RoR: Forum

Ethan:

Me: >>This is because a person's knowledge of reality will always be incomplete. In other words, we are all ignorant and will always be ignorant of the fullness of the truth.<<

You: >>So belief in anything without proof is ok, because it can't be proven false? You are very funny in a sad way :-)<<

I've been ignoring you in hope that you'll realize that you've had nothing of substance to contribute to this discussion and maybe stop embarrassing yourself. Surely you can do better than yip-yapping like Rand's lap dog.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 41

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 12:56pm

Michael:

Dodging my question, you wrote: >>Just read my post above for a few examples of the evil of christianity.<<

I did. I then put to you a teaching the Church that is fundamental to Catholic morality. I specifically asked to identify the evil in that teaching. You balked.

You: >>The best expose of the evil of the Roman Catholic Church may be found in Rand's "Requiem for Man" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.<<

Fine, that's what Rand thinks. What about you? Again I put to you a fundamental teaching of the Church and asked a simple question: Where's the evil?

Finally, you complained: >>By the way, cheap smears such as "Orwellian", "thought crimes" and "the Nazi card" are not argument, but an attempt to avoid argument.<<

The pot calling the kettle black. Now answer my question: Where's the evil in the teaching I posted above?

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 42

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 12:50pm

Rat:
" Sometimes things must be taken on faith -- for example, good and evil -- because we cannot know these things scientifically. Yet experience tells us these things are true, even if in our fundamental ignorance of reality, we cannot know precisely why they are true."

am I to understand that you are saying that reason says there is no correct way to live, and that ethics are irrational and nonscientific, and that only "faith" can provide them?

if this is the case, score one for the postmodernists. if the choice is to limit reason or cast out ethics as wholly unsubstantiated by ethics and argument, this doesnt look good for ethics, does it? and I'm not about to assume the existence of things I cannot see just to make it look better. No excuses: if I cannot observe it, I see no reason to assume its there. if god exists, and wants to be believed in, he can come to my door and say so.

Post 43

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 1:07pm

Hi, Elizabeth.

I lack the time today to address you at length, but I will as soon as I time permits. However, I do have one question: Just because you disagree with a teaching of the Church (or perhaps, what you believe is a teaching of the Church), does that make the teaching evil? Perhaps, more broadly put, does every failure to agree with Objectivist conclusions about morality constitute an evil? If so, that strikes me as totalitarian, which the Church, for all the faults you may find in her, is anything but.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

P.S. Do not concern yourself with any attempt on my part to persuade you to believe in God. I have no desire to change what I surely lack the grace to bring about. My purpose here is to determine how important atheism is to those who identify themselves as Objectivists.

Post 44

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 1:16pm

Robert:

You asked: >>I to understand that you are saying that reason says there is no correct way to live, and that ethics are irrational and nonscientific, and that only "faith" can provide them?<<

No. My point is that our knowledge of reality will always be incomplete, even in matters important to our daily lives. If we pretend that all true knowledge is scientific and only scientific, then we must deny to ourselves knowledge that we know from experience to be true but cannot prove such scientifically -- for instance knowledge of good and evil.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 45

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 1:22pm

Oh, I don't think you should take that as an apology. I just didn't want you devaluing the currency of a real insult. Besides, I assume the reason you took it personally was that the shoe fit pretty well.

And you disagree that your ignorance is willful, but it certainly is. Whenever you attribute an explanation to "god" or "magic" or whatever, you shut off all future chances of understanding it. Why would you bother looking for an explanation of volition when you already "know" it's magic? And now that you've got intellectual baggage that you need to defend, you'll be even more resistant to explore the topic.

You're right that there is more than one way to deal with ignorance. The rational way is acceptance of the ignorance. You know you don't know something, and don't pretend to. If you want to explore it, you can. If you find new evidence, you might take it up again.

The irrational way is your preferred way. Whenever you don't know anything, you pretend to have an answer. If you can't explain some event, you say "god did it". Instead of accepting your own lack of knowledge, you pretend to know everything. And since you have an "answer", you never need to look at the question again.

Talking about free will and volition is just another step in a long line of things people were ignorant of, and then attributed to magic. It's no different from the gods of thunder and lightning, or the gods of love.

It's an arrogance founded in ignorance. It says, "Since I can't figure it out, there must not be an answer!". Your ignorance is upheld as proof of the impossibility of knowing. You've got the mental habits of a caveman.

Oh, and your alleged theory is contradicted by the facts of reality. Take, for instance "consciousness". You claim it can't possibly be physical. And yet, if you were to get hit in the head hard enough, you would pass out. You would lack consciousness. To anyone not desperately searching for an excuse to believe in god, this would be proof enough that your mind is not separate from your brain. And that's not even discussing things like anti-depressant drugs, lobotomies, brain damage, etc.

I'm sure you can wave all of this evidence away by saying "oh...god must have done it!". That's the problem with the magical god belief. Once accepted as valid, it trumps everything, including legitimate knowledge.

Post 46

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 2:08pm

Citizen Rat:

You wrote:

It forbids me to take any force against another, except in defense, because I must respect the dignity of all other human beings. The reason why I must have such respect is that no other human being is my creation, and I cannot destroy that which I did not create.

To assert that all human beings possess dignity and deserve respect is to equate, for example, a killer and his victim. That is an assertion that evil doesn't matter -- and that is as evil as it gets.

Post 47

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 3:23pm

Rat:

something i've been wondering for a while:
why exactly are you here?
I am not asking this in a confrontational, "get out", sort of manner, but because I am genuinely curious as to what motivates you to spend your time on this particular website. you clearly do not agree with the vast majority of written material and ideas to come out of this website, except for in concrete affairs regarding politics and art. nor can I imagine that you are here in hopes of some sort of minarchist or libertarian activist "coalition building"-- surely you cannot fail to realize that for objectivists that
A: compromise is a dirty word
and
B: that the numbers involved in this movement are so small as to be a drop in the bucket compared with more mainstream and generic libertarian groups.
and
C: said groups would be much more in corcordance with and accepting of your beliefs than this group is, in addition to having larger numbers and influence. you cannot fail to know this.

by your own statements, you are not here to proselytize either, and you realize full well that even if you wanted to, that such an attempt would go nowhere. nor do you seem to be here in order to read analyses and ideas you largely agree with-- once we get out of concrete politics, really everything this website has to say, from atheism in metaphysics to the belief in reason as an absolute in epistemology to egoism as the only proper standard of ethics-- nearly all of this except for concrete political platforms goes against your beliefs. refer to point C listed above: there are clearly other groups which would offer you both more political leverage and greater concordance with your views. nor does it seem that you are particularly interested in being challenged, in arguing, in seeing ideas from the other side and grappling with them. your insistence that your belief in god is non falsifiable, and your insistence on faith, automatically shows you are not interested in debates and ideological challenges, and your condescending assertions and tone toward the other views on this website in matters in which you disagree with objectivism clearly show that you do not respect these ideas very much or take them seriously: read: that you certainly do not give them the credit of being a challenge you would want to grapple with. finally, there is always the possibility that you are a troll, who comes here just to annoy the staunch atheism of objectivists with your religious declarations, but even this explanation is dubious as you seem somewhat civil for a troll. "supreme chairman" you are not.

so, citizen rat, which is it?

Post 48

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 6:57am

Hi, Elizabeth.

You wrote: >>Some things that I find pretty repulsive since becoming atheist are (in no order):

1. Realizing what it does to people when you are taught to worship the humble and meek, the poor, the addicts, the homeless; when you are taught that the meek shall inherit the earth, that suffering on earth is good, and that you must go through this 'torture' to seek redemption.<<

No.  Catholics are taught to worship only God. Anything else is idolatry.

Catholics are not taught that suffering is good. They are taught to seek good out the suffering that is inevitable from life on Earth. If nothing else, how to avoid it in the future. If the suffering is spiritual, then redemption may very well be the way to avoid it.

>>2. That you are taught that life on earth is a punishment. Sometimes they tell you that life is a gift, but how can you think that life is the greatest gift, when you assume it's hell compared to what you'll get after you die?<<

You gotta be kidding me. Catholics are taught that one of the most important loves in life is self-love. You are to enjoy your fleshly existence here on Earth. Sing and dance; eat, drink, and be merry; gamble; and all the pleasures of the flesh. Of course, Catholics are taught that over-indulgence in any particular pleasure is no virtue and may very be a vice. That is nothing more than common sense.

>>3. That you are taught that life on earth is a punishment, because of a girl's curiosity to eat 'forbidden fruit' before mankind really came into existence. Even if you think it's true, it's a horrible test.<<

Eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is an allegory of how man acquired consciousness and the consequences of knowingly engaging in evil. Think about it, Elizabeth, what happened immediately after Adam and Eve ate that fruit? They lied. By choosing sin over the truth, God chucked them out of paradise to make do on Earth with their newly acquired capability to know themselves.

>>4. That you can have an omnicient god have free-will on earth at the same time.<<

True. But there is nothing contradictory between a person freely making a choice and God knowing that that is the choice that will be made.

>>5. That you are born with an original sin, and if you are not baptized, you will go to hell upon death.<<

First, original sin. What Catholics are taught regarding Original Sin is not that crude notion that men are essentially evil creatures that is in fact taught by some Protestant sects. Original Sin is the recognition of man's fallen nature -- i.e., that he is capable of doing evil.  Indeed, he will likely do evil if not taught morality. Fortunately, few of us these days subscribe to the Rousseauvian notion that young children are pure spirits of innocence. They are amoral animals who must be taught to be good to become human beings. Original Sin is one way of reminding us of our obligations as adults to pass on our knowledge of morality to the young.

Second, the Church does not teach that you will go to Hell if not baptized. Unbaptized infants go to Limbo, presumably a pleasant environment which suits their state as non-rational beings. Once you are old enough to comprehend good and evil, you will not be denied salvation simply because you have not been baptized. If you honestly did not know of or understand the salvific power of baptism, but would have chosen baptism if you understood it, you will be saved. In its Seeds of the Word doctrine, the Church teaches that pieces of the Truth come to us in many different ways outside of the Church, and those who accept those pieces as Truth as they receive them will have the opportunity for salvation.

Of course, the Church teaches that it reveals the Truth most perfectly, but it does not deny that there are other ways to find it. Indeed, under the Seeds of the Word doctrine it is even possible for a sincere Objectivist, despite his atheism, to find his way into Heaven. What the Church reserves its severest sanction for as those who receive the Truth and knowingly reject it. Those persons are the ones most likely to be consigned to Hell, because the knowing denial of the Truth is evil.

>>6. Children are god's gift to a couple. You cannot prevent it, nor seek help to become fertile if it wasn't meant to happen.(i.e. no birth control, no fertility treatments allowed).<<

Not quite, Elizabeth. A married couple is allowed to avoid conception by deliberately restricting sexual intercourse to non-fertile periods. Otherwise, what you wrote is true, and for good reason. If any Objectivist here can overcome his ideological blinders, I think they will find Karol Wojtyla's Theology of the Body a provocative document. Unless, one is an irredeemable libertine, you cannot help but see the truth about human nature, sex, and marriage in that work.

>>7. Abortion is evil. (This is one of those big ones I didn't even buy back then).<<

Of course, Catholics think abortion is evil. That's because they believe it is the taking of an innocent human life. Every sensible person acknowledges that the taking of an innocent human life is evil. Your disagreement, I suspect, is that you do not believe that an unborn child is a human being. Fine, but is it irrational for Catholics to agree with what is a biological fact?

>>8. Gays are evil and going to hell. (Again, didn't even buy it back then, one of the big ones that I'm quite ashamed to have been associated with, even though I didn't believe it).<<

Yes, very P.C. of you, Elizabeth. The Church does not teach that "gays are evil". It teaches sodomy, like all other non-marital sexual acts, is a sin. On the hierarchy of sins, sexual sins are hardly the gravest by the lights of the Church.

Mere sodomy does not warrant much attention from the Church. However, if it leads to graver matters, there is concern. It is one the bizarre facets of our times that a tiny segment of the population founds its identity upon its desire for a particular sexual act, and anyone willing to brave the P.C. storm and objectively consider this realizes that embracing such an identity is disordered.

Think about it, Elizabeth. Would you go around telling everyone to recognize you as a "doggist" because you like it "doggie style"? Of course, not. You'd be rightly known as nut. Yet some among us with homosexual desires insist upon being defined first and foremost by that desire. That is disordered. It is a form of idolatry. It worships something which should in fact be in service to us. For the Church to try to re-direct a homosexual who has made a fetish of his sexual desires is not bad thing.

>>9. Want of material things are bad - we should still be living in grass huts and dying at age 30 I guess...?<<

Now you're being silly. Even priests these days seldom take vows of poverty. It is only commonsense to teach that it is unhealthy to want things for their own sake.

>>10. Thou shalt not want for anything... I don't really understand how you function unless you desire a job, a house, a car, etc... <<

To the extent that I can figure this one out, same as above.

>>11. I used to love this one -- treat all men as brothers, you never know when Jesus will appear at your door... yeah, I think Elizabeth Smart's family took well to that one! When I was younger, I almost picked up every hitchhiker, _just in case_! :) <<

Please, Elizabeth, the Church never teaches you to be stupid. Prudence is one of the cardinal virtues of Catholicism. As to what the Smart family, who are Mormons, have to do with this, I don't know.

>>12. What God wants is enough to have you do it. This is where Joe was saying before that it's dangerous. You have people thinking they are answering to a higher authority and therefore murdering, taking slaves, treating women as objects, whatever their religion says and having justification for it. And it just changes, whenever a high priest has a revelation.<<

Human beings, because of their fallen nature, will frequently invoke an authority to justify their bad behavior. Objectivists do this, too. To cite a most minor example: How many have you encountered who believe they are licensed by Rand to behave in the most rude and boorish manner?

The fact is you have a free will. You can choose to do good or evil. You may not justify your evil by resorting to authority. You must think for yourself in the end.

>>13. We won't even go to the whole priest molestation thing, because it's not quite the fault of the church, except for the cover-up parts and denials... <<

Of course what happened was disgusting, and it is a continuing scandal that most of the Catholic hierarchy in this country has not been forced to resign. Nevertheless, the Church is distinct from the bureaucracy which maintains her. In fact, the molestation scandal is wholly attributable to the American clergy's departure from Church teachings and embracing the sexual ethics of the popular culture.

I don't know how old you are, Elizabeth, but incredibly enough during the 'Seventies one trendy idea was that molestation of older boys really wasn't that traumatic for them. Based upon such current thought in psychology, bishops did not punish molesting priests -- who were, let's face it, homosexuals pursuing the homosexual ideal of the beautiful teenaged boy -- but instead sent them away for treatment. Had they adhered to the Church's teaching regarding non-marital sex, such things would have been dealt with severely on the spot.

So don't blame the Church. Blame the keepers of the Church for their abandonment of the Church's teachings.

>>14. No suicides allowed, no matter how little your quality of life, or how close to the end of life you are. Do you know that I just read an article, that the pope has announced that we must keep people on life-support and feeding tubes at catholic hospitals, no matter what their living will says, no matter what their family wants, no matter if they're catholic or not, no matter how much it costs the family or hospital, and no matter if there is any hope of their recovery? This may go into effect soon. On a side note, I find this a bit ironic and contradictory to a few catholic theories, where you shouldn't want for anything, the idea that "there is god's way" (and he'd let you live if he really wanted to, feeding tube or no feeding tube).<<

I understand how trendy suicide is these days. However, I don't see its promoters offing themselves in large numbers.

Meanwhile, Catholic health care institutions have been in the forefront in palliative and hospice care, which do a great deal to alleviate the depression of patients who would otherwise contemplate suicide as a relief. I seen this from my own experience. I'm surprised you haven't accounted for these improvements in light of your work in a Catholic hospital.

>>15. Forgive everyone, everyone can be forgiven if they ask for it from the lord. Let me tell you how much better my life is now that I know it's okay to not forgive people who don't deserve it! And I love many of my best friends, but I see the struggles they go through trying over and over to forgive and be nice to people who don't deserve it and end up using & hurting them over & over. We won't even get into the fact that serial murders can just see the light before they go to the electric chair and be forgiven of all.<<

The Church does not teach to forgive and forgo punishment. The Church teaches that you should forgive to relieve yourself of any ill will that would poison your spirit. In place of that ill will, the Church teaches you to pursue justice, which may mean punishment of the offender.

>>16. Divorce is bad.<<

Of course it's bad. Study after study has come out to show that. Commonsense tells you that too. They are certainly those occasions when there is no option other than divorce, but it certainly isn't a good thing.

>>17. Everyone has 'their time' to die. Sort of has that predestined 'fate' idea. And there were plenty of times I used to not pay too much attention while driving, thinking that if it wasn't my time to die I didn't have to worry anyways. And if I was in a car wreck, well then god must have a reason for wanting me to go through that. I pay a little more attention now.<<

Calvinists adhere to predestination, not Catholics. Perhaps, you are confusing God's omniscience with predestination. The Church makes it clear that your fate is in your hands, which is why God equipped you with a free will.

Might I stick my nose in where it doesn't belong, Elizabeth, and suggest that you may have gotten more than your fair share of the gooey new-age well-meaning crap that passes for Catholicism in a lot of places these days rather than the real stuff?

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

(Edited by Citizen Rat on 4/16, 9:43am)

Post 49

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 7:03am

Joseph:

You wrote: >>Oh, I don't think you should take that as an apology. I just didn't want you devaluing the currency of a real insult. Besides, I assume the reason you took it personally was that the shoe fit pretty well.<<

I took it personally, because I thought you were writing in plain English. To wit: "Your entire mental framwork is shoddy."

So, no need to psychologize, Joe. You need to keep it simple for me, and that's what I thought you did with your insult, bless your heart.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 50

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 7:14am

Hi Bill,

I don't look at Catholics as evil the way I do people who enjoy seeing millions tortured. But because I find the teachings flawed and incorrect, and I feel they lead not to salvation but to misery, guilt, wars, pain and suffering, I do think of it as 'evil'.

To answer your question, It's not so much that atheism is imperitive to objectivists, so much as it doesn't much make sense to believe in a god and also believe in the principles of objectivism. A few people are around, including on this forum, who are 'both', but in the end they might likely find the two are incompatible and choose either mysticism or reason. Some of the reasons have been mentioned, others you can read books about. But basically you can't claim to be able to both grasp knowledge, and live in a world where miracles exist. The two contradict each other.

Have to run,

-Elizabeth

Post 51

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 7:27am

Joseph:

You really need to stop weaving these straw men. I know they're fun to knock down, but it ends up being a waste of time, don't you think? After all, it doesn't persuade me in the least of the validity of your argument. It looks suspect to any intellectual honest third party. And it denies you the opportunity to defend your convictions on anything but friendly territory.

For instance, you wrote: >>[My faith is] an arrogance founded in ignorance. It says, "Since I can't figure it out, there must not be an answer!". Your ignorance is upheld as proof of the impossibility of knowing. You've got the mental habits of a caveman.<<

Now you know full well, Joe, that I wrote just the opposite. Faith is when I believe there is an answer which I cannot justify scientifically. I do believe that good and evil exists and that there is a morality universally applicable to all human beings. I do not fool myself, like Objectivists, that such things are established scientifically. (Indeed, some Objectivists go so far as to proclaim Objectivism as a science in its own right, or at least its reduction of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetic into sciences.) Only if that were true, how simple things would be.

Another instance: >>Oh, and your alleged theory is contradicted by the facts of reality. Take, for instance "consciousness". You claim it can't possibly be physical. And yet, if you were to get hit in the head hard enough, you would pass out. You would lack consciousness. To anyone not desperately searching for an excuse to believe in god, this would be proof enough that your mind is not separate from your brain. And that's not even discussing things like anti-depressant drugs, lobotomies, brain damage, etc.<<

I never claimed it consciousness could not be physical. A number of times now I have stated that it could be, but to believe so is a matter of faith, because there is no way in which know it is physical as a scientific fact. Furthermore, if consciousness is physical, it is mechanical. That is, it is subject to causation as everything material thing is subject to the laws of physics. Yet our experience of consciousness (like volition) does not indicate it is a deterministic phenomenon. Indeed, there is little point in describing consciousness as self-awareness if in fact it is nothing more than a physical phenomenon directing our attention wherever the laws of physics dictate.

The fact is, Joseph, I detect a hint of desperation in your responses. I understand why. The experience of consciousness and volition as non-material and non-causal phenomena are shoals upon which Objectivism crashes in its attempt to define all true knowledge as scientific knowledge

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 52

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 7:51am

Robert:

You ask why I am here. That's a fair question.

The clever answer would be that I'm doing you a favor by making you check your premises. Never hurts to review the fundamentals, right? And who better to sacrifice his time and trouble for this altruistic act to exercise the convictions of Objectivists than a Christian? Only the Shepherd I believe in could provide such unrequited compassion for wayward sheep.

But the truth isn't so clever, Robert. I've already stated it. I'll do it again more fully. For a quarter-century I've been knowledgeable of Rand and Objectivism. Indeed, out of high school Rand gave me my first impetus to organize my libertarian instincts into a rational way of thinking. From then on I would periodically (such as now) re-acquaint myself with Objectivism, especially after the big split to see how the philosophy was evolving.

During my current exploration into the wilds of Objectivism, I was strike by the out-and-out hostility to religion, which I had for one reason or another never encountered in such force before. To be uncharitable, I found it to be a little pathetic, so I departed. But then it occurred to me, that maybe Objectivism is functioning as a religion for atheists. They would explain the exclusivity to the truth that Objectivists so jealously guard -- indeed, guard like many fundamentalist Christians do.

So why not find out for sure, which I stated openly in the first post upon coming back. I am satisfying my curiosity, Robert. It is strictly an indulgence benefiting me. That is why I work to be civil here. I have no genuine desire to upset people, to prove myself right, to have the last word (though I cannot always resist a clever remark). Yes, I do think Objectivists are profoundly wrong on a number of things, but for anyone to react adversely to that fact is to give me unwarranted power over his emotions.

So if you want to help with my project, Robert, I am appreciative. If not, no skin off my nose.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 53

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 7:56am

Michael:

Me: >>It forbids me to take any force against another, except in defense, because I must respect the dignity of all other human beings. The reason why I must have such respect is that no other human being is my creation, and I cannot destroy that which I did not create.<<

You: >>To assert that all human beings possess dignity and deserve respect is to equate, for example, a killer and his victim. That is an assertion that evil doesn't matter -- and that is as evil as it gets.<<

You've overlooked the qualifying phrase "except in defense".

The fact is that Catholics and Objectivist agree on the basic principle that it is immoral to initiate force against another except in defense.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 54

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 8:02am

Hi, Elizabeth.

You wrote: >>I don't look at Catholics as evil the way I do people who enjoy seeing millions tortured. But because I find the teachings flawed and incorrect, and I feel they lead not to salvation but to misery, guilt, wars, pain and suffering, I do think of it as 'evil'.<<

Most of the teachings you itemized are indeed flawed and incorrect and can lead to the evil you described. It is unfortunate that they were protrayed to you as Catholic teachings, and I hope you can gather from my response that much of what Catholicism teaches is in accord with Objectivism, because Objectivism does contain a great deal of truth.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 55

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 10:18am

Hi Bill,

The first point that someone made is always key, that you have to tell us why there IS a god. Your reasoning that there are things that you do not know does not complete that leap of faith to a god.

It is unfortunate that they were protrayed to you as Catholic teachings

Do you mean the things I listed in my first post? Which ones aren't catholic teachings? I don't want to misstate religious stands on issues.

I hope you can gather from my response that much of what Catholicism teaches is in accord with Objectivism, because Objectivism does contain a great deal of truth.

They might by chance share some things, but they're based on different ideals. Therefore, there is no guarantee that catholics won't embrace socialism for example in the near future.

... and I cannot destroy that which I did not create.

I think you said that wrong earlier on. Only because you also didn't create the trees, grass, dirt, but I doubt that you have a problem with roads and houses...? Right?

Faith is when I believe there is an answer which I cannot justify scientifically.

You say we will never be able to know, therefore there must be a god. This leads you to no longer seek an answer. Years ago you would have been praying to the lightening god to make your wife fertile, while we likely would have been exploring electricity and opening fertility clinics.

-Elizabeth

Post 56

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 10:57am

Hi again Bill,

If you just want to understand 'hostility' against religion that people experience in these forums, you'll have to just imagine what it's like to not believe in an invisible, omnipotent, never-born, never-dying being. Then picture people telling you that he simply must exist because we ourselves are not omnicient. Then have them talk about things objectivists fundamentally disagree with, add to that the fact that these are the invisible being's way of life for us, and even if you don't agree in the end, you have to at least see why you are not taken seriously. A child going on and on about the sock monster might be a bit aggravating. An adult who goes on and on about the sock monster, then proposes legislation around it is quite dangerous.

I'm not trying to get you to agree, just to see why you get some responses you don't understand. If you want to explain what premises you want us to check, and where we are making the incorrect assumptions, go ahead. The main difference I see is that you make a leap that we don't with nothing to back it up.

A number of times now I have stated that it could be (that consciousness is physical), but to believe so is a matter of faith, because there is no way in which know it is physical as a scientific fact.

Actually, if you lose consciousness when you get hit in the head, isn't that sort of proving it's physical? But I don't think the answer matters much - because even if you don't buy it, and can't explain it, it doesn't mean that the next logical conclusion is that there is a god. Does that make sense? Or am I missing something that you can explain?

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

-E

Post 57

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 1:05pm

Oops! I missed a whole huge post to me!

First, I got my education from church, CCD, catholic school. Second, I'm 26.

Some quick observations:

No. Catholics are taught to worship only God. Anything else is idolatry.

You're just using words to hide your ideas. Maybe you're not taught to 'worship' the poor, meek, humble, but they are the ones that shall inherit the earth and they are the ones we are taught to help & look up to. They are more moral than any businessman, even though they might have done nothing but take their whole lives from others.

You are to enjoy your fleshly existence here on Earth.

You have the potential the enjoy it at times, but it is a punishment. When someone dies they have always "gone to a better place".

Indeed, he will likely do evil if not taught morality.

This IS saying that man is inherently bad.

Second, the Church does not teach that you will go to Hell if not baptized. Unbaptized infants go to Limbo

My mistake. But the babies who die after being baptized go to heaven right away?

Not quite, Elizabeth. A married couple is allowed to avoid conception by deliberately restricting sexual intercourse to non-fertile periods.

That sounds like birth-control to me... uh-oh! But it's convenient to change the words a little, eh?

Fine, but is it irrational for Catholics to agree with what is a biological fact?

Don't state things as biological facts, when they are not. I can just as easily say it is a biological fact that a fetus is not yet a person.

It is one the bizarre facets of our times that a tiny segment of the population founds its identity upon its desire for a particular sexual act

Do you think that homosexuals want to be recognized by a different name just because they perform different sexual acts than I do? The term homosexual does not equate to sodomy, just like I do not refer to myself as "straight" because I like a certain kind of sex. And I thought I'd heard them all! This one about gays wanting a name for themselves was good.

It is only commonsense to teach that it is unhealthy to want things for their own sake.

Then what do you want things for? I rarely want a new tv, just to have it. I usually watch it. I don't buy cars just to say I own the car, I drive it. I don't buy clothes just to buy them, I buy them because I want them to wear...

Please, Elizabeth, the Church never teaches you to be stupid.

It either teaches that you should love all men as brothers, or it doesn't. It either teaches you that 'you never know when Jesus will appear' or it doesn't. I was taught both, dozens and dozens of times over.

As to what the Smart family, who are Mormons, have to do with this, I don't know.

They followed what their religious beliefs taught them and often took in strangers to their homes, one of whom took their daughter. An unfortunate case, but they thought they were doing god's work. I wonder if they thought it was a punishment from god.

Nevertheless, the Church is distinct from the bureaucracy which maintains her. .... So don't blame the Church. Blame the keepers of the Church for their abandonment of the Church's teachings.

Actually, I don't think you can separate people from their actions/beliefs.

However, I don't see its promoters offing themselves in large numbers.

The number of people that want to commit suicide is irrelevant. You either have a right to it or not. Just because I believe it's ones choice to commit suicide, doesn't mean I need to do it myself...

Meanwhile, Catholic health care institutions have been in the forefront in palliative and hospice care...I'm surprised you haven't accounted for these improvements in light of your work in a Catholic hospital.

Hi...did you hear me say I like where I work? I wouldn't stay there if I thought it was a horrible torture factory or something.

They are certainly those occasions when there is no option other than divorce, but it certainly isn't a good thing.

Actually, sometimes it is. And sometimes it's as simple as things didn't work out, sort of like a job you leave after only a year.

Elizabeth, and suggest that you may have gotten more than your fair share of the gooey new-age well-meaning crap that passes for Catholicism in a lot of places these days rather than the real stuff?

Bill, I don't care if someone is teaching catholicism, islam, budhism, the old-testament, new-testament, born-again preachings. They are all wrong if you don't believe in god.

-E

(Edited by Elizabeth on 4/16, 2:13pm)

Post 58

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 5:31am

Elizabeth's post is a brilliant, moving and utterly damning indictment of the catholic religion. It reveals -- by irrefutable induction --the actual consequences of practicing -- or trying to practice -- what catholicism preaches.

Well done, Elizabeth.

Post 59

Friday, April 16, 2004 - 6:52am