argument_is_essential amicus al brief missionary Let's just suppose... That you don't believe in life after death, so you pretty much think that when you're dead, you're dead FOREVER. And you happen to be a six year old child. Your mother tells you "NEVER" to play with the rattlesnakes in the field on your family's property. She tells you that if they bite you, you will die. Nevertheless, exactly eleven months later you are playing in the field when you see a coiled rattlesnake under a fallen tree. You throw several rocks at it but can't seem to drive it away. Eventually, your curiosity gets the best of you and decide to pick it up with a stick. The rattlesnake, seriously irritated first by the rocks and now by being incessantly poked at with the stick, slithers away from you. You, assuming the victory, chase after the retreating reptile and reach for its tail and… … The rattle snake bites your hand faster than you can say "dubious". You die within the hour. Despite your mother's desperate attempts to revive you and the administration of the antidote… At the hospital, the only comfort the doctors can offer is, "If only you would have found him sooner." Now, the question is: Is it fair that you died? 041121 ... sab i think the question is when is life ever fair? currently i might be dying. is that fair? and what if i was a nun? would that make a difference to how fair it is to die? and what if i was a rapist? would that make a difference to how fair it is to die? and what if i was a sunday school teacher? would that make a difference to how fair it is to die? and what if i was a great artist? would that make a difference to how fair it is to die? and what if i had the skills to be a great artist, i just needed more time? would that make a difference to how fair it is to die? and what if i was a good person, but had no beliefs in gods of any kinds? would that make a difference to how fair it is to die? and what if i was a christian who was an insest perpetrator, believing that that was the RIght THing To Do? would that make a difference to how fair it is to die? death isnt fair life isnt fair shit happens all the time to all the people its how you deal with it that is the trick. if you try to tell yourself that bad things only happen because your bad or that your not trying hard enough they your going to be unhappy the rest of your life and dwell in the shadow of the guilt forever. 041121 ... smurfus rex life isn't fair to you. life isn't fair to me. life isn't fair to any one person. therefore, life is fair to everyone. as for the snake vs. kid question... instead of saying, "if only you'd found him sooner", the doctor should have said, "if only you'd taught him better than to play with snakes". the kid's death is not so much a lesson for the kid as it is for the parent. should have been watching more closely, shouldn't you? better luck next time. but then, I'm a big believer in training up the child until he or she reaches the age of majority. the learning process is ongoing, but it's only up to the parent to provide that learning until the child becomes an adult. then, it's up to them. but then also, I'm biased against parents who expect other people to do their child-rearing for them. the ones who drop the kids off at the mall or the Scouts meeting or the city pool or whatever and expect someone else to watch out for them. when I was in Boy Scouts, the troop leaders jokingly referred to "BSA" as Baby Sitters of America from time to time when they remembered how little participation came from other parents. at the mall right now, we security officers often refer to ourselves as teen babysitters, usually every weekend at least, every time we watch a carload of kids deploy outside of the Food Court and mom just drives away. and then they act indignant when we call them about their kid getting caught shoplifting. "that's not like her, she would never do that..." yes, ma'am, I'm sure that's true, but she *does* in fact have 12 pairs of thong underwear that was not paid for and it was witnessed by three different store employees. oh, and how long until you get here? the police are on their way. "my little angel knows better than to play with rattlesnakes." does he? are you sure? it's 11:00, do you know where your children are? But more to the point, is it fair that the snakebitten kid has to die? No. The reason it's not fair is because the parent failed to protect him from danger. A more conscientious and alert parent would have removed the kid from the dangerous situation. So it's not fair that he had to be born to inattentive parents. And yes, I do believe that accidents happen, but if the kid's got enough time to throw rocks at the snake, then poke it with a stick, then chase after it and grab it by the tail (however unlikely it would be that the snake would let him do this), then the parent has more than enough time to check on him and see what he's up to. But what do *I* know, really? I don't have kids. 041121 ... 28 usc 1983 So what's the idea? That because ?? The world doesn't get to decide whether or not to be fair because there's no agency in the laws that govern our existence. There's no one to hold accountable for fairness (except other people). But in your world view the universe has agency. Where God gets to decide how the world will work, there should be accountability. Indeed, the afterlife is necessary for such accountability, because there has to be an afterlife to fix all the world's apparent injustice. The problem is that when the afterlife itself is unjust, it cannot fix the world's injustice. Such is the case with Christianity. 041121 ... Sammayael better question did your mother put the snake there RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU like God put the tree in the garden? 041122 ... lucifer 109? hell yes it's fair. it's called natural selection, and our society would be better off if people stopped hanging on the medicines and cures for diseases and let people die for the benefit of the human race. 041122 ... u24 if_death 041122 ... 28 usc 1983 Even if the mother didn't put the snake right in front of the kid, she still might be negligent. It depends. That's a pretty bare fact pattern. But then again, you're just stalling. 041122 ... sab [wind them up] [sit back] [and watch them go...] come back missonary, we want to hear your position... 041122 ... missionary heh, those are some pretty dramatic reactions this question... Anyway, Some info: (for the person who said something about, the mother shoulda taught the kid... or whatever. See above: The mother did sternly warn her child and teach her child not to play with snakes. She fully explained the consequences as to what would happen (death) if the six year old were to disobey. The child did not listen, and died as a result. Ok, Next Question: Should the mother have prevented her child from playing outside, knowing there were snakes out there? 041122 ... Sammayael one flaw in the logic though.... frequently, unless they are pre-emptively beaten into a state of uncurious-ness a child's first inclination is to explore that which has been proscribed to them tell a little kid, "hey, don't press that button over there" you can bet that the moment you turn your back on that child, they will likely press the button for no other reason than because the command not to do so has aroused their curiosity to the point where they are less than likely to resist the urge to press it. 041122 ... Sammayael and yeah, letting the kid play where there are likely to be venomous reptiles would, i think, disqualify that mother for any parent of the year honors 041122 ... 28 usc 1983 I thought it was "a" question first. That is, one question before you plainly and directly answered mine and others' questions. Your first question went nowhere, or perhaps not to where you wanted. I doubt that this question will go anywhere, either. You're not exactly Socrates, missionary. 041122 ... 28 usc 1983 Fine. You want to say that if the mother deprived her son of playing outside, she'd be depriving him of the joy of life, which naturally is accompanied by some danger. Thus God's only allowing us to be hurt (i.e., sent to hell forever) because it is the necessary counterpart to all life's joys. That analogy is fatally flawed. First, safety and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive. The mother could allow her son to play and make sure he didn't get hurt. Indeed, she has a moral and legal obligation to do so. Second, and much more mportantly, the mother is not omniscient and omnipotent. If she were, she'd know when snakles were nearby, and she'd never allow them to come near her son, even as he frolicked carelessly wherever he liked. God is omnipotent. He can do anything, so he could certainly allow humans to enjoy the garden without fearing snakes (like the snake of being sent to hell forever becaause you were born in India). I mean, you could have made the rather obvious misfire of a point that you're attempting to make much more succinctly, but I guess that wouldn't allow you to feel like you were imparting some sort of deep wisdom. 041122 ... smurfus rex some info for the missionary who seems to think that a stern warning absolves a parent of any responsibility for the safety of his or her own six-year-old child... *Adults* don't listen to their parents' stern warnings about what they should or shouldn't do, so why should a six-year-old be expected to be perfectly obedient? Like what has been said above, you tell a six-year-old "no" and his first response is "why". No matter how you answer his why, he's going to go test it out for himself *unless he's supervised*. This really isn't going very well for you. I'm sure you can find better thought-provoking questions in your Teen Study Bible. Let us know when you do. Thanks. 041123 ... missionary Hah! This is funny! Ok, so, since you guys are a tad oversensitive to these questions, as uncontroversial as they may be, and overly assumptive, I might add, I will only ask one final question. (By the way, your assumptions about my supposed point or me "seeming to think" this or that are very amusing. I mean, all I have done is tell a silly little story and ask a couple of silly little questions... But look how you guys are reacting...sheesh anyway. Ok, Final question, and this one is a multiple choice! Suppose you were to come back to life at the hospital, who would be happier? A.) You B.) Your mother C.) The snake D.) The neighbor, since the snake's hole was actually on the adjacent property. (Even though the snake bite occured on your property.) 041123 ... sab missonary, you are a moron. "I mean, all I have done is tell a silly little story and ask a couple of silly little questions... " thats not true at all. what you are doing is setting up questions that you want to lead to certian answers, or to make us think and decide that god is the way to go. and you can deny it all you like, however, thats what this is about. if that kid dies from a snakebite at 6, what meaning would that life have? none if you dont believe in an afterlife, it would have been a terribly tradigy. but if you DO believe in an afterlife, then phew! he will be going to hang out with god and thats what we all should be aiming for anyway, so its sad that we lost him but how great is it that hes finally with god! thats what your setting up. funnily enough, we can spot that shit. its blatently obvious, even for those who didnt grow up around fundamentalist christians pulling the same shit day after day. i'll bet you had a little beautific smile on your face as you typed it, didnt you, thinking - this will make them think, and surely they'll see the Truth? my cunning little story will lead them to god. you twat. another dead give away is that your not even pretending that your interested in our answers, or in starting up a dialoug. you havent answered any of our questions in return. your story wasnt put there because you wanted to actually know what we thought about it, nor was it put there because you had your theory going on that you wanted to share. had either of these been true, you would have answered your own question, or, having found out what we think, asked other, different questions. however, you keep returning to your original story and trying to make us think further. so, missonary, we're all suddenly converted to christianity because of your wonderful snake bite story, sweet jesus, we never realised jsut how important god and belief in the chrisitan afterlife was before, but now some imaginary kid carked it after annoying some snake in some paddock of disputed ownership, well brother, we;ve all seen the light we all believe in god and baby jesus, we all believe that the bible is an accurate and completly factual description of the first couple of thousand years of human history, that the the_book_of_leviticus isnt contradictory at all and we all believe that girls have more ribs than boys due to gods redistrubtion of bones on that first critical week good, good, your job here is done. now fuck off and go play missonoary somewhere else. i hear that there might be a couple of satanisc sites on the internet. surely they need your clever stories there? 041123 ... 28 usc 1983 "Ok, Final question, and this one is a multiple choice! Suppose you were to come back to life at the hospital, who would be happier? A.) You B.) Your mother C.) The snake D.) The neighbor, since the snake's hole was actually on the adjacent property. (Even though the snake bite occured on your property.)" What? Who would be happier? Oh, the snake of course. Huh? So because God/mother would be happiest, that means....? Do you know what the mother/God wouldn't do? Send her son to hell forever. Think about that one while you're tying that half windsor this sunday. 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 And don't act like no one knows what you believe in. You're a fundamentalist Christian. You used to think Pope John Paul II was the Antichrist. Now you think maybe Bill Clinton is the Antichrist. You think that the European Union is part of The beast's" evil scheme to rule the world. You believe in hell for non-believers. You believe homosexuality is a choice and a sin. You believe that Noah put two of every animal on the Ark, despite the fact that a vessel of the dimensions described in the bible wouldn't accomodate all those animals--not even if they were liquefied and stored in barrels. 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 "I mean, all I have done is tell a silly little story and ask a couple of silly little questions" The silly story you're referring to is the Bible, right? 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 Oh, I forgot, you don't answer questions. 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 But what the hell, I've got a question for you anyway: If you were God, and Gandhi came before you on judgment day, would you a) send him to hell forever, b) cast him into the lake of fire for all eternity, or c) let him into heaven 041124 ... a and b. which are the same by the way. 041124 ... missionary Sab, Regardless of whether or not you know where I am going with this, as you should, because it IS blatently obvious,that doesn't mean that you can't answer the questions without it chinking the armor of your beliefs. If the answers to these silly questions are that upsetting to you, I mean, let's face it, they are not offensive questions. I have not been the least bit offensive either, have I? If I have, then please cut and paste the text right here. I will own up for each offense. ( And please don't say something discriminatory like, "Your presence here offends me.") You guys, If your beliefs are as Rock Solid as they should be, why are you getting upset over these questions? I don't get upset when people challenge my beliefs because they are unbreakable. They have withstood the test of time; Almost 2000 years of voracious attacks and growing now faster than ever. 28 usc 1983/smurfus/etc. Be patient, you'll get your answers... It takes a long time for me to write those long answers, they are not simple yes or no questions you are asking, come on. And since I am not unemployed, neglecting my responsibilities, or skipping school, I only get so much time to write... But go back and count how many questions I've answered to disprove your own accusations. Be patient. Exercise. See... I could have spent that time writing *my point*, but I had to spend it to correct some misconceptions instead. Now you have to wait even longer! 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 You don't have a point that isn't stupid and/or obvious. By the way, you don't even have anything interesting to say, much less anything relevent. And how delusional can you possibly be? You think your lame allegory undermines the non-Christian world view? You have to be insane if you're not just a complete idiot. But my main concern: Gandhi goes to hell. Fuck you for thinking that. Really. I mean that. I despise your beliefs. Do you really think that you deserve to go to heaven and Gandhi deserves to go to hell? You, an unremarkable self-righteous speck, to whom virtue is a well tied half windsor knot, deserve a better afterlife than one of the most selfless men in history. You sicken me. 041124 ... sameolme "There is no god higher than the truth." Mahatma Gandhi 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 "I don't get upset when people challenge my beliefs because they are unbreakable." They're unbreakable because you're an idiot who thinks people burn in hell forever no matter how undeserving they are of eternal punishment. People like, oh, I don't know, Gandhi, let's say. But you're not just an idiot. You're something worse than an idiot. You're a sociopath. A very special kind of sociopath, because it's not just that your moral compass is completely fucking broken--you actually think it's pointing you in the right direction. 041124 ... dratkuf USC - are the only person I've EVER heard say Ghandi is going to hell... YOU. You keep trying to get him to judge Ghandi, but like he already told you, God will judge Ghandi... not you or missionary or anyone else. Why do you care so much about what missionary thinks? If you were as brilliant as you claim to be, you should realize that by making yourself look like an arrogant Ass, stalker, derainged, anger driven person who hippocritically judges the person who you are attacking for judging, your doing more to support missionary's cause by making the opposition look stupid, than to fight it. Missionary, don't pretend that your all innocent when people lash out at you because you should expect this type of reaction. Everyone of your kind for the last 2,000 years has faced that and much worse, so don't think you're going to get off easy! 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 He said above that he'd send Gandhi to hell if he were God, moron. But thanks for the kind words. You clearly know what you're talking about. 041124 ... dratkuf Oh, well help a lowly moron out by showing me exactly where he said that, would ya? I've read it all and I must ov moronically missed it. 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 "a and b. which are the same by the way." If you don't think that was him, then you're probably one of his aliases. And if it wasn't, and he didn't really believe Gandhi is hellbound, then he could have easily said so. He could still say so. I don't think he could though, because he's one of those fundamentalists who think that the only way to heaven is through Christ. They think every non-virtuous... Since you've interceded, you must have something significant to bring to this discussion. So let me ask you: Does Gandhi go to hell? And don't hide behind the "only God can judge" rhetoric, because every Christian has an intuitive idea of who he thinks will go to hell. So what's your hunch? But more than that, I'd like to know if you think it would be fair for Gandhi to go to hell. Could a God who'd send Gandhi to hell for not believing in the divinity of Christ possibly be fair? 041124 ... smurfus rex this is why I "assumed" you thought a particular way about mom's absolution: "Some info: (for the person who said something about, the mother shoulda taught the kid... or whatever. See above: The mother did sternly warn her child and teach her child not to play with snakes. She fully explained the consequences as to what would happen (death) if the six year old were to disobey. The child did not listen, and died as a result." Perhaps I read it wrong, but it sure sounds to me like you were implying that, since mom fully explained the consequences, kid was then fully responsible for his actions. At any rate, I've debated questions like yours long enough to distinguish good, thought-provoking questions from weak, moral-relativity questions. All I'm saying is you need stronger exploratory questions than the snake one. One of my favorites is this two-parter: what is "evil", and is it really bad? 041124 ... what evah! taken literally . . . first question. it seems irrelevant to me whether the child's death was "fair". it seems to me that you could say that the event was a bad thing rather than a good thing, but why would fairness apply? second question. this seems somewhat circumstantial. of course children should be allowed to play outdoors given the proper environment to play in and the proper supervision for the child's level of development. and what is that exactly? a big fat wad of circumstances, that's what. it doesn't really play nice with the morality puzzle here in my opinion. third question. this is even more irrelevant than the first question. it seems that it wouldn't matter who had the highest degree of happiness (however that is measured). are we supposed to worry that the wrong party will too happy for selfish reasons? or not happy enough? why is the snake included? taken not so literally . . . was it "fair" that humans were tempted, original sin, blah blah blah. . . do the answers above equate to the "real" question? 041124 ... missionary Well, you're right What Evah!. It does seem irrelevant when taken literally. It's not irrelevant though, I'll explain how it's relevant in a sec... Anyway, the questions are not unanswerable. I made them as basic and colorless as possible on purpose for simplicity's sake. No use whining about how simple they are. Right? Here is how I would answer the questions. The death of the child is fair. (Good job lucifer109?, lol) A six year old child is fully capable of determining right from wrong in terms of obedience vs. disobedience. In answers_for_sammyael "28 usc 1983" was basing his entire argument off this perspective: "It's not fair" that people who don't pass God's standards are punished forever in hell. The correlation to the story is obvious and so is the implied point: Free will means you MUST accept the consequences of your choices. Like the child in this story, if a human is warned in advance of the penalty for a certain action, they cannot cry "it's not fair" when it comes time to pay the penalty. If an athlete doesn't prepare adequately for an event and then loses the race, he only amplifies his loss of dignity by crying, "Its not fair!" It is fair. Losers lose and winners win... this is fairness. There's no such thing as "everyone ties" in a choice based reality. The next question is also a no-brainer and most of you got this right. The mother should not have kept her child locked in the safe happy little house. An sheltered existence is a form of imprisonment and is wrong! A child cannot be supervised 24/7 and still enjoy life. If we are afforded no autonomy then our free will would really be more of an imprisoned will. No human can be free if they are always aware that they are being watched. (Unless, of course, they were perfect.) Like in the bible, after God delivered the Hebrews from Egyptian Slavery, He lived among them for a while in a pillar of fire and cloud. The Israelites begged and pleaded for God to go away... why? Because they were living in a state of perpetual fear, terrified that if they were to inadvertently think some casual, sinful thought, they may be incinerated on the spot. They didn't have the freedom to be their cattle worshipping selves and it was driving them crazy. The world is dangerous and "full of snakes", we can't just hide in fear until the danger passes. It never passes. We must overcome our fears and embrace life: The successes as well as the adversities. Would you rather not have the chance of living your life? Those who don't place value on life may answer yes. But life, when valued, becomes valuable and naturally improves the ones who truly are living. And the third question's answer is obviously: D. The Neighbors. Sadly, nobody got this one right. Just joking! There is no right answer to this question since happiness is not an empirically quantifiable property. Just for the sake of argument, however, if anything, the mother would be the happiest since her relief from guilt would be the greatest. The kid would just be sad the snake got away, plus he'd be punished for not listening. The snake's emotional capacity cannot facilitate the chemical reactions necessary for happiness to be experienced. The neighbor's lawyer said their couldn't be a trial since there were no crimes committed and no witnesses. The last question was just for fun. And no, I never said Gandhi is going to hell, that's just another lie. Thanks for exposing it dartkuf. 041124 ... 28 usc 1983 Okay, so Gandhi goes to heaven then, right? So I guess all virtuous non-Christians go to heaven. That makes sense. It really wouldn't be fair the other way. But then the question becomes, what's the point of calling God "Jesus" and obsessing over the Christian Bible? If secular morality gets you to heaven just as easily as Christianity, why bother "converting" people to your religion? If you genuinely believe that virtuous non-Christians go to heaven, then all you should worry about is virtue detached from the teachings of Jesus (as interpreted by fundamentalists). Of course, when you say that you never "said" that Gandhi is going to hell, I take you at the plain meaning of your words, which is that you didn't specifically say that Gandhi was going to hell, even though you believe Christ is the only way to salvation and Gandhi was not a Christian. So in a world without deductive inferences, you'd be completely correct that you never said Gandhi was going to hell. Of course, I guess no one "says" anything by typing words, so there's another technicality you can argue. I mean, whatever allows you to cling to those beliefs, right? Whatever allows you to never confront the obvious injustice of your religion. To some Christians, openly declaring someone damned falls into the "taking away God's power" category, and is therefore. This has always struck me as disingenuous, however, because Christians know the prerequisites for heaven and therefore who's more or less likely to get in. 041125 ... 28 usc 1983 But honestly, I think that you may be a sociopath. Let me explain why. First of all, the idea that 6-year-olds should be held liable for their negligence is just ridiculous. But let's put that aside for a moment. Let's assume that human beings, having free will, are responsible for their sins. So they should be punished for wrongdoing, right? Okay. That makes sense. It's how the law works, after all. But try to follow this carefully: The punishment must be proportionate to the crime. If the punishment doesn't fit the crime, then there is no justice. Would it be fair to skin a person alive for speeding? Would 20 years in prison be an appropriate sentence for stealing cable? Of course not. But you're saying something slightly different. You're saying that a person should accept the naturally occurring consequences of his actions. Like if you jump off a bridge you should accept that, since we are all subject to gravity, you will fall and break. That makes sense until you realize that God's system is not just natural law. Unless you're a Deist (and you're not), God doesn't just set up the system and get the ball rolling, he plays an active role in creation. But even if he didn't, even if he did merely set up the world based on natural laws and preset rules about how ones gets to heaven and who goes to hell, he still created the system. God makes up whatever rules he likes regarding the consequences of sin. He is not subject to them. Unless you are arguing that God is a slave to his own (or someone else's) rules, then he gets to decide whether or not a person burns in fire forever. Since he decides the criteria for damnation, his standards must be just. Hell is never just. There is no crime that has ever been committed or that ever could be committed that would justify eternal punishment. Why can't you see that? What's wrong with you? Let's return to your allegory of the snake, the mom, and the kid. It sets up a really poor analogy between the kid/humanity, the mom/god, and the snake/sin/hell. Why is it poor? Well, because the mom would never want her kid die. She wouldn't say, "well, it serves him right--I told him." She wouldn't think his death was "fair." She'd blame herself, and if she had the power, she'd do anything to save her baby. She'd think, "I never should have left him alone." But there's an even more important difference between mom and God: The mom would have never put snakes in the yard. She'd have never set up little traps to test her son's obedience. God has the power to create the world, remember? He chose to make snakes/sin. He designed the whole system of salvation and eternal punishment. He's not simply a mom who is subject to all the world's unfair circumstances. If he were, he'd not be culpable or accountable for humanity's punishment. Of course, then he wouldn't be God. If you want to stick with moms and sons, the better comparison would be one where the kid eats cookies when he isn't supposed to, so the mom puts out her cigarette on his arm. "You know that mommy hates it when you spoil your appetite. I'm sorry, but you know how mad it makes me." 041125 ... 28 usc 1983 "The neighbor's lawyer said their couldn't be a trial since there were no crimes committed and no witnesses." Then the neighbor's lawyer knows as little of the law as you. Just curious: Why all the legal references when you're ignorant of the law? Well, I guess it's appropriate, since you talk a lot about morality and don't know anything about that, either. 041125 ... 28 usc 1983 "We must overcome our fears and embrace life: The successes as well as the adversities. Would you rather not have the chance of living your life?" A good way to eliminate fear and live life is to reject fundamentalist Christianity, a belief system driven by fear and both underinclusive and overinclusive in its concept of "life." 041125 ... 28 usc 1983 "In answers_for_sammyael '28 usc 1983' was basing his entire argument off this perspective: "'It's not fair' that people who don't pass God's standards are punished forever in hell." ... And you disagree with that? You would sit around in your cloud in heaven and be okay with the eternal suffering of billions? I guess you would. So my question is, again: What's wrong with you? You think hell is fair. That's your contention. To burn in hell forever is fair. Because we have free will. Because God has "standards." Ever think about questioning the standards? Arbitrary standards aren't legitimate just because the one who made them up is powerful. Power is not a moral justification. (Maybe it is if you have no sense of what morality actually is). 041125 ... 28 usc 1983 "Free will means you MUST accept the consequences of your choices." Were it that simple you'd be right. But it's not that simple, so you're wrongtarded. The consequences still have to be fair (because remember, God made the consequences). If we were to follow your logic to its sickening conclusion, jaywalkers could justly be executed "because they knew they shouldn't have done it." Oh, but you don't like the crime and punishment analogy because of how bad it makes your position look. You prefer the "natural consequences" model. That model is completely inappropriate, however, as it omits an essential element: God's agency. In order to make eternal punishment seem fair, you have to pretend that hell is merely the necessary conclusion to certian objectively sinful acts. Like hell is the bottom of a cliff that sinners jump off. Sin is jumping into the pit, hell is the natural consequence of what occurs when you hit bottom. You can't fault gravity for bringing you you down there, right? No. You're wrong. False analogy. Gravity has no agency. God has agency. Gravity can't decide. God can decide. Hell is a prison sentence, not the bottom of a pit or a snake's venomous bite. It is a punishment that must be decided and administered, not a necessary consequence based on natural law. For your analogy to work, the mom has to allow the snake to bite her son because he disobeyed her. Once again, the snakebite/hell is a punishment, not a natural consequence. The only way it can be a natural consequence is if God has no agency. But it makes sense if you're a Christian to try to frame eternal punishment not as a choice, but a natural consequence. Why? Because otherwise the God you know and love chooses to burn people forever because they worshipped the wrong God. The God you pray to, if he chooses to send people to hell, is an evil sadist. So God either has no choice in sending people to hell, is therefore not all-powerful and therefore not God, or he is an evil, vindictive sadist. Which is it? 041125 ... oldephebe eventually, i'll have to read this thing. geez, applying the rigors and or architectures of epistemological validation to something htat is brought about by faith, by the call of the Spirit upon someones restless, agonized soul is well in my opinion pretty hopeless. Without the touch, the call of God upon ones life one cannot see Him or touch Him.... Got to get back to fixin' the victuals 041125 ... oE i should read this though...sooo... 041125 ... 28 usc 1983 "If an athlete doesn't prepare adequately for an event and then loses the race, he only amplifies his loss of dignity by crying, 'Its not fair!' It is fair. Losers lose and winners win." Oh, it is fair? Because you say so? Even though it appears so unfair? I can't believe that you'd characterize the damned, burning in hell forever, as "whiners." How lacking in compassion and human decency. And don't say that's not what you said, because the quotation above implies it. I missed that analogy the first time through. It's another poor one. Why do you insist on speaking in poor analogies? Is it because even you would have a hard time saying, "The damned are losers. Us Christians in heaven are winners"? Whining may do no good once you "lose the race" (i.e., go to hell), but if the rules of the race are unfair, you'd certainly have a right to complain. Actually, we can modify your analogy to make it a better fit. So there's a race. There are 2 racers. Let's call them racer 1 and racer 2. The racers both line up, run, and finish at exactly the same time. Great, thinks racer 1, we both win. To his surprise, however, racer 2 is declared the sole winner. Racer 1 asks the official if perhaps he finished a millisecond slower. "No," replies the official, "you finished at exactly the same time, but racer 2 wore the special socks and you did not. You were disqualified from the start." Aghast, racer 1 stammers, "Special socks? What are you talking about???" I didn't know I had to wear special socks to win this race." And the official says, "You received a call a few weeks ago informing you of the rule. I'm sorry, you knew the rules." Racer 1 replies, "Yeah, I got that call, but I thought it was some idiot playing a prank. Special Socks?? It's so crazy, why would I ever believe it?? A person's socks have nothing to do with how fast he runs." The official is indignant. "Don't amplify your loss of dignity, sir," he bellows, "by crying 'it's not fair.'" Racer 1 knows he hasn't the authority to change the rules that he is subject to, but he knows that this is bullshit. These rules were not just unfair, but absurd. Either way, racer 1 is shot and burned. The end. 041125 ... missionary I'm sorry, but your are wrong. I can't make it any more simple for you. Perhaps if you reread the posts again you might understand. Don't give up! Just because you lose, or anyone loses for that matter, doesn't mean "it's not fair". Why don't you get that? I've never understood the kind of person who cries "it's not fair" after losing. or "it's not fair" that they're fat when they constantly overeat... I'm not saying, you are that person, but your arguments seem indicative of that sort of mentality. Why do so many people these days seem to want to avoid any accountability. "Blame everyone else!" is a really poor motto. And you're wrong about a great many other things as well... For instance: Your understanding of Christianity. I don't know where your information comes from, but it's devastatingly flawed. Your argumentative ammunitions are all "blanks". If you're trying to impress or decieve other readers, the only ones reading are your aliases. So you're only lying to yourself! I am not impressed or deceived because I know more about Christianity than you do. I don't have to defend myself against your attacks, because I know they're just blanks. Sorry, your plan to antagonize me is destined for failure. I can try to get you to see things on a rational level, but if you are unwilling to accept simple truths about fairness then we'll go nowhere with this... Why do you live in fear? I don't... Ok. This is why I say that you don't understand Christianity. You think that it creates fear. This is just plain ignorant. I'm sorry if that offends you... But it really is. Do you know how many times the phrase "Do Not Fear" appears in the bible? Fearlessness is one of the main topics. Christianity has erased my fears. I fear nothing, except God who has the power to judge us and burn us forever... But God is Love, He loves me and He is for me and has significantly enhanced my life so that I truly live life to the fullest... That's not attributed to my own good deeds, its because I accepted the Free_Gift of salvation that was bought for me with the Blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus has delivered me from ALL fear!! Does that scare you? That I fear nothing. So that enhances my confidence. Which enhances my attitude, which benefits my disposition, which makes me have more patience for ignorant, deceived and broken people, which makes them see that I've got something that they don't have, which leads them to ask "why are they so joyous / successful / alive / blessed?" Which then leads the ones who aren't focused on whining about how it's not fair that I'm blessed and they aren't to find out more about God and the Bible. Which inevitably leads to freedom from sin, disease, poverty, sickness, brokeness, shame, guilt, hell, judgement, self, people and FEAR! You see? The Truth Shall Make You FREE! 041125 ... oE Just.... Wow. 041125 ... sameolme and nothing but the truth. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 "Just because you lose, or anyone loses for that matter, doesn't mean 'it's not fair'. Why don't you get that?" Because your appalling lack of compassion is not something one "gets" except in the sense that someone can "get" a terrible disease. What makes it unfair is not that someone loses. That should have been clear from what I wrote, though your inability to comprehend the basic thrust of my argument is hardly surprising at this point. What makes the “loss” unfair is the unfairness of the rules. Your Christianity-as-race analogy was poor in the usual way false analogies are, in that it oversimplified to distortion in order to score an unearned point. But beyond that, it showed that you are insensitive and uncaring enough to characterize the eternal suffering of billions as the whining of losers. You say that you know more about Christianity than I do, but insomuch as Christianity is ideally a religion of love and compassion, I’d argue that there are few who know less than you. Your values are crude. You think that personal accountability is a worthy enough virtue to justify the unending torment of those who fail to attain it. You talk about fat people, about losers who want to “blame someone else” for their failure, and I have to assume that you think that by doing so you represent the highest ideals of Christ. I suppose the homeless are losers. They had their chance, right? Why can’t they get a job? Prostitutes. The same. Losers. And dirty whores. Why bother to help them? There are a number of similar avenues to travel that all end with the position you’ve consistently held looking despicable. Perhaps the strongest argument that you lack compassion is that you see others’ compassion as a symptom of their own hidden weakness. You think that understanding and acceptance of others’ flaws and failings without judgment is a rationalization of one’s own flaws and failings. No, when I say that it’s unfair for thieves to go to hell, I don’t say so because I am a thief. But I am able to empathize with those who find themselves punished as thieves, even if they themselves are primarily to blame for their actions and the consequences that flow therefrom. And I would fight for their rights to be punished fairly. How about you? People should be accountable for their actions and they are. But accountability must be just. The concept of accountability isn’t a blank check to justify visiting neverending torment upon a wrongdoer. This is a point that you cannot seem to understand, perhaps because you shallowly define justice as the arbitrary will of whatever system fate has empowered. What you fail to realize is that if the process is unjust, the result can never be just. Following the established path while disregarding human appeals to fairness is not justice. Systems of justice must be accountable or else they fail. That such a system seeks to hold itself above such reasonable scrutiny is the death knell of justice. Hell is by definition unfair. If one believes that punishment should fit the crime, then the only crime that could justify eternal punishment is an eternal crime. Hell is always an excessive punishment, no matter how egregious the offense, because it is unlimited. Humans can only inflict finite suffering, yet God supposedly doles out infinite suffering regardless of the degree of the crime. This is a system of punishment lacking the most basic sense of justice. Even the code of Hammurabi stopped punishing you after you were put to death and your house was appropriated. I don’t expect you to get this, though. That you fail to see the disjunction between statements like, “God is love” and “God can burn me forever” pretty much seals this one. I don’t live in fear. Saying so doesn’t make it true. How you can contend that a group of people who literally believe that demons are swarming around them, trying to tear them away from God and drag them to hell with the devil are generally less fearful than non-Christians who stopped believing in the boogeyman by age 10, max, is not entirely surprising in the context of your other statements, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid. The bible may contain the words “do not fear,” but if you think that Christians are fearless, or even less fearful than the average non-Christian, then you’re fooling yourself. Of course, self-deception wouldn’t be anything new for you. Whether you’re actually fearless or not I don’t know, nor do I care, since it’s really immaterial to the discussion. Either way, you come off as immature and angry. Not very Christ-like. But again, I’m only interested in you insofar as the way that you practice your personal concept of Christianity fails to correlate with general standards of morality. I’ve told no lies. I’m not wrong simply because you say so, and you never responded meaningfully to anything I wrote on answers_for_sammayael. Your talk of rationality is hollow. Beyond bald assertions that I’m wrong and you’re right, your arguments are nothing but groundless assertions of authority, which is I suppose another thing to which your pathological religion has inured you. You can say my attacks are blanks all you like, but there’s no mistaking that growing puddle of crimson at your feet. You’re right, we will go nowhere with this, not because I fail to see truth, but because you’ve made it the victim of your zealotry. Not that I expected anything more. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 By the way, I like how you think that the use of space and ALL CAPS strengthens your point when it actually reveals your ignorance of this medium's limitations. 041125 ... magicforest What is Christianity for you is not Christianity for everyone. You have a very intelligent understanding of your experiences, but not everyone's. For some people, Christianity means fear, guilt, shame and oppression. For others it means serenity, happiness, love and freedom. For yet more it is a little of both. The really strange thing is that many times, all of these people have put forth the same effort, passion, research, introspection, investigation and experience...and yet somehow they have come to different conclusions! Isn't that the kicker in humanity? We need universal truths to live by but we can't decide on them, so we look for someone superior to humanity to decide for us and can't agree on who that is either! I don't know what your mission is here, dear missionary, but if you set out to convince by argument rather than by example, you are taking the rocky path. I lived as a Jew in a small Christian town for many years, and the Christians who communicated to me most the beauty, the power, and the peace of their beliefs were not those who tried to convert me, those who tried to persuade me to believe what they did, or those who prove my views wrong, but were rather those who befriended me, cared for me when I was upset, accepted me into their world no questions asked, without even commenting on my beliefs or sharing their own unless asked. The simple fact that they did not care or wonder what I was, that they knew that I was human and that was good enough for them, that they could so selflessly become my companions without hidden agendas to change me, had a significantly profound impact on me. It erased the seven years of passionate, blazing-eyes arguments that so incensed and degraded me. Solely because of that one group of teenage Christians, I cannot lose hope in the Christian faith. They were truly the most powerful missionaries I have known. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 Oh, and it's not your "fearlessness" that's scary, it's the self righteousness and lack of compassion. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 The "fearlessness" is just sad, because it comes off as weird bravado. You know, you might do better in this "debate" if you cast the demons out of me first. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 And by ascribing to yourself the conclusory labels "joyous / successful / alive / blessed" you make a great argument for the value of the despairing / unsuccessful / dead / cursed. But I have to admit, you're pretty good at listing stuff, whether it makes any sense or not. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 "The Truth Shall Make You FREE!" That must be why I feel so free. Tell me, what's prison like? 041125 ... wow... i couldn't even keep up... talk about judgemental attitudes and everyone (ok, take it with a damn grain of salt) wanting to be right... who said life has to be fair? i'm fairly sure it may have been asked or at least implied... there is no natural selection. (sorry) even if you believe in God or any type of higher being, they're not really ever fair anyway. and from God's point of view, we should all go to hell for any sin we commit (and we will commit them), from disobeying or telling a white lie to cold blooded murder... even thinking about sinning is a sin. and if nothing happens after death anyway, who the hell cares if it's fair? it's all perspective. and you don't know what i mean by this, so why bother getting all worked up about it? silly people. you fascinate me. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 Natural laws are not fair. The world is not fair. But the lack of an afterlife doesn't mean we shouldn't expect fairness in this world. Atheism is not nihilism. And if God exists, he would and should be fair, if for no other reason than that's how his existence is defined. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. Hope that wasn't too hard to keep up with. 041125 ... 42 usc 1983 But I mean, way to argue for apathy. 041125 ... missionary Thanks magicforest for your intelligent perspective. You are right. In fact, I meant not to get caught up in these silly debates... Old habits die hard, I guess. Ok, (deep breath) enough tampering with distractions. Time to do what I was sent here to do. This blathe is over... What? There is nothing more to see! I am serious! Just click the back button on your browser! Wow, this medium is so limited! (tchk) What was that? What? I heard something? It sounded like "Tchk" Shhhh.... it was just an echo You must REALLY be bored! Is there a bottom? The bottom does exist... Don't read this.... Ok...You're here! Happy? 041126 ... 42 usc 1983 Well, you may not have been able to make a valid point, but you sure proved you know where the “enter” key is. So it appears as though the mission’s over. But what was the mission? To prove that you were never entitled to the moral ground you claimed? Funny, you couldn’t even fake it for very long. In the future you might want to act more loving and calm and less insensitive and psychotic when you’re trying to sell fundamentalism. And that way, when you claim to be centered and fearless and successful, it will come off as less absurd. For the record, you never even attempted to address the substance of anything I wrote. I can’t blame you, though. Those were tough questions. Probably impossible for a fundamentalist. Anyway, thanks, you were exactly what I expected. 041126 ... 42 usc 1983 One parting shot, though. You say this was a "silly debate." Only your half of this "debate" was silly. Saying you're fearless doesn't mean shit when you're clearly afraid to confront my arguments. Like for instance, my argument that your snake analogy was flawed, a distortion that failed to account for God's agency. Thus your "argument" for the fairness of hell was conclusory to the greatest degree possible, since it consisted in its entirety of the bare conclusion that hell is simply fair. Also, you never argued that you weren't insensitive, lacking in human decency, borderline sociopathic, even, to compare the suffering of the damned to the whining of sore losers. So I'll take that allegation as admitted. You never addressed whether or not Gandhi deserves to go to hell. You evaded the question, but logical inference and knowledge of standard fundamentalist rhetoric suggests that you do think he should go to hell. But either way, you never addressed the unfairness of hell with respect to judgment criteria. For posterity, I just wanted to summarize some--and these are only some--of the more important points that I brought up again and again and that you never addressed. And now, as long as you keep quiet, we're done. 041126 ... magicforest Missionary, I beg you, please do not respond to that parting shot. Go out silently and your message will reverberate far louder than your opposition. Let it be known that when you say it is over, it is over, and you will not be tempted. Please, peace. For everyone. For blather. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening...I greatly appreciate your kindness, dear Missionary. 041126 ... 42 usc 1983 "Dear Missionary"? That's a little much, don't you think? Well, your opinion, I guess. One thing: while silence would probably be his best option, please don't imply that it would serve as a refutation of anything I've said. I just don't like the suggestion that all we've done is express unsubstantiated opinions, because I've done more than that. This isn't debate for the sake of debate. I'm not arguing in the abstract for no good reason. I actually care about this subject. I think Christian fundamentalism aids regressive public policy. Remember, fundamentalist Christian voters and politicians will continue to support regressive legislation whether or not people argue on this website, so please don't place too high a value on a nominal "peace." The mere appearance of mutual respect and understanding is not worth conceding these important points. 041126 ... magicforest smiles silently 041126 ... 42 usc 1983 shrugs. loudly 041126 ... goes to retrieve lime To No One In Particular: What is the Deal with forcing your faith in someones face? What's up with ramming your horns against the roof of my mouth? What does insulting someone really have to do with forwarding the merits of YOUR argument? I've got my neanderthal club in my right hand and I've tied a cat of nine tails to my tongue and every time someone forthrightly advances an argument that is in diametrical opposition to mine instead of sifting said argument through the abacus of reasoned debate why I'll just resort to the old tactic of hurling insults. Your emotion makes you weak, your anger and indignation do nothing to forward or validate y 041129 ... tea leaves sighs 041129 ... argument is essential to egomaniacs and bullies 041129 ... Al Amicus Brief What is the Deal with forcing your faith in someones face? What's up with ramming your horns against the roof of my mouth? What does insulting someone really have to do with forwarding the merits of YOUR argument? I've got my neanderthal club in my right hand and I've tied a cat of nine tails to my tongue and every time someone forthrightly advances an argument that is in diametrical opposition to mine instead of sifting said argument through the abacus of reasoned debate why I'll just resort to the old tactic of hurling insults. Your emotion makes you weak, your anger and indignation do nothing to forward or validate your opposition, it reveals the inadequacy of your intellect and your seismic emotional instability. green rubber rain poncho 041127 ... 42 usc 1983 The problem with addressing that vague rebuke to no one in particular is that it might refer to me, although not justifiably. Insults in themselves don’t necessarily add anything to the logic of an argument, but they add something to the rhetoric. However in this case I think the interaction that the insults sparked did contribute to the discourse. By his own choice, the missionary made the validity of his arguments for fundamentalism depend significantly on his ability to embody supposed fundamentalist values. So when he appeared angry and imbalanced (all the ALLCAPS yelling) or insensitive and cruel (talking about how people burning in hell are just losers whining), that said something about the validity of Christian fundamentalism, or at the very least his fitness as a representative of both morality in general and that point of view in particular. Therefore the insults, inasmuch as they helped draw out those revealing reactions, did further the discourse. Of course, that’s my opinion and you can disagree with it. So if you’re referring to me and my insults, and if you think I’m a jerk for typing them, well then fine, I am a jerk. But that doesn’t make the substance of my arguments invalid or even weaken them. You may want to sift reasoned debate through an abacus, whatever that could possibly mean, but if you can’t see that invective doesn’t automatically invalidate a point of view, then maybe you’re not the one to point out inadequacy of intellect. For all your concern about insults adding nothing to the substantive discourse, your critical generalities don’t really add anything either. But maybe you have a different idea about what the substance of this “debate” is or should be. Perhaps you’re less interested in this particular topic and more interested in studies of civility in the marketplace of ideas. I half think you were more interested in just getting out those metaphors. In either case, I don’t care about those topics at all, but I will reiterate that I did make substantive arguments above and elsewhere if you’re interested. I don’t understand people who value good manners so highly that they think debate, even angry one-sided debate riddled with invective, should be silenced. Sometimes angry debate is necessary or at least worth the hurt feelings. You have the right to your opinion, and as long as I have no stake in your opinion, I probably shouldn’t bother trying to change it. However, the current topic is one that manifests itself in real life, specifically in politics, which always trickles down to real life sooner or later. The opinions people hold with respect to this topic are important and they won’t cease to affect your life and mine simply because we pretend that we’re all getting along. Whether this topic is debated or not, those who fall on either side of it will interact in real life in meaningful ways that have nothing to do with debate for debate’s sake. And if you weren’t referring to me, well, then, nevermind. 041127 ... Lime Green Parka salesman Hold on I have to turn my Wagner down a little. I love to unwind on lazy Saturday mornings by listening to Teutonic Orchestral Rhapsodies. It's pretty difficult to persuade someone by resorting to personal attacks even if the other on the merry go round of dueling dogmas is passionate or seeks to forward his/her argument through the vieled gyrations of a bruised ego. In discussions about a Holy, Loving Compassionate God, a christian has no place, no basis for resorting to thinly vieled personal attacks or condemnation. Like I said my comment was not addressed to anyone in particular. If your interest is merely to bludgeon someone into acquiesence then perhaps the personal and peremptory are effective avenues toward that goal. If your desire is to persuade w/o malice or force then perhaps you may consider forwarding your argument w/o utilizing those tactics. Obviously, you're a fairly bright individual; however in my opinion I do not believe personal attack aside from the cathartic benefit and or the retaliatory justice/requirement of an inflamed ego are usefull means of argumentation. (ie debate, persuasion) Sure sometimes we must respond to the fire someone starts in our hearts. I get that. Isn't there a more constructive way to persuade and or inform the other that he/she is no longer debating but instead descending to the rank depths of moaning out of a ditch of inadeuqacy or frustration? Me personally I have a daily quota of at least 11 metaphores that I must inject creatively into my conversations/discourses. I think it's some kind of compulsive thing or emotional palliative. So, more metaphores to come. 041127 ... Ive got two more disposable rain I mean, if I may borrow a phrase, I won't, can't even BEGIN to dispute or challenge the 'emotional truth' of your words. If one says they were offended and incensed who am I to question the validity of thier projected emotional state? I just think that there has GOT to be more to human discourse than slashing at the air, the ear, the heart of our advesary. parkas left before I go to Wall-Mart. 041127 ... 42 usc 1983 It’s hard to persuade someone by resorting to “personal attacks,” sure. Maybe. It depends on how long they’re forced to listen to you and whether or not your arguments are any good to begin with. But do you know what’s probably harder than persuading with personal attacks? Persuading someone that his religion is unfair, therefore internally inconsistent and ultimately false. Do you actually think it’s possible for a devout fundamentalist Christian to not take personally an attack on his religion? He is the putative embodiment of his religion. If you attack his religion, you attack him. It can’t get more personal, no matter how polite you are. And who says I wanted to persuade him anyway? My interest was not to “bludgeon into acquiescence,” but was rather plainly stated several times. I wanted him to confront the substance of my arguments. As a fundamentalist, that would have been difficult regardless of how tenderly I broached the subject. Sure, I could have been conciliatory, but do you know what such an approach would have done? It would have allowed him to spout off scripture that had nothing to do with the questions I asked. I would have asked a question, which would have pissed him off anyway, and then he’d have responded with a very long answer that said nothing. He didn’t say much anyway, but at least this way the casual observer wouldn’t be fooled into thinking that what appeared structurally to be an answer counted as a valid response. So I was more aggressive. Ultimately he didn’t address my substantive arguments, but what are the chances that he would have done so under any circumstances? Not very good. To my disappointment, you spend a lot of time talking about the emotion of my arguments. There is an “emotional truth” to my words, but it’s not so important as the logical truth. I didn’t rely on emotion except in pointing out the emotional disjunction between claiming a religion of love and not caring about those burning in hell. That’s an argument that has to do with emotion, but its main force is logic. What’s important is not the repugnance one feels toward a person who would claim that the damned are “whining losers,” but the way the obvious insensitivity that phrase connotes contradicts the basic principles of Christianity. That contradiction was the basis of my argument. That the contradiction had an emotional quality to it is incidental. I think your arguments rely far more on emotion than mine, as they appear to claim most of their rhetorical force through descriptive language and compound parallel sentence structure. Your point itself meanders. First you talk about what argumentation strategy would be most effective, then conclude with what approach would be most human. Unless you think that humanity equals optimized for persuasive efficiency, those are not the same point. With another comment, you shift the analysis to the emotional truth of my arguments, having never before discussed validity. If you say that you can’t dispute the emotional truth of what I say, does that imply you can dispute the logical truth? Your generalizations about argumentation and persuasion add little to this discussion in particular. So if you can advance a specific argument for why I would have been better off in this particular instance not mixing in personal attacks, do so. Otherwise, what’s your stake in this? What’s the point of explaining what you think is the wisest debate strategy? Oh, and nice of you to say I'm "fairly” bright. If you didn’t listen to Wagner or have such a high metaphor quota I might think you had slipped in some unwarranted condescension. 041127 ... 42 usc 1983 But with the metaphors, you might want to focus on quality before you strive for quantity. For example, when you refer to debaters on “the merry-go-round of dueling dogmas.” How is riding a merry-go-round like argumentation? Are you saying that argumentation is like a ride? It appears not, because dueling dogmas take possession of merry-go-round, but the comparison is muddled because riding a merry-go-round has nothing to do with opposition. Maybe dueling dogmas just refers to the riders themselves, but once again, unless the horseys that they’re bobbing up and down upon are jousting with each other, I don’t see how this forms a coherent image. Further complicating the matter is the metaphor in the next clause that disjunctively applies to the first arguer, “the other on the merry-go-round” who seeks to forward an argument through “veiled gyrations of a bruised ego.” Bruised ego possesses veiled gyrations, so you’re saying that one arguer’s ego is veiling its gyrations, but you haven’t defined what a veiled gyration is or how it might possibly relate to a bruised ego. I assume it’s a deliberately concealed gyration, which still begs the question, what does that represent? How does one further an argument by veiled ego gyrations? And how that could possibly make sense in the context of the debaters riding a merry-go-round? Maybe I’m just not as good at metaphors. I don’t have a quota, after all, and I’m fairly bright at best. 041127 ... oldephebe wow that was a forensic deconstruction. much props. I did not intend for my last blathe to sound like i was attacking you. Although I can be facetious at times or just silly to lighten the mood. I'd say you are VERY bright but not ready at this time to look at things from a different perspective. That's cool. I actually was not taking your side or missionarys side or anyone else's. Are you in law school? I'm impressed by your analytical ability. Good stuff. The metaphores are mostly employed out of a subjective need to inject some music into my blathes. They are not meant to antagonize or even to logically butress my perspective...they are soley the product of my fascination with the language of the soul rather than the language of logical argument.....merely a rhetorical device. Feel free to resist them or reject them. You have some interesting perspectives even if I don't share your conclusions. ... 041127 ... oldephebe Incidentally, I wasn't neccessarily speaking or referring to the emotion of YOUR arguments. (the caps do not denote yelling they are employed merely to underscore and delineate...oh man this is TEDIOUS..to delineate the possibility that i was referring to perhaps the tenor of missionaries comments as well. Man. You gotta penchant for semantic and dialectical dissection. Although I do not share some of your conclusions I gotta say WELL DONE. ... 041127 ... Red Uh... Did anyone beside me think missionary was a babe? Seriously. + 041127 ... tea leaves You do realize you are arguing about debating, right? someone_who_always_needs_an_argument 041127 ... 42 usc 1983 ‘Phebe: It’s presumptuous of you to say I’m not ready to see things from another perspective. When I was young I saw things from the fundamentalist perspective--everyone but Christians going to hell, the Pope as number 1 antichrist candidate, the end times being near, all of it--and it wasn’t until I was a teenager that I was willing to confront the moral and logical inadequacy of that point of view. Unless you tell me that you’ve held both views as well, I will not consider you a credible source on readiness to accept an alternate perspective. Even then, I have held both views, and there is such a thing as personal evolution. While I haven’t necessarily closed the door on spirituality, I’d more likely believe in Santa Clause again than the fundamentalist interpretation of Jesus, and I think that’s a good thing. The reasons why are all over this page and a few others. I am in law school. We don’t do much deconstruction, but I know a mixed metaphor when I see one. Anyway, nice chatting with you and thanks for responding directly to at least some of my comments, although you did focus more on the process than the substance. Again, I care about this particular issue, so I don’t much care about conciliation between believers and non-believers, in fact I think that it’s only possible on the surface and actually just obscures the real tension that always exists between both sides, specifically with regard to public policy. Tea leaves: And you’re passing off a tepid comment that we’re arguing about arguing as insight. And even that’s an argument. You only explicitly provide the initial premise, but the conclusion is implied that arguing about arguing is somehow wrong or stupid. Of course you haven’t logically earned that conclusion, but if arguing about arguing is stupid, how smart can it be to argue about arguing about arguing? Because if someone who always needs an argument needs heavy-duty introspection, then what of someone who is ignorant of the heuristic possibility of argument? What do they need? If I knew, I’d make a page telling them, the spaces typed as underscores, so I could link to it. 041127 ... tea leaves Put your fur down, please. I wasn't insinuating anything, I was just amused. Arguing about arguing about arguing about arguing...I am intimidated just writing this because I feel you will immediately snap up, dissect, and spew back my words. I hesitate to even ask a question. Already I am preparing myself for a bombardment, which is why I will resist my further curiosities and not return to this blathe - I will be far too tempted to defend myself, and then I will be embroiled in the same conflict I was trying to avoid. It is a bit of a mark on my honour to know my words will be left undefended, but I suppose my way is my vulnerability, so the rebuttal is yours, forever. I don't think any comment here, however innocent or unrelated to you, is safe from your swift counterattack. I don't insult your intelligence...you have proven yourself quite intelligent, and nor do I insult your temperament as being wildly argumentative or irrational...but I don't believe there always needs to be tension between people with different ideologies, and one could cut the tension in this blathe with a butter knife. It is no cool, unemotional debate, one cannot deny that personal attacks, however thinly veiled or coated in fake levity, were made or received. Truly, of course, I am not taking your side, not because of your opinion on any of the matters discussed in this blathe, as more often than not I found myself in agreement with you. It is more to do with your manner of disagreement, which is quite different from my own. Notice that I do not call it inferior. Simply different. At the beginning, I would have been different from the "missionary" as well, although that changed at the end. I've written all of this in part to defend myself, and in part to give the questions I have for you some context, but what I want to emphasize is that none of this is an attack on you in any way. If you see in these paragraphs any condescension, sarcasm, antagonism, patronization, dishonesty or hostility then I promise you they were due to my poor choice of words - I am not a good writer - and not my intent or true emotion. That said, I am doing a little experiment of my own, suppose, if one could think of it as such. I want to know more about you. I promise that I'm not plotting any psychoanalysis, searching for hidden hypocrisy, attempting to meaninglessly placate you like a child, or anything of that nature. It is simply for me to investigate my growing hypothesis that despite enormous ideological differences, there is a sort of universal humanity linking all of us. In a broad sense, I think am trying to empathize with the planet. I'm not sure exactly. Anyway, I humbly request your eyedream_history_portrait, and in there anything relevant you think pertains to you - life, love, passion, beauty, ugliness, dreams, sorrows, ghosts. The emphasis, of course, is what makes you *you*, not what makes you different from others. I don't want to incite any further arguments, you understand. Naturally you have no obligation to do this whatsoever, so if you don't, well, then you don't, and that is that. As you know, I won't be back here, but maybe one day I will catch you again elsewhere in the blue. 041128 ... 42 usc 1983 Well sorry then, I guess I misunderstood. Based on the comment and the link, I thought my interpretation was fair, but I’m glad you corrected me. I’d like to help you out on your project, but I’m not particularly good at talking about myself in this sort of setting. The reasons are myriad but also the most obvious you might imagine. I’m not a poet, and I don’t think my emotions look particularly interesting when written down, probably in part because I hesitate to contextualize them with revealing details from my life. This is probably because this medium is permanent and public, and I’ve never really felt comfortable leaving traceable pieces of myself on the Internet. Actually, I’ll probably abandon this name and its baggage once this page is done. I’m different in real life, expressing myself one-on-one. This may be a revealing look into my psyche or not. Well, that probably wasn’t at all what you were asking for. Sorry, my failure wasn't for lack of effort. Just a few comments, nothing acerbic: I never said my argument lacked an emotional dimension, only that the logic was far more important and universally ignored by everyone who commented. In the abstract, maybe it’s true that there needn’t always be tension between those with opposite ideologies. I suppose that cat lovers and dog lovers, for instance, might get along harmoniously without ever conflicting over their starkly contrasting preferences. But I’m not interested in the abstracted generalization. I’m only concerned with my opposition to fundamentalist Christianity. With this particular ideological opposition, conflict is inherent. As I mentioned before, religious views will influence our lives regardless of whether or not we maintain the appearance of harmony. Specifically, fundamentalists will vote for politicians who support regressive, prejudicial social policy whether I argue with them or not. If I criticize them more politely, they will not be any less likely to vote for banning gay marriage, preventing stem cell research, or reversing abortion rights. At least in the abstract, I can imagine that it might actually encourage such behavior, because if there is no opposition, no vocal moral outrage toward those policies, then fundamentalists will believe that they represent the will of the people, and that they can therefore impose their will on the rest of us, many of whom were dissenters who never spoke up because they just wanted everyone to get along. But who wants to get along with people who would impose their beliefs upon you? Why keep quiet when you feel moral outrage anyway? Fundamentalists are always morally outraged. Why concede to them a monopoly on that rhetorical strategy? I’m just as morally outraged when I hear a Christian say that burning in hell is a fair judgment from a loving God as any Pat Robertson clone is when he hears that gays want to marry. That said, I respect your right to think that I argued like a jerk, because I probably did, although as I explained above I had a practical goal in doing so. I’m really only concerned that you agree with my substantive opinion, not that you like my persona, which I’m sure reflects a part of my real-life personality but not so much of it that I’d feel too bad if you hated me. This is not to say that I want to be hated, or even that I wouldn’t dislike it, or that I’m invulnerable to posts that validly point out my weaknesses, but I genuinely feel that the criticism I gave on this page and others, in substance and in manner, was justified. Anyway, I hope you read this. I don’t dislike reading them, but personal/poetry pages intimidate me. I looked at eyedream_history_portrait for a few minutes and knew that I couldn’t/wouldn’t write there. So okay, I guess this page is done, then. 041128 ... 041129 ... xxx someone_is_killing_off_blather magicforest please stop, whoever you are...don't we all have the right to blathe? if you are from the newdream network, then I can hardly argue with your actions, but if you are not... 041129 ... some have abused their "right" for too long many pay for their thoughtlessness many will pay for mine this is the reality of irresponsible words they mean nothing and hurt many 041129 ... billy harmon show yourself coward and stop hiding behind your tricks you socially maladroit delusional repository of defective genes 041129 what's it to you? 041129 ... fix 041129 ... ? how come that person doent have a name? 070218 ... squeak squeak squeak, squeak... anybody there ? 070306 what's it to you? who go blather from