If you're a member of a gang, you are accountable for what another gang member does. Even if you were nowhere near when he committed the crime, even if you knew nothing about the crime being planned. Simply by being a member of the gang, you make yourself accountable. — baker
The idea is like privately holding a prejudice vs acting on it, some peoples intuitions are that so long as someone keeps their prejudice quiet and doesn't discriminate it doesn't matter. — fdrake
Am I really alone here in this? — frank
I'm making the argument that it is fair to interrogate the beliefs of Christians in the same way we interrogate the beliefs of non-Christians, we do not need to 'stand in their shoes', nor understand their faith, nor give special dispensation - that if we find something apparently contradictory, incoherent, or morally objectionable, we can legitimately point that out and expect some justifications in return (normal discussion methods - exchange of justifications). — Isaac
Whatever rules they pick up from their text doesn't somehow absolve them. — jorndoe
4. That many Christians don't hold to whole 'torturer' thing anyway. If one takes some parts of the Bible literally and other parts allegorically, then one is not following a creed. I think this is unarguable, because you could create any set of beliefs at all from the bible by doing so. We could say that that God's smiting of unbelievers is literal, but Jesus's kindness to the poor was only allegorical and didn't really mean the we ought to be kind to the poor. Once you personally (or some other group) are in charge of what's to be taken literally and what isn't, you no longer have a religion (from ligāre - to bind). You pick and choose which bits really mean what they say and which bits are just adding a bit of colour to a more generic message. — Isaac
Once you personally (or some other group) are in charge of what's to be taken literally and what isn't, you no longer have a religion (from ligāre - to bind). — Isaac
What use is illusory fairness? — baker
I've raised the problem of us not having unfiltered access to the causes of our beliefs. I think this gets in the way of a good category of 'revelational' belief. — Isaac
The Nazis didn't think so, obviously. — baker
If Christianity (love it or leave it) is our model for what a religion looks like, then features of Christianity are features of religion. — Ennui Elucidator
This attitude of fundamentalism (founding document to be understood literally as the only source of religious authority/authenticity) is precisely the problem with people like Lewis - actual people are being judged for having beliefs that they do not have based upon a facially incorrect understanding of what religion is/says/etc. — Ennui Elucidator
The argument around worship is that what makes god worshipful is not inherently what makes god admirable (if at all). Lewis critiques those that admire. If someone worships a god that tortures people for fun, are they in the same boat of moral repugnance as someone that admires a god that tortures people for fun? — Ennui Elucidator
Once you personally (or some other group) are in charge of what's to be taken literally and what isn't, you no longer have a religion (from ligāre - to bind). — Isaac
Then there are probably no religions at all. This argument is clearly overbroad. — Srap Tasmaner
It does indeed, but if you just rule out revelation, you're ruling out Christianity tout court. Which is fine, but then there's just no point in nitpicking about theology. It's a two-pronged attack: "What you believe is bullshit, and you ought not believe it, but this particular bullshit is bad bullshit, and you also ought not believe it because it's also bad." What are you asking of Christians? "I'd prefer you believed some different bullshit. Make up something else"? How are they supposed to respond? — Srap Tasmaner
Again, my argument is simply that religious belief is no special category -supporting the 'special pleading' complaint made earlier. If I'm asking anything of Christians it's that they take part in the usual social game of post hoc rationalisation that everyone else plays. — Isaac
my argument is simply that religious belief is no special category — Isaac
the distinction one might want to make for religious beliefs doesn't seem to apply if those beliefs are ultimately derived in the same way as any other belief. — Isaac
Absolutely. There is no privileged class of belief. — Ennui Elucidator
But if it's not 'special' in the sense indicated, then it's not true. — Srap Tasmaner
What I have to justify is saying such an approach is fine for some purposes ("God told me to" doesn't excuse you from murder) but useless if our intention is to understand and judge how Christians believe and what they believe. — Srap Tasmaner
Your argument is that the voice of God has the same role in belief formation as the hidden unknowns we model, as the outside cause of whatever we do to end up with something identifiable as a belief -- is that it? — Srap Tasmaner
God doesn't even bother with your brain; He speaks directly to your soul. Or so I've heard. — Srap Tasmaner
I know not everyone agrees with this, but... the overwhelming majority of our beliefs are justified post hoc. The justification isn't to arrive at the belief, it's to check it. We don't start with a blank slate and work through an algorithm to fill it. So the fact that two of the Christian's beliefs don't match doesn't mean we have to pick which one to judge, it means that we interrogate the post hoc rationalisation that results from the two. — Isaac
How about looking at their actions to see if they believe that instead of worming our way to it via a logical argument? — frank
I'm saying that the distinction one might want to make for religious beliefs doesn't seem to apply if those beliefs are ultimately derived in the same way as any other belief. — Isaac
From 30,000 feet, that's kinda reasonable, but you can't add any detail to this picture at all. God doesn't even bother with your brain; He speaks directly to your soul. Or so I've heard. — Srap Tasmaner
but the signals from your soul are hidden states are they not? — Isaac
To my mind, the above makes religious faith something like a symptom of trauma? — fdrake
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