Ruby wrote:
Well, I do think you are very smart. I don't think IQ tests are worth much either.
Thank you.
I enjoyed debating with you, even if things got a bit muddled.
I'm glad to hear that.
Skytalker is really a very nice guy. I hope you guys can reach mutual respect.
I'm sure he is a very nice guy. We are off to our pissing (can I say that? sorry if that is not allowed) contest. I know who you will be rooting for.
Maybe you will want to start a new thread...but that's up to you and Skytalker.
Bye for now,
Ruby
That's ok, here is fine.
Skytalker, here we go.
Christian
Legalism is the term used (and particularly in jurisprudence) in the strict INTEPRETATION of the text. It is synonymous with literalist. So someone might be called a legalist if he/she invokes the rule in it’s strictest definition. A legalist could say, that “thou shall not kill” means one can’t kill anything, including a cockroach.
Skytalker wrote:
Then you provided the dictionary.com definition of legalism, viz., "strict conformity to the letter of the law rather than its spirit".
You, of course, have precisely made Ruby's point for her.
No, I did not.
I will explain.
Many churches set up rules to which they strictly adhere, many times even in contradiction of clear scriptural content to the contrary.
Here you present the idea that churches set up strict rules but do not cite exactly where this rule is written as to reference it. (and you add that many contradict each other, which is irrelevant to the point of what is the correct usage of the word legalist.)
Though it has become almost cliche in my experience, I cite as an example the strict official stance against the drinking of alcohol of any kind or quantity by many church denominations, local assemblies, and affiliated educational institutions. This position is held in spite of 1) Psalm 104 which attributes to the Christian God the provision of "wine which makes man's heart glad." (v 15); or 2) Jesus's making wine from water at the wedding in Cana (John 2); or 3) the apostle Paul exhorting Timothy (a pastor) to use a little wine for his health (advice remarkably consistent with today's medical research). Sure the Bible warns against the dangers of too much wine, and the NT flatly prohibits drunkeness, but to turn the prohibition against drunkeness into a prohibition against drinking at all is legalism exactly as defined by dictionary.com.
All of this explanation is irrelevant because you are citing an example of the contradiction between the church’s rules and the Bible. In any case, this would be an example of a clear misinterpretation of this particular church and the Bible.
Turning a prohibition of drunkenness into a prohibition against drinking would not be called legalism, it would be called distortion. (distorting the law is also a common subject in jurisprudence)
Adhering to the letter of the law and not the spirit would be to actually take your eye out or chop your hand off to avoid sinning, for example.
Me
I’m sure they do have strict rules. If they don’t, they wouldn’t function as an organization very well.
How can you say that? How do you know? Are you a Unitarian Universalist? Have you studied that organization or participated in their activities? You flatly contradict, without substantiation, a statement Ruby has made by first hand knowledge. Shame on you. How can you possibly expect to win her or anyone else to your side of the argument when all you say is "you're wrong"? You haven't proven a thing!
I don’t need to study the organization to conclude they have strict rules. All organizations have strict rules. Why shame on me? I can cite a few without having any more knowledge of the organization than a website search. And me knowing this beforehand was not a great feat, not by a long shot, just plain inductive reasoning.
Let me present 3 strict rules:
1. No UU member is allowed to use the NAME and CORPORATE SEAL of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Inc. to promote their particular agenda without the expressed permission of the Committee.
2. No part of the net earnings or receipts of funded property of the Corporation shall inure to the benefit of any officer, private individual, member of the Corporation, employee or substantial contributor
3. and that the Corporation shall not participate in nor intervene in any political campaign on the behalf of any candidate for public office.
From
http://www.uusc.org/info/bylaws.html
And take a look at membership:
Membership is open to all persons who support the mission and the programs of the Corporation. Membership in the Corporation shall be for twelve (12) months, with dues payable annually.
So, if people don’t pay, they can’t be members. Oh and they must support the mission and programs of the Corporation. Maybe a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer isn’t welcome.
No, I don't. But you are clearly twisting the clear meaning and intent of Ruby's statements so as to effectively redefine legalism with connotations it simply does not have in this context. That is dishonest debate. And that in spite of her further clarification, which you kindly included in your reply. Read on.
Am I twisting the clear meaning? And here the adhom, you accuse me of dishonest debate. So, if I’m dishonest then my arguments have no merit.
from datanation.com
Attacking the Person
(argumentum ad hominem)
Definition:
The person presenting an argument is attacked instead of the
argument itself. This takes many forms. For example, the
person's character, nationality or religion may be attacked.
Alternatively, it may be pointed out that a person stands to
gain from a favourable outcome. Or, finally, a person may be
attacked by association, or by the company he keeps.
Me
Your use of the word throws me off.
Come on, Christian! You are smarter than that! Are you trying merely to silence Ruby, or do you wish to really convince her of the righteousness of your view and the error of hers?
All these are ad homs. What does my intelligence have to do with the argument, or my righteousness?
If she is using the word incorrectly to make her case, I will have trouble making my case using the same word with a different meaning. (as I clearly pointed out)
(In the evangelical spirit of NT Christianity, I assume you would believe God would have none perish in error, but all come to eternal life through knowledge of the true truth. Perhaps my assumption is wrong.)
This is another ad hom.
from infidels.org
Argumentum ad hominem literally means "argument directed at the man"; there are two varieties.
The first is the abusive form. If you refuse to accept a statement, and justify your refusal by criticizing the person who made the statement, then you are guilty of abusive argumentum ad hominem. For example:
"You claim that atheists can be moral -- yet I happen to know that you abandoned your wife and children."
This is a fallacy because the truth of an assertion doesn't depend on the virtues of the person asserting it. A less blatant argumentum ad hominem is to reject a proposition based on the fact that it was also asserted by some other easily criticized person. For example:
"Therefore we should close down the church? Hitler and Stalin would have agreed with you.
Playing the dumb/confused card is one of your frequently used tactics, evidently intended to confuse your opponent in the debate.
And the hits keep on rolling.
I would not be surprised if this claim were true as you interpret intolerance of Christians. In my experience there are few Christians who know how, and perhaps fewer who are willing, to honestly, rigorously, and thoughtfully present an argument for anything.
It is good that you say “in my experience”, because I know many Christian who can. That’s the problem with generalizations and labeling. People can or can’t present good argumentation based on religious affiliation. But, I will stand corrected if you can back up this claim. And can you specify if you only mean correlation or are you extending it to causation.
James Randi has spent years exposing weak, sloppy thinking, religious charletans, frauds, and other such ilk. He can hardly be expected to look favorably on the feeble, emotional, and frequently fear-mongering presentations of so-called Christians.
Do I understand this as your pejorative opinion of all Christians, or are you just referring to those who claim to be but are not “real Christians”?
This examply is a case of the common either-or fallicy, and makes no allowance for the shades in between.
First of all, this is not a fallacy. I’m presenting a premise and I’m constructing an argument based on that premise then presenting a conclusion based on that. That is perfectly logical. If you want to attack the logic, attack the conclusion or how the logic is flawed (how the conclusion does not follow from the logic). You can’t attack the premise for the logic, it is premise. Here, let me give you the syllogism again:
Premise : You are not responsible for your actions (crimes)
Premise : People that are responsible for their actions (crimes) are punished.
(Therefore,) Conclusion: you are not punished for you actions (crimes)
Technically, yes, you might say that. But I ask you, what good or use is having a choice if you a) don't know you have it, or b) don't have any idea how to exercise that choice? Between these two conditions and really not having a choice there is no functional difference, unless (and this is key) some outside agent acts to reveal that a choice does exist and further, how to exercise that choice.
Ah, but you must show you don’t know you have it or don’t have any idea how to exercise it. The burden is not on me to disprove your “very hard to believe” claim.
So the mindset fostered and promoted, explicitly or implicitly, by the Christian church in Ruby's experience nurtured the "no choice" option for all practical purposes. It may have been a misrepresentation based on misunderstanding of Christian truth, but it a) required leaving the church in order to perceive the deception or misunderstanding, and b) leaves another vacancy of understanding as to how to reintegrate the newly found (if long existing) freedom(s) with a "correct" view of Christianity.
This is an extraordinary claim.
It was Christianity which seemed heretofore to have been responsible for denying or preventing the discovering of that freedom. My opinion is that if this clarity of reintegration does exist, you have yet to effectively demonstrate that it does. If you believe that it does, I challenge you to get on and show it.
The opposite is true. You are making an extraordinary claim. You are saying she was, for all intent and purposes, brainwashed and lost all volition. This happened just from attending church.
All evidence I know of, require much much more than that to accomplish what you are describing. It goes against all that is common knowledge. Even in the extreme circumstances, society doesn’t accept this. I cite the Patty Hearst case.
So, it is you who has the burden of proof, not I.
So now we know your opinion. So what?! What evidence, what proof, what reason can you proffer to convince Ruby, or anyone else, that your opinion is better or more valid that anyone else's?
That depends on the opinion I’m presenting. In this case, your opinion is as valid as mine.
Of course Christianity didn't cause the fears, but it didn't resolve them either. Neither its proclaimed means of dealing with them (prayer and confession, to name two) nor its proscriptions against the fear ("...but the fearful and unbelieving...shall have their part in the lake of fire..." Rev 21:8) did anything to ameliorate the fear. However, by getting away from all the "shoulds", it became possible to face the fears head on and begin to overcome them.
ok.
It's useless to argue that this is a case where God's answer was that the suffering was for some higher purpose or other nonsense like that. Every time that someone came to Jesus for healing during his human incarnation, He healed that person. And the Bible is simply bursting with references to God being our healer for physical as well as spiritual ills. And since the medical knowledge now exists to effectively deal with many if not all of my wife's afflictions, how could it possibly make sense for God to prevent us from exposure to that knowledge. That's not Jehovah's Witnesses denying blood transfusions to save a life (which human courts have condemned), that's Jehovah Himself preventing healing.
I hear you.
No, the rules are not the problem. The problem is the inaneness of the rules, the pettiness, the commitment to rules themselves without consideration for context or motivation. Ruby effectively made this point in the portion of her post for which the above quote from you is your reply. As smart as you seem to be, you must realize that, yet you seem unwilling to admit it.
You are still missing the point. The rules did not create her problem.
Me
The following of rules must come from a place of conviction, not legalism right? Not cursing but calling black people the N word, is hypocrisy. I know you agree with me on this.
Christian!! Don't do this! Now you want to adopt precisely the use of legalism that Ruby has been employing all along and which you have previously tried to deny her.
No, no. Not true. I’m using my terminology.
Now that it is convenient for your purposes, you adopt a different shade of meaning. This is intellectual dishonesty.
Hey, that you misunderstand is not my fault.
Who says cursing is wrong? Why is it wrong? Assume for the sake of argument that I don't know. I bet you can't convincingly defend why it's wrong to curse. God, and many of His key people in the Bible, cursed things and people. Anyway, very often what Christian culture has identified as cursing is in reality merely vulgarity. And there is a real difference.
Why is cursing wrong? Let me count the ways.
1. It is illegal in public where children are present
2. It shows a lack of respect for those around you (it is antisocial behavior)
3. It teaches children that there are no verbal boundaries, limits.
4. It is hurtful to those who have to endure it.
And I hope you don’t ask me why boundaries and limits are good for children.
So what. The same kind of compelling results can be seen in almost every case where diligent, usually passionate, people dare to risk greatly.
Actually, this is completely wrong. Most diligent, passionate people who take risks fail. Most films bomb, most books fail, most startup businesses go under. There are far more failures than successes. Far more.
This way of action is the stuff from which legends grow. And it is found in people all over the world regardless of religion or creed. Examples are available from business, education, military endeavors, and even the relative anonymity of thousands of individual lives.
Really? From this logic, only Gibson has attempted to make a Jesus film. Most people fail at their endeavors. For every successful actor, there are tens of thousand who were as talented who never made it. In the materialist-atheist view, success is a matter of chance, mathematical probabilities, it is a numbers game. Someone is going to win the lottery.
The principles work. They are universally admired, at least in the long run, with or without specific reference to the Christian God.
Tell that to the tons of millions of people who where born in Africa and not the US. Tell them that in the long run, if they are diligent, passionate and take great risks they will succeed. Or is the universality only related to admiration?
Well, that's it for now. It's 11:22 pm, and I want to be at work at 8:00 am. Good night.
)