mitchellmckain said:
I too, in the past, have come to the conclusion that the other person was playing games of some sort. However, nothing subsequently occured to change this conclusion. But I have no way of knowing whether this was actually intentional or that we just could not find a way of communicating with each other. Few people realize that just because two people speak English does not mean that they speak the same language.
You can stop now with the niceties. I don't want to puke, okay.
In the following response, I am going to ask you a ton of questions. You can answer whichever of them you want but don't lose sight of the fact that the questions are designed not to insult you but rather to show you how you are contradicting yourself all over the place. I fully expect for you not to see it, but that is irrelevant as you are not the only one who will be reading this post.
Well I envision terrible difficulties between us in your determination to pursue that effort. But do remember that I have qualified that statement somewhat to say that it is only that most (not all) things cannot be proven.
What can be proven then?
Is your position that most things cannot be proven, one of the things that cannot be proven?
But please consider comparing what you are saying here to the fact that it has been absolutely mathematically proven that it is impossible to prove that mathematics is consistent.
Impossible. Please tell me that you can see the circularity in this ridiculous statement. If a means of proof has been shown unreliable then any "proof" which uses that means is moot.
I'm going to ask you a very simple question. If you get the answer wrong in even the slightest degree, or you refuse to directly answer it for any reason whatsoever, our discussion will over.
Is "2+2=4" a true of false statement?
I would consider that impossible.
Why should I care about what you consider to be impossible?
Is your subjective truth somehow superior to someone else's who might disagree with you?
Scripture cannot be read without understanding the words.
Quite right! Notice how inside of a single paragraph you contradict this very statement.
And words only have meaning in the context of the totality of our experiences in life.
Did you actually intend to suggest that what the Bible means depends on our personal experience?
I therefore, consider it essential to "sound reason" that one must not pretend that this is not the case but in fact realize that all that we learn and experience in this gift from God that we call life are part of the tools that we must use in understanding the meaning of scripture.
Again, why in the world would I give a rip about what you consider to be essential? Is your admittedly subjective opinions more trustworthy than mine? If not, then on what basis should I care to change mine to be in agreement with yours? How do you know that it shouldn't be the other way around?
Scripture itself is the only thing with authority, our understanding of scriture has no authority whatsoever.
But you just got through saying that you cannot read Scripture without understanding the words!!!!
I marvel at how people can so blatantly contradict themselves without even realizing they've done so!
It is the concepts communicated by the words of Scripture that are authoritative, not the grammatical words themselves. I, for example, have no allegiance to the word "love" but rather to the concept which that word communicates; I have no duty to the word "Jesus" but to Him whom the word Jesus signifies. I don't get to just make up what these words mean and their definition don't have anything to do with me, whatsoever. Words mean things and idea have consequences and they do so completely separate from anything I think or understand about them. I might be an absolute idiot and insist that blue is actually orange. But I would be wrong!
And that's actually a very important point Mitchel. It's not that I would merely be of an opposing opinion concerning what the word "blue" means; it's that I would be wrong - period. It's not up to me what blue is. It's not a matter of opinion. Blue is blue and blue is not orange and that would remain the case whether I knew any different or not. Indeed, it would remain the case whether or not I even existed! It just flat out isn't up to me!
(In case you missed the real point of what I just said, replace the words "blue" and "orange" with "good" and "evil"; "right" and "wrong"; "true" and "false"; "righteous" and "wicked". Such things are very simply not matters of opinion but of objective truth.)
By faith, pure and simple. The Bible itself calls us to that faith. Not very logical is it? Logic will not help you here. Reason and logic are only tools, to make them your master is foolish.
This is a lie and I find it repulsively insulting and blasphemous. The Bible never calls us to simply believe without reason or evidence - ever. You would be more at home in the Mid-evil Catholic church than in Biblical Christianity. Such nonsense is precisely how things like the Inquisition and Papal Edicts and Indulgences were permitted to go on for so long.
By the way, all of those things I just listed, were all argued from the pages of Scripture. How do you know that they were wrong? Do you know that they were wrong or isn't that included in the things that can be proven? Is the opinion of the Pope any less valid than yours?
Faith is an important factor in all knowlege - ALL knowledge.
This comment show the depths of your ignorance on this topic. (Not that I'm much of an expert myself really.)
First of all with your understanding of the word "faith", which has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bible or Christianity, faith can have nothing to do with knowledge at all. And so as stated, you're comment is purely false. However, even if your understanding of faith bore some resemblance to the Biblical concept of faith, it would still fall far short of the actual truth, for faith is not just a factor in all knowledge, it is the very foundation of it.
There is far too much on this to get into here but suffice it to say that you just tripped over the tip of a very huge ice-burg, the base of which has to do with how any of us can know anything at all.
Because uncertainty is basic fact of human existence.
Uncertainly is a basic fact of existence of the unbeliever only. It is incredible to me the ground which you are willing to just forfeit to the unbeliever without cause. I realize that you don't have any idea that you've done so; nor do you have a clue what I'm even talking about but nevertheless, this statement of yours belongs in the mouths of atheists, not Christians.
In order not to be paralyzed by that uncertainty, we make a choice to put our faith in certain things and live our lives as if they were true despite uncertainty.
And so you openly proclaim that faith is simply blind belief. That we have no real confidence that our belief is in anything objectively real. What a pathetic excuse for Christianity your theology is.
It is not the same as just guessing, because faith often creates what we have faith in.
So now it's our faith which creates God! You cannot possibly believe this stuff!
Love is one of the most obvious examples. We cannot love unless we put our faith in love, but that very faith creates the very love in which we put our faith.
You can't even state with certainty that love exists!
How is it possible that you don't detect such blatant contradictions within your own worldview?
Trust is similar. It is one of the essential messages of Christianity that the faith we have in salvation through Christ is the same. Our very faith in salvation plays a role in creating it. Don't get me wrong here. Salvation is a work of God alone. But its essence is a relationship with God and unless we believe and have faith in that relationship then it cannot exist.
So which comes first? Our faith of the object of our faith? And since when are we to have faith in a relationship? We are to trust God, not in our relationship with Him! In fact, our relationship with Him is built upon our trust in Him. It is not, nor could it conceivably be, the other way around.
I seriously do not understand how you can be content to continue living with such blatant irrationality!
Obviously you have a great antipathy for the word opinion which I do not share. So let me short-circuit all this hostility and an explain my opinion in regards to this matter.
Two things...
What hostility?
Who cares what your opinion is in regards to this matter? Is your opinion superior to mine? If not, then on what basis should I (or anyone) change their opinions to more closely match yours?
I would guess that one of the difference between the way we think is that my thinking is largely phenomenological. In other words my understanding of reality refuses to ignore how that reality is perceived.
"Perception is reality." is that it?
Is that only your perception or is that really the way things are?
Thus it is my thinking that human experience of existence is primarily subjective. This idea of that which is objective is an abstract construction derived from the confirmation that certain aspects of our experience are shared by others.
How did you not just prove your own position completely wrong?
You place your hand on a lit stove and you will get burned. It makes no difference who you are; it's not a random phenomena, it's not a matter of opinion, it's not a matter of desire or of state of mind. No matter how many times you place your hand in the fire, it gets burned.
This is the principle of induction and it works with or without your agreement with it. Everything you know, you know because this principle works and is universal. A fact, by the way, which gives us insight into the sort of God we worship and which categorically proves your "perception is reality" thesis to be quite false.
Science restricts itself to this abstract construction alone by requiring all observations, by which it tests its hypotheses, to be confirmed by the observations of others. However, I think that it is clear that this methodology excludes a great deal of reality, imposing upon the scientific view of the world a rather severe sort of tunnel vision. In other word, I firmly believe that their are aspects of reality which are NOT objectively observable. God is one of these things.
God must be presupposed in order for any observation to be made in the first place. Again, this is delving into aspects of epistemology which we are seemingly light-years away from being in a position to meaningfully discuss. Suffice it to say for now, that you, by your own words, don't
know anything.
Atheists love to get their opponents to accept the presumption that only that which is objective is worth consideration, because then they have all the advantages including being able justify the conclusion that science is the only valid means for discovering the truth. But I certainly would not grant them any such thing.
You've granted them so much more than that it's almost indescribable! You've given away the whole store and don't even know it! Fortunately for you, most atheists wouldn't see it either.
Well this is a slightly different use of the word objectivity, but I think it is still a mistake to use it in this context. Objectivity is an ideal to strive for when making public decisions and when mediating between people. But I don't think this is the word you want to use in understanding the totality of reality. Ones personal experience and feelings are not irrelevant when considering ones relationship with God.
I keep saying this but once again, how can you live with such blatantly self-refuting positions? Do you really not see how you just contradicted yourself? Maybe the following question will cause you to see it...
Is the following statement objectively true or is it just your opinion...
"Ones personal experience and feelings are not irrelevant when considering ones relationship with God."
Frankly I cannot see that using this word in this context as anything but a barely veiled pretext for disparaging other peoples points of view.
I do not veil my disparagement of others. If they are wrong, I tell them so plainly and without pretense.
Also, would you agree that my use of the word in that context was either a barely veiled pretext of the disparaging of other people's points of view or it was not? In other words, does you opinion one way or the other change whether or not it is actually true? Are my motives for the use of that word in that context a matter of opinion or are my motives what they are in spite of anyone's opinions? In other words, is your perception of my motivations have any effect on what my motives actually are?
I typically hear atheists do this, so I suspect you have been learning from the wrong teachers.
This is funny. I don't know which atheists you've been talking with but the one's on this website would eat your worldview for lunch.
And chocolate is superior to vanilla. Get real. People say things like this in order to give their preference some absolute validity.
No, they say things like what you've just said to do that. People state truth claims all the time. It is only when people pretend that all truth claims are actually nothing more than mere opinions that they attempting to give their preference some absolute validity.
I don't expect for you to even understand that last sentence but it actually does a pretty could job of communicated just exactly how it is that you are continuously contradicting yourself.
It makes a fundmental confusion between yourself and God. Everything in the world does not line up on a single linear scale to judge according to what is better than the other. The objective has its merits and the subjective has its merits.
You simply don't know what you're talking about. God (i.e. truth) is the only scale by which anything is judged - anything.
Calling something opionion doesn't make it false and calling something fact doesn't make it true.
Umm, that's my line!
I never said, or even suggested that opinions are necessarily false. Even broken clocks are right twice a day! I simply stated that facts trump opinions and they do! If you think they don't then be prepared to answer me when I ask whether or not your insistence to the contrary is itself factually true or merely your opinion.
And there is a difference between the proper use of reason and stupidly limiting yourself to reason alone, completely blind to fact that reason relies on premises which reason cannot supply.
I do not limit myself to reason alone. Did I not plainly state that I rely on Scripture AND sound reason? The two must be taken together. Scripture without sound reason is meaningless because it can be made to mean literally anything. Reason without Scripture has no foundation and breaks down into meaningless, self-refuting circularity. Together, however, they are the very foundation of all knowledge and understanding; a rock which cannot be moved. How amazingly fitting that the Bible declares Christ to be the very Logos of God! He is the very personification and indeed the physical incarnation of reason, wisdom, understanding and knowledge, without whom there would be nothing to know nor anyway to know it.
A large part of our misunderstanding has do with your attitude that you have the right to dictate how the Bible must interpreted let alone tell me what my own thoughts must be. Jesus was clearly an example to be followed and you are being heretical in your rejection of this aspect of the Christian experience. So this lunatic is calling you a heretic!
You are a hypocrite. You accuse my of veiled hostility and then a few sentences later intentionally mischaracterize what I've said in this manner. Where did I ever say that I get to dictate anything to anyone? Where did I make the argument that what I think matters? Have I not been arguing just the exact opposite? My
opinions don't mean dittly squat! What matters is what can be demonstrated to be the objective truth, which you deny even exists for the most part! Who's dictating to whom, here? You are the one who supports the notion that perception is reality; you are the one that says that a particular person's opinions matter; you are the one who says we must all do what is right in our own eyes! NOT ME!!! I'm the one who is here telling you that truth doesn't have anything to do with what we say! Do a search and find out who the poster is here on TOL who most frequently states that "Saying it doesn't make it so!" I can promise you that it aint you! It's just laughable that you are able to flip the whole discussion on its head like this and accuse me of being the one who is being subjective here as though I'm the one who gets to decide what is and is not a valid means of interpreting the Bible. What is valid and what is not has nothing to do with my opinion nor do I get to dictate what it is to anyone. What is valid is valid and in this case that just so happens to be the plain reading of Scripture and sound reason. That would be the only valid means of determining doctrinal truth whether I agreed with it or not. Thus is the nature of objective truth.
Resting in Him,
Clete
who knows, you might like lee?? That little kiddy Little flaming smiley face kept me from getting too mad at him for some reason.
