Cutting the Judas cradle out of the LGB flag

[JoshuaD]

*You* can't imagine.

That universe wouldn't make any sense at all for *you.*

There isn't a coherent philosophy which accepts the principle of sufficient reason and that our senses have the ability to know reality, which doesn't also necessarily conclude there is a God.  It's not a question of me or anyone else. As far as I know, it's just how it is. If you think that's wrong, great, show it to me I'd like to see that philosophy.

Hume rejected causality and the senses and built a coherent philosophy which was non-theistic. His thing isn't contrary to reason, but it doesn't have causality or knowledge about reality through the senses. It's a stilted little thing that denies virtually everything, even the philosophical basis for modern science.

You do understand that we are not all beholden to follow your Philosophy 101 arguments combined with your religious mindset arguments on this, yes? You can have all the faith you want, and I get it, religion requires believing things without proof. This kind of just declaring things because you said so and God obviously wills it is just the world's oldest version of *censored* posting.

You're not beholden to what I say, but you are beholden to reality and reason, whether you want to be or not. I don't care if you don't want to believe me. You've had a chip on your shoulder about me for years and as a result I largely don't bother talking to you about stuff. If you don't find my arguments compelling or you think they are philosophy 101 and that you're smarter than all of the philosophers who came before us, OK go on and believe that. I don't care. You're wrong, your ideas are incoherent, and you're totally welcome to continue to delude yourself about that for as long as you'd like.

[DJQuag]

Josh, the only chip I ever had was that you were a Catholic and just didn't acknowledge it. You hold all of the same beliefs, all of the same arguments, if it looks like a duck etc.

I have good friends who believe some pretty insane *censored* but we're still friends. My Muslim friend trying to show me Muslim beliefs never tries to say they are not Muslim. They own it. And then we agree to disagree and go along, much as Pete and I do.

[DJQuag]

You can say my ideas are deluded, but your backup is God. And no one can deny God. Everyone take that as you will.

[Fenring]

Btw, the *censored*ing problem with people trying to argue with the religious nuts about what their God wants or doesn't want, it's that GOD IS FICTIONAL.

You may find that arguing with anyone who's nuts about any topic is not going to get you very far. Blaming the topic doesn't make much sense.

[JoshuaD]

Josh, the only chip I ever had was that you were a Catholic and just didn't acknowledge it.

I was always very clear and honest with you and others on that topic. You wanted to dismiss my arguments as faith-based and I was telling you they couldn't possibly be faith based because I did not have faith in scripture at that time. Reason isn't Catholic or Muslim or Atheistic. It is universal. My arguments for the existence of God are rooted in natural reason and not in Catholic scripture. This is evidenced by the fact that Aristotle, a pagan, discovered the arguments I find compelling.

I have good friends who believe some pretty insane *censored* but we're still friends. My Muslim friend trying to show me Muslim beliefs never tries to say they are not Muslim. They own it. And then we agree to disagree and go along, much as Pete and I do.

I don't "agree to disagree" with my friends on important topics. That's not an act of friendship.

[Tom]

Homosexuality is evil.

Is it evil, or is it a sin? There's a practical and semantic difference.

I can't imagine a Universe like this one that doesn't have God.

I'm sure you can. In fact, as a non-theist Buddhist, you did. For years.

--------

There isn't a coherent philosophy which accepts the principle of sufficient reason and that our senses have the ability to know reality, which doesn't also necessarily conclude there is a God.

We've been over this. You are flat-out wrong about this, and any freshman-level philosophy student can give you the necessary citations. What you mean is "there isn't a coherent philosophy I am comfortable with..." -- but that's a very different assertion, as there is not as far as I know any logical requirement that you be comfortable with the universe.

[JoshuaD]

Homosexuality is evil.

Is it evil, or is it a sin? There's a practical and semantic difference.

It is a moral evil, which is the same as saying it is a sin. There is no practical or semantic difference between me saying "it is evil" and "it is a sin". If I want to talk about natural evil (like a tree dying of its own accord) I'll specify natural evil.  When I say "that act is evil" I mean it in the moral sense, which is the common usage of the phrase.

I can't imagine a Universe like this one that doesn't have God.

I'm sure you can. In fact, as a non-theist Buddhist, you did. For years.

No, I didn't. I did not have a coherent worldview. My first move away from Buddhism was to see that its metaphysics was failed. I had accepted that there was some coherence to those ideas, and upon investigation I ultimately saw that there was not. They have a Heraclitus-like view of change being the only reality, and a reductionist view of composite things being fundamentally illusory. Both ideas fail and are incoherent. In addition, the Buddhists assert a strong agnosticism and Aristotle (among others) show us that we can know God exists.

Buddhist meditation practices are awesome. They changed my life and I still use them. Buddhists are great at telling you how to tame your own mind and find some balance.  They're sort of like great blue-collar household electricians: they are very good at running wires for electricity but they have some wonky ideas about how electricity actually works.  As it relates to developing inner peace, I love Buddhist meditation. As it relates to understanding reality in a fundamental way, Buddhist philosophy fails.

There isn't a coherent philosophy which accepts the principle of sufficient reason and that our senses have the ability to know reality, which doesn't also necessarily conclude there is a God.

We've been over this. You are flat-out wrong about this, and any freshman-level philosophy student can give you the necessary citations. What you mean is "there isn't a coherent philosophy I am comfortable with..." -- but that's a very different assertion, as there is not as far as I know any logical requirement that you be comfortable with the universe.

We haven't been over this. You've just said things like "metaphysics **shudder**" and expressed a personal distaste for the things I've said. You haven't offered any refutation or alternative coherent idea. When you've presented your own idea, it fails to offer any sort of fundamental explanation at all. Putting aside whether it's true or not, in terms of its scope, your argument is talking about some intermediary causation.

You and everyone else keep asserting that my views are refuted by freshman level science. I think perhaps the reason you guys are confused about that is because freshman-level philosophy teachers who have never read these ideas like to tell students that the ideas are refuted. They are not. Provide the citation and I'll tell you why it's wrong.

Show me the philosophy that has refuted the rational theism I have presented and I'll show you that it is either incoherent or rooted in the ideas of Hume. Hume isn't incoherent. Given his rejection the senses and causation, his views are rational. They're also blind and incompatible with your views regarding science.

[Tom]

There is no practical or semantic difference between me saying "it is evil" and "it is a sin".

While you might not use the words to mean different things, you recognize that most theologians -- including most Catholic theologians -- do?

I did not have a coherent worldview.

There is a difference, I submit, between not being able to imagine something and not being able to imagine something that is also logically coherent. You were able to imagine living in a world without God just fine until you came to believe that it was a logical necessity.

You and everyone else keep asserting that my views are refuted by freshman level science.

Freshman-level philosophy. It is very, very obvious that you have not made a formal study of philosophy, but think that you understand it. Moreover, you are very emotionally invested in your conclusions and as a consequence are a bit fragile when discussing them, which makes it a tad difficult/frustrating to help you.

Show me the philosophy that has refuted the rational theism I have presented and I'll show you that it is either incoherent or rooted in the ideas of Hume.

How are you choosing to define "coherent?" Remember, I thoroughly reject Aristotle's blathering, so anything that's going to try to appeal to that sort of root is going to fail before it gets started.

[JoshuaD]

Josh: There is no practical or semantic difference between me saying "it is evil" and "it is a sin".
Tom: While you might not use the words to mean different things, you recognize that most theologians -- including most Catholic theologians -- do?

There is a distinction between natural evil and moral evil as I've told you earlier in this thread and in the other threads we've discussed this topic. If someone is drawing a distinction between natural evil and moral evil, they tend to be explicit about it. It is perfectly common to refer to an act as "evil" and have it be implied to mean moral evil, as I did in the response you're nitpicking. As I said, there is no distinction in Catholic theology between moral evil and a sin.  There is no sin in being same-sex attracted. The act of homosexual sex (or homosexual fantasy and so on) is sinful.

JoshuaD: [When I was Buddhist] I did not have a coherent worldview.
Tom: There is a difference, I submit, between not being able to imagine something and not being able to imagine something that is also logically coherent. You were able to imagine living in a world without God just fine until you came to believe that it was a logical necessity.

No. For example, I can say "a triangle has three sides" and then later say "a triangle has four sides" and think that I can imagine that, but I cannot imagine it. We cannot imagine paradoxical things. We cannot render an object in our mind that has both three sides and four sides simultaneously.

In the same way, I thought my worldview was coherent, but it was not. As another example, you think you can imagine an atheistic universe which is strictly materialistic and deterministic and has objective morality, but you cannot. The ideas of determinism and morality are mutually exclusive. The compatabilists who argue otherwise are wrong. They just redefine morality to mean something completely different. 

Tom: You are flat-out wrong about this, and any freshman-level philosophy student can give you the necessary citations
Josh: You and everyone else keep asserting that my views are refuted by freshman level science.
Tom: Freshman-level philosophy.

Lol, yes. I note you nitpick an obvious typo but still fail to provide the "necessary citations" that you claim any freshman level philosophy student can provide. Send the citations, but more importantly, please offer an actual response. You haven't presented any intellectual criticism of the ideas I've put forward. Rather you consistently appeal to unnamed authorities, you call my ideas out-dated, and you offer personal disgust or negative feelings about it. You haven't demonstrated any sense that you understand the ideas I've put forward and you certainly haven't offered anything even resembling a counter-argument.

Moreover, you have repeatedly failed to respond to the criticisms I have made of your materialist philosophy. Whenever you are presented with a particularly stumpful post, you use one of your many rhetorical tricks to avoid responding. One of my favorites is to pick one point and highlight it and make an obfuscating response that will take a number of back-and-forths to untangle, while implicitly suggesting that you will return to the other points later. Then never doing so.

Tom:It is very, very obvious that you have not made a formal study of philosophy, but think that you understand it. Moreover, you are very emotionally invested in your conclusions and as a consequence are a bit fragile when discussing them, which makes it a tad difficult/frustrating to help you.

This is what they call projection friend.

Tom: How are you choosing to define "coherent?

Not self-contradictory. Hume's ides are wrong, but they do not self-contradict. My views do not have any self-contradiction. Yours do, as I've outlined at least a handful of times here in other threads. Also, mapping to reality.

Josh: Show me the philosophy that has refuted the rational theism I have presented and I'll show you that it is either incoherent or rooted in the ideas of Hume.

Tom: How are you choosing to define "coherent?" Remember, I thoroughly reject Aristotle's blathering, so anything that's going to try to appeal to that sort of root is going to fail before it gets started.

A perfect example of A. one of the rhetorical maneuvers I mentioned above, and B. a rejection of an idea based on a personal bias with a sprinkling of insults.

[Ephrem Moseley]

*You* can't imagine.

That universe wouldn't make any sense at all for *you.*

You do understand that we are not all beholden to follow your Philosophy 101 arguments combined with your religious mindset arguments on this, yes? You can have all the faith you want, and I get it, religion requires believing things without proof. This kind of just declaring things because you said so and God obviously wills it is just the world's oldest version of *censored* posting.

Hi. I'm Ephrem. I can imagine. I have an outstanding imagination.

In the universe without God, I want there to be a social contract where the only type of culturally accepted sexual activity is inside a marriage and is procreative in nature; note that I'm sterile so I am required to pray for a miracle before I have sex. A miracle happened with Abraham with his wife why can't it happen to me and my wife? Note that all miracles require heteronormativity. That's an important point I'm sure you understand.

Why? Well, I'm pragmatic. I want a world without STDs. I really, really, hate STDs.

Also I hate child trafficking. And prostitution. And pornography.

It's all so easy to fix. "Escape from New York" showed us how.

[Tom]

There is a distinction between natural evil and moral evil as I've told you earlier in this thread and in the other threads we've discussed this topic.

You're anticipating the wrong objection, here. When I speak of theologians generally drawing a functional and semantic distinction between sin and evil, I am still talking about "moral evil" versus "sin." "Evil" is not generally used to simply mean "harm," except in situations like "natural evil," and that's not what we're discussing. "Homosexuality is evil" is not, even to Catholics, considered equivalent to saying "homosexuality is sinful."

there is no distinction in Catholic theology between moral evil and a sin

I know a number of Catholics who would disagree with you; Aquinas isn't the last word on this topic.

you think you can imagine an atheistic universe which is strictly materialistic and deterministic and has objective morality, but you cannot

I assure you that I can, for a given value of both "deterministic" and "objective."

I note you nitpick an obvious typo...

I didn't want to presume that it was a typo; like the difference between "sin" and "evil," I think the distinction between "science" and "metaphysics" is a pretty important one. My objection to your misapplication of philosophy is not based on an assertion that hard science challenges your philosophical claims, but rather that any study of intro-level philosophy does so. You're devoted to a form of metaphysical noodling that simply doesn't hold up to light prodding.

you certainly haven't offered anything even resembling a counter-argument

This is flatly untrue. More accurately, I have offered counterarguments that you refuse to accept because you cannot countenance the implications.

This is what they call projection friend.

I have in fact formally studied philosophy, as I've mentioned several times on this forum. I invite you to refer any other armchair philosophers you know to review our previous threads on this topic and evaluate what I've said; there's nothing there that would surprise them, and I suspect little that they'd find inadequate (depending on their point of view, of course).

I cannot address the fact that you are hopelessly stuck on an outmoded epistemological model except by trying repeatedly (and, frankly, patiently) to point out the widely recognized flaws in that model.

[Ephrem Moseley]

Sin is the inverse of the Tao.

180 degrees away from the Tao is definitely "evil".

How about 1 degree away? It's a sin, but it's so minor that calling it "evil" is probably evil in itself.

[DJQuag]

Josh - "I don't "agree to disagree" with my friends on important topics. That's not an act of friendship."

"I won't be friends with people who disagree with me on spurious things."

Refreshingly honest of you.

[JoshuaD]

Josh - "I don't "agree to disagree" with my friends on important topics. That's not an act of friendship."

"I won't be friends with people who disagree with me on spurious things."

Refreshingly honest of you.

What? When did I say the second thing? Who are you quoting?

[Aris Katsaris]

note that I'm sterile so I am required to pray for a miracle before I have sex.

Have you consulted with your confessor about this? Because it seems to me quite at odds with what I know of Eastern Orthodox teachings, which AFAIK do NOT say that sex is only to be allowed for reproduction.

[DJQuag]

Josh - "I don't "agree to disagree" with my friends on important topics. That's not an act of friendship."

"I won't be friends with people who disagree with me on spurious things."

Refreshingly honest of you.

What? When did I say the second thing? Who are you quoting?

Sorry, I had been talking with Ephrem so perhaps I went in a bit hard.

I'm honestly confused about your statement that you refuse to agree to disagree with people about "important" things.

Let's go with an easy one. Abortion. You're obviously against it, do you have friends who are okay with it? In that circumstance, do you both agree to disagree, and by that basically don't talk about it, because otherwise you couldn't be friends? That's what I'm getting at here. Your original statement seemed to say you couldn't be friends with people who disagree with you. If I'm wrong, I apologise.