Homosexuality v. Christianity -- A FEW QUESTIONS:

cicerone imposter wrote:

Frank has already succeeding...

I thought you had succeeded...

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...in destroying your religious philosophy...

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...because you have never answered his question that he has repeated several times.

Which is?

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Your tact to ignore it will not give you a free pass.

Oh, I got my free pass fine.

Laughing

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Which is why most people see through your quasi-religion.

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maliagar wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
Frank has already succeeding...

I thought you had succeeded...

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...in destroying your religious philosophy...

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...because you have never answered his question that he has repeated several times.

Which is?

Why not ask me that question, Maliagar?

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To quote Spock, "Fascinating". I really wanna see where this goes.

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maliagar wrote:

An applause to whomever opposes Maliagar!!!

That's alright maliagar, you're just a laughing stock, just like that ridiculous religion you follow.

We forgive you.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

maliagar, We are not a 'crowd.' Many of us even live in different continents. It's just that your inability to provide proof for your staided opinions on the subject you claim to have knowledge is being disputed by all. We are not "group think" or "group talk." It's you who cannot see what is obvious to most of us; you have the ability to see things that doesn't exist.

Apparently he does have that ability, since he professes belief in a deity with no evidence to back it up. Paranoid thought (ie. they're all out to get me) is common among people like maliagar.

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Poor maliagar has a persecution complex. I wonder where he learned that from?

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timberlandko wrote:

To quote Spock, "Fascinating". I really wanna see where this goes.

No you don't. Debating someone like maliagar is like debating a brick wall. They are so utterly deluded by their belief structure that they have lost the ability to see anything beyond it. I've been in debates where the theist was utterly, conclusively and absolutely proven wrong and their response was to repeat the same argument, verbatim, as if nobody had ever said anything.

Maliagar is a laughing stock, nothing more. The chances that he'd even consider that his position is wrong, even for a second, is somewhere between slim and nil.

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You give me too much credit, Cephus ... actually, I sorta get a kick outta watchin' pedants squirmin' and wrigglin' at the ends of their own ropes. Odd, ain't it, that they just can't bring themselves to use Occam's Razor to cut themselves free? I gotta figure they enjoy the struggle ... even welcome it.

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How much of what is posted in A2K (well, online in general) is a series of attention getting devices? (Ahem -- one does not exclude oneself from this proposition!)

There is the delight of being able to make up an entire personality cum intellect and play with it in a place where no one can confirm your age, gender, disposition. I've left open the possibility, from the first entrance of Maliagar, that M. is a construct!

Ah, then there are telling avatars. Like an eagle with obsessive compulsive disorder... and Cephus' version of Al Gore doing the macarena.

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Cephus, A brick wall is a very good analogy; you get nothing in return for all your efforts. Just repeated questions like an echo.

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The crowd cheering for the martyr's demise? Now where have I heard that one before? (Maybe he fancies the authoritarians as Pontius Pilot and Herod).

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Herod was misunderstood

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maliagar wrote:

Am I? Please explain how... I'm slow, you know.

Yet another admission. There may be hope for you yet.

maliagar wrote:

I told you: Deal with these exegetical issues satisfactorily, and we can move to other issues.

Here's the problem: if I said that 13+11=24, and you said that I was wrong, then we could debate forever without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion if I was unaware that you were using base 12 rather than base 10. So we're stuck here on what appears to be incompatible theoretical foundations.

I will freely admit: my King Kong example only works if there is the possibility of God making a mistake. But, if God can make a mistake, then I think the parallel is sound. There is no point, however, in pursuing the example unless we are both talking about the same thing -- in other words, we both have to be using base 10 here, otherwise there can be no hope of a meaningful dialogue.

So, to reiterate: before we can proceed, you must ANSWER THE QUESTION.

maliagar wrote:

What kind of devout rational secularist would claim a demonstrable analogy between two stories and then fail to prove the parallel?

Devout rational secularist? What the hell does that mean?

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maliagar wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
Actually, he admitted that God "took a risk" in placing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of Eden.

Still stuck with the word "risk"? Can you explain to us in what sense taking a risk is the same as making a mistake?

A five year old kid could tell you that the god of the Bible made a huge mistake putting Adam, Eve, and the Tempter in a garden with a tree the god wanted them not to eat from -- IF the god really did not want them to eat of that fruit.

A five year old kid could tell you that they were going to eat that fruit under the conditions described.

And chances are, the five year old kid could tell you that just the prohibition and the proximity of the tree would be enough to ensure that they would eat the fruit. Having the Tempter on the scene was overkill.

All that -- IF the god's intentions were to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit.

IF, however, the god wanted simply to test their ability to obey commands -- then the mistake was not putting the tree within their reach or putting the Tempter there -- but instead the MISTAKE was not giving Adam and Eve the intellectual wherewithal to be able to differentiate between obeying and not obeying.

If the god were truly interested in a fair test, the god probably could first have allowed them to eat of the fruit and gain the knowledge of right and wrong -- and then instructed them not to eat further of the fruit.

Fact is, if I had the opportunity to explain all this to the guy who made this story up -- he probably would have written it my way.

In any case, either way -- the god of the Bible made a MISTAKE.

I don't expect you to acknowledge that, Maliagar. You certainly had lots of trouble acknowledging the failure of your church to adequately address the slavery passages.

But hope springs eternal.

You are as wrong in this, Maliagar, as you were about the slavery explanation.

Own up to it.

Your god won't mind.

What's the worst he would do???

Place you in Hell and subject you to unrelenting, excruciating torture for all the rest of eternity?

You can handle that.

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Those who won't accept labels but insist on labeling others are difficult to label but I've got one that might stick: meanspirited fool.

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I think maliagar is living "hell on earth," because his intellect conflicts with his beliefs. That admission will kill him.

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timberlandko wrote:

You give me too much credit, Cephus ... actually, I sorta get a kick outta watchin' pedants squirmin' and wrigglin' at the ends of their own ropes. Odd, ain't it, that they just can't bring themselves to use Occam's Razor to cut themselves free? I gotta figure they enjoy the struggle ... even welcome it.

Yeah, but they don't squirm, they aren't even bright enough to realize just how much of a tight spot they get themselves into. They're just like the members of the Flat Earth Society, screaming that the earth is flat as they hop in an around the world flight. They're right because they say they're right, damn the evidence.

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The number one catholic joke.
*************************
On their way to get married, a young couple is involved in a fatal car accident. The couple find themselves sitting outside the Pearly Gates
waiting for St. Peter to process them into Heaven. While waiting, they
begin to wonder: Could they possibly get married in Heaven?

When St. Peter shows up, they asked him. St. Peter says, "I don't know. This is the first time anyone has asked. Let me go find out," and he leaves.

The couple sat and waited for an answer for a couple of months. While they waited, they discussed that IF they were allowed to get married in Heaven, SHOULD they get married, what with the eternal aspect of it all.
"What if it doesn't work?" they wondered, "Are we stuck together FOREVER?"

After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat bedraggled. "Yes," he informs the couple, "you CAN get married in Heaven." "Great!" said the couple, "But we were just wondering, what if things don't work out? Could we also get a divorce in Heaven?"

St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slams his clipboard onto the ground.
"What's wrong?" asked the frightened couple. "OH, COME ON!!" St. Peter shouts, "It took me three months to find a priest up here! Do you have
ANY idea how long it'll take me to find a lawyer?

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joefromchicago wrote:

There may be hope for you yet.

Of course! My hope is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whose message I know through His Church.

[Unfortunately, your arguments proved to be hopeless...]

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Here's the problem: if I said that 13+11=24, and you said that I was wrong, then we could debate forever without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion if I was unaware that you were using base 12 rather than base 10. So we're stuck here on what appears to be incompatible theoretical foundations.

Absolutely. You see? Reasonable people can understand each other! I want to stick to a point-by-point reading of the Genesis story, while you want to introduce personal assumptions about God to make the Adam & Eve story parallel to King Kong, and to prove your point Rolling Eyes

. In other words, you want to introduce your assumptions about the possibility of God making mistakes, to prove that God made a mistake! (a circular argument). Rolling Eyes

I could introduce my assumptions as well, and if you were awake you wouldn't let me. For then we would end up discussing something else: whose assumptions are truer. But that's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about the parallel which, you claim, exists between two stories. :wink:

And I've proven to you that, without introducing any assumptions about God, and just reading the stories as they stand, they are not parallel.

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I will freely admit: my King Kong example only works if there is the possibility of God making a mistake.

Finally! And that "possibility" would involve introducing an assumption that goes beyond what the Genesis story actually tells us. And this assumption would come from your own personal "theology", "philosophy", or however you wanna call it. But since we are in the business of determining if two stories are parallel, we have to stick to what the stories tell us. And for the Nth time: No element in the Genesis story is parallel to the villagers' poorly designed door (unless you introduce foreign assumptions).

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But, if God can make a mistake, then I think the parallel is sound.

Yes, but whatever "IF" we chose (God can or cannot make a mistake), it would be alien to the Genesis story. One IF would provide external support for your parallel thesis. The other IF wouldn't. We can introduce all kinds of IFs in reading a story, and as a result we'll manipulate it beyond recognition. That's not how serious interpretation is done.

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There is no point, however, in pursuing the example unless we are both talking about the same thing -- in other words, we both have to be using base 10 here, otherwise there can be no hope of a meaningful dialogue.

Exactly. I would have to adopt your assumption. But that would be too easy on you. The Genesis story, understood independently from your assumptions, does not give you elements that would lead you to conclude that God made a mistake.

NOW, OTHER BIBLE STORIES MIGHT BE MORE USEFUL FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSES (DISCUSSING GOD'S SEEMING "MISTAKES"). YOU WOULD HAVE TO SELECT MORE CAREFULLY THE STORY YOU WANT TO USE AS AN EXAMPLE (AND FORGET ABOUT DRAWING PARALLELS WITH KING KONG). HOWEVER, A KEY METHODOLOGICAL RULE WOULD BE: STICK TO WHAT THE STORY ACTUALLY SAYS, AND DO NOT ASSUME WHAT YOU'RE SEEKING TO PROVE (CIRCULARITY).

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maliagar wrote:
What kind of devout rational secularist would claim a demonstrable analogy between two stories and then fail to prove the parallel?

Devout rational secularist? What the hell does that mean?

Oh, believe me: Some secularist-rationalist-atheist-hedonists are very committed to their faith... very evangelical about it. They go from door to door, or from chatroom to chatroom, seeking to make converts.

:wink:

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Homosexuality v. Christianity -- A FEW QUESTIONS:

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