rather it just confirms that as a pattern- and explanation-seeking species, the more patterns we see the more there is to explain.
Oh, and none of this gets you off the hook of your false analogy with light for the reason I explained to you.
-
Ahoy there, Artist formally known as Trentvoyager. I thought name changes were only performed by Aholes like me.
May one ask the derivation of yer new handle?
The River Arun, which I live in the vicinity of in West Sussex (this may also change) and my hope to travel more. Although, I feel this name-changing thing might be a bit like tattoos. When you've done it once you may want to keep on doing it.
-
Given the number of people I personally know who have changed religion, it's a strange definition of rare. Including me, just among my sister-in-laws alone, there are 4 converts to Islam (1 Hindu, 1 Christian, 1 Buddhist and me who was atheist but brought up Hindu until age 12 or 13 yrs).
Anecdote a go-go.
That's why you need to do proper research to determine the actual facts rather than selected anecdotes. The data I know best are for christian denominations - I'll look up islam but give that their numbers are pretty small anyhow in the UK, I cannot see how their figures are likely to move the overall data much.
So for christianity in the UK, typically less than 1% of current adherents have 'converted' from a non-christian religion of their upbringing. There is some church amongst various christian denominations, but someone brought up non-christian becoming a christian as an adult is actually rarer than someone brought up in a non religious household becoming religious as an adult.
-
It's worse than saying atheists are disabled, your word introduced to portray me as anti-disabled perhaps?, I'm saying everyone needs Christ.
Did I define agnosticism? I don't think I did. I think agnostic atheism on here has led people to post the antitheist sentiment/bollocks that they do. I am not talking about their agnosticism but their stated commitment to the atheism as demonstrated on Religion ethics year after year after year after year etc.
I picked up the 'disabled' from Prof D's reply to Sriram where Sriram introduced the idea of atheists being blind. I put it in quote to emphasise that it is metaphorical. Your idea that it is somehow about making you disablist is a straw man.
Your use of agnostic implied it as not being compatible with atheism. Given your general inability to write coherently, I am happy to accept that was not your intention.
I have no idea why you think that agnostic atheism has lead
'people to post the antitheist sentiment/bollocks that they do', and given that's just an assertion from you don't see any reason to take it seriously.
-
VG,
None of it.
That’s a non sequitur. The fact that Vlad doesn’t have “objective testable evidence” (or any evidence at all for that matter) for his god does not imply that he doesn’t think his god is objectively real nonetheless – that is, he thinks that his “inner experience” (albeit justified with some very bad arguments) is a reliable guide to objective truths for all of us, only some of us haven’t had his good fortune of “encountering” it.
If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.
Another non sequitur. He thinks he “encountered” an objectively real, ie non-imaginary god – that god would therefore have had to have made itself available by some means for that to be the case – ie, “turned up”.
And that’s the non sequitur hat trick! That’s not what I said. What I said was that when anyone having an “experience” turns only to knowledge they are already enculturated to for their causal explanations for it there’s no reason to take those explanations seriously.
Why are you doing this? Try to focus here: he DOESN’T (to my knowledge) claim to have objectively testable evidence; he DOES though claim his god to be an objective fact for all of us nonetheless.
Sometimes you post something so dim witted (as here) that I seriously wonder whether you’re just trolling. VLAD THINK HIS SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE THAT HE ASCRIBES TO “GOD” IS EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS THEREFORE A GOD.
It doesn’t matter for this purpose that he jumps straight from the subjective to the objective with no logic (or very poor logic) or evidence to bridge the gap – the salient fact is that he does it nonetheless.
FFS. Try to focus here: the point that was made to him was that he (like all theists) explains his “experience” solely by reference to the information he has already about a “god”. He doesn’t though suddenly reach for information about, say, an Amazonian tribe’s animal spirit god or one of the gods of ancient Rome for his explanation. All these claims of god(s) are also claims of objective fact – there really is the Christian god; there really is an animal spirit god; there really is Neptune etc. They are claims about the objects of beliefs. They are claims of objectively true entities.
What you did though was to flag the effect of environment on subjective responses (tastes and preferences) to objectively true phenomena (tea, music etc). The statement “I prefer coffee to tea” is a claim of the subjective, but it’s not a claim about the objective fact of tea or coffee.
And that was your category error.
There are various christian ideas about the gods Plural They exist but are demons through to they are human expressions and ideas of divinity.
Then there is an atheist version where all gods and God are equal and in competition with each other resulting in the atheist being so spoilt for choice not only can he or she not make a choice but it proves somehow that none of them exist. Although they will probably not be able to explain such a position.
-
Anecdote a go-go.
That's why you need to do proper research to determine the actual facts rather than selected anecdotes. The data I know best are for christian denominations - I'll look up islam but give that their numbers are pretty small anyhow in the UK, I cannot see how their figures are likely to move the overall data much.
So for christianity in the UK, typically less than 1% of current adherents have 'converted' from a non-christian religion of their upbringing. There is some church amongst various christian denominations, but someone brought up non-christian becoming a christian as an adult is actually rarer than someone brought up in a non religious household becoming religious as an adult.
Ok - the information I'm pulling up about the numbers of converts to islam in the UK (this will be from both other religions and non religious backgrounds) is approx. 100,000. Given that the muslim population of England and Wales (and assuming all these converts are in England and Wales!) then that means 2.6% of current muslims in the UK (or England and Wales!) are converts - in other words not brought up muslim. So in the same ball park as other religions and I think 2.6% comfortable fits my terminology of rare.
-
Sriram,
I am not talking of theists or any specific belief. I am talking about a general and secular faith about some form of hidden intelligence that is working behind the scenes in our lives and in the entire environment. Refer to my thread on 'Faith'.
This basic 'faith' could later get translated into religious belief ....which is a different matter.
But you still have the problem of establishing that this faith in "some form of hidden intelligence that is working behind the scenes in our lives and in the entire environment" also has some basis in fact.
-
Vlad,
There are various christian ideas about the gods Plural They exist but are demons through to they are human expressions and ideas of divinity.
Sorry, but what exist – the “various christian ideas about the gods Plural” part or the “demons” part?
If the former, no doubt; if the latter though, you would justify that remarkable claim how?
Then there is an atheist version where all gods and God are equal…
Epistemically, yes…
…and in competition with each other…
No necessarily – some religions have pantheons of gods functioning harmoniously.
…resulting in the atheist being so spoilt for choice not only can he or she not make a choice but it proves somehow that none of them exist.
(Yet another) straw man. First, as a general statement atheists don’t claim to “prove” that gods don’t exist. Second, the fact of claims about a multiplicity of possible gods is not the reason atheists in general don’t believe in any of them: it’s the paucity of evidence for any of them that justifies that.
Although they will probably not be able to explain such a position.
That’s right – but only because no atheist is obliged to explain a position that you’ve just straw manned into existence.
-
This is obvious VG... Why would a stubborn born blind man accept the existence of light entirely on someones explanations? How can any sound or vibration of any instrument (activated by light) convince him that light exists? He has to accept all this on faith. There is no way he can experience light by himself directly.
Light might not be able to be converted to electrical impulses by his eyes to his brain, but understanding what someone means by "light" won't just be based on someone else's words alone. Those explanations are backed up by data and instruments to record the data to form theories about light's properties that can be used to make predictions that can be tested. People who aren't blind can see the data and evidence. That isn't to say that everyone will see the same thing. As this article on the perceived colour of a dress explains, perception is inherently idiosyncratic - hence the dress might look white and gold to some people and black and blue to others. https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2617976
In contrast your interpretations of patterns detected by your sub-conscious can only be experienced by you. There is no method of gathering data on what the patterns are evidence for or any predictions that can be tested.
-
VG,
Given the number of people I personally know who have changed religion…
Just out of interest, have you ever known someone who changed to a religion about which they didn’t already have an internal library of information? Has any Christian or Muslim you know of woken up one day converted to the Inca gods (or vice versa) for example, and better yet woken up suddenly possessed of lots of information about them too?
-
It is very clear that atheists lack a certain ability for subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment. It is like born blind people denying the existence of light.
Believers are able to discern these patterns and are able to even discern the presence of higher levels of consciousness within themselves. How they interpret or imagine these experiences is related to their culture and religious background.
You are assuming that the patterns are there and have significance rather than are just a faulty interpretation.
-
Light might not be able to be converted to electrical impulses by his eyes to his brain, but understanding what someone means by "light" won't just be based on someone else's words alone. Those explanations are backed up by data and instruments to record the data to form theories about light's properties that can be used to make predictions that can be tested. People who aren't blind can see the data and evidence. That isn't to say that everyone will see the same thing. As this article on the perceived colour of a dress explains, perception is inherently idiosyncratic - hence the dress might look white and gold to some people and black and blue to others. https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2617976
In contrast your interpretations of patterns detected by your sub-conscious can only be experienced by you. There is no method of gathering data on what the patterns are evidence for or any predictions that can be tested.
You are not getting the point VG.
Its not about an intellectual understanding of light and its properties....although even that has to be taken on faith by the blind person because he can never experience it directly.
i am talking about the experience of light.
If the person chooses to believe others ...fine. If not, he can choose to remain skeptical....and there is no way he can be provided convincing proof of light.....even though it is falling on his skin every moment.
-
VG,
None of it.
That’s a non sequitur. The fact that Vlad doesn’t have “objective testable evidence” (or any evidence at all for that matter) for his god does not imply that he doesn’t think his god is objectively real nonetheless – that is, he thinks that his “inner experience” (albeit justified with some very bad arguments) is a reliable guide to objective truths for all of us, only some of us haven’t had his good fortune of “encountering” it.
If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.
Another non sequitur. He thinks he “encountered” an objectively real, ie non-imaginary god – that god would therefore have had to have made itself available by some means for that to be the case – ie, “turned up”.
And that’s the non sequitur hat trick! That’s not what I said. What I said was that when anyone having an “experience” turns only to knowledge they are already enculturated to for their causal explanations for it there’s no reason to take those explanations seriously.
Why are you doing this? Try to focus here: he DOESN’T (to my knowledge) claim to have objectively testable evidence; he DOES though claim his god to be an objective fact for all of us nonetheless.
Sometimes you post something so dim witted (as here) that I seriously wonder whether you’re just trolling. VLAD THINK HIS SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE THAT HE ASCRIBES TO “GOD” IS EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS THEREFORE A GOD.
It doesn’t matter for this purpose that he jumps straight from the subjective to the objective with no logic (or very poor logic) or evidence to bridge the gap – the salient fact is that he does it nonetheless.
FFS. Try to focus here: the point that was made to him was that he (like all theists) explains his “experience” solely by reference to the information he has already about a “god”. He doesn’t though suddenly reach for information about, say, an Amazonian tribe’s animal spirit god or one of the gods of ancient Rome for his explanation. All these claims of god(s) are also claims of objective fact – there really is the Christian god; there really is an animal spirit god; there really is Neptune etc. They are claims about the objects of beliefs. They are claims of objectively true entities.
What you did though was to flag the effect of environment on subjective responses (tastes and preferences) to objectively true phenomena (tea, music etc). The statement “I prefer coffee to tea” is a claim of the subjective, but it’s not a claim about the objective fact of tea or coffee.
And that was your category error.
I'm not going to respond to your individual points as my response to all of them is fairly simple. You (and possibly Vlad though I haven't seen evidence to decide) are mixing up terminology. "Objective fact" is used for something for which there is objective, testable evidence to support the fact.
Vlad has stated that he has no such objective evidence, therefore whatever he thinks God is, it can't be objective fact. Anymore than a person can say it is a fact that they have honour. God and honour are subjective abstract concepts, which people can lay claim to but can't evidence objectively. Anything for which there is no objective evidence, but which people claim to be true, are beliefs. Until the substance or object of their belief can be verified as objective fact, it remains a belief.
I am not sure why you are focusing on tea and coffee, which are not similar to morals or honour or God. My analogy to the inputs peddled to us when we are young was in relation to the narrative/ aesthetics e.g. the religious narrative or the moral narrative or music or taste, not to the existence of a supernatural entity. If you experience something, your brain will make sense of it based on its prior inputs and experiences.
-
Sriram,
But you still have the problem of establishing that this faith in "some form of hidden intelligence that is working behind the scenes in our lives and in the entire environment" also has some basis in fact.
Its about perception. If a person has the vision and insight he can see that it is a fact. Others (like the blind person) have to remain in doubt. Nothing can be done about it.
But once a person is convinced about the presence of the hidden intelligence, it can never go away. He will keep 'sensing' its presence every time.
And it has nothing to do with imagery or deities or religious concepts. These are additional.
-
Ok - the information I'm pulling up about the numbers of converts to islam in the UK (this will be from both other religions and non religious backgrounds) is approx. 100,000. Given that the muslim population of England and Wales (and assuming all these converts are in England and Wales!) then that means 2.6% of current muslims in the UK (or England and Wales!) are converts - in other words not brought up muslim. So in the same ball park as other religions and I think 2.6% comfortable fits my terminology of rare.
So from looking it up it in the Economist a 2013 article seems to estimate 100,000 Muslim converts in Britain, with 5,200 converting to Islam every year. So not my idea of rare, which would be somewhere less than 1%.
The Economist article links to a Pew Research estimate that a quarter of the Muslims in the US are converts. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2007/07/21/converts-to-islam/
-
Vlad,
Sorry, but what exist – the “various christian ideas about the gods Plural” part or the “demons” part?
If the former, no doubt; if the latter though, you would justify that remarkable claim how?
Epistemically, yes…
But alas not philosophically.
No necessarily – some religions have pantheons of gods functioning harmoniously.
But the point is some atheists have them all competing as their rebuttal for Pascals wager. Loads of them in fact. It sounds like you want your cake and eat it here(Yet another) Second, the fact of claims about a multiplicity of possible gods is not the reason atheists in general don’t believe in any of them
It is commonly used as a rebuttal for Pascal's wager so I believe once again you are wrong here.
In terms of Pascal's wager then they are not equal or equivalent. Pantheons might contain the necessary entity but either one of them or none of them are necessary.
Monotheisms only contain one, The necessary entity. For me a contingent god is philosophically unsatisfying and should be for you also because there is nothing ultimate about them.
Since the rebuttal of Pascals wager has been er, rebutted I predict a lot of what was gospel in New Atheism will also degrade over time and scrutiny.
-
Its about perception. If a person has the vision and insight he can see that it is a fact. Others (like the blind person) have to remain in doubt. Nothing can be done about it.
But once a person is convinced about the presence of the hidden intelligence, it can never go away. He will keep 'sensing' its presence every time.
And it has nothing to do with imagery or deities or religious concepts. These are additional.
Perception - sensing - presence - hidden - insight.
I'll build my argument on shifting sands. Not very stable, but very easy to avoid any unwanted scrutiny.
-
VG,
Just out of interest, have you ever known someone who changed to a religion about which they didn’t already have an internal library of information? Has any Christian or Muslim you know of woken up one day converted to the Inca gods (or vice versa) for example, and better yet woken up suddenly possessed of lots of information about them too?
Do you know anyone who suddenly woke possessed with lots of information about something that they have never had any prior exposure to? No, didn't think so. Why would a religious narrative be any different?
-
Its about perception. If a person has the vision and insight he can see that it is a fact. Others (like the blind person) have to remain in doubt. Nothing can be done about it.
A fact is something for which there is objective testable evidence. So he can claim it is fact but he is not going to get very far in establishing it as fact rather than belief as he has no proof.
-
I am not sure why you are focusing on tea and coffee, which are not similar to morals or honour or God. My analogy to the inputs peddled to us when we are young was in relation to the narrative/ aesthetics e.g. the religious narrative or the moral narrative or music or taste, not to the existence of a supernatural entity. If you experience something, your brain will make sense of it based on its prior inputs and experiences.
His focus smacks loudly of horses laugh argument. He is trying to trivialise the point of his opposition.
-
Its about perception. If a person has the vision and insight he can see that it is a fact. Others (like the blind person) have to remain in doubt. Nothing can be done about it.
But once a person is convinced about the presence of the hidden intelligence, it can never go away. He will keep 'sensing' its presence every time.
And it has nothing to do with imagery or deities or religious concepts. These are additional.
No, they can believe it is a fact but that doesn't mean it is.
-
So from looking it up it in the Economist a 2013 article seems to estimate 100,000 Muslim converts in Britain, with 5,200 converting to Islam every year.
Thanks for confirming that I appear to be correct in my estimation that somewhere around 2.6% of muslims in were not brought up muslims - i.e. converts. In my book that is rare. But remember that this number ins't just those brought up in another religion and who then convert to islam.
So not my idea of rare, which would be somewhere less than 1%.
But you are comparing apples and pears. I said that a person becoming an adherent to one religion having been brought up in another religion was rare - nor in that context did I mention any specific religion, but reflected on the fact that you are one of those rare people.
But back to Islam - that 2.6% figure, which we presumably now both agree on isn't just those brought up in a different religion and become muslims as adults. Nope is also includes those brought up non religious and who become muslims as adults. My claim of 'rare' was about those brought up in one religion and becoming another religion as an adult. This will be a sub-set of the 2.6%, so certainly lower that this. How low I'm not sure, but looking at christianity as a benchmark (and the overall conversion rates to christianity and islam appear similar) a greater proportion of the overall conversion numbers are for non-religion to religion, not from one religion to another religion.
But the overall point remains - in my book somewhere between 0 and 2.6% is rare and more importantly your anecdotes about knowing a bunch of people in this 0-2.6% range tells us absolutely nothing about the real figures.
-
Sriram,
You are not getting the point VG.
Its not about an intellectual understanding of light and its properties....
This is the same cheat that Vlad tries when he complains of “mere intellectual consent” or some such. If you think something can’t be verified “intellectually” then you still have the problem of verifying it by some other means. Try to remember this.
…although even that has to be taken on faith by the blind person because he can never experience it directly.
i am talking about the experience of light.
If the person chooses to believe others ...fine. If not, he can choose to remain skeptical....and there is no way he can be provided convincing proof of light.....even though it is falling on his skin every moment
Again with the false analogy? Why not “the leprechauns I believe to be real have to be taken on faith by people without the perception to discern them as I do”? Your cheat here is to take for your analogy a phenomenon that’s justified (light) and to pretend it’s equivalent to one that isn’t (“patterns”). For an analogy to be valid you’d have to compare two non-justified claims (eg, patterns and leprechauns).
Again, try to remember this.
-
VLAD THINK HIS SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE THAT HE ASCRIBES TO “GOD” IS EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS THEREFORE A GOD.
Sorry Hillside I missed this....and there my regret for any disservice I've done to you has to end.
I have stated on this board that I have no empirical evidence for God since the necessary being is empirically undetectable, I believe I have said that God doesn't fit into a physicalist definition as he is not physical.
I believe that my relating my experience is probably acceptable evidence in the legal sense e.g. in the event that somebody declared in a legal setting that God did not exist and therefore a minister or priest was guilty of fraud or misappropriation.
Let us not forget that you have had God guilty of homophobia, assault etc on an ''if God existed'' basis. In fact agnostic atheism is based on the possibility of God existing and no, I don't believe like you do that anything is possible.
If you do not accept my experience then there is always the argument for God from contingency, the philosophical argument.
Your brand of atheism may not have much time for this and indeed philosophy full stop and I think that is because many of your own world view and arguments do not withstand philosophical scrutiny.
As I say if there is an experiment that demonstrates God it must involve yourself since a scientific observer is an 'outsider' or does her best to be.
If you will only accept empirical or physical evidence then you are a physicalist or empiricist whether you 'identify' as such or not. The demand for 'any' evidence from such a one is not productive or actually meant at all. IMHO.
-
VG,
I'm not going to respond to your individual points as my response to all of them is fairly simple.
That’s probably wise.
You (and possibly Vlad though I haven't seen evidence to decide) are mixing up terminology. "Objective fact" is used for something for which there is objective, testable evidence to support the fact.
You’re straw manning me again, and I haven’t mixed up anything. I keep saying the same thing, but I’m also not the one who elides subjective ‘experience” (of a supposed “encounter” in Vlad’s case) into a claim of objective fact (“therefore god”).
Vlad has stated that he has no such objective evidence, therefore whatever he thinks God is, it can't be objective fact.
Gee, you think?
Anymore than a person can say it is a fact that they have honour.
Actually that’s not quite right. If you define “honour” as behaving in certain ways (helping little old ladies across the road etc) and the claimant consistently does that, then “I have honour” is demonstrably true.
God and honour are subjective abstract concepts, which people can lay claim to but can't evidence objectively. Anything for which there is no objective evidence, but which people claim to be true, are beliefs. Until the substance or object of their belief can be verified as objective fact, it remains a belief.
I hear it gets dark at night time too. Leaving aside the honour point (see above) you’re just mirroring back to me the same point I’ve aways made to theists who claim as objective fact the god they “experience” subjectively but cannot show to be therefore objectively real.
I am not sure why you are focusing on tea and coffee, which are not similar to morals…
Yes they are. Preferring one hot beverage over another is a matter of taste – ie, aesthetics. So is morality (technically a branch of aesthetics).
Here’s a song I like. You might too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu5dEXZ7DOY
…or honour or God.
Leaving honour to one side (see above), yes “god” is inasmuch as taste and preference for a god is a statement of the subjective (just like taste and preference for coffee or tea is a statement of the subjective) even though those who make it typically overreach into a claim of objective fact even though they can't justify that (for the reasons you keep repeating to me as if I didn’t know them already).
My analogy to the inputs peddled to us when we are young was in relation to the narrative/ aesthetics e.g. the religious narrative or the moral narrative or music or taste, not to the existence of a supernatural entity. If you experience something, your brain will make sense of it based on its prior inputs and experiences.
Yes, but the conversation with Vlad was precisely about “inputs peddled to us when we are young” to justify claims he wants us to treat as objective, factual etc. That was your category error – telling me that we’re all influenced by our environment for the aesthetic choices we make is fine, but it doesn’t address Vlad’s (and others’) problem that they reach for environmental influences to define causes they want us to treat as objective fact.
If someone says, “I prefer coffee over tea because I grew up in a coffee drinking household” no-one much will care. When someone else though says, “I had an experience, and it’s objectively the case therefore that it was caused by the only god my upbringing gave me information about” then it raises suspicions about the veracity of the claim (because of the co-incidence it requires).
I’m sorry, but I don’t know how else to explain this. Environmental influence on aesthetic preference is one thing; environmental influence on claims of objective fact for the rest of us too is quite another – they’re different epistemological categories of claim.
-
VG,
Do you know anyone who suddenly woke possessed with lots of information about something that they have never had any prior exposure to? No, didn't think so. Why would a religious narrative be any different?
Because, obviously, we might reasonably expect people who think they’ve “encountered” a “god” who’s “converted” them to know something more from the experience than only what they happened to have been enculturated to before the event. Vlad thinks he encountered a god an lo and behold it just happens to be the exact same god he was taught about at Sunday school; the Amazonian tribesman thinks he encountered a god, and lo and behold it just happens to be the exact same animal spirit his elders told him about etc.
This suggests strongly to me that gods are cultural artefacts, not objectively real entities we happen to come across. Doesn’t it suggest that to you too?
-
Vlad,
But alas not philosophically.
What philosophy would that be?
But the point is some atheists have them all competing as their rebuttal for Pascals wager. Loads of them in fact.
Picking the wrong god (who would then be pissed off with you) is a secondary objection to Pascal’s wager, and not a particularly serious one. The main rebuttals are stronger than that.
It sounds like you want your cake and eat it here
What else would I do with cake?
It is commonly used as a rebuttal for Pascal's wager so I believe once again you are wrong here.
No it isn’t – see above.
In terms of Pascal's wager then they are not equal or equivalent. Pantheons might contain the necessary entity but either one of them or none of them are necessary.
Why are you still going on about Pascal’s wager?
Monotheisms only contain one, The necessary entity.
Only that’s monotheisms plural – each of which has its own god. How does that help you?
For me a contingent god is philosophically unsatisfying and should be for you also because there is nothing ultimate about them.
For me any god is “philosophically unsatisfying” because there’s bugger all philosophy worthy of the name to support the claim.
Since the rebuttal of Pascals wager has been er, rebutted I predict a lot of what was gospel in New Atheism will also degrade over time and scrutiny.
You’ve collapsed into gibberish again. What are you trying to say?
-
Vlad,
Sorry Hillside I missed this....and there my regret for any disservice I've done to you has to end.
Well, let’s see shall we?...
I have stated on this board that I have no empirical evidence for God since the necessary being is empirically undetectable, I believe I have said that God doesn't fit into a physicalist definition as he is not physical.
Yes you have. That’s why I made no reference to empirical evidence – just to "evidence" (“VLAD THINK HIS SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE THAT HE ASCRIBES TO “GOD” IS EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS THEREFORE A GOD”), which is a fair description of what you do I think
I believe that my relating my experience is probably acceptable evidence…
See, I told you it was a fair description…
…in the legal sense…
Not even close. If I turned up at a court of law and claimed to have met a supernatural anything I’d be laughed out of the place.
…e.g. in the event that somebody declared in a legal setting that God did not exist and therefore a minister or priest was guilty of fraud or misappropriation.
What? You do know that courts are as aware of the shifting of the burden of proof fallacy as I am right?
Let us not forget that you have had God guilty of homophobia, assault etc on an ''if God existed'' basis. In fact agnostic atheism is based on the possibility of God existing and no, I don't believe like you do that anything is possible.
You seem not to understand what “agnostic” means here, but in any case by all means don’t forget it as various biblical claims about “god” do describe a genocidal monster.
If you do not accept my experience…
I do accept that you had an “experience” of some sort (why wouldn’t I?). You’ve given me no cogent reason though to think that it wasn’t entirely self-generated rather than an encounter from a universe-creating deity.
…then there is always the argument for God from contingency, the philosophical argument.
Which has been dismantled and rebutted here many times.
Your brand of atheism may not have much time for this and indeed philosophy full stop and I think that is because many of your own world view and arguments do not withstand philosophical scrutiny.
I don’t have a “brand” of atheism, and it’s because there’s no cogent philosophical support for theism that I have no reason to accept it.
As I say if there is an experiment that demonstrates God it must involve yourself since a scientific observer is an 'outsider' or does her best to be.
Nope, no idea. Is there a thought in there somewhere that struggling to escape?
If you will only accept empirical or physical evidence then you are a physicalist or empiricist whether you 'identify' as such or not. The demand for 'any' evidence from such a one is not productive or actually meant at all. IMHO.
Oh dear. I will accept evidence, and at this point the only type of evidence I’m aware of is the empirical type. If you think there’s a different type of evidence though, then the burden of proof is with you tell us what it is, to explain how it can be tested and verified, to show that it’s epistemically distinguishable from just guessing etc. This is the point at which you always run away, but the issue doesn’t go away despite that.
Can I now assume that your “regret for any disservice I've done to you” will hereafter continue unabated as it should?
-
Which has been dismantled and rebutted here many times.
No it hasn't. The closest a big hitter atheist has come is Sean Carroll and the best he has come up with is that he is taking time to try to disprove the Principle of Sufficient Reason
That's the organ grinder.......The monkeys' best has been to try to disprove the PSR....... by using the PSR.
-
Only that’s monotheisms plural – each of which has its own god. How does that help you?
There is recognition though, that God is the necessary being. You are trying to eek many Gods out of one when what is really going on is disagreement on what this God is like.
You are reifying and deifying people's views on God.And you are still left with rejecting God because of a choice.
-
I will accept evidence, and at this point the only type of evidence I’m aware of is the empirical type.
And I have said I don't have any. I think that's an open and shut case which puts VG in the right and you, as per usual, with your arse in a sling.
You also said I'd get laughed out of court claiming the supernatural Would that be before being asked to swear on the bible or after?
-
Oh dear. I will accept evidence, and at this point the only type of evidence I’m aware of is the empirical type.
Why do you think what YOU ARE AWARE of is the standard?If you think there’s a different type of evidence though, then the burden of proof is with you tell us what it is,
The status quo here though is Philosophical Empiricism which itself needs empirical proof to explain how it can be tested and verified, to show that it’s epistemically distinguishable from just guessing etc. This is the point at which you always run away, but the issue doesn’t go away despite that........The status quo position is therefore self negating.
-
Vlad,
No it hasn't. The closest a big hitter atheist has come is Sean Carroll and the best he has come up with is that he is taking time to try to disprove the Principle of Sufficient Reason
That's the organ grinder.......The monkeys' best has been to try to disprove the PSR....... by using the PSR.
Yes it has. When you relocate unanswered questions about “the universe” (Did it begin? When did it begin? How did it begin? etc) to a “god” that's magic you abandon any pretence at philosophical support.
There is recognition though, that God is the necessary being. You are trying to eek many Gods out of one when what is really going on is disagreement on what this God is like.
No, it’s assertion rather than a recognition and in any case there’s no agreement on which (if any) of multiple gods they’re talking about.
You are reifying and deifying people's views on God.And you are still left with rejecting God because of a choice.
You’ve lapsed into gibberish again. What are you trying to say here?
And I have said I don't have any. I think that's an open and shut case which puts VG in the right and you, as per usual, with your arse in a sling.
You’re playing pigeon chess now*. If you don’t have any empirical evidence and you don’t have any other kind of evidence either, THEN YOU DON’T HAVE ANY EVIDENCE.
Try to understand this.
You also said I'd get laughed out of court claiming the supernatural Would that be before being asked to swear on the bible or after?
?
NURSE!
Why do you think what YOU ARE AWARE of is the standard?
It’s the standard for me. If you have some other kind of evidence that I’m not aware of you're welcome to bring it to my attention, but you never can or will though will you.
Funny that.
The status quo here though is Philosophical Empiricism which itself needs empirical proof to explain how it can be tested and verified, to show that it’s epistemically distinguishable from just guessing etc. This is the point at which you always run away, but the issue doesn’t go away despite that........The status quo position is therefore self negating.
You’ve had this utter bollocks detonated countless times before your eyes. Why on earth are you returning to exactly the same mistake yet again?
• ""Pigeon chess" or "like playing chess with a pigeon"[note 1] is a figure of speech originating from a comment made in March 2005 on Amazon by Scott D. Weitzenhoffer[2] regarding Eugenie Scott's book Evolution vs. Creationism: An introduction:
“Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.”
As such "debating techniques" are not limited to creationists, the phrase has entered the general Internet lexicon,[3] together with the source quotation, which is sometimes cited as an anonymous "Internet law". The reference to creationists is usually replaced with whatever group the user is arguing with."
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pigeon_chess
-
VG,
That’s probably wise.
You’re straw manning me again, and I haven’t mixed up anything. I keep saying the same thing, but I’m also not the one who elides subjective ‘experience” (of a supposed “encounter” in Vlad’s case) into a claim of objective fact (“therefore god”).
Gee, you think?
Actually that’s not quite right. If you define “honour” as behaving in certain ways (helping little old ladies across the road etc) and the claimant consistently does that, then “I have honour” is demonstrably true.
Honour is defined as behaving in certain ways - in the dictionary it is defined as "knowing and doing what is morally right"; and given 'morally right ' is defined as in accord with principles which are considered right or honest or acceptable - you can see we're just going round in circles as what is morally right will depend on who you speak to, hence we end up with people disowning their relatives or getting into conflict because they think it is necessary for their honour. It's all based on subjective inner feelings but people still use the term because they believe it is real.
I hear it gets dark at night time too. Leaving aside the honour point (see above) you’re just mirroring back to me the same point I’ve aways made to theists who claim as objective fact the god they “experience” subjectively but cannot show to be therefore objectively real.
I'm not interested in your history with theists - we're discussing the post Vlad made on this thread where he said he felt God's presence in his consciousness. He did not make a claim that he had objective evidence of this so it was a statement of belief not a claim of fact.
Yes they are. Preferring one hot beverage over another is a matter of taste – ie, aesthetics. So is morality (technically a branch of aesthetics).
Here’s a song I like. You might too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu5dEXZ7DOY
Leaving honour to one side (see above), yes “god” is inasmuch as taste and preference for a god is a statement of the subjective (just like taste and preference for coffee or tea is a statement of the subjective) even though those who make it typically overreach into a claim of objective fact even though they can't justify that (for the reasons you keep repeating to me as if I didn’t know them already)
Yes, but the conversation with Vlad was precisely about “inputs peddled to us when we are young” to justify claims he wants us to treat as objective, factual etc. That was your category error – telling me that we’re all influenced by our environment for the aesthetic choices we make is fine, but it doesn’t address Vlad’s (and others’) problem that they reach for environmental influences to define causes they want us to treat as objective fact.
If someone says, “I prefer coffee over tea because I grew up in a coffee drinking household” no-one much will care. When someone else though says, “I had an experience, and it’s objectively the case therefore that it was caused by the only god my upbringing gave me information about” then it raises suspicions about the veracity of the claim (because of the co-incidence it requires).
I’m sorry, but I don’t know how else to explain this. Environmental influence on aesthetic preference is one thing; environmental influence on claims of objective fact for the rest of us too is quite another – they’re different epistemological categories of claim.
You haven't demonstrated that Vlad has made a claim of objective fact. He stated a belief - there's a difference. The dictionary defines 'belief' as an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof: Which bit of this are you finding so hard to understand?
-
Oh dear. I will accept evidence, and at this point the only type of evidence I’m aware of is the empirical type. If you think there’s a different type of evidence though, then the burden of proof is with you tell us what it is, to explain how it can be tested and verified, to show that it’s epistemically distinguishable from just guessing etc. This is the point at which you always run away, but the issue doesn’t go away despite that.
The evidence you continue to ignore is "you"
You are far more than a continuum of a material universe entirely governed by physically defined reactions
-
VG,
Honour is defined as behaving in certain ways - in the dictionary it is defined as "knowing and doing what is morally right"; and given 'morally right ' is defined as in accord with principles which are considered right or honest or acceptable - you can see we're just going round in circles as what is morally right will depend on who you speak to, hence we end up with people disowning their relatives or getting into conflict because they think it is necessary for their honour. It's all based on subjective inner feelings but people still use the term because they believe it is real.
I notice you ignore the salient rebuttals to focus instead on a sidebar issue, but ok. Yes, what’s “morally right” is a moral question and morality is subjective. The point I was making though is that when moral standards are broadly agreed (stealing bad; helping little old ladies across the road good etc) then the extent to which someone acts accordingly is verifiable.
I'm not interested in your history with theists - we're discussing the post Vlad made on this thread where he said he felt God's presence in his consciousness. He did not make a claim that he had objective evidence of this so it was a statement of belief not a claim of fact.
What the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously though?
I KNOW IT WAS A STATEMENT OF BELIEF. REALLY I DO. I ALWAYS HAVE. STATEMENTS OF BELIEF ARE ALL HE HAS. THE POINT HERE THOUGH IS THAT HE (NOT I) THINKS HIS STATEMENT OF BELIEF IS ALSO A STATEMENT OF FACT.
Surely you must be able understand this now mustn’t you? Mustn’t you?
Dear god but you struggle…
You haven't demonstrated that Vlad has made a claim of objective fact. He stated a belief - there's a difference. The dictionary defines 'belief' as an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof: Which bit of this are you finding so hard to understand?
For fuck’s sake VG give your head a wobble will you? HE HASN’T MADE A STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVE FACT, BUT HE HAS MADE A CLAIM OF OBJECTIVE FACT NONETHELESS. TO VLAD’S MIND “GOD” IS OBJECTIVELY REAL, NOT JUST A PRODUCT OF HIS IMAGINATION. HE CAN’T JUSTIFY THAT CLAIM, BUT THAT DOESN’T STOP HIM MAKING IT NONETHELESS.
I really don’t know how to make this any clearer for you so will you PLEASE stop returning to the same mistake over and over again like a moth banging its head against a window. Please.
-
Vlad,
You’re playing pigeon chess now*. If you don’t have any empirical evidence and you don’t have any other kind of evidence either, THEN YOU DON’T HAVE ANY EVIDENCE.
If a person does not have empirical evidence, claims of objective fact are rejected.
They could have subjective evidence - the inner experience - that forms the basis of a belief that a concept is true, which their brain has interpreted based on the information stored in it due to past inputs and narratives e.g testimony that they believe to be authoritative. Which explains why the brain might prefer to make sense of the experience with the Christian narrative as opposed to Amazonian tree god narrative.
-
AB,
The evidence you continue to ignore is "you"
You are far more than a continuum of a material universe entirely governed by physically defined reactions
That’s an unqualified assertion, not evidence.
Try again.
-
VG,
If a person does not have empirical evidence, claims of objective fact are rejected.
No shit Sherlock. So now all you have to do is to explain that to Vlad, and perhaps to ask him whether he has any other type of evidence to fill the gap. He won’t answer you, but you can try.
They could have subjective evidence - the inner experience - that forms the basis of a belief that a concept is true, which their brain has interpreted based on the information stored in it due to past inputs and narratives e.g testimony that they believe to be authoritative. Which explains why the brain might prefer to make sense of the experience with the Christian narrative as opposed to Amazonian tree god narrative.
You don’t say. Yet again: Vlad (NOT I) thinks his “inner experience” is in some way a reliable guide to objective truths for the rest of us. I have no idea why he thinks this (and he won’t or can’t tell me) but that’s his belief nonetheless.
I have no idea either why you keep telling me that absence of evidence means “claims of objective fact are rejected” as if it’s something I don’t know already.
-
VG,
I notice you ignore the salient rebuttals to focus instead on a sidebar issue,
I haven't ignored anything - we're both saying the same thing - that claims of objective facts are facts if they are supported by objective evidence. but ok. Yes, what’s “morally right” is a moral question and morality is subjective. The point I was making though is that when moral standards are broadly agreed (stealing bad; helping little old ladies across the road good etc) then the extent to which someone acts accordingly is verifiable.
And the point I was making is what are the agreed moral standards for someone to have honour?
What the fuck is wrong with you? Seriously though?
I KNOW IT WAS A STATEMENT OF BELIEF. REALLY I DO. I ALWAYS HAVE. STATEMENTS OF BELIEF ARE ALL HE HAS. THE POINT HERE THOUGH IS THAT HE (NOT I) THINKS HIS STATEMENT OF BELIEF IS ALSO A STATEMENT OF FACT.
Surely you must be able understand this now mustn’t you? Mustn’t you?
Dear god but you struggle…
For fuck’s sake VG give your head a wobble will you? HE HASN’T MADE A STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVE FACT, BUT HE HAS MADE A CLAIM OF OBJECTIVE FACT NONETHELESS. TO VLAD’S MIND “GOD” IS OBJECTIVELY REAL, NOT JUST A PRODUCT OF HIS IMAGINATION. HE CAN’T JUSTIFY THAT CLAIM, BUT THAT DOESN’T STOP HIM MAKING IT NONETHELESS.
I really don’t know how to make this any clearer for you so will you PLEASE stop returning to the same mistake over and over again like a moth banging its head against a window. Please.
Enjoying yourself are you? Good for you. When you stop returning to the same mistake I will stop correcting you. Why are you finding it so hard to understand the difference between beliefs and facts. Vlad does not need to think God is a product of his imagination. As explained to you multiple times - a belief is something a person thinks is true but can't support with objective evidence. Hence Vlad is stating a belief. Happy to keep explaining this to you over and over and over and over etc - you get the gist of where I am going.
-
A fact is something for which there is objective testable evidence. So he can claim it is fact but he is not going to get very far in establishing it as fact rather than belief as he has no proof.
There is no way of proving to anyone else about the existence of the hidden intelligence.....just as there is no way of proving to a blind person the existence of light. It has to be experienced directly or taken on faith.
This has been the position for millennia. Nothing new about it.
-
How does anyone know whether some experience is just a belief or a fact. Check my post 845.
1. An experience is not just a belief. It is something felt repeatedly and sometimes at will.
2. The experience is interactive.
3. The experience has clear and discernible effects on ones health, mental clarity and peace.
4. The experience has definite effects in the external world and on ones circumstances.
How does one convince someone else about it? It can't be done. One can only share the experience and hope that the other person also has similar experiences. Otherwise it is again the 'blind man' situation.
-
If we seek some sort of an intellectual understanding of such internal experiences in modern day language....we can think of the source of such experiences as the Unconscious mind which we know has remarkable effects on our mind, health and well being. I have discussed this many times.
Problem however is that many people think of the unconscious mind as just a brain related phenomenon, merely an add-on facility generated through random variations and natural selection...for survival purposes.
If we start associating the unconscious mind with the Collective Unconscious and think of it as the primary faculty.... and as the source of our conscious mind. Then we will be able to understand the possible source of our extraordinary experiences and their effects on our lives.
-
Vlad,
Oh dear. I will accept evidence, and at this point the only type of evidence I’m aware of is the empirical type. If you think there’s a different type of evidence though, then the burden of proof is with you tell us what it is, to explain how it can be tested and verified, to show that it’s epistemically distinguishable from just guessing etc. This is the point at which you always run away, but the issue doesn’t go away despite that.
But we are talking about the burden of proof here so you are missing mathematical proof and philosophical proof which has been put forward. I think your last attempt to rebut offered a composite necessity, which there cannot be.
I am not shirking burden of proof, just not accepting that the status quo is philosophical empiricism which is self defeating.
-
The evidence you continue to ignore is "you"
You are far more than a continuum of a material universe entirely governed by physically defined reactions
That's what you believe but it's not a fact, just an assertion.
-
How does anyone know whether some experience is just a belief or a fact. Check my post 845.
1. An experience is not just a belief. It is something felt repeatedly and sometimes at will.
2. The experience is interactive.
3. The experience has clear and discernible effects on ones health, mental clarity and peace.
4. The experience has definite effects in the external world and on ones circumstances.
How does one convince someone else about it? It can't be done. One can only share the experience and hope that the other person also has similar experiences. Otherwise it is again the 'blind man' situation.
People have experiences and interpret them in a particular way. Others may have the same or similar experiences and interpret them in a different way. Just because belief in a particular interpretation may have 'discernible effects on ones health','effects in the external world' etc doesn't mean that that interpretation is correct.
-
Vlad,
Yes it has. When you relocate unanswered questions about “the universe” (Did it begin? When did it begin? How did it begin? etc) to a “god” ........
...........You are at the beginning of arguing an infinite regress which is no solution to anything, multiplies entities beyond necessity....infinitely.
So what you are saying is let’s stop at the universe and call that necessary. But then you think that stops infinite regress but a necessary being or God demands an infinite regress. That is self contradictory.If God demands an infinite regress then the universe would.
The universe cannot be necessary because it is composite.You said so yourself.
-
The evidence you continue to ignore is "you"
You are far more than a continuum of a material universe entirely governed by physically defined reactions
What is the evidence for that ?
-
I am not talking of theists or any specific belief. I am talking about a general and secular faith about some form of hidden intelligence that is working behind the scenes in our lives and in the entire environment. Refer to my thread on 'Faith'.
..
Which also sounds identical to the cognitive bias agent detection. With no objective validation, the assumption would be that such feelings or intuitions are all in the mind, a by-product of the way that minds have evolved to work.
-
VG,
I haven't ignored anything - we're both saying the same thing - that claims of objective facts are facts if they are supported by objective evidence.
OK…
And the point I was making is what are the agreed moral standards for someone to have honour?
The “agreed moral standards” are those of the society that's agreed them and in which the person claiming to be honourable happens to live. The ardent muslim who kills a blasphemer is “honourable” if he does it in a society in which such a thing is considered honourable; the person who helps a little old lady across the road is honourable if he does it in a society that considers such a thing to be honourable. This isn’t about what should and shouldn’t be deemed morally good, it’s just counting.
Enjoying yourself are you? Good for you. When you stop returning to the same mistake I will stop correcting you. Why are you finding it so hard to understand the difference between beliefs and facts. Vlad does not need to think God is a product of his imagination. As explained to you multiple times - a belief is something a person thinks is true but can't support with objective evidence. Hence Vlad is stating a belief. Happy to keep explaining this to you over and over and over and over etc - you get the gist of where I am going.
FFS. Why are you finding it so difficult to understand that your claim that the moon is made of cream cheese is just a belief, but not a fact? I’ve corrected you on this over and over again – as I’ve explained to you multiple times – a belief is something a person thinks is true but can't support with objective evidence. Hence you’re stating a belief. Happy to keep explaining this to you over and over and over and over etc - you get the gist of where I am going.
What’s that you say? “But I’ve never claimed that the moon is made of cream cheese? I’ve just rebutted the claim of someone else who thinks his belief about that makes it a fact?”
Welcome to my world.
-
Sriram,
There is no way of proving to anyone else about the existence of the hidden intelligence.....just as there is no way of proving to a blind person the existence of light. It has to be experienced directly or taken on faith.
This has been the position for millennia. Nothing new about it.
That’s not your primary problem. Your primary problem is that you have no way of justifying to yourself that there’s a “hidden intelligence”, and your analogy with light is a false one for the reason I keep explaining and you keep ignoring.
How does anyone know whether some experience is just a belief or a fact. Check my post 845.
Post 845 doesn’t help you.
1. An experience is not just a belief. It is something felt repeatedly and sometimes at will.
That’s a non sequitur – a belief can be these things too.
2. The experience is interactive.
Meaning?
3. The experience has clear and discernible effects on ones health, mental clarity and peace.
Various self-generated practices with no “hidden intelligence” involved do that too (yoga, CBT etc) so that doesn’t help you either.
4. The experience has definite effects in the external world and on ones circumstances.
See above.
How does one convince someone else about it? It can't be done. One can only share the experience and hope that the other person also has similar experiences. Otherwise it is again the 'blind man' situation.
No it isn’t. The “blind man situation” relies on a false analogy with a phenomenon known to be real (ie, light). For a coherent analogy you need to find a comparator that hasn’t been justified – leprechauns for example.
If we seek some sort of an intellectual understanding of such internal experiences in modern day language....we can think of the source of such experiences as the Unconscious mind which we know has remarkable effects on our mind, health and well being. I have discussed this many times.
No doubt you have, but that does nothing to justify your unqualified claim of a “hidden intelligence”.
Problem however is that many people think of the unconscious mind as just a brain related phenomenon, merely an add-on facility generated through random variations and natural selection...for survival purposes.
Why is that a problem?
If we start associating the unconscious mind with the Collective Unconscious and think of it as the primary faculty.... and as the source of our conscious mind. Then we will be able to understand the possible source of our extraordinary experiences and their effects on our lives.
If my Auntie had wheels she’d be a bicycle. You can “if” anything you like, but rational enquiry is concerned with what is rather than with what might be.
-
Vlad,
But we are talking about the burden of proof here so you are missing mathematical proof and philosophical proof which has been put forward. I think your last attempt to rebut offered a composite necessity, which there cannot be.
I’m not missing them – I’ve rebutted them. There are no “mathematical and philosophical proofs” for god, and besides (as NS will remind us) you’re on a fool’s errand trying to find either too because both are naturalistic in character and you’re trying to use them to justify a speculation about a non-naturalistic entity.
I am not shirking burden of proof, just not accepting that the status quo is philosophical empiricism which is self defeating.
No it isn’t. It’s only “self-defeating” when you introduce your straw man version of it as a claim of the absolute rather than of the probable.
...........You are at the beginning of arguing an infinite regress which is no solution to anything, multiplies entities beyond necessity....infinitely.
No I’m not. I’m at the end of reliably investigable and verifiable explanations, so have reached a series of “don’t knows”. Just inserting a god and calling it magic doesn’t answer those don’t knows – it just relocates them (while adding a whole extra layer of assumptions).
So what you are saying is let’s stop at the universe and call that necessary.
No, what I’m saying (and have always said) is let’s stop at the point at which reliably investigable and verifiable answers cease to be available. That one answer beyond that barrier might turn out to be a self-explanatory universe by some as yet unknown process is just a speculation, as is “god”.
But then you think that stops infinite regress but a necessary being or God demands an infinite regress. That is self contradictory.If God demands an infinite regress then the universe would.
The universe cannot be necessary because it is composite.You said so yourself.
I said no such thing. You did.
-
Vlad,
I’m not missing them – I’ve rebutted them. There are no “mathematical and philosophical proofs” for god, and besides (as NS will remind us) you’re on a fool’s errand trying to find either too because both are naturalistic in character and you’re trying to use them to justify a speculation about a non-naturalistic entity.
No it isn’t. It’s only “self-defeating” when you introduce your straw man version of it as a claim of the absolute rather than of the probable.
No I’m not. I’m at the end of reliably investigable and verifiable explanations, so have reached a series of “don’t knows”. Just inserting a god and calling it magic doesn’t answer those don’t knows – it just relocates them (while adding a whole extra layer of assumptions).
No, what I’m saying (and have always said) is let’s stop at the point at which reliably investigable and verifiable answers cease to be available. That one answer beyond that barrier might turn out to be a self-explanatory universe by some as yet unknown process is just a speculation, as is “god”.
I said no such thing. You did.
Hillside, one has to look at the attributes of the necessary being which having been established by the unrebutted argument from contingency we call God.
Your trouble is the misrepresentation that we start with God and shoehorn him in.
Your second problem was to suggest a composite universe as the necessary being. You should have taken note of Carroll who identified the PSR as a problem for him or Russell who knew the fallacy of declaring the universe as necessary and so settled for an arbitrary curtailment of PSR.
You should have availed yourself of the definitions of the necessary entity None of which fit anything in naturalism.
Sovereignty, uniqueness, non composite, non physicality and so forth.
In terms of speculation, contingency is not a matter of speculation.
-
Vlad,
Hillside, one has to look at the attributes of the necessary being…
No “one” hasn’t. What “one” actually has to look at is the quality of the argument for a “necessary being” in the first place which, so far at least, has been hopeless.
…which having been established by the unrebutted argument from contingency we call God.
Very funny. The rebuttal is that this supposed “god” just relocates the “don’t knows” about the universe to this god but doesn’t answer any of them.
Your trouble is the misrepresentation that we start with God and shoehorn him in.
Actually that is what you do, but in any case it’s not my problem. The actual problem is that your solution is essentially “it’s magic innit”:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Then-a-Miracle-Occurs-Copyrighted-artwork-by-Sydney-Harris-Inc-All-materials-used-with_fig2_302632920
Your second problem was to suggest a composite universe as the necessary being. You should have taken note of Carroll who identified the PSR as a problem for him or Russell who knew the fallacy of declaring the universe as necessary and so settled for an arbitrary curtailment of PSR.
I merely say that you have no good reason to rule it out.
You should have availed yourself of the definitions of the necessary entity None of which fit anything in naturalism.
Nor do the definitions of leprechauns. You can attach any definitions you like to speculations about the supernatural, but that doesn’t make them real.
Sovereignty, uniqueness, non composite, non physicality and so forth.
There are problems with all of those, but why not start with establishing that there’s even such a thing as a “non-physical” to begin with?
In terms of speculation, contingency is not a matter of speculation.
In respect of feature of the observable universe that’s likely right (allowing for uncertainty about that at the quantum level) but I have still have no idea why you think properties within the universe must also therefore apply to the universe (ie, your fallacy of composition error). Would there be any point in asking you that again given that you always disappear when I do?
-
VG,
OK…
The “agreed moral standards” are those of the society that's agreed them and in which the person claiming to be honourable happens to live. The ardent muslim who kills a blasphemer is “honourable” if he does it in a society in which such a thing is considered honourable; the person who helps a little old lady across the road is honourable if he does it in a society that considers such a thing to be honourable. This isn’t about what should and shouldn’t be deemed morally good, it’s just counting.
So we're agreed we're ok to use the term 'honour' to represent an idea - we can speak of a person having honour or a person can refer to their own honour - even if we cannot agree on an objective definition of this concept / abstract noun. Why are you having such a problem with a similar use of the term "God" to reference an abstract concept of a higher supernatural power that is deemed morally good? You have already accepted that a person's brain will interpret 'honour' based on whatever was peddled to them when they were an impressionable child - whether it was helping old ladies across the road or a patriotic British soldier firing on and killing Muslim civilians in another country to serve the best interests of the British people. Why is it remarkable that the same brain will apply this method of interpretation for the abstract concept of God?
What’s that you say? “But I’ve never claimed that the moon is made of cream cheese? I’ve just rebutted the claim of someone else who thinks his belief about that makes it a fact?”
Welcome to my world.
That seems to be a world of your own creation. That's not my understanding of Vlad's post on this thread about the presence of God in his consciousness. My understanding is that Vlad agreed that facts need to be supported by objective evidence, which he doesn't claim to have. He said he had an inner experience of a non-physical God's presence in his consciousness. So I'm not seeing where he thinks his belief in God's existence means he thinks God's existence is a fact.
-
. So I'm not seeing where he thinks his belief in God's existence means he thinks God's existence is a fact.
Sorry to interrupt your discourse but for clarity on this point I believe that you should perhaps avail oneself of Vlad's concept and accusations of "god-dodging".
That may throw some light on the matter.
-
Sorry to interrupt your discourse but for clarity on this point I believe that you should perhaps avail oneself of Vlad's concept and accusations of "god-dodging".
That may throw some light on the matter.
You can call it “Vlad’s law of Goddodging” if you wish but when your arguments against God become more fantastical than what you can argue God is then that is very likely Goddodging.
Examples found on this forum include circular hierarchies, composites as necessities, contingency without necessity, suspension of the PSR, unknown unknowns vis a vis God.
-
VG,
So we're agreed we're ok to use the term 'honour' to represent an idea - we can speak of a person having honour or a person can refer to their own honour - even if we cannot agree on an objective definition of this concept / abstract noun. Why are you having such a problem with a similar use of the term "God" to reference an abstract concept of a higher supernatural power that is deemed morally good?
Because, obviously, “honour” is employed as an abstract noun (“a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object, e.g. truth, danger, happiness”) whereas “god” is being employed as a proper noun (“a noun that serves as the name for a specific place, person, or thing”).
You have already accepted that a person's brain will interpret 'honour' based on whatever was peddled to them when they were an impressionable child - whether it was helping old ladies across the road or a patriotic British soldier firing on and killing Muslim civilians in another country to serve the best interests of the British people. Why is it remarkable that the same brain will apply this method of interpretation for the abstract concept of God?
Because Vlad (and, presumably, most other theists) doesn’t claim “god” as an abstract concept – he’s claims it as a tangible entity of some sort that exists as an objective fact for all of us regardless of his conceptualisation of it.
That was your category error.
That seems to be a world of your own creation.
As is your world in which you supposedly “correct” me for something I’ve never said, implied, hinted at or suggested in any way – just the opposite in fact.
That's not my understanding of Vlad's post on this thread about the presence of God in his consciousness. My understanding is that Vlad agreed that facts need to be supported by objective evidence, which he doesn't claim to have. He said he had an inner experience of a non-physical God's presence in his consciousness. So I'm not seeing where he thinks his belief in God's existence means he thinks God's existence is a fact.
Your understanding is neither here nor there. Both in this thread and consistently elsewhere Vlad has always made clear that he doesn’t just think of “god” as a conceptualised idea like honour or justice; rather he thinks of it as an actual entity that moreover he’s “encountered”. If you don’t believe me about that, ask him.
(To be fair by the way Vlad’s ideas about the features and characteristics of his supposed god have been all over the map and sometimes bear little relationship to mainstream Christian theology, but that doesn’t deflect from him thinking there’s an actual god to be encountered rather than just the idea of one to be conceptualised.)
-
You can call it “Vlad’s law of Goddodging” if you wish but when your arguments against God become more fantastical than what you can argue God is then that is very likely Goddodging.
Examples found on this forum include circular hierarchies, composites as necessities, contingency without necessity, suspension of the PSR, unknown unknowns vis a vis God.
Leaving aside whether people have actually done that, what method are you using to determine 'fantasticallness'?
-
Seb,
Sorry to interrupt your discourse but for clarity on this point I believe that you should perhaps avail oneself of Vlad's concept and accusations of "god-dodging".
That may throw some light on the matter.
That's a good point. Vlad doesn't think people are "dodging" his conceptualised idea of a god; he thinks they're "dodging" an actual god. It's a stupid claim, but it's what he thinks (or says he thinks) nonetheless.
-
Vlad,
You can call it “Vlad’s law of Goddodging” if you wish but when your arguments against God become more fantastical than what you can argue God is then that is very likely Goddodging.
Wrong again. The point here is that when your “arguments” for “god” apply equally to any other faith claim (leprechauns included) that tells you that those arguments are likely false.
Examples found on this forum include circular hierarchies, composites as necessities, contingency without necessity, suspension of the PSR, unknown unknowns vis a vis God.
Er, no. “Arguments against god” is just you assuming the premise and shifting the burden of proof again – the only arguments necessary here are those that falsify the arguments you attempt to justify your claim “god”.
-
Vlad,
By the way, could you put VG out of her misery please and confirm that you claim a “god” not just as an abstract idea you’ve conceptualised but as an actual entity of some sort independent of your imagination that you also think you’ve “encountered”.
Thanks.
-
Sorry to interrupt your discourse but for clarity on this point I believe that you should perhaps avail oneself of Vlad's concept and accusations of "god-dodging".
That may throw some light on the matter.
Thanks for your input. That accusation can still apply if Vlad thinks his belief is true, although he accepts he has no objective evidence so can't claim it as fact.
Given he believes it is true, presumably he thinks that other people can believe it is true too and are dodging their exploration of religion.
Not sure what god-dodging actually means though. Is it dodging looking further into god as a possibility to see if a belief develops, rather than dismissing god out of lack of interest? Or the term may possibly mean something along the lines of people in denial - i.e. who believe god exists but don't want to believe god exists because it would mean accepting a change to their world-view, so they repress the belief/ pretend they don't believe in god?
As I have stated on here before, I don't have any experience of god-dodging. Obviously I don't agree if Vlad is claiming he knows what is going on in someone else's mind or their motivations.
-
Vlad,
By the way, could you put VG out of her misery please and confirm that you claim a “god” not just as an abstract idea you’ve conceptualised but as an actual entity of some sort independent of your imagination that you also think you’ve “encountered”.
Thanks.
Strange misrepresentation of my views. Which part of what i said are you having trouble with?
I have repeatedly said Vlad thinks his belief in the existence of a non-physical, supernatural entity "god" is true.
He has no objective evidence about this entity so he can't claim it as fact. It is therefore a belief based on faith.
His concept of this entity formed in his brain i.e his brain's interpretations of his subjective experiences and feelings where he believes he felt god's presence in his consciousness (subjective evidence) are based on the narratives already stored in his brain about Christianity, which is based on what he believes / interprets to be authoritative testimony (subjective evidence).
He doesn't have the same connection with narratives about Amazon tree gods, if indeed there are any such narratives stored in his brain for his brain to use to interpret his subjective experiences in relation to anything supernatural.
Apparently, similar to his lack of connection with Amazon tree gods, he has no connection with leprechaun narratives, though his brain may have more information in it on leprechauns than Amazon tree gods.
-
VG,
Thanks for your input. That accusation can still apply if Vlad thinks his belief is true, although he accepts he has no objective evidence so can't claim it as fact.
That doesn’t stop him from doing it though, which is all I’ve been saying (and is why your “corrections” are misplaced).
Given he believes it is true, presumably he thinks that other people can believe it is true too and are dodging their exploration of religion.
It’s worse than that: he seems to think other people do think it’s true, but choose to “dodge” that “truth” nonetheless. This is a fallacy called begging the question but he keeps trying it no matter how often it’s explained to him.
Not sure what god-dodging actually means though. Is it dodging looking further into god as a possibility to see if a belief develops, rather than dismissing god out of lack of interest? Or the term may possibly mean something along the lines of people in denial - i.e. who believe god exists but don't want to believe god exists because it would mean accepting a change to their world-view, so they repress the belief/ pretend they don't believe in god?
Based on previous exchanges, in Vlad’s head it’s the latter.
As I have stated on here before, I don't have any experience of god-dodging. Obviously I don't agree if Vlad is claiming he knows what is going on in someone else's mind or their motivations.
Good. As for whether Vlad claims an actual god or just a conceptualised one by the way, try this: to encounter something you need (at least) two parties – the encounterer and the encounteree. To conceptualise something on the other hand you need just one party – the conceptualiser.
Vlad claims an encounter.
QED.
-
VG,
Strange misrepresentation of my views. Which part of what i said are you having trouble with?
I have repeatedly said Vlad thinks his belief in the existence of a non-physical, supernatural entity "god" is true.
But he also think he’s “encountered” this supposed “god” rather than just conceptualised it. He thinks this “god” is real in some form outwith just his imagining of it.
Try to remember this.
He has no objective evidence about this entity so he can't claim it as fact. It is therefore a belief based on faith.
I know, but it doesn’t stop him from making the attempt though.
Try to remember this too.
His concept of this entity formed in his brain i.e his brain's interpretations of his subjective experiences and feelings where he believes he felt god's presence in his consciousness (subjective evidence) are based on the narratives already stored in his brain about Christianity, which is based on what he believes / interprets to be authoritative testimony (subjective evidence).
But he also thinks that “god” isn’t just a “concept of this entity formed in his brain” – he thinks it’s an actual entity of some sort, and what’s more he claims to have met it.
He doesn't have the same connection with narratives about Amazon tree gods, if indeed there are any such narratives stored in his brain for his brain to use to interpret his subjective experiences in relation to anything supernatural.
True, but irrelevant. He’s not just trying to describe his concept of a god – he’s trying to describe a whole different epistemological category of claim: an actual, “out there”, objectively present god.
That was your category error.
Apparently, similar to his lack of connection with Amazon tree gods, he has no connection with leprechaun narratives, though his brain may have more information in it on leprechauns than Amazon tree gods.
So?
-
VG,
Because, obviously, “honour” is employed as an abstract noun (“a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object, e.g. truth, danger, happiness”) whereas “god” is being employed as a proper noun (“a noun that serves as the name for a specific place, person, or thing”).
Because Vlad (and, presumably, most other theists) doesn’t claim “god” as an abstract concept – he’s claims it as a tangible entity of some sort that exists as an objective fact for all of us regardless of his conceptualisation of it.
That was your category error.
Not from what I've seen. He said he thinks god is non-physical so not getting the impression that he thinks god is tangible or a person. But yes he holds the belief that the supernatural entity 'god' exists but not as something tangible.
Your understanding is neither here nor there. Both in this thread and consistently elsewhere Vlad has always made clear that he doesn’t just think of “god” as a conceptualised idea like honour or justice; rather he thinks of it as an actual entity that moreover he’s “encountered”. If you don’t believe me about that, ask him.
I know he thinks it's an entity - he believes it is a supernatural, non-physical one for which he has no objective evidence so can't claim it to be fact, and so he has come up with a concept of what he thinks this non-physical god is, which makes it abstract. He said he believes he felt the presence of this non-physical god in his consciousness. If he withdraws that statement and now thinks god is a physical entity or a person, then it's a different matter.
People speak about their subjective belief that they have honour or have lost honour even though they can't really agree on a definition of honour and it is an abstract concept. Their interpretation or concept of honour is based on the ideas pedalled to them when they were younger, which is stored in their brain and which the brain retrieves to interpret their experiences.
-
Good. As for whether Vlad claims an actual god or just a conceptualised one by the way, try this: to encounter something you need (at least) two parties – the encounterer and the encounteree. To conceptualise something on the other hand you need just one party – the conceptualiser.
Vlad claims an encounter.
QED.
As explained in my previous post, he believes there were 2 parties - one is a non-physical supernatural entity, not a physical entity. He believes he encountered a non-physical god in his consciousness, for which he has no objective evidence, only his subjective experience interpreted by his brain, therefore it's not a claim of fact but a statement of belief. A fact needs objective evidence.
-
You can call it “Vlad’s law of Goddodging” if you wish but when your arguments against God become more fantastical than what you can argue God is then that is very likely Goddodging.
Examples found on this forum include circular hierarchies, composites as necessities, contingency without necessity, suspension of the PSR, unknown unknowns vis a vis God.
Just to clarify.
Anyone who doesn't agree with any of your ideas or philosophy or definitions of what your god is....is god-dodging.....that is, dodging the factual, real Christian God?
Do tell.
-
As explained in my previous post, he believes there were 2 parties - one is a non-physical supernatural entity, not a physical entity. He believes he encountered a non-physical god in his consciousness, for which he has no objective evidence, only his subjective experience interpreted by his brain, therefore it's not a claim of fact but a statement of belief. A fact needs objective evidence.
We know a fact needs objective evidence.
These are the words of bluehillside that you need to pay especial attention to:
VG,
That doesn’t stop him from doing it though, which is all I’ve been saying (and is why your “corrections” are misplaced).
It’s worse than that: he seems to think other people do think it’s true, but choose to “dodge” that “truth” nonetheless. This is a fallacy called begging the question but he keeps trying it no matter how often it’s explained to him.
And most of us here know that is exactly what Vlad thinks.
-
We know a fact needs objective evidence.
These are the words of bluehillside that you need to pay especially attention to:And most of us here know that is exactly what Vlad thinks.
The clear impression from Vlad's posts are that not only does he think that god's existence is a fact, but also that he has proved it, not just though his own claimed experience (which of course is no evidence of anything beyond subjective experience and inference/interpretation) but also via his appeal to the Necessary Being (which he often capitalises) and the principle of sufficient reason.
We, of course, cannot climb inside Vlad's mind (there is a terrifying thought) but certainly to me his posts seem to me to indicate that he thinks that god's existence is a fact, not merely a belief.
-
So from looking it up it in the Economist a 2013 article seems to estimate 100,000 Muslim converts in Britain, with 5,200 converting to Islam every year. So not my idea of rare, which would be somewhere less than 1%.
Remember that my point was about people being brought up with one religion but become adherents of another religion as adults - and in this case the adult religion is islam.
So I've already indicated that this level of converts (from other religions and from no religion) is about 2.6% of just the muslim population. But the muslim population is, in itself, fairly small in the UK.
So let's assume half of those 100,000 converts are childhood 'other religion' rather than childhood 'no religion', so 50,000. In which case, in terms of the UK population muslim converts from another religion represent just 0.07% of the population, or one in 1,400 of the population. Sounds pretty rare to me - but hey, ho VG's got an anecdote so real data don't matter.
-
We know a fact needs objective evidence.
These are the words of bluehillside that you need to pay especial attention to:And most of us here know that is exactly what Vlad thinks.
Regarding what Vlad thinks - I am just going by my interpretation of his reply #1012, which contained the following:
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=19250.1000
I have stated on this board that I have no empirical evidence for God since the necessary being is empirically undetectable, I believe I have said that God doesn't fit into a physicalist definition as he is not physical.
I believe that my relating my experience is probably acceptable evidence in the legal sense e.g. in the event that somebody declared in a legal setting that God did not exist and therefore a minister or priest was guilty of fraud or misappropriation.
Let us not forget that you have had God guilty of homophobia, assault etc on an ''if God existed'' basis. In fact agnostic atheism is based on the possibility of God existing and no, I don't believe like you do that anything is possible.
If you do not accept my experience then there is always the argument for God from contingency, the philosophical argument.
The above reads like Vlad stating a belief in God and not claiming a supernatural entity as a fact, and Vlad putting forward a philosophical argument for a necessary being to argue for the existence of a supernatural higher power entity "god". He says relating his experience could be taken as testimony (subjective evidence) in the legal sense.
"Could be" doesn't sound like a claim of evidence for a fact.
DU, Your opinion that most of the people on this forum know what Vlad is thinking is not a claim that can be taken seriously as you have provided no evidence for it. But I didn't take it as a claim of fact but merely you stating your opinion.
Some people on this forum seem to have double-standards. DU's statement about what most of us know, and the recent claims about a consensus on consent or the position on consent being clear by PD and BHS are not supported by evidence. I take these claims or statements to be opinion and belief and not a claim of fact, as the posts are related to interpretation, morality .
Yet when Vlad states his opinions and beliefs about the supernatural, a lot of time seems to be wasted dissecting them as though Vlad is claiming that his beliefs about god is him claiming God's existence is a fact. They don't read that way to me. Vlad may want to clarify, but on the other hand it's more entertaining on here if he doesn't.
-
The clear impression from Vlad's posts are that not only does he think that god's existence is a fact, but also that he has proved it, not just though his own claimed experience (which of course is no evidence of anything beyond subjective experience and inference/interpretation) but also via his appeal to the Necessary Being (which he often capitalises) and the principle of sufficient reason.
We, of course, cannot climb inside Vlad's mind (there is a terrifying thought) but certainly to me his posts seem to me to indicate that he thinks that god's existence is a fact, not merely a belief.
To me it reads like Vlad is making a philosophical argument. Especially in the context of the technique that both you and BHS employ frequently on here of stating your opinions as though they are facts. If people are making arguments for something in response to someone else stating their opinion as fact, it makes sense to state their own position or belief as emphatically as the person they are disagreeing with.
-
VG,
Because, obviously, we might reasonably expect people who think they’ve “encountered” a “god” who’s “converted” them to know something more from the experience than only what they happened to have been enculturated to before the event.
Sorry - missed this.
That just seems to be an assumption on your part, which you can make if you want, but not sure how you decided it's a reasonable one.
Why do you expect people to know something more from the experience? I don't think Vlad is relating his experience as one where he received any revelation, he states he doesn't think god is a physical entity - so I'm not expecting him to know something more from his experience. Vlad thinks he encountered a god an lo and behold it just happens to be the exact same god he was taught about at Sunday school; the Amazonian tribesman thinks he encountered a god, and lo and behold it just happens to be the exact same animal spirit his elders told him about etc.
This suggests strongly to me that gods are cultural artefacts, not objectively real entities we happen to come across. Doesn’t it suggest that to you too?
It suggests to me that our brains use prior information stored in them to make interpretations of our experiences. Why should it be any different for experiences we think are related to supernatural entities?
-
Remember that my point was about people being brought up with one religion but become adherents of another religion as adults - and in this case the adult religion is islam.
So I've already indicated that this level of converts (from other religions and from no religion) is about 2.6% of just the muslim population. But the muslim population is, in itself, fairly small in the UK.
So let's assume half of those 100,000 converts are childhood 'other religion' rather than childhood 'no religion', so 50,000. In which case, in terms of the UK population muslim converts from another religion represent just 0.07% of the population, or one in 1,400 of the population. Sounds pretty rare to me - but hey, ho VG's got an anecdote so real data don't matter.
I didn't make the same assumption as you that only half the converts are childhood 'other religion'. I think most would be childhood 'other religion'. Someone who has had experiences of connecting religious experiences with family bonding and ties, would I think be more likely to be receptive to how the practice of Islam is portrayed by many Muslims as being something that is done as part of a community and family and they would probably like the feelings that this practice evokes, which would be an incentive to convert to be part of that religious community.
In my previous response to you, I also linked to the Pew Research that stated that a quarter of Muslims in the US are converts. I think focusing on a Welsh survey of people in Wales and possibly England, doesn't tell you much about people in general.
-
I didn't make the same assumption as you that only half the converts are childhood 'other religion'. I think most would be childhood 'other religion'.
But that would be mere handwaving on your part unless you provide evidence to back that up. There is evidence, from the UK, that 'conversion' to any of the major religions represents a very small proportion of current adherents, and also that when that number is divided between conversion from childhood no-religion and conversion from childhood different religion, a greater proportion of converts are from no religion. So from Scourfield's extensive study in England & Wales it was estimated that approx. 3% of muslims were childhood no religion, while just 1% were childhood different religion. So I'm actually being generous in using a 50:50 split.
And even were we to assume that all these converts were from another religion (which would be totally unjustified) as a convert to islam from another childhood religion, you'd still represent just 0.14% of the population, or one in 700, which sounds pretty rare to me.
Someone who has had experiences of connecting religious experiences with family bonding and ties, would I think be more likely to be receptive to how the practice of Islam is portrayed by many Muslims as being something that is done as part of a community and family and they would probably like the feelings that this practice evokes, which would be an incentive to convert to be part of that religious community.
True - but surely if this was important then it is much more likely that you would remain in the religion of your childhood. And that is what the data show - that for people brought up within a religious tradition the overwhelming majority either remain in that religion as adults or become non religious as adults. Converting to a different religion as an adult compared to the religion of childhood is very rare, and that's the same regardless of the religion (shifting between different christian denominations excluded as that isn't really a conversion from one religion to another).
-
Just to clarify.
Anyone who doesn't agree with any of your ideas or philosophy or definitions of what your god is....is god-dodging.....that is, dodging the factual, real Christian God?
Do tell.
No anyone who claims that God cannot exist on the grounds that God is too “out there” and then justifies it with a more “out there” theory or theory as “out there” is obviously not wanting God and proposes their theory because it excludes God.
An example would be, the universe just is and there’s the end of it.
Whether they like it or not one or two atheists have unconsciously reinvented A God like entity by suggesting there is something necessary about the universe that isn’t apparent by mere scientific observation.
The surprising element is the strict adherence to philosophical empiricism I find here and physicalism
Which is so taken as read here you won’t find a defence for it.
-
Apparently, similar to his lack of connection with Amazon tree gods, he has no connection with leprechaun narratives, though his brain may have more information in it on leprechauns than Amazon tree gods.
Like you wouldn’t believe after years of BHS expounding on them.
May I say for someone who doesn’t like speculating what’s on others minds you do a really mean psychology.
-
But that would be mere handwaving on your part unless you provide evidence to back that up. There is evidence, from the UK, that 'conversion' to any of the major religions represents a very small proportion of current adherents, and also that when that number is divided between conversion from childhood no-religion and conversion from childhood different religion, a greater proportion of converts are from no religion. So from Scourfield's extensive study in England & Wales it was estimated that approx. 3% of muslims were childhood no religion, while just 1% were childhood different religion. So I'm actually being generous in using a 50:50 split.
And even were we to assume that all these converts were from another religion (which would be totally unjustified) as a convert to islam from another childhood religion, you'd still represent just 0.14% of the population, or one in 700, which sounds pretty rare to me.
True - but surely if this was important then it is much more likely that you would remain in the religion of your childhood. And that is what the data show - that for people brought up within a religious tradition the overwhelming majority either remain in that religion as adults or become non religious as adults. Converting to a different religion as an adult compared to the religion of childhood is very rare, and that's the same regardless of the religion (shifting between different christian denominations excluded as that isn't really a conversion from one religion to another).
An aspect that is missing here is the extent to which the child’s so called faith is really the parents faith, a question that could go back generations and that which is actually understood, accepted and believed by the child. The child is of course attached to their parents and shares assent out of solidarity with them.
When out of the parents ambit they are then free to choose. There seems in our society lots of factors then which militate against genuine faith rather than the power and call of the atheist message or do I mean, bus. Ding Ding hold very tight please.
-
But that would be mere handwaving on your part unless you provide evidence to back that up. There is evidence, from the UK, that 'conversion' to any of the major religions represents a very small proportion of current adherents, and also that when that number is divided between conversion from childhood no-religion and conversion from childhood different religion, a greater proportion of converts are from no religion. So from Scourfield's extensive study in England & Wales it was estimated that approx. 3% of muslims were childhood no religion, while just 1% were childhood different religion. So I'm actually being generous in using a 50:50 split.
And even were we to assume that all these converts were from another religion (which would be totally unjustified) as a convert to islam from another childhood religion, you'd still represent just 0.14% of the population, or one in 700, which sounds pretty rare to me.
True - but surely if this was important then it is much more likely that you would remain in the religion of your childhood. And that is what the data show - that for people brought up within a religious tradition the overwhelming majority either remain in that religion as adults or become non religious as adults. Converting to a different religion as an adult compared to the religion of childhood is very rare, and that's the same regardless of the religion (shifting between different christian denominations excluded as that isn't really a conversion from one religion to another).
I haven't seen Scourfield's extensive study in England & Wales - perhaps you could link to it?
My idea of rare is based on some of the available definitions for rare in relation to diseases e.g. 1 in 1500 (US Rare Diseases Act of 2002) or 1 in 2,500 (Japan) or 1 in 2000 (EU) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_disease
And given that Pew says 25% of Muslims in the US are converts, the UK figures do not say anything too meaningful about conversions. I do not have evidence regarding what proportion of the 25% in the US had a different religion in childhood vs no religion. But the US is supposed to be a country with high religiosity (65% in a 2019 Pew Research survey identified as Christians though the overall trend is a decline in Christianity https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/)
And as Vlad says, the religion the adult believes, interprets and practises may be very different from their childhood interpretations, experiences and beliefs, even if they do not convert to a different religion. Once a theist becomes and adult and thinks about their beliefs, they may come to different interpretations while remaining part of their original religion.
-
An aspect that is missing here is the extent to which the child’s so called faith is really the parents faith, a question that could go back generations and that which is actually understood, accepted and believed by the child. The child is of course attached to their parents and shares assent out of solidarity with them.
Of course - this is hardly missing. Why on earth do you think that if you go into a church that likely 19 out of 20 worshippers were brought up christian. Same trend if you go into a mosque or synagogue, where 19 out of 20 would have been brought up muslim, jewish etc. That's why I say that religion is learned behaviour.
When out of the parents ambit they are then free to choose. There seems in our society lots of factors then which militate against genuine faith rather than the power and call of the atheist message or do I mean, bus. Ding Ding hold very tight please.
Whisper it quietly - perhaps it is because the message isn't very compelling Vlad.
And this effect has been going on for years, including when schools (all schools) were required to hold christian worship daily and I doubt atheists would even have been mentioned. Non religious parents don't tend to take their children to extracurricular sessions aimed specifically at inculcating non religion and/or atheism, nor expect them to attend weekly non religion/atheism services. Yet well over 90% of children brought up in a non religious household end up non religious as adults. The fundamental point is that (certainly in the UK), non religion is 'sticky' from generation to generation, religion ... well ... not so much.
-
I haven't seen Scourfield's extensive study in England & Wales - perhaps you could link to it?
Not sure whether you'll be able to get full access - I can because of my academic affiliation but not sure whether this is open access to the public in general. You should be able to see the summary at least.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038511419189
My idea of rare is based on some of the available definitions for rare in relation to diseases e.g. 1 in 1500 (US Rare Diseases Act of 2002) or 1 in 2,500 (Japan) or 1 in 2000 (EU) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_disease
Oh, moving goal-posts I see. Just a few posts ago you said rare was less than 1%. Your words:
So not my idea of rare, which would be somewhere less than 1%.
And I don't think that religious conversion is a disease, so using categorisation of diseases isn't really relevant is it VG.
And given that Pew says 25% of Muslims in the US are converts, the UK figures do not say anything too meaningful about conversions. I do not have evidence regarding what proportion of the 25% in the US had a different religion in childhood vs no religion. But the US is supposed to be a country with high religiosity (65% in a 2019 Pew Research survey identified as Christians though the overall trend is a decline in Christianity https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/)
But we are talking about the UK so the US, which is an entirely different society, particularly with respect to religiosity is irrelevant. Are you really arguing that 25% of british muslims are converts VG - if so you'll need to back that up with some pretty compelling evidence as the available research suggests that somewhat less than 5% are converts, and that includes both converts from another religion and from no religion.
-
VG,
Not from what I've seen. He said he thinks god is non-physical so not getting the impression that he thinks god is tangible or a person. But yes he holds the belief that the supernatural entity 'god' exists but not as something tangible.
Tangible: "real and not imaginary; able to be shown, touched, or experienced:"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tangible
Vlad thinks he’s “experienced” a real, non-imaginary god, not just conceptualised it. QED
I know he thinks it's an entity - he believes it is a supernatural, non-physical one for which he has no objective evidence so can't claim it to be fact,…
Which doesn’t stop him from making that claim nonetheless but ok…
…and so he has come up with a concept of what he thinks this non-physical god is, which makes it abstract.
But he still thinks it exists whether or not he conceptualised it remember? He thinks that, even if he fell under a bus tomorrow (heaven forfend), this “god” would still exist even with no Vlad around to conceptualise it.
He said he believes he felt the presence of this non-physical god in his consciousness. If he withdraws that statement and now thinks god is a physical entity or a person, then it's a different matter.
No it isn’t. The “physical” is a red herring – it’s enough to think “god” exists (whether as a physical or a non-physical version) independent of his ability to conceptualise it.
People speak about their subjective belief that they have honour or have lost honour even though they can't really agree on a definition of honour and it is an abstract concept. Their interpretation or concept of honour is based on the ideas pedalled to them when they were younger, which is stored in their brain and which the brain retrieves to interpret their experiences.
It's “peddled” and this doesn’t change anything. Tastes, preferences, responses to objectively real phenomena are all subjective; the phenomena themselves though are objective, and Vlad’s claim is of an objectively real god (that he’s also supposedly “encountered”) that exists whether or not he happens to be around to conceptualise it.
As explained in my previous post, he believes there were 2 parties - one is a non-physical supernatural entity, not a physical entity. He believes he encountered a non-physical god in his consciousness, for which he has no objective evidence, only his subjective experience interpreted by his brain, therefore it's not a claim of fact but a statement of belief. A fact needs objective evidence.
FFS. Yes, but that doesn’t stop him from making it as a claim of fact nonetheless. I’ve explained this to you many time now, yet you keep returning to the same mistake. It’s not that I think he can make it a claim of fact, it’s that HE thinks he thinks he can make it a claim of fact. He may say that he has no “empirical evidence”, but he does think his “experience” is nonetheless “evidence” of some different type that means he really did encounter a god who exists independent of his conceptualising of it. WHY he thinks that’s evidence for this supposed god is anyone’s guess (he won’t or can’t tell us), but nonetheless evidence is what he claims his experience to be, albeit not the material kind.
I have stated on this board that I have no empirical evidence for God since the necessary being is empirically undetectable, I believe I have said that God doesn't fit into a physicalist definition as he is not physical.
I believe that my relating my experience is probably acceptable evidence in the legal sense e.g. in the event that somebody declared in a legal setting that God did not exist and therefore a minister or priest was guilty of fraud or misappropriation.
Let us not forget that you have had God guilty of homophobia, assault etc on an ''if God existed'' basis. In fact agnostic atheism is based on the possibility of God existing and no, I don't believe like you do that anything is possible.
If you do not accept my experience then there is always the argument for God from contingency, the philosophical argument.
The above reads like Vlad stating a belief in God and not claiming a supernatural entity as a fact, and Vlad putting forward a philosophical argument for a necessary being to argue for the existence of a supernatural higher power entity "god". He says relating his experience could be taken as testimony (subjective evidence) in the legal sense.
"Could be" doesn't sound like a claim of evidence for a fact.
DU, Your opinion that most of the people on this forum know what Vlad is thinking is not a claim that can be taken seriously as you have provided no evidence for it. But I didn't take it as a claim of fact but merely you stating your opinion.
Some people on this forum seem to have double-standards. DU's statement about what most of us know, and the recent claims about a consensus on consent or the position on consent being clear by PD and BHS are not supported by evidence. I take these claims or statements to be opinion and belief and not a claim of fact, as the posts are related to interpretation, morality .
Yet when Vlad states his opinions and beliefs about the supernatural, a lot of time seems to be wasted dissecting them as though Vlad is claiming that his beliefs about god is him claiming God's existence is a fact. They don't read that way to me. Vlad may want to clarify, but on the other hand it's more entertaining on here if he doesn't.
Suggest you try reading his post again: he still thinks there’s a “god” whether or not he, Vlad, happens to have conceptualised it. He thinks “god” and he met too – not just that he conceptualised a meeting. Not sure why you keep indulging in increasingly convoluted post rationalisations to get him off the hook about this, but it isn’t working.
Sorry - missed this.
That just seems to be an assumption on your part, which you can make if you want, but not sure how you decided it's a reasonable one.
Why do you expect people to know something more from the experience? I don't think Vlad is relating his experience as one where he received any revelation, he states he doesn't think god is a physical entity - so I'm not expecting him to know something more from his experience.
No, it’s just the deduction that when people who think they’ve met a “god” almost invariably tell us the god they met was the exact one they happened to be most enculturated to it raises a pretty big red flag don’t you think?
It suggests to me that our brains use prior information stored in them to make interpretations of our experiences. Why should it be any different for experiences we think are related to supernatural entities?
Because, obviously, when people “use prior information stored in them to make interpretations of our (ie, their) experiences” then the gods they come up with will always be the ones they happen to have been taught about a priori. Should we therefore take all such claims as reliable evidence of a countless panoply of gods with all their various (and often mutually contradictory) characteristics, or as evidence of confirmation basis at work?
As for the natural/supernatural claims difference, it should be (and is) different because claims of encountering a physical entity of some sort (“I saw a lion in Tesco today” etc) can be validated by reference to intersubjective experience: there’s a commonly accepted understanding of what a lion is. For claims of the supernatural thought, there’s no intersubjective point of reference – any claim of such is as equally (in)valid as any other.
And epistemically that's a category difference – objective v subjective again.
-
Vlad,
No anyone who claims that God cannot exist on the grounds that God is too “out there” and then justifies it with a more “out there” theory or theory as “out there” is obviously not wanting God and proposes their theory because it excludes God.
Another straw man. Has anyone done that?
An example would be, the universe just is and there’s the end of it.
Non sequitur. What do you think that’s an example of?
Whether they like it or not one or two atheists have unconsciously reinvented A God like entity by suggesting there is something necessary about the universe that isn’t apparent by mere scientific observation.
Depends what you mean by “God like” but it’s another straw man in any case – a don’t know is just a don’t know, not “suggesting there is something necessary about the universe that isn’t apparent by mere scientific observation”. If you want to rule that out though as a possibility (without relying on the fallacy of composition) then by all means give it a go.
The surprising element is the strict adherence to philosophical empiricism…
Actual philosophical materialism (not your straw man version of it) is fine…
…and physicalism
Just out of interest, have you ever found someone who argues for physicalism?
Which is so taken as read here you won’t find a defence for it.
Why would anyone want to defend your straw man version of philosophical empiricism?
-
Vlad,
An aspect that is missing here is the extent to which the child’s so called faith is really the parents faith, a question that could go back generations and that which is actually understood, accepted and believed by the child. The child is of course attached to their parents and shares assent out of solidarity with them.
When out of the parents ambit they are then free to choose. There seems in our society lots of factors then which militate against genuine faith rather than the power and call of the atheist message or do I mean, bus. Ding Ding hold very tight please.
You think you “encountered” a god. You also think that this god just happens to be the exact one you were taught about as a youngster.
The Amazonian tribesman does the same thing about the animal spirits he was taught about.
Pretty much everyone (so far as I’m aware) who’s had a transcendent episode that they then ascribe to a god thinks the god involved just happens to be the one to which they’re most enculturated.
These supposed gods have as many characteristics and feature as there people who think they’ve encountered them, and often the features and characteristics of any one such god will contradict the features and characteristics of any other one such.
What then should someone presented with these various claims deduce about whether those claims map reliably to actual gods, or just confirm the claimant's bias toward the most proximate cultural artefact gods?
-
Vlad,
By the way - rather than keep VG twisting in the wind, why not just tell us whether, in your view, if you weren't around to conceptualise your "god" would that god exist anyway?
-
Not sure whether you'll be able to get full access - I can because of my academic affiliation but not sure whether this is open access to the public in general. You should be able to see the summary at least.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038511419189
Thanks. Unfortunately it doesn't give me access.
Oh, moving goal-posts I see. Just a few posts ago you said rare was less than 1%. Your words:
So not my idea of rare, which would be somewhere less than 1%.
And I don't think that religious conversion is a disease, so using categorisation of diseases isn't really relevant is it VG.
But we are talking about the UK so the US, which is an entirely different society, particularly with respect to religiosity is irrelevant. Are you really arguing that 25% of british muslims are converts VG - if so you'll need to back that up with some pretty compelling evidence as the available research suggests that somewhat less than 5% are converts, and that includes both converts from another religion and from no religion.
I said I thought rare was somewhere less than 1%, then I looked up what other people view as rare and found it was a lot less than 1% in relation to diseases. Then I looked up what rare is in terms of side-effects for medication where rare affects between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000 people – ie risk is 0.01% to 0.1%. Then I realised that even though the number 1 was in my memory, I had got the decimal place wrong and it's more like 0.1% or 0.01%.
Using your seemingly arbitrary classification of rare isn't relevant either. What are you basing your classification on?
Who said we were just looking at the UK?
-
Thanks. Unfortunately it doesn't give me access.
Sorry - frustrating when that happens. One of the advantages of my job is that I can readily access academic studies that aren't easily available to all.
I said I thought rare was somewhere less than 1%, then I looked up what other people view as rare and found it was a lot less than 1% in relation to diseases. Then I looked up what rare is in terms of side-effects for medication where rare affects between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000 people – ie risk is 0.01% to 0.1%. Then I realised that even though the number 1 was in my memory, I had got the decimal place wrong and it's more like 0.1% or 0.01%.
Which would still meet the criteria of 'rare' based on the 0.07% for a sensible estimate of the percentage of the population in the UK who are currently muslim but were brought up within a different religion.
But regardless of whether we call it 'rare', 'infrequent', 'uncommon', a 'small proportion' - surely you can accept that converts from one religion as a child to a different one as an adult are not common at all. I must admit I don't really understand why you are quibbling so much over this when the data are pretty clear. And I'm not in any way implying that someone who has gone through your journey is in any way odd or weird, just unusual in terms of not being common. Perhaps you should see it as a badge of honour - not being like the vast majority of the population.
Using your seemingly arbitrary classification of rare isn't relevant either. What are you basing your classification on?
But there isn't some general scientific definition for 'rare' applied to research on religiosity, so I'm using the word as I see fit. Indeed if you want to work in the world of science and stats, the standard threshold for statistical significance is actually 5%.
Who said we were just looking at the UK?
The whole discussion has been about the UK as you, I and Vlad are UK based so the discussions around our respective childhood and adult religion needs to be framed around the context of UK society. Other country's societies aren't the same so you cannot 'lift and shift' proportions of converts etc from one society to another. If you want a discussion about islam in the context of society and culture of the US, then fine. But that won't tell you much about islam in the UK, which is very different.
-
VG,
Tangible: "real and not imaginary; able to be shown, touched, or experienced:"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tangible
Vlad thinks he’s “experienced” a real, non-imaginary god, not just conceptualised it. QED
Are you classifying the supernatural as tangible? Is that like classifying space-time as tangible? https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429990-500-how-to-think-about-space-time/
Because one concept of the supernatural entity is that it is something that transcends time and space and human limitations. Obviously due to the limitations of the brain/mind humans try to make sense of that by giving it properties to make it more relatable for them. These properties are based on information their brain has previously had access to.
Which doesn’t stop him from making that claim nonetheless but ok…
But he still thinks it exists whether or not he conceptualised it remember? He thinks that, even if he fell under a bus tomorrow (heaven forfend), this “god” would still exist even with no Vlad around to conceptualise it.
No it isn’t. The “physical” is a red herring – it’s enough to think “god” exists (whether as a physical or a non-physical version) independent of his ability to conceptualise it.
No shit Sherlock. Theists believing God exists independent of them - who would have thought it. We keep agreeing on this and you keep bringing it up again as if it matters. As a theist I believe God exists independent of me, but I don't think it is a fact because I have no objective evidence. All I have been saying is that I think this is Vlad's position too.
It's “peddled” and this doesn’t change anything. Tastes, preferences, responses to objectively real phenomena are all subjective; the phenomena themselves though are objective, and Vlad’s claim is of an objectively real god (that he’s also supposedly “encountered”) that exists whether or not he happens to be around to conceptualise it.
Incorrect. Honour is not objective, is defined differently by different people and is a matter of dispute - the word is used in language as though it exists after a person dies. Not even sure if the word "exists" should apply to a supernatural entity or to honour - but if we are saying that anything you can experience 'exists', then it is possible to claim you can experience honour and the supernatural entity.
FFS. Yes, but that doesn’t stop him from making it as a claim of fact nonetheless. I’ve explained this to you many time now, yet you keep returning to the same mistake. It’s not that I think he can make it a claim of fact, it’s that HE thinks he thinks he can make it a claim of fact. He may say that he has no “empirical evidence”, but he does think his “experience” is nonetheless “evidence” of some different type that means he really did encounter a god who exists independent of his conceptualising of it. WHY he thinks that’s evidence for this supposed god is anyone’s guess (he won’t or can’t tell us), but nonetheless evidence is what he claims his experience to be, albeit not the material kind.
Subjective experience, perceptions etc can be evidence and so can testimony - but it's not objective evidence. I am not expecting you take my subjective evidence as fact. Nor does it make God fact. Hence God is a belief. And it's really not a new idea that theists think gods exist independently of them, albeit in some religions they are considered to transcend time and space. I don't know enough about beliefs about Amazon tree spirits or leprechauns to include them in this concept of a higher power that transcends time and space and human limitations and exists independently of humans.
Suggest you try reading his post again: he still thinks there’s a “god” whether or not he, Vlad, happens to have conceptualised it. He thinks “god” and he met too – not just that he conceptualised a meeting. Not sure why you keep indulging in increasingly convoluted post rationalisations to get him off the hook about this, but it isn’t working.
See above re. most theists thinking there is a god. Sensing a presence is something not all theists share - I might have experienced something but the experiences and information stored in my brain does not cause my brain to interpret it in a way whereby I would use the word "presence". I might think God was in my consciousness as I think of God, all the while still believing God exists independently of me - as a theist I would think that such a belief kind of goes with the territory.
No, it’s just the deduction that when people who think they’ve met a “god” almost invariably tell us the god they met was the exact one they happened to be most enculturated to it raises a pretty big red flag don’t you think?
Because, obviously, when people “use prior information stored in them to make interpretations of our (ie, their) experiences” then the gods they come up with will always be the ones they happen to have been taught about a priori. Should we therefore take all such claims as reliable evidence of a countless panoply of gods with all their various (and often mutually contradictory) characteristics, or as evidence of confirmation basis at work?
As for the natural/supernatural claims difference, it should be (and is) different because claims of encountering a physical entity of some sort (“I saw a lion in Tesco today” etc) can be validated by reference to intersubjective experience: there’s a commonly accepted understanding of what a lion is. For claims of the supernatural thought, there’s no intersubjective point of reference – any claim of such is as equally (in)valid as any other.
And epistemically that's a category difference – objective v subjective again.
I am not referring to items for which there is objective evidence in my argument e.g. lions, tea, coffee so I don't know why you keep referring to them to contrast with the supernatural. I have referred to morals, honour and similar concepts that get peddled to us when we are young.
-
VG,
Are you classifying the supernatural as tangible? Is that like classifying space-time as tangible? https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429990-500-how-to-think-about-space-time/
The other night I watched a film called “Denial” (you may have seen it too). It’s about the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial (“David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt”) when DI sued for libel and lost. The defence team considered having holocaust survivors as witnesses, but decided against. The reason was that they knew that DI was smart enough to look for a detail (“You said the transport arrived at Auschwitz on a Tuesday, but it actually arrived on a Wednesday so why should we trust anything you have to day about Auschwitz?” etc) and they wanted instead to focus on the facts and evidence that the holocaust happened.
This tactic is essentially what you do – we could disappear down a rabbit hole about whether the god Vlad thinks he experienced was a “tangible” one or not, even though the definition of tangible isn’t concerned with the natural/supernatural issue – just with being "experienced" (which is what he claims to have done). The point though remains that Vlad thinks that, even if he fell under a bus tomorrow and wasn’t around to conceptualise it, this supposed god would continue to exist. On the other hand, his subjective preference for coffee or for 80s music would die with him.
Can you see the difference?
Because one concept of the supernatural entity is that it is something that transcends time and space and human limitations. Obviously due to the limitations of the brain/mind humans try to make sense of that by giving it properties to make it more relatable for them. These properties are based on information their brain has previously had access to.
Irrelevant – see above.
No shit Sherlock. Theists believing God exists independent of them - who would have thought it. We keep agreeing on this and you keep bringing it up again as if it matters. As a theist I believe God exists independent of me, but I don't think it is a fact because I have no objective evidence. All I have been saying is that I think this is Vlad's position too.
It does matter though doesn’t it, because a phenomenon that exists whether or not there’s someone to conceptualise it is in a different epistemic category to an idea that exists only as a concept.
Try to understand this - it’s fundamental.
Incorrect. Honour is not objective, is defined differently by different people and is a matter of dispute - the word is used in language as though it exists after a person dies. Not even sure if the word "exists" should apply to a supernatural entity or to honour - but if we are saying that anything you can experience 'exists', then it is possible to claim you can experience honour and the supernatural entity.
Oh dear. When “honour” is defined and measured by behaviours (helping old ladies across the road for example) then the extent to which someone does these things can be counted. Thus they can be said empirically to have behaved honourably (or not) according to the lights of the societies in which they happen to live. Note that this doesn’t imply an absolute definition of "honour" – just the working one the claimant is referring to when he says he’s honourable.
Subjective experience, perceptions etc can be evidence and so can testimony - but it's not objective evidence. I am not expecting you take my subjective evidence as fact.
But Vlad does – that’s the point.
Nor does it make God fact. Hence God is a belief.
And I hear the Pope’s a catholic too…
And it's really not a new idea that theists think gods exist independently of them, albeit in some religions they are considered to transcend time and space. I don't know enough about beliefs about Amazon tree spirits or leprechauns to include them in this concept of a higher power that transcends time and space and human limitations and exists independently of humans.
Relevance? New idea or not, Vlad does think his experience is evidence (albeit not the material type apparently) for a god (who just happens to be the god he knew most about anyway). That’s the point.
See above re. most theists thinking there is a god. Sensing a presence is something not all theists share - I might have experienced something but the experiences and information stored in my brain does not cause my brain to interpret it in a way whereby I would use the word "presence". I might think God was in my consciousness as I think of God, all the while still believing God exists independently of me - as a theist I would think that such a belief kind of goes with the territory.
All very nice no doubt if that works for you as therapy but still not relevant. The POINT is that pointing to narratives of objectively real gods to explain subjective experiences of “presences” and such like is untenable.
I am not referring to items for which there is objective evidence in my argument e.g. lions, tea, coffee…
You’re still mixing up your categories here. The claim about the lion is that it exists as an objective fact, whereas the claim about coffee is just that you prefer it to tea. The former concerns whether or not something exists; the latter concerns how you feel about something that’s axiomatically already accepted as existing.
Epistemically, these are different categories of knowledge.
… so I don't know why you keep referring to them to contrast with the supernatural.
Then you should do give how many times I’ve explained it to you. It’s not a “contrast with the supernatural” at all – it’s a contract with a belief about the existence of something (whether supernatural or not) compared with the belief about how you feel about that something (that’s already assumed to exist). Subjective vs objective. Again.
I have referred to morals, honour and similar concepts that get peddled to us when we are young.
And I’ve corrected you for doing so – repeatedly.
-
Vlad,
You think you “encountered” a god. You also think that this god just happens to be the exact one you were taught about as a youngster.
The God I was taught when young was probably the God we were all taught in the UK, However the God of a child dragged from play, made to wash and go and hear morality stories from the OT while one's mother was enjoying a fag and a feet up and one's Dad was on shift and couldn't do with it anyway and how gentle Jesus was is certainly not the version I encountered in my twenties.
The Amazonian tribesman does the same thing about the animal spirits he was taught about.
As a child that would have been
far more exciting We were lucky enough to have a wood at the end of the garden. Does that countPretty much everyone (so far as I’m aware) who’s had a transcendent episode that they then ascribe to a god thinks the god involved just happens to be the one to which they’re most enculturated.
But we are talking of stuff like theoretical religion, Churchgoing, something in itism and the like. So where as I think you are absolutely wrong to think adults go back to a childhood faith, I think it's perfectly likely some go back for churchgoing, social reasons, believe there is something there etc as well as people who develop a conviction and commitment to a risen christ and a living God. What I'm not sure of is whether these divisions are well understood by encultured non religious researchers. We know, particularly in sociological and psychological studies that the culture of the researchers has warped the studies themselves These supposed gods have as many characteristics and feature as there people who think they’ve encountered them, and often the features and characteristics of any one such god will contradict the features and characteristics of any other one such.
Feels like a strange kind of argumentum ad populum, Hillside. I've said the presence is God's the response is oursWhat then should someone presented with these various claims deduce about whether those claims map reliably to actual gods, or just confirm the claimant's bias toward the most proximate cultural artefact gods?
But world religions tend to owe very little to the majority of the localities and cultures they find themselves in and I certainly marvel at how I came to follow some first century Jewish bloke and argue christianity using greek philosophers of the axial age. You seem to be saying that God is an Englishman. What you are ignoring is there are things ideas, aesthetics etc that can be picked up, understood, valued, overwhelm and enjoyed by people of any culture.
-
I certainly marvel at how I came to follow some first century Jewish bloke and argue christianity using greek philosophers of the axial age. You seem to be saying that God is an Englishman. What you are ignoring is there are things ideas, aesthetics etc that can be picked up, understood, valued, overwhelm and enjoyed by people of any culture.
I certainly marvel that you appear to have aligned yourself with a division of Christianity whose origins were dependent on the sex life of Henry VIII.
Or do you now attend some other denomination?
-
Vlad,
The God I was taught when young was probably the God we were all taught in the UK, However the God of a child dragged from play, made to wash and go and hear morality stories from the OT while one's mother was enjoying a fag and a feet up and one's Dad was on shift and couldn't do with it anyway and how gentle Jesus was is certainly not the version I encountered in my twenties.
So? The point here was that you didn’t go to Neptune school, or to Ra college, or find yourself surrounded by the cultural artefacts of the Inca beliefs.
As a child that would have been far more exciting We were lucky enough to have a wood at the end of the garden. Does that count
See above.
But we are talking of stuff like theoretical religion, Churchgoing, something in itism and the like. So where as I think you are absolutely wrong to think adults go back to a childhood faith, I think it's perfectly likely some go back for churchgoing, social reasons, believe there is something there etc as well as people who develop a conviction and commitment to a risen christ and a living God. What I'm not sure of is whether these divisions are well understood by encultured non religious researchers. We know, particularly in sociological and psychological studies that the culture of the researchers has warped the studies themselves
A “risen christ and a living God” are both articles of faith you were enculturated to before you decided that you’d had an “encounter”. These then became main characteristics of the “encounter” you thought you’d had. Had you been enculturated to the Inca gods, no doubt you’d have decided you encountered Viracocha, Inti or Mama Quilla instead.
Feels like a strange kind of argumentum ad populum, Hillside. I've said the presence is God's the response is ours…
There’s no argumentum ad populum, and “I've said the presence is God's the response is ours…” is just unqualified assertion. The point here is that you ascribe this supposed “presence” to something other than your imagination (ie, “god”), and what’s more to a god that just happens to be the one with which you were most familiar.
Funny that.
But world religions tend to owe very little to the majority of the localities and cultures they find themselves in…
No, it’s the opposite of that.
…and I certainly marvel at how I came to follow some first century Jewish bloke…
As you were immersed in the supposed divinity of “some first century Jewish bloke” long before your suppose encounter, why on earth would you marvel at that being the “explanation” you subsequently reached for?
…and argue christianity using greek philosophers of the axial age.
Not that I’d noticed, but ok…
You seem to be saying that God is an Englishman.
Very funny.
What you are ignoring is there are things ideas, aesthetics etc that can be picked up, understood, valued, overwhelm and enjoyed by people of any culture.
No doubt they can, but what you’re ignoring is that nonetheless people who think they’ve had a transcendent experience and reach for a religious explanation for it almost invariably pick the religious faith that happens to be most familiar to them.
This should give you pause, even though it doesn’t.
-
Vlad,
So? The point here was that you didn’t go to Neptune school, or to Ra college, or find yourself surrounded by the cultural artefacts of the Inca beliefs.
See above.
A “risen christ and a living God” are both articles of faith you were enculturated to before you decided that you’d had an “encounter”. These then became main characteristics of the “encounter” you thought you’d had. Had you been enculturated to the Inca gods, no doubt you’d have decided you encountered Viracocha, Inti or Mama Quilla instead.
There’s no argumentum ad populum, and “I've said the presence is God's the response is ours…” is just unqualified assertion. The point here is that you ascribe this supposed “presence” to something other than your imagination (ie, “god”), and what’s more to a god that just happen to be the one with which you were most familiar.
Funny that.
No, it’s the opposite of that.
As you were immersed in the supposed divinity of “some first century Jewish bloke” long before your suppose encounter, why on earth would you marvel at that being the “explanation” you subsequently reached for?
Not that I’d noticed, but ok…
Very funny.
No doubt they can, but what you’re ignoring is that nonetheless people who think they’ve had a transcendent experience and reach for a religious explanation for it almost invariably pick the religious faith that happens to be most familiar to them.
This should give you pause, even though it doesn’t.
See, this is what I mean, I mention world religions and Hillside counters it with a local religion in a thinly disguised attempt to eliminate the notion of a world religion. He's done this before. Religious adherence? Hillside categorises it with football adherence.
You can't help yourself can you.
-
Vlad,
See, this is what I mean, I mention world religions and Hillside counters it with a local religion in a thinly disguised attempt to eliminate the notion of a world religion. He's done this before. Religious adherence? Hillside categorises it with football adherence.
You can't help yourself can you.
What are you trying to say here?
-
The God I was taught when young was probably the God we were all taught in the UK, However the God of a child dragged from play, made to wash and go and hear morality stories from the OT while one's mother was enjoying a fag and a feet up and one's Dad was on shift and couldn't do with it anyway and how gentle Jesus was is certainly not the version I encountered in my twenties.
But there are all sorts of things that we might view through a child's perspective when we encounter them as a child, but view in an altogether more sophisticated and complex manner when viewed as an adult.
But the point is that those childhood experiences appear to be critical for the adult experiences. Why? Because being brought up within a particular religious tradition is pretty well a prerequisite for having those adult experiences. Without those childhood experiences the likelihood of coming to religion as an adult is very small as I have demonstrated via the evidence from research.
Interesting, too, in he UK those rare individuals - children brought up non religious but who become religious as adults are far more likely to become christian than any other religion. If you'd not been brought up in a religious household you might expect that any/all religions hold equal attraction, but they don't. Again even for the non religious upbringing kids the predominant religion within UK society (and therefore the one much more likely to be encountered to some degree during childhood/schooling etc) becomes the preferred religion for those very few who do 'convert' from no religion as a child to religion as an adult.
-
But there are all sorts of things that we might view through a child's perspective when we encounter them as a child, but view in an altogether more sophisticated and complex manner when viewed as an adult.
But the point is that those childhood experiences appear to be critical for the adult experiences. Why? Because being brought up within a particular religious tradition is pretty well a prerequisite for having those adult experiences. Without those childhood experiences the likelihood of coming to religion as an adult is very small as I have demonstrated via the evidence from research.
Interesting, too, in he UK those rare individuals - children brought up non religious but who become religious as adults are far more likely to become christian than any other religion. If you'd not been brought up in a religious household you might expect that any/all religions hold equal attraction, but they don't. Again even for the non religious upbringing kids the predominant religion within UK society (and therefore the one much more likely to be encountered to some degree during childhood/schooling etc) becomes the preferred religion for those very few who do 'convert' from no religion as a child to religion as an adult.
The importance of childhood exposure would not have been the case in early Christianity or any other religion. And is apparently therefore not necessary for religion contrary to findings that it is. You will have read what I have said about the problems facing encultured atheist or agnostic sociological and psychological researchers are with regards to investigating religious issues.
If you are suggesting that childhood experience of religion somehow negates the reality of adult experience and indeed God then childhood experience of a physicalist view of the world would negate physicalism and this would be true of any ism you could mention, unless of course you were special pleading.
As Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism teach us. It only needs a handful of people or one to start something.
-
Vlad,
As you were immersed in the supposed divinity of “some first century Jewish bloke” long before your suppose encounter,
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho he he he he he he he.
-
We, of course, cannot climb inside Vlad's mind (there is a terrifying thought)
Whereas climbing into yours only holds terrors for the Agoraphobic.
-
This argument about the existence or otherwise of God has been going on for thousands of years. No one has been able to prove it one way or the other. Belief is not new, nor is atheism.
This shows clearly that it has something to do with our minds and their natural ability or otherwise, of believing in a God. This belief is not due to religions...rather religions has arisen due to this natural tendency.
God can be believed in due to various factors...natural forces that affect our lives, the orderliness of the universe, the complexity of the ecological system, the complexity of our mind and consciousness, our own experience of the different levels of consciousness within ourselves. There could be many other reasons too.
I have highlighted many times the effect of implicit pattern learning.
If some people do not inherently feel the need to believe in a God...nothing can be done about it. As far as those who do have reasons to believe in a God....that cannot change either. If these beliefs could change so easily through discussions, it wouldn't have come this far at all given the rise of science, technology and staunch atheism in recent centuries.
-
The importance of childhood exposure would not have been the case in early Christianity ...
Really - I don't think you are correct there.
Looking at christianity - this clearly developed from established jewish theology, specifically the expectation that a messiah would one day arrive to fulfil jewish prophecy. Jesus' followers would have been brought up to believe that jewish orthodoxy and without that upbringing I think it would be very unlikely that they would have followed Jesus, whose teaching was inextricably linked to that jewish orthodoxy, nor would they likely have considered that Jesus was the messiah of the prophecy they'd been brought up to believe. Indeed Jesus himself was brought up in that manner too and he would not have been able to have taught in the manner he did without that upbringing in jewish orthodoxy.
Religions tend not to appear from no-where by arise as evolution from existing embedded religions within the society from which they arise. The notion that the people within that society would have been familiar with the pre-evolved form of the religion through their upbringing is likely to have been very important in allowing a new religion ultimately to arise.
-
Vlad,
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho he he he he he he he.
Ah, then I owe you an apology. I’d always assumed that you were brought up in the UK – where there are churches on every other street corner, the CofE is the established church and the monarch is the head of it, bishops sit by right in the legislature, schools are required by law to have a daily act of collective worship, children go to Sunday schools, and the Archbishop of Canterbury gets privileged access to the media on any vaguely moral question. You know, immersed.
Anyway, as that’s apparently not the case why not tell us where you were brought up – on a remote Navajo reserve in the US perhaps where you learned that the Yei are a group of deities who act as mediators between humans and the Great Spirit? How about in the Australian badlands where the aborigines who took you in taught you all about the Adnoartina, the lizard guard of Uluru? Or I guess it may have been somewhere deep in the Guianas where you were told that that shaman’s soul becomes an auxiliary spirit of his living colleagues, helping them in their curing practices and in the control of harmful spirits?
Once we’ve established which faith tradition you were immersed in, perhaps you can share then how it was that once you’d had your episode that you decided was an “encounter”, you then concluded that what you’d encountered was a god from a religious faith entirely different from your own?
-
Really - I don't think you are correct there.
Looking at christianity - this clearly developed from established jewish theology, specifically the expectation that a messiah would one day arrive to fulfil jewish prophecy. Jesus' followers would have been brought up to believe that jewish orthodoxy and without that upbringing I think it would be very unlikely that they would have followed Jesus, whose teaching was inextricably linked to that jewish orthodoxy, nor would they likely have considered that Jesus was the messiah of the prophecy they'd been brought up to believe. Indeed Jesus himself was brought up in that manner too and he would not have been able to have taught in the manner he did without that upbringing in jewish orthodoxy.
Religions tend not to appear from no-where by arise as evolution from existing embedded religions within the society from which they arise. The notion that the people within that society would have been familiar with the pre-evolved form of the religion through their upbringing is likely to have been very important in allowing a new religion ultimately to arise.
But Jesus’ messiahhood was not the orthodox messiahhood.
Nor would Jesus’ claims have been considered Orthodox in claiming divine powers leading to his crucifixion and his death at the hands of Roman occupiers certainly wasn’t the expectation of the messiah who was expected to be a temporarily conqueror. And then of course there was the international following drawn from those of many religions including many pantheons and those of a more philosophical leaning. You cannot have it both ways that Christianity was derived from a Jewish religious background and a pagan religious childhood or a Grecian philosophical childhood.
In other words your argument has become so broad as to be meaningless.
-
This argument about the existence or otherwise of God has been going on for thousands of years. No one has been able to prove it one way or the other. Belief is not new, nor is atheism.
This shows clearly that it has something to do with our minds and their natural ability or otherwise, of believing in a God. This belief is not due to religions...rather religions has arisen due to this natural tendency.
God can be believed in due to various factors...natural forces that affect our lives, the orderliness of the universe, the complexity of the ecological system, the complexity of our mind and consciousness, our own experience of the different levels of consciousness within ourselves. There could be many other reasons too.
I have highlighted many times the effect of implicit pattern learning.
If some people do not inherently feel the need to believe in a God...nothing can be done about it. As far as those who do have reasons to believe in a God....that cannot change either. If these beliefs could change so easily through discussions, it wouldn't have come this far at all given the rise of science, technology and staunch atheism in recent centuries.
Yes and of course that presents the idea that religion exists because of indoctrination a chicken and egg dilemma.
-
VG,
The other night I watched a film called “Denial” (you may have seen it too). It’s about the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial (“David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt”) when DI sued for libel and lost. The defence team considered having holocaust survivors as witnesses, but decided against. The reason was that they knew that DI was smart enough to look for a detail (“You said the transport arrived at Auschwitz on a Tuesday, but it actually arrived on a Wednesday so why should we trust anything you have to day about Auschwitz?” etc) and they wanted instead to focus on the facts and evidence that the holocaust happened.
This tactic is essentially what you do – we could disappear down a rabbit hole about whether the god Vlad thinks he experienced was a “tangible” one or not, even though the definition of tangible isn’t concerned with the natural/supernatural issue – just with being "experienced" (which is what he claims to have done). The point though remains that Vlad thinks that, even if he fell under a bus tomorrow and wasn’t around to conceptualise it, this supposed god would continue to exist. On the other hand, his subjective preference for coffee or for 80s music would die with him.
You were the one focused on words like "tangible" and experience" as though there was some kind of point to be made that hadn't already been agreed on (see my reply #1056 that Vlad's belief is that god is a separate party from him).
Yes we are in agreement that theists believe their god exists even if the theist no longer exists. And I am not comparing god to preferences for coffee, as coffee clearly does exist as fact, because there is objective evidence for it.
Can you see the difference?
Irrelevant – see above.
It does matter though doesn’t it, because a phenomenon that exists whether or not there’s someone to conceptualise it is in a different epistemic category to an idea that exists only as a concept.
Try to understand this - it’s fundamental.
I agree a theist believes that the phenomenon (that people refer to when they say 'god') exists whether or not there's someone to conceptualise it.
But the god we're dealing with in our discussion of Vlad's god is the human conceptualised version and this human concept of god ceases to exist when the human who conceptualises that god is no longer there. The Christian version of god that Vlad's brain has constructed to make sense of his belief and his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present in his consciousness is based on the information about the Christian religion that was already stored in his brain - this Vlad's brain conceptualised god he believes in dies with him.
Some other out there phenomenon, necessary entity, first cause of the universe, higher power that transcends human understanding and limits etc etc may exist but I am not seeing where Vlad is claiming this as fact rather than arguing for it philosophically, nor do I see where he is claiming that Vlad's brain conceptualised god he believes in is fact.
Oh dear. When “honour” is defined and measured by behaviours (helping old ladies across the road for example) then the extent to which someone does these things can be counted. Thus they can be said empirically to have behaved honourably (or not) according to the lights of the societies in which they happen to live. Note that this doesn’t imply an absolute definition of "honour" – just the working one the claimant is referring to when he says he’s honourable.
But Vlad does – that’s the point.
And I hear the Pope’s a catholic too…
Relevance? New idea or not, Vlad does think his experience is evidence (albeit not the material type apparently) for a god (who just happens to be the god he knew most about anyway). That’s the point.
All very nice no doubt if that works for you as therapy but still not relevant. The POINT is that pointing to narratives of objectively real gods to explain subjective experiences of “presences” and such like is untenable.
You’re still mixing up your categories here. The claim about the lion is that it exists as an objective fact, whereas the claim about coffee is just that you prefer it to tea. The former concerns whether or not something exists; the latter concerns how you feel about something that’s axiomatically already accepted as existing.
Epistemically, these are different categories of knowledge.
Then you should do give how many times I’ve explained it to you. It’s not a “contrast with the supernatural” at all – it’s a contract with a belief about the existence of something (whether supernatural or not) compared with the belief about how you feel about that something (that’s already assumed to exist). Subjective vs objective. Again.
And I’ve corrected you for doing so – repeatedly.
Again, I'm not going to waste my time responding point by point to your assertions about what you think Vlad or I are saying. The point I am making repeatedly is that from what I have seen on this thread, Vlad expresses a belief in the existence of a god that he believes exists separate from him, and will exist after he is dead, which is to be expected, given he is a theist. He said pretty early on in this thread that his posts regarding the Christian version in response to points made to him was from a position of belief. I have not seen him expect you to become convinced of god's existence, based on his belief.
I've seen him try to use philosophy to argue for the existence of a necessary entity on other threads, and I've seen him mischaracterise other people's challenges to his necessary entity claim - he seemed to think they were making claims themselves rather than just pointing out that he had not proved his claim.
I have seen him use his personal experience and the philosophy to explain why he believes in god (his version of god based on his claim of a necessary entity e.g. that god is immortal, invisible, creative and sovereign). I haven't seen him characterise his personal experience or his arguments for a necessary entity as some kind of incontrovertible reason for god to be fact or for the Christian god to be fact. He seems clear that he is stating his belief.
My interpretation of what I have read is that his subjective experience is offered as evidence of what he thinks was present - he thinks a god that is a separate entity from him was present in his consciousness .
By the way, BHS, just to clarify, are you saying consciousness is "tangible" because we can experience it?
Vlad has said "I am aware that things which cannot be falsified are generally termed beliefs" and has offered his experience as a foundation of his belief.
Vlad said in the post I quoted earlier "if you will not accept my experience" as opposed to saying that his experience must be accepted and makes god a fact. Even if you did accept his experience, which he offers as subjective evidence for his concept of god, nowhere on this thread am I getting the impression that Vlad is expecting your acceptance of his evidence will make his concept of god a fact.
I have also repeatedly corrected you on referring to lions or tea or coffee. We are discussing abstract concepts that our brains have created that we treat as if they exist separate from us and will exist after we die e.g. terms such as 'honour' or 'goodness' or 'morally right' i.e. undefined or individually defined labels i.e. not collectively agreed upon labels, which we attach to some sensations or feelings we experience, which are based on input peddled to us when we were young, We are not discussing objects for which we have objective evidence of their existence such as lions or tea or coffee.
-
Vlad,
Ah, then I owe you an apology. I’d always assumed that you were brought up in the UK – where there are churches on every other street corner, the CofE is the established church and the monarch is the head of it, bishops sit by right in the legislature, schools are required by law to have a daily act of collective worship, children go to Sunday schools, and the Archbishop of Canterbury gets privileged access to the media on any vaguely moral question. You know, immersed.
Anyway, as that’s apparently not the case why not tell us where you were brought up – on a remote Navajo reserve in the US perhaps where you learned that the Yei are a group of deities who act as mediators between humans and the Great Spirit? How about in the Australian badlands where the aborigines who took you in taught you all about the Adnoartina, the lizard guard of Uluru? Or I guess it may have been somewhere deep in the Guianas where you were told that that shaman’s soul becomes an auxiliary spirit of his living colleagues, helping them in their curing practices and in the control of harmful spirits?
Once we’ve established which faith tradition you were immersed in, perhaps you can share then how it was that once you’d had your episode that you decided was an “encounter”, you then concluded that what you’d encountered was a god from a religious faith entirely different from your own?
Nay lad, Gerry Anderson was my deity in the sixties.
-
Nay lad, Gerry Anderson was my deity in the sixties.
And you have remained a Mysteronist ever since
-
But Jesus’ messiahhood was not the orthodox messiahhood.
Nor would Jesus’ claims have been considered Orthodox in claiming divine powers leading to his crucifixion and his death at the hands of Roman occupiers certainly wasn’t the expectation of the messiah who was expected to be a temporarily conqueror. And then of course there was the international following drawn from those of many religions including many pantheons and those of a more philosophical leaning. You cannot have it both ways that Christianity was derived from a Jewish religious background and a pagan religious childhood or a Grecian philosophical childhood.
In other words your argument has become so broad as to be meaningless.
Not at all.
Sure, of course there was a debate over interpretation of jewish scripture with regard to Jesus, but that doesn't mean that those that followed Jesus were not basing their view on their particular interpretation of that scripture - and of course interpretation requires knowledge, which in turn comes from the society and culture in which those individuals were brought up.
Jesus' teaching is fundamentally based on established jewish tradition, because that is, of course, the tradition he was brought up in himself. That meant something to others with that knowledge (i.e. brought up within that tradition) and that upbringing would have been critical to those around him who were interpreting their knowledge of scripture and prophecy to determine whether they felt Jesus was the messiah of prophecy or simply another prophet.
-
And you have remained a Mysteronist ever since
My cultural influences cover a broad Spectrum.
-
My cultural influences cover a broad Spectrum.
FAB!
-
VG,
You were the one focused on words like "tangible" and experience" as though there was some kind of point to be made that hadn't already been agreed on (see my reply #1056 that Vlad's belief is that god is a separate party from him).
Not sure how you got from “used once” (correctly as it turned out) to “focused on”, but ok.
Yes we are in agreement that theists believe their god exists even if the theist no longer exists. And I am not comparing god to preferences for coffee, as coffee clearly does exist as fact, because there is objective evidence for it.
Good – glad you’ve changed ground on that from your previous false analogy.
I agree a theist believes that the phenomenon (that people refer to when they say 'god') exists whether or not there's someone to conceptualise it.
But the god we're dealing with in our discussion of Vlad's god is the human conceptualised version and this human concept of god ceases to exist when the human who conceptualises that god is no longer there.
No we’re not. Vlad doesn’t just think he’s conceptualised a god and that’s that the end it – he thinks too that his conceptualisation maps accurately to and is evidence for an objectively real god. His personal conception may die with him but, according to him, the real, objective, actually there god he thinks he’s conceptualised doesn’t. The concept and the real deal are, to his way of thinking, the same thing.
The Christian version of god that Vlad's brain has constructed to make sense of his belief and his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present in his consciousness is based on the information about the Christian religion that was already stored in his brain - this Vlad's brain conceptualised god he believes in dies with him.
You’re getting closer – now you just need to be clear that “his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present” does not imply that there actually was something “present” other than the workings of his own imagination.
Some other out there phenomenon, necessary entity, first cause of the universe, higher power that transcends human understanding and limits etc etc may exist but I am not seeing where Vlad is claiming this as fact rather than arguing for it philosophically, nor do I see where he is claiming that Vlad's brain conceptualised god he believes in is fact.
Then you’ve not been looking. He’s claimed over and over again that his “experience” was evidence of an “encounter” with an actual, factual, objectively existing god possessed of these various attributes. Now you know as well as I do that what's he's describing look just like bog standard, common-or-garden confirmation bias, but that's his thesis nonetheless.
If you don’t believe me about that you can ask him yourself.
Again, I'm not going to waste my time responding point by point to your assertions about what you think Vlad or I are saying. The point I am making repeatedly is that from what I have seen on this thread, Vlad expresses a belief in the existence of a god that he believes exists separate from him, and will exist after he is dead, which is to be expected, given he is a theist. He said pretty early on in this thread that his posts regarding the Christian version in response to points made to him was from a position of belief. I have not seen him expect you to become convinced of god's existence, based on his belief.
He does much more than that though – he asserts his experience to be evidence of an encounter with a god that’s thereby just as much a fact for the rest of us as it is for him.
I've seen him try to use philosophy to argue for the existence of a necessary entity on other threads, and I've seen him mischaracterise other people's challenges to his necessary entity claim - he seemed to think they were making claims themselves rather than just pointing out that he had not proved his claim.
OK…
I have seen him use his personal experience and the philosophy to explain why he believes in god (his version of god based on his claim of a necessary entity e.g. that god is immortal, invisible, creative and sovereign). I haven't seen him characterise his personal experience or his arguments for a necessary entity as some kind of incontrovertible reason for god to be fact or for the Christian god to be fact. He seems clear that he is stating his belief.
See above. That is what he does, and when pressed about it he tries some very poor post hoc rationalisations to justify the attempt.
My interpretation of what I have read is that his subjective experience is offered as evidence of what he thinks was present - he thinks a god that is a separate entity from him was present in his consciousness.
But he also thinks that entity that was “present” for him is therefore every bit as real an entity for everyone else too, albeit that it hasn’t chosen to make itself present to the rest of us.
That’s the point.
By the way, BHS, just to clarify, are you saying consciousness is "tangible" because we can experience it?
That’s what the word tangible means, yes.
Vlad has said "I am aware that things which cannot be falsified are generally termed beliefs" and has offered his experience as a foundation of his belief.
Vlad said in the post I quoted earlier "if you will not accept my experience" as opposed to saying that his experience must be accepted and makes god a fact. Even if you did accept his experience, which he offers as subjective evidence for his concept of god, nowhere on this thread am I getting the impression that Vlad is expecting your acceptance of his evidence will make his concept of god a fact.
That’s not all he’s said though – see above.
I have also repeatedly corrected you on referring to lions or tea or coffee. We are discussing abstract concepts that our brains have created that we treat as if they exist separate from us and will exist after we die e.g. terms such as 'honour' or 'goodness' or 'morally right' i.e. undefined or individually defined labels i.e. not collectively agreed upon labels, which we attach to some sensations or feelings we experience, which are based on input peddled to us when we were young, We are not discussing objects for which we have objective evidence of their existence such as lions or tea or coffee.
Very funny. How are you still not getting this? “I prefer lions to tigers” is an epistemic statement that’s a subjective claim about a personal preference that doesn’t map to outside phenomena; “lions are real” on the other hand is a different category of epistemic statement that’s a claim of a fact that precisely maps to a “true for everyone”, objective phenomenon.
Vlad’s mistake is to treat the former as if it’s the latter for the purpose of a bad argument; your mistake is to treat the former as if it’s the latter for the purpose of a bad analogy.
-
Vlad,
My cultural influences cover a broad Spectrum.
99% of the time I shop at Tesco; once I went to Budgens though. Thus my grocery shopping influences "cover a wide spectrum" right?
-
VG,
Not sure how you got from “used once” (correctly as it turned out) to “focused on”, but ok.
Good – glad you’ve changed ground on that from your previous false analogy.
No we’re not. Vlad doesn’t just think he’s conceptualised a god and that’s that the end it – he thinks too that his conceptualisation maps accurately to and is evidence for an objectively real god. His personal conception may die with him but, according to him, the real, objective, actually there god he thinks he’s conceptualised doesn’t. The concept and the real deal are, to his way of thinking, the same thing.
You’re getting closer – now you just need to be clear that “his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present” does not imply that there actually was something “present” other than the workings of his own imagination.
Then you’ve not been looking. He’s claimed over and over again that his “experience” was evidence of an “encounter” with an actual, factual, objectively existing god possessed of these various attributes. Now you know as well as I do that what's he's describing look just like bog standard, common-or-garden confirmation bias, but that's his thesis nonetheless.
If you don’t believe me about that you can ask him yourself.
He does much more than that though – he asserts his experience to be evidence of an encounter with a god that’s thereby just as much a fact for the rest of us as it is for him.
OK…
See above. That is what he does, and when pressed about it he tries some very poor post hoc rationalisations to justify the attempt.
But he also thinks that entity that was “present” for him is therefore every bit as real an entity for everyone else too, albeit that it hasn’t chosen to make itself present to the rest of us.
That’s the point.
That’s what the word tangible means, yes.
That’s not all he’s said though – see above.
Very funny. How are you still not getting this? “I prefer lions to tigers” is an epistemic statement that’s a subjective claim about a personal preference that doesn’t map to outside phenomena; “lions are real” on the other hand is a different category of epistemic statement that’s a claim of a fact that precisely maps to a “true for everyone”, objective phenomenon.
Vlad’s mistake is to treat the former as if it’s the latter for the purpose of a bad argument; your mistake is to treat the former as if it’s the latter for the purpose of a bad analogy.
That reminds me Hillside. How far on are you in your defence of and evidence for philosophical empiricism?
-
Vlad,
By the way - you may have noticed Violent Gabriella rather gallantly but nonetheless hopelessly trying herself in knots trying to gild the lily of your reasoning. Could you perhaps put her out of her misery and confirm please that you do indeed think your "experience" was evidence of an encounter with an actual, non-imaginary god who's also therefore every bit as real for the rest of us too if only we could see it?
Thanks.
-
Vlad,
That reminds me Hillside. How far on are you in your defence of and evidence for philosophical empiricism?
Actual philosophical empiricism is simple enough to "defend". If as I suspect you actually mean your personal straw man version of that term though, then any defending of it would be a job for you I'd have thought.
-
Oh dear. I will accept evidence, and at this point the only type of evidence I’m aware of is the empirical type.
so you are putting your awareness forward as evidence of philosophical empiricism.
-
You cannot have it both ways that Christianity was derived from a Jewish religious background and a pagan religious childhood or a Grecian philosophical childhood.
In other words your argument has become so broad as to be meaningless.
Well, it would be difficult to argue that a plausible historical Jesus was inculcated with all of these from childhood. Nonetheless, all three influences can be seen in the New Testament. Dominic Crossan (perhaps the minority view) has argued for the Greek philosophical influence, presenting the Cynic Sage Jesus. A lot of this argument seems to derive from sundry aphorisms found in the NT which have a Cynic philosophical ring to them, and the fact that he lived near Sepphoris.
The more prevalent view, and this is easily discerned in the NT, is the very Jewish Jesus, with a very Jewish childhood, who later said "Not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass away" (Subscribers to this view are Geza Vermes, E.P. Sanders, and to a large extent Albert Schweitzer himself).
I wouldn't say that there's much evidence of a pagan religious childhood present in the gospels: however, if Jesus did indeed institute the Eucharist, with its echoes of pagan blood sacrifice, then that must be taken into consideration. Of course, all that could have derived from St Paul, who though obviously brought up as a Jew did his best to do away with most of the Jewish law, and turned his attention to dying and resurrecting pagan gods, of whom he obviously thought his Jesus was the one true example.
Somehow, out of this mishmash Christianity emerged. But indeed, I don't think you can have a real Jesus who was equally influenced from childhood by all traditions.
-
Vlad,
Actual philosophical empiricism is simple enough to "defend".
Go on then.
-
Vlad,
Go on then.
Tell you what - you tell me which version of philosophical empiricism you're referring to (actual vs your straw man) and we can proceed accordingly.
-
Vlad,
By the way - you may have noticed Violent Gabriella rather gallantly but nonetheless hopelessly trying herself in knots trying to gild the lily of your reasoning. Could you perhaps put her out of her misery and confirm please that you do indeed think your "experience" was evidence of an encounter with an actual, non-imaginary god who's also therefore every bit as real for the rest of us too if only we could see it?
Thanks.
There is no empirical evidence for God Hillside and there is none for philosophical empiricism.
I have stated I am aware of the former and you are apparently aware of the reality of the latter.
Philosophical empiricism demands empirical evidence of everything including itself. Go ahead then.
-
Vlad,
There is no empirical evidence for God Hillside…
So far, so good… though that doesn’t get you off the hook of claiming to have some kind of different, magical evidence that you want to keep secret instead remember? So, do you or do you not still think your “experience” that you ascribe to an "encounter" was therefore evidence for an objectively real god being “present”?
A simple yes or no would clear that up.
…and there is none for philosophical empiricism.
And then straight off the rails. Evidence for philosophical empiricism is all around you, just so long as you don’t try to Frankenstein’s monster it into your straw man, absolutist version.
I have stated I am aware of the former and you are apparently aware of the reality of the latter.
Former and latter what?
Philosophical empiricism demands empirical evidence of everything including itself. Go ahead then.
No it doesn’t – that’s just your personal straw man version again remember? Confine yourself to what it actually means though and you’ll be fine.
-
VG,
Not sure how you got from “used once” (correctly as it turned out) to “focused on”, but ok.
Good – glad you’ve changed ground on that from your previous false analogy.
My analogy was not about preferences for coffee so I haven't changed it.
No we’re not. Vlad doesn’t just think he’s conceptualised a god and that’s that the end it – he thinks too that his conceptualisation maps accurately to and is evidence for an objectively real god. His personal conception may die with him but, according to him, the real, objective, actually there god he thinks he’s conceptualised doesn’t. The concept and the real deal are, to his way of thinking, the same thing.
Of course he believes that his conceptualisation maps accurately. A theist isn't going to believe that it doesn't. He doesn't claim it as fact though. That's your error in understanding the difference between belief and fact.
You’re getting closer – now you just need to be clear that “his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present” does not imply that there actually was something “present” other than the workings of his own imagination.
No I don't need to be clear on that. It's possible that he is correct and there was something present so I can't rule it out.
Then you’ve not been looking. He’s claimed over and over again that his “experience” was evidence of an “encounter” with an actual, factual, objectively existing god possessed of these various attributes.
Yes - it's evidence in the form of testimony. Now you know as well as I do that what's he's describing look just like bog standard, common-or-garden confirmation bias, but that's his thesis nonetheless.
It looks like it could be confirmation bias, or it could be his brain accurately interpreted an experience.
He does much more than that though – he asserts his experience to be evidence of an encounter with a god that’s thereby just as much a fact for the rest of us as it is for him.
Not a fact - you're getting your terminology mixed up, despite me correcting you on this repeatedly. He thinks god is objectively real as a belief, not a fact.
OK…
See above. That is what he does, and when pressed about it he tries some very poor post hoc rationalisations to justify the attempt.
But he also thinks that entity that was “present” for him is therefore every bit as real an entity for everyone else too, albeit that it hasn’t chosen to make itself present to the rest of us.
That’s the point.
Yes of course he does as do most theists - not as fact but as a belief.
That’s what the word tangible means, yes.
Incorrect. You can't touch consciousness and it's antonym in the dictionary is defined as:
noun: something that exists but that cannot be touched, exactly described, or given an exact value:
She has that intangible quality which you might call charisma.
intangible assets such as goodwill
adj: influencing you but not able to be seen or physically felt
used about a feeling or quality that does not exist in a physical way, or that is difficult to describe:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/intangible
Something that is intangible is abstract or is hard to define or measure.
incapable of being perceived by touch; impalpable
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/intangible
Very funny. How are you still not getting this? “I prefer lions to tigers” is an epistemic statement that’s a subjective claim about a personal preference that doesn’t map to outside phenomena; “lions are real” on the other hand is a different category of epistemic statement that’s a claim of a fact that precisely maps to a “true for everyone”, objective phenomenon.
Vlad’s mistake is to treat the former as if it’s the latter for the purpose of a bad argument; your mistake is to treat the former as if it’s the latter for the purpose of a bad analogy.
Looks like I still need to keep correcting you as you're still not getting it. My analogy was mainly with abstract concepts - intangibles. As you don't know what the word "tangible" means that explains your confusion.
-
Vlad,
By the way - you may have noticed Violent Gabriella rather gallantly but nonetheless hopelessly trying herself in knots trying to gild the lily of your reasoning. Could you perhaps put her out of her misery and confirm please that you do indeed think your "experience" was evidence of an encounter with an actual, non-imaginary god who's also therefore every bit as real for the rest of us too if only we could see it?
Thanks.
Your concern for my well-being, while touching, is misplaced. I suggest you focus on alleviating your own frustrations as I'm actually enjoying correcting you so I'm not feeling any misery. Perhaps you're projecting again.
-
Your concern for my well-being, while touching, is misplaced. I suggest you focus on alleviating your own frustrations as I'm actually enjoying correcting you so I'm not feeling any misery. Perhaps you're projecting again.
Your telepathic insight into Vlad's brain is truly remarkable. Why not just let him answer directly?
BTW, most of us old hands here have got some idea about how almost universally he has applied his concept of 'God-dodging' to non-believers. I can't say your observations have clarified anything. We wait with bated breath for Vlad himself, before he takes another obfuscating swerve into the murk of methodological or philosophical empiricism.
-
Your telepathic insight into Vlad's brain is truly remarkable. Why not just let him answer directly?
BTW, most of us old hands here have got some idea about how almost universally he has applied his concept of 'God-dodging' to non-believers. I can't say your observations have clarified anything. We wait with bated breath for Vlad himself, before he takes another obfuscating swerve into the murk of methodological or philosophical empiricism.
Sure, I am not preventing Vlad from answering directly - that's up to him. He can chip in anytime and he may well disagree with my thoughts. My posts are from a theist perspective where I am stating my interpretation of what I think Vlad has said i.e. his belief that there really is a god rather than stating god as fact, given the lack of objective evidence.
I am also just correcting BHS on his perception of my misery - I am not feeling any. Maybe BHS is and he is projecting.
Regarding god-dodging - I don't use the term. That may be Vlad's description of what he was doing before his conversion and he is projecting onto others. My view, having been an atheist, is that I can't dodge something I don't believe in, anymore than when I am walking down the street in a straight line I am dodging ghosts while simultaneously not believing ghosts are there. Maybe he means it as not entertaining the idea of a god. But that's no different to experiencing goose bumps in the dark when walking through a cemetery and not entertaining the idea that it's ghosts. Why would you if you don't believe in them?
-
Regarding god-dodging - I don't use the term. That may be Vlad's description of what he was doing before his conversion and he is projecting onto others. My view, having been an atheist, is that I can't dodge something I don't believe in, anymore than when I am walking down the street in a straight line I am dodging ghosts while simultaneously not believing ghosts are there. Maybe he means it as not entertaining the idea of a god. But that's no different to experiencing goose bumps in the dark when walking through a cemetery and not entertaining the idea that it's ghosts. Why would you if you don't believe in them?
That concurs with most people's view on this board I believe, yet god-dodging accusations still appear from one lone source!
-
Regarding god-dodging - I don't use the term. That may be Vlad's description of what he was doing before his conversion and he is projecting onto others. My view, having been an atheist, is that I can't dodge something I don't believe in, anymore than when I am walking down the street in a straight line I am dodging ghosts while simultaneously not believing ghosts are there.
I'd agree with that but Vlad clearly seems to think that people who don't believe in something are constantly dodging the thing they don't believe in.
Interestingly Vlad also claims to have been an atheist, so he really should know better - but then his idol seems to be CS Lewis, who also claimed to be an atheist, but also stated that when he was an atheist he was 'angry at god for not existing' - that kind of comment is kind of the equivalent of you dodging ghosts you don't believe in as you walk down the road. And the kind of comment that no atheist would come out with as it makes no sense to be angry with something that doesn't exist.
-
Yes, there are several things that Vlad says on here that I can't quite fathom, which is fine as I don't come on here to meet like-minded people - clearly as I seem to be the only Muslim on here.
The point I was discussing with BHS about Vlad's beliefs was the difference between an intangible, supernatural, not clearly defined 'god' that some theists believe exists (Vlad, me), and the god that each theist's brain fleshes out the detail of i.e. conceptualises as an abstract according to past info in the theist's brain. I use the word concept or entity to indicate the non-physical as well as that the perception/ interpretation of god is in our brains.
Of course, in contrast, there are probably theists who think god is an actual physical entity as a fact, but that's not my interpretation of Vlad's concept of god, since he said it is non-physical and was present in his consciousness.
Presumably Vlad thinks god could be present in our consciousnesses as well, but not sure - and not sure if this partly ties in with his belief about people who are god-dodging. Or if for him, god-dodging is not entertaining the idea of a god when discussing it.
I just tried to believe there was a ghost in the room while typing this, but my brain is low-key sniggering at me in a good-humoured way. That's similar to how I felt as an atheist trying to believe in god.
-
Vlad,
Tell you what - you tell me which version of philosophical empiricism you're referring to (actual vs your straw man) and we can proceed accordingly.
No, you've said there is evidence for philosophical materialism.
Produce it. This attempt to shift the burden of proving your claim or saying we are surrounded by evidence doesn't wash. Produce it.
-
That concurs with most people's view on this board I believe, yet god-dodging accusations still appear from one lone source!
Famous self confessed Goddodgers include Saint Augustine and John Bunyan.
-
I'd agree with that but Vlad clearly seems to think that people who don't believe in something are constantly dodging the thing they don't believe in.
Not everyone and not just something. Broadly speaking declaring there are no reasons to believe there is such thing as God is wrong and where someone has worked that out yet persists in it one must suspect that where that appears with other evasions one is a evading God The word Goddodger is a rebuke to those quite happy to use the word Godbother and the like. I have given Vlad's Law of Goddodging that where the solution to eliminate God is as outlandish or more outlandish than er, God( circular heirarchies) then that is probably a God dodge. Another instance would be suggesting the universe was simulated and then swear blind that the creator of the universe has no resemblance to God.
Interestingly Vlad also claims to have been an atheist, so he really should know better - but then his idol seems to be CS Lewis, who also claimed to be an atheist, but also stated that when he was an atheist he was 'angry at god for not existing' - that kind of comment is kind of the equivalent of you dodging ghosts you don't believe in as you walk down the road. And the kind of comment that no atheist would come out with as it makes no sense to be angry with something that doesn't exist.
I shall have to reread the context and perhaps you should read the context
However there is evidence of anger at God on this board and from Fry also.IMHO
Also Davey, Am I looking at a No true atheist scotsman fallacy here?
-
Famous self confessed Goddodgers include Saint Augustine and John Bunyan.
Self confessed, not accusers!
-
VG,
My analogy was not about preferences for coffee so I haven't changed it.
Analogies are never about their objects – “A good man is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack” for example isn’t about needles. An analogy works by comparing an epistemically equivalent feature of different objects for the purpose of one such illuminating a characteristic of the other. This only works though when the epistemic feature is equivalent – thus for example “preferring Sunak to Truss is like preferring typhus to cholera” is fine.
An analogy necessarily fails however when the feature to be compared isn’t epistemically equivalent. That’s why your attempt at an analogy between a preference for something and its existence at all (ie, regardless of your feeling about it if it did exist) fell apart.
Of course he believes that his conceptualisation maps accurately. A theist isn't going to believe that it doesn't. He doesn't claim it as fact though. That's your error in understanding the difference between belief and fact.
Wrong again. He thinks his explanatory narrative of having encountered a god is itself evidence for a real, non-imaginary god. I’ve asked him to confirm this for you, but as he rarely if ever answers questions you’ll just have to rely on his countless prior comments to this effect.
No I don't need to be clear on that. It's possible that he is correct and there was something present so I can't rule it out.
Wrong again. Your poor comprehension is letting you down here – what I said was “you just need to be clear that “his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present” does not imply that there actually was something “present” other than the workings of his own imagination”. You were asked to accept that his assertion “does not imply” something, not to rule out the possibility of a "presence" being involved nonetheless.
Yes - it's evidence in the form of testimony.
Wrong again. It’s evidence just of making the claim, not of the claim itself being true.
It looks like it could be confirmation bias, or it could be his brain accurately interpreted an experience.
That’s a non-point: I said – “looks just like bog standard, common-or-garden confirmation bias”. The man who believes in dragons and then tells you an invisible one chased him down street could be right about that, but it still looks "just like" confirmation bias nonetheless right?
Not a fact - you're getting your terminology mixed up, despite me correcting you on this repeatedly. He thinks god is objectively real as a belief, not a fact.
Wrong again. He thinks not only that “god is real” is a fact for all of us, but also that his belief that he “encountered” it is evidence for that. The only one getting the terminology wrong here is you.
Yes of course he does as do most theists - not as fact but as a belief.
Wrong again. He (not I) thinks it’s a fact no matter that we both know that his “evidence” for that claim of believing he “encountered” it isn’t evidence for that at all.
Try to understand this – it’s getting wearisome correcting you your repeated mistake about this.
Incorrect. You can't touch consciousness and it's antonym in the dictionary is defined as:
noun: something that exists but that cannot be touched, exactly described, or given an exact value:
She has that intangible quality which you might call charisma.
intangible assets such as goodwill
adj: influencing you but not able to be seen or physically felt
used about a feeling or quality that does not exist in a physical way, or that is difficult to describe:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/intangible
Something that is intangible is abstract or is hard to define or measure.
incapable of being perceived by touch; impalpable
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/intangible
Wrong again. Something tangible just has to have had the property of being “experienced” (or believed to be experienced). The definition does not concern itself with whether the belief of an experience had as its object a material or a non-material claim:
“real and not imaginary; able to be shown, touched, or experienced:
We need tangible evidence if we're going to take legal action.
Othertangible benefits include an increase in salary and shorter working hours.”
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tangible
Looks like I still need to keep correcting you as you're still not getting it. My analogy was mainly with abstract concepts - intangibles. As you don't know what the word "tangible" means that explains your confusion.
Wrong again. Your (false) analogy was between a statement of preferring one thing over another (with no concern at all for whether or not that thing actually exists), and a statement about whether or not something exists in the first place (with no concern at all for a preference about it if if does).
In short, your “analogy” was a category error.
Sorry you crashed and burned so spectacularly here, but you didn’t give me much choice I’m afraid.
-
Vlad,
No, you've said there is evidence for philosophical materialism.
Produce it. This attempt to shift the burden of proving your claim or saying we are surrounded by evidence doesn't wash. Produce it.
Oh no no no no no. We’ve been here before haven’t we – several times in fact. I set it all out for you, then you decide that the explanation fails because it doesn’t address your personal, straw man definition of the term “philosophical materialism”. Tell me which version you want to attempt though: if the it’s the correct one I’ll address it (again), and if it’s your straw man version and you’re only here to play pigeon chess again I’ll leave you to it.
Fair enough?
Oh, while I know you won’t answer question why not at least answer the following one to save VG trying to bat for you and falling over in the attempt?
“By the way - you may have noticed Violent Gabriella rather gallantly but nonetheless hopelessly trying herself in knots trying to gild the lily of your reasoning. Could you perhaps put her out of her misery and confirm please that you do indeed think your "experience" was evidence of an encounter with an actual, non-imaginary god who's also therefore every bit as real for the rest of us too if only we could see it?”
Why so coy?
-
However there is evidence of anger at God on this board and from Fry also.IMHO
I've seen no evidence at anger at god from atheists on this board - for the precise reason that it makes no sense to be angry at something that you don't think exists.
What I have seen is hypotheticals - that if god existed as described in the bible then we should be angry, that if god existed as described in the bible then we should consider that god not to be good but to be monstrous etc etc. But that is entirely different to actually being angry with god.
On Fry, well you'll need to provide a quote or link for context - but if memory serves I think Fry has also made the same hypothetical argument.
-
Broadly speaking declaring there are no reasons to believe there is such thing as God is wrong...
It's probably short-hand for 'I have seen no good reasons presented to accept the claim that there is one or more gods...' Not everyone speaks like they're in a formal debate at all times.
...and where someone has worked that out yet persists in it one must suspect that where that appears with other evasions one is a evading God
I can't imagine a scenario where someone accepts the notion of 'god', but then goes around denying it.
The word Goddodger is a rebuke to those quite happy to use the word Godbother and the like. I have given Vlad's Law of Goddodging that where the solution to eliminate God is as outlandish or more outlandish than er, God( circular heirarchies) then that is probably a God dodge.
Your subjective argument from incredulity...
Another instance would be suggesting the universe was simulated and then swear blind that the creator of the universe has no resemblance to God.
That we might exist in a simulated universe in no way suggests that the 'real' universe in which the simulation is running is any more likely to have a god (not) in it.
However there is evidence of anger at God on this board and from Fry also.
I think you confuse anger at god with anger at the proponents of god and religion, anger at the implications of the arguments and accusations cast our way at times.
O.
-
It's probably short-hand for 'I have seen no good reasons presented to accept the claim that there is one or more gods...' Not everyone speaks like they're in a formal debate at all times.
I think the arguments of reason were ignored in the adoption of empirical evidence and scientism I think those who followed the horsemen of the non apocalypse and angry atheism not only see theism as wrong but dangerous. The upshot is an incorrect understanding of rationalism which sounds good but is effectively dismissed by empiricism, physicalism etc..
I can't imagine a scenario where someone accepts the notion of 'god', but then goes around denying it.
I can not only imagine it but knew someone who knew they believed they had encountered God, repudiated and supressed God to preserve his pride and eventually surrendered.
That we might exist in a simulated universe in no way suggests that the 'real' universe in which the simulation is running is any more likely to have a god (not) in it.
And this is where your repudiation of reason, philosophy and subsequent
lack of practice has let you down, for if the universe existed as a simulation the simulator is completely sovereign as far as we are concerned, it would have an intelligence and will. It wouldn't necessarily be governed by our laws of nature. These are precisely the arguments used by William Lane Craig I think it's up to people who believe that the creator of this unit to show that God does not have the properties are divine rather than atheistic.I think you confuse anger at god with anger at the proponents of god and religion, anger at the implications of the arguments and accusations cast our way at times.
The implications are those that reasoned argument throw up and so the thing that must make you guys angry are mainly the possibility of Gods existence and One's possible moral position in relation to God's judgment. Those two cannot but fail to have implications for the Ego.
I'm afraid, as I told Hillside he is aware only of empirical evidence and theists are aware of God so you are defending your Commitment and faith in a natural universe and nothing greater.
In terms of morality you guys are all over the place because you have to turn subjective morality, which should in reason exclude the notion of Judgment into rational judgement and yet you have already judged against the morality of theism. Now that's a conundrum I'd like to see an adequate solution to
-
... and theists are aware of God ...
No, theists are aware of something that they perceive as god, that they belief to be god, that they have faith is god. They cannot be sure that what they are aware of actually is god for the simple reason that they do not know that god exists (as they have no credible evidence), they merely believe that god exists.
-
No theists are aware of something that they perceive as god, that they belief to be god, that they have faith is god. They cannot be sure that what they are aware of actually is god for the simple reason that they do not know that god exists (as they have no credible evidence), they merely believe that god exists.
And philosophical empiricists only accept what they empirically detect in other words a circular argument Their faith is that they maybe reasonably be making a logical fallacy but that hopefully they are still right in there faith in empirical evidence. All the time ignoring that there is not a single bit of empirical evidence that supports their position.
-
And philosophical empiricists only accept what they empirically detect in other words a circular argument Their faith is that they maybe reasonably be making a logical fallacy but that hopefully they are still right in there faith in empirical evidence. All the time ignoring that there is not a single bit of empirical evidence that supports their position.
So does that equate to you accepting that you do not know that god exists, but merely believe that he/she/it does?
-
So does that equate to you accepting that you do not know that god exists, but merely believe that he/she/it does?
So does that equate to you accepting that you do not know that god exists, but merely believe that he/she/it does?
God is as real to me as I am. I have no material evidence for that though.
-
Vlad,
I think the arguments of reason were ignored in the adoption of empirical evidence…
No, they were rebutted rather than ignored.
…and scientism…
Straw man. No-one here argues for scientism. It would save time if you stopped pretending otherwise.
I think those who followed the horsemen of the non apocalypse and angry atheism not only see theism as wrong but dangerous.
It certainly can be, yes.
The upshot is an incorrect understanding of rationalism which sounds good but is effectively dismissed by empiricism, physicalism etc..
Gibberish.
I can not only imagine it but knew someone who knew they believed they had encountered God, repudiated and supressed God to preserve his pride and eventually surrendered.
But no-one here has done any such thing, so your charge here of “goddodging” still fails.
And this is where your repudiation of reason, philosophy and subsequent lack of practice has let you down,…
Why on earth do you think he’s repudiated reason etc when he does precisely the opposite of that?
…for if the universe existed as a simulation the simulator is completely sovereign as far as we are concerned, it would have an intelligence and will.
First, a multiverse doesn’t imply a simulator, and second even if it did you have no basis at all to justify the claims you just made about its supposed characteristics.
It wouldn't necessarily be governed by our laws of nature. These are precisely the arguments used by William Lane Craig I think it's up to people who believe that the creator of this unit to show that God does not have the properties are divine rather than atheistic.
Further gibberish. What are you trying to say here?
The implications are those that reasoned argument throw up and so the thing that must make you guys angry are mainly the possibility of Gods existence and One's possible moral position in relation to God's judgment. Those two cannot but fail to have implications for the Ego.
Alphabet soup? A bad hand as Scrabble? There seem to be some words there, but not assembled in a comprehensible form. Does this stuff even make sense to you before you eructate it here?
The only “implications” are that the reasons theists attempt to justify their beliefs and consequent actions are wrong That’s it. Nothing less, nothing more.
I'm afraid, as I told Hillside he is aware only of empirical evidence…
Yep. What other sort do you propose?
…and theists are aware of God…
Fallacy of reification. What makes you think they’re “aware of god” rather than just overreaching with an unsupportable explanatory narrative they find persuasive?
…so you are defending your Commitment and faith in a natural universe and nothing greater.
Your premise just failed, so so did that “so” (leavind aside for now the car crash of a sentiment that followed).
In terms of morality you guys are all over the place because you have to turn subjective morality…
What other sort would you propose?
…which should exclude the notion of Judgment…
Why? People are judged morally all the time with no claim to objective moral rules necessary.
…and yet you have already judged against the morality of theism.
No, people “judge” that various theistic claims of the morally good are morally bad. Just as people judge that claims of aesthetically good are aesthetically bad. So what?
Now that's a conundrum I'd like to see an adequate solution to
There is no conundrum - just your various straw men, incomprehensions, unsupportable assertions and no sequiturs: same ol’ same ol’.
-
Vlad,
And philosophical empiricists only accept what they empirically detect in other words a circular argument
That’s not a circular argument. “Claim X can’t be verified empirically, therefore claim X is false” (which is essentially the straw man version of philosophical empiricism you rely on) might be, but as that’s not what it actually means at all your objection fails.
Their faith…
What “faith”?
…is that they maybe reasonably be making a logical fallacy but that hopefully they are still right in there faith in empirical evidence.
Flat wrong again. There is no logical fallacy here (which is somewhat ironic a you’re the king of the logical fallacy, but ok).
All the time ignoring that there is not a single bit of empirical evidence that supports their position.
There’s overwhelming empirical evidence to support “their position”, but none to support your straw man version of it.
So what?
-
Vlad,
That’s not a circular argument. “Claim X can’t be verified empirically, therefore claim X is false” (which is essentially the straw man version of philosophical empiricism you rely on) might be, but as that’s not what it actually means at all your objection fails.
What “faith”?
Flat wrong again. There is no logical fallacy here (which is somewhat ironic a you’re the king of the logical fallacy, but ok).
There’s overwhelming empirical evidence to support “their position”, but none to support your straw man version of it.
So what?
I'm afraid you haven't specified what philosophical materialism(cowardice) is or provided the empirical evidence it needs(failure).
-
Vlad,
No, they were rebutted rather than ignored.
There is no rebuttal Hillside only if you take those which attempt to eliminate the PSR by appealing to the PSR
Straw man. No-one here argues for scientism. It would save time if you stopped pretending otherwise.
You do with all your so called rebuttals that say science might provide all the answers around the nature and existence of the universe
-
Vlad,
I'm afraid you haven't specified what philosophical materialism(cowardice) is or provided the empirical evidence it needs(failure).
Yes I have, many times. As you’re the one asking questions about it again though it’s your job to tell us what you mean by it. Try to remember that on previous occasions you’ve relied on a personal, straw man version of it as a claim of absolutes (just as a pigeon pushes the chess pieces over, craps on the board and flies off to claim his “victory”) so you’ll find no appetite here for a repeat performance.
-
Vlad,
There is no rebuttal Hillside only if you take those which attempt to eliminate the PSR by appealing to the PSR
Of course there is. Actually you do the job for me in any case the moment you rely on magic to get you off the hook.
You do with all your so called rebuttals that say science might provide all the answers around the nature and existence of the universe
“Science might” isn’t scientism; “science will” is scientism.
Try to stop lying about this
-
Vlad,
No, people “judge” that various theistic claims of the morally good are morally bad. Just as people judge that claims of aesthetically good are aesthetically bad. So what?
Well done Hillside, the consumate turdpolish agreeing with me by repeating what I am saying while making it look as you are disagreeing with me.
People don't judge but they do ''judge'' con pal
You must really hate humanity.
-
Vlad,
Of course there is. Actually you do the job for me in any case the moment you rely on magic to get you off the hook.
And you are relying on piss taking con...
People dont judge, they ''judge'' indeed.
“Science might” isn’t scientism; “science will” is scientism.
Try to stop lying about this
Scientism is putting science into situations and contexts where it cannot operate hence science cannot determine whether the universe is infinitely old or popped out of nothing..
-
Vlad,
Yes I have, many times. As you’re the one asking questions about it again though it’s your job to tell us what you mean by it. Try to remember that on previous occasions you’ve relied on a personal, straw man version of it as a claim of absolutes (just as a pigeon pushes the chess pieces over, craps on the board and flies off to claim his “victory”) so you’ll find no appetite here for a repeat performance.
You don't have the cojones to say what philosophical empiricism is.
Then you declare it's easy to demonstrate evidence for it and then you don't provide the evidence. Now this might make an atheist moist but it makes you look a bit iffy.
-
Vlad,
Well done Hillside, the consumate turdpolish agreeing with me by repeating what I am saying while making it look as you are disagreeing with me.
People don't judge but they do ''judge'' con pal
You must really hate humanity.
Your desperation is showing now. The point of course is that it’s quite possible to judge something without making claims to absolute standards.
Try to remember this (or at least try to stop lying about it).
And you are relying on piss taking con...
People dont judge, they ''judge'' indeed.
Wrong again – see above.
Scientism is putting science into situations and contexts where it cannot operate hence science cannot determine whether the universe is infinitely old or popped out of nothing..
No it isn’t. Scientism is the claim that “science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism#:~:text=Scientism%20is%20the%20opinion%20that,about%20the%20world%20and%20reality.)
That may indeed be true, but it’s not claim that’s verifiable so it’s not a claim that anyone here makes. It is though a straw man version of the position against you that you deploy whenever you can.
You don't have the cojones to say what philosophical empiricism is.
Then you declare it's easy to demonstrate evidence for it and then you don't provide the evidence. Now this might make an atheist moist but it makes you look a bit iffy.
Lying still isn’t helping you here. If you want to discuss philosophical empiricism that’s fine, but you need to explain first which version of it you want to discuss: the actual one, or your straw man version of it.
Speaking of missing cojones – what’s stopping you?
-
God is as real to me as I am.
If your god is not real to me , am I god-doging because of that?
-
Vlad,
Your desperation is showing now. The point of course is that it’s quite possible to judge something without making claims to absolute standards.
Try to remember this (or at least try to stop lying about it).
Wrong again – see above.
No it isn’t. Scientism is the claim that “science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism#:~:text=Scientism%20is%20the%20opinion%20that,about%20the%20world%20and%20reality.)
That may indeed be true, but it’s not claim that’s verifiable so it’s not a claim that anyone here makes. It is though a straw man version of the position against you that you deploy whenever you can.
Lying still isn’t helping you here. If you want to discuss philosophical empiricism that’s fine, but you need to explain first which version of it you want to discuss: the actual one, or your straw man version of it.
Speaking of missing cojones – what’s stopping you?
No desperation Pal just a gentle reminder subjective morality should mean your opinion should never count by equating moral bad with aesthetic bad you've done your old trick of elimination. This time eliminating morality while keeping the handle an extra reason why your public moral pontification isn't reasonably valid if you follow your logic.
-
If your god is not real to me , am I god-doging because of that?
I don't know . Are you?
-
Vlad,
Your desperation is showing now. The point of course is that it’s quite possible to judge something without making claims to absolute standards.
Try to remember this (or at least try to stop lying about it).
Wrong again – see above.
No it isn’t. Scientism is the claim that “science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism#:~:text=Scientism%20is%20the%20opinion%20that,about%20the%20world%20and%20reality.)
That may indeed be true, but it’s not claim that’s verifiable so it’s not a claim that anyone here makes. It is though a straw man version of the position against you that you deploy whenever you can.
Lying still isn’t helping you here. If you want to discuss philosophical empiricism that’s fine, but you need to explain first which version of it you want to discuss: the actual one, or your straw man version of it.
Speaking of missing cojones – what’s stopping you?
My definition is on another thread. What is stopping you from agreeing with it or rationally disputing it apart from mind gaming?
-
I don't know . Are you?
Well, I believe that I am asking the god-doging expert on this board. If you don't know then nobody will.
-
Vlad,
"In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions.[2] However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences"
Can you see any claims to absolutes there? I can't.
Using the definition you (finally) posted, I therefore conclude that the philosophical theory “people who jump put of windows will likely hit the deck shortly thereafter” can best be justified by jumping out of the window and examining the resulting evidence, the conclusion thereby being knowledge primarily derived from the emphasis placed on the evidence produced by the application of methodological empiricism.
Note that none of this implies for one moment that it’s impossible for someone to jump out of the window and to find themselves floating gently to the ground instead. There are no claims of the absolute here, no matter how much your straw man version would have it otherwise.
Mind that door doesn’t hot you on your way out…
-
Well, I believe that I am asking the god-doging expert on this board. If you don't know then nobody will.
That's a horses laugh argument. Only you know if you are dodging God I can speculate using Vlad's laws but that's it but I will certainly let you know if I receive conviction of it.
-
Vlad,
That's a horses laugh argument. Only you know if you are dodging God I can speculate using Vlad's laws but that's it but I will certainly let you know if I receive conviction of it.
No it isn’t. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho he he he he he he he” is a horse’s laugh argument (Reply 1087).
-
Vlad,
"In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions.[2] However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences"
Can you see any claims to absolutes there? I can't.
Well the first part seems quite absolute."In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only
Also if primarily suggests that all knowledge comes to us first through empirical evidence then that is pretty absolute too.
Of course if Primary means mainly instead you have no objection to my belief being knowledge and your position over the last few days has been showboating and Grandstanding.
The evidence is that your position is Only rather than primary and primary rather than mainly.
So basically when you are caught red handed commiting philosophical empiricism you are saying ''Nothing to do with me Guv'nor''.
And on that bombshell I shall retire as you have given my arse a sore head.
-
Well the first part seems quite absolute.Also if primarily suggests that all knowledge comes to us first through empirical evidence then that is pretty absolute too.
Of course if Primary means mainly instead you have no objection to my belief being knowledge and your position over the last few days has been showboating and Grandstanding.
The evidence is that your position is Only rather than primary and primary rather than mainly.
So basically when you are caught red handed commiting philosophical empiricism you are saying ''Nothing to do with me Guv'nor''.
And on that bombshell I shall retire as you have given my arse a sore head.
What?
-
Exactly
:D :D
-
Only you know if you are dodging God
How exactly would I know?
Do tell.
-
What?
It's like this Maeght, Philosophical empiricism is defined as:
'' an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience.''
So you either believe it is the only way to get knowledge or justification or not.
Now if you take the word primarily to mean that knowledge first or primarily comes as empirical evidence so effectively there can be no knowledge without it. So you either believe that or not.
Or you can take the word primarily to mean mainly. So you believe Knowledge or justification mainly comes from sensory experience. If you believe that, you leave room for justification by other means and so you forfeit the right as it were to dismiss those other means.
But once you have decided which camp you're in, you have another problem and that is ''where's your empirical evidence or justification for it?''.
-
How exactly would I know?
Do tell.
There's Vlad's law of course, you might find an emotional reaction towards mentioning God or his attributes that leads you to try and distract yourself from it but is probably advisable to explore where feelings or attitudes have come from.
Since many atheists here big up the role of the subconscious at working things through without the consciousness, It could mean that one's dodging is still going on at the subconscious level what matters is that you are scrupulously honest with yourself without relating this to others who have their own spiritual journey, exploration and decisions to make. Alas i'm sure that committed agnosticism is a route some take e.g. ''We cannot know anything except that we cannot know anything.''
-
There's Vlad's law of course, you might find an emotional reaction towards mentioning God
Ok let's break it down...
Which god?
Do tell.
-
It's like this Maeght, Philosophical empiricism is defined as:
'' an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience.''
So you either believe it is the only way to get knowledge or justification or not.
Now if you take the word primarily to mean that knowledge first or primarily comes as empirical evidence so effectively there can be no knowledge without it. So you either believe that or not.
Or you can take the word primarily to mean mainly. So you believe Knowledge or justification mainly comes from sensory experience. If you believe that, you leave room for justification by other means and so you forfeit the right as it were to dismiss those other means.
But once you have decided which camp you're in, you have another problem and that is ''where's your empirical evidence or justification for it?''.
Some people will hold the view that it is the only way and some will hold the view that it is primarily the way. There will of course be implications based on which view they hold.
In your problem - what is the 'it'? Your position?
-
... you might find an emotional reaction towards mentioning God or his attributes ...
Well Vlad you clearly and almost continually express emotional reactions towards the mention of atheists, atheism and Richard Dawkins - does that mean you are secretly atheist-dodging, atheism-dodging and Dawkins-dodging.
-
Well Vlad you clearly and almost continually express emotional reactions towards the mention of atheists, atheism and Richard Dawkins - does that mean you are secretly atheist-dodging, atheism-dodging and Dawkins-dodging.
Pmsl
-
I think the arguments of reason were ignored in the adoption of empirical evidence and scientism.
Or people accepted that thousands of years of pure reason hadn't resolved anything and a new slant was if not required then at least interesting, and 'scientism' and empiricism have a track record that stands up against pure reason.
I think those who followed the horsemen of the non apocalypse and angry atheism not only see theism as wrong but dangerous.
Some of them, yes. Some of them have a point, especially when you place that movement's expansion in the aftermath of 9/11, an undeniably dangerous, religious event.
The upshot is an incorrect understanding of rationalism which sounds good but is effectively dismissed by empiricism, physicalism etc.
Given that 'rationalism' hasn't managed to either prove or disprove the idea of gods, empiricism lending reasonable arguments to the dismissal of the idea isn't invalid. Notwithstanding that, of course, the crux of the 'New Atheist' argument is not an argument from empirical roots, but rather that no-one has provided sufficient basis to accept the claim. That's purely rationalism - that the types of evidence they're expecting to see might be empirical is about how the argument is formulated and argued, but even if you restrict it to 'purely' rational arguments, it still stands up.
I can not only imagine it but knew someone who knew they believed they had encountered God, repudiated and supressed God to preserve his pride and eventually surrendered.
Sounds like someone in need of a professional diagnosis to my inexpert understanding.
And this is where your repudiation of reason, philosophy and subsequent lack of practice has let you down, for if the universe existed as a simulation the simulator is completely sovereign as far as we are concerned, it would have an intelligence and will.
And that's not the part of being 'god' that's not accepted; the parts that are problematic are the special pleading that gods are something fundamentally different, divorced from the chain of cause and effect and somehow their own origin point, and the idea that these gods are somehow infinite in power and beneficence in the face of a day-to-day reality that doesn't demonstrate that.
It wouldn't necessarily be governed by our laws of nature.
But it would, presumably, be governed by some sort of laws of nature.
These are precisely the arguments used by William Lane Craig I think it's up to people who believe that the creator of this unit to show that God does not have the properties are divine rather than atheistic.
You're misplacing the burden of proof, again. The claim is 'there's a creator' - fine, there's a creator. The claim is 'this creator is different', and the burden is then on you to prove it. You can't just 'presume' divinity, you have to demonstrate why, you have to show what that 'creator' is not a simulation in their own computer, and it's not silicon chips all the way down.
The implications are those that reasoned argument throw up and so the thing that must make you guys angry are mainly the possibility of Gods existence and One's possible moral position in relation to God's judgment.
No, they aren't. If you believe in god, and that's the end of it no-one is angry about it. If you believe in a god, and therefore gay people are second-class citizens we have a problem. It's not the belief in god that's the issue, its the idea that those beliefs give you the right to impinge on other people's lives.
Those two cannot but fail to have implications for the Ego.
Yeah, it puts a burden of responsibility on us, because we can't just abrogate our responsibilities to the sky-fairy, throw up our hands and say 'wasn't my idea, god wants this'.
I'm afraid, as I told Hillside he is aware only of empirical evidence and theists are aware of God so you are defending your Commitment and faith in a natural universe and nothing greater.
Firstly, some theists claim to be 'aware' of god - others don't, and of those that do the claim does not automatically equate to the reality. Secondly, I'm not 'committed' ideologically to nothing more than a natural universe, but there is consistent, reliable evidence of a natural universe, and not much evidence for anything else. Again, I'm making the claim of a natural universe, and you're free to argue against that, but you're making the claim 'magic', and it's on you to justify that, not on me to disprove it.
In terms of morality you guys are all over the place because you have to turn subjective morality, which should in reason exclude the notion of Judgment into rational judgement and yet you have already judged against the morality of theism.
Morality does appear to be subjective, yes, that's why we see such vast cultural differences in moral claims. Many people do take issue with theistic morality, and the reasons vary - for some it's because they work from a precept of individual responsibility, and the authoritarian 'do as you're told because you're told' take of some religious people doesn't sit well; for others it's a more a more consequentialist or utilitarian realisation that you're making claims of morally acceptable behaviour which can be seen to demonstrably harm more than it helps.
Now that's a conundrum I'd like to see an adequate solution to
I'm not sure that's possible - people vary, and finding one acceptable algorithm of all the moral precepts that's universally accepted seems unlikely. What seems certainly unlikely is accepting that it can be found in the Big Boy's Bedtime Book of Jewish Fairy Stories.
O.
-
Well Vlad you clearly and almost continually express emotional reactions towards the mention of atheists, atheism and Richard Dawkins - does that mean you are secretly atheist-dodging, atheism-dodging and Dawkins-dodging.
That might be why I'm on a largely atheist message board. Now you may say you are on here for the God talk but I would argue that you are here because you find it a good hunting arena for theists. Others, no name no pack drill, are here to get atheists off the website and out of, as they would say, the public forum and it is the act of that that brings ''The boys to the yard''.
-
Vlad,
Well the first part seems quite absolute.
In what possible way is “an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience” “quite absolute”?
To make PE “quite absolute” it would instead have to be defined as something like, “an epistemological position that holds that knowledge can only ever come from sensory experience” or similar. The definition you posted though has nothing absolute to say.
Also if primarily suggests that all knowledge comes to us first through empirical evidence then that is pretty absolute too.
Say what? “Primarily” means “primarily”, not “wholly”. You do know that right?
Of course if Primary means mainly instead…
It does…
…you have no objection to my belief being knowledge and your position over the last few days has been showboating and Grandstanding.
Er, no. “Primarily” is a qualifier that excludes a claim of the absolute. That theoretically at least there may be some other way to obtain knowledge does not for one moment however justify you deciding that your belief is therefore “knowledge”. For that you’d have to provide a method of your own to distinguish your claim from just guessing – something you’ve always run away from doing.
The evidence is that your position is Only rather than primary and primary rather than mainly.
No it isn’t. If you think there is such evidence nonetheless tell us what it is.
So basically when you are caught red handed commiting philosophical empiricism you are saying ''Nothing to do with me Guv'nor''.
Wrong again – I’m quite happy to “commit” PE, and especially to commit to the definition of it that you posted that does not support your straw man version of it.
And on that bombshell I shall retire as you have given my arse a sore head.
Inasmuch a “bombshell” implies you’ve crashed and burned (again), your retirement at this point is probably a good idea.
-
Ok let's break it down...
Which god?
Do tell.
There is only one God so it has to be that one.
-
Some people will hold the view that it is the only way and some will hold the view that it is primarily the way. There will of course be implications based on which view they hold.
In your problem - what is the 'it'? Your position?
The ''it'' is any one of the three views i've outlined. And this is an empiricists problem because they require physical evidence for everything in the first place.
-
There is only one God so it has to be that one.
That's a positive statement.
You know this to be a fact?
Do tell.
-
Vlad,
There is only one God so it has to be that one.
Leaving aside your argument by assertion there, the question though is still – even if you've guessed right about that – which of the bewildering variety of gods on offer would be the "only" one?
Could it be the one to which you, Vlad, just happen to be most enculturated, or one of the other gods to which various other claimants just happen to be most enculturated?
-
Vlad,
In what possible way is “an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience” “quite absolute”?
To make PE “quite absolute” it would instead have to be defined as something like, “an epistemological position that holds that knowledge can only ever come from sensory experience” or similar. The definition you posted though has noting absolute to say.
Say what? “Primarily” means “primarily”, not “wholly”. You do know that right?
It does…
Er, no. “Primarily” is a qualifier that excludes a claim of the absolute. That theoretically at least there may be some other way to obtain knowledge does not for one moment however justify you deciding that your belief is therefore “knowledge”. For that you’d have to provide a method of your own to distinguish your claim from just guessing – something you’ve always run away from doing.
No it isn’t. If you think there is such evidence nonetheless tell us what it is.
Wrong again – I’m quite happy to “commit” PE, and especially to commit to the definition of it that you posted that does not support your straw man version of it.
Inasmuch a “bombshell” implies you’ve crashed and burned (again), your retirement at this point is probably a good idea.
It's irrelevant what your position is within the definition given, You still require empirical evidence for it or mainly empirical evidence for it because that is the demand your territory comes from.
Some do take an absolute view as you have pointed out.
Those who say there are other means of obtaining knowledge are bound to explaining what these are and what evidence or argument they have that we mainly get our evidence empirically.
So Hillside how about popping us a few grapes eh?
-
Vlad,
Leaving aside your argument by assertion there, the question though is still – even if you've guessed right about that – which of the bewildering variety of gods on offer would be the "only" one?
Could it be the one to which you, Vlad, just happen to be most enculturated, or one of the other gods to which various other claimants just happen to be most enculturated?
There cannot be multiple Necessary beings. Indeed many of the pantheons make this implicit.
-
There is only one God so it has to be that one.
Others may disagree. Either on the basis that they are convinced that there are more than one gods, or that there is one but not the one you believe in - or indeed that there are no gods.
And btw - that sounds like a positive statement of objective certainty about your god existing and being the only god. Onus on you to provide the evidence to support your positive claim that your god exists (not just for you but for everyone) and also that no other gods exist (not just for you but for everyone) - good luck with that Vlad.
-
Vlad,
It's irrelevant what your position is within the definition given, You still require empirical evidence for it or mainly empirical evidence for it because that is the demand your territory comes from.
Your appalling inarticularcy is letting you down again. What are you trying to say here?
I “require empirical evidence” to justify claims of knowledge that are probabilistic in character. That’s not to say that everything we think we “know” isn’t, say, instead a fever dream of a pan-galactic kid on a computer game, but it’s all we verifiably have to navigate the world we appear to occupy. Hence philosophical empiricism as per the definition of it that you posted remeber?
Some do take an absolute view as you have pointed out.
Apparently so – they presumably would be the “physicalists” and the “scientismists” you keep mislabelling people here to be, though I’ve never come across one.
Have you?
Those who say there are other means of obtaining knowledge are bound to explaining what these are and what evidence or argument they have that we mainly get our evidence empirically.
Damn right they are – so when do you propose to start doing that to justify your claim that your religious beliefs are also thereby “knowledge”?
So Hillside how about popping us a few grapes eh?
I’m more of a Twiglets man myself – so away you go: start explaining.
-
Vlad,
There cannot be multiple Necessary beings. Indeed many of the pantheons make this implicit.
So you assert, but that's irrelevant for this purpose: the question you dodged is which one of the multiple gods on offer is the actual one then - the one to which you happen to be most enculturated, or one of the countless gods to which various other people happen to be most enculturated?
I'm Spartacus!
-
There cannot be multiple Necessary beings.
Why? The Babylonian creation myth talks of two primordial beings who alone existed until they got together and created a host of unruly god-children. Some of the Egyptian regional accounts talk of Shu and Tefnut spawning Geb and Nut to start it all. Even if we concede that there is a start to reality and therefore a need for a necessary something, why only one?
Indeed many of the pantheons make this implicit.
It's a bit questionable to fall back on god-propoganda to support your argument in favour of the idea of gods, don't you think?
O.
-
There cannot be multiple Necessary beings. Indeed many of the pantheons make this implicit.
But you have actually failed to credibly argue why even one so-called Necessary being (why the capitalisation and why 'being' rather than 'entity'), nor why there might not be more than one. If you argue that our universe requires one, why cannot there be multiple but not interacting universes that each require one. Or even interactions that are at a level lower than the necessary entity between universes such that each is dependent on its own necessary entity.
Problem Vlad is that simply asserting and Capitalising Things doesn't mean you have a cogent case.
-
Or people accepted that thousands of years of pure reason hadn't resolved anything and a new slant was if not required then at least interesting, and 'scientism' and empiricism have a track record that stands up against pure reason.
There may be methodological aspects of empiricism that are of value sure but they have a track record in er, empiricism. You seem to be recasting all other attempts at understanding as failed science. You seem to see things as only comprehensible by science and that is scientism par excellence. Apparently now not even Hillside thinks that's the case.
Some of them, yes. Some of them have a point, especially when you place that movement's expansion in the aftermath of 9/11, an undeniably dangerous, religious event.
Yes there was 9/11 where people of our kind were Killed and we felt it keenly, but then there were the Killing fields in Cambodia at the hands of atheist Utopist Pol Pot where people who weren't like us were killed by a mad atheist.
Given that 'rationalism' hasn't managed to either prove or disprove the idea of gods, empiricism lending reasonable arguments to the dismissal of the idea isn't invalid.
Not many actually realise the differences between empiricism and rationalism as epistemiological models Notwithstanding that, of course, the crux of the 'New Atheist' argument is not an argument from empirical roots, but rather that no-one has provided sufficient basis to accept the claim. That's purely rationalism - that the types of evidence they're expecting to see might be empirical is about how the argument is formulated and argued, but even if you restrict it to 'purely' rational arguments, it still stands up.
I'm not clear what you mean here'.
And that's not the part of being 'god' that's not accepted;
Pleading that the Necessary entity is special. I cant see it being special being half of the picture, the other being the contingent. What is special is a universe that just is without the principle of sufficient reason required by philosophical empiricism and science the parts that are problematic are the special pleading that gods are something fundamentally different, divorced from the chain of cause and effect and somehow their own origin point,
First a necessary universe would also have to be specially pleaded for in many more ways than a properly necessary being, in other words pleading a necessary universe rather than one that just is would be special pleading. Secondly chains of cause and effect require a terminator other wise they are infinite regresses and don't explain anything but particularly the question why is there anything and not nothing and the idea that these gods are somehow infinite in power and beneficence in the face of a day-to-day reality that doesn't demonstrate that.
Day today reality is not a scientific term though
But it would, presumably, be governed by some sort of laws of nature.
The necessary being only governs itself since it is not contingent on anything else.You're misplacing the burden of proof, again. The claim is 'there's a creator' - fine, there's a creator. The claim is 'this creator is different', and the burden is then on you to prove it. You can't just 'presume' divinity, you have to demonstrate why, you have to show what that 'creator' is not a simulation in their own computer, and it's not silicon chips all the way down.
You can only take it's attributes and see if what they are has also been the content of religious debate before.
No, they aren't. If you believe in god, and that's the end of it no-one is angry about it. If you believe in a god, and therefore gay people are second-class citizens we have a problem. It's not the belief in god that's the issue, its the idea that those beliefs give you the right to impinge on other people's lives.
The problem is that there are some churches who do not believe that holy matrimony was a state between people of different sex and there are people who think that the secular majority / ad populum view should somehow, in the nature of a religious mystery perhaps change that view. I can't see Zeitgeist changing the holy or whether same sex holy matrimony is viable at the holy level. If some clergy think that it is God's will for them though I wouldn't intervene. Sorry but there it is
Yeah, it puts a burden of responsibility on us, because we can't just abrogate our responsibilities to the sky-fairy, throw up our hands and say 'wasn't my idea, god wants this'
. Well sometimes God's bound not to want what we want.
Firstly, some theists claim to be 'aware' of god - others don't, and of those that do the claim does not automatically equate to the reality. Secondly, I'm not 'committed' ideologically to nothing more than a natural universe, but there is consistent, reliable evidence of a natural universe, and not much evidence for anything else. Again, I'm making the claim of a natural universe, and you're free to argue against that, but you're making the claim 'magic', and it's on you to justify that, not on me to disprove it.
As i've said the awareness of God is ours, the presence of God is his
Morality does appear to be subjective,
Then we have no business inflicting it on anyone else
-
VG,
Analogies are never about their objects – “A good man is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack” for example isn’t about needles. An analogy works by comparing an epistemically equivalent feature of different objects for the purpose of one such illuminating a characteristic of the other. This only works though when the epistemic feature is equivalent – thus for example “preferring Sunak to Truss is like preferring typhus to cholera” is fine.
An analogy necessarily fails however when the feature to be compared isn’t epistemically equivalent. That’s why your attempt at an analogy between a preference for something and its existence at all (ie, regardless of your feeling about it if it did exist) fell apart.
You're still wrong. My analogy in reply #888 was about religion i.e. the interpretation of an experience that people's brains select based on prior information stored in their brain. My analogy did not have anything to say about the existence of God.
Wrong again. He thinks his explanatory narrative of having encountered a god is itself evidence for a real, non-imaginary god. I’ve asked him to confirm this for you, but as he rarely if ever answers questions you’ll just have to rely on his countless prior comments to this effect.
Wrong again. Your poor comprehension is letting you down here – what I said was “you just need to be clear that “his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present” does not imply that there actually was something “present” other than the workings of his own imagination”. You were asked to accept that his assertion “does not imply” something, not to rule out the possibility of a "presence" being involved nonetheless.
Wrong again. It’s evidence just of making the claim, not of the claim itself being true.
Not sure what muddled thinking you are trying to present here but if you're saying what I think you're saying, then you're wrong. He is stating his belief that god was present in his consciousness. When people give testimony as evidence, they are not giving evidence that they are making a claim. People don't give a statement saying "this statement is evidence that I am giving a statement". Their statement is evidence that they went through an experience and it is presented as evidence for the claim being true. And Vlad's claim about his experience implies that something could have been present or it could have been his imagination - unless you are using "imply" to mean something else. Vlad's experience is not proof that there really was something there.
That’s a non-point: I said – “looks just like bog standard, common-or-garden confirmation bias”. The man who believes in dragons and then tells you an invisible one chased him down street could be right about that, but it still looks "just like" confirmation bias nonetheless right?
Agreed.
Wrong again. He thinks not only that “god is real” is a fact for all of us, but also that his belief that he “encountered” it is evidence for that. The only one getting the terminology wrong here is you.
Wrong again. He (not I) thinks it’s a fact no matter that we both know that his “evidence” for that claim of believing he “encountered” it isn’t evidence for that at all.
Try to understand this – it’s getting wearisome correcting you your repeated mistake about this.
Wrong - my impression is that Vlad is clear that the term "fact" is used to describe something he has empirical evidence for, and he has said he has no empirical evidence. So IMO he has claimed a belief God exists and a belief God was present in his consciousness. Of course, if Vlad says God exists as fact, then I'll revise my opinion.
Wrong again. Something tangible just has to have had the property of being “experienced” (or believed to be experienced). The definition does not concern itself with whether the belief of an experience had as its object a material or a non-material claim:
“real and not imaginary; able to be shown, touched, or experienced:
We need tangible evidence if we're going to take legal action.
Othertangible benefits include an increase in salary and shorter working hours.”
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tangible
Wrong - your examples of tangible involve experiences that can be measured - salary increase, working hours. That does not apply to Vlad's experience.
Wrong again. Your (false) analogy was between a statement of preferring one thing over another (with no concern at all for whether or not that thing actually exists), and a statement about whether or not something exists in the first place (with no concern at all for a preference about it if if does).
In short, your “analogy” was a category error.
Sorry you crashed and burned so spectacularly here, but you didn’t give me much choice I’m afraid.
Wrong - my analogy in reply #888 was in response to you saying Vlad chose an explanation for his experience based on the information peddled to him by his Sunday school as a child. I said "if a person thinks they 'experienced' something supernatural in a religious context, their brain would seek to make sense of it with the information they have been exposed to at various times in their life." My analogy had nothing to say about whether Vlad's god exists but about the narrative Vlad's brain chose to explain the experience based on previous information stored in it. Why would you expect Vlad's brain or anyone's brain to come up with a narrative for an experience that wasn't already previously stored in their brain. Where would this previously unknown narrative spring from?
Feel free to congratulate yourself here on your supposed triumphs - if that's what you need to do to like yourself more.
-
There may be methodological aspects of empiricism that are of value sure but they have a track record in er, empiricism.
Yep.
You seem to be recasting all other attempts at understanding as failed science.
Not in general, but on the particulars of demonstrating the reality or falsity of god-claims, they had been inconclusive.
You seem to see things as only comprehensible by science and that is scientism par excellence.
There are any number of notions that can be demonstrated by pure logic, there are mathematical proofs of concepts (some of which underpin the workings of empirical validations), so I don't think that's the case. When it comes to the idea of gods, though, I see an empiricism that demonstrates you don't need the idea to realise the reality we see and a bunch of attempted rationalisations that just don't work.
Yes there was 9/11 where people of our kind were Killed and we felt it keenly, but then there were the Killing fields in Cambodia at the hands of atheist Utopist Pol Pot where people who weren't like us were killed by a mad atheist.
9/11 didn't highlight the dangers of religion because the perpetrators were religious, I suspect the majority of the victims were religious as well. 9/11 highlighted the dangers of religion because the perpetrators were explicitly motivated by their religious sentiment, and had been recruited via their religious affiliations, and were funded by religious networks working explicitly in the furtherance of their understanding of their religion. It's not just that religious people could be bad, because there have always been flawed people, but that people could be bad (from a given perspective) BECAUSE of their religion.
Pol Pot and his regime were explicitly atheist, but that wasn't the motivation for the horrors they perpetrated.
I'm not clear what you mean here'.
You were criticising the 'New Atheist' movement as being unjustifiably empiricist, and I was pointing out that whilst a lot of the disproofs of specific god-claims were empirical, they weren't making an empirical case, fundamentally. The case is the purely rational one that god claims are made and are not adequately supported, and so can be not accepted. Empirical arguments are deployed, in some instances, to show the flaws in arguments in support of the idea of god, but there is not an underlying empirical atheist claim resulting 'not-god'.
Pleading that the Necessary entity is special.
Pleading that the necessary entity, if there is one, for no obvious reason can't be a natural event but must be some magical self-creating intelligence is special pleading, yes.
I cant see it being special being half of the picture, the other being the contingent. What is special is a universe that just is without the principle of sufficient reason required by philosophical empiricism and science.
Given the well-established principles of conservation (energy, momentum etc.) I still haven't seen a coherent argument as to why we shouldn't presume that reality is infinite, and our universe just one event within it.
First a necessary universe would also have to be specially pleaded for in many more ways than a properly necessary being, in other words pleading a necessary universe rather than one that just is would be special pleading.
Perhaps.
Secondly chains of cause and effect require a terminator other wise they are infinite regresses and don't explain anything but particularly the question why is there anything and not nothing.
There could have been nothing, because nothing is not the lower boundary, nothing is the equilibrium point. Energy and matter have both positive and negative manifestations, and so 'nothing' is when they are in balance - nothing is as much part of the infinite reality as any of the rest of it.
And for the 'infinite regress' commentary - infinite regress is a description, not an argument. Yes it's an infinite regress... so?
Day today reality is not a scientific term though
Day to day reality is what can be seen and measured and experienced - what could be a better empirical base than that?
The necessary being only governs itself since it is not contingent on anything else.
You presumption here is that the creator of the simulation is the necessary being, and not contingent on a larger reality.
You can only take it's attributes and see if what they are has also been the content of religious debate before.
Why are we restricted to previous religious arguments, that's begging the question. They have failed, or we wouldn't still be asking the questions.
The problem is that there are some churches who do not believe that holy matrimony was a state between people of different sex and there are people who think that the secular majority / ad populum view should somehow, in the nature of a religious mystery perhaps change that view.
No, the problem is that there are some churches who believe they somehow 'own' the concept of matrimony, and want to stop anyone else from partaking of the civil actions. The only people looking to 'force' churches to change are people within the churches, those of us outside couldn't give a crap as long as you don't tell us what to do and you pay your taxes.
I can't see Zeitgeist changing the holy or whether same sex holy matrimony is viable at the holy level.
What your magic circle of wizards think is part of their spellcasting doesn't matter outside of your temples, unless you bring it out and start swinging around.
If some clergy think that it is God's will for them though I wouldn't intervene.
Again, as long as your internal squabbles stay internal, nobody cares.
Well sometimes God's bound not to want what we want.
Why? If, as you suggest, God is the absolute morality (or, at least, is cognizant of it, depending on your theological persuasion) then we should be in perfect accord with God's view - except that, despite their alleged omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence, they seem incapable of clearly communicating it.
As i've said the awareness of God is ours, the presence of God is his
Or, as the case may be, the awareness of a god is your symptom, the presence of god is not real.
Then we have no business inflicting it on anyone else
No, we have an obligation to cooperate and build as moral a society as we can, collectively.
O.
[/quote]
-
Of course, if Vlad says God exists as fact, then I'll revise my opinion.
There is only one God so it has to be that one.
...looks like a claim of fact to me otherwise he would have said "I believe that..." Or similar.
You of course may interpret his statement differently.
-
9/11 didn't highlight the dangers of religion because the perpetrators were religious, I suspect the majority of the victims were religious as well. 9/11 highlighted the dangers of religion because the perpetrators were explicitly motivated by their religious sentiment, and had been recruited via their religious affiliations, and were funded by religious networks working explicitly in the furtherance of their understanding of their religion. It's not just that religious people could be bad, because there have always been flawed people, but that people could be bad (from a given perspective) BECAUSE of their religion.
This is a simplistic, incorrect interpretation of the motivations of the 9/11 attackers. They did not wake up one morning and say God or the Quran said to fly a plane into a building. They rationalised it as an act of revenge for America attacking them first. Bin Laden's language has religious terminology but the reasoning is no different to America stating they bombed Hiroshima because Japan attacked them first or Putin saying he is attacking Ukraine because he thinks his land, Russia, is under attack from NATO. These motivations would remain whether they were Muslim or atheist.
Western soldiers are called to bomb people in other countries as part of their patriotic duty or because it is in their country's national interests or because they are told that their country or way of life is under threat, so being religious didn't cause 9/11. You are looking at the wrong bogeyman if you are blaming religion - you could just as easily say the problem is the existence of nation states or government or private ownership of land or money or resources or political parties or foreign policy.
Per the Bin Laden Letter to America statement released after 9/11, Bin Laden recruited the 9/11 terrorists for a specific reason. He said to American:
Q1) Why are we fighting and opposing you?
Q2)What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
a) You attacked us in Palestine:
.....The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its*price, and pay for it heavily.
...(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.
There is lots more of this in the letter along with a list of demands asking the US to get of their lands, end US support for corrupt leaders.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
-
...looks like a claim of fact to me otherwise he would have said "I believe that..." Or similar.
You of course may interpret his statement differently.
Looks like a statement of belief to me otherwise he would have said "it's a fact that...."
-
Looks like a statement of belief to me otherwise he would have said "it's a fact that...."
But surely for consistency if it were a statement of belief then he would have said 'it is my belief that ..."
I think something phrased so definitively comes across more as a statement of fact than a statement of belief without any 'prefix' of the nature of "it's a fact that ..." or 'it is my belief that ...".
To complicate matters it could be that Vlad believes it to be a fact that there is only one god.
-
You're still wrong.
That looks like a statement of belief to me otherwise you would have said "it's a fact that.."
Is that correct?
-
That looks like a statement of belief to me otherwise you would have said "it's a fact that.."
Is that correct?
Yup. As are any statements by BHS that I am wrong. When expressing opinions or beliefs on here, a lot of posters do not start the sentence with "I believe that".
When I post to people who do employ qualifiers such as "IMO" or "It seems" then I respond similarly.
If people post without these qualifiers, I tend to not spend the extra time typing them either. in my responses.
-
Yup. As are any statements by BHS that I am wrong. When expressing opinions or beliefs on here, a lot of posters do not start the sentence with "I believe that".
When I post to people who do employ qualifiers such as "IMO" or "It seems" then I respond similarly.
If people post without these qualifiers, I tend to not spend the extra time typing them either. in my responses.
Do you post any statements of fact, without qualifying statements?
-
VG,
You're still wrong. My analogy in reply #888 was about religion i.e. the interpretation of an experience that people's brains select based on prior information stored in their brain. My analogy did not have anything to say about the existence of God.
Except the attempted analogy failed because it was a category error for the reason I keep explaining and you keep ignoring – you used it in reply to an exchange about the existence of god, not about how Vlad feels about a god if it does exist. If you won’t address the rebuttal there’s nothing more I can do to help you.
Not sure what muddled thinking you are trying to present here but if you're saying what I think you're saying, then you're wrong. He is stating his belief that god was present in his consciousness. When people give testimony as evidence, they are not giving evidence that they are making a claim. People don't give a statement saying "this statement is evidence that I am giving a statement". Their statement is evidence that they went through an experience and it is presented as evidence for the claim being true. And Vlad's claim about his experience implies that something could have been present or it could have been his imagination - unless you are using "imply" to mean something else. Vlad's experience is not proof that there really was something there.
Yet again – Vlad thinks his belief “I encountered god” is of itself evidence for this god being a fact. You know that’s bollocks. I know that’s bollocks. Vlad though thinks otherwise, which is the point.
I have asked Vlad to confirm to you that that’s what he thinks (more than once) but, typically, he’s just ignored the question (also more than once). It is though consistent with his countless statements to that effect.
Agreed.
Good.
Wrong - my impression is that Vlad is clear that the term "fact" is used to describe something he has empirical evidence for, and he has said he has no empirical evidence. So IMO he has claimed a belief God exists and a belief God was present in his consciousness. Of course, if Vlad says God exists as fact, then I'll revise my opinion.
Wrong again. Vlad thinks “god” is real” because he has does have evidence to that effect. The type of evidence he says he doesn’t have is empirical evidence, but he says that to leave the door open to some other type of supposed, mysterious, magic, whatever type of evidence that he can’t or won’t share here, but that he thinks is somehow evidence nonetheless. Thus, to his mind, the belief “I encountered god” is evidence that he really did encounter god, only this type of evidence it of the non-empirical sort. Why he thinks that is anyone’s guess, as for that matter is why he’d not afford the same evidential status to the belief “I encountered a leprechauns”.
Wrong - your examples of tangible involve experiences that can be measured - salary increase, working hours. That does not apply to Vlad's experience.
Doesn’t matter: “There was a tangible atmosphere of evil” works just as well for this purpose. How would you propose to measure “an atmosphere of evil”, even though people experience it as tangible nonetheless?
Wrong - my analogy in reply #888 was in response to you saying Vlad chose an explanation for his experience based on the information peddled to him by his Sunday school as a child. I said "if a person thinks they 'experienced' something supernatural in a religious context, their brain would seek to make sense of it with the information they have been exposed to at various times in their life." My analogy had nothing to say about whether Vlad's god exists but about the narrative Vlad's brain chose to explain the experience based on previous information stored in it. Why would you expect Vlad's brain or anyone's brain to come up with a narrative for an experience that wasn't already previously stored in their brain. Where would this previously unknown narrative spring from?
Still wrong for the same reason I keep explaining and you keep ignoring – see first point above.
Feel free to congratulate yourself here on your supposed triumphs - if that's what you need to do to like yourself more.
Such a pity you have no sense of irony (something I find a lot with religious people by the way).
-
Yup. As are any statements by BHS that I am wrong. When expressing opinions or beliefs on here, a lot of posters do not start the sentence with "I believe that".
When I post to people who do employ qualifiers such as "IMO" or "It seems" then I respond similarly.
If people post without these qualifiers, I tend to not spend the extra time typing them either. in my responses.
But I think when we are in discourse on the basis of opinion or belief then it is taken as read that 'you are wrong' means I disagree with your opinion, in other words it is my opinion that you are wrong. That's because we are working in the world of opinion/belief which is subjective and not therefore amenable to verification as objectively right or wrong.
But that isn't the case with facts, which by definition can be proven to be correct or incorrect. So let's imagine someone says that Canada is the largest country on the earth by land area, that isn't a statement of opinion or belief (as that would be meaningless as Canada either is or is not the largest country - opinion is irrelevant). Nope that is a statement of fact and if I say 'you are wrong' it would mean that you are factually incorrect as it can be objectively demonstrated which of us is correct in fact.
The distinction between fact, which must surely be subject to objective verification as to being right or wrong (in other words 'true for everyone'), and opinion, which is inherently subjective and not objectively provable (beyond 'true for me' subjectivity) is important in discourse.
-
VG,
Yup. As are any statements by BHS that I am wrong. When expressing opinions or beliefs on here, a lot of posters do not start the sentence with "I believe that".
When I post to people who do employ qualifiers such as "IMO" or "It seems" then I respond similarly.
If people post without these qualifiers, I tend to not spend the extra time typing them either. in my responses.
Except that I use arguments for rebuttals rather than unqualified assertions, but in any case your growing desperation is showing here: if I say “I went to the Post Office this morning” I don’t need to pre-fix it as “it is a fact that I went to the Post Office this morning” to clarify that I intended my statement to be treated factually. Similarly Vlad’s “there’s only one god” is clearly intended to mean “I assert as a fact that there’s only one god” rather than, “here’s an unqualified faith claim that there’s only one god” etc.
-
Do you post any statements of fact, without qualifying statements?
Yes. I don't say it's a fact that I said or Vlad said XYZ when I quote from a previous post.
Or do you mean like the post above to Outrider about Bin Laden's letter to America. I didn't say it was fact because I have no way of knowing if it's a fact that the letter really is from Bin Laden. We are told it was a letter recovered from a raid on his compound in 2011 and declassified by the USA's Director of National Intelligence. https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-osama-bin-ladens-letter-to-the-american-people-2016-3?r=US&IR=T
I have no way of independently and objectively verifying this.
-
Similarly Vlad’s “there’s only one god” is clearly intended to mean “I assert as a fact that there’s only one god” rather than, “here’s an unqualified faith claim that there’s only one god” etc.
I agree - these statements and assertions come across to me as statements of fact, not mere expressions of opinion. Similarly assertions like 'god is the Necessary Being' - which comes across to me as multiple assertion of fact rather than opinion.
And how Vlad develops his argument seems to confirm this - his claim of Necessary Being seems based on a settled view that there is a Necessary Being - in other words that the Necessary Being is factual.
-
VG,
Except the attempted analogy failed because it was a category error for the reason I keep explaining and you keep ignoring – you used it in reply to an exchange about the existence of god, not about how Vlad feels about a god if it does exist. If you won’t address the rebuttal there’s nothing more I can do to help you.
Nope - the analogy was in relation to "happened to be exactly the same god that these various organisations peddled to the young and impressionable you?" and these organisations were Sunday School and Vlad's conversion involved becoming a Christian. The statement was about the religious narrative, not about the existence of God.
Yet again – Vlad thinks his belief “I encountered god” is of itself evidence for this god being a fact. You know that’s bollocks. I know that’s bollocks. Vlad though thinks otherwise, which is the point.
I have asked Vlad to confirm to you that that’s what he thinks (more than once) but, typically, he’s just ignored the question (also more than once). It is though consistent with his countless statements to that effect.
And again, I have explained that I think that he thinks it is evidence of god's existence and the evidence is in the form of testimony. He said it was up to you whether you want to accept his relating of experience as evidence. He believes god exists and yes he along with many theists believe god exists for everyone, not just them, but I haven't seen him state that it is a fact that god exists.
Wrong again. Vlad thinks “god” is real” because he has does have evidence to that effect. The type of evidence he says he doesn’t have is empirical evidence, but he says that to leave the door open to some other type of supposed, mysterious, magic, whatever type of evidence that he can’t or won’t share here, but that he thinks is somehow evidence nonetheless. Thus, to his mind, the belief “I encountered god” is evidence that he really did encounter god, only this type of evidence it of the non-empirical sort. Why he thinks that is anyone’s guess, as for that matter is why he’d not afford the same evidential status to the belief “I encountered a leprechauns”.
The only form of evidence he has offered is his testimony and the testimony of others that he believes to be authoritative. No one is obliged to believe evidence in the form of testimony, in the absence of other corroborating evidence. Hence, there is such a low conviction rate for rape, because the evidence of lack of consent is mainly testimony.
Doesn’t matter: “There was a tangible atmosphere of evil” works just as well for this purpose. How would you propose to measure “an atmosphere of evil”, even though people experience it as tangible nonetheless?
You used "tangible" in the sentence "Because Vlad (and, presumably, most other theists) doesn’t claim “god” as an abstract concept - he’s claims it as a tangible entity of some sort that exists as an objective fact for all of us".
If you are now saying you meant that "god" as a "tangible entity" is something similar to the abstract idea of an "atmosphere of evil" then ok.
Still wrong for the same reason I keep explaining and you keep ignoring – see first point above.
Such a pity you have no sense of irony (something I find a lot with religious people by the way).
I think you'll find you are the person lacking irony when you post self-congratulatory comments like "Sorry you crashed and burned so spectacularly here". I have no interest in asserting generalisations about atheists.
-
VG,
Except that I use arguments for rebuttals rather than unqualified assertions, but in any case your growing desperation is showing here:
More assertions of your beliefs from you. Thanks for your opinion.
if I say “I went to the Post Office this morning” I don’t need to pre-fix it as “it is a fact that I went to the Post Office this morning” to clarify that I intended my statement to be treated factually. Similarly Vlad’s “there’s only one god” is clearly intended to mean “I assert as a fact that there’s only one god” rather than, “here’s an unqualified faith claim that there’s only one god” etc.
No I think it's a statement of belief. Similar to when Muslims say "La ilaha illa allah" which is Arabic for "there is no god except God" ie the monotheistic concept. And the statement in Arabic is short for ""Ashadu an La ilaha illa allah". The "ashadu an" part at the start means "I bear witness that" . It's a statement of faith.
-
No I think it's a statement of belief. Similar to when Muslims say "La ilaha illa allah" which is Arabic for "there is no god except God" ie the monotheistic concept.
But surely the key point is whether you consider this to be objectively true in the sense of 'true for everyone' - or merely an opinion 'true for me' but not necessarily true for you.
That seems to be the critical issue here - I can express my belief that Mozart's music is beautiful - but that belief is merely a 'true for me' statement - it doesn't come with any further assertion that everyone finds Mozart's music beautiful (i.e. true for everyone), still less that Mozart's music being beautiful is some kind of verifiable, objective fact. Now that approach doesn't seem to cut it with many religious people - the "there is no god except God" assertion doesn't seem to be in the same category as my Mozart claim. It appears to be, at best, a statement of belief that "there is no god except God" is true for everyone, or even more definitive, that it is some objective fact.
-
The distinction between fact, which must surely be subject to objective verification as to being right or wrong (in other words 'true for everyone'), and opinion, which is inherently subjective and not objectively provable (beyond 'true for me' subjectivity) is important in discourse.
I think the difficulty arises when esoteric experiences are confused with exoteric experiences. An individual could say that it is a fact that he is in a (heavenly) state of bliss or that he was overwhelmed by what appeared to be an inner presence. To the individual experiencer they are facts but not provable to others. The most that can be done is to provide a method or way for others to have an identical inner experience. I suspect that this was the intention of certain individuals before those methods became buried in organised religions and by theocracy. Even then it would be difficult to compare those inner experiences especially if the individuals were separated in time and used a language and myth of a bygone era.
-
But surely the key point is whether you consider this to be objectively true in the sense of 'true for everyone' - or merely an opinion 'true for me' but not necessarily true for you.
That seems to be the critical issue here - I can express my belief that Mozart's music is beautiful - but that belief is merely a 'true for me' statement - it doesn't come with any further assertion that everyone finds Mozart's music beautiful (i.e. true for everyone), still less that Mozart's music being beautiful is some kind of verifiable, objective fact. Now that approach doesn't seem to cut it with many religious people - the "there is no god except God" assertion doesn't seem to be in the same category as my Mozart claim. It appears to be, at best, a statement of belief that "there is no god except God" is true for everyone, or even more definitive, that it is some objective fact.
I can only tell you my interpretation - that Islam requires faith in the absence of facts. That seems to be the basis for religion - that we are not required to establish facts when it comes to "god".
The god we believe in is assumed to exist but not as a physical entity in the natural world, so when you say god exists for everyone - I'm not sure how that works in the sense of making sense in English if you have no belief in the supernatural and we haven't established as fact that the supernatural is real.
-
I think the difficulty arises when esoteric experiences are confused with exoteric experiences. An individual could say that it is a fact that he is in a (heavenly) state of bliss or that he was overwhelmed by what appeared to be an inner presence. To the individual experiencer they are facts but not provable to others. The most that can be done is to provide a method or way for others to have an identical inner experience. I suspect that this was the intention of certain individuals before those methods became buried in organised religions and by theocracy. Even then it would be difficult to compare those inner experiences especially if the individuals were separated in time and used a language and myth of a bygone era.
Yes I would agree that it would be difficult to compare inner experiences. On this forum we seem to differentiate between "facts" and experiences which we believe are true - or rather we believe that our interpretations of the experience are true.
It seems to be a convention that fact claims need to be backed up by objective evidence, whereas opinions we believe are true are asserted and argued for. We don't state they are beliefs but we can just apply the test of whether the statements are verifiable/ falsifiable. If they aren't then presumably our statements are beliefs or opinions.
-
Vlad,
Leaving aside your argument by assertion there, the question though is still – even if you've guessed right about that – which of the bewildering variety of gods on offer would be the "only" one? You still don't get this contingency-Necessary and Necessary entity thing do you. There is only one ultimate necessary entity right, Because were their two neither would be in complete control, they wouldn't be sovereign but worse than that there would have to be something, some sufficient reason for there to be two instead of one and that controls both their context so would itself be the necessary entity rather than the two proposed. An atheist therefore can't go one lower than a monotheist and it isn't the case that they just believe in one less they are actually discarding the PSR and introducing Brutefact.
Happy to help out.
-
VG,
Except the attempted analogy failed because it was a category error for the reason I keep explaining and you keep ignoring – you used it in reply to an exchange about the existence of god, not about how Vlad feels about a god if it does exist. If you won’t address the rebuttal there’s nothing more I can do to help you.
Yet again – Vlad thinks his belief “I encountered god” is of itself evidence for this god being a fact. You know that’s bollocks. I know that’s bollocks. Vlad though thinks otherwise, which is the point.
I have asked Vlad to confirm to you that that’s what he thinks (more than once) but, typically, he’s just ignored the question (also more than once). It is though consistent with his countless statements to that effect.
Good.
Wrong again. Vlad thinks “god” is real” because he has does have evidence to that effect. The type of evidence he says he doesn’t have is empirical evidence, but he says that to leave the door open to some other type of supposed, mysterious, magic, whatever type of evidence that he can’t or won’t share here, but that he thinks is somehow evidence nonetheless. Thus, to his mind, the belief “I encountered god” is evidence that he really did encounter god, only this type of evidence it of the non-empirical sort. Why he thinks that is anyone’s guess, as for that matter is why he’d not afford the same evidential status to the belief “I encountered a leprechauns”.
Doesn’t matter: “There was a tangible atmosphere of evil” works just as well for this purpose. How would you propose to measure “an atmosphere of evil”, even though people experience it as tangible nonetheless?
Still wrong for the same reason I keep explaining and you keep ignoring – see first point above.
Such a pity you have no sense of irony (something I find a lot with religious people by the way).
So he said he didn't have evidence but you could tell by the tone of his post that he thought he secretly did have evidence but then switched that to knowledge which you then said you knew was bollocks but earlier he gave you the choice between thinking knowledge was only through having empirical evidence or primarily through having empirical evidence and then you seemed to say primarily which left room for other ways of gaining knowledge then he invited you to provide empirical evidence which you didn't do because you didn't have it but you reckoned you didn't need it because you believe empirical evidence only primarily gives knowledge.
-
But I think when we are in discourse on the basis of opinion or belief then it is taken as read that 'you are wrong' means I disagree with your opinion, in other words it is my opinion that you are wrong. That's because we are working in the world of opinion/belief which is subjective and not therefore amenable to verification as objectively right or wrong.
But that isn't the case with facts, which by definition can be proven to be correct or incorrect. So let's imagine someone says that Canada is the largest country on the earth by land area, that isn't a statement of opinion or belief (as that would be meaningless as Canada either is or is not the largest country - opinion is irrelevant). Nope that is a statement of fact and if I say 'you are wrong' it would mean that you are factually incorrect as it can be objectively demonstrated which of us is correct in fact.
The distinction between fact, which must surely be subject to objective verification as to being right or wrong (in other words 'true for everyone'), and opinion, which is inherently subjective and not objectively provable (beyond 'true for me' subjectivity) is important in discourse.
Vlad said he has no empirical evidence for God. Doesn't that indicate God can't be objectively demonstrated?
-
Vlad,
So he said he didn't have evidence but you could tell by the tone of his post that he thought he secretly did have evidence but then switched that to knowledge which you then said you knew was bollocks but earlier he gave you the choice between thinking knowledge was only through having empirical evidence or primarily through having empirical evidence and then you seemed to say primarily which left room for other ways of gaining knowledge then he invited you to provide empirical evidence which you didn't do because you didn't have it but you reckoned you didn't need it because you believe empirical evidence only primarily gives knowledge.
FFS. Do you or do you not think your “experience” of an “encounter” with “god” was evidence (albeit not of the empirical sort apparently) for there being an actual objective god that you actually objectively encountered, or is it just a “true for me only” subjective belief narrative that you happen to find persuasive?
I’ll make it even simpler for you: do you think your experience was evidence for a factually real god or just for an internally conceptualised one?
-
Vlad,
FFS. Do you or do you not think your “experience” of an “encounter” with “god” was evidence (albeit not of the empirical sort apparently) for there being an actual objective god that you actually objectively encountered, or is it just a “true for me only” subjective belief narrative that you happen to find persuasive?
I’ll make it even simpler for you: do you think your experience was evidence for a factually real god or just for an internally conceptualised one?
If you get a straight answer to that, I'll have to start drinking again!
-
VG,
Vlad said he has no empirical evidence for God. Doesn't that indicate God can't be objectively demonstrated?
Ask him. I've asked him several times but he won't answer me. Perhaps he'll answer you though.
-
Seb,
If you get a straight answer to that, I'll have to start drinking again!
I already have!
-
Vlad,
FFS. Do you or do you not think your “experience” of an “encounter” with “god” was evidence (albeit not of the empirical sort apparently) for there being an actual objective god that you actually objectively encountered, or is it just a “true for me only” subjective belief narrative that you happen to find persuasive?
I’ll make it even simpler for you: do you think your experience was evidence for a factually real god or just for an internally conceptualised one?
My position is I had an encounter with God. I cannot produce empirical evidence of this. Do I think I am reasonable to conclude this? Yes through the principle of sufficient reason. Is God true for everyone? Yes I believe he must necessarily be.
Now can we have empirical evidence of your philosophical empiricism. In other words what object can you show me? can you bring forth your philosophical empiricism so we can feel it, touch it, smell it, Tasssssssssste it, caress it , run our fingers along it's sleak existential contours, ohhhhhhhyeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh!....or are you just reifying here?
-
My position is I had an encounter with God. I cannot produce empirical evidence of this. Do I think I am reasonable to conclude this? Yes through the principle of sufficient reason. Is God true for everyone? Yes I believe he must necessarily be.
A belief then. We got there at last!
-
Vlad,
My position is I had an encounter with God. I cannot produce empirical evidence of this. Do I think I am reasonable to conclude this? Yes through the principle of sufficient reason. Is God true for everyone? Yes I believe he must necessarily be.
So you think your experience is evidence for an objectively real god who’s “true for everyone”, but not the empirical sort of evidence? Is that right?
Now can we have empirical evidence of your philosophical empiricism. In other words what object can you show me? can you bring forth your philosophical empiricism so we can feel it, touch it, smell it, Tasssssssssste it, caress it , run our fingers along it's sleak existential contours, ohhhhhhhyeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh!....or are you just reifying here?
“Empirical evidence of your philosophical empiricism” when “my” philosophical empiricism is the one in the definition you posted has already been provided. If you want to abandon that definition though and return to your straw man one of absolutes then you’re all on your own about that.
-
A belief then. We got there at last!
No Sebastian....YOU got there at last.
-
Vlad,
So you think your experience is evidence for an objectively real god who’s “true for everyone”, but not the empirical sort of evidence? Is that right?
“Empirical evidence of your philosophical empiricism” when “my” philosophical empiricism is the one in the definition you posted has already been provided. If you want to abandon that definition though and return to your straw man one of absolutes then you’re all on your own about that.
For goodness sake Hillslide, give us empirical evidence for your philosophical empiricism of whatever source and stop dithering around.
-
No Sebastian....YOU got there at last.
Not with much help from you until very recently.
-
Vlad,
For goodness sake Hillslide, give us empirical evidence for your philosophical empiricism of whatever source and stop dithering around.
What again? My philosophical theory is that people who jump out of windows will more likely than not hit the deck shortly afterwards. My empirical evidence for that probabilistic statement is to chuck a sample set of people out of windows, to investigate the results and to draw thereafter the conclusion that people who jump out of windows will indeed more likely than not hit the deck shortly afterwards. And that's called "knowledge".
Note that no part of this evidence is attempted to support a different claim, namely that people will necessarily always hit the deck at all - but that's not something the definition of PE you posted requires or entails.
-
“Empirical evidence of your philosophical empiricism” when “my” philosophical empiricism is the one in the definition you posted has already been provided.
That's the one, where's the empirical evidence for it or are you suggesting there's another type of evidence?Do tell us what that is.
-
There is only one God so it has to be that one.
But Vlad, that is only your belief, other beliefs in god or gods are available.
Who's definition of god or gods can I possibly go forward with in this process.
After all some none or all of them might be incorrect (including yours!).
-
Vlad,
That's the one, where's the empirical evidence for it or are you suggesting there's another type of evidence?Do tell us what that is.
I already have.
Back to the point though (as you just dodged it): do you think your "experience" of an "encounter" with "god" is evidence of a non-empirical sort that should therefore be taken seriously by anyone else?
-
Vlad,
I already have.
Back to the point though (as you just dodged it): do you think your "experience" of an "encounter" with "god" is evidence of a non-empirical sort that should therefore be taken seriously by anyone else?
What, there is overwhelming evidence that can be observed because it's all around us? What about the parts of the universe we don't have evidence for?
It seems you are saying the whole is just like the part we can see. You can add the fallacy of composition to your hypocrisy of demanding empirical evidence then not providing it.
-
A belief then. We got there at last!
Did it take, what, 20 years? Or more?
-
But Vlad, that is only your belief, other beliefs in god or gods are available.
Who's definition of god or gods can I possibly go forward with in this process.
After all some none or all of them might be incorrect (including yours!).
No, it's not belief that you can only have one necessary entity. It's logic.
-
But Vlad, that is only your belief, other beliefs in god or gods are available.
Who's definition of god or gods can I possibly go forward with in this process.
After all some none or all of them might be incorrect (including yours!).
You seem to be betting the house on all of them being incorrect.
-
Vlad,
What again? My philosophical theory is that people who jump out of windows will more likely than not hit the deck shortly afterwards. My empirical evidence for that probabilistic statement is to chuck a sample set of people out of windows, to investigate the results and to draw thereafter the conclusion that people who jump out of windows will indeed more likely than not hit the deck shortly afterwards. And that's called "knowledge".
Note that no part of this evidence is attempted to support a different claim, namely that people will necessarily always hit the deck at all - but that's not something the definition of PE you posted requires or entails.
Were not asking for one theory, though we are asking whether this method for getting evidence can get the evidence for philosophical empiricism and by the looks of it it can't apart from confusing methodological empiricism with philosophical mechanism.. Sorry, you'll have to try harder or own up to there not being any.
-
No, it's not belief that you can only have one necessary entity. It's logic.
Sorry, necessary entity?
I thought you were talking about the god that you believe in?
Which is it?
-
You seem to be betting the house on all of them being incorrect.
I'm not betting a bent penny on anything!
-
This is a simplistic, incorrect interpretation of the motivations of the 9/11 attackers. They did not wake up one morning and say God or the Quran said to fly a plane into a building. They rationalised it as an act of revenge for America attacking them first. Bin Laden's language has religious terminology but the reasoning is no different to America stating they bombed Hiroshima because Japan attacked them first or Putin saying he is attacking Ukraine because he thinks his land, Russia, is under attack from NATO. These motivations would remain whether they were Muslim or atheist.
I'm not suggesting that they just had an instantaneous religious conversion, and I agree that it's against a convoluted backdrop, but the explicit claims of the group responsible were that it was a religious activity. And that's not unique to Islam, that's exactly the same as the explicitly religious motivations for at least some of the Crusaders during the Middle Ages, to pull a Christian example.
Whether the claim that it was partially, largely or entirely a religious expression is important in the broader sense, but for the purposes of what it did to the Western (and American in particular) perception of religion when it was depicted as such it doesn't really matter very much.
Western soldiers are called to bomb people in other countries as part of their patriotic duty or because it is in their country's national interests or because they are told that their country or way of life is under threat, so being religious didn't cause 9/11.
Religion, in part, along with racism and nationalism, fomented the geopolitics that led to all the precursors: Soviets and then the West in Afghanistan; the West in Kuwait to oppose Iraq; the West's interference in Iran; even back to the debacle of handing Palestine over to the new Jewish State after the 2nd world war. Religion was a part, at least, of the response that included 9/11, and it doesn't matter if it was a large or small part, because it brought to the attention of the West that religion was not necessarily the inconsequential social club that it had become to them, it could still be visceral and profoundly motivating - for good or ill.
It was in the wake of that realisation that the 'New Atheist' movement gained traction.
You are looking at the wrong bogeyman if you are blaming religion - you could just as easily say the problem is the existence of nation states or government or private ownership of land or money or resources or political parties or foreign policy.
For me, personally, I think that Islam was a contributory factor; in particular, the (I think it's Wahabist?) particular 'hard-line' Islam that is espoused by Isis and the Taliban which takes such an absolute and authoritarian stance that's so at odds with Western values. Nation states are not a necessity, in theory, there are other ways of arranging groups of people (indeed, at least some of the issues in Africa and the middle-East come from European colonial powers implement 'nation state' political boundaries into cultures that operated as overlapping tribal and cultural diaspora).
Nation States, though, are not pitched as absolute - you can revolt against the ruling class, you can changes the laws of land ownership, you can transfer ownership of money or resources in any number of ways. Religion, though - in particular the Abrahamic religions which are so deeply entrenched in all this - pitch themselves as inviolable, sacred and beyond question, even whilst they violate, desecrate and question each other. Religious claims are categorically different from the other concepts that you mention, and therefore pose different problems and threats.
O.
-
I'm not suggesting that they just had an instantaneous religious conversion, and I agree that it's against a convoluted backdrop, but the explicit claims of the group responsible were that it was a religious activity.
I'm not sure what you mean - could you give me an example of a claim that it was a religious activity. As far as I can tell, it was the kind of activity that happens in any conflict. Bin Laden apparently claimed he got the idea for hitting the US Twin Towers after seeing the aftermath of Israel's 1982 invasion of Beirut where Israel fired missiles into apartment tower blocks in Beirut, killing many civilians. And that's not unique to Islam, that's exactly the same as the explicitly religious motivations for at least some of the Crusaders during the Middle Ages, to pull a Christian example.
I don't know enough about the Crusades to comment, but they were not a recent event so it's probably better to focus on recent geo-political events. I don't see hitting infrastructure and destroying buildings, shock and awe tactics as something that is unique to religion - it's just what happens in armed conflict between people because a spectacle like that will undermine the enemy's morale.
Whether the claim that it was partially, largely or entirely a religious expression is important in the broader sense, but for the purposes of what it did to the Western (and American in particular) perception of religion when it was depicted as such it doesn't really matter very much.
Yes I agree that including religious rhetoric in what was essentially a turf war over oil would have sparked the conflation of religion and terrorism. But it was the media and politicians' narratives that fanned the flames and left some people with a view that terrorism and religion were inextricably linked, This was despite non-religious left or right-wing nationalist terrorism being quite common in the 1970s and 1980s.
Religion, in part, along with racism and nationalism, fomented the geopolitics that led to all the precursors: Soviets and then the West in Afghanistan; the West in Kuwait to oppose Iraq; the West's interference in Iran; even back to the debacle of handing Palestine over to the new Jewish State after the 2nd world war. Religion was a part, at least, of the response that included 9/11, and it doesn't matter if it was a large or small part, because it brought to the attention of the West that religion was not necessarily the inconsequential social club that it had become to them, it could still be visceral and profoundly motivating - for good or ill.
It was in the wake of that realisation that the 'New Atheist' movement gained traction.
For me, personally, I think that Islam was a contributory factor; in particular, the (I think it's Wahabist?) particular 'hard-line' Islam that is espoused by Isis and the Taliban which takes such an absolute and authoritarian stance that's so at odds with Western values. Nation states are not a necessity, in theory, there are other ways of arranging groups of people (indeed, at least some of the issues in Africa and the middle-East come from European colonial powers implement 'nation state' political boundaries into cultures that operated as overlapping tribal and cultural diaspora).
Nation States, though, are not pitched as absolute - you can revolt against the ruling class, you can changes the laws of land ownership, you can transfer ownership of money or resources in any number of ways. Religion, though - in particular the Abrahamic religions which are so deeply entrenched in all this - pitch themselves as inviolable, sacred and beyond question, even whilst they violate, desecrate and question each other. Religious claims are categorically different from the other concepts that you mention, and therefore pose different problems and threats.
O.
Anyone can claim that something is inviolable, sacred and beyond question - and no one has to believe them or go along with it. You get that it's individual people right? For example, marriage is not intrinsically abusive, but individual husbands and wives might be abusive and control their spouse.
People often ask why people stay in abusive marriages or relationships and the same question could apply to people who remain part of a religious community who are abusing and threatening them with divine retribution if they do not follow orders. So religion isn't the problem but the way some religious people behave is.
-
Sorry, necessary entity?
I thought you were talking about the god that you believe in?
Which is it?
Seb, you are being very interrogative, read up about the Milgram experiment and then reflect on where your's and Bluehillside's Herr Flick and Von schmallhausen act has got you.
-
I'm not suggesting that they just had an instantaneous religious conversion, and I agree that it's against a convoluted backdrop, but the explicit claims of the group responsible were that it was a religious activity. And that's not unique to Islam, that's exactly the same as the explicitly religious motivations for at least some of the Crusaders during the Middle Ages, to pull a Christian example.
Whether the claim that it was partially, largely or entirely a religious expression is important in the broader sense, but for the purposes of what it did to the Western (and American in particular) perception of religion when it was depicted as such it doesn't really matter very much.
Religion, in part, along with racism and nationalism, fomented the geopolitics that led to all the precursors: Soviets and then the West in Afghanistan; the West in Kuwait to oppose Iraq; the West's interference in Iran; even back to the debacle of handing Palestine over to the new Jewish State after the 2nd world war. Religion was a part, at least, of the response that included 9/11, and it doesn't matter if it was a large or small part, because it brought to the attention of the West that religion was not necessarily the inconsequential social club that it had become to them, it could still be visceral and profoundly motivating - for good or ill.
It was in the wake of that realisation that the 'New Atheist' movement gained traction.
For me, personally, I think that Islam was a contributory factor; in particular, the (I think it's Wahabist?) particular 'hard-line' Islam that is espoused by Isis and the Taliban which takes such an absolute and authoritarian stance that's so at odds with Western values. Nation states are not a necessity, in theory, there are other ways of arranging groups of people (indeed, at least some of the issues in Africa and the middle-East come from European colonial powers implement 'nation state' political boundaries into cultures that operated as overlapping tribal and cultural diaspora).
Nation States, though, are not pitched as absolute - you can revolt against the ruling class, you can changes the laws of land ownership, you can transfer ownership of money or resources in any number of ways. Religion, though - in particular the Abrahamic religions which are so deeply entrenched in all this - pitch themselves as inviolable, sacred and beyond question, even whilst they violate, desecrate and question each other. Religious claims are categorically different from the other concepts that you mention, and therefore pose different problems and threats.
O.
And this reflects another New Atheist trait, Believing fundamentally that all people of religion are a threat to them, even as someone once said the old lady who sits
on the back pew on Sunday. Where that ended up was Dawkins becoming the Alf Garnett of Atheism and Sam Harris and his pre-emptive nuclear strike threat.
Do you think then there is a misplaced cultural fear of religion at play here?
Meanwhile I think we make light and/or little of the fear of moslem communities in more secular countries like France and the reports of fear leading some Jewish british to have their bags packed in the event the Tories were defeated at the last election.
The answer of course here is dialogue but then there is of course great fear abroad anyway. Unfortunately the New atheists are in no place to offer this as New atheism is confrontational by nature vis this message board.
-
Dicky, any chance of you explaining this?
Vlad you are being very interrogative, read up about the Milgram experiment and then reflect on where your's and Bluehillside's Herr Flick and Von schmallhausen act has got you
-
Seb, you are being very interrogative, read up about the Milgram experiment and then reflect on where your's and Bluehillside's Herr Flick and Von schmallhausen act has got you.
Vlad you are being very evasive.
It is impossible to move on with this process without the relevant accurate information.
The fact that you are unwilling to provide it suggests to me that you are aware of the impossibility of the task yet will draw it out as long as possible in the hope that I might give up.
If you want to stop now it's ok I won't think any less of you than I already do!
-
And this reflects another New Atheist trait, Believing fundamentally that all people of religion are a threat to them, even as someone once said the old lady who sits
on the back pew on Sunday. Where that ended up was Dawkins becoming the Alf Garnett of Atheism and Sam Harris and his pre-emptive nuclear strike threat.
You just cannot help yourself, can you Vlad. I mean if there was ever a case of pot and kettle this is it.
So apparently the atheists here think all people of religion are a threat - news to me, I'm married to one. Yet you try to demonstrate this by basically indicating that you think atheists are a threat. Surely you can see the muddled thinking here.
If there is anyone on this MB who seems to have an irrational view that all people of a particular faith/lack of faith group represent a threat it is you Vlad, with you irrational view that atheists are a threat and your bizarre obsession with a few academic philosophers and biologists who you see somehow as akin to mass murderers. If you want atheist bogeymen who were mass murderers there are a few (Stalin, Pol Pot to name a couple), not that I think their atheism was their driving philosophy. But Dawkins, Harris - I mean, get a life Vlad.
-
Vlad you are being very evasive.
It is impossible to move on with this process without the relevant accurate information.
The fact that you are unwilling to provide it suggests to me that you are aware of the impossibility of the task yet will draw it out as long as possible in the hope that I might give up.
If you want to stop now it's ok I won't think any less of you than I already do!
I think i've given you all the information I can give. perhaps you need to check what might be holding you back and what you might actually clinging onto. However I think you and Hillside are trying a conversion job on me although I have to say I didn't expect the inquisition.
-
However I think you and Hillside are trying a conversion job on me although I have to say I didn't expect the inquisition.
Oh dear, conspiracy theories now Vlad?
You'll tell me next that the earth is flat!
-
You just cannot help yourself, can you Vlad. I mean if there was ever a case of pot and kettle this is it.
So apparently the atheists here think all people of religion are a threat
No I said the New Atheists were given that Outrider had commented that 9/11 was a factor in their appearence - news to me,
see previous I'm married to one. Yet you try to demonstrate this by basically indicating that you think atheists are a threat.
No, new atheists many of whom I see as imflammatory.
If there is anyone on this MB who seems to have an irrational view that all people of a particular faith group represent a threat it is you Vlad, with you irrational view that atheists are a threat and your bizarre obsession with a few academic philosophers and biologists who you see somehow as akin to mass murderers. If you want atheist bogeymen who were mass murderers there are a few (Stalin, Pol Pot to name a couple), not that I think their atheism was their driving philosophy. But Dawkins, Harris - I mean, get a life Vlad.
Dawkins introduced a fair bit of confrontation into our national way of discourse , let's not forget that, with his enemy within rhetoric and Harris took the nuclear option.
-
Moderator: There have been some posts removed as they relate to an accusation of sock puppetry. The Mod team take such accusations very seriously, and given that, if someone wants to raise the possibility, they should DM the Mod team.
-
Dawkins introduced a fair bit of confrontation into our national way of discourse ...
So have all sorts of people, including (but not limited to) current and former ABoCs, Cardinals of Westminster and current and former Popes. What exactly is your point - I thought this was a country that supported free speech, but you seem to want it only one way - those from a religious persuasion able to say what they want, however inflammatory yet atheists should sit quietly and never say a word.
I don't see Dawkin's views as being any more inflammatory as pretty standard rhetoric by mainstream religions, for example towards gay people and ... err .. often towards atheists.
... Harris took the nuclear option.
Oh, this hoary old myth yet again - Harris did not take the nuclear option. Can you please point us to any nuclear weapons that Harris has launched please.
-
So have all sorts of people, including (but not limited to) current and former ABoCs, Cardinals of Westminster and current and former Popes.
Not really AoC's are quite mild in there approach Ditto Cardinals of Westminster and as for leaders of the other churches, you never here from them. regarding religion Ian Paisley perhaps and what I see as a bit of a slip committed by singling out the sins of Jeremy Corbyn by the AoC and the chief Rabbi . Controversial Rabbis, Imams, Pastors, etc only get 15 minutes of fame but Dawkins is a national darling because the media love the cloud of controversy that he generates What exactly is your point - I thought this was a country that supported free speech
and Dawkins never goes short of his share that's for sure, but you seem to want it only one way - those from a religious persuasion able to say what they want, however inflammatory yet atheists should sit quietly and never say a word.
No I believe i've promoted the idea atheists having a seat in the house of Lords and my view on letting atheists have a spot on thought for the day has changed too.
I don't see Dawkin's views as being any more inflammatory as pretty standard rhetoric by mainstream religions, for example towards gay people and ... err .. often towards atheists.
I think it is rather those wishing to extinguish faith in God to get a new bit of linguistic piracy they want who are confrontational here, The linguistic piracy being of course same sex holy matrimony something that wasn't a thing until very recently. Gay people can get married in church in any case. Can you really look into anyone's face and say your motivations aren't anti ecclesiastical?Or Sandy Toksvig who announced her confrontation with the AoC in which she would march in head down shoulders up( ..............what?.........you mean she always walks around like that?)
Oh, this hoary old myth yet again - Harris did not take the nuclear option. Can you please point us to any nuclear weapons that Harris has launched please.
Fortunately he never got anywhere near to the keys to the arsenal.
-
Not really AoC's are quite mild in there approach Ditto Cardinals of Westminster ...
So are Oxford academics - in terms of presentation I think Dawkins is much more akin to Welby than Paisley. In terms of presentation Dawkins, Nichols, Murphy-O'Connor, Williams and Welby are all pretty 'mild. But that's not the point - it isn't about presentation but the message and indeed, the actions. And Nichols, Murphy-O'Connor, Williams and Welby's message and indeed their actions are very far from mild. These are people who not only promote a message of discrimination, they actually deliver that discrimination in action - e.g. through refusing to allow gay marriage or blessing, and refusing to support equality for women in the priesthood as examples.
And there is plenty of crude prejudicial messages, even if delivered is a soft, mild manner - e.g. Murphy-O'Connor asserting that atheists aren't fully human.
-
So are Oxford academics - in terms of presentation I think Dawkins is much more akin to Welby than Paisley. In terms of presentation Dawkins, Nichols, Murphy-O'Connor, Williams and Welby are all pretty 'mild. But that's not the point - it isn't about presentation but the message and indeed, the actions. And Nichols, Murphy-O'Connor, Williams and Welby's message and indeed their actions are very far from mild. These are people who not only promote a message of discrimination, they actually deliver that discrimination in action - e.g. through refusing to allow gay marriage or blessing, and refusing to support equality for women in the priesthood as examples.
And there is plenty of crude prejudicial messages, even if delivered is a soft, mild manner - e.g. Murphy-O'Connor asserting that atheists aren't fully human.
I think the bench mark here is the atheist bus. A christian denomenational bus would promote religion, the atheist bus sought to demote religion head to head as it were. See the difference in approach. Atheist bus- attack their idea, Christian bus, promote your own. To date there's only been an atheist bus with it's, stop worrying about God and everything will be like the cumfy sofa ad message.
-
Yes I would agree that it would be difficult to compare inner experiences. On this forum we seem to differentiate between "facts" and experiences which we believe are true - or rather we believe that our interpretations of the experience are true.
It seems to be a convention that fact claims need to be backed up by objective evidence, whereas opinions we believe are true are asserted and argued for. We don't state they are beliefs but we can just apply the test of whether the statements are verifiable/ falsifiable. If they aren't then presumably our statements are beliefs or opinions.
Some might see that as a battle between the self centred mind and the 'heart'.
"God speaks to the ears of the heart of everyone but it is not every heart which hears Him; His voice is louder than the thunder and His light is clearer than the Sun - if only one could see and hear; in order to do that one must remove this solid wall, this barrier, this Self." ..... Rumi
-
And there is plenty of crude prejudicial messages, even if delivered is a soft, mild manner - e.g. Murphy-O'Connor asserting that atheists aren't fully human.
Oh I don't think Dawkins is averse to telling religious people they have the minds of imprinted Ducklings or are sheep in his mild mannered style.
Dawkins is surrounded by people telling us 'what the professor really meant was.' So let's give Murphy O'connor a break and suggest that what the Cardinal really meant is full humanity is only achieved when the image of God in any person is fully restored...And if the Cardinal didn't mean that he can fuck off!
-
Vlad,
What, there is overwhelming evidence that can be observed because it's all around us? What about the parts of the universe we don't have evidence for?
What about them? This is the fundamental mistake you’ve always made about PE – that it’s in some way a top down theory of absolute, universal truths rather than it’s actual meaning of a bottom up theory that the most reliable way to accrue knowledge is to build it brick-by-brick as it’s validated by methodological materialism (observation, experimentation, peer review etc).
Read the definition THAT YOU POSTED ffs: “…an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience”.
Can you see anything at all there to suggest that the theory also claims to be the answer to “life, the universe and everything”? There’s no way of knowing whether PE could in theory be the most reliable approach to knowing everything there is to know, and nor for that matter of knowing whether a more reliable philosophical position on knowledge gathering might not one day emerge. That’s why I said: “That’s not to say that everything we think we “know” isn’t, say, instead a fever dream of a pan-galactic kid on a computer game, but it’s all we verifiably have to navigate the world we appear to occupy.” (Reply 1169.)
It seems you are saying the whole is just like the part we can see. You can add the fallacy of composition to your hypocrisy of demanding empirical evidence then not providing it.
You do so love a straw man don’t you. Needless to say, I’m saying no such thing.
Were not asking for one theory, though we are asking whether this method for getting evidence can get the evidence for philosophical empiricism and by the looks of it it can't apart from confusing methodological empiricism with philosophical mechanism.. Sorry, you'll have to try harder or own up to there not being any.
Yes it can and does, provided you don’t straw man PE to mean something entirely other than what it actually means (see above, plus the definition YOU posted).
-
If you want atheist bogeymen who were mass murderers there are a few (Stalin, Pol Pot to name a couple), not that I think their atheism was their driving philosophy. But Dawkins, Harris - I mean, get a life Vlad.
The likes of Stalin and Pol Pot were destroyers of earthly lives.
Dawkins and Harris would appear to be out to destroy the faith of those who believe.
Dawkins in particular is seen to get visibly angry when confronted with people who witness to their sincere faith.
The faith of human souls is far more precious than their earthly bodies, which is why the current trend of aggressive atheism is seen to be so dangerous.
-
The likes of Stalin and Pol Pot were destroyers of earthly lives.
As were the likes of the Crusaders and the Witch burners.
Shall we trade lists of despots and vigilantes?
-
Dawkins and Harris would appear to be out to destroy the faith of those who believe.
Evidence?
-
AB,
The likes of Stalin and Pol Pot were destroyers of earthly lives.
Yes they were.
Dawkins and Harris would appear to be out to destroy the faith of those who believe.
No really. What they’re “out to do” as I see it is to use the rebuttals of arguments attempted to justify faiths to make a case for the removal of the unwarranted rights and privileges those faiths arrogate to themselves.
Dawkins in particular is seen to get visibly angry when confronted with people who witness to their sincere faith.
I’ve seen him exasperated occasionally (reasonably so too), but not angry. Do you have any evidence for that claim?
The faith of human souls is far more precious than their earthly bodies, which is why the current trend of aggressive atheism is seen to be so dangerous.
“The faith of human souls” is just another of your blind faith claims, and “aggressive atheism” is an invention too.
-
Dawkins and Harris would appear to be out to destroy the faith of those who believe.
Dawkins in particular is seen to get visibly angry when confronted with people who witness to their sincere faith.
The faith of human souls is far more precious than their earthly bodies, which is why the current trend of aggressive atheism is seen to be so dangerous.
If faith is so weak that an Oxford academic writing a few books and engaging in lectures and debates is going to shake it to the core - then that faith seems terribly fragile. Why is this faith so weak and fragile that you seem to imply that it needs to be protected from free speech of this nature.
-
The faith of human souls is far more precious than their earthly bodies, which is why the current trend of aggressive atheism is seen to be so dangerous.
Surely someone who has faith is not going to take notice of someone who has not?
Or is their faith so weak that they change their mind like they can change their brand of coffee?
-
Dawkins in particular is seen to get visibly angry when confronted with people who witness to their sincere faith.
Try looking at the youtube of Dawkins interviewing the 'Reverend' Ted Haggard, and judge which one is angry.
-
Vlad,
What about them? This is the fundamental mistake you’ve always made about PE – that it’s in some way a top down theory of absolute, universal truths rather than it’s actual meaning of a bottom up theory that the most reliable way to accrue knowledge is to build it brick-by-brick as it’s validated by methodological materialism (observation, experimentation, peer review etc).
I'm not sure that gives you philosophical empiricism but merely more methodological empiricism BHS.
The same painstaking bottom up process of starting with what you can observe etc. does however lead to the argument from contingency and the principle of sufficient reason.
-
Vlad,
I'm not sure that gives you philosophical empiricism but merely more methodological empiricism BHS.
Now try to comprehend and address what I actually said to you. PE is a theory about the most reliable way to accrete knowledge within the context of our current level of understanding. ME validates it, and when it does validate it we call the result "knowledge". Treating something as knowledge rather than as just guessing is useful because it creates the solutions we then use to engage functionally with the world we appear to occupy.
That's it. All the endless straw manning you've done over the years about PE is still just that - straw manning.
The same painstaking bottom up process of starting with what you can observe etc. does however lead to the argument from contingency and the principle of sufficient reason.
Of course it doesn't, for reasons that have been explained to you endlessly both here and before.
-
Vlad,
Now try to comprehend and address what I actually said to you. PE is a theory about the most reliable way to accrete knowledge within the context of our current level of understanding.
Nobody denies the uses of methodological empiricism as useful. You would have to prove though that it is the most reliable way of getting knowledge rather than merely the most reliable way of getting empirical knowledge........ME validates it
ME does not validate PE.
You have said ME builds PE step by Step. We surely do not have all the steps available. otherwise we would have had to reach a point where PE had enough ''bricks'' to become PE.(emerge from it) or at least become an emergence of the type you aren't prepared to accept. That is absurd. So we are forced to conclude by some mystical or philosophical process which doesn't produce empirical evidence that ME validates PE.
Please show your working out.
Let me put a different conclusion to your explanation . People have been so used to doing this that some poor sods have confused what they do with the way the world is.
There is nothing in ME necessitating any mysterious leap over the explanatory or evidential gap to get to Philosophical empiricism.
-
No I said the New Atheists were given that Outrider had commented that 9/11 was a factor in their appearence
Not in their appearance, necessarily, but in the interest that they generated. Professor Dawkins had been outspoken about religion long before, and it was not one of his explicit motivations, whereas it does seem (from the outside) to have had quite a profound effect on Sam Harris' thought processes.
No, new atheists many of whom I see as imflammatory
The only difference between 'New' atheists and their forebears is that they're not as content to keep quiet.
Dawkins introduced a fair bit of confrontation into our national way of discourse , let's not forget that, with his enemy within rhetoric and Harris took the nuclear option.
Professor Dawkins is not confrontational, he is quite personable and genteel in his discussions with people, he's just not prepared to stop asking the obvious questions. The fact that he can, and is, denounced as a 'Militant' atheist for politely espousing views, whilst it takes the actual delivery of bombs and guns to have a Muslim or a Christian defined as militant shows that the yardstick against which the 'New' atheists are being measured are not consistent with everyone else.
Sam Harris' rhetoric can, at times, verge closer to a call to arms, I'd agree, but I'd say he still falls a long way short of the standard it takes for people of faith to be viewed as potentially dangerous. It's almost as though we fear bombs and guns, and the religious fear questions.
O.
-
Vlad,
Nobody denies the uses of methodological empiricism as useful. You would have to prove though that it is the most reliable way of getting knowledge rather than merely the most reliable way of getting empirical knowledge
Nope. If you want to try that line, then you have to establish first that there even is such a thing a non-empirical knowledge and second that you have some way of distinguishing it from just guessing – you know, like PE and ME do for empirical knowledge.
ME does not validate PE.
Of course it does.
You have said ME builds PE step by Step.
No I haven’t. What I have said though is that it validates PE bottom up, one step at a time.
We surely do not have all the steps available.
I know – that’s why I said: “PE is a theory about the most reliable way to accrete knowledge within the context of our current level of understanding”. That’s not a problem for the empiricist though as empiricism makes no claim to and has no need for “all the steps” to anything. All it needs is to have sufficient steps to distinguish knowledge from guessing at knowledge.
…otherwise we would have had to reach a point where PE had enough ''bricks'' to become PE.(emerge from it) or at least become an emergence of the type you aren't prepared to accept. That is absurd. So we are forced to conclude by some mystical or philosophical process which doesn't produce empirical evidence that ME validates PE.
Gibberish. What are you trying to say here?
Please show your working out.
Working out for your incoherence? I have none. What I do have though is perfectly simple arguments I’ve set out here and in previous posts. Try to comprehend and engage with them rather than collapse into straw men and incoherence.
Let me put a different conclusion to your explanation . People have been so used to doing this that some poor sods have confused what they do with the way the world is.
There is nothing in ME necessitating any mysterious leap over the explanatory or evidential gap to get to Philosophical empiricism.
There is provided you don’t pretend PE means something other than its actual meaning – suggest you revisit the definition of it THAT YOU POSTED and go from there.
-
Dawkins is surrounded by people telling us 'what the professor really meant was.' So let's give Murphy O'connor a break and suggest that what the Cardinal really meant is full humanity is only achieved when the image of God in any person is fully restored...And if the Cardinal didn't mean that he can fuck off!
Are you really claiming that Dawkins is surrounded by fewer people telling us 'what he really meant' than a guy in a senior leadership position in one of the largest (actually perhaps the largest) organisations in the world, with layer upon layer of hierarchy, much of which is all about getting the message across. Laughable.
-
So let's give Murphy O'connor a break and suggest that what the Cardinal really meant is full humanity is only achieved when the image of God in any person is fully restored...And if the Cardinal didn't mean that he can fuck off!
Actually this wasn't just an off the cuff comment, but one in an interview picking up on previous comments he had made in a similar manner, where the interviewer clearly indicated that some people (atheists and secularists) may have found his previous comments offensive. So he had ample opportunity in his response in the interview to clarify that he was not implying that atheists were not fully human. Yet he doubled down:
Roger Bolton – a lot of church leaders speaking on national matters sound rather defensive but you’ve gone on the attack because you’ve talked about secularists having an “impoverished understanding of what it is to be human” they might find that quite offensive mightn’t they?
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor - I think what I said was true, of course whether a person is atheist or any other...there is in fact, in my view, something not totally human, if they leave out the transcendent. If they leave out an aspect of what I believe everyone was made for, which is, uh, a search for transcendent meaning, we call it God. Now if you say that has no place, then I feel that it is a diminishment of what it is to be a human, because to be human in the sense I believe humanity is directed because made by God, I think if you leave that out then you are not fully human.
Pretty clear - don't believe in god = not fully human.
-
Professor Dawkins is not confrontational, he is quite personable and genteel in his discussions with people ...
Absolutely - actually his demeanour and manner is rather akin to a polite CofE vicar - perhaps this is what irks the religious so much, that he adopts the mild mannered approach of one of their own but says things they don't like.
-
I think the bench mark here is the atheist bus.
Are you for real - you mean the bus that rather than being confrontational included the word 'probably' and then extolled people to, in enjoy their life. It was as confrontation as someone offering up a picture of a kitten while extolling you to 'have a nice day'.
A christian denomenational bus would promote religion, the atheist bus sought to demote religion head to head as it were. See the difference in approach. Atheist bus- attack their idea, Christian bus, promote your own. To date there's only been an atheist bus with it's, stop worrying about God and everything will be like the cumfy sofa ad message.
Hmm - like this:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/church-accused-of-inciting-religious-hatred-8zr3q8bkjwd
Or this one:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/outrage-straight-pride-poster-promoting-27459931
Nice message - only heterosexual people are normal.
Or this one:
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/hate-incident-investigated-after-offensive-6062404
At least it isn't just gay people and atheists who are the target of offensive christian posters.
There is a time honoured tradition of christian churches using their own billboard, or renting space at railway stations etc to, in effect, tell people who aren't in their tent that they are going to burn in hell. Yup, nice friendly positive message ... not. That isn't even attack someone else's view, it is attack the person.
-
Are you for real - you mean the bus that rather than being confrontational included the word 'probably' and then extolled people to, in enjoy their life. It was as confrontation as someone offering up a picture of a kitten while extolling you to 'have a nice day'.
Hmm - like this:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/church-accused-of-inciting-religious-hatred-8zr3q8bkjwd
Or this one:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/outrage-straight-pride-poster-promoting-27459931
Nice message - only heterosexual people are normal.
Or this one:
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/hate-incident-investigated-after-offensive-6062404
At least it isn't just gay people and atheists who are the target of offensive christian posters.
There is a time honoured tradition of christian churches using their own billboard, or renting space at railway stations etc to, in effect, tell people who aren't in their tent that they are going to burn in hell. Yup, nice friendly positive message ... not. That isn't even attack someone else's view, it is attack the person.
I heard the atheist bus campaign had to put the word probably in because the advertising standards agency required them to do so. Even the ASA recognised that the campaign could not substantiate their claim that God didn't exist although Hillside has tried bloody hard and the campaign could have been ''had up on trades descriptions''.
The atheist bus campaign was noted for not doing anything to raise the material wellbeing ofthose whose route it ran through I seemed to remember.
In terms of burning, I hear the fire brigade runs similar warnings in similar places so two sets of warnings one for our earthly life and one for our eternal life. You wouldn't dream of not letting the fire brigade post a warning.
If you feel got at by church posters perhaps you should explore why you feel like that.
-
Actually this wasn't just an off the cuff comment, but one in an interview picking up on previous comments he had made in a similar manner, where the interviewer clearly indicated that some people (atheists and secularists) may have found his previous comments offensive. So he had ample opportunity in his response in the interview to clarify that he was not implying that atheists were not fully human. Yet he doubled down:
Roger Bolton – a lot of church leaders speaking on national matters sound rather defensive but you’ve gone on the attack because you’ve talked about secularists having an “impoverished understanding of what it is to be human” they might find that quite offensive mightn’t they?
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor - I think what I said was true, of course whether a person is atheist or any other...there is in fact, in my view, something not totally human, if they leave out the transcendent. If they leave out an aspect of what I believe everyone was made for, which is, uh, a search for transcendent meaning, we call it God. Now if you say that has no place, then I feel that it is a diminishment of what it is to be a human, because to be human in the sense I believe humanity is directed because made by God, I think if you leave that out then you are not fully human.
Pretty clear - don't believe in god = not fully human.
Do you leave out the transcendant Davey? Why are you upset by Murphy O'connor believing that the full human experience involves the transcendent while tolerating Harris's monstrous nuclear fuelled delusion? Now that really is preaching that you will burn if you aren't in the right tent.
Murphy O'Connor's interpretation is different then from what I am saying.
-
Do you leave out the transcendant Davey? Why are you upset by Murphy O'connor believing that the full human experience involves the transcendent while tolerating Harris's monstrous nuclear fuelled delusion? Now that really is preaching that you will burn if you aren't in the right tent.
Murphy O'Connor's interpretation is different then from what I am saying.
The Prof loves the music of Mozart and choral singing. I'm sure he's had experiences which many would refer to as the 'transcendent'. Since I share many of the Prof's musical enthusiasms, I can relate to various experiences that he has alluded to in this forum. But they are experiences of this world, however out of the routine of ordinary life they may be.
-
I heard the atheist bus campaign had to put the word probably in because the advertising standards agency required them to do so. Even the ASA recognised that the campaign could not substantiate their claim that God didn't exist although Hillside has tried bloody hard and the campaign could have been ''had up on trades descriptions''.
The atheist bus campaign was noted for not doing anything to raise the material wellbeing ofthose whose route it ran through I seemed to remember.
In terms of burning, I hear the fire brigade runs similar warnings in similar places so two sets of warnings one for our earthly life and one for our eternal life. You wouldn't dream of not letting the fire brigade post a warning.
If you feel got at by church posters perhaps you should explore why you feel like that.
Where did you hear that? Any evidence that that is true?
-
Where did you hear that? Any evidence that that is true?
See the discussion here under 'Probably'. Unfortunately the footnote on the possibility doesn't lead to the article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_Bus_Campaign
-
See the discussion here under 'Probably'. Unfortunately the footnote on the possibility doesn't lead to the article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_Bus_Campaign
Thanks. Found this
https://humanists.uk/campaigns/successful-campaigns/atheist-bus-campaign/ (https://humanists.uk/campaigns/successful-campaigns/atheist-bus-campaign/)
-
Thanks. Found this
https://humanists.uk/campaigns/successful-campaigns/atheist-bus-campaign/ (https://humanists.uk/campaigns/successful-campaigns/atheist-bus-campaign/)
As I have mentioned many times on here, I think using ideas of probability on a claim that is not naturalistic is a category error.
-
As I have mentioned many times on here, I think using ideas of probability on a claim that is not naturalistic is a category error.
Yes, can see that.
-
The Prof loves the music of Mozart and choral singing. I'm sure he's had experiences which many would refer to as the 'transcendent'. Since I share many of the Prof's musical enthusiasms, I can relate to various experiences that he has alluded to in this forum. But they are experiences of this world, however out of the routine of ordinary life they may be.
What is it these experiences are transcending?
-
Vlad,
I heard the atheist bus campaign had to put the word probably in because the advertising standards agency required them to do so. Even the ASA recognised that the campaign could not substantiate their claim that God didn't exist although Hillside has tried bloody hard and the campaign could have been ''had up on trades descriptions''.
Needless to say, Hillside has never done any such thing.
-
I heard the atheist bus campaign had to put the word probably in because the advertising standards agency required them to do so.
The article deals with this - the inclusion of probably may have been to reduce the likelihood of challenge by the ASA, but there is no evidence that the ASA required them to do so. All be know is that the ASA ruled that the wording used was fine.
Indeed it is pretty clear that has the campaigned used the words 'There definitely is no god' they'd have been fine. How do we now - well because in response to the campaign a christian group ran a counter bus campaign stating 'There definitely is a god' and that wasn't banned by the ASA.
-
What is it these experiences are transcending?
They are 'transcending' everyday consciousness. They are not, as I implied, indicative of a realm beyond the universe being contacted. Though some, as I said, might think so, probably even Mozart himself (and I didn't dismiss his thoughts on these matters lightly, I can tell you).
-
They are 'transcending' everyday consciousness. They are not, as I implied, indicative of a realm beyond the universe being contacted. Though some, as I said, might think so, probably even Mozart himself (and I didn't dismiss his thoughts on these matters lightly, I can tell you).
So are they transcending consciousness into unconsciousness or subconsciousness since you seem not to have left them another option.
I think what you are describing is ecstasy. The experience of being taken out of yourself or losing yourself as it were.
-
Do you leave out the transcendant Davey?
But transcend has a much broader definition than merely considering that you might have experienced god. But Murphy-O'Connor seems to see transcendent to be synonymous with belief in god - hence his attack on atheists and secularists (although clearly he doesn't understand the meaning of secularism which has nothing to do with belief or lack of belief in god). So he makes a claim about transcendent but rapidly shifts gear into concluding that those who do not believe in in god aren't fully human.
Why are you upset by Murphy O'connor believing that the full human experience involves the transcendent ...
But that isn't what he said - there are things that may be part of the full human experience that individuals may not have experienced - many of which might be considered transcendent - so over half of us won't have had the full human experience of being pregnant and giving birth (and by the way that will include Murphy-O'Connor, but he seems to ignore this). That doesn't mean we aren't fully human - we most certainly are fully human even if we haven't had that experience. Murphy-O'Connor did not say that atheists had not had a full human experience - nope he said that we weren't fully human. There is a massive difference between the two.
So if atheists aren't fully human for not believing in god, why isn't Murphy-O'Connor not fully human for not experiencing pregnancy and child-birth.
-
If faith is so weak that an Oxford academic writing a few books and engaging in lectures and debates is going to shake it to the core - then that faith seems terribly fragile. Why is this faith so weak and fragile that you seem to imply that it needs to be protected from free speech of this nature.
The strength of people's faith varies from those with no faith at all to those who appear to have unshakable faith, with a complete spectrum of faith strengths between the two extremes. Faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess. It needs to be nurtured or it will die. I have no doubt that there are evil forces at work which are intent of destroying people's Christian faith - and I have personally witnessed some who have sadly lost their faith. Fortunately I have also witnessed some people who had no faith who have discovered the true love of God in their lives and become powerful witnesses to their experience. There is always hope for everyone.
-
AB,
The strength of people's faith varies from those with no faith at all to those who appear to have unshakable faith, with a complete spectrum of faith strengths between the two extremes.
So far, so good.
Faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess.
Now you’ve collapsed again into, well, a faith claim. Why would you think “faith” is a “gift” rather than a failure in reasoning?
It needs to be nurtured or it will die.
Depends what you mean by “nurtured”, but if you mean something like “kept as far away from reason and argument as possible” you could be right about that.
I have no doubt that there are evil forces at work which are intent of destroying people's Christian faith -…
Your personal doubt about that is neither here nor there – do you have any evidence at all for these supposed “evil forces” you think to be real, or are they actually just imaginary?
… and I have personally witnessed some who have sadly lost their faith.
Why “sadly”? Some might say “happily” instead.
Fortunately I have also witnessed some people who had no faith who have discovered the true love of God in their lives and become powerful witnesses to their experience.
What makes you think they actually “discovered” anything rather than abandoned their critical thinking in favour of some blind faith woo?
There is always hope for everyone.
Given your abject failure to grasp or engage with the arguments here that falsify you, it seems you me be an exception though.
-
The strength of people's faith varies from those with no faith at all to those who appear to have unshakable faith, with a complete spectrum of faith strengths between the two extremes.
True
Faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess.
That is a highly contested matter of opinion. People's faith can lead them to positive action, but of course it can also lead them to 'holy' war, discrimination and persecution of others. People followed the Nazis because they had faith in them. Was that a precious gift or a curse for both them and humanity.
It needs to be nurtured or it will die.
And in some cases allowing that faith to die is absolutely the best thing to do. I'd be delighted if the faith-driven homophobia of many religions and religious adherents died out tomorrow.
I have no doubt that there are evil forces at work which are intent of destroying people's Christian faith - and I have personally witnessed some who have sadly lost their faith.
But some of those evil forces of discrimination and persecution are fermented and perpetuated by that very christian religious faith. All power to the elbow of those that fight against such grossly unethical behaviour toward people, whether they be fighting from within those religions or from outside.
Fortunately I have also witnessed some people who had no faith who have discovered the true love of God in their lives and become powerful witnesses to their experience. There is always hope for everyone.
But certainly in the UK for every person who makes that journey from non-religious to christian there are 16 who make the journey in the other direction, rejecting their christian upbringing and choosing to be non religious. Guess what - those people may well be just as full of love and hope, arguably more so if they reject discriminatory religious teaching and treat people with love, respect and equality regardless of their sex, gender, sexuality or faith.
-
Why “sadly”? Some might say “happily” instead.
As I did when I saw the decline of New Atheism.
-
Vlad,
As I did when I saw the decline of New Atheism.
There never was a "new" atheism, and the indicators I've seen suggest that atheism is on the rise rather than in decline. Naturally if you have evidence to the contrary you'll produce it right?
-
There is an increase in secular spirituality around the world.
-
There is an increase in secular spirituality around the world.
Evidence please.
-
Vlad,
There never was a "new" atheism,
I'm afraid there has and you are in denial https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism
and the indicators I've seen suggest that atheism is on the rise rather than in decline
If you mean an encultured apatheism I agree in western countries.Naturally if you have evidence to the contrary you'll produce it right
Of course.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/
-
There is an increase in secular spirituality around the world.
And what do you mean by secular spirituality - do you mean claims of being spiritual amongst people who are otherwise non religious. This isn't the same as secular as there are plenty of people who are personally religious but also secular, in that they do not support mixing of state and religion.
-
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/
-
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/
But you claimed that there is "an increase in secular spirituality around the world"
But you've linked to an article about the USA only - which is just one tiny part of the world. And also the research looks at religious and non-religious people and whether they indicate that they are spiritual. It isn't about secularism at all - indeed being the USA I suspect that a high proportion will be secular, regardless of whether they are religious or not as separation of religion and state is embedded in the US constitution.
-
People followed the Nazis because they had faith in them. Was that a precious gift or a curse for both them and humanity.
It certainly was not Christian faith which drove people to follow the Nazis. The Christian faith promotes love and compassion for fellow human beings - not self centred pride and lust for power. There was a call to prayer from King George at critical points in the war - the evacuation at Dunkirk and the battle of Britain, which turned out to be major turning points against all the odds. People were queueing up to enter the churches to follow this call to prayer, and we have much to thank for those Christians who answered the call.
-
It certainly was not Christian faith which drove people to follow the Nazis.
They certainly explicitly invoked their Christian credentials in their work.
The Christian faith promotes love and compassion for fellow human beings - not self centred pride and lust for power.
That's your take on Christianity - and I prefer your take to their's - but there are many intepretations, and not all of them are as tolerant. Unfortunately, given that these are matters of faith there is no 'right' take on it, there are just varying opinions.
There was a call to prayer from King George at critical points in the war - the evacuation at Dunkirk and the battle of Britain, which turned out to be major turning points against all the odds. People were queueing up to enter the churches to follow this call to prayer, and we have much to thank for those Christians who answered the call.
We do. We also owe much to those non-Christians who answered the call in exactly the same ways, and to the Christians who did but not because of their faith - it's almost as though there were a number of motivations for putting your life on the line for your country, your fellow men and the opposition to authoritarianist aggression.
That some Christians (thankfully) opposed Nazism neither means that Nazi Germany wasn't explicitly leveraging their Christianity for political and nationlist purposes, nor that the motivations of some of the people working within that regime weren't explicitly their take on Christianity.
O.
-
It certainly was not Christian faith which drove people to follow the Nazis. The Christian faith promotes love and compassion for fellow human beings - not self centred pride and lust for power.
Ah, but AB you are now moving the goalposts - you talked about 'faith' not the 'christian faith'. My point was that relying on faith to drive actions can, and has led to all sorts of horrors, and still results in widespread persecution and discrimination. And that includes horrors perpetrated by those basing their actions on their christian faith over the centuries. And of course the christian faith is still discriminating and persecuting people - just see the persecution and discrimination towards gay people based on that faith.
So the christian faith may claim to promote love and compassion, but actions based on that teaching too often result in exactly the opposite. Not much love and compassion in requiring a woman made pregnant by rape victim not to have a termination. Not much love and compassion in removing babies from unmarried mothers. Not much love and compassion in preventing people from being able to use precautions that may prevent HIV infection. Not much love and compassion in declaring the consential love between two adults to be 'sinful' or even illegal just because those two people are the same sex.
-
Vlad,
I'm afraid there has and you are in denial https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism
You should try reading the articles you link to:
“According to Nature, "Critics of new atheism, as well as many new atheists themselves, contend that in philosophical terms it differs little from earlier historical forms of atheist thought.
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=19250.1250
If you mean an encultured apatheism I agree in western countries.
Not sure I see much difference between atheism and apatheism (neither group believes in gods after all) but ok…
Of course.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/
Ah, so when you said “As I did when I saw the decline of New Atheism” you hadn’t “seen” that at all – what you’d actually seen (perhaps) was a projection that said it may happen and moreover a projection that still allowed for a net increase in number of “unaffiliated”:
“To be clear, the total number of religiously unaffiliated people (which includes atheists, agnostics and those who do not identify with any religion in particular) is expected to rise in absolute terms, from 1.17 billion in 2015 to 1.20 billion in 2060. But this growth is projected to occur at the same time that other religious groups – and the global population overall – are growing even faster.”
Worse yet (from your point of view) is that, even if the projection turns out to be accurate, there’s no reason to think the growth in “religious groups” won’t be among religious groups that think your choice of faith is the wrong one.
All this reminds me somewhat of when you fell apart re philosophical materialism – you don’t bother to read the sources that you think support you and then they blow up in your face.
-
AB,
It certainly was not Christian faith which drove people to follow the Nazis…
Ah, so when you said “Faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess” what you actually meant was, “the specific faith that I happen to have” rather than "faith" as a general phenomenon right?
Well, ok – but if you expect people to take your faith claims seriously on what basis would you deny the same expectations from adherents of any other faiths?
-
Ah, so when you said “As I did when I saw the decline of New Atheism” you hadn’t “seen” that at all – what you’d actually seen (perhaps) was a projection that said it may happen and moreover a projection that still allowed for a net increase in number of “unaffiliated”:
Of course it may not happen like that, as the decline of religion may not happen in the way desired by people on this forum. Wonder if that is why HumanistUK and their ilk are pestering for icecream AKA begging to dismantle the religious infrastructure now while the going's good.
-
Vlad,
Of course it may not happen like that, as the decline of religion may not happen in the way desired by people on this forum. Wonder if that is why HumanistUK and their ilk are pestering for icecream AKA begging to dismantle the religious infrastructure now while the going's good.
I see your evasion, but the point here was that you told us you “saw the decline in New atheism” when there was nothing new about it, and when there was no decline for you to have seen in any case.
Apart from that though…
-
Vlad,
I see your evasion, but the point here was that you told us you “saw the decline in New atheism” when there was nothing new about it, and when there was no decline for you to have seen in any case.
Apart from that though…
No there is no evasion. The New Atheist entry in Wikipedia gives witness statements to a movement within Atheists.
Your objection is based merely on a dislike to being identified as something by a senior leader within New Atheism. The traits of this movement have been identified. To pretend that there is no movement and people have to answer for disagreeing with your taste in names is absurd. You are well and truly in denial Hillside.
The entry also charts the decline in the influence of this movement. You draw pleasure in the loss of faith I draw shuddering, screaming, headboard banging orgasmic ecstacy from the decline of this movement and the influence of it's members. And if it's still going you can put that in ''fundies say the darndest things.''
-
Vlad,
No there is no evasion. The New Atheist entry in Wikipedia gives witness statements to a movement within Atheists.
And the criticism (also in the Wiki piece) remains that there was nothing especially new about “new atheism”.
Your objection is based merely on a dislike to being identified as something by a senior leader within New Atheism. The traits of this movement have been identified. To pretend that there is no movement and people have to answer for disagreeing with your taste in names is absurd. You are well and truly in denial Hillside.
No. My “objection” is that there was nothing especially new about “new” atheism, and moreover that you’d hadn’t seen its decline as you claimed.
The entry also charts the decline in the influence of this movement. You draw pleasure in the loss of faith I draw shuddering, screaming, headboard banging orgasmic ecstacy from the decline of this movement and the influence of it's members. And if it's still going you can put that in ''fundies say the darndest things.'
Not sure there ever was much of a “movement” as such, but in any case it’s irrelevant: you made a claim that wasn’t true – that’s all.
-
Vlad,
The entry also charts the decline in the influence of this movement. You draw pleasure in the loss of faith I draw shuddering, screaming, headboard banging orgasmic ecstacy from the decline of this movement and the influence of it's members. And if it's still going you can put that in ''fundies say the darndest things.'
Oh and by the way: even if the projection turned out to be right and the faith beliefs did grow relative to non-faith, there’s no reason at all for you to assume that the faiths concerned wouldn’t given the opportunity do away with your faith just as soon as they possibly could. Try to remember that historically at least the biggest threats to religious faiths have been other religious faiths, not non-believers.
Here's an example for you:
“President Thomas Jefferson, writing to members of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut on this day in 1802, stated that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution created a “wall of separation between church and state.”
The association had been founded in 1790 as a coalition of about 26 churches in the Connecticut Valley. Its leaders had written to Jefferson to complain that Connecticut’s official religion — Calvinist Protestants had founded the colony — infringed on their own religious liberty. “Whatever religious privileges we enjoy,” they maintained, “we enjoy as favors granted and not as inalienable rights.”
President Thomas Jefferson, writing to members of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut on this day in 1802, stated that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution created a “wall of separation between church and state.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/01/jefferson-signs-danbury-letter-1802-1077174
-
Vlad,
Oh and by the way: even if the projection turned out to be right and the faith beliefs did grow relative to non-faith, there’s no reason at all for you to assume that the faiths concerned wouldn’t given the opportunity do away with your faith just as soon as they possibly could. Try to remember that historically at least the biggest threats to religious faiths have been other religious faiths, not non-believers.
Here's an example for you:
“President Thomas Jefferson, writing to members of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut on this day in 1802, stated that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution created a “wall of separation between church and state.”
The association had been founded in 1790 as a coalition of about 26 churches in the Connecticut Valley. Its leaders had written to Jefferson to complain that Connecticut’s official religion — Calvinist Protestants had founded the colony — infringed on their own religious liberty. “Whatever religious privileges we enjoy,” they maintained, “we enjoy as favors granted and not as inalienable rights.”
President Thomas Jefferson, writing to members of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut on this day in 1802, stated that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution created a “wall of separation between church and state.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/01/jefferson-signs-danbury-letter-1802-1077174
My point is merely that a vocal and dogmatic antitheism is probably no different from a religion and David Wilson the atheist biologist takes that view also. Calvinists have been historically notorious in their persecution starting with Jean Chauvin himself.
-
Vlad,
My point is merely that a vocal and dogmatic antitheism…
What “dogma” do you perceive here exactly?
…is probably no different from a religion…
Well yes, dogma tends to be the “go to” for religion(s) but you’ve yet to demonstrate it (or to demonstrate it to anything like the same degree) in "antitheism".
…and David Wilson the atheist biologist takes that view also.
So you say. As you haven’t posted a citation though I have no idea whether or not that’s true.
Calvinists have been historically notorious in their persecution starting with Jean Chauvin himself.
Which was rather my point: secular societies that separate church from state also have the effect of protecting the churches from each other. Your “shuddering, screaming, headboard banging orgasmic ecstacy from the decline of this movement and the influence of it's members” could well be badly misplaced therefore.
Sort version: I’d be very careful about what I wished for if I were you.
-
AB,
Ah, so when you said “Faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess” what you actually meant was, “the specific faith that I happen to have” rather than "faith" as a general phenomenon right?
Apologies, I should have been more specific. I was taking it for granted that when I used the word "faith" in this context that readers would presume I meant Christian faith.
Well, ok – but if you expect people to take your faith claims seriously on what basis would you deny the same expectations from adherents of any other faiths?
I concede that there are people of other faiths who adhere to their beliefs as much as I do to my Christian faith. I see other faith systems as sincere man made attempts to seek truth and meaning behind their existence (In this I include those who try to seek the truth in material based explanations). The big difference is that in my beliefs I see God making Himself known to a sceptical human race - initially through the prophets and finally by becoming one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.
-
AB,
Apologies, I should have been more specific. I was taking it for granted that when I used the word "faith" in this context that readers would presume I meant Christian faith.
No apologies needed, though you don’t even mean “Christian” faith here I suspect: what you more likely mean is something like “the particular sub-set of Christianity that I happen to find most persuasive” or similar.
I concede that there are people of other faiths who adhere to their beliefs as much as I do to my Christian faith. I see other faith systems as sincere man made attempts to seek truth and meaning behind their existence (In this I include those who try to seek the truth in material based explanations). The big difference is that in my beliefs I see God making Himself known to a sceptical human race - initially through the prophets and finally by becoming one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.
No doubt you do, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that, if you think “faith” should be privileged in the public square above just guessing ("Faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess"), then you cannot qualify that with “but only when the faith concerns beliefs I happen to find convincing”. Either faith as a rationale is epistemically valid or it isn’t; what the faith happens to be about is a subsidiary issue.
-
I'm afraid there has and you are in denial https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism
But your article says:
"The term New Atheism was coined by the American journalist Gary Wolf in 2006 to describe the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 21st century."
And when you follow the link to the guy who came up with the term do you find this person to be a key proponent of New Atheism, at the forefront of fighting the good fight against religions under the New Atheism banner. Err, nope, you get this (note my emphasis):
"He coined the pejorative New Atheism in 2006 to describe the positions promoted by some atheists of the 21st century ..."
He is using the term as a snide insult.
So if I wrote an article in which I coin the term Crackpot Christianity (with CAPITALISATION) as a pejorative term would that mean than a new branch of christianity had been created under the name Crackpot Christianity. Nope as the actual christians would simply turn around and say 'nope - not invented here - I don't recognise that term'. And that seems to be the same with New Atheism - a term that only ever seems to be used by those attacking vocal atheists - is it ever actually used by atheists themselves. I, personally, can state categorically that I've never described myself as a new atheist or a New Atheist nor have I ever considered myself an advocate or member of a movement called New Atheism. By contrast I was a strong supporter of New Labour and was proud to have campaigned under the New Labour banner in 1997.
Bottom line - be very sceptical about terms that tend not to be used by the people the term apparently applies to, but only by those who oppose the people to whom the term apparently applies.
-
No doubt you do, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that, if you think “faith” should be privileged in the public square above just guessing ("Faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess"), then you cannot qualify that with “but only when the faith concerns beliefs I happen to find convincing”. Either faith as a rationale is epistemically valid or it isn’t; what the faith happens to be about is a subsidiary issue.
I can assure you that there is no guesswork involved in my Christian faith, which has been confirmed in so many ways. But I have no doubt that you will use your God given freedom to think up reasons to dismiss, ignore or ridicule any witness I or other fellow believers give to confirm their beliefs.
And I stand by the truth in my conviction that Christian faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess. I am sorry that from the outside you will be unable to see the truth in this statement, so I will pray for your miraculous conversion.
-
AB,
I can assure you that there is no guesswork involved in my Christian faith, which has been confirmed in so many ways.
But you can’t assure me of that at all Alan. All you can do is to assure me that you believe that to be the case, but nothing more. If you want to provide assurances that are objectively verifiable though you’ll have to find some way of doing it that isn’t just an expression of personal faith.
But I have no doubt that you will use your God given freedom to think up reasons to dismiss, ignore or ridicule any witness I or other fellow believers give to confirm their beliefs.
The “God given” is just your circular reasoning again, and in any case I’m not doing that – I’m just asking you build the bridge from “that’s my faith” to “therefore it’s objectively true”.
Is that so unreasonable?
And I stand by the truth in my conviction that Christian faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess.
I haven’t doubted that that is your true conviction. I’m just asking you how you’d justify it to others if you expect them to take it seriously too.
I am sorry that from the outside you will be unable to see the truth in this statement, so I will pray for your miraculous conversion.
It’s not that I am “unable to see the truth” of it Alan, it’s that you are unable to give me any reason to think that it is true.
Why do you suppose this is so difficult for you to do?
-
And I stand by the truth in my conviction that Christian faith, no matter how small, is the most precious gift a person can possess. I am sorry that from the outside you will be unable to see the truth in this statement, so I will pray for your miraculous conversion.
How will god achieve this miraculous conversion?
I.e if your prayer is answered will BHS be converted?
-
Hi Étienne d'Angleterre
How will god achieve this miraculous conversion?
I.e if your prayer is answered will BHS be converted?
The irony here is that it wouldn’t take a miraculous conversion in any case – just an argument (rather than unqualified assertion) that isn’t trivially easy to falsify. Maybe that’s what AB should actually pray for – an argument he could post here that actually holds water?
-
But your article says:
"The term New Atheism was coined by the American journalist Gary Wolf in 2006 to describe the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 21st century."
And when you follow the link to the guy who came up with the term do you find this person to be a key proponent of New Atheism, at the forefront of fighting the good fight against religions under the New Atheism banner. Err, nope, you get this (note my emphasis):
"He coined the pejorative New Atheism in 2006 to describe the positions promoted by some atheists of the 21st century ..."
He is using the term as a snide insult.
So if I wrote an article in which I coin the term Crackpot Christianity (with CAPITALISATION) as a pejorative term would that mean than a new branch of christianity had been created under the name Crackpot Christianity. Nope as the actual christians would simply turn around and say 'nope - not invented here - I don't recognise that term'. And that seems to be the same with New Atheism - a term that only ever seems to be used by those attacking vocal atheists - is it ever actually used by atheists themselves. I, personally, can state categorically that I've never described myself as a new atheist or a New Atheist nor have I ever considered myself an advocate or member of a movement called New Atheism. By contrast I was a strong supporter of New Labour and was proud to have campaigned under the New Labour banner in 1997.
Bottom line - be very sceptical about terms that tend not to be used by the people the term apparently applies to, but only by those who oppose the people to whom the term apparently applies.
A rose by any other name would sure smell as sweet, Professor D, so New Atheism by any other name would smell as strange.
-
Hi Étienne d'Angleterre
The irony here is that it wouldn’t take a miraculous conversion in any case – just an argument (rather than unqualified assertion) that isn’t trivially easy to falsify.
You mean like composite necessary beings or circular heirarchies ha ha.
-
Vlad,
You mean like composite necessary beings or circular heirarchies ha ha.
Nope, no idea. You clearly think you have a point of some sort here but there's no guessing what it is. Possibly a touch of hysteria now the philosophical materialism mistake in which you were so heavily invested has been detonated? Who can possibly say...?
-
Vlad,
Nope, no idea. You clearly think you have a point of some sort here but there's no guessing what it is. Possibly a touch of hysteria now the philosophical materialism mistake in which you were so heavily invested has been detonated? Who can possibly say...?
So Hilly, what would you count as your greatest achievement? Refuting the principle of sufficient reason by use of the principle of sufficient reason or the refutation of moral realism by eliminating morality?
-
Vlad,
So Hilly, what would you count as your greatest achievement? Refuting the principle of sufficient reason by use of the principle of sufficient reason or the refutation of moral realism by eliminating morality?
Exposing your relentless use of straw men (see above).
-
Vlad,
Exposing your relentless use of straw men (see above).
I'm wondering whether a better summary of your career here wouldn't be refuting all counter arguments with the principle of sufficient reason culminating in the virtuoso employment of the PSR to eliminate the PSR, what do you say?
-
Vlad,
I'm wondering whether a better summary of your career here wouldn't be refuting all counter arguments with the principle of sufficient reason culminating in the virtuoso employment of the PSR to eliminate the PSR, what do you say?
See my last reply. When all you have in response to the rebuttals you're given is to straw man those rebuttals why even bother?
-
A rose by any other name would sure smell as sweet, Professor D, so New Atheism by any other name would smell as strange.
But I think the point is that the name (with capitalisation) was coined by those who opposed the views of some atheists to try to imply something that wasn't the case. Specifically that there was some kind of official new organisation going by the name New Atheism, when that was never the case.
-
I concede that there are people of other faiths who adhere to their beliefs as much as I do to my Christian faith.
And you are no more able to experience what they experience and how it leads them to their faith as they are to be able to experience what you experience and how it leads you to your faith.
I see other faith systems as sincere man made attempts to seek truth and meaning behind their existence
But they probably feel the same about you - so far so no further forward
(In this I include those who try to seek the truth in material based explanations).
But here there is non equivalence - your faith (and others faith) isn't based on evidence, hence it is faith. Material based explanations are based on evidence than therefore do not require unevidenced faith.
The big difference is that in my beliefs I see God making Himself known to a sceptical human race - initially through the prophets and finally by becoming one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.
But that is merely a faith-based assertion - and no more or less credible than other faith-based assertions. The big difference isn't between you and others also making unevidenced faith-based assertions. The big difference is between those who rely on unevidenced faith-based assertions to attempt to explain the world and those who rely on evidence.
-
But I think the point is that the name (with capitalisation) was coined by those who opposed the views of some atheists to try to imply something that wasn't the case. Specifically that there was some kind of official new organisation going by the name New Atheism, when that was never the case.
Oh no, Dawkins was here to shake atheism up from some ineffectual somnambulance of his imagination and what with the self appellation by them and their followers of the four horsemen of the non apocalypse (How crap was that?) the motley crew and chums were just inviting a better nickname.
-
Oh no, Dawkins was here to shake atheism up from some ineffectual somnambulance of his imagination and what with the self appellation by them and their followers of the four horsemen of the non apocalypse (How crap was that?) the motley crew and chums were just inviting a better nickname.
Don't forget the Brights and Atheism+
-
Don't forget the Brights and Atheism+
Atheism+ passed me by. I wonder if ''Brights'' came to someone in a lightbulb moment.
-
Atheism+ passed me by. I wonder if ''Brights'' came to someone in a lightbulb moment.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Atheism%20Plus
-
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Atheism%20Plus
Interesting critique of atheism+ but it seemed to be debunking atheism+Feminism etc by suggesting atheism+condoms instead