tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post265212407912419194..comments2023-12-01T18:05:24.875-05:00Comments on Debunking Christianity: Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-40183257861108787712010-06-05T09:59:20.159-04:002010-06-05T09:59:20.159-04:00Or, to be charitable, "not sufficiently detai...Or, to be charitable, "not sufficiently detailed to support it's own conclusions".GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-28379319888627426952010-06-05T09:57:48.491-04:002010-06-05T09:57:48.491-04:00...and NEEDING apologetics speaks to the idea that......and NEEDING apologetics speaks to the idea that the core material is LACKING is some regard, i.e., "not true".GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-39862924887539002392010-06-05T09:55:09.816-04:002010-06-05T09:55:09.816-04:00I stand by my original quote:
"Second, like ...I stand by my original quote:<br /><br />"Second, like I said a year and a half ago, if you NEED a hundred pages of Philosopherese to set up the argument for God's existence, then the concept is incoherent to the extent that it NEEDS apologetics."<br /><br />Again, this doesn't say "BS", it says "incoherent".<br /><br />If it was BS, no amount of apologetics could redact the smell from it.GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-76007383769639425212010-06-05T09:51:13.160-04:002010-06-05T09:51:13.160-04:00Table turning time...
Eric said,
"Who said ...Table turning time...<br /><br />Eric said,<br /><br />"Who said they do? I was referring to your "if it's so complex you can't perfectly explain it in a combox to someone with no experience in the subject then it's BS" claim."<br /><br />Show me where I said it's BS. All I ever claimed on the subject was that your analogy of comparing little kids learning math so that they can later understand calculus is not qualitatively the same as sending little kids to sunday school to learn about Jesus, so they can understand philosophy at some later date.<br /><br />It's apples and orangutans.GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-68874842689446707132010-06-05T09:40:35.154-04:002010-06-05T09:40:35.154-04:00My daughter is always cracking on me about my '...My daughter is always cracking on me about my 'reduced mental abilities'...<br /><br />Maybe she's onto something there....GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-68198048070727680022010-06-05T09:37:26.841-04:002010-06-05T09:37:26.841-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Cogshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11834924842692579953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-32666553961337117332010-06-04T23:40:39.811-04:002010-06-04T23:40:39.811-04:00"when you focus on one area like the Inquisit..."when you focus on one area like the Inquisition and in effect say things like '4000 people over 350 years wasn't so bad' (that's the way it sounds, even if you didn't intend it to), I feel obligated to point out that's misleading at best."<br /><br />First, I didn't bring up the Inquisition, Chuck did.<br /><br />Second, he brought it up in the context of D'souza's "minimizing" it, which can only refer to his refutations of the large numbers of executions commonly attributed to it. So he not only raised the issue, he raised the context in which the issue was to be discussed.<br /><br />Third, I didn't say 4,000 people over 350 years wasn't bad, but that it's not a few million over 350 years. You've studied math at a high level, so the claim that 4,ooo =/= 1,ooo,ooo + shouldn't be too controversial.<br /><br />"Christian churches don't teach philosophy to little kids"<br /><br />Who said they do? I was referring to your "if it's so complex you can't perfectly explain it in a combox to someone with no experience in the subject then it's BS" claim.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-28706040747445453242010-06-04T21:45:08.428-04:002010-06-04T21:45:08.428-04:00Is it just me, or does anyone else get the feeling...Is it just me, or does anyone else get the feeling that Eric is insulated from the reality the rest of us are experiencing?GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-32517566827655524972010-06-04T21:40:31.135-04:002010-06-04T21:40:31.135-04:00Eric,
Christian churches don't teach philosop...Eric,<br /><br />Christian churches don't teach philosophy to little kids; they teach them cute little bible songs and stories but can't explain the material to the kids where they can UNDERSTAND it, is the point I was making.<br /><br />Christian teaching to little kids is not philosophy, even in basic form. It's<br /><br />"Believe what we tell you, because we told you to believe it."<br /><br />Not because it makes sense. I' with Dawkins on the idea that cramming Christianity into little kids is tantamount to child abuse, because it counts on <br /><br />a) the child's trust of grown-ups, and<br /><br />b) the child's lack of experience in devloping critical thinking skills.<br /><br />As for official policy of the church in overseeing deaths, when you focus on one area like the Inquisition and in effect say things like '4000 people over 350 years wasn't so bad' (that's the way it sounds, even if you didn't intend it to), I feel obligated to point out that's misleading at best.GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-48163063799951988512010-06-04T21:14:18.006-04:002010-06-04T21:14:18.006-04:00"I guess you ARE admitting the need to indoct..."I guess you ARE admitting the need to indoctrinate little kids into Christain thinking BEFORE you attempt to explain anything about HOW it's supposed to work (to carry the analogy on in a locical direction)."<br /><br />No, it's just the case that we do begin teaching children basic math from Kindergarten on, while most people are *never* taught basic philosophy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-13307207276259584442010-06-04T21:12:12.082-04:002010-06-04T21:12:12.082-04:00"There were other occurences of "officia..."There were other occurences of "official murder" by the church besides the Inquisition, Eric."<br /><br />Who said there weren't? Ed, before you critique an argument you must learn how to discern just what the argument is. You don't seem to have acquired this basic skill yet, which is one of a number of good reasons I have for ignoring most of what you say.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-90502894408379509502010-06-04T19:51:43.798-04:002010-06-04T19:51:43.798-04:00Here's some more info ( I know wikipedia is sc...Here's some more info ( I know wikipedia is scoffed at as being non-authoritative, but the references are listed in the article)<br /><br />"In the Middle Ages Antisemitism in Europe was religious. Though not part of Roman Catholic dogma, many Christians, including members of the clergy, have held the Jewish people collectively responsible for killing Jesus, a practice originated by Melito of Sardis. As stated in the Boston College Guide to Passion Plays, "Over the course of time, Christians began to accept... that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for killing Jesus. According to this interpretation, both the Jews present at Jesus Christ's death and the Jewish people collectively and for all time, have committed the sin of deicide, or God-killing. For 1900 years of Christian-Jewish history, the charge of deicide has led to hatred, violence against and murder of Jews in Europe and America."[1]<br /><br />During the High Middle Ages in Europe there was full-scale persecution in many places, with blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and massacres. An underlying source of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. Jews were frequently massacred and exiled from various European countries. The persecution hit its first peak during the Crusades. In the First Crusade (1096) flourishing communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed; see German Crusade, 1096. In the Second Crusade (1147) the Jews in France were subject to frequent massacres. The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320. The Crusades were followed by expulsions, including in, 1290, the banishing of all English Jews; in 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France; and, in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of the expelled Jews fled to Poland.[2]<br /><br />As the Black Death epidemics devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating more than a half of the population, Jews were taken as scapegoats. Rumors spread that they caused the disease by deliberately poisoning wells. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by violence. Although the Pope Clement VI tried to protect them by the July 6, 1348 papal bull and another 1348 bull, several months later, 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg, where the plague hadn't yet affected the city.[3]"<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews" rel="nofollow">Persecution of Jews</a><br /><br />There were other occurences of "official murder" by the church besides the Inquisition, Eric.<br /><br />And you know this.GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-78593201573186452112010-06-04T19:39:12.874-04:002010-06-04T19:39:12.874-04:00Eric said,
(quoting me)""I understand ...Eric said, <br /><br />(quoting me)""I understand how to derive a general solution to a non-linear least squares matrix well enough that I could explain it to you and you'd UNDERSTAND it, even without the necessary math bacground."<br /><br />(Eric's reply) "Could you explain it to me even if I had *no* math background whatsoever, including an ignorance of the most basic arithmetic? Because that, you know, is the only way to make your claim analogous."<br /><br />I guess you ARE admitting the need to indoctrinate little kids into Christain thinking BEFORE you attempt to explain anything about HOW it's supposed to work (to carry the analogy on in a locical direction).<br /><br />Like I said, there's a big difference between mathematics and religion.<br /><br />Example:<br /><br />When teaching a child how to do addition and subtraction, you can use pennies, puzzle pieces, etc. as training aids to show how reality is connected to the symboligy of numerals, and kids understand this.<br /><br />On the other hand, there's a world of anecdotal evidence that kids often ask difficult questions at early ages such as "Where did Mrs. Cain come from?", that can't be explained satisfactorily to a child. The analogy breaks down.<br /><br />I admit, if you didn't have at least an eighth grade math proficiency, it would take some effort to explain least squares reductions to you, but I could still do it.GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-12734691407185866622010-06-04T14:02:41.176-04:002010-06-04T14:02:41.176-04:00Forgive me for being a little late to the party, b...Forgive me for being a little late to the party, but this line of reasoning has always annoyed me due to it's dishonesty...<br /><br />"Is he correct when he says that in fact between 2,000 and 4,000 people were executed over a 350 year period? Yep."<br /><br />This is the equivalent of someone asking how many Japanese the US military killed in WWII and then only counting the number we tried and executed for war crimes.<br /><br />The fact is that armies led by inquisitors and other catholic officials killed many, many more people then Eric is willing to acknowledge (at least 20,000 during the period from 1209–1229 CE).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-710072618979751682010-06-03T10:32:11.021-04:002010-06-03T10:32:11.021-04:00This conversation will go nowhere because, as I po...This conversation will go nowhere because, as I pointed out, the claims only apply to 'The Church' as Eric continually falls back on.<br /><br />What we need to do is define 'The Church.'<br /><br />Eric will choose a definition that is inclusive of everyone who is 'living a life of Christ' at the present moment. Should they stop doing so, by killing during an inquisition or raping a deaf child, they are no longer part of his definition and therefore cannot possibly violate any claims made about 'The Church.'<br /><br />Chuck, I realize you're not discussion papal infallibility, though I think it's right with the principle you brought up: <i>Doctrine says X, but we observe Y... what gives?</i>. My point was that the doctrine makes lofty claims in numerous places but common sense expectations from those statements are apparently completely false.<br /><br />And so, to conclude, this is where it falls apart for me. Miracles, promises of being guided and taught by the Holy Spirit, prophecies, infallibility, answers to prayer... they're all <i>reactive</i>; one knows they 'existed' only afterwards.<br /><br />This is contrary to Jesus' ministry. Power, truth, validity of claims comes from <i>predictive</i> value, not <i>reactive</i> descriptions or attribution.<br /><br />Truth of Christianity would be the most powerful if one could <i>predict</i> things like:<br />- this pope will never make a mistake<br />- this person will be healed today (or not) and the result works repeatedly<br />- this specific prophecy will be engraved in stone and come to pass in 10 years<br /><br />Instead, as I pointed out, no one can discuss these matters with Eric. If it's 'good fruit', it was of the body; if it is pointed out as 'bad fruit', it doesn't hold water because he pruned it off the tree when you weren't looking.jwhendyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03615608336736450543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-40171932267068390542010-06-02T09:32:14.753-04:002010-06-02T09:32:14.753-04:00Eric, when it comes to basic ethics most people ag...Eric, when it comes to basic ethics most people agree. Basic ethics are the kinds of behavior that are expected from people when there are no dilemma's or extenuating circumstances, like tell the truth, be kind to others, share with the needy, treat others the way you want treated, and so forth. Almost all ethicists will argue for these things. C.S. Lewis's book <i>Abolition of Man</i> shows we have these shared basic morals. So what's there to be agnostic about them? Nothing I can see. It makes life better for all of us. If I have to defend why these ethics makes life better for all of us with you then something is wrong. Suffice it to say with Aristotle that holistic happiness (eudomia) is an end in and of itself.<br /><br />Our disputes arise when it comes to dilemma ethics, that is, what behavior we should expect from people when they have to make a choice between two different basic ethical obligations (i.e., don't lie vs save a life, and so forth.<br /><br />What's very interesting to me is that when facing these moral dilemmas there is no way in advance to predict what behavior will be recommended by ethicists who hold to different meta-ethical foundations in all cases.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-66295970767030235252010-06-02T09:16:46.697-04:002010-06-02T09:16:46.697-04:00Ed
And Eric's defense proves too much because...Ed<br /><br />And Eric's defense proves too much because it doesn't exhonerate the Church at all. It simply implicates the church as a competing social power which deferred to inhumane practices despite its Holy Spirit ingredient. It defeats any assertion to providential wisdom and exposes Eric's faith for what it is - manmade rules that can't transcend their cultural times.Chuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15657598456196932490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-20008244686458955062010-06-02T01:54:28.045-04:002010-06-02T01:54:28.045-04:00Eric said,
"...did you know that the Inquisi...Eric said,<br /><br />"...did you know that the Inquisition began in part because the Church was seeking to prevent state powers from trying heretics, a power states exercised regularly and abused far worse than the Church ever did?"<br /><br />Is it not at least as likely if not more so that the church objected to the secular authorities stepping on their "turf" by prosecuting cases that the church considered it's province?<br /><br />I for one don't buy the implied altruistic motive you expressed, Eric.GearHedEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09288513835630145996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-70531218295644954712010-06-01T22:27:36.834-04:002010-06-01T22:27:36.834-04:00Eric
I expect the manmade institutions you cite t...Eric<br /><br />I expect the manmade institutions you cite to make mistakes and be self-correcting. They never claim to be the "temple of God's spirit" as the Catholic catechism claims. The engine for the child abuse and the inqusition were the superstitions rooted in the doctrine and dogma of the church. You throw another red herring out once again when looking to ennoble historical catholicism for being a lesser evil than its monarchist alternative but fail to acknowledge that any torturous choice made by the Holy Church is a defeater to its claims to be the temple of god. Eric, you can't claim the enlightened status of your church and acknowledge the horrors performed under its auspice while maintaining its enlightened status. If you are willing to modify your position and acknowledge that the Catholic Church is an interesting set of organizing principles handed down as tradition and dogma then I will meet you half way but, you don't believe that do you? You believe it is the ONLY institution that offers true communionwith the living Christ. Yet you modify your religion's status by seeking exhoneration of its crimes through the comparison of secular institutions. <br /><br />The question here for me is this, has the indoctrinated culture of unquestioned clerical authority based on doctrines of Holy Spirit sanction allowed the Church authority to commit horrible crimes without question from congrgants? Yes it has. Have there been any modifications to this Divine Command ethic as a result? No. Catholics still claim special privilege as God's holy beacon on earth despite the fact they operate in a no more enlightened way as any other institution. <br /><br />You can't have it both ways Eric, either the RCC is the Holy Spirit filled Temple of God or it is just another flawed man made isntitution.<br /><br />I see your defense as something that matters to you but the RCC does not represent the best possible ethical thinking and is essential a social club for people who enjou ancient rituals and superstitions. Seems silly to me.Chuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15657598456196932490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-60615135299319669102010-06-01T22:20:26.598-04:002010-06-01T22:20:26.598-04:00Eric wrote: John, with all due respect, you are de...Eric wrote: <i>John, with all due respect, you are decidedly *not* in any meaningful sense an agnostic when it comes to moral claims.</i><br /><br />Well, I most definitely am agnostic about some moral claims and I'm most definitely not agnostic about other claims. It depends on the moral claim. <br /><br />I maintain that extraordinary faith claims need a lot of evidence for them and that Christianity is not supported by the available evidence nor can it make any rational sense of many of its doctrines. I maintain that because of (a) and (b) people will defend what they are raised to believe and what they prefer to believe. Because of these facts they should be reasonable enough to become agnostics about extraordinary claims until there is sufficient evidence for them. <br /><br />What is there about morality that is an extraordinary claim? There is some evidence needed, yes, for some claims. We have morals. They evolve. They are important to us. Want to know why? Because I want to live in some peace and security and pursue my goals unhindered by others in a community of people who help each other. Life is best lived that way. How do I know? Because I do not want people to steal from me or rape my daughter. My God what are you looking for here? I DO NOT NEED ANY EVIDENCE TO SAY TO AN ANNOYING PERSON OR THIEF OR RAPIST TO GET OUT OF MY FACE! I don't want him there. And I wish to grant everyone that same moral/political right or else I cannot claim that right myself.<br /><br />Geese 'O Pete, Eric.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-88189972392837575492010-06-01T21:35:45.900-04:002010-06-01T21:35:45.900-04:00John Paul the Great:
"Yet the consideration ...John Paul the Great:<br /><br />"Yet the consideration of mitigating factors does not exonerate the Church from the obligation to express profound regret for the weaknesses of so many of her sons and daughters who sullied her face, preventing her from fully mirroring the image of her crucified Lord, the supreme witness of patient love and of humble meekness. From these painful moments of the past a lesson can be drawn for the future, leading all Christians to adhere fully to the sublime principle stated by the Council: “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it wins over the mind with both gentleness and power.”Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-66999103553688326032010-06-01T21:30:15.460-04:002010-06-01T21:30:15.460-04:00"Yes it is a minimization of the horrors done..."Yes it is a minimization of the horrors done by the Church because the ideas that make up the church (Divine Command, Clerical Authority) enabled the horrors to happen."<br /><br />Chuck, did you know that the Inquisition began in part because the Church was seeking to prevent state powers from trying heretics, a power states exercised regularly and abused far worse than the Church ever did? No, you didn't know that, and there are a host of other facts about the Inquisition you're completely unaware of. What's worse, you don't care. Not only that, you don't even care enough about your own position to at least try to present decent arguments or reasonable critiques of positions you oppose.<br /><br />Take the quote above, for example. Here's your argument:<br /><br />To point out that those who say the Inquisition executed millions are wrong, and that in reality at most 4,000 people were executed by the Inquisition over 350 years, is an attempt to minimize the horrors done by the Church because pointing out this fact supports the ideas that made the horrors possible in the first place.<br /><br />Chuck, this is beyond incoherent.<br /><br />But let's address the notion of "the ideas that made it possible." Do you reject democracy because it comprises ideas that made slavery possible? Do you reject science because it comprises ideas that made Hiroshima possible? You see, Chuck, every good can be abused, so every good makes some horrors possible.<br /><br />"You can say I don't understand the invocation to the Holy Spirit as articulated in the Catechism but you are mistaken."<br /><br />Then please, *please* point out the passage in the Catechism, or any Church document, that claims that if X is guided by the Holy Spirit in the sense that the Church is said to be guided by the Holy Spirit, then X cannot commit even the worst act imaginable. What is this, the hundredth time I've challenged you to defend some claim? Will you fail yet again, as you have on *every* previous occasion, to respond?<br /><br />"Additionally, you minimize the child rape by the Catholic Church when you fail to address the report by Irish authorities I provided."<br /><br />Yeah, I don't live under a rock: I'm well aware of the report. What you fail to see is that *if* the Church *has* addressed the issue here, in the U.S. -- and the facts indicate it has -- then your claim that the institution *as a whole* is corrupt is demolished. That's the point I was making by directing you to Dougherty's website, and it's a point you've failed to address. But then you're not interested in facts; you only care about discrediting, by any means necessary, those who disagree with your vicious attitude towards religion, or who call you on your patently dishonest claims.<br /><br />Unless you respond to my challenge, I'm through responding to you on this thread.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-24603689944749446062010-06-01T20:41:11.483-04:002010-06-01T20:41:11.483-04:00Eric,
Yes it is a minimization of the horrors don...Eric,<br /><br />Yes it is a minimization of the horrors done by the Church because the ideas that make up the church (Divine Command, Clerical Authority) enabled the horrors to happen.<br /><br />You and D'Souza look to obscure the issue by minimizing the numbers. It is a shameful argument and a Red Herring. Neither experience would exist if the slavish devotion to unquestioned authority (simply earned by a process of ordination) you practice as a Catholic (and having 14 years of Catholic Education under my belt I know the RCC culture and practice) would not exist. There is no mechanism within Catholicism that empowers the laity to place themselves on an equal plane with the Clergy and, because of that abuses of power exist.<br /><br />You can say I don't understand the invocation to the Holy Spirit as articulated in the Catechism but you are mistaken. The words themselves betray you. <br /><br />Additionally, you minimize the child rape by the Catholic Church when you fail to address the report by Irish authorities I provided. The Roman Catholic Child Rape tradition is now being exposed for the trans-continental horror it is. This horror was fueled by the systematic practice of moving pedophile priests into positions of authority for the sake of maintaining the reputation of the church. This was further enabled by devoted congregants who practiced unquestioned authority towards clergy based on tradition, doctrine and dogma.<br /><br />We still don't know the numbers of children harmed by the practices of the Roman Catholic Church but we do know the mechanism by which this was allowed to happen. The collusion practiced by Church authority is supported by consistent tradition whereby men like you offer devoted allegiance to an idea of perfect authority that doesn't exist. And you do this in an unquestioning manner which betrays your desire for an educated world-view.Chuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15657598456196932490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-27412587963579915872010-06-01T19:34:36.933-04:002010-06-01T19:34:36.933-04:00"Eric, who is it that says how the holy spiri..."Eric, who is it that says how the holy spirit guides the church? Are they not the words of man?"<br /><br />The issue we've been discussing is not how we know this is true, or even whether it's true, but what we *mean* by it. Even if it's false, it's still the case that Chuck has fundamentally misunderstood what Catholics mean here.<br /><br />"though a bit too circular for me"<br /><br />This is actually a pet peeve of mine. It's very frustrating when someone accuses you of committing a fallacy without showing precisely where he thinks you did it.<br /><br />"So you are of the amortirization school of apologetic to minimize ethical horror (se Dsouza and the Inquisition)?"<br /><br />No, and neither is D'souza. Is D'souza correct when he says that Kuttner's claim that the Inquisition was responsible for the deaths of millions is false? Yep. Is he correct when he says that in fact between 2,000 and 4,000 people were executed over a 350 year period? Yep. Is it worse to kill millions of people than it is to kill 4,000? I think it's safe to say it is. So precisely how does pointing out the *facts* "minimize ethical horror" in the sense you're using the phrase?<br /><br />It's similar when it comes to the current sex-abuse scandal. You claim that the Church itself, as an institution, is guilty of child rape, and the *facts* prove you wrong. Were a number of priests, a few bishops and at least one cardinal guilty of harming children and of attempting to cover it up? Yep, just as the Church is guilty of those 4,000 deaths over that 350 year period of the Inquisition. Is "the institution of the Church" guilty of child rape? Nope, just as the Inquisition didn't execute millions of people.<br /><br />"I understand how to derive a general solution to a non-linear least squares matrix well enough that I could explain it to you and you'd UNDERSTAND it, even without the necessary math bacground."<br /><br />Could you explain it to me even if I had *no* math background whatsoever, including an ignorance of the most basic arithmetic? Because that, you know, is the only way to make your claim analogous.<br /><br />"It will do you no good at all to point out I have the same intellectual difficulties. You must still deal with your problems regardless of whether or not I do. But in fact I do, and I think I'm a lot more consistent than you are. I'm trying to be skeptical of everything consistently. You are not. I'm rational enough about these difficulties to be an agnostic."<br /><br />John, with all due respect, you are decidedly *not* in any meaningful sense an agnostic when it comes to moral claims. I could point to post after post after post to prove it. Yet your moral conclusions are just as subject to a) and b) as my religious conclusions are -- perhaps more so. Therefore, on the contrary, it seems to me as if I'm more consistent than you are here, since I recognize that we all must make commitments to the truth of sundry propositions that are subject to a) and b), while you claim that you're a consistent skeptic. In fact, few things are more difficult than being a consistent skeptic: I know of no one in the history of philosophy, from Pyrrho to Hume to Rorty, who has ever succeeded at that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-28758843519654612792010-06-01T16:09:03.481-04:002010-06-01T16:09:03.481-04:00Hendy,
I agree my criticism of church leadership ...Hendy,<br /><br />I agree my criticism of church leadership would not be valid if I were concerning myself with Papal Infallibility but, I wasn't. I was concerning myself with the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the inculcated direction this person of God gives His Church. The Holy Spirit guides the selection of the leadership and navigates the Church's historical track. One would need to accept that child rape is part of the Holy Spirit's plan for God's Church.<br /><br />It seems the simplest answer to the question. It also of course calls into question the moral ground of the Catholic Catechism or convoluted rationalizations that amount to special pleading.Chuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15657598456196932490noreply@blogger.com