Vanity: Question about Book of Job

I'm curious, what exactly do you see when you hold up 2 fingers on one hand, and 2 fingers on the other? Providing you have at least 2 fingers on each hand, do not have a sight problem, and are facing your hands?

Well you should understand I don't believe we actually "see" anything. It's just our mind's interpretation of an image (and an upside down image I might add). If this image is being filtered through our minds, it's pretty presumptuous of us to assume we are "seeing" all that is there. etc...

Long story short, for one's "beliefs" to have any meaning at all, there must be some rationale for including some possibilities, and excluding others. If that rationale contains no greater qualifier than "ideas that appeal to me," it's nothing but theological onanism.

It is quite clear to me, by the posture you take towards various assertions, and the assumption that you're "authenticity" (in the Rousseuian sense) is sufficient to qualify you as a humble soul seeking enlightenment.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is sheerest vanity to think you are going to flit from one religious tradition to another, so that when you finally pick the one that appeals to you, you can proudly declare "I've looked at all-of-em," and be justified in your hubris.

You would do well to remember the word "convictions," used in this context, is derived from "convince" not "prefer."

Beliefs do not have to have meaning to anyone other than themselves, unless that person is the kind that has to be right, and know something someone else doesn't. In the end, it really doesn't matter what one believes, because things are the way they are.

Funny how you can deny something that someone could take a picture of, show it to millions of people young and old, learned and not, throughout the world, have it verified, no problem...yet for me to deny something that no one has seen, cannot be verified, and have only a portion of the population of the world even consider to be true....is somehow flawed.

I do not use the word conviction, that word is usually reserved for those that are vain enough to have a need to be correct, or to show someone that they know more than another.

Beliefs do not have to have meaning to anyone other than themselves, unless that person is the kind that has to be right, and know something someone else doesn't.

Now there's a sentence diagram from hell. I take it you're trying to say ones ideas are meaningless except for the strange pleasure of the gnostic. This is, of course, juvenile wishful thinking on par with "if you don't care about AIDs victims, you'll get it yourself."

It's a gratuitous assertion that can be just as gratuitously denied, but then such is the nature of gratuitous assertions. For an object lesson, see your local mujahedeen.

In the end, it really doesn't matter what one believes, because things are the way they are.

While things are the way they are, to claim knowing the way they are "really doesn't matter" is simply fatuous. Those that prefer not to go to jail don't shoot bald eagles; those that claim it doesn't matter whether one goes to jail are just inane.

Funny how you can deny something that someone could take a picture of, show it to millions of people young and old, learned and not, throughout the world, have it verified, no problem...yet for me to deny something that no one has seen, cannot be verified, and have only a portion of the population of the world even consider to be true....is somehow flawed.

Hardly. Such sentiments are regularly expressed by philosophical knuckle draggers who are perfectly capable of suspending disbelief for every WWF Smackdown while maintaining the Law of Identity is open to interpretation. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that because a "simple faith" is all that is required of Judeo-Christian people, all people of Judeo-Christian faith are required to be simplistic. "2+2 must equal 4" is no less valid than an 8x10 glossy of your fingers. Similarly, to maintain an a priori bias against the miraculous without identifying how a theoretical deity might validate its messages is to superciliously define such a possibility out of existence. If there is a flaw here, it is that you make your sense impressions the measure of all things, rather than those philosophical tools mankind has developed to discriminate between insight and propaganda.

I hate to break this to you cowboy, but a billion chinamen CAN be wrong, and it only takes one guy with the right argument to prove it. That you can get a thousand bobble-head dolls to agree with you the Bible is flawed because it's old, written by men, makes preposterous claims, etc. proves nothing except they maintain the same evidenciary standard that you do.

I do not use the word conviction, that word is usually reserved for those that are vain enough to have a need to be correct, or to show someone that they know more than another.

I'm sure you don't, but that's a prime example of "pots calling kettles" when one is maintaining it's a vanity to insist there's something more going on when seeds grow into plants beyond "that's what seeds do."

Choosing to throw out that withered old chestnut of "needing to be correct" instead of appreciating humanity's legitimate desire for understanding about our existence, and recognition such an inquiry would require a disciplined approach by its very nature, shows your only interest is in saving face. You started this bull session; did you think you were just going to wade in the pool and splash everyone in the face without getting your hair wet?

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