The above is Pope Francis talking about how God's love gives us hope.
I couldn't possibly disagree with anything I read in them.
But what does any of it have to do with the brute fact God in the Classic Sense and Catholic Sense is not an anthropomorphic Theistic Personalist "deity" who is a moral agent?
God's benevolence toward his creation is purely gratuitous. He must only will His own Good by necessity. He is not obligated to do us anymore good than He does. Given His Nature it's absurd to claim otherwise.
>God loves us so much that he sent his only Son to become one of us and to save the human race."
>Benevolent? It sounds like it.
Sounds like Gratuitous Benevolence. The Pope said this was all by Grace. If you ever read St Paul on Grace(or Aquinas or Augustine or any Jesuits) in short you can't earn it by your own strength and God doesn't owe it too you. It is pure gift.
>Personal? Definitely.
I see nothing in these links that denies God has Intellect and Will & I see nothing that claims God is Personal in an unequivocal way a human is personal.
Can you show me where it says otherwise Skeppy?
>Doesn't the cognitive dissonance ever bother you, Ben?
Rather doesn't bother you that your best objections are on the level of the Young Earth Creationist who say to a knowledgeable scientist things like "Dang I never done saw an Ape give birth to no man? This Evolutionism is stupid as it is Godless I tell you what!"?
You guys (Ben, im-skeptical, and Frances) are all focused on the wrong stuff. When reading anything in the Old Testament, we ought to keep these words of Pope Benedict XVI in mind:
"Augustine realized that the whole of the Old Testament was a journey toward Jesus Christ. Thus, he found the key to understanding the beauty and even the philosophical depth of the Old Testament and grasped the whole unity of the mystery of Christ in history as well as the synthesis between philosophy, rationality, and faith in the Logos, in Christ, the Eternal Word who was made flesh."
Like I've said several times already on this site, if your interpretation of the OT is not made in the Light of Christ, it is at best irrelevant, and at worst just plain wrong.
I support what the Emertus Holy Father says. Not just because he is past successor to St Peter but He's a great Thomist in his own right.
I absolutely believe the OT foretells the coming of Christ.
But the issue here as you noted before is our Atheist friends and their knee-jerk tendency to default to a Fundamentalist Protestant reading of the Bible & how anachronistic that is when talking to Catholics like us & in terms of Jewish history.
These two actually believe by giving a different self serving fun die interpretation of the OT divorced from Tradition that somehow we will embrace the heresy of Private interpretation & Perspicuity so as to make their anti-Fundie polemics more easy for them to employ against us.
Neither wish to fight the Church on Her own ground so they want to make it easy for themselves by taking on a lesser false religious system.
In short they want to keep their heads.(No pun intended)
"self serving fun die interpretation of the OT divorced from Tradition"
What do the Jews have to say about these prophesies?
The truth is, if you read all these passages without any a priori knowledge of Jesus, there's no way you'd ever see them in this light. Some of them clearly don't refer to Jesus at all. Furthermore, it is well known that some of the NT passages were either made up or revised to fit with these supposed prophesies.
>What do the Jews have to say about these prophesies?
There is a whole industry of Jewish Christian apologetics that cite Targrams, Dead Sea Scrolls etc...in this regard.
>The truth is, if you read all these passages without any a priori knowledge of Jesus, there's no way you'd ever see them in this light.
Translation: In other words Believe in Sola Scriptura & reject Tradition as an authority. Because I am too dim to argue against any form of Christianity more sophisticated then YEC Fundamentalism.
Who knew Atheists could be more Protestant then the Protestants themselves?
>Some of them clearly don't refer to Jesus at all. Furthermore, it is well known that some of the NT passages were either made up or revised to fit with these supposed prophesies.
Or maybe the NT uses examples of Pishat, Drashe, Mindrash and Gametria being that it was written by Jews?
Skept go argue with fundies. That is all you are good for buddy.
"What kind "benevolent deity”? I still come from a Judeo-Christian Tradition that doesn’t believe any Theistic Personalist deity who is a moral agent ?
No such god exists."
I linked a couple of articles from the Catholic church that depict God as both benevolent and personal. That was in direct response to what you said. I didn't say anything about God being obligated to humans, or even about God being a moral agent (although I still believe he must be conceived as a moral agent if you think he is the maker of this world).
Straight forward question. Benevolent in the classic sense(i.e. gratuetously)? Or... Benevolent in the moral agent sense(i.e. is obligated to give specific goods to His creatures)?
Still haven't been paying attention eh?
>I still come from a Judeo-Christian Tradition that doesn’t believe any Theistic Personalist deity who is a moral agent ?
>No such god exists."
Amen!
>I linked a couple of articles from the Catholic church that depict God as both benevolent and personal.
Without taking the classic definitions of how Classic Theism understands "benevolent" & "personal" into account and equivocating them with your own unstated pet definitions?
That is an intelligent response how again? Or does it just serve as further proof you are in your thinking a hardcore Fundamentalist?
>That was in direct response to what you said.
It is no better then a "Do you still beat your wife/dog/pet Hippo?" response.
>I didn't say anything about God being obligated to humans, or even about God being a moral agent.
So your response lacks intelligent content and is a mere sophistry?
>(although I still believe he must be conceived as a moral agent if you think he is the maker of this world).
Based on what? Your personal definition of what a "moral agent" is or the classic definition?
Do you not realize that argument by re-defining your opponent actual views is nothing more than Straw man arguement?
Do you really not understand that?
Really Skept how stupid are you?
This further proves the intellectual inferiority of the Gnu Atheism.
Argument by re-defining your opponent's views!
A rational & logical Atheist who knows philosophy would not be caught dead making so stupid an argument.
I use definitions of words that agree with what most people use. If you want to redefine the English language to be compatible with your beliefs, then you should at least provide the definitions you are using.
Benevolent: - marked by or disposed to doing good - marked by or suggestive of goodwill
personal: - of, relating to, or affecting a particular person : private, individual - relating to an individual or an individual's character, conduct, motives, or private affairs often in an offensive manner - being rational and self-conscious - having the qualities of a person rather than a thing or abstraction
Now, I am not completely ignorant of the classic theists' views: God is not a "being" that exists among beings - or a person having the attributes of an anthropomorphic being. By contrast, a theistic personalist sees God as a person (in a sense that is consistent with the definitions I have provided).
I'm also aware that classic theists also assert the benevolence of God - that is to say that God wants what is good for us (his creation). This, too, is consistent with the definitions I have provided.
If you don't agree with these observations, please give me some idea what definitions you use and how they relate to your view of classic theism. I'm willing to listen.
>I use definitions of words that agree with what most people use.
So you are justifying arguing a straw man!
> If you want to redefine the English language to be compatible with your beliefs, then you should at least provide the definitions you are using.
So how are you any different from a Young Earth Creationist Fundamentalist who makes up his own definitions of terminology used in biology or uses popular definitions vs using the actual technical definitions used in biological science?
Skept you are fundamentally irrational. Thus even if no god concepts are true you have zero hope of ever presenting a coherent intelligent argument for that fact.
>If you don't agree with these observations, please give me some idea what definitions you use and how they relate to your view of classic theism. I'm willing to listen.
Clearly not since you profess to know the difference yet choose not to argue based on the knowledge you claim to have.
It is equally the book of all Christians, who have at least an equal right to primacy in interpretation. Don't forget, Jesus was a Jew. His Mother and stepfather were Jewish. All the apostles (to include Paul) were Jews. Every New Testament writer with the exception of Luke was a Jew. The first generation of Christians were predominately Jews.
Whenever "the scriptures" are referenced in the New Testament, what they are talking about is what we call the Old Testament. Jesus extensively and pervasively quoted from the Hebrew scriptures (to include from what we today call the Deuterocanonical books). So did Peter, Paul, and the rest of the New Testament writers. The Bible is as much a Christian book as it is a Jewish one, and they have no greater rights to it.
"Traditional" interpretation is as much Christian as it is Jewish, if not more so.
Just noticed my second-to-last sentence had too many pronouns in it. It should have ended "and the Jews have no greater rights to it" for greater clarity.
To the question: ""What do the Jews have to say about these prophesies?"" Plank responds: "Totally irrelevant to me. Ask a Jew. I have neither need nor wish to defend another faith's beliefs."
Bang! The door to an open mind slams shut, thus for a fleeting moment, keeps out the bad and evil influences of a rival and alternative contender to his belief system. In the same way homeschooling shuts out community.
The head flattening irony here is that the Jews, who owned the Old Text in the first place [a product of their time under Mesopotamian captivity and slavery, a book that Christians unashamedly appropriated and brazenly claim as one of their own], have never recognised, acknowledged or accepted one scintilla to this very day in 2014, always knowing that the messiah tale, apparently foretold out of the pages of their Old Testament, was nothing more than a Christian fabrication. It was rejected out of hand then, all those centuries ago, and it is rejected out of hand now, and, for good reason. It is mythic crapola which parasitically appended itself to the Jewish tradition, and like the aggressive parasite it is, sought to kill off its host. And over the centuries, Christianity spared no small measure in trying its damnedest to not only eradicate Judaism, as it sought to do in Spain, Portugal and elsewhere during the Inquisition, but every other competitive threat to its vision of superstitious supernaturalism.
The other irony which Plank is determined to shut out of his head and a fact that is completely lost to the deluded christian, is that after 600 years of Christian domination in the Middle East, Islam knew right from its beginning that the Christian fable was mythological crapola. They rejected it, turned their back on it and wrote their own make-believe stuff that they claim, exactly as Christians claim about their own 'divine revelation', apparently comes direct from the horse's mouth of the same Abrahamic gelding.
To start a religion, you only need a name:
Muhammad ................[fill in the story] Angel Moroni .... .........[fill in the story] Jesus ......................... [fill in the story] Xenu ...........................[fill in the story]
Society are slowly waking up to the proposition that religious belief is founded largely on a delusion. As the level of education and learning increases the average Jill and Joe in the street are realising that religion is just another domain of human culture, not superhuman one, not a supernatural one, not even an independent one. Religion is the dependent variable [witness the thousands of religions extant] to the independent variables of everyday social, cultural and physical reality.
"It is equally the book of all Christians, who have at least an equal right to primacy in interpretation."
As socio-religious phenomena, both modern Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity are developments of, are elaborations upon, the Judaism of the 1st Century Pharisees. Further, a not insignificant portion of modern Judaism is a development in opposition to Christianity … “The say ‘this’, so we’ll say ‘that’!”
I do often find it difficult to follow what you write, but that is more to do with your communication skills than with my comprehension skills.
Your posts confirm my criticism that you argue from authority, so your arguments are fallacious. Your "argument" amounts to saying "I'm right because someone else says so - nah nah nanah nah!" That, as I observed to PL is not an argument at all.
This leads me to my next point. But what part of "I am Catholic" do you still not understand here dearie? Comments like these illustrate a complete misunderstanding by you of my purpose on this thread. Although I address posts to you, I do not post with the aim of persuading you to change your views, so it is a matter of complete indifference to me that you do not find my arguments persuasive. My aim on this site is to give you enough rope so that you can hang yourself (which so far you have always obligingly done). My target audience is those intelligent enough and open-minded enough to see your intellectual bankruptcy. Those who can't see it - that's their problem. So, what part of "atheist" do you not understand Ben? Obviously I am not going to be restricting my arguments to those that happen to fit within your Catholic fundamentalism.
Conservative Christians have traditionally interpreted all scripture (including Deuteronomy) literally. Copan (& his kind) are a departure from that literalist tradition in that he says that the texts do not say what they seem to but require further (convoluted) interpretation. The old-style conservative got their inerrant bible, but at the price of having to swallow the bitter pill of a cruel God along with it. The new-style conservative, like Copan, jettisons the cruel God and retains a bible which is inerrant, sort of, but at the price of implausibility. Swings and roundabouts.
What you say about the constitution of the USSR is irrelevant. The USSR constitution was not intended to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically! It was intended to be interpreted by onlookers absolutely at its face value! The fact that the government never intended to honour it, cynically putting it up as a front to cover their autocracy, in no way establishes that it was intended to be read any way other than literally.
But to answer your earlier question, yes Ben, I do have a life & I think I have now spent quite enough of it on this thread.
>Of course, Ben. Anyone who espouses something different from your dogmatic views - Lock 'em up in an institution.
Unless you believe there can be institutions for mentally unstable Kangaroos then it is self evident I am not serious. If you think otherwise then that is your problem quite indpendent of your views on ultimate reality. In which case I would recommend a good psyhiatrist.
Then their is your weird belief you can argue by redefining your opponent's accepted termonology.......
You are clearly nuts for reasons that have little to do with denial of particular god concepts,
>I do often find it difficult to follow what you write, but that is more to do with your communication skills than with my comprehension skills.
Maybe, to be fair..
>Your posts confirm my criticism that you argue from authority, so your arguments are fallacious. Your "argument" amounts to saying "I'm right because someone else says so - nah nah nanah nah!" That, as I observed to PL is not an argument at all.
Rather Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox and Ancient Jews believed Scripture requires authority to read an interpret because it is not clear and perspicuous.
The Perspicuity Doctrine is Luther's contrivance and your kneejerk employment of it makes all your Biblical objections non-starters. For example.
>What you say about the constitution of the USSR is irrelevant.
Rather it is a deadly counter-example to your neo-Protestant Perspicuity Mishigoss.
>The USSR constitution was not intended to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically! It was intended to be interpreted by onlookers absolutely at its face value!
Literally by what Standard? Literally by western post Enlightenment John Stuart Mill political philosophy in which case there would have been religious liberty as you and I know it in the west? Or, literally by a hermunetic of Marxist Dialectical Materialist political philosophy which means Elderly Priests may perform the divine liturgy as long as they keep quite about it and die out?
>The fact that the government never intended to honour it, cynically putting it up as a front to cover their autocracy, in no way establishes that it was intended to be read any way other than literally.
Sorry no but that article is literally true according to dialectic materialism. Literally you can in your head believe what you want and the Russian Orthodox Church can perform the divine liturgy.
But it seems to me a Communist document should be read via the lens of Communist philosophy not western John Stewart Mill post enlightenment principles.
Just as the OT should be read in light of Halakkah, Traditiona and Authority which tells us the women who pulls the guy's balls off pays a fine. Not Neo-Lutheranism, Christian or your weird Atheist version.
>Conservative Christians have traditionally interpreted all scripture (including Deuteronomy) literally.
False! Augustine did not interpret Genesis One literally but Genesis 2:5. Many who did believe in it literally, believed God did not create literal light but spiritual light when He said "Let there be Light" etc....
There are hundreds of examples in Christian and Jewish literature and commentary from the Rabbis to the Church Fathers. Too many to list.
I am sorry dearie but your Perspicuity dogma was unknown among the ancients. Even the Reformers didn't take everything literally in spite of mandating they had too (example James 2:24).
My dear all you have done is fout your own ignorance. Nothing more.
Son-of-Confusion: "Rather Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox and Ancient Jews believed Scripture requires authority to read an interpret because it is not clear and perspicous."
Translation: From time immemorial, mankind has been hag-ridden by religious "experts" who taught (and sometimes backed the teaching with the sword), "You don't know enough and/or you aren't pure enough to approach The Divine yourself ... you must pay us to do it for you", and ancient Judaism was no exception to the rule. In fact, in 1st century Judaism, there were at least two classes of "experts" interposing themselves between men and God: the official priests of the Temple and the party of the Pharisees, of whom, ironically, the original impetus was to cut-through the priest-craft and temple ritual that stood as a barrier between Jews and God, so as to allow men to approach God themselves (the Christian principle "the priesthood of all believers" is but a re-statement of the Pharisees' principle that "all Jews are priests").
Then, following the common trajectory of human history, and even though the NT scriptures explicitly teach that men can approach God directly -- even though the NT scriptures explicitly teach that Christ, who is God-the-Son, is the sole intermediary between men and God-the-Father -- there arose within Christianity a class of "experts" who taught (and sometimes backed the teaching with the sword), "You don't know enough and/or you aren't pure enough to approach The Divine yourself ... you must pay us to do it for you".
Son-of-Confusion: "The Perspecuity Doctrine is Luther's contrivance ..."
Translation: And then Jesus H. Christ, that trouble-maker, came along ... and threw Tradition out on its head.
============= Rah-Rahs do love their straw-men, don't they?
Technically Jesus threw out traditions of men which would condemn things like Perspicuity and Sola Scriptura which you lot made up about 500 years ago.
He had no problem with Tradition per say 2 Thes 2:15, 3:6.
Of course you are a Protestant so I expect you to be a Sola Scriptura believer.
What galls me is Atheists who are sola scriptura believers.
That makes about as much sense as a Metaphysical Naturalist who is also a Molinist or an Atheist Idealist who believes in Transubstantiation?
I mean like why???????
Silly people.
Take care Son-of-puts-dashes-in-his-posts-way-too-much.
I think I can see where Ilion's confusion is coming from here, but there is no way I could cover it adequately in a blog post.
Ilion,
The Church described in the New Testament and in the works of the Early Church Fathers clearly matches the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. It's not just a score or more of "proof verses", it's also the general tenor of the entire Gospels (all four of them) and the letters. That, plus the undeniable historical fact that the Catholic Church is none other than that which was personally founded by Jesus Christ, and which has an unbroken authoritative apostolic linkage down to the present day - something which no Protestant sect can claim. We all know their very human founders and the very late dates of their founding.
I have, in general, no quarrel with you Ilion, but I think you are very wrong on this one point.
By the way, you never commented on my definition of sola scriptura (March 17th, 9:45 AM, in this conversation) when you challenged me to come up with one.
PL: "By the way, you never commented on my definition of sola scriptura (March 17th, 9:45 AM, in this conversation) when you challenged me to come up with one."
I challenged you? And here I thought I was just trying to determine whether you have any understanding at all of what you are denying.
As I may have mentioned a time or two, currently I have limited internet access. During the week, just my lunch hour. On the weekends, just the time I take from the tasks I *should* be doing (like, trying to repair the water-damage to my house). When one considers that my first priority (on the internet) is to read and consider other's thoughts before posting my own, plus that I don't type all that fast, one ought to be surprised that I find the time to post anything at all.
... as an example of how "behind" I am on posting comments: I still haven't finished composing a response to 'Nick J' on my blog concerning his incoherent denial of free-will.
238 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 238 of 238http://www.catholic.com/documents/gods-love-for-you
The above link is a Catholic summery of what we must do to be saved and what God has done for us.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/04/11/gods-love-is-source-of-hope-says-pope/
The above is Pope Francis talking about how God's love gives us hope.
I couldn't possibly disagree with anything I read in them.
But what does any of it have to do with the brute fact God in the Classic Sense and Catholic Sense is not an anthropomorphic Theistic Personalist "deity" who is a moral agent?
God's benevolence toward his creation is purely gratuitous. He must only will His own Good by necessity. He is not obligated to do us anymore good than He does. Given His Nature it's absurd to claim otherwise.
"God loves us so much that he sent his only Son to become one of us and to save the human race."
Benevolent? It sounds like it.
Personal? Definitely.
Doesn't the cognitive dissonance ever bother you, Ben?
>God loves us so much that he sent his only Son to become one of us and to save the human race."
>Benevolent? It sounds like it.
Sounds like Gratuitous Benevolence. The Pope said this was all by Grace. If you ever read St Paul on Grace(or Aquinas or Augustine or any Jesuits) in short you can't earn it by your own strength and God doesn't owe it too you. It is pure gift.
>Personal? Definitely.
I see nothing in these links that denies God has Intellect and Will & I see nothing that claims God is Personal in an unequivocal way a human is personal.
Can you show me where it says otherwise Skeppy?
>Doesn't the cognitive dissonance ever bother you, Ben?
Rather doesn't bother you that your best objections are on the level of the Young Earth Creationist who say to a knowledgeable scientist things like "Dang I never done saw an Ape give birth to no man? This Evolutionism is stupid as it is Godless I tell you what!"?
That's the best you can do genius?
Skeppy
I read the links several times now. Where does it say God has obligations to us?
You guys (Ben, im-skeptical, and Frances) are all focused on the wrong stuff. When reading anything in the Old Testament, we ought to keep these words of Pope Benedict XVI in mind:
"Augustine realized that the whole of the Old Testament was a journey toward Jesus Christ. Thus, he found the key to understanding the beauty and even the philosophical depth of the Old Testament and grasped the whole unity of the mystery of Christ in history as well as the synthesis between philosophy, rationality, and faith in the Logos, in Christ, the Eternal Word who was made flesh."
Like I've said several times already on this site, if your interpretation of the OT is not made in the Light of Christ, it is at best irrelevant, and at worst just plain wrong.
PL
I support what the Emertus Holy Father says. Not just because he is past successor to St Peter but He's a great Thomist in his own right.
I absolutely believe the OT foretells the coming of Christ.
But the issue here as you noted before is our Atheist friends and their knee-jerk tendency to default to a Fundamentalist Protestant reading of the Bible & how anachronistic that is when talking to Catholics like us & in terms of Jewish history.
These two actually believe by giving a different self serving fun die interpretation of the OT divorced from Tradition that somehow we will embrace the heresy of Private interpretation & Perspicuity so as to make their anti-Fundie polemics more easy for them to employ against us.
Neither wish to fight the Church on Her own ground so they want to make it easy for themselves by taking on a lesser false religious system.
In short they want to keep their heads.(No pun intended)
"self serving fun die interpretation of the OT divorced from Tradition"
What do the Jews have to say about these prophesies?
The truth is, if you read all these passages without any a priori knowledge of Jesus, there's no way you'd ever see them in this light. Some of them clearly don't refer to Jesus at all. Furthermore, it is well known that some of the NT passages were either made up or revised to fit with these supposed prophesies.
>What do the Jews have to say about these prophesies?
There is a whole industry of Jewish Christian apologetics that cite Targrams, Dead Sea Scrolls etc...in this regard.
>The truth is, if you read all these passages without any a priori knowledge of Jesus, there's no way you'd ever see them in this light.
Translation: In other words Believe in Sola Scriptura & reject Tradition as an authority.
Because I am too dim to argue against any form of Christianity more sophisticated then YEC Fundamentalism.
Who knew Atheists could be more Protestant then the Protestants themselves?
>Some of them clearly don't refer to Jesus at all. Furthermore, it is well known that some of the NT passages were either made up or revised to fit with these supposed prophesies.
Or maybe the NT uses examples of Pishat, Drashe, Mindrash and Gametria being that it was written by Jews?
Skept go argue with fundies. That is all you are good for buddy.
BTW Skept you didn't answer my question March 17, 2014 7:59 PM?
What is the matter? Too much of a pussy to even attempt to fake it?
Only Atheists who know philosophy are worthy to argue with Catholic.
Gnus are mentally and intellectually inferior.
"Where does it say God has obligations to us?"
??? When did I make a claim like that?
>??? When did I make a claim like that?
Then how are they relevant to what I said?
Ben,
Here's what you said:
"What kind "benevolent deity”? I still come from a Judeo-Christian Tradition that doesn’t believe any Theistic Personalist deity who is a moral agent ?
No such god exists."
I linked a couple of articles from the Catholic church that depict God as both benevolent and personal. That was in direct response to what you said. I didn't say anything about God being obligated to humans, or even about God being a moral agent (although I still believe he must be conceived as a moral agent if you think he is the maker of this world).
@Skept
>What kind "benevolent deity”?
Straight forward question. Benevolent in the classic sense(i.e. gratuetously)? Or... Benevolent in the moral agent sense(i.e. is obligated to give specific goods to His creatures)?
Still haven't been paying attention eh?
>I still come from a Judeo-Christian Tradition that doesn’t believe any Theistic Personalist deity who is a moral agent ?
>No such god exists."
Amen!
>I linked a couple of articles from the Catholic church that depict God as both benevolent and personal.
Without taking the classic definitions of how Classic Theism understands "benevolent" & "personal" into account and equivocating them with your own unstated pet definitions?
That is an intelligent response how again? Or does it just serve as further proof you are in your thinking a hardcore Fundamentalist?
>That was in direct response to what you said.
It is no better then a "Do you still beat your wife/dog/pet Hippo?" response.
>I didn't say anything about God being obligated to humans, or even about God being a moral agent.
So your response lacks intelligent content and is a mere sophistry?
>(although I still believe he must be conceived as a moral agent if you think he is the maker of this world).
Based on what? Your personal definition of what a "moral agent" is or the classic definition?
Do you not realize that argument by re-defining your opponent actual views is nothing more than Straw man arguement?
Do you really not understand that?
Really Skept how stupid are you?
This further proves the intellectual inferiority of the Gnu Atheism.
Argument by re-defining your opponent's views!
A rational & logical Atheist who knows philosophy would not be caught dead making so stupid an argument.
Really Skept do you not get any of this?
"Argument by re-defining your opponent's views!"
Ben,
I use definitions of words that agree with what most people use. If you want to redefine the English language to be compatible with your beliefs, then you should at least provide the definitions you are using.
Benevolent:
- marked by or disposed to doing good
- marked by or suggestive of goodwill
personal:
- of, relating to, or affecting a particular person : private, individual
- relating to an individual or an individual's character, conduct, motives, or private affairs often in an offensive manner
- being rational and self-conscious
- having the qualities of a person rather than a thing or abstraction
Now, I am not completely ignorant of the classic theists' views: God is not a "being" that exists among beings - or a person having the attributes of an anthropomorphic being. By contrast, a theistic personalist sees God as a person (in a sense that is consistent with the definitions I have provided).
I'm also aware that classic theists also assert the benevolence of God - that is to say that God wants what is good for us (his creation). This, too, is consistent with the definitions I have provided.
If you don't agree with these observations, please give me some idea what definitions you use and how they relate to your view of classic theism. I'm willing to listen.
>I use definitions of words that agree with what most people use.
So you are justifying arguing a straw man!
> If you want to redefine the English language to be compatible with your beliefs, then you should at least provide the definitions you are using.
So how are you any different from a Young Earth Creationist Fundamentalist who makes up his own definitions of terminology used in biology or uses popular definitions vs using the actual technical definitions used in biological science?
Skept you are fundamentally irrational. Thus even if no god concepts are true you have zero hope of ever presenting a coherent intelligent argument for that fact.
>If you don't agree with these observations, please give me some idea what definitions you use and how they relate to your view of classic theism. I'm willing to listen.
Clearly not since you profess to know the difference yet choose not to argue based on the knowledge you claim to have.
Thus you are either stupid or dishonest.
Most likely both.
"What do the Jews have to say about these prophesies?"
Totally irrelevant to me. Ask a Jew. I have neither need nor wish to defend another faith's beliefs.
"Totally irrelevant to me."
I thought so. You speak of traditional interpretation, but it is their book, so to be fair, your "traditional" interpretation of it is irrelevant.
"but it is their book"
It is equally the book of all Christians, who have at least an equal right to primacy in interpretation. Don't forget, Jesus was a Jew. His Mother and stepfather were Jewish. All the apostles (to include Paul) were Jews. Every New Testament writer with the exception of Luke was a Jew. The first generation of Christians were predominately Jews.
Whenever "the scriptures" are referenced in the New Testament, what they are talking about is what we call the Old Testament. Jesus extensively and pervasively quoted from the Hebrew scriptures (to include from what we today call the Deuterocanonical books). So did Peter, Paul, and the rest of the New Testament writers. The Bible is as much a Christian book as it is a Jewish one, and they have no greater rights to it.
"Traditional" interpretation is as much Christian as it is Jewish, if not more so.
Just noticed my second-to-last sentence had too many pronouns in it. It should have ended "and the Jews have no greater rights to it" for greater clarity.
To the question: ""What do the Jews have to say about these prophesies?"" Plank responds: "Totally irrelevant to me. Ask a Jew. I have neither need nor wish to defend another faith's beliefs."
Bang! The door to an open mind slams shut, thus for a fleeting moment, keeps out the bad and evil influences of a rival and alternative contender to his belief system. In the same way homeschooling shuts out community.
The head flattening irony here is that the Jews, who owned the Old Text in the first place [a product of their time under Mesopotamian captivity and slavery, a book that Christians unashamedly appropriated and brazenly claim as one of their own], have never recognised, acknowledged or accepted one scintilla to this very day in 2014, always knowing that the messiah tale, apparently foretold out of the pages of their Old Testament, was nothing more than a Christian fabrication. It was rejected out of hand then, all those centuries ago, and it is rejected out of hand now, and, for good reason. It is mythic crapola which parasitically appended itself to the Jewish tradition, and like the aggressive parasite it is, sought to kill off its host. And over the centuries, Christianity spared no small measure in trying its damnedest to not only eradicate Judaism, as it sought to do in Spain, Portugal and elsewhere during the Inquisition, but every other competitive threat to its vision of superstitious supernaturalism.
The other irony which Plank is determined to shut out of his head and a fact that is completely lost to the deluded christian, is that after 600 years of Christian domination in the Middle East, Islam knew right from its beginning that the Christian fable was mythological crapola. They rejected it, turned their back on it and wrote their own make-believe stuff that they claim, exactly as Christians claim about their own 'divine revelation', apparently comes direct from the horse's mouth of the same Abrahamic gelding.
To start a religion, you only need a name:
Muhammad ................[fill in the story]
Angel Moroni .... .........[fill in the story]
Jesus ......................... [fill in the story]
Xenu ...........................[fill in the story]
Society are slowly waking up to the proposition that religious belief is founded largely on a delusion. As the level of education and learning increases the average Jill and Joe in the street are realising that religion is just another domain of human culture, not superhuman one, not a supernatural one, not even an independent one. Religion is the dependent variable [witness the thousands of religions extant] to the independent variables of everyday social, cultural and physical reality.
And this realization is a very good thing.
Speaking of persons who might belong in a mental institution......
St. Richard D's home for narcissistic gym teachers and confused Kangaroos could do them wonders!
I'm on the Board.
Of course, Ben. Anyone who espouses something different from your dogmatic views - Lock 'em up in an institution.
"but it is [the Jews’] book"
"It is equally the book of all Christians, who have at least an equal right to primacy in interpretation."
As socio-religious phenomena, both modern Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity are developments of, are elaborations upon, the Judaism of the 1st Century Pharisees. Further, a not insignificant portion of modern Judaism is a development in opposition to Christianity … “The say ‘this’, so we’ll say ‘that’!”
Ben,
I do often find it difficult to follow what you write, but that is more to do with your communication skills than with my comprehension skills.
Your posts confirm my criticism that you argue from authority, so your arguments are fallacious. Your "argument" amounts to saying "I'm right because someone else says so - nah nah nanah nah!" That, as I observed to PL is not an argument at all.
This leads me to my next point.
But what part of "I am Catholic" do you still not understand here dearie?
Comments like these illustrate a complete misunderstanding by you of my purpose on this thread. Although I address posts to you, I do not post with the aim of persuading you to change your views, so it is a matter of complete indifference to me that you do not find my arguments persuasive. My aim on this site is to give you enough rope so that you can hang yourself (which so far you have always obligingly done). My target audience is those intelligent enough and open-minded enough to see your intellectual bankruptcy. Those who can't see it - that's their problem. So, what part of "atheist" do you not understand Ben? Obviously I am not going to be restricting my arguments to those that happen to fit within your Catholic fundamentalism.
Conservative Christians have traditionally interpreted all scripture (including Deuteronomy) literally. Copan (& his kind) are a departure from that literalist tradition in that he says that the texts do not say what they seem to but require further (convoluted) interpretation. The old-style conservative got their inerrant bible, but at the price of having to swallow the bitter pill of a cruel God along with it. The new-style conservative, like Copan, jettisons the cruel God and retains a bible which is inerrant, sort of, but at the price of implausibility. Swings and roundabouts.
What you say about the constitution of the USSR is irrelevant. The USSR constitution was not intended to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically! It was intended to be interpreted by onlookers absolutely at its face value! The fact that the government never intended to honour it, cynically putting it up as a front to cover their autocracy, in no way establishes that it was intended to be read any way other than literally.
But to answer your earlier question, yes Ben, I do have a life & I think I have now spent quite enough of it on this thread.
You may now have the last word, if you wish.
Don't waste it.
>Of course, Ben. Anyone who espouses something different from your dogmatic views - Lock 'em up in an institution.
Unless you believe there can be institutions for mentally unstable Kangaroos then it is self evident I am not serious. If you think otherwise then that is your problem quite indpendent of your views on ultimate reality. In which case I would recommend a good psyhiatrist.
Then their is your weird belief you can argue by redefining your opponent's accepted termonology.......
You are clearly nuts for reasons that have little to do with denial of particular god concepts,
@Francis
>I do often find it difficult to follow what you write, but that is more to do with your communication skills than with my comprehension skills.
Maybe, to be fair..
>Your posts confirm my criticism that you argue from authority, so your arguments are fallacious. Your "argument" amounts to saying "I'm right because someone else says so - nah nah nanah nah!" That, as I observed to PL is not an argument at all.
Rather Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox and Ancient Jews believed Scripture requires authority to read an interpret because it is not clear and perspicuous.
The Perspicuity Doctrine is Luther's contrivance and your kneejerk employment of it makes all your Biblical objections non-starters. For example.
>What you say about the constitution of the USSR is irrelevant.
Rather it is a deadly counter-example to your neo-Protestant Perspicuity Mishigoss.
>The USSR constitution was not intended to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically! It was intended to be interpreted by onlookers absolutely at its face value!
Literally by what Standard? Literally by western post Enlightenment John Stuart Mill political philosophy in which case there would have been religious liberty as you and I know it in the west? Or, literally by a hermunetic of Marxist Dialectical Materialist political philosophy which means Elderly Priests may perform the divine liturgy as long as they keep quite about it and die out?
>The fact that the government never intended to honour it, cynically putting it up as a front to cover their autocracy, in no way establishes that it was intended to be read any way other than literally.
Sorry no but that article is literally true according to dialectic materialism. Literally you can in your head believe what you want and the Russian Orthodox Church can perform the divine liturgy.
But it seems to me a Communist document should be read via the lens of Communist philosophy not western John Stewart Mill post enlightenment principles.
Just as the OT should be read in light of Halakkah, Traditiona and Authority which tells us the women who pulls the guy's balls off pays a fine. Not Neo-Lutheranism, Christian or your weird Atheist version.
How do you not get this?
>Conservative Christians have traditionally interpreted all scripture (including Deuteronomy) literally.
False! Augustine did not interpret Genesis One literally but Genesis 2:5. Many who did believe in it literally, believed God did not create literal light but spiritual light when He said "Let there be Light" etc....
There are hundreds of examples in Christian and Jewish literature and commentary from the Rabbis to the Church Fathers. Too many to list.
I am sorry dearie but your Perspicuity dogma was unknown among the ancients. Even the Reformers didn't take everything literally in spite of mandating they had too (example James 2:24).
My dear all you have done is fout your own ignorance. Nothing more.
Son-of-Confusion: "Rather Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox and Ancient Jews believed Scripture requires authority to read an interpret because it is not clear and perspicous."
Translation: From time immemorial, mankind has been hag-ridden by religious "experts" who taught (and sometimes backed the teaching with the sword), "You don't know enough and/or you aren't pure enough to approach The Divine yourself ... you must pay us to do it for you", and ancient Judaism was no exception to the rule. In fact, in 1st century Judaism, there were at least two classes of "experts" interposing themselves between men and God: the official priests of the Temple and the party of the Pharisees, of whom, ironically, the original impetus was to cut-through the priest-craft and temple ritual that stood as a barrier between Jews and God, so as to allow men to approach God themselves (the Christian principle "the priesthood of all believers" is but a re-statement of the Pharisees' principle that "all Jews are priests").
Then, following the common trajectory of human history, and even though the NT scriptures explicitly teach that men can approach God directly -- even though the NT scriptures explicitly teach that Christ, who is God-the-Son, is the sole intermediary between men and God-the-Father -- there arose within Christianity a class of "experts" who taught (and sometimes backed the teaching with the sword), "You don't know enough and/or you aren't pure enough to approach The Divine yourself ... you must pay us to do it for you".
Son-of-Confusion: "The Perspecuity Doctrine is Luther's contrivance ..."
Translation: And then Jesus H. Christ, that trouble-maker, came along ... and threw Tradition out on its head.
=============
Rah-Rahs do love their straw-men, don't they?
llion
Technically Jesus threw out traditions of men which would condemn things like Perspicuity and Sola Scriptura which you lot made up about 500 years ago.
He had no problem with Tradition per say 2 Thes 2:15, 3:6.
Of course you are a Protestant so I expect you to be a Sola Scriptura believer.
What galls me is Atheists who are sola scriptura believers.
That makes about as much sense as a Metaphysical Naturalist who is also a Molinist or an Atheist Idealist who believes in Transubstantiation?
I mean like why???????
Silly people.
Take care Son-of-puts-dashes-in-his-posts-way-too-much.
I think I can see where Ilion's confusion is coming from here, but there is no way I could cover it adequately in a blog post.
Ilion,
The Church described in the New Testament and in the works of the Early Church Fathers clearly matches the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. It's not just a score or more of "proof verses", it's also the general tenor of the entire Gospels (all four of them) and the letters. That, plus the undeniable historical fact that the Catholic Church is none other than that which was personally founded by Jesus Christ, and which has an unbroken authoritative apostolic linkage down to the present day - something which no Protestant sect can claim. We all know their very human founders and the very late dates of their founding.
I have, in general, no quarrel with you Ilion, but I think you are very wrong on this one point.
By the way, you never commented on my definition of sola scriptura (March 17th, 9:45 AM, in this conversation) when you challenged me to come up with one.
Correction:
I think I meant to say Thomas Pane not John Stewart Mill?
Sorry I just had that Monty Python Song in my head when I responded to Francis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b7r5jIEe9s
PL: "By the way, you never commented on my definition of sola scriptura (March 17th, 9:45 AM, in this conversation) when you challenged me to come up with one."
I challenged you? And here I thought I was just trying to determine whether you have any understanding at all of what you are denying.
As I may have mentioned a time or two, currently I have limited internet access. During the week, just my lunch hour. On the weekends, just the time I take from the tasks I *should* be doing (like, trying to repair the water-damage to my house). When one considers that my first priority (on the internet) is to read and consider other's thoughts before posting my own, plus that I don't type all that fast, one ought to be surprised that I find the time to post anything at all.
... as an example of how "behind" I am on posting comments: I still haven't finished composing a response to 'Nick J' on my blog concerning his incoherent denial of free-will.
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