I don’t think you are engaging seriously here. AND unlike you, I have some objective evidence to back up my claim. …I am the one spending time to make careful and detailed explanations in response to your questions and you are the one simply being dismissive.
I am deadly serious in everything I have said. I just don’t think like you do. I have already stated one of my firm principles for why this is the case rather clearly…
I don’t make my own experiences the measure of reality itself.
But there are other principles involved…
I don’t believe that reality is exclusively objective. Or in other words, I believe there are irreducibly subjective aspects to reality itself. To be sure many people find this difficult to understand. It is a stance which refutes both extremes: one being the sort of solipsism which claims that reality is a product of the mind and the other extreme which claims reality to be exclusively objective. It acknowledges the excellent evidence science gives us for an objective aspect to reality, while observing that we have no evidence whatsoever that reality is exclusively objective. And the plain fact is that our access to reality is fundamentally subjective while the objective is a abstract construction. Furthermore, there are excellent pragmatic reasons for believing in a subjective aspect to reality, for this refutes going automatically from a conviction about reality to the conclusion that anyone who disagrees with you is detached from reality… which is frankly unreasonable.
That the other person is not engaging seriously here.
It would have been better for you not make such a claim. And I believe it arises from difficulties you are having in understanding my position and nothing else.
If you believe reality is exclusively objective then you believe something for which you have no objective evidence.
I certainly believe there is an objective aspect to reality and there is good objective evidence for that, while there are good pragmatic reasons for believing that reality is not exclusively objective.
Another thing which arises from this is my defense of the epistemological superiority of science while simultaneously observing its inadequacy for the living of ones life. Science consists of objective observation while life consists of subjective participation.
This is not what I am saying, and if you were serious you would avoid this nonsense. Our convictions are just that, ours. Since you start with an assumption that past testimony is insufficient for you, it is unsurprising that you would come to the conclusions you have.
You inference that Christians who believe now should not do so unless we have a repeat of Christ’s works among us today … leaves me speechless… especially in the context of atheists insisting that He does it all again for their benefit. I guess my response may be that atheists are not central nor all that important (although I smile with the thought that Christ may think they are).
But to be serious regarding our objective perceptions provided by science, I will try to illustrate this once again by discussing an important activity in chemistry, that of performing ab initio QM computations of molecular structures. These are as rigorous as it gets, and the result consists of a structure and a list of properties that can be readily checked experimentally. Yet, I challenge anyone to provide any evidence that such a single molecule would or could exist (I may term this a naked molecule as the representation does not include space as we perceive it in the universe).
So, my belief that this exercise provides me with sufficient knowledge to continue my research is unshakable. However a claim that I have an existent would be similar to claiming you want to believe a unicorn, and this should be presented to you in a manner that would be convincing ( know how awkward this analogy reads, but it is as close to suitable response to your objections as I can make).
As to God, I guess this is a good a time as any to state that God’s love and concern for us is so great that He sent His only Son to us for our salvation. This sums up just about everything.
Don’t you think that second bit about atheists’ importance was a little rude? I could be wrong; understanding motivations and intent through text can be difficult for me.
I’ll back up a bit. Maybe I don’t understand your position. I tried to use an example that is practically definitionally non existing: unicorns. And the response that I haven’t been EVERYWHERE in the Universe seems a bit glib. And likewise the remark about Mars. Mars can be observed. It’s position predicted. We can find it. Not so for unicorns. The analogies are a reach and to me it sounds like you are making them to be contrarian.
And objective/subjective… You are saying reality is subjective, but you also made a claim about having objective evidence. I don’t think you can have it both ways. But that’s just me thinking that can be held to some objective standard…
When you say “past testimony” you mean the stories in the bible? But don’t you have similar past testimony from competing religions?
A Christ repeat? No no! I have NOT said ANYTHING about doing anything for my benefit. Absolutely not. I have merely expressed (in honestly maybe fairly vague terms) what I think should be convincing. And you’re right; a god that finds me and my beliefs insignificant would want me to have reasonable evidence. That is a type of god that could then still exist. The other type does not exist.
And for your last sentence; Yes, I understand that that is what you believe. I do know a little about the Christian mythology. And you can say that there must be some good reason that I have not been convinced. If everything goes according to his plan then his plan is for me to have this argument with you.
And another thing about biblical characters, am I a weirdo for thinking Judas is the most awesome guy in the book? Can someone back me up?
Why is that glib? Seem a plain and simple fact to me. You should no more extend a truth about your living room to the whole universe than you should extend the limits of your own personal experience to the experiences of everyone else. I am not saying you should believe whatever anybody says, but only that this is something that must go both ways. Ok, you have reason to doubt whether someone claims they saw a unicorn means that unicorns exist, but at the same time why should the person who saw a unicorn listen to your pontifications about the lack of evidence for the existence of unicorns? By all means go with the evidence you have and YOUR personal experience and tell the person claiming to have seen a unicorn that you have to reserve judgement until you see one for yourself. And as for what they saw or didn’t see (whether prank, schizophrenic hallucination, or some other less likely explanation) that will have to wait until you get more evidence upon which to come to a conclusion.
On the contrary, I specifically refuted the idea that reality is either exclusively subjective or exclusively objective. That is a reality which is big enough for both science (consisting of objective participation) and life (consisting of subjective participation) together.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Jesus loves him and will fix Him just fine, like He will Gestas. So you’re in good company. In fact He’s fixed him already, like the hundred billion dead of hundreds of thousands of years, unless He’s waiting for us to become extinct. We should easily get to a trillion by then. Hundreds. Getting on for a quadrillion. The glorified Earth might need to be a tad bigger.
Well, what I mean is that the betrayal was necessary. I imagine Judas accepted his part knowing it would make him hated because it was needed. And to sacrifice your legacy seems like the ultimate price to pay.
Matthew 23 "but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
I know… I know… I have a plan to make world peace and you just have to do one little thing. Afterwards, I am going to have to torture you eternally and make it better if you had never been born but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
This evil is necessary for good sounds like a Zoastrian invasion of Christianity.
Of course I don’t believe any of that nonsense. It was better if Judas had not been born because what Judas did was evil and the result was not better but worse than otherwise. That is the case with all evil which is done, because evil does not make the world a better place. Of course, a big part of this is because I don’t believe in any black magic power of human sacrifice or that God requires any such thing in order to forgive people. In fact, I don’t believe in any indulgences for sin no matter what voodoo price anybody may pay for it. Jesus demonstrated that forgiveness requires nothing for he constantly said, "your sins are forgiven so go and sin no more.
NOOOO… Jesus did NOT say… Your sins WILL be forgiven IF a human sacrifice of a completely innocent person is made… The point is that which follows… “so go and sin no more.” All that is really important is that we stop it with these self-destructive habits of ours because those are going to drag us down into hell.
You have something in common with some Western New Guinea cannibals last century.
Their highest ideal was to make friends with a warrior in another tribe and get him to trust them, and then betray him and eat him. There was one ideal higher, though, the redemptive allegory mentioned above, and many of them became Christians.
Yep. Have this book on my shelf and have read at least twice… hey maybe its time to read that one again. Its a bit vague but the peace child was a way of bringing peace between two tribes and ending the endless cycle of cannibalistic retaliation… right?
But of course… just because we can turn a cannibalistic ideal and practice into an understanding and conversion to Christianity doesn’t mean there was any ultimate truth to the to original practices of the culture. With Israel surrounded by cultures making animal sacrifices to appease their gods it is understandable that God would turn this practice towards repentance for sins among the Israelites. But it doesn’t follow that God therefore needs blood like some Aztec deity in order to forgive sins.
Yeah, I have no clue where my original copy went. Since I posted that link before, it’s been digitized and is now available electronically. I may have to get it.
That’s the way I remember it, too. The tribes were ready to go to war but both really did not want the missionaries to leave, which they would have if the tribes were warring.
