|
Post by slartibartfast on Mar 17, 2016 16:24:20 GMT 10
PROVE your god actually exists and isn't merely a figment of your imagination. Prove the same, but for your mind or consciousness. That's not proof, that's just lick spittle.
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 19, 2016 0:16:02 GMT 10
Prove the same, but for your mind or consciousness. That's not proof, that's just lick spittle. You should define what you mean by 'proof' then. If proof is limited to what you can experience with your 5 senses then what is 'real' are only electrical signals interpreted by your brain. If that's the case how do you know anything is real?
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 19, 2016 0:34:57 GMT 10
Is that a dig? Yes I'm human. And yes I make mistakes. Get over it
Point is, I made you aware of it to disarm your paranoid claims of biased conspiracy.
Feel free to put away the foil hat. We're all safe here.
|
|
|
Post by slartibartfast on Mar 19, 2016 9:09:47 GMT 10
That's not proof, that's just lick spittle. You should define what you mean by 'proof' then. If proof is limited to what you can experience with your 5 senses then what is 'real' are only electrical signals interpreted by your brain. If that's the case how do you know anything is real? I know that you appear to live in a parallel universe where the world was created by some imaginary creation and I am living in reality. PS: you still didn't supply any proof. Proof is evidence, not faith. Faith is just wishful thinking for the weak of mind, sheepish followers without the capability of having their own mind, relying instead on the ramblings of many men before them.
|
|
|
Post by pim on Mar 19, 2016 9:35:45 GMT 10
If I were in Occam's shoes I'd have spotted the "proof" trap and dynamited it long ago. Occam's weakness, and it's a strategic one, is that he falls for the trap every time so it ends up in the same useless arid sterile wasteland where Occam ends up allowing the single-issue paleo atheists (and I reiterate not all atheists are of the paleo variety, just the ones on NTB) to frame the debate and Occam finds himself debating on the adversary's turf. And so it goes on, round and round and round ... How long now? How many years? How's it going guys? Anything been resolved? Any fresh insights? Is there a point?
|
|
|
Post by slartibartfast on Mar 19, 2016 10:08:51 GMT 10
The point is that he has no evidence to back up his hopes. I hope for things too, like winning tattslotto and having perfect children, but I know the chances of that occurring are very small.
But they are still greater than the chances of proving that the greatest lie ever perpetrated - that there is a"God' - is actually not a lie made up by man.
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Mar 20, 2016 5:38:38 GMT 10
Proof is evidence, not faith. Faith is just wishful thinking for the weak of mind, sheepish followers without the capability of having their own mind, relying instead on the ramblings of many men before Do you have proof of that, or is that just wishful thinking? It's a bizarre situation when those who have no experience with faith, try to dictate their opinions to the faithful. (Kind of like a preschooler instructing an archeologist by reducing everything to the tools in his sandbox.) And no... proof is not evidence. Evidence requires a verdict, proof does not. Not everything can be proven; but that doesn't mean no evidence exists. Understand this distinction.
|
|
|
Post by slartibartfast on Mar 20, 2016 6:40:47 GMT 10
There is no proof and no evidence that any god exists.
No distinction required.
|
|
|
Post by pim on Mar 20, 2016 7:18:45 GMT 10
Feels funny to agree with Yorick but on this one I think he's nailed it. Welcome to the Wilderness of Sterile Pointless Circular Argy Bargy where if you listen carefully you'll discern in the soft moaning of the desert wind spectral voices singing the Wilderness anthem "We're Here Because We're Here Because We're Here ..."
|
|
|
Post by slartibartfast on Mar 20, 2016 8:17:05 GMT 10
Perhaps you can supply some proof or evidence then, Sporky can't.
|
|
|
Post by pim on Mar 20, 2016 9:23:10 GMT 10
Slarti my view, and it is a personal view - I don't think Occam and I see eye to eye on this but we're both mature adults and can handle a friendly disagreement - is that faith isn't about "proof" because it can't be about "proof" and, damnit, it oughtn't be about "proof". The expression "a leap of faith" makes sense for that reason. By contrast you can't say "a leap of proof".
I'm sorry but I've no time to go any further into this. I'm on one of myvisits to Canberra and I'm about to have a family-intensive day: lunch with daughter #2 and husband and my 2 grandsons, and also my pregnant daughter #3. I haven't had the chance as yet to see her with her "bump". Fancy that: my baby is having a baby of her own. Daughter #1 is in Queensland so I don’t get to see her this trip.
So my mind is more on domestic things. In an hour's time I'll have grandchildren crawling all over me. Can't wait. Much more fun than worrying about "proof" of the existence/non-existence of a deity.
Mind you my grandsons are getting christened in May. The church has been booked and invitations have been sent out. Even if I were an atheist I'd be there, and not under protest: I'll be proud & happy to be there. And the paleo-atheists can scoff to their hearts' content.
|
|
|
Post by pim on Mar 20, 2016 10:19:23 GMT 10
I think I smell a sneer from Yorick ... What great lie? Let me get this straight and let's do a little hypothetical: you're invited to a christening, not as some deep expression of religious faith but either as a family member or as a close friend. Maybe you and your lady wife are asked to be godparents. Personally I'd take that as a compliment and an honour. But would you feel obligated to refuse the invitation? At its best traditional Christianity has down through the centuries had the role of officiating, celebrating and sacralising the three great rites of passage of human life: birth, marriage and death, or "hatch, match & dispatch" as we put it less reverently. Since it's done christenings, weddings and funerals for a long time Christianity has had a lot of practice and does these things rather well. I went to a family funeral last year, a requiem mass in a little church by the Hawkesbury and we knew the priest, and I thought we gave the deceased a good send off. It was a nice service and I'm glad I was there to be a pallbearer. Also caught up with people I don't get to see very often. Same with weddings and now there's this christening. Is it a lie? A christening can be as religious as you want it to be but I suspect in this case it's going to be more about people who love the kids (2 kids are getting christened) getting together to welcome the kids into the "tribe". Maybe some of them will be atheists. In fact I know some of them are! But what I don't expect to happen is for some wet blanket like Yorick to sneer that it's all a lie. Would you really do that?? You'd get the "look"! Y'know, the look askance that says "Who brung him??"
|
|
|
Post by pim on Mar 20, 2016 10:46:30 GMT 10
A choice you're entitled to make Yorick. I trust that you'd find some diplomatic way of turning down the invitation. In my case I'm the grandfather. In my shoes would you refuse to attend the grandchildren's christening? Really? If it's a choice between attending a ceremonial rite of passage for your grandchild that just happens to be held in a church and officiated over by a man of the cloth, and some anti-religious "principle", you'd allow yourself to be held hostage to the "principle"? Even at the expense of family relationships? No wonder we part company so sharply on various questions! You're one of those people who allows the "perfect" to become the enemy of the "good".
|
|
|
Post by pim on Mar 20, 2016 17:00:03 GMT 10
You're too sensitive, Yorick. I neither made nor intended any criticism of you. In fact I said it was a choice you're entitled to make. I had to finish in a rush because I had to leave so maybe I didn't make myself sufficiently clear. One should never be dragooned into becoming a godparent and if, on being asked, you were to decline politely on the grounds of non-belief I can't see how any reasonable person could object. I dunno, being asked to be godparent of a child at that child's christening is kinda the equivalent of being invited to be best man at a wedding. What do you do if it's a church wedding? If it's your best friend then it's a judgement call isn't it? Is an atheist to decline such an invitation on the grounds of his atheism or does the friendship trump the atheism and he decides he's not going to let his atheism stand in the way of being best man at his close buddy's wedding? What's he to do? Stand at the altar with the bridal couple as they make their wedding vows in which God gets more than a passing mention and say loudly "This is all bullshit!"? I don't believe it. Or what if an atheist falls in love and his girlfriend wants a church wedding and any kids they have to get christened? What's the atheist to say? "No way! Toodle oo and it was nice knowing ya!" I guess that's one solution and probably a good one because it is an indication that the woman wasn't really "the One" as they say. But what if he's smitten with her and can't live without her? Impossible? No, not impossible. It happens! In those circumstances does the agreement by the atheist to the church wedding and future kids' christening mean he's an unprincipled hypocrite? I'd argue that anyone who accused him of hypocrisy is shallow and completely misses the point which is Amor omnia vincit. Look it up. It's Latin and I think it's a splendid reason to get married. Rites of passage aren't necessarily about religion although they're frequently expressed in a religious context. My post wasn't exclusively, or even mainly, about being a godparent at a christening. Being a godparent is a much deeper level of involvement than simply attending the christening as a family member or invited guest. I'm going to attend my grandsons' christening not out of a sense of duty where I'd feel I'd look churlish by not attending. Nor am I attending out of religious zeal. My main motive is that it’s an important family occasion that I don't want to miss, for my sake, for my daughter's sake and also for the sake of the little kids. I'm going because I want to be there. There's no "lie" involved. On the contrary there's a deep and profound truth in which the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
|
|
|
Post by sonex on Mar 21, 2016 11:10:11 GMT 10
My experience with the baptism of my children. My parents were separated, so I was supposed to choose which one I would have at my wedding as neither one would come if the other was going to be there. I couldn't choose and as time went by my husband to be and I decided one day we would just go to the Registry Office and get married on our own, which we did.
After I had my second child I asked the Catholic priest to christen them, he refused as I had not got married in a Catholic church, my husband, a Protestant with no religious beliefs refused to take part in the requirements of the priest which was to remarry in his church and required my husband to make certain promises, then he would baptise my children. My husband refused, which I thought was quite reasonable of him reasonable of my husband, not the priest.. A few years later I had a son who barely breathed at his birth and then died. In those days I was still putting my religion "Catholic" on the hospital forms, I was very ill after the birth and the priest came to my bedside and explained to me that as my son had not been christened he would go to Limbo. No heaven for my baby. I don't know whether the practice of burying the unbaptised in unconsecrated groud still exists today, but when my six year old sister died many years ago the Priest refused to bury her in consecrated ground, I don't know why she wasn't christened. In those days they were buried with suicides and dead mentally ill people in unconsecrated ground. In 2007 the Vatican retracted Limbo. I was christened, made my first communion, confirmed and regularly went to mass A Protestant priest was very kind to my mother and buried her child in consecrated ground. After the birth of my son I never ever put Catholic on the hospital forms again.
I can understand why parents have their babies christened, it is a lovely ceremony, and even though Limbo has been abolished, there are still reservations about their afterlife. I think they have replaced Limbo with something like "hope for salvation", so there is still a penalty for Catholic babies who die unchristened.
|
|
|
Post by pim on Mar 21, 2016 12:12:26 GMT 10
That is a heart-rending story, Sonex. I don't know what to say about your case without sounding trite. There's enough tragedies in the world without the priests adding to them. My parents lost a child in German -occupied Holland before I was born. I never realised that this involved my Mum having to make Sophie's Choice about the death of that child. On a trip to Holland in the early 1990s while my mum was still alive I tried to find my late brother's grave. He was 5 years old when he died. I searched the churchyard to no avail. I just wanted to find that child's grave, place some flowers, say a prayer and then tell my mum I'd done it when I got back to Australia. I asked at the church presbytery and got the housekeeper who spoke no English. In my imperfect Dutch I stumbled through an explanation of who I was, whose grave I was looking for and where I was from. Finally the lady twigged that my family had lived in that community during the war years, had been in that parish, had worshipped in that church, had lost a child during the war who was buried in that churchyard and that after the war we'd emigrated to the other side of the world. Also that I couldn't hang around because I needed to get back to Amsterdam to catch a flight home. It was as if a light had turned on. She was a dear lady and she searched high and low in the parish records. Unsuccessfully but not for want of trying. She actually had tears in her eyes when she explained that the wartime bombing had been so intense, plus the Battle of the Bulge had included that part of Holland, and the destruction had been so complete that the church and the churchyard had been destroyed. Along with parish records from the period. No computer back up systems back then! So my brother's grave was lost forever. For the first and only time in my life I actually felt that war reach up over 40+ years and touch me in a direct way. It was like I felt something evil and malevolent. I got an insight into what motivated my parents after that war to seek a new life in a new country. A fresh start. And btw that housekeeper in the presbytery, simple working lady that she was, outclassed in Christianity a thousandfold the Catholic priests of your story.
What you say about the Catholic clergy you've dealt with is certainly an indictment of Australian Catholicism and I've heard enough similar stories to find what you say to be eminently credible and it confirms my own estrangement from Catholicism. Heart-rending as your story is it's not ipso facto a vindication of atheism as Yorick claims. Nor is it a condemnation of Christianity. After all the Protestant clergyman demonstrated Christian charity and compassion. My take out from your story, with all that it says about your personal tragedy, is not so much an anti-Christian one as an anti-clerical one. You can be anti-clerical without being an atheist.
|
|
|
Post by sonex on Mar 21, 2016 13:13:03 GMT 10
Thank you Pim, you are right of course, it was the clerics who were only following decrees from the Vatican, and of course these priests were not parents and probably had no idea of the cruelty they were imposing on the mothers and fathers of these babies and children. A very sad story about your little brother and not finding his grave, but at least he had a brother who cared enough to look for him. He was and is remembered.
I am not an Atheist, probably a weak Deist, or maybe I think that nature and god are one and the same.
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 7, 2016 9:21:32 GMT 10
'...held hostage to the "principle"' It's a fundamental part of who we are. You either have principles, or you don't. You either live the lie, or you don't. You either play pretendies, or you don't. What a very odd fellow you are. You've spent the last few months whinging about how awful it is that Turnbull has ditched his principles ... yet you criticise me because I would not cave in to peer pressure to take part in a Christening? BTW, it is not a hypothetical question. Many years ago, I was invited to be a godparent to a child of one on my wife's friends. Obviously, they didn't know much about my religious views and merely asked me out of courtesy. Well, the whole thing was rather odd, since the child was the result of a short term liaison between my wife's friend and some bloke. (They subsequently went their separate ways ... but that is incidental.) Since I don't go around broadcasting my atheism to all and sundry, but will offer my opinion when asked, or when the topic comes up (or in response to the crap I see in the religion board here) ... they were unaware of my atheism. I simply politely explained that I couldn't be a godparent, because I am an unbeliever. Nothing too hard about doing that. Did it cause any problems? No. I just stuck to my principles and didn't pretend just for the sake of some ceremony. For you to criticise me for sticking to my principles is ... well ... absurd. As Shakespeare once wrote: "...This above all: to thine own self be true." Interesting. ...And how would a moral relativist set the bar on those who have standards and those don't? What presumptions could you make from your moral high horse to judge a person amoral, without dipping into the pool of moral absolutism? Quite a quandry. ...
|
|
|
Post by pim on Apr 7, 2016 13:33:55 GMT 10
Oh rubbish! If you were invited to your grandchildren's christening would you really refuse to attend the event?
|
|
|
Post by pim on Apr 7, 2016 14:45:44 GMT 10
Or a wedding? A god-bothering family member refused to attend a family wedding on the grounds that it was an open air civil ceremony and not a religious ceremony in a church. But she rocked up to the reception afterwards. It was considered poor form. There's still a cloud over her about that. Similarly with funerals. As with all these rites of passage you have to remember that it’s not about you but about the individual undertaking the passage: whether it's an infant being welcomed into the culture via a religious service, a couple committing to each other by publicly making promises whether it's before God as well as a congregation, or before witnesses in accordance with the Marriage Act, or someone departing this life where those close to the deceased or connected in some way gather together in a ritualised act of mourning and leave taking which could be in the context of a church service or a secular funeral. I've attended both types and acknowledge the validity of both types.
I'm faced with the prospect, in a little under a month, of both of my grandsons being christened in Canberra. I'm travelling from Adelaide and their paternal grandmother is coming down from Qld. There will be rellies from both sides coming from all points of the compass. My s-i-l is a Darwin boy so there'll be a goodly contingent from the Top End. Are you really saying that if you were in my shoes you'd opt for churlishness and decline to be present at an important event not just for my broader family but for the family that my daughter and her husband are establishing together and in particular for two little kids who call me granddad", who crawl all over me when they see me and whom I am totally dotty over? Just because of some notion of "correctness"?
I'm not asking for your advice here Yorick because I don't need it. It's a no-brainer. I'm going! And in my shoes so would you.
|
|
|
Post by pim on Apr 7, 2016 16:52:28 GMT 10
Precisely, so don't bore us with your prissy notions of atheist "correctness", as if a christening or a wedding or a funeral is all about the invited guest rather than the person(s) (or ex-person if it's a funeral) at the centre of it all.
"The lie continues" - what fatuous rubbish.
|
|
|
Post by Occam's Spork on Apr 20, 2016 9:48:06 GMT 10
Easy, you either pretend to follow the great lie, or you don't. Opinions on the truth of the subject aside... How does a self-proclaimed 'moral relativist ' decide that it's unethical for one to live outside his perceived belief system?
|
|
|
Post by KTJ on Apr 20, 2016 10:12:43 GMT 10
Hahaha....here comes the religious clap-trap from the northern hemisphere!
|
|
|
Post by pim on Apr 20, 2016 17:49:41 GMT 10
I can't believe that if an atheist becomes a grandparent, that "atheist" is bound by some "ethic" that says "the perfect must always be the enemy of the good" and should refuse the invitation to attend their grandchild's christening. Nah! I don't believe it - even from the paleo atheist trolls here.
|
|
|
Post by pim on Apr 20, 2016 22:06:32 GMT 10
Oh that's a lot pious twaddle and claptrap. It's true that christening has a religious basis going back millennia but it's lasted down to the present day not because of the "holy ghost" but because of its social utility in providing a context within which a child is welcomed to its name, its family, its society and its culture. It's a very important occasion for family bonding and networking. I know godparents who have retained a connection with their godchild through to adulthood. And you're going to sneer at that? Yorick I make no comment on the quality of your personal family relationships because they are none of my business. But I don't believe for a moment that faced with a choice between an important social ritual with a religious origin but which fostered family bonding, and some abstruse atheist "principle" that obliged you to spurn the bonding ritual, you'd opt for your purist "principle"? I don't believe it.
|
|