Free Will

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
281

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

Sounds to me like a good many agnostics have hope of being judged without “the law”. [/quote]

Well, maybe, maybe not.

While this may sound a bit like a Get Out of Jail Free Card, it is anything but. For all Tirib’s disagreement above, I actually think the doctrine is closer to what he is saying than what you might be suggesting.I just don’t subscribe to the notion that someone who has literally never heard of the Bible, Christianity or Jesus Christ is going to Hell because he refused to accept Jesus Christ as his savior (possible simplification, but certainly what it sounds like).

Once you’ve heard of Christ and been exposed to the teachings of the Church, the bar for “ignorance” is set significantly higher. And as that could mean the very serious consequence of an eternity in Hell (which yes, I do believe), you’ll never see me condoning or excusing agnosticism. That does not mean, however, that I do not understand how any agnostic reaches his conclusion. Nor do I judge him or make any assumptions about the destination of his soul. [/quote]

Tribulus’s argument regardless of its soundness is deductive. He’s just saying A thus A. Lets take a different proposition. Say you have a lapsed Catholic that commits terrible sins in his life. Horrible unforgivable actions. On his deathbed he truly regrets his actions repents and finds faith in God. Makes confession. Gets the last rites. Would Catholic doctrine say he goes to heaven? How about a deeply virtuous man by every standard except he has no faith in God. In fact he is an atheist. Where does this man go? I think we both know the doctrinal answers. Seems like a bit of an unfair system to me.

282

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

Sounds to me like a good many agnostics have hope of being judged without “the law”. [/quote]

Well, maybe, maybe not.

While this may sound a bit like a Get Out of Jail Free Card, it is anything but. For all Tirib’s disagreement above, I actually think the doctrine is closer to what he is saying than what you might be suggesting.I just don’t subscribe to the notion that someone who has literally never heard of the Bible, Christianity or Jesus Christ is going to Hell because he refused to accept Jesus Christ as his savior (possible simplification, but certainly what it sounds like).

Once you’ve heard of Christ and been exposed to the teachings of the Church, the bar for “ignorance” is set significantly higher. And as that could mean the very serious consequence of an eternity in Hell (which yes, I do believe), you’ll never see me condoning or excusing agnosticism. That does not mean, however, that I do not understand how any agnostic reaches his conclusion. Nor do I judge him or make any assumptions about the destination of his soul. [/quote]

Tribulus’s argument regardless of its soundness is deductive. He’s just saying A thus A. Lets take a different proposition. Say you have a lapsed Catholic that commits terrible sins in his life. Horrible unforgivable actions. On his deathbed he truly regrets his actions repents and finds faith in God. Makes confession. Gets the last rites. Would Catholic doctrine say he goes to heaven? How about a deeply virtuous man by every standard except he has no faith in God. In fact he is an atheist. Where does this man go? I think we both know the doctrinal answers. Seems like a bit of an unfair system to me.[/quote]

Except that doctrine makes no definitive statements upon the final destination of the individual soul of any man.

283

[quote]groo wrote:<<< Seems like a bit of an unfair system to me.[/quote]That’s because you, like my buddy Cortes, understand neither the holiness of God nor the concomitant horrendousness of sin. If you did it is not only fair but unbelievably loving and gracious. God owes EVERY person an eternity in hell for their own crimes, defined by Him. Rather than give EVERYONE what they deserve, He pays the just penalty of some Himself and saves them from their own sin. Saying that “Chief Mfaba Ungawa of the long lost Fagawi tribe is being treated unjustly if damned without ever knowing that there even is a Jesus” misses the point entirely. He’s not going to hell because He’s never heard of Jesus. He’s going to hell because He is a criminal who is guilty and deserving of his sentence. The remedy is provided by the one offended Himself and is dispensed strictly at His discretion as Romans 9 (and others) clearly states. This of course only applies if GOD tells YOU what’s just and what’s not. This all goes right out the window if the very criminals whose guilt and rebellion is everywhere pronounced in the bible are asked for their opinion which is what we will always get from autonomous man.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOO, I Don’t like that!!!” Well, OOOOOOOOOOOOO that’s too bad. I not only like it, I worship and adore Him for it. Just tonight I stood with other believers, hands raised and sang my most heartfelt praises for His magnificent mercy and everlasting longsuffering kindness. He loves that and therefore so do I. I approach the God who commands the universe to exist from nothing and call Him Father because He first loved me and gave Himself for me. I only know how bad I am because I know how good HE is. LOL!!! unfair he says LOL!!!

284

[quote]Cortes wrote:<<< Except that doctrine makes no definitive statements upon the final destination of the individual soul of any man. [/quote]Catholic doctrine suffers from the ulcer inducing propensity to not really make definitive statements about much of anything though the scriptures she basically canonized is one long systematic catalog of definitive statements about everything.

285

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:<<< Seems like a bit of an unfair system to me.[/quote]That’s because you, like my buddy Cortes, understand neither the holiness of God nor the concomitant horrendousness of sin. If you did it is not only fair but unbelievably loving and gracious. God owes EVERY person an eternity in hell for their own crimes, defined by Him. Rather than give EVERYONE what they deserve, He pays the just penalty of some Himself and saves them from their own sin. Saying that “Chief Mfaba Ungawa of the long lost Fagawi tribe is being treated unjustly if damned without ever knowing that there even is a Jesus” misses the point entirely. He’s not going to hell because He’s never heard of Jesus. He’s going to hell because He is a criminal who is guilty and deserving of his sentence. The remedy is provided by the one offended Himself and is dispensed strictly at His discretion as Romans 9 (and others) clearly states. This of course only applies if GOD tells YOU what’s just and what’s not. This all goes right out the window if the very criminals whose guilt and rebellion is everywhere pronounced in the bible are asked for their opinion which is what we will always get from autonomous man.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOO, I Don’t like that!!!” Well, OOOOOOOOOOOOO that’s too bad. I not only like it, I worship and adore Him for it. Just tonight I stood with other believers, hands raised and sang my most heartfelt praises for His magnificent mercy and everlasting longsuffering kindness. He loves that and therefore so do I. I approach the God who commands the universe to exist from nothing and call Him Father because He first loved me and gave Himself for me. I only know how bad I am because I know how good HE is. LOL!!! unfair he says LOL!!!
[/quote]

I was speaking only to Catholic doctrine, which should have been evident by my use of confession and last rites.

Your argument is deductive and can’t be proven not valid. Though I don’t think its particularly sound. I just reject your premises. I would say that I don’t think several of your unstated premises are so obvious that you don’t need to state them. As well I don’t think they are readily seen as true by everyone.

286

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:<<< Except that doctrine makes no definitive statements upon the final destination of the individual soul of any man. [/quote]Catholic doctrine suffers from the ulcer inducing propensity to not really make definitive statements about much of anything though the scriptures she basically canonized is one long systematic catalog of definitive statements about everything.
[/quote]

Gotcha, right?

I can more than assure you, T, the the Church is abundantly, unflinchingly, absolutely clear in her pronouncements. What I said above is a rewording of EXACTLY the same statement you have made more times than I can remember on this site.

287

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:<<< Except that doctrine makes no definitive statements upon the final destination of the individual soul of any man. [/quote]Catholic doctrine suffers from the ulcer inducing propensity to not really make definitive statements about much of anything though the scriptures she basically canonized is one long systematic catalog of definitive statements about everything.
[/quote]

Gotcha, right?

I can more than assure you, T, the the Church is abundantly, unflinchingly, absolutely clear in her pronouncements. What I said above is a rewording of EXACTLY the same statement you have made more times than I can remember on this site. [/quote]I almost included it. (seriously) Go ahead n tell. I have some of my own quotes if you like. See this is one of the things I like about you. You pay attention and remember when people speak. I wasn’t referring to that specific statement. I can’t help how arrogant this will sound, but you will never EVER gotcha me like that. Also my statement of not knowing who the elect are is not the same as your church’s refusal to tell a flagrant Christ denying open sinner that they are perishing. The simplicity and purity of the gospel that Paul told the Corinthians not to be deceived from is this: All are born dead. Those who repent and believe on Jesus Christ alone for salvation are born again into eternal life. That is the simple life and death truth.

288

[quote]groo wrote:<<< As well I don’t think they are readily seen as true by everyone. >>>[/quote]Actually they’re not readily seen as true by anyone until raised from death to life.

289

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:<<< As well I don’t think they are readily seen as true by everyone. >>>[/quote]Actually they’re not readily seen as true by anyone until raised from death to life.
[/quote]
So you are left framing a deductive argument based on premises that are of dubious truth. Be careful or soon we will have Trib’s paradox to add to Moore’s. :slight_smile:

290

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:<<< As well I don’t think they are readily seen as true by everyone. >>>[/quote]Actually they’re not readily seen as true by anyone until raised from death to life.
[/quote]
So you are left framing a deductive argument based on premises that are of dubious truth. Be careful or soon we will have Trib’s paradox to add to Moore’s. :)[/quote]No. Every argument, of any kind, indeed any fragment of actual reality of any kind, whether held by me or you or anyone else, is based on the only premise that’s true at all. I know with absolute certainty that 2+2=4. It’s 4 when I say it, it’s 4 when you say it and it’s 4 if Adolf Hitler says it. It was 4 from all eternity and it will be 4 one trillion years from now. It’s 4 in Detroit, it’s 4 in Swaziland and it’s 4 in the most shadowy distant reaches of the mind numbingly vast universe. It’s 4 because the infinite intellect that is almighty God designed and decreed it that way. You have not and CANNOT ever tell me why 2+2=4 to you with certainty on any basis that excludes faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the ancient of days who is Himself the ultimate definition of absolutely everything.

Elder Forlife, who denies the gospel outright, before he so unceremoniously abandoned me here, was doing a first rate job of proving with utter certainty the utter uncertainty of his own intellectual foundations and yours. I would pay money to see Elder Forlife choke Bodyguard out with his own epistemology because I believe it would be useful to the God I love and serve. Sigh, he was savin me so much work. There were times that for pages I didn’t say a thing because he was doin such a bang up job at demonstrating that without my God his unbelief and uncertainty in anything was all that was left. Of course from his standpoint of autonomy, which is also yours and also that of the Catholics and even Armininian protestants, he is absolutely correct. He was doin God’s work without even tryin, but then again everybody’s doin that anyway =]

291

It was rude of me to step on this conversation between Cortes and Groo now that I look at it.

292

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:<<< As well I don’t think they are readily seen as true by everyone. >>>[/quote]Actually they’re not readily seen as true by anyone until raised from death to life.
[/quote]
So you are left framing a deductive argument based on premises that are of dubious truth. Be careful or soon we will have Trib’s paradox to add to Moore’s. :)[/quote]No. Every argument, of any kind, indeed any fragment of actual reality of any kind, whether held by me or you or anyone else, is based on the only premise that’s true at all. I know with absolute certainty that 2+2=4. It’s 4 when I say it, it’s 4 when you say it and it’s 4 if Adolf Hitler says it. It was 4 from all eternity and it will be 4 one trillion years from now. It’s 4 in Detroit, it’s 4 in Swaziland and it’s 4 in the most shadowy distant reaches of the mind numbingly vast universe. It’s 4 because the infinite intellect that is almighty God designed and decreed it that way. You have not and CANNOT ever tell me why 2+2=4 to you with certainty on any basis that excludes faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the ancient of days who is Himself the ultimate definition of absolutely everything.

Elder Forlife, who denies the gospel outright, before he so unceremoniously abandoned me here, was doing a first rate job of proving with utter certainty the utter uncertainty of his own intellectual foundations and yours. I would pay money to see Elder Forlife choke Bodyguard out with his own epistemology because I believe it would be useful to the God I love and serve. Sigh, he was savin me so much work. There were times that for pages I didn’t say a thing because he was doin such a bang up job at demonstrating that without my God his unbelief and uncertainty in anything was all that was left. Of course from his standpoint of autonomy, which is also yours and also that of the Catholics and even Armininian protestants, he is absolutely correct. He was doin God’s work without even tryin, but then again everybody’s doin that anyway =]
[/quote]

As my friend Pat put it so poignantly, unless you know everything, you cannot be certain of anything.

It is easy to see the ignorance in others, and so very hard to see the ignorance in yourself.

You and I share the same epistemology, with one glaring difference. Your entire belief system is founded on the feeble, unprovable assumption that your god is real. If that assumption fails, all of your beliefs fail along with it, and you are left as ignorant as the rest of us. You have faith that the assumption is valid, but you do not and cannot know that it is valid, else it wouldn’t be faith.

You do not know everything, so you cannot know anything, including knowing that an omniscient, omnipotent supernatural being actually exists.

Admitting your ignorance takes tremendous courage. It is frightening to face the prospect of your beliefs being based on fiction rather than fact. If you have spent many years aligning your life with those beliefs, imagine how difficult it would be to disentrench yourself, and honestly consider that you could be wrong. You are in good company. The vast majority of people similarly stay entrenched in their own beliefs, to their dying day. Most never question, because most are too frightened to hear the answer.

The good news is that there really is light, life, and joy at the other end of that long, dark tunnel. It’s a difficult journey, but it is so worth it in the end.

293

And my valiant knight comes galloping back, astride his trusty stick horse, plastic helmet and breastplate firmly in place, swinging his Styrofoam sword of agnosticism, crying “FORSOOTH… I WILL SLAY THEE THOU FOUL AND UNCLEAN FOE CALLED BY THE NAME OF CERTAINTY, WHO ART A COMMANDER IN THE INTELLECTUAL ARMY OF THE MOST HIGH GOD, LEST I BE THROWN BY THEE HITHER FROM MINE STEED AND BE HENCE PIERCED THROUGH BY THE STEEL LANCE OF THINE JUSTICE!!!”

Though he tried to deny he ever said it until I pushed his face into his own words and even though dearest Christopher called it junk philosophy or something, Pat’s statement will be ever held by me as one of the top 5 profundities ever to emerge from the keyboard of a T-Nation member.

Once again dear Elder Forlife. From your side of the spiritual grave the one true and living God will never be anything more than just another theory among many in your unavoidable universe of uncertainty. You have no reason for believing anything. Probability is a content-less abstraction without an anchor somewhere in certainty. That’s just another way of saying “you can’t know anything without knowing everything”.

I really wish Pat would have just said “hey… it looks like I did say that. Lemme think some more and maybe I’ll have to either recant or pay better attention to my own words”. I would have said ok, shrugged my shoulders and went on. He is a guy who can never admit he’s wrong though. Not to me anyway. That’s a tough world to live in because everybody’s wrong sometimes. I had to concede of all things a quotation from scripture to you of all people. Remember? That sucked, but you were right and I was wrong. Come on Pat. Stop this ridiculous silent treatment. It’s hurting you not me.

294

"Once again dear Elder Forlife. From your side of the spiritual grave the one true and living God will never be anything more than just another theory among many in your unavoidable universe of uncertainty. You have no reason for believing anything. Probability is a content-less abstraction without an anchor somewhere in certainty. That’s just another way of saying “you can’t know anything without knowing everything”

There are philosophers that think you can know things beyond a doubt. Some of them would say the facts of reality are self evident. The Tractatus is like this. It presents no arguments really. Its mostly stated as a series of self evident facts that Wittgenstein felt should be obvious to anyone intelligent.

You keep bringing up statements of arithmetic as things you know to be true everywhere. This isn’t exactly the way they are understood. Its not a paradox for example to state something like: 2+2=4 in this room but in that room 2+2=5.

295

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

If I’m reading you correctly then you actually understand this better than many claiming to be His own.[/quote]

Yes. You’re reading me correctly.

296

From a while back that I never finished like I’d hoped, but good nuff fer now"

[quote]groo wrote about a month ago:<<< I am not an objectivist but I am not sure if thats what you are asking exactly. Constructivist is probably closest to where I am in thinking about knowledge. I’ll grant you that this at least socially reduces to relativism which I do find troubling .I definitely don’t think the infallibilist definition of knowledge is correct. You can probably know all synthetic analytic statements, but at the base of these it would be claimed there is some inference. I’d certainly say we all act like we know these things. >>>[/quote]You are treating us to a combination of attempted impression with the scope of your philosophical erudition and a somewhat wise intuitive reluctance to allowing yourself to be exposed to potential vulnerability by committing to anything too specific until you see where I’m goin. Judging by the rest of your post, which I did read but didn’t quote, I’d say it’s a bit more of the former than the latter.

I am not trying to trap you with interrogational trickery. My point is very simple. Until we settle HOW we know anything at all, the question of WHAT we know is meaningless. Ethics are down the road from here. I’m not even dealing directly in that currency at all for the moment. I’m asking you to name for me just one piece of knowledge of any kind the certainty of which you consider unassailable. Once you do that (if you do), I will ask you by what intellectual mechanism you have come to so regard this object of knowledge. We will politely (I think, you seem a pleasant enough fella) wrangle back and forth for a few posts trying to establish what exactly I mean by that too, but eventually you will settle on the conventions of logic.

You will no doubt declare that without logic no discussion of anything whatsoever can be made intelligible. I will agree, but ask you to explain how YOU are certain of even this, at which point you, being a rather astute lad, will then realize in earnest the towering profundity of your previous statement concerning certainty. “Or at the very least I act as if I believe this. Pragmatically everyone does.” Ohhh that’s a HALLELUJAH worthy bullseye right there my friend. At this point, in your case I’m bettin I can stop talkin for a while (which will thrill BodyGuard) because you, also having a dose of intellectual honesty by the common grace of God, will then take yourself the rest of the way home. You will realize that the bedrock first principles, beyond which your intellectual autonomy will not allow you to go, are entirely ill equipped to provide you with the very pragmatic certainty that you yourself have proclaimed as a universal truism among us human critters.

Now having been robbed of objective certainty in the only place it really matters, you will then be left to ponder from whence arises this pragmatic certainty under which you are forced to inescapably live lest you begin experimenting with objectionable pastimes such as leaping from tall buildings to see what happens (a humorous hypothetical). It will be about here that you will find knocking on your forehead the distasteful and disgusting conclusion that this certainty that you find yourself universally and incessantly dependent upon is apprehended wholly by faith and a faith no more objectively rational, even from your own autonomous standpoint than that of us idiot Christians.

But AHA!!! You may possibly retort with something like “yeah but at least I have science and modern discovery to make what I believe MORE certain than what you believe”. Poppycock and balderdash I say. Science and modern discovery depend upon the very logic you will have already concluded is uncertain for both their method and interpretation. In the realm of ultimate questions UNcertainty is as good as falsehood because were dealing with like the ultimate ya understand. Might be certain or even probably certain ain’t cuttin it.

Now to today’s exchange:

[quote]groo wrote:<<< There are philosophers that think you can know things beyond a doubt. >>>[/quote]I know. Elder Forlife would manhandle every one of em. I mean that. My hat is off. From within the sinful realm of human autonomy he is the most invincible warrior for truth I think I’ve ever seen. His methods and conclusion are unassailable if you guys are right. For all the razzing I give Pat, he only goes scattered n braindead when dealing with me because he absolutely despises what I believe to the point of irrationality. Pat’s a very intelligent guy though who gets the tip of my hat fairly often as well for different reason than Elder Forlife does. However before he beamed out for a few weeks here Elder Forlife was spanking Pat’s little pink autonomous Catholic bottom. Not because Pat’s a moron, but because he’s defending the utterly indefensible which is moral and ontological/teleological certainty on the foundation of an uncertain contingent god which puts him right square in the middle of Elder Forlife’s own world of autonomy.[quote]groo wrote:<<< Some of them would say the facts of reality are self evident. >>>[/quote] Would they now? And you don’t find this to be a statement of faith? [quote]groo wrote:<<< The Tractatus is like this. It presents no arguments really. Its mostly stated as a series of self evident facts that Wittgenstein felt should be obvious to anyone intelligent. >>>[/quote]Or this?[quote]groo wrote:<<< You keep bringing up statements of arithmetic as things you know to be true everywhere. This isn’t exactly the way they are understood. Its not a paradox for example to state something like: 2+2=4 in this room but in that room 2+2=5. [/quote]Fine. Yes I’m aware of “modified” addition and other such mental masturbation. Try n live any part of your life or engineer a space voyage to a place where 2+2=5 in a reality not based on the fact that it equals 4. I’m not interested in hypothetical brain games though some will surely accuse me of incessantly engaging in exactly that.

Instead of trying to impress me with how much reading you’ve done (which is quite impressive btw) please tell me what YOU believe. Not, “well this school says this and this dude has some points about that”. No, what do YOU believe to be true about anything and why?

297

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
From a while back that I never finished like I’d hoped, but good nuff fer now"

[quote]groo wrote about a month ago:<<< I am not an objectivist but I am not sure if thats what you are asking exactly. Constructivist is probably closest to where I am in thinking about knowledge. I’ll grant you that this at least socially reduces to relativism which I do find troubling .I definitely don’t think the infallibilist definition of knowledge is correct. You can probably know all synthetic analytic statements, but at the base of these it would be claimed there is some inference. I’d certainly say we all act like we know these things. >>>[/quote]You are treating us to a combination of attempted impression with the scope of your philosophical erudition and a somewhat wise intuitive reluctance to allowing yourself to be exposed to potential vulnerability by committing to anything too specific until you see where I’m goin. Judging by the rest of your post, which I did read but didn’t quote, I’d say it’s a bit more of the former than the latter.

I am not trying to trap you with interrogational trickery. My point is very simple. Until we settle HOW we know anything at all, the question of WHAT we know is meaningless. Ethics are down the road from here. I’m not even dealing directly in that currency at all for the moment. I’m asking you to name for me just one piece of knowledge of any kind the certainty of which you consider unassailable. Once you do that (if you do), I will ask you by what intellectual mechanism you have come to so regard this object of knowledge. We will politely (I think, you seem a pleasant enough fella) wrangle back and forth for a few posts trying to establish what exactly I mean by that too, but eventually you will settle on the conventions of logic.

You will no doubt declare that without logic no discussion of anything whatsoever can be made intelligible. I will agree, but ask you to explain how YOU are certain of even this, at which point you, being a rather astute lad, will then realize in earnest the towering profundity of your previous statement concerning certainty. “Or at the very least I act as if I believe this. Pragmatically everyone does.” Ohhh that’s a HALLELUJAH worthy bullseye right there my friend. At this point, in your case I’m bettin I can stop talkin for a while (which will thrill BodyGuard) because you, also having a dose of intellectual honesty by the common grace of God, will then take yourself the rest of the way home. You will realize that the bedrock first principles, beyond which your intellectual autonomy will not allow you to go, are entirely ill equipped to provide you with the very pragmatic certainty that you yourself have proclaimed as a universal truism among us human critters.

Now having been robbed of objective certainty in the only place it really matters, you will then be left to ponder from whence arises this pragmatic certainty under which you are forced to inescapably live lest you begin experimenting with objectionable pastimes such as leaping from tall buildings to see what happens (a humorous hypothetical). It will be about here that you will find knocking on your forehead the distasteful and disgusting conclusion that this certainty that you find yourself universally and incessantly dependent upon is apprehended wholly by faith and a faith no more objectively rational, even from your own autonomous standpoint than that of us idiot Christians.

But AHA!!! You may possibly retort with something like “yeah but at least I have science and modern discovery to make what I believe MORE certain than what you believe”. Poppycock and balderdash I say. Science and modern discovery depend upon the very logic you will have already concluded is uncertain for both their method and interpretation. In the realm of ultimate questions UNcertainty is as good as falsehood because were dealing with like the ultimate ya understand. Might be certain or even probably certain ain’t cuttin it.

Now to today’s exchange:

[quote]groo wrote:<<< There are philosophers that think you can know things beyond a doubt. >>>[/quote]I know. Elder Forlife would manhandle every one of em. I mean that. My hat is off. From within the sinful realm of human autonomy he is the most invincible warrior for truth I think I’ve ever seen. His methods and conclusion are unassailable if you guys are right. For all the razzing I give Pat, he only goes scattered n braindead when dealing with me because he absolutely despises what I believe to the point of irrationality. Pat’s a very intelligent guy though who gets the tip of my hat fairly often as well for different reason than Elder Forlife does. However before he beamed out for a few weeks here Elder Forlife was spanking Pat’s little pink autonomous Catholic bottom. Not because Pat’s a moron, but because he’s defending the utterly indefensible which is moral and ontological/teleological certainty on the foundation of an uncertain contingent god which puts him right square in the middle of Elder Forlife’s own world of autonomy.[quote]groo wrote:<<< Some of them would say the facts of reality are self evident. >>>[/quote] Would they now? And you don’t find this to be a statement of faith? [quote]groo wrote:<<< The Tractatus is like this. It presents no arguments really. Its mostly stated as a series of self evident facts that Wittgenstein felt should be obvious to anyone intelligent. >>>[/quote]Or this?[quote]groo wrote:<<< You keep bringing up statements of arithmetic as things you know to be true everywhere. This isn’t exactly the way they are understood. Its not a paradox for example to state something like: 2+2=4 in this room but in that room 2+2=5. [/quote]Fine. Yes I’m aware of “modified” addition and other such mental masturbation. Try n live any part of your life or engineer a space voyage to a place where 2+2=5 in a reality not based on the fact that it equals 4. I’m not interested in hypothetical brain games though some will surely accuse me of incessantly engaging in exactly that.

Instead of trying to impress me with how much reading you’ve done (which is quite impressive btw) please tell me what YOU believe. Not, “well this school says this and this dude has some points about that”. No, what do YOU believe to be true about anything and why?
[/quote]

Ok I’ll start with this. Everything everyone holds to be true that is not simply some synthetic statement or groups of them, is at least partially believed from tradition or emotion. Nothing or at least almost nothing is believed to be true from purely logical reasons.

298

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

Fine. Yes I’m aware of “modified” addition and other such mental masturbation. Try n live any part of your life or engineer a space voyage to a place where 2+2=5 in a reality not based on the fact that it equals 4. I’m not interested in hypothetical brain games though some will surely accuse me of incessantly engaging in exactly that.

Instead of trying to impress me with how much reading you’ve done (which is quite impressive btw) please tell me what YOU believe. Not, “well this school says this and this dude has some points about that”. No, what do YOU believe to be true about anything and why?
[/quote]

That was a damned good post, Tirib.

Yes, I have points of contention with certain parts of it, and I REALLY wanted to spend more time in these discussions but have been absolutely prohibitively busy this week and it’s not letting up for another week at least.

But, it was, I repeat, a damned good summary of the absolute core of what pretty much every religious discussion we’ve had on this board over the past year or more has been leading to.

299

Trib, your post are unreadable. Literally.

Anyway, what you have been so awkwardly drumming repetitively forever now simply boils down to SURRENDER, which is BLIND FAITH. You seem to believe the moment feeble man says “why”, his “autonomous” ignorant little mind is lead astray. That all man needs to know is contained in scripture. Does that about sum it up?

You know my problem with that (and others as well)?

Scripture was put together by man. There is competing versions and iterations of scripture. There is scripture ignored, and perhaps additions to scripture as well. We have already established man is evil. We know this.

I find this whole premise to be very entertaining and circular actually. Jeez, at least the Jews claim direct divine revelation. When you can find me something that is uncorrupted by, I might listen.

And I would close with an aside about how I refuse to believe a loving God would “judge” and “condemn” his “children”, because I cannot imagine damning my own, but I know your answer lies in the “autonomous” mind of man leading me astray and that same old drum beat.

Why don’t you say what you mean and be done with it? Complete surrender to scripture. Blind faith.

Say it and be done with it.

300

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:<<< Yes. You’re reading me correctly.[/quote]Well… isn’t that nice. It is pretty clear isn’t it?

Groo, I didn’t forget ya. I’ll have more for Bodyguard and Cortes later too… I hope.