Posted on 01/03/2002 11:19:13 AM PST by ArGee
A very rich man decided that he wanted to show kindness to the people of the fair city where he lived. Since he was very rich indeed, he decided to throw a banquet for the entire city. He rented the largest sports arena in the city and began his plans. He planned for huge amounts of the best food possible, making allowances for every religious and medical diet. He advertised the banquet in every possible manner - television, radio, billboard, door-to-door canvassing. Considering that there might be some who could not travel, he arranged for free bus transportation to and from the event, and some special-needs vehicles for all who could not ride busses. He even scheduled the banquet to run for 24 hours a day for several days so that everyone could be sure of being served.
He planned long and hard and finally the big day came. The rich man ate quickly and then went about wishing all his guests well and personally making sure that all had every need met. After a while he went outside to tour the grounds and talk with those who had not yet gone in, and those who had already left. Everyone was happy. Many were profusely thankful. It was a glorious occasion.
At one point the rich man noticed a group of people sitting outside a locked door with most unpleasant looks on their faces. Sensing they were not happy, he went over to them. He did not introduce himself but simply asked them if he could be of service.
"We want to go in through this door," one of them replied.
The rich man explained to them that the hall was arranged to feed a large number of people as quickly and effortlessly as possible. This required order inside, and the entrances and exits had been carefully planned to be as efficient as possible. He then offered to go call one of the golf carts that were avaialbe to help people who could not walk far to take them to the entrance. But the man replied, "We do not want to go in the entrance. We want to go in this door. We don't understand why we can't go in any door we wish. We think the man who set this banquet up is mean and hateful for insisting we go in through the entrance. He has tried to bill himself as a very kind man by offering this banquet, but he is not kind at all if he will not indulge us and let us go through this door.
The rich man was distressed at these words, but still attempted to please these people. He tried once more to explain to them what was behind this particular door, and how if they went in this door they would disrupt the meal service being offered inside. He offered to drive them himself, not only to the door, but inside the hall to their tables if they would only go through the entrance to enjoy the meal. Again the man said, "No, but only a hateful man would keep us from going through the door of our choosing. And we will sit here and tell anyone who will listen to us what an awful man he is until he lets us in."
At that the rich man was enraged and he shouted, "Enough." Then he called a police officer to have them thrown off of the property and ordered that they not be allowed to return until the banquet was over and all the scraps had been hauled away. Then, mourning for their loss, he turned to visit with other guests.
The emphasis is on doing good and doing well in this world, as we have it now. If the situation changes, we'll deal with it then. We hope the messiah comes in our times, but we conduct our life, as if he will not. It can be fun to speculate -- and many do -- but it's all speculation.
This attitude of Judaism extends to many areas. I once asked a Hasidic rabbi, what he thought about the possibility of life on other planets. He said he didn't know, but "when we get there" -- I always have appreciated he said "when" and not "if" -- we would see what was there, look at what the Bible and Talmud had to see, and go from there.
There are exceptions to that. Many in the Lubavitch movement -- the ultra-orthodox Hasidic movement, who are most involved in outreach to less religious Jews -- thought that Rabbi Menchem Schneerson was the Messiah, something that Schneerson never claimed, but never exactly denied, either. Even with Rabbi Schneerson dead, there has been somewhat of a split between those who say, he is dead and, therefore, not the messiah, and those who say he is the messiah and will return. While it would've been interesting to have a messiah, who had been a student of Niels Bohr, I never thought he was the messiah; but then, I'm not Orthodox, never mind ultra-orthodox.
I doubt it. If you did, you probably wouldn't have a 2nd day on that job.
True. But I've been more than 35 years on the job of living.
CHILDLIKE FAITH IS THE REQUIRED KEY
Somehow, if God wanted us to be childlike, I suspect he would've made us more childlike.
Why do you say that the ABOVE is false, but the BELOW is true?
You have faith that the god of the bible does exist, for you cannot prove that he does .
Supersimple! Proving a negative is a logical fallacy. One need not prove a negative. One attempts to prove a positive.
Either way, it's never happening, ergo, your prayer is a failure.
Nothing fails like prayer, unless you want to count prophecy.
As I said... in the context of this discussion, faith and knowledge are mutually exclusive. If knowledge is acquired to substantiate a given premise, it is no longer held on faith.
Faith requires an absence of substantiating knowledge.
Not really. Just because the belief exists regardless of evidence, that does not mean there cannot be evidence, as well. Faith exists independent of proof, but belief can be bolstered by both faith and evidence.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Nothing fails like prayer.
I have an open mind. Please present this evidence that I may independently reproduce test it and reproduce the results. Remember, this evidence must be falsifiable.
As I've said before, anecdotal evidence is unverifiable, ergo, unacceptable.
1.) If you believe God exists, then you have faith (VALID)
2.) If you don't believe God exists, then you don't have faith (ILLOGICAL)
3.) If you have faith, then you believe God exists (ILLOGICAL)
4.) If you don't have faith, then you don't believe God exists (VALID)
There are four ways to construct the assertion. Two are valid constructions, two are not. These are basic constructs of first-order logic. By the same token, and perhaps more relevantly:
1.) If God exists, then there must be evidence of his existence (VALID)
2.) If God doesn't exist, then there must not be evidence of his existence (ILLOGICAL)
3.) If there is evidence of God's existence, then God must exist (ILLOGICAL)
4.) If there is not evidence of God's existence, then God does not exist (VALID)
The designation of logical and illogical reasoning is not arbitrary; it is trivial to show why the illogical assertions are in fact illogical. Most atheists/agnostics rightly use the #4 assertion as the reason for their particular reasoning. The only way to invalidate that reasoning is to invoke #1 by providing the evidence to support the premise. Unfortunately, many people of all religious stripes use constructs like #2 and #3 to support their belief, which an educated person will immediately recognize as illogical arguments. The old saying "you can't prove a negative" is actually a reference to illogical construct #2. All these forms actually have proper names in math, but I won't bore you with them.
I hope this helps explain why people say that some statements are true while very similar statements are illogical. It isn't arbitrary posturing, but actually based on mathematical principles of correct logical form. All the people arguing on this forum will get WAY more mileage if they stick to using the logical forms for the arguments; people who consistently use illogical arguments will be rightly ignored by those who recognize them as such.
OTOH, I do recommend reading Paul Davies and several other authors of that ilk. I'm up enough on science to understand what they write; I'm not up enough to be able to argue it with any particularly detail or clarity.
Christians argue on some interesting, and I will agree, trivial details. But they agree on the basics. And, while they are actually sitting at the banquet, they seem to be uninterested in those arguments because the food is so good.
Don't let their silly arguments impact you. Come to the table.
Shalom.
Trivial details, huh? That's a pretty good whitewashing and dodge of an answer for a faith where some believe that abortion should be legal but others believe that abortionists should be put to death.
Or where some believe homosexuals should be able to minister while others believe they should be put to death. Or where alcohol is fine to drink but others think it's a sin.
Tell me, ArGee, what camp are you in?
The Civil War resulted from the South attemtping to secede from the Union. It was not a heoric enterprise to end slavery as many believe.
...how about WW2? Hiroshima? Was the U.S. immoral for dropping the atomic bomb?
It was immoral. Firstly, the bombs were dropped on non-combatant civilians and not military. Secondly, Japan was willing to surrender under the one condition that their Emperor could remain in place. However, the US demanded unconditional surrender and started dropping nuclear bombs until Japan surrendered unconditionally. Interestingly, the Emperor remained in place anyway. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki was intended for the Mitsubishi shipyard and industrial district in Nagasaki. It missed the target and landed in the Urakami Valley two miles away. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were incinerated or died from radiation.
My point all along is that faith is required for a belief in any of the over 4000 alleged gods. I have no faith, ergo, I require falsifiable evidence, the results of which I can reproduce.
But the original point still stands that those who decry God for killing innocents must also hold that actions by humans that kill innocents, in pursuit of good aims, are similarly, absolutely wrong. I'm sure some do keep to such consistency; I'm sure some don't.
Just to take a question one step farther.... If you experienced something that you could not reproduce -- a vision (while not under the influence of any substances that might induce hallucination) for example -- would you take that as evidence for yourself, even if you didn't expect anyone else to take it?
I think that's the gap I've been trying to jump.
If I had a vision that was not reproducable by others, I would seek professional psychiatric care.
I think that's the gap I've been trying to jump.
Sorry, I see no gap here.
And if they said there was nothing wrong with you....?
That wouldn't happen. Hallucinations such as this are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. The least I would suspect in the way of treatment for such hallucinations would be a prescription for Lithium.
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