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Sharkie posted:In all seriousness, have you attempted to make peace with the idea that one day you will not exist? "Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together." -Mark Twain
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Nov 27, 2014 05:40
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Mornacale posted:OP, you seem inclined to look at religion in pragmatic terms, so think of the Bible as a collection of literature. Christians, then, are essentially an organized group of fans that has been around for a couple thousand years. I don't think his problem is people interpreting the bible so much as it is people who claim to have had divine revelations, as in the Lord God literally spoke to them personally, and that such accounts rarely, if ever, are in agreement with one another.
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Nov 27, 2014 19:31
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nucleicmaxid posted:There are people that believe that. If logic doesn't work with faith that should tell you that there's something wrong with faith. You apply logic to every single other facet of your life, knowingly or unknowingly, and use it to determine how and why things are the way they are and to make sense of reality. And when the logic doesn't make sense you say to yourself, "Hold on this is right." And you find the problem and then correct it. But you're saying when it comes to determining whether a God exists and what his attributes are that that is the one and only time you should disregard logic and, you know, just go with whatever you're told. Don't think too hard on it, man, just go with it. How, exactly, is this not the Special Pleading fallacy? Look, if you said your car was acting up and asked me to explain how the engine works so you could fix it and I told you, "Don't apply logic to cars, just have faith that it will be ok." you'd call me retarded. And rightfully so. Because putting certain things in a special category that you're discouraged from applying logic to is a really stupid way to live. Who What Now fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Dec 13, 2014 |
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Dec 13, 2014 18:05
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Mornacale posted:e: And the fact that a work has multiple interpretations speaks well of it, not poorly. If it was written for the purposes of art and entertainment? Absolutely. If it was written to be a clear moral guideline that one is supposed to apply to their entire life? gently caress no. Look, if your job is to create a poster to keep people from injuring themselves on the job do you want it to be vague and able to be interpreted multiple ways, up to and including shoving their hands in a running wood chipper, or do you want it to send a single clear message? You obviously want the latter unless you love getting slapped with multiple lawsuits. And most Christians will tell you that the primary purpose of the bible is to show you how to live a good and moral life that will ensure that you get to live in an eternal paradise after death. And by that metric it is incredibly at it's goal because of how unclear it is. Now, you might disagree with people that the bible is meant to be a basis for how you live your life but that makes you the minority. Nor is this a new phenomenon, the idea of living by the edicts and teachings of the religion go hand in hand with it's inception even if a word for word literal translation is not (though I don't believe this view is all that young either. Most Christians throughout history weren't professional theologians). Who What Now fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 01:21
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Mornacale posted:Do you believe there exists a single, objective morality that is knowable by humans and can be communicated perfectly through text? I believe that given a set of parameters that we can find actions that are objectively better at fulfilling those criteria than others, yes. But we're talking about a book presented by its followers in America as being written by men, but by an all powerful super-being. Now I can already feel you reaching for the reply button all ready to come at me with the whole "Nobody actually believes in the man on the cloud sky daddy stuff" spiel. But let's look at a few statistics. In 2012 46% of Americans said they believe God created man whole and as we are now. It was still 42% this year. In a BioLogos polling study (phone posting so I can't direct link) 51% agreed that the bible is literally true and without errors. So while you and I understand the history of the bible and how it was written if you go out of your house right now and ask random person off the street you have a drat good chance that they'll tell you it's either written or directly inspired by God himself. These aren't fringe beliefs and they aren't as new as you might think. So when we talk about why the bible is written and for what purpose we absolutely have to keep that in mind. Now, I'm not saying you or anyone else in this thread does or should believe believe in a literal interpretation of the bible. But again and again it's been hand waved away as if it's just all of five churches in rural Alabama that believe such. Well it's not true, and it's way more common that you think.
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Dec 15, 2014 00:17
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Cavaradossi posted:No. I'm saying that applying reason to faith doesn't work. Reason is not the be-all and end-all of how we interact with the world; in fact, it is very limited in its application. Applying reason to faith is simply a mistake, it doesn't make sense, it's not why people have faith. If I was holding a syringe and told you I had a new, instantaneous cure for cancer within it. Which argument is more likely to convince you that what I claim is real: Numerous empirical independent studies showing a 95%+ success rate over tens of thousands of patients, including unedited video of people getting scans that show cancer then getting the injection and having a second scan that showed them cancer free, or a million people telling you that it's true and you just have to have faith in it?
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Dec 16, 2014 02:21
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OwlFancier posted:Depends, does the video have nice choral singing in the background and lots of images of clouds breaking and sunlight coming through, also are the before parts done in black and white while the after parts are done in colour? It's a super boring science video with monotone British narration that constantly references making notes in a workbook that you were never supplied.
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Dec 16, 2014 02:33
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steinrokkan posted:But the purpose of faith is to find strength to transcend the material aspect of humanity, so making these sorts of comparisons doesn't make much sense. Using empirical reasoning in certain matters isn't opposed to simultaneously using faith in moral and spiritual guidance which deals with meaning rather than with immanent properties of any external phenomena. Faith is nothing more than gullibility by another name and is absolutely worthless for determining morality.
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Dec 16, 2014 04:18
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QuoProQuid posted:You base this statement on...? Faith: believing in something without substantial empirical evidence. Gullibility: believing in something without substantial empirical evidence.
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Dec 16, 2014 05:02
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nucleicmaxid posted:You missing an obvious point has been the case since you first posted. quote:James 3:17 quote:1 Peter 3:15
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Dec 22, 2014 01:10
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