Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 07, 2023 11:09 pm I don't know what you mean by, " something is going to win".
I mean that when all is said and done, reality will turn out to be reality, regardless of any delusions with which we delude ourselves. If there's a God, there's no use in disbelieving in Him; if there is not, there's no value in believing in Him. But either there is, or there is not a God, regardless of what either of us might wish.

So we must make the best estimate of the evidence we have, and live and die on that basis.

However, it doesn't seem a very dangerous thing to believe in God, since if death ends all, one pays no price for the delusion. But if there is a God, and an accounting, and a judgment, and one refused to believe in the God who actually exists.... :shock:

Pascal knew this. He was rather good at calculating.
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Harbal
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:08 am
Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 07, 2023 8:40 pm So a woman having no right to defy the wishes of her husband is not a human rights issue? :?
Did you find that quotation that proves a woman has no right to defy the wishes of her husband? If you didn't, then what are you talking about?
No, I'll take your word for it; I would rather concede than resort to reading through the Bible.
The right of all people to freedom of conscience is a universal right, grounded in Creation. Locke showed that.
Locke might have thought that, but so what? Your "Creation" is just an element of a particular mythology, so nothing actual can possibly be grounded in it.
In what is the claim to a "right" to particular sexually-deviant actions grounded?
It is grounded in the principle that to deny people the means to live a fulfilled and happy life merely because some other people disapprove of them is morally unjustifiable.
IC wrote:
Harbal wrote: Okay, God is a possibility, but an extremely small one, but the possibility of the God you believe in wouldn't even register on the negligible scale, so to take him into account would be the most irrational act a body could commit.
And the basis of that claim is...?
The God you believe in, and everything that goes with it, is just something you've got from an arbitrarily compiled bunch of old texts. It is a collection of religious myth, and human history is littered with religious mythology of all kinds. I'm sure you wouldn't think it rational to base our principles of morality and law on Greek mythology, or the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, so why you give credence to a load of ancient Middle Eastern mumbo jumbo I have no idea, but it is certainly not a rational thing to do.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Harbal wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:56 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:08 am In what is the claim to a "right" to particular sexually-deviant actions grounded?
It is grounded in the principle that to deny people the means to live a fulfilled and happy life merely because some other people disapprove of them is morally unjustifiable.
And where is that principle established? What, in the uncaring universe, has guaranteed you and me a right to "live a happy and fulfilled life...etc.?"
IC wrote:
Harbal wrote: Okay, God is a possibility, but an extremely small one, but the possibility of the God you believe in wouldn't even register on the negligible scale, so to take him into account would be the most irrational act a body could commit.
And the basis of that claim is...?
The God you believe in, and everything that goes with it, is just something you've got from an arbitrarily compiled bunch of old texts.
That's how you'd put it, I guess. But I'd put it this way: knowledge of God comes from His self-revelation in the most complex, powerful, authoritative and significant text in human history.

So maybe it's all in how one words it.
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Harbal
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:12 am
Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 07, 2023 11:09 pm I don't know what you mean by, " something is going to win".
I mean that when all is said and done, reality will turn out to be reality, regardless of any delusions with which we delude ourselves. If there's a God, there's no use in disbelieving in Him; if there is not, there's no value in believing in Him. But either there is, or there is not a God, regardless of what either of us might wish.
Well I think there is not a God, so nothing I think or do is with any reference to him.
So we must make the best estimate of the evidence we have, and live and die on that basis.
I don't think that those without any religious proclivity think like that; I certainly don't. It is just one of many things that I don't concern myself with.
However, it doesn't seem a very dangerous thing to believe in God, since if death ends all, one pays no price for the delusion. But if there is a God, and an accounting, and a judgment, and one refused to believe in the God who actually exists....
I don't refuse to believe in God, I just don't believe in him. I can't just choose to believe something that strikes me as unbelievable, can you? And I don't agree that it doesn't seem dangerous to believe in God, or at least in your God. I find some of the views you have expressed as an advocate of God to be very sinister, and I suspect you have some views that you are more reluctant to express that I would find even more so.
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Harbal
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 1:18 am
Harbal wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:56 am
It is grounded in the principle that to deny people the means to live a fulfilled and happy life merely because some other people disapprove of them is morally unjustifiable.
And where is that principle established? What, in the uncaring universe, has guaranteed you and me a right to "live a happy and fulfilled life...etc.?"
That particular principle is established within my set of moral values, but I'm sure it is also to be found among the values of others, too. There is absolutely nothing in the universe that has guaranteed you and me a right to live a happy and fulfilled life, but neither is there anything in it that requires us to prevent anyone from living one.
IC wrote:
Harbal wrote: The God you believe in, and everything that goes with it, is just something you've got from an arbitrarily compiled bunch of old texts.
That's how you'd put it, I guess. But I'd put it this way: knowledge of God comes from His self-revelation in the most complex, powerful, authoritative and significant text in human history.

So maybe it's all in how one words it.
Yes, I suppose it is all in how one dresses it up.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 12:02 am No, actually: He's the Supreme Being, and the only God there actually is.
Et voilà.

The un-actual gods are kicking up a storm.
Am I at the "trouble" bit, yet?
Of course. But you can’t understand why. And that tends to make it more amusing.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 1:18 am But I'd put it this way: knowledge of God comes from His self-revelation in the most complex, powerful, authoritative and significant text in human history.
Look, I admire the Bhagavad-Gita a great deal but you’re laying it on a bit thick. Didn’t I meet you in the Houston airport a few years back ?!?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 2:14 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 1:18 am
But I'd put it this way: knowledge of God comes from His self-revelation in the most complex, powerful, authoritative and significant text in human history.
Look, I admire the Bhagavad-Gita a great deal but you’re laying it on a bit thick. Didn’t I meet you in the Houston airport a few years back ?!?
I'm just stating the facts.

There isn't any other book in history that has had anywhere near the impact of the Bible, on art, music, politics, ethics, law, education, science, culture, philosophy, literature, and many other aspects of civilization, particularly in the Mideast and West, but everywhere; there's no rival to it that comes anywhere close. So it's not surprising that if there's any knowledge of God anywhere, it comes in that particular book.

Of course, you can insist there's no such knowledge, if you want; but if there's any place a person would be smart to start looking for it...
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 2:24 am I'm just stating the facts.
You know, thinking about it, it is far less the facts (e.g. for example the influence of the Bible) and more how you, as a religious fanatic, handle those facts in your general presentation.

The lens that possesses you distorts everything it glimpses.

When one sees this trait plainly — I in any case — one recoils back away from you. Like “I want no part of this” and “I cannot cooperate or network with this man’s ideas”.

Your entire presentation on this thread has quite little to do with Lindsay but everything to do with preaching the Gospel. When flushed, you reveal yourself.

Along with those *facts* that you do state there are so many other *facts* that you refuse to recognize. And your denials turn a bit devious to the degree that fanaticism has you in its grip.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 1:13 pm Your entire presentation on this thread has quite little to do with Lindsay
Not my fault.

Track back, and you will see I made deliberate attempts to return it to the topic of Lindsay, especially when people like you got off track or when Gary tried to drag it off into the realm of "poor me" again. But others, including yourself, pulled it in the direction it has gone, by obsessing about the God question. Check back and see.

But I'm quite happy to return to speaking about Lindsay. What are your thoughts on his letter to students?
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 3:21 pm or when Gary tried to drag it off into the realm of "poor me" again.
I'm sorry. This could have been a nice cordial and detached conversation about how the wretched and unclean are to blame for our own sorrows. Sorry, to ruin all the delightful intellectualbation for you. Arm chair theologians apparently just don't get enough callous fun in their carefree moments.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Gary Childress wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 5:27 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 3:21 pm or when Gary tried to drag it off into the realm of "poor me" again.
I'm sorry. This could have been a nice cordial and detached conversation about how the wretched and unclean are to blame for our own sorrows. Sorry, to ruin all the delightful intellectualbation for you. Arm chair theologians apparently just don't get enough callous fun in their carefree moments.
Well, if you're sorry, I accept your apology. No hard feelings.

Your topic was legit, in its own way, and for people who were addressing that sort of thing...but it was not the given topic, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the given topic.

You're always invited to start your own thread about how you feel, and PN is open to whatever you decide to post. However, as AJ pointed out, this was not that thread. But no hard feelings...we all are guilty sometimes of getting off topic. Just be conscious of the tendency, I would say, and start a new thread instead of hijacking somebody else's. Fair enough?
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 6:22 pm Fair enough?
Sounds good to me.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 3:21 pm Not my fault.
You deliberately choose not to take in and process the meaning of my comments. Your real purpose, or your primary purpose has nothing to do with Lindsay. All issues, for you, resolve into the primary theological question(s). Your primary purpose is Christian apologetics.

I certainly do not *blame* you for that or for what you choose to focus on. As I recently explained to Henry it is at this point less about the content of what is believed, but rather the structure of the argument that is used to support or defend the belief.

I have been thinking about *metaphysical dreams* (Weaver's term for metaphysical systems and their juncture with existential belief-systems). You are a man with a very precise metaphysical dream. That is why I refer to your *fanatical belief*. You see it one way, and you really believe it is that way and no other. You cannot see your system as a *lens* that you might compare to other existent lenses, and through that comparison be able to see and understand the value in other approaches or organizations of perception.

You know that I believe that the Hebrew system, or tendency, is to condemn as *demoniac* all other religious systems. And Christianity certainly inherited that. If that works for you, I cannot argue against your choice (though I certainly oppose some or many of your conclusions).

You have helped me to *destroy* in myself different aspects of absolutism in respect to metaphysical dreams. If your object is *apologetics* it is ironic that you achieve anti-apologetics. And that in regard to everyone that you talk with here. You convince no one, and you inadvertedly drive people to alternatives -- or to give up *belief* altogether.

I am pretty sure that you understand very little of this -- how could you? But I write it out for my own benefit and also so that others can read and muse on it.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Open Letter to Woke Students

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Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:15 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2023 3:21 pm Not my fault.
You deliberately choose not to take in and process the meaning of my comments.
I processed your meaning. I was simply unimpressed.
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