Subject:
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Re: Problems with Christianity
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 20 Dec 2000 03:49:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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699 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Steve Chapple writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Steve Chapple writes:
> > > > > You could prove the existence of God or love in a court, but not a lab.
>
> > Ah. As I suspected. Our definitions of 'prove' differ. To take a rather
> > controversial case, did O.J. Simpson commit murder?
>
> Two big differences though - Murder is a crime giving death, and O.J.
> denied it. Christ's resurrection gives life to whomever accepts him,
> and not only did he "admit it" afterwards, He (and others centuries
> earlier) even said before-hand that he would rise again.
Um-- huh? I don't really understand where that statement came from. I was
asking you about proving things in a court, and whether a court's decision
represents "proof". If O.J. was found innocent, does that PROVE his
innocence? If someone who HADN'T committed murder was found guilty of it,
does that PROVE thier guilt? Basically, I was saying that if you say God's
existence can be proven in a court, you've got a different definition of
"prove" than I have.
> I don't consider your doubt unreasonable. I'll try to allay your
> doubts, but I'm not following you on subjective and objective.
Ah. Ok, let's see if I can describe. The scientific method is objective. As
humans, it is near impossible to deny the physical events which we witness
TOGETHER. You would have a hard time disagreeing with me that the sun
doesn't exist or something, or that the rock I just dropped DIDN'T fall to
the ground. We can both agree on the events which are used as evidence
towards "proving" something like gravity. And we can both go out and perform
experiments on our own which will show the same results. That's objective.
Because anyone has the ability to test (given the right physical equipment
in some cases)
The religious argument is subjective. That means it's specific to the
individual. To quote you later:
"I'll do my best to answer you, but you probably won't see and
understand [3] unless the Holy Spirit reveals the truth to you.
I encourage you to ask Him to do so."
What you just told me is basically that I won't understand unless God makes
himself known to me. And that somehow, God WILL allow me to let him reveal
Himself to me. That's subjective. You CAN'T dictate EXACTLY what steps to
take to get God to reveal Himself to me, and even if you COULD, you can't
garauntee that the results would be the same for me. In other words, your
premises depend on the subject. Me or you or somebody else may have
different experiences entirely.
But the biggest concern with the subjectivist approach is that you CAN'T
logically back up your opinions. Instead, your answer is something along the
lines of "if you don't agree with me, you're obviously doing something
wrong. I don't know what it is, but someday, maybe you'll see the truth."
You CAN'T debate it with me, because your method is fundamentally
subjective. Only objectivism lends itself to be able to be critiqued.
Subjectivism refuses to play the game, and excuses itself from the rules
when it can't find an answer, by simply saying "Well, I'm right."
> > The 1st dimention is infinite. It is also infintesimal.
>
> You've _completely_ lost me here.
The 1st dimention is an infinite collection of points. It is therefore
infinite along one axis. So you can keep going down and down and down in one
direction or the other, and never reach the end. However, you can't go
sideways at ALL, because as soon as you do, that 1st dimention no longer
exists. With respect to the 2nd dimention (or any higher dimention) a line
(the 1st dimention) is infentesimal, even though the 1st dimention is still
infinite. So, it's both.
With respect to Jesus, you may argue that he's infinite with respect to
time. That he always existed and always will exist. However, like the 1st
dimention, although he may always have influence through time, he may not
have influence with respect to location. Bob, the lone, stranded person
living on an isle off southern New Guinea will have NO access to the story
of Jesus OR to the Bible. Tough noogies for Bob? Why should he not have the
same access to salvation as we do, living in plain view of the Bible and the
story of Jesus? To me, that seems pretty unfair.
> Is your concern about Christianity those who didn't have opportunity to
> hear the good news of salvation?
Yes.
> This is more of a separate subject IMO.
No, that was my point from the beginning. I believe it was originally issue
number 2. Go back and re-read if you wish.
> The Bible does describe Jesus "preaching" to those who died before him
> during the three days his body was in the tomb.
?
So they got treated differently? Why? That still doesn't seem fair. Why
couldn't they have lived their life to the fullest extent like those blessed
with the knowledge of Christianity? Why should they be RESTRICTED from
having access to that which is the real truth that is Jesus?
> > …If by your theory, it would appear that you damn them
>
> Not at all.
Ok, damn them was a little strong on my part, yes, but it still appears that
they have NO way of being 'even' with someone who has knowledge of the Bible
and/or Jesus.
> I think our different perspectives are due to a fairly basic
> difference. (see "good and evil" below)
Not really-- I think our differences are stemmed from the
Objectivist/Subjectivist viewpoints (A semi-twisted version of my original
point #1). As for my #4 being the most major issue, it still is. But I think
the ROOT of our differences lies in the objectivist/subjectivist methods of
approaching religion. #4 is simply the culmination (for me) of what I found
with my method that differs so much from the Christian principles.
> Abortion would be the prime example of selfishness and its tragic
> consequences, but I doubt you want this to be a debate on abortion.
Can you prove that someone having an abortion is being selfish? Do you
presume to know their intent? What if by the abortion, the mother could live
to produce more children? What if by the abortion, the mother could live to
support the rest of their family so that they ALL don't die? Do you presume
to know the exact circumstances of the situation such that ALL abortions are
selfish? Anyway, no, I don't really care about abortion.
> > Some... ...I really don't see as problems that you obviously do, and
> > others I really don't see as having really increased... ...in percentage.
>
> The statistics on the increase _in_percentage_ of these problems
> should be easy for you to obtain.
Not really. The further back in history you go, the less accurate your
numbers get. And, I do concede you have a point on some of them. Things like
divorce and abortion HAVE increased in percentage. It's gotten easier to do
both. But things like adultery, lying, etc have remained similar in
difficulty, and I doubt their increase in percentage-- and the ability to
demonstrate such increases accurately.
An interesting side note. A survey was given out. Two of the questions were:
"Do you use drugs?" and "Have you ever used drugs?" (I think it specified
narcotics). When it was issued again 5 years later the percentages of "yes"
answers dropped to BOTH questions about equally. Of course the issuers of
the survey announced that this evidenced that they were winning the war on
drugs. But really, only the percentages of the yes's to the FIRST question
should have dropped, when you think about it. Really, all the survey showed
was that more people were lying.
> The more you describe "your morality", the more (I think) I see the
> basic problem. The Bible says that man is essentially evil and in
> need of a Savior - you (I think) say man is essentially good.
Not quite. I say that man CAN be essentially good OR essentially bad.
However, through the process of evolution, those who have had better senses
of morality haved thrived through the use of mankind's greatest tool--
society. All the "good" people attempt to prevent people from being "bad" in
their society.
Another side note on that. A computer simulation of cheaters and
'do-gooders' was run. Basically, the 'beings' needed interaction to live. If
two 'do-gooders' interacted, they'd get a yield of 3. If two 'cheaters'
interacted, they'd get a yield of 1. And if a cheater interacted with a
do-gooder, the do-gooder got a yield of 1, and the cheater got a yield of 4.
What happened in the simulations is that a society of do-gooders would
develop. Then, one or two cheaters would come in, and thrive vigorously for
a while, making MORE cheaters. However, then a society of cheaters would
come up and very quickly kill itself off because its members just couldn't
survive off a constant yeild of 1 all the time. BUT, oddly enough-- one or
two 'do-gooders' would show up and build off of each other. And while the
cheater society died off, the 'do-gooder' society would build up until there
were primarily only do-gooders left. And on and on the cycle would go.
But the interesting thing to note is that the only society able to sustain
itself was the do-gooder society. And if you implimented a rule wherein
cheaters (once exposed) were cut off from interaction (or treated as
cheaters), the do-gooder society would probably go on pretty indefinitely.
Basically, I'm arguing that while neither 'good' or 'evil' is INHERENT to
man, people who are good tend to survive in societies more than those who
are evil, because those who are good tend to try and root out the evil from
their society and try to prevent it.
> > Ah yes, but let's play for a second. What if I say "why should I?"
> > What's your response? That I should do it for my own salvation?
>
> No - Salvation is not based upon works. [2]
Sorry, the question shouldn't have said "why should I DO good?" but "why
should I BE good?" "Should I BE good for my own salvation?"
> Paul was writing to the Philippian believers - ie. Christians, so it's
> not surprising that you seem to see this "backwards". [3] I don't
> "give" in order to "get", I help someone because I love them.
You keep trying to suggest that the only benefit I'd get is some sort of
physical benefit. Mental benefit is actually why humans perform most of
their actions, I believe. You help people because you'll FEEL good about
YOURSELF afterwards. Or, if you love someone, YOU'll FEEL good because
they're happy. Again, I'll claim "Humans will only act insofar as they
percieve that their actions will benefit themselves."
> Christ was already exalted and glorified. The creator of the universe
> "made himself nothing", in order to pay the price for our sin because
> He loves us, not to get something he already had. Jesus is the
> opposite of selfishness, not an example of it.
Ok, but then just answer me this. Why should I be good? If man is inherently
evil (selfish) then doesn't man need motivation? And what apart from
self-benefit can serve for motivation?
> I'll do my best to answer you, but you probably won't see and
> understand [3] unless the Holy Spirit reveals the truth to you.
> I encourage you to ask Him to do so.
And to you I shall say that you probably won't understand unless you really
try and challenge yourself. If I were to say:
"You're wrong! Only the Hindu gods are the true gods! Look in your heart and
you will see that this is correct! But if you can't, you're just not doing
something right."
How do you know that what you believe is correct without having something to
challenge it?
To put it in another frame of reference, I once was applying to colleges. I
went off to RIT in Rochester, NY and one of the speakers there said
something along the lines of:
"In order to get a camera in focus, what do you have to do? Take it OUT of
focus. That way you can compare and contrast and actually find the 'true'
focal point you're looking for."
If you can't challenge yourself, you can't ever be sure that by leaving your
stance, you might find truth. Personally, I've tried Christianity. I really
have. Didn't work for me. And I couldn't always put my finger on why. But
now that I've played around a bit, I can find exactly what I find fault with
in it. And a lot of that was found after learning about Bhuddism, Hinduism,
Judiaism, Islam, and philosophy in general (Descartes, Plato, St. Augustine,
Hume, Nietzche, Mill, Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Dewey, Levinas, and
Kant to name a few) And I've also read a chunk of the Bible. Not a majority
by any means, but a fair chunk, I'd say.
And on that note, if you DO decide for any reason to go reading different
philosophers (several of the above were definitely christian, mind you),
bear in mind it's not necessarily an easy task. I think Heidegger was one of
the toughest for me-- mostly due to language, being translated from German
to English in that terrible way that translators do. It really hepled to
take classes in them where teachers could help explain what was meant at
different points here and there in the text, when understanding them flat
out was REALLY tough. Often you'd have to go back and read a single sentence
a few times to really get the jist of it. (And with Heidegger, as I recall,
a sentence occasionally would last more than a page!)
DaveE
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Problems with Christianity
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes: I'm gonna correct myself really quick here, cause I realized I should restate this-- it kinda sounds like I'm going against other things I've already said: (...) Instead I'll say: ALL humans have a (...) (24 years ago, 20-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Problems with Christianity
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| (...) Interesting - I was thinking of using the same analogy. :-) Two big differences though - Murder is a crime giving death, and O.J. denied it. Christ's resurrection gives life to whomever accepts him, and not only did he "admit it" afterwards, (...) (24 years ago, 19-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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