i'm sorry, did i really need to tell you that? i could have sworn that was the topic of most of your threads.
Do theists have a responsibility for what they preach?
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
i'm sorry, did i really need to tell you that? i could have sworn that was the topic of most of your threads.
The evidence.
Possibly the most persuasive argument you've ever put forward. I'm convinced.
your lack of understanding does not = my irrationality. my apologies to your ego.
Oh! You see...?
Your irrationality comes into play once again.
People running around with strong beliefs about Creators and anything else invisible and extended into more strong beliefs have become immune to being dealt with, and so their input gets ignored, by and large. As a consequence, they are bypassed, both in personal, and political life, but for when the government is the clergy. If they try to protect their strong beliefs too much and war then they become dead as another consequence.
Their investigations into science are affected since they go to religious web sties to get that ‘science’ viewed information, yet science doesn’t originate on those sites, so, on forums and in life their wits are fully unarmed, and it shows, along with their intractability.
One might think that they can reasonably engage, tha they should, they could, and they ought to, yet wisdom then steps in to note that they don’t, they can’t, and they won’t. The recommendation is to ignore them, their attendance not only being a useless wish, but also a waste of time and an impediment to progress.
If she would be truly enlightened, it would rub off on you, without you being able to do anything about it!
You'd just bathe in her light and become enlightened too!
Maybe there's a some sort of TransAtlantic lag...
I'll keep my fingers crossed. Of course, with the world ending tomorrow it may be too late.
Ah well...
Are you sure?
I have to keep putting money into my electricity meter, otherwise the lights definitely go out.
passing the buck again.
you remind me of my ex-husband. he had someone to blame for EVERYTHING. i finally got so sick of hearing his fucking excuses that i confronted him and said, "do you really expect me to believe that you have absolutely no control over your own life or anything that happens to you? are you really THAT powerless and useless?"
i think that was the only time that whiney little bitch ever shut the fuck up.
You're starting to sound a lot like a troll. My advice, grow a pair and take responsibility for yourself.
Really?
You seem to be quite smart.
You just can't think in this particular direction, but are convinced you must.
You said in the last thread you were miserable.
Can you define and describe this misery for me, so that I can understand its' dimensions, possible sources, possible solutions to try?
( Gotta go get happy pills, BBL )
No, they don't stop, and their every outlook on life and investigation is skewed by always trying to work the Invisible into it, even getting angry and threatening doom when their preaching is not listened to.
The strong love or hate of an idea will always stand in the way of an analysis.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I wrote:
Signal replies:
Maybe the theist believes that. Evangelists may or may not make sense and may or may not behave responsibly. (Evangelists might not even be sane, for heaven's sake.) I was talking about the people that hear evangelists preach.
There's no reason why listeners need to think that since the evangelist is preaching to them about GOD, that listeners must therefore throw all their intelligence and critical faculties to the winds. That would be intellectual irresponsibility.
Sure, a theist might believe that he/she has received some special REVELATION from GOD that gives the evangelist unique AUTHORITY. Wonderful.
But once again, my point isn't about the nature of the evangelists' beliefs. (He or she might be clinically insane for all I know.)
The issue that I'm making is about the need for his or her listeners to behave responsibly. They mustn't surrender their critical faculties and return to a childlike state, even if other people demand they do it and even if the subject of all the preaching is supposedly GOD.
No, it isn't. It's absolutely crucial.
Insisting that people surrender their powers of critical judgement and simply accept whatever they are told is a demand that those people behave irresponsibly.
Yazata said:
Signal replies:
Maybe the theist believes that. Evangelists may or may not make sense and may or may not behave responsibly. (Evangelists might not even be sane, for heaven's sake.) I was talking about the people that hear evangelists preach.
There's no reason why listeners need to think that since the evangelist is preaching to them about GOD, that listeners must therefore throw all their intelligence and critical faculties to the winds. That would be intellectual irresponsibility.
Sure, a theist might believe that he/she has received some special REVELATION from GOD that gives the evangelist unique AUTHORITY. Wonderful.
But once again, my point isn't about the nature of the evangelists' beliefs. (He or she might be clinically insane for all I know.)
The issue that I'm making is about the need for his or her listeners to behave responsibly. They mustn't surrender their critical faculties and return to a childlike state, even if other people demand they do it and even if the subject of all the preaching is supposedly GOD.
No, it isn't. It's absolutely crucial.
Insisting that people surrender their powers of critical judgement and simply accept whatever they are told is a demand that those people behave irresponsibly.
Yazata -
What you are saying above is of course common sense, and is the way most adults would approach religion and proselytizers.
My point is that if spiritual knowledge is nothing like our mundane knowledge, then none of our mundane common sense strategies apply. Our mundane judgment is per definition useless when it comes to spiritual matters.
The mundane, run-of-the-mill person per definition cannot distinguish between material and spiritual topics.
And when faced with someone who claims to know God, the mundane person is faced with an absurd situation: they are put into the situation where they need to decide about something for which they do not possess the faculties to do so.
I think that this absurd situation is brought about with the very act of proselytizing, implied in the act of proselytizing.
Proselytizing is normally done in the form:
- Proselytizer has spiritual knowledge,
- The person who is being proselytized does not have spiritual knowledge (and is fully dependent on the proselytizer).
This is what the proselytizer expects the other person to believe if they are to have any kind of exchange, and it is the only way the proselytizer can say much at all.
For example, when a Mormon or Born Again Christian approaches you in the street, they do so on the assumption that they have the full (or at least sufficient) knowledge, and you have none. And this is the only way these people are capable of having any kind of conversation.
I have never seen a proselytizer have the approach "I know something about God, and I think you know something about God too, perhaps we can talk a bit about this and that."
This is not proselytizing as we normally know it.
What you are saying above is of course common sense, and is the way most adults would approach religion and proselytizers.
My point is that if spiritual knowledge is nothing like our mundane knowledge, then none of our mundane common sense strategies apply. Our mundane judgment is per definition useless when it comes to spiritual matters.
The mundane, run-of-the-mill person per definition cannot distinguish between material and spiritual topics.
And when faced with someone who claims to know God, the mundane person is faced with an absurd situation: they are put into the situation where they need to decide about something for which they do not possess the faculties to do so.
I think that this absurd situation is brought about with the very act of proselytizing, implied in the act of proselytizing.
Proselytizing is normally done in the form:
- Proselytizer has spiritual knowledge,
- The person who is being proselytized does not have spiritual knowledge (and is fully dependent on the proselytizer).
This is what the proselytizer expects the other person to believe if they are to have any kind of exchange, and it is the only way the proselytizer can say much at all.
For example, when a Mormon or Born Again Christian approaches you in the street, they do so on the assumption that they have the full (or at least sufficient) knowledge, and you have none. And this is the only way these people are capable of having any kind of conversation.
I have never seen a proselytizer have the approach "I know something about God, and I think you know something about God too, perhaps we can talk a bit about this and that."
This is not proselytizing as we normally know it.
Has anyone read this book -
The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defense of Proselytizing and Persuasion
-?
The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defense of Proselytizing and Persuasion
-?
Why in the hell would anyone read that?
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
That sounds something like my own reasons for being an agnostic about transcendental matters. But you seem to be putting a tremendously different spin on that familiar argument for agnosticism, seemingly suggesting that it really represents an argument for religious credulity.
I guess that evangelists create an occasion for their listeners to think about transcendental religious matters.
What makes you think that the proselytizer has spiritual knowledge? What makes you think that there's any spiritual knowledge to be had, by anyone?
Sure the evangelist might strut around and boast of possessing unique spiritual knowledge. But why should anyone else believe it?
I'd interpret your situation as just another occasion for some healthy skepticism.
Evangelists can explain, clearly and persuasively, how they know what they claim to know.
If they can't do that, then perhaps their 'revelation' is just a delusion. Even if it's real and true, it would seem to be something that's for them alone.
Why should their state of mind while proselytizing be of any interest to me? (Except as an example of a certain kind of religious psychology, I guess. I might have some academic interest in observing what they are doing.)
But when it comes to my own religious life, to my own spiritual progress, what I'm concerned with is my own religious life and my own spiritual progress. Other people can obvously be of great help and value, but they have to be able to communicate to me where I'm at, a mere mortal human being living here in the material world.
My experience with people who profess to know God and such has been that what you are describing above is simply too much to ask for.
One theist once expressedly criticized me for wanting to know things on my own terms.
I have to say that your stance is new to me, and tempting.
is it too much to ask for, because he happens to be doing it right now?
and the stance is not new to you. remember? you call it "solipsism".