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Post by stutefish on Jul 24, 2008 19:39:31 GMT -4
I think--it's been a while since I've read it--that Lewis is trying to demonstrate that Christianity, properly understood, is both internally consistent and also consistent with independent observations of the reality we experience.
Obviously there are other theories that are consistent with our observations of reality; it would take a careful examination of each such theory to determine whether or not it was also internally consistent.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 24, 2008 16:30:49 GMT -4
Well, obviously anybody can calll themselves a Christian, and anybody can devise their own definition of the term.
For example, mainstream Protestantism identifies a short list of "core principles" of Christianity:
1. The existence of a supreme being, personal (i.e., having personality; not an impersonal force or law) and triune in nature, creator of all things. 2. Humanity created in the (spiritual) image of this being, for the purpose of an eternal loving relationship with this being. 3. The fall of Humanity collectively, and of each human individually, by acts of free will, out of this relationship, which acts of free will the supreme being honors by not forcing anyone back into this relationship against their will. 4. That as this relationship is a funamental part of human nature, the lack of this relationship is unnatural and unpleasant. It has many unpleasant consequences for those that choose it, and poisons all their other plans and relationships. 5. The incarnation of the supreme being in human form (the Christ), to enact a mechanism whereby the relationship between the creator and fallen humanity can be restored, for any who want it. 6. That a free will decision to believe in these principles, and to accept the restoration of the relationship, is necessary and sufficient to restore this relationship.
Now others may define Christianity differently. Some may say that good deeds are also necessary for restoration of the relationship. Others may believe that the supreme being does not exist, and that the good deeds are themselves the only important thing in life. Still others may reject the notion that the Christ is one and the same with the supreme creator being. And so on.
Generally speaking, disagreements on "what is a Christian" among those who call themselves Christians tend to focus on the nature of God, the nature of Christ, and the nature of the reconciliation between Humanity and God.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 24, 2008 12:55:21 GMT -4
So... hire a bunch of laborers and dig a canal?
Seems like the prince was the crazy one, if he needed the court jester to figure that out for him.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 24, 2008 12:52:44 GMT -4
One of my favorite passages. I like to pull it out whenever someone accuses Mormons of not being Christians. Seems like it would be more to the point to pull out the biblical passages that describe what "believe in Christ" actually means, and explain how you adhere to the meaning of those passages.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 23, 2008 12:37:03 GMT -4
It's an interesting topic, but possibly unanswerable.
I recently came across some apocrypha to the effect that Michael Moorcock is opposed to idealized heroes in fiction, because it gives us false expectations about heroes in real life. We end up idolizing flawed leaders, slavishly worshipping unscrupulous charlatans, and suffering disappointment and despair when we discover our role models have clay feet.
I disagree with this view, though. Fictional heroes are ideals, not factual depictions of flawed reality. They represent the standard to which we hold ourselves and others.
Their stories--and the stories of the villains that oppose them--are idealized explorations of specific questions about our nature and condition. Practicality isn't a major concern, so much as spirituality.
So. In the traditional super-hero setting, hard, idealized distinctions are drawn between the hero and the villain. Batman never kills. It's the line he will not cross. Of course this leads to moral and ethical impracticalities, which are often discussed in Batman stories.
Would I have killed the Joker, in that situation? I'm not sure.
I think, maybe I would. But I'm thinking in the context of soldiering, where it's taken for granted that deadly violence is a necessary evil in the service of a greater good. And even then it's bound up in a net of legal and moral restraints.
So I think, maybe I wouldn't. Batman operates in the context of a vigilante. He's already breaking the law, simply by doing what he does. And he's already on morally shaky ground. He owes no allegiance to any power higher than himself. He flaunts the laws of the land. He makes his own morals as he goes along. In a very real, and very important way, he breaks the civic bonds that implicitly hold the community together. He is, in fact, no different at all from the criminals he fights.
If he will not be a law-abiding citizen, and he will not be a well-regulated police officer, then how can he keep himself morally--and psychologically-distinct from his enemies? By drawing a hard line, and keeping to it. "This far will I go, and no farther."
Gotham suffers because the Joker goes where Batman won't. But it would suffer more, I think, if Batman went there as well.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 22, 2008 13:02:21 GMT -4
Oh yeah. That was totally what I was thinking. Heh. That post describes her latest attempt to compare the UN climate model's predicted trend to the trend actually recorded in the real climate over the last eight years. The blog is mostly about her ongoing series of attempts to reconcile these two things (the UN model's predictions and the Earth's actual climate trends). It's a pretty detailed--and highly technical--record of her analysis: Problems, solutions, setbacks, re-evaluations, etc. The comments section for each post is also pretty full of lively debate. There's lot of suggestions for improving the analysis, identification of problems with the data or the assumptions being made, and discussion about ways to get closer to some good statistically valid answers. For what it's worth, her latest attempt--like all the previous ones--generally "falsifies" the UN model, in the sense that it describes a global temperature trend of significantly less than the 2 degrees C per century predicted by the model. But she freely acknowledges--and openly discusses--the limitations of her analysis. Hence the blog: It's a detailed record of her attempts to improve that analysis and arrive at a sound comparison of the model and the real Earth climate.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 21, 2008 16:30:26 GMT -4
Jason, If you like discussion of the data and assumptions that go into creating (climate change) graphs, you'll love this blog. Blocked by my employer's firewall. Guess I'll have to look at that one at home. I'm still looking through the stuff DataCable linked to, but the document dealing with possible errors in the data and what they did to adjust it to get around them makes me regard the graph as essentially a good educated guess. As I said earlier, the world's climate is simply an extremely complex system. Correlating readings from temperature readings all over the world over the last 150 years is no simple task either. We're talking about such a small change over time and such uncertainties in all the educated estimates made to correct the data to show this rise that I find it difficult to muster any confidence for the accuracy of the conclusion that it actually is getting warmer. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm left pretty much where I started. Heh. The blog is an ongoing discussion of statistics as they relate to the UN climate model(s) and the actual Earth climate data. Most of it is (to me) inscrutable statistics gibberish, but I find the parts in plain English fascinating (and well-reasoned). Apparently some institutions have recently started blocking access, probably because of the blogger's frequent mention of Monte Carlo (in the statistics context, not the gambling context, but try explaining that to a content filter).
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Post by stutefish on Jul 21, 2008 14:38:08 GMT -4
Jason, If you like discussion of the data and assumptions that go into creating (climate change) graphs, you'll love this blog.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 17, 2008 19:08:37 GMT -4
I can always tell when things are going well in Iraq, because the news is full of stories about how things are going badly in Afghanistan.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 17, 2008 11:45:22 GMT -4
A lot of these discussions about national debt seem to ignore the fact that the economies of nation-states aren't really analagous to one's personal finances.
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Post by stutefish on Jul 16, 2008 19:48:25 GMT -4
much bigger in my opinion that the mess that was there in 2002. I think that when it comes to messes, Quality is a much more important factor than Quantity--the nature of the mess is more significant than the size of the mess. The mess of caused when remodeling a house may be greater than the mess caused by allowing a house to fall into disrepair, but it's a much better, more hopeful, and ultimately more desireable mess despite its greater magnitude. Or if you think an analogy that doesn't involve human suffering and the loss of human life unacceptably trivializes the situation, perhaps you will forgive me a mild Godwinism: The mess caused by total industrial war in Europe is arguably greater than the mess that would have been caused by simply acquiesing to the Nazi hegemony program. Indeed, many European leaders attempted to avoid the greater mess by exactly such an acquiescence. And yet most of us today would agree that the greater mess had a desireable quality that more than outweighed its undesdireable quantity.
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Post by stutefish on May 29, 2008 18:26:35 GMT -4
Do we really need any reason other than "because it is there"??...I know I don't. Thanks, raven, for that insightful post. Depends whose money we're spending. If Edmund Hillary wants to spend his own money, and the money of like-minded voluntary donors, then more power to him. If, on the other hand, my government wants to spend money it's coerced from me, I'd like to see some indication they have a serious and productive goal in mind.
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Post by stutefish on May 1, 2008 15:58:05 GMT -4
I don't believe in "divine nature" Would you say your disbelief in divine nature is rational or irrational? Ah, but I think there are plenty of excellent rational justifications for our conclusions about the nature of Santa Claus. I agree that this is a logical fallacy. It's also not a claim I've made. You're welcome to keep pointing it out, I suppose, but I assure you it's redundant and irrelevant to the questions I'm asking. On the other hand, if you ask Phantom Wolf, he can point you to lots of parts in the OT that support a very different argument. You seem to be ignoring those parts of this thread. An argument from personal incredulity is irrational. I cannot. I never claimed that I could. My question all along is whether or not gilliianren is making that claim. When pressed, it seems that she is not. The basis of her faith is that she believes it because she believes it, and that's all she needs. Which is fine, only I was curious if that's actually is the thought process she's using to justify her faith.
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Post by stutefish on May 1, 2008 15:10:30 GMT -4
I think it's funny that my beliefs are the ones coming under question, given that I've never said anyone should believe in the same deity as I, and I've never said anyone should behave in a way consistent with the deity I believe in. Why shouldn't we question your beliefs, if you're willing to answer questions about them? For myself, I'm asking questions about them mainly because I'm interested in the marked contrast between the commitment to rational thought and well-reasoned, evidence-based conclusions we see in discussions about the Apollo Project, and the casual acceptance of irrational though and unreasoned conclusions we see here. Gillianren, you're participating in both debates. What would you say is the difference between that one and this one, such that your argument from incredulity is acceptable here but not there? Just to make myself clear: I do not intend to attack anybody's beliefs. I'm not trying to "debunk" gillianren's faith. I promise that I am not engaging in the common CT tactic of "just asking questions". I am honestly curious. Why can't we engage questions of faith with the same tools of rational thought with which we engage other questions?
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Post by stutefish on May 1, 2008 15:03:26 GMT -4
Gillianren, it's not that I disagree with what you believe, it's that I'm curious to know why you believe it.
If someone says that they find the Apollo Project narrative unbelievable, it's natural to ask why. In fact we see such arguments develop all the time on this very website, and generally form a very low opinion of the reasoning and even the rationality of people who refuse to answer the question.
Generally, when someone makes an argument from incredulity, we ask what special knowledge they posess, that prevents them from believing. That's all I'm doing here.
Your answer seems to be that you posess no special knowledge, and that in fact you have no rational argument upon which you base your beliefs. Is this really the case?
wdmundt, meanwhile, seems to be arguing that because divine nature is such that nobody can possibly understand it, requests for rational justifications for our conclusions about it are inappropriate.
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