Gabriella,
Ok. Here is the citation:
http://www.catholiceducation.org.uk/images/RECD_2012.pdf
Page 6
The aims of Religious Education:
1.To present engagingly a comprehensive content which is the basis of knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith;
Ah yes – thank you for reminding me of the document and of your penchant for selective quoting. Sadly for you though the same document also says variously stuff like:
“The primary purpose of Catholic Religious Education is to come to know and understand God’s revelation which is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. The Catholic school is ‘a clear educational project of which Christ is the foundation.’ 6 In the person of Christ, the deepest meaning of what it is to be human — that we are created by God and through the Holy Spirit united with Christ in his Incarnation — is discovered. 7 This revelation is known through the scriptures and the tradition of the Church as taught by the Magisterium.”
“…thus the Gospel will impregnate the mentality of the students in the field of their learning, and the harmonization of their culture will be achieved in the light of faith.”
“It is necessary, therefore, that Religious Education in schools be regarded as an academic discipline with the same systematic demands and the same rigour as other disciplines. It must present the Christian message and the Christian event with the same seriousness and the same depth with which other disciplines present their knowledge. However, it should not simply be regarded as one subject among many, but should be the key element in an inter-disciplinary dialogue. The presentation of the Christian message influences the way in which, for example, the origins of the world, the sense of history, the basis of ethical values, the function of religion in culture, the destiny of the human person, and our relationship with nature, are understood. Religious Education in schools underpins, activates, develops and completes the educational and catechetical activity of the whole school.”
“Though we can know God with certainty by natural reason, there is another order of knowledge: the order of divine Revelation. Through grace, God has revealed himself and given himself to human beings. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all people. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.”
“Creation is the action of the Trinity, the first step towards the covenant relationship God seeks with all of humanity. Pupils are taught that each human person is created in the image of God and called by grace to a covenant relationship with God and responsibility for stewardship of God’s creation. The Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit constantly draws each of us to this mystery, seeking a free and personal response. Pupils come to realise that human nature is challenged in the struggle to choose God alone above all other temptations.”
“Pupils are offered knowledge and understanding of God’s Self-Revelation and the covenant-relationship as the way to reach their fullness in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. He is truly God and truly human. In him the entire revelation of the most high God is summed up. His life, death and resurrection are the core events of human history and the heart of our faith. His cross is the ultimate sacrifice for each of us. Jesus reveals the truth and love of God through himself; truly human, truly God. Jesus is presented to our pupils as the perfect response to God through his own intimate communion with his Father.”
“God’s Self-Revelation is made perfect in us by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. This truth was promised by Jesus and revealed at Pentecost. Through the Holy Spirit people are formed and guided to become God’s people through knowing God. Our pupils are invited to enter into a communion with God through Jesus Christ.”
“To be a Catholic is to be a member of the one true Church of Christ. While elements of truth can be found in other churches and religions, the fullness of the means of salvation subsists in the Catholic Church.”Notice anything there? How about the absence of a “but this stuff is just our faith” in favour of “true”, “truth”, “truly”, “certain”, “knowledge”, “impregnate the mentality” (such a revealing phrase!), “present the Christian message and the Christian event with the same seriousness and the same depth with which other disciplines present their knowledge”, "Pupils are taught that each human person is created in the image of God and called by grace to a covenant relationship with God and responsibility for stewardship of God’s creation", “creation is….”, “made perfect”, “one true Church” etc?
Hmmm…
Yes this is all very interesting if Alan was using the philosophical terms as above. However, back to the way Alan is using words on this forum when discussing his beliefs.
So again you seem to think you know that Alan is using words in some way other than their everyday meaning? They’re not even “philosophical” words either – “real”, “exists” etc mean what they commonly mean. For him, a “soul” is every bit as real as the Eiffel tower is real to you – more so in fact because he refuses to accept even the possibility that he could be wrong about that. Ask him – he’ll tell you so himself if you do.
Alan’s belief about dualism being true is not worked probabilistically (as there is no method to calculate a probability, even if he was inclined to do so) but seems to be based on his perceptions of reality (assuming we are not all in a Matrix) and also based on his belief that the immaterial mind/ soul/ consciousness has separate properties from the physical body and is therefore not 'out there' in the sense it can be objectively proved. No one has identified the properties of the mind/soul/consciousness therefore he can’t test or justify his beliefs about these properties.
“Out there” just means “not mind created” – and it’s exactly what he thinks a “soul” to be. He‘s said so so many times there’s no reason to think he actually means something else however much you try to guess that he does.
That’s something Alan would have to clarify as to whether he sees a difference between my experience of visiting the Eiffel Tower and his experience of free will. I can take Alan to the Eiffel Tower and we can climb up it and both agree that we are experiencing the Eiffel Tower in pretty much the same way. But if Alan and I can’t agree that I am experiencing dualism or the influence of a soul the same way that he appears to be experiencing it, this would create a difference in his perception of the Eiffel Tower vs soul. He would however, continue to believe that an immaterial soul/ conscious awareness is true but without being able to show a justification that would cause me to share his belief that the soul/ conscious awareness is true.
I just explained all this to you and you dismissed it with a “that’s all very interesting but….”. Again, for him a “soul” is every bit as real as the Eiffel tower is to both of you. He’s as bemused at your inability to agree with him about “soul” as you would be if you took him to Paris and he said, “there’s no Eiffel tower here”. Your conclusion that he’d be the one with the problem for not seeing it is exactly what he thinks about you for not seeing “soul”. In his head they’re epistemically the same thing.
Hardly surprising. He doesn't have evidence that would convince you, which means he restates his belief of what's true without being able to justify it to the satisfaction of others, presumably because one of the reasons he is on here is to evangelise.
Nope. His problem isn’t that he doesn’t have evidence that would convince me – it’s that he doesn’t have evidence
at all. You can test this because to claim evidence he has to set the bar so low that it lets in anything else that may pop into someone’s head – leprechauns included. And that means that if we accept his claim of evidence then anything else that meets the same evidential standard must also be accepted on the same basis, or we conclude that he doesn’t have evidence at all.
I was not comparing Alan’s belief about souls with Alan’s beliefs about gender. I was comparing Alan’s beliefs about souls and dualism with the beliefs held by some entirely separate transgender activist who does believe in dualism when it comes to gender and does see it as fact rather than an opinion. And the actual point I made was that society seems to be able to accommodate this form of dualism as fact.
Here’s what you said in Reply 33909 when you attempted an analogy between “soul” and gender:
While I don't have a problem with this thread going round and round in circles, I am not really seeing why a belief in this particular concept - AB's idea of his soul being him - is any more problematic than other beliefs in concepts that people never agree on. For example, it's unlikely the "no need for it" line of argument would work with a transgender person - e.g. telling them what they believe is their reality is a spurious concept because it doesn't feel like your reality, or because people cannot agree on the definitions and how the concept works. We seem to be a complex species which probably leads to our complex realities.
As has been explained to you several times now th analogy fails, and whether it’s AB’s concept of gender or anyone’s else’s concept of gender that that you’re trying to compare to his concept of “soul” makes no difference to that.
The reason it isn't false is because I am comparing 2 types of dualism, as I have explained in pretty much every post I wrote since I made the comparison.
Not in Reply 33909 you didn’t. If you want to argue instead for a different type of dualism though, by all means give it a go.
You have not proved that I am not being honest so your request for honesty is just your usual irrelevant, ineffective "schtick".
Wrong again. I explained to you what “analogy” means, I showed you where you’d tried it, and I explained why it failed. You could easily have said, “OK, those are the words I used but on reflection…” or similar, but instead you just shifted ground. Dishonesty can be both by commission and by omission.
"Hard to pin me down"? Thanks for another example from your repertoire on here.
When anyone shifts ground rather than address a problem that makes them hard to pin down. Now you’ve worked through “here’s an analogy”; “it’s not an analogy”; “I’m just telling you how I treat his claims”; and (I think) back to “OK, it’s an analogy” you’ll understand the confusion.
I don't just make one point at a time, so it is possible in a single post for for me to interpret Alan's words and also tell you how I treat his claims. It does not need to be either/or.
I know you do, but that’s different from trying different replies
to the same question. You haven't shown as false the comparison between Alan's dualism and the dualism of a transgender activist who believes gender to be innate and fact. And like I said, my point was that society seems to accommodate some forms of dualism.
I have falsified the analogy you attempted in Reply 33909. I haven’t attempted to falsify any revisions to your position you’ve made since
