Big Question 1

[Ginkgo]

You ought to read uwot's Bertrand Russell comment, it sums it up nicely.

I did. I don't speak with uwot, though. He seems determined to pick a fight with God, and it's above my pay grade to step into a fight like that. Personally, I would wish him repentance on that, but you can't make a man do what he doesn't want to do.

As for Russell, he is said to be a great mathematician. But I can tell you he understood next to nothing about faith.

This is the truth: back in my early university days, we Christians used to put a copy of his book "Why I Am Not A Christian" in our book displays, so that people would ask about it. It's so easy to debunk Russell's ideas, we actually relished him as a springboard to make better arguments.

So no...not terribly impressed.

Go ahead and debunk Russell's ideas.

[Immanuel Can]

Go ahead and debunk Russell's ideas.

Sure.

Which one?

[uwot]

I don't speak with uwot, though. He seems determined to pick a fight with God...

As Xenophanes pointed out:
But mortals suppose gods are born,
Wear their own clothes and have a voice and body.
The Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each of their own kind.

It isn't that god created man in his own image, it is man who creates gods in his own image. My disagreement is with you, not your god. If you want to call it a fight, that's up to you, but it's one you chickened out of.

...and it's above my pay grade to step into a fight like that. Personally, I would wish him repentance on that, but you can't make a man do what he doesn't want to do.

I appreciate your solicitude, but it is your arguments that fail to persuade me. As Russell said: “Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”

As for Russell, he is said to be a great mathematician. But I can tell you he understood next to nothing about faith.

Why is that different to saying that someone who doesn't have herpes understands next to nothing about it?

This is the truth: back in my early university days, we Christians used to put a copy of his book "Why I Am Not A Christian" in our book displays, so that people would ask about it. It's so easy to debunk Russell's ideas, we actually relished him as a springboard to make better arguments.

Mr Can, we are used to Christians saying "This is the truth" and then going on about how some bloke walked on water.

So no...not terribly impressed.

No Mr Can; me neither. Nor was Russell: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

[Ginkgo]

Go ahead and debunk Russell's ideas.

Sure.

Which one?

How about Russell's barber paradox? It was used by Russell to point out the contradiction contained within Cantor's naive set theory.
Russell's paradox is one of my favorites.

The barber paradox is a puzzle derived from Russell's paradox. It was used by Bertrand Russell himself as an illustration of the paradox, though he attributes it to an unnamed person who suggested it to him.[1] The puzzle shows that an apparently plausible scenario is logically impossible. Specifically, it describes a barber who is defined such that he both shaves himself and does not shave himself.

[Ginkgo]

I don't speak with uwot, though. He seems determined to pick a fight with God...

As Xenophanes pointed out:
But mortals suppose gods are born,
Wear their own clothes and have a voice and body.
The Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each of their own kind.

It isn't that god created man in his own image, it is man who creates gods in his own image. My disagreement is with you, not your god. If you want to call it a fight, that's up to you, but it's one you chickened out of.

...and it's above my pay grade to step into a fight like that. Personally, I would wish him repentance on that, but you can't make a man do what he doesn't want to do.

I appreciate your solicitude, but it is your arguments that fail to persuade me. As Russell said: “Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”

As for Russell, he is said to be a great mathematician. But I can tell you he understood next to nothing about faith.

Why is that different to saying that someone who doesn't have herpes understands next to nothing about it?

This is the truth: back in my early university days, we Christians used to put a copy of his book "Why I Am Not A Christian" in our book displays, so that people would ask about it. It's so easy to debunk Russell's ideas, we actually relished him as a springboard to make better arguments.

Mr Can, we are used to Christians saying "This is the truth" and then going on about how some bloke walked on water.

So no...not terribly impressed.

No Mr Can; me neither. Nor was Russell: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Brilliant post uwot. Oh so true.

[Immanuel Can]

Go ahead and debunk Russell's ideas.

Sure.

Which one?

How about Russell's barber paradox? It was used by Russell to point out the contradiction contained within Cantor's naive set theory.
Russell's paradox is one of my favorites.

Oh. I thought you meant one of his claims about faith or about Christianity. I thought you maybe even saw some "claim" in that brief harangue uwot wanted to use to impress us....though I couldn't find one to work with, myself. I was hoping you had something in mind.

His work about mathematics or general philosophy doesn't relate to any of that, so no, I really have no interest in contesting or "debunking" his other work. I'm happy to leave that to the discretion of others.

[uwot]

Oh. I thought you meant one of his claims about faith or about Christianity. I thought you maybe even saw some "claim" in that brief harangue uwot wanted to use to impress us....though I couldn't find one to work with, myself.

Too brief Mr Can? Very well, from 'Why I am not a Christian':
"I think that there are a good many points upon which I agree with Christ a great deal more than the professing Christians do. I do not know that I could go with Him all the way, but I could go with Him much farther than most professing Christians can. You will remember that He said: ‘Resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ That is not a new precept or a new principle. It was used by Lao-Tze and Buddha some five or six hundred years before Christ, but it is not a principle which as a matter of fact Christians accept. I have no doubt that the present Prime Minister,1 [footnote 1. Stanley Baldwin.] for instance, is a most sincere Christian, but I should not advise any of you to go and smite him on one cheek. I think you might find that he thought this text was intended in a figurative sense.

Then there is another point which I consider is excellent. You will remember that Christ said: ‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’ That principle I do not think you would find was popular in the law courts of Christian countries. I have known in my time quite a number of judges who were very earnest Christians, and they none of them felt that they were acting contrary to Christian principles in what they did. Then Christ says: ‘Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.’ That is a very good principle."
-Bertrand Russell

Mr Can, I do not expect you to speak for all Christians, and given the times you appeal to 'No true Scotsman', I rather think the only individual you believe qualifies as a true Christian is yourself. So as perhaps the only representative of your particular sect, how do you think running away from what you call a fight squares with turn the other cheek? How do you reconcile calling anyone who disagrees with you "irrational" with "Judge not..." And finally, when one asketh thee, why dost thou turn away?

[Dubious]

As for Russell, he is said to be a great mathematician. But I can tell you he understood next to nothing about faith.

Faith is not hard to understand. It's nothing more than a belief in the unbelievable because it makes one feel good. What's hard to understand is why people feel good simply by an act of self-induced belief to alleviate their own existential desperation. Faith is the hope for an afterlife, of not being abandoned by an assumed god...an entity that only exists through irrational assumptions never having encountered such except in scripture as a story. In regard to any divinity, when facts are missing faith prevails. It's reality is based purely on what is written. From that POV it's not unlike thinking of any fictional character as an actual person.

As contradictory as it may sound, faith can only appear logical by the explicit use of irrationality.

[Immanuel Can]

As for Russell, he is said to be a great mathematician. But I can tell you he understood next to nothing about faith.

Faith is not hard to understand. It's nothing more than a belief in the unbelievable because it makes one feel good.

If you suppose that, then it would seem you perhaps don't understand it, anymore than Russell did. No wonder you can't comprehend why people would do that. I wouldn't understand "faith" by that definition either. So I suppose, given your definition, we agree.

[Dubious]

As for Russell, he is said to be a great mathematician. But I can tell you he understood next to nothing about faith.

Faith is not hard to understand. It's nothing more than a belief in the unbelievable because it makes one feel good.

If you suppose that, then it would seem you perhaps don't understand it, anymore than Russell did. No wonder you can't comprehend why people would do that. I wouldn't understand "faith" by that definition either. So I suppose, given your definition, we agree.

If you for some reason were to renounce god and lose faith your feeling of well-being, as you professed to have in a prior post, would cause you a great deal of mental agony. If that's not true then you never had real faith to begin with. It's faith which keeps your psyche warm in a cold world which has nothing of god in it. For a non-believer faith was never a requirement and can quite naturally greet the universe in the following manner:

Hail the untempled sinuous sublime
God unrendered which renders gods divine.

[Belinda]

It is a false premise there are good people. Nobody is good .The devil is always close by.

[Immanuel Can]

Faith is not hard to understand. It's nothing more than a belief in the unbelievable because it makes one feel good.

If you suppose that, then it would seem you perhaps don't understand it, anymore than Russell did. No wonder you can't comprehend why people would do that. I wouldn't understand "faith" by that definition either. So I suppose, given your definition, we agree.

If you for some reason were to renounce god and lose faith...

Oh, don't worry. I'm not "losing faith." I'm just denying that your definition of "faith" is any definition of actual faith. So I'm agreeing with you that your bad definition is a definition of something bad for somebody to do.

However, it's not real faith. That's all.

Like Russell did, you're defining-down the idea of faith in order to be able to dismiss it easily. To no great surprise to anyone, you are then quite justified in dismissing the mirage you have created.

[uwot]

To no great surprise to anyone, you are then quite justified in dismissing the mirage you have created.

Mr Can, your lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. It is you who creates mirages. A christian is what you say it is. An Atheist is what you say it is. A muslim is what you say it is. A socialist is what you say it is. Your world is populated with straw men that you congratulate yourself for defeating and when you can't beat them, you ignore them.

[RCSaunders]

It is a false premise there are good people. Nobody is good .The devil is always close by.

What horrible life view. It's also a confession.

From Admissions of Guilt in The Autonomist's Notebook:

Beware the man who makes broad moral judgments.

• The man who says, "everyone lies sometimes," is a liar.
• The man who says, "everyone steals sometimes," is a thief.
• The man who says, "everyone cheats sometimes," is a cheat.

[bahman]

In applied ethics, there is perhaps one great question.

Why do good people, do bad things?

To be clear, the point of the question is not to define "good" or to go down a moral relativistic rabbit hole. Rather, every day there are people who do things that are bad but many of them, if you get to know them, aren't bad people.

Thoughts?

Why good people do bad? Because there is a tension within which requires doing bad.