Not_Now.Soon

I don’t recall asking for commentary on my alleged arrogance.

<<You asked about your arrogance.>>

But thanks all the same for obliging.

There is nothing arrogant about stating that no-one is a true believer if I wasn’t. Comments structured in such a way are a common form of expression used to stress a point. It’s not like I was actually suggesting that no-one else is a true believer.

I see no arrogance in the second comment of mine that you claim is arrogant. I was trying to point out the complete lack of logic in an earlier statement of yours, albeit in a cheeky manner.

<<Your arrogant and snide remarks are almost always in your comments.>>

I think I have remained polite in virtually all my communications with you. That you suddenly interpret it ALL as ‘arrogant’ and ‘snide’ is rather revealing.

<<And your arrogant attitude that Christians can't think just adds to this.>>

At no point have I suggested this. You are making this up.

<<Don't call anyone else arrogant unless they are at least as arrogant as you.>>

I haven’t called anyone arrogant. You are making this up, too.

I have, however, pointed out that a comment of yours was arrogant. Assuming that former Christians couldn’t have been just as convinced as you that they had found God because they no longer believe, is arrogant.

If you say something arrogant, then I will point that out.

<<Hold yourself to the same standards you push onto others.>>

I have not "pushed" anything onto anyone. Nor have I displayed any double-standards, for that matter. Your language has become rather emotive.

<<You don't need to apologize, and definitely don't need ask what I mean. You should be smart and observant enough on your own to see it.>>

Thanks, I think. But I genuinely wasn’t sure what you were getting at. And, as it turns out, that was probably in part due to the fact that your claims of arrogance and holding a double-standard were not true.

Continued…

...Continued

<<I would rather move on because it might be needed to show how to love God, and how God has loved us.>>

Good idea. Attacking someone else with slanderous claims, just because you don’t like what they’re saying, is probably not the best way to go about that. (1 Peter 3:15)

<<God does love each of us …>>

You might find that people start listening you to more if you qualify your claims with caveats such as, “In my opinion”, or, “I believe”. To state as fact that which is not evidently true is dishonest.

<<The only thing with more authority then our experiences is God Himself.>>

For the sake of clarification, I will point out that this is equivocation. When you speak of ‘experiences’ you use the word ‘authority’ in a different sense to what you do when you speak of your god’s alleged authority.

The bigger problem here, however, is that you make no mention of objective, falsifiable evidence - which has far greater authority than personal experiences. This is the type of evidence you need to find and present if you want to convince others. It was my realisation that objective evidence was required to rationally support my beliefs, and convince others of them, that spelled the eventual end of it after a fruitless search.

I can appreciate your attempts to fulfill your obligations under Matthew 4:19, but people need more than anecdotal testimony.

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

--

Big Nana,

Ridiculous beliefs are, by definition, deserving of ridicule.

<<... who has the right to ridicule anyone's personal beliefs?>>

Nevertheless, as a general rule, it is still best to avoid it.

<<The belief in the existence of a god is no less credible than the belief that the universe was created from nothing but a Big Bang.>>

There is at least evidence for the Big Bang. Your analogy is flawed. That the Big Bang started from nothing is not a part of the theory. It is currently impossible to investigate what, if anything, existed before the Big Bang. It may not even make sense to ask.

Dear Nana,

«The belief in the existence of a god is no less credible than the belief that the universe was created from nothing but a Big Bang»

You may be right, you may be wrong, but both beliefs are secular in nature and have no religious or spiritual implications, so I don't give a damn how the universe was created.

You see, suppose you worshipped someone just because [you believed that] they were big and strong and all-knowing, where both your environment and your fate was completely in theirs hands for eternity, then your worship would only comprise a cowardly survival strategy of bowing to authority, rather than a religion.

//Whether you believed in a pantheism religion, or in anything else you still need saved. We all do.//

Yeah, you've said. But you still haven't said what I need to be saved FROM, which is what I asked you. Just repeating 'you need to be saved' is a bit too short on information for my liking. I want to seen the fine print before I go making any rash commitments. What, specifically, is it that I need to be saved from?

Perhaps you could just write a bullet point list consisting of quite specific nouns, because your last response was rather vague and waffly, and for much of it I really wasn't sure what you were trying to say.

//Your philosophy makes you think you don't need to be saved.//

It might if I knew what it was that I needed to be saved from. Since I don't know what that is, let's just assume for the sake of argument that it is gluten. Lots of people seem to think we all need to be saved from gluten these days, but my philosophy is that you should trust medical science (because the only alternative is quackery). And if medical science says that only people with gluten intolerance actually need to worry about gluten, I'm not going to worry about it unless I get diagnosed as gluten intolerant.

Now, if we change our axioms and assume that it is male pattern baldness that I need to be saved from: 3 of the 5 men in my immediate family are baldies and my hairline is receding fast. My philosophy is that vanity is for dicks, but that hair is also practical (protects my scalp from the sun in summer and warms it winter) and I'd rather not lose it. So if it's gluten, no thanks, I don't need saving. And if it's baldness then save me, save me, oh Lord Jeebus, save me from being a baldy. But I still don't know what it is I actually need to be saved from.

My philosophy is also that it's hard to make informed decisions in a vacuum of information. Basically, my nature abhors a vacuum of knowledge. But if you want keep your cards close to your chest, that's fine.

Taboos about secret knowledge are as old as the hills, and still remain popular - from Indigenous cultures with their 'secret (wo)men's business' to the Rites of Freemasonry, everybody likes to keep a secret. It's exciting. Thing is though, those sort of taboos and strictures are usually designed to keep outsiders outside, which makes them a remarkably poor evangelistic stratagem. Surely an evangelist's job is to spread knowledge, not to give vague hints at secret knowledge which you can only obtain if you join the club without getting to read the fine print first?

//Both Jewish and Christian faiths acknowledge that we need God to save us.//

//If any other religion's gods, showed signs of being real, then we can talk about choices.

My knowledge base on other religions is very small when it comes to their experiences with the god of their beliefs.//

So the Jews and the Christians are the only religions whose God is real, and everybody else has just got it wrong?

I have to say, I didn't expect you to be quite so narrow-minded. Not so much because I expected you to be ecumenical towards faiths you know little about, but because it undermines your own position. Your argument essentially boils down too 'Well they may be their sincerely held religious beliefs but just because they believe something, it doesn't mean that it's true.'

Which sounds an awful lot like something an atheist would say....

//Until then, the various stories of answered prayers, miracles, Angels, NDEs, and a few other things that give Christian and Jewish faith merrit are what I know//

Confirmation bias.

//and what seperates that religion from the thousands of other religions. And seperates God from the thousands of other gods.//

And cognitive dissonance.

I think I've worked out how to program an Electric Monk.

"The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe."
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (PBUH)

//Regardless of your beliefs or your attitude. You personally also need to be saved.//

Whether I like it or not, huh? There is a certain point where evangelism runs slap bang up against liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
- United States Declaration of Independence