Searching for GOD...

[Rhiannon]

My baptismal vows, taken on my behalf by my Godparents during my baptism, were the first step in acheiving eternal salvation for my soul.  (A bit more important that hair appointments and songs from The Wizard of Oz.)

Wrong answer.

The correct answer is that Siri exists. You and your godparents have made vows to things that don't.

[Outrider]

My baptismal vows, taken on my behalf by my Godparents during my baptism, were the first step in acheiving eternal salvation for my soul.  (A bit more important that hair appointments and songs from The Wizard of Oz.)

For someone who believes in free will, I find it strange that you're so accepting of that decision being made on your behalf before you had any sort of background information to make an informed choice of your own... That personal liberty and freedom is something that I cherish, and not because it's 'doctrine', but because it's truly emancipating and egalitarian, it's not the tribalism of religion with it's 'chosen people'.

As to whether saving your soul is more important than hair appointments, I can't be sure, but unless you're completely bald I'm going to err on the side of barbers. Otherwise it's pretty much a dead heat.

O.

[Rhiannon]

I'm not convinced vows are always a good thing in principal, anyhow.   It might seem like a good idea at the time, perhaps based on your understanding at the time, but what happens when new insight comes along and your understanding changes and the vow looks in retrospect to have been poorly judged. Are we supposed to keep to the vow, just because it is a vow ?  What is better, to do the right thing, or to honour a misjudged vow ?

Two of my children have been baptised. My answer to this dilemma was to apologise to them for it. Not that they are remotely bothered.

Fortunately I was so crap at choosing godparents that only one has bothered getting involved with either of them. So people really don't take these things seriously anyway.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

Weeellll, sorry to get all pedantic on yo ass but...

...there's a nuance here. AB's reasoning has been shown to be false - consistently, unequivocally so. Time and again he relies on basic logical fallacies and he continues to do so even when those fallacies are pointed out to him. He makes no attempt either to jettison them or to explain why they're not fallacious - he just ploughs straight on nonetheless. To that extent, his repeated use of them to validate his conjectures is "delusional", at least according to its non-clinical meaning.

If though by "views" you mean the objects of his beliefs ("God", "Satan" etc) then while there's every likelihood that they're imaginary, there's another fallacy (argumentum ad logicam or the "fallacist's fallacy") of inferring that when an argument is fallacious then its conclusion must be also false. Bad arguments strongly correlate to wrong answers, but they don't exclude the possibility that the person arguing just happened to get the right answer by dumb luck.

Is AB also delusional in his conclusions? Well, he vacillates a lot - sometimes he demands that others allow for the "possibility" of these things (an open door by the way as no-one denies the possibility of anything, however unlikely) at which times "delusional" doesn't stick. On other occasions though he just asserts them as objective facts, when I think the charge is properly made provided only in the everyday, non-clinical sense.   

The post of ippy's that I picked up was making a wider generalised statement that most religious believers were delusional, that's what I asked him to provide evidence for.

Also if the case,against Alan specifically is that he asserts things as facts, then I would suggest  that asserting things as facts is exactly what ippy did in that post, so in that regard you would be arguing that it is ok for tippy to be said to be delusional?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is not offloading responsibility.
If I give in to the devil's temptations to do what I know to be wrong, I have to accept the consequences myself.

But if this "devil" of yours hadn't put the chocolate cake there to start with, there's be nothing for you to be tempted by.

Damn that devil eh - if it wasn't for him....

.....GRRRRR (to be said like the chap at the end of Scooby Doo who turns out to have been the baddy all along).

[Alan Burns]

Wrong answer.

The correct answer is that Siri exists. You and your godparents have made vows to things that don't.

Siri is just a man made tool. It is there to be used as a tool - not to make vows to.  The non-existence of God and the devil is only in your perception, which I believe to be flawed because my own perception of God and the devil is quite real.

So we must conclude that one of us is right and one of us is wrong.

[Nearly Sane]

AB,

But if this "devil" of yours hadn't put the chocolate cake there to start with, there's be nothing for you to be tempted by.

Damn that devil eh - if it wasn't for him....

.....GRRRRR (to be said like the chap at the end of Scooby Doo who turns out to have been the baddy all along).

And if the devil wasn't there with all his chocolatey goodness, there would be nothing for Alan to feel tempted by so how could he show that he deserved to go to heaven. It's really just as Job has it, the devil is a winnowing machine for Alan's god.

[Outrider]

Siri is just a man made tool.

I know you don't see it that way, but I'd suggest that gods are too.

It is there to be used as a tool - not to make vows to.

And, again, although the point of god is to be a fear-inducing idea to encourage people to obey not just their own vows but other behaviours that are considered desirable, that doesn't make it any less of a tool.

The non-existence of God and the devil is only in your perception, which I believe to be flawed because my own perception of God and the devil is quite real.

The self-referential arrogance of that is breath-taking. Why is your 'perception' somehow objectively right? We, at least, have a methodology to try to remove the subjectiveness of human perception from the equation as far as possible, you don't even try, you simply assert that your sense of reality is somehow superior - based on what?

O.


So we must conclude that one of us is right and one of us is wrong.
[/quote]

[Alan Burns]

For someone who believes in free will, I find it strange that you're so accepting of that decision being made on your behalf before you had any sort of background information to make an informed choice of your own... That personal liberty and freedom is something that I cherish, and not because it's 'doctrine', but because it's truly emancipating and egalitarian, it's not the tribalism of religion with it's 'chosen people'.

People who are baptised as babies will have plenty of opportunity to excercise their free will in accepting or rejecting the implications of their baptism.  To me it is the first step on the road to salvation, but we have plenty of capacity to stray from this road.

[Shaker]

People who are baptised as babies will have plenty of opportunity to excercise their free will in accepting or rejecting the implications of their baptism.  To me it is the first step on the road to salvation, but we have plenty of capacity to stray from this road.

Because of Satan, right Al?

[SusanDoris]

It is not offloading responsibility.
If I give in to the devil's temptations to do what I know to be wrong, I have to accept the consequences myself.

It most certainly is off-loading responsibility. Any temptation, from the least to the most serious, is a decision made by you, you alone, you personally, and since you cannot under any circumstances produce this 'devil' of your- ore anyone else's -  imagination, you are avoiding responsibility.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

The post of ippy's that I picked up was making a wider generalised statement that most religious believers were delusional, that's what I asked him to provide evidence for.

Also if the case,against Alan specifically is that he asserts things as facts, then I would suggest  that asserting things as facts is exactly what ippy did in that post, so in that regard you would be arguing that it is ok for tippy to be said to be delusional?

That's a sort of tu quoque I think. I was more interested in the principle - whether or not you can you reasonably call someone "delusional" on the basis of their posts on a message board. In some circumstance I think you can, but not in the clinical sense. 

[Alan Burns]

.......  based on what?

Because without a God given soul, we would have as much self awareness as the Siri app on your phone.

[torridon]

The non-existence of God and the devil is only in your perception, which I believe to be flawed because my own perception of God and the devil is quite real.

I think you are conflating 'belief' and 'perception' here.  Two quite different things. Sloppy work, Burns, must try harder.

[Outrider]

Because without a God given soul, we would have as much self awareness as the Siri app on your phone.

Given that you can in no way demonstrate a soul, how can you ascribe to it particular traits? How can you show which entities have self-awareness and which don't, and how that correlates with a soul?

O.

[SusanDoris]

Two of my children have been baptised. My answer to this dilemma was to apologise to them for it. Not that they are remotely bothered.

Fortunately I was so crap at choosing godparents that only one has bothered getting involved with either of them. So people really don't take these things seriously anyway.

Well said, Floo! I'm entirely with you on those points.

Sorry, Rhiannon, that should have been your name there.

[Aruntraveller]

Hope N S Hope N S Hope N S Hope N S Hope N S Hope N S Hope N S Hope N S  Hope N S ?               

ippy       

Are you quite unhinged? N S & Hope bracketed together?!?

You should be taken out and shot at dawn. Bounder.

[Alan Burns]

Any temptation, from the least to the most serious, is a decision made by you

No it is not.
The decision is to either reject the temptation or to give in to it.  Our free will does not generate the temptation, free will is what we use to deal with it.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

That's a sort of tu quoque I think. I was more interested in the principle - whether or not you can you reasonably call someone "delusional" on the basis of their posts on a message board. In some circumstance I think you can, but not in the clinical sense.

How can it be a tu quoque? I am not calling ippy delusional, I am just pointing out that using your guide for what would justify calling Alan delusional, then that would apply to ippy as well on the basis of the post under discussion, and then using that to check that you would agree.


I wouldn't have raised the issue if ippy had just called Alan delusional. I think I did it when he talked about demonic possession which he now seems to have forgotten. Ar my best, I try and avoid it and similar because it doesn't really move anyone on, but it can simply be a shout out of frustration sometimes.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

How can it be a tu quoque? I am not calling ippy delusional, I am just pointing out that using your guide for what would justify calling Alan delusional, then that would apply to ippy as well on the basis of the post under discussion, and then using that to check that you would agree.

Because whether or not ippy is by the same measure "delusional" says nothing to whether or not AB's behaviour is also delusional. We can compare ippy's position with AB's if you want to, but someone saying "murder is wrong" isn't wrong about that if he also happens to be a murderer. Hypocritical perhaps, but not wrong. 

I wouldn't have raised the issue if ippy had just called Alan delusional. I think I did it when he talked about demonic possession which he now seems to have forgotten. Ar my best, I try and avoid it and similar because it doesn't really move anyone on, but it can simply be a shout out of frustration sometimes.

Look, I'm with you on the burden of proof issue - you know I am as I've made the same point many times here. I also though think that the "proof" of explaining fallacious arguments only for them to repeated can sometimes reasonably lead to the accusation of delusion, provided it's confined to the common meaning of "kidding yourself", "obtuse" etc. 

[Gordon]

No it is not.
The decision is to either reject the temptation or to give in to it.  Our free will does not generate the temptation, free will is what we use to deal with it.

So, Alan, say I choose to gamble on a horse-race what do you think the scenario is? For instance, is a) the opportunity to gamble at all a temptation that is external to me, and b) my choice to gamble an example of my free will?

Or would you have another view of this scenario?

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

Because whether or not ippy is by the same measure "delusional" says nothing to whether or not AB's behaviour is also delusional. We can compare ippy's position with AB's if you want to, but someone saying "murder is wrong" isn't wrong about that if he also happens to be a murderer. Hypocritical perhaps, but not wrong. 

Look, I'm with you on the burden of proof issue - you know I am as I've made the same point many times here. I also though think that the "proof" of explaining fallacious arguments only for them to repeated can sometimes reasonably lead to the accusation of delusion, provided it's confined to the common meaning of "kidding yourself", "obtuse" etc.

You are getting confused in the tu quoque. No one is saying ippy is wrong because by the categorisation you are suggesting that he is delusional. He may well be right which is why I asked for the evidence. I don't even think he is delusional just unwilling to deal with discussion.

As to Alan, i've already covered that I have done similar on the past and will undoubtedly do so again. It was/will be addressed to a specific poster. About a specific thing and not a generalised comment about a large group of people.

[Nearly Sane]

So, Alan, say I choose to gamble on a horse-race what do you think the scenario is? For instance, is a) the opportunity to gamble at all a temptation that is external to me, and b) my choice to gamble an example of my free will?

Or would you have another view of this scenario?

It's definitely the devil hanging about outside the bookmakers tempting you in. He also hangs about outside Babbity's.

[Shaker]

It's definitely the devil hanging about outside the bookmakers tempting you in. He also hangs about outside Babbity's.

And Greggs, I assume.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

You are getting confused in the tu quoque. No one is saying ippy is wrong because by the categorisation you are suggesting that he is delusional. He may well be right which is why I asked for the evidence. I don't even think he is delusional just unwilling to deal with discussion.

As to Alan, i've already covered that I have done similar on the past and will undoubtedly do so again. It was/will be addressed to a specific poster. About a specific thing and not a generalised comment about a large group of people.

But what you said was this:

Also if the case,against Alan specifically is that he asserts things as facts, then I would suggest  that asserting things as facts is exactly what ippy did in that post, so in that regard you would be arguing that it is ok for tippy to be said to be delusional?

No - it's a "him too" rather than a "you too" (a hunc quoque rather than a tu quoque perhaps) but essentially you're accusing me of pulling up one of them for it but not the other. My response is that which one I pull up distracts from the issue (ie, whether someone can reasonably be called "delusional" on the basis of their posts on an mb) so pursuing that line would be irrelevant to the point under discussion. 

Anyways, are you finding this as sterile now as I am?