Dearest Farkel,
Peace be unto you, my beloved friend.
You scribble:
:Dunnscot,
It hasn't been since the days Greg Stafford attempted to give us all lessons in koine' Greek that anyone has shown us such self-aggrandizing puffery and obfuscating pedantry. Then you come along. Well, perhaps you ARE Greggie boy in a new disguise attempting to shine again. I don't know and I'm not making accusations about that. The puffery? Yes. Stafford? No.:
Why, I could never do what Greg Stafford has done. First, he has written a magisterial work that definitively "puts paid" to the criticisms of JW opposers. Moreover, Greg skillfully utilizes Hebrew, Greek, and even apocalyptic literature to utterly obliterate the impotent arguments of his unjust antagonists. The most that I have done, however, is spout nonsense in the name of philosophia.
:Here is your reply. You failed to include my original and specific questions, so I'll have to help you out here. Apparently with all your "knowledge" you haven't mastered that as-difficult technique of learning to shade words, pressing Ctrl-C and then Ctrl-V. I know it's difficult, but practice. In a few months you may even learn how to actually do it.:
That's just it, dear Farkel. I do not possess any GNWSIS, much less computer GNWSIS or EPIGNWSIS. I appreciate all of the help that I can get, my dear friend. Hopefully, I'll be as proficient as you one day, when it comes to computers. I surely have no proficiency or skill when it comes to philosophia or theologia or even theoria.
:You "answered" me thusly:
You're joking, right. Oh joy of joys!
DS : 1) God evidently has a universal organization and an earthly one. When I speak of "God's Organization," I am referring to God's earthly organization composed of the remaining ones of the heavenly woman's seed and those who loyally associate with this remnant.:
Fark: Your original statement and my original reply was this:
DS: Are those who have left God's organization and Jehovah God Himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?:
F: What, exactly is "God's Organization?" Please be specific. There will be a quiz. And by implication you have stated that leaving "God's Organization(tm)" is the same a (sic) leaving "Jehovah God Himself." Please show evidence for that assertion.:
I think there is an aporia in the sentence above. At first you type that I 'implied' something, then you turn around and insist that I "show evidence for that assertion." Which is it, Brother Fark? Did I imply or assert something? If you want to get real specific, Fark, I actually asked a REEtorical questione (sic).
Farkel: I specifically asked one simple question, and your "evidence" was that "evidently" God has two organizations. Yet your original question about those who "left" that organization and "God Himself" implied that they were facts. Even though you haven't directly admitted it, your use of the word "evidently" shows they are not facts and betrays that your first question was loaded. So I will follow up with this: what proof can you show that God even "evidently" has a "heavenly" and and "earthly" organization?:
First, you asked for evidence regarding a reetorical quastion (sic). Do you know something that I do not? I guess you must, for I did not know that I COULD provide evidence to buttress or support a question, Fark.
Furthermore, how would you know that my question implied certain "facts"? How do you know I even think there are such things as facts? Maybe there are no facts, at least, not in a brute sense. Could you be more specific?
You tell me how to provide "evidence" for a rhetorical question, and I will show that God "evidently" has a heavenly and an earthly organization.
Fark: Next, you said:
: 2) In His holy Word, God Himself tells us that when we bless His worshipers, we are in effect blessing Him. Conversely, cursing God's servants is akin to "cursing" Him.
I'm appalled that you claim you have studied both Rene Decartes and Emmanuel Kant and yet you cannot even see circular argument. Both those men were masters of logic, with Kant building upon and adding to the ideas of Decartes.:
DS: Both Kant and Descartes may have been masters of logic, but they both committed blatant logical fallacies. Herman Dooyeweerd shows that Kant's distinction of noumena and phenomena is logically inconsistent (Josef Siefert provides a penetrating analysis of Kant's transcedental critique, showing that Kant begs the question bigtime when he is epistemologizing). Alasdair McIntrye ("After Virtue") takes Kant's ethical maxim concerning universalizability to task, showing its weaknesses, and when Descartes attempts to reason from the finite cogito to an infinite ego in the "Meditations," he himself reveals certain slips in logic, as shown by Kenny and Maritain and Curley (I think!). Need more examples of logical fallacies from these two masters of logic? Hey, I'm not even an analytical philosopher: I was actually trained in the continental, existential phenomenological tradition. But even I can spot invalid arguments.
Farkel: I have a book entitled "Kant Selections" edited by Theodore M. Green. It is 526 pages long and contains extensive quotations from Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," "Transcendental Analytic," "Transcendental Dialectic", "Theory of Ethics," and "Critique of Judgement." While I find Kant quite stuffy, he is very logical, and like all philosophers before him and after him who tried to logically prove the existence of God, failed miserably. Have you read Socrates' dialogue with Euthyphro from Plato's Dialogues? If not, I suggest you do so. If you read it and understand it, you will learn that everything you might think you know about what is "good" and what is "evil" requires a whole new way of thinking. I posted an essay on it recently and it should be some in the archives here.:
I'll be talking about the Euthyphro later. But I have read it, and think it is wanting, in the Danielic sense.
F: Your statement above amounts to this: 1) God's word is Holy. 2) That word says what we fo (sic) to his worshipers is the same as doing it to God himself.
F: So? If you are claiming that Jehovah's Witnesses are "His" worshipers, then I demand proof, and since you offer the Bible as proof, I will accept proof from the Bible.
DS: Can you show me where I wrote JWs are "His" (God's?) worshipers? If you can provide empirical evidence of such, I promise I will offer biblical proof that they are such.
Fark: By the way, the only way we "know" the Bible is "Holy" is because the Bible says it is Holy, and the only way we "know" the Bible is true is because the Bible SAYS it is true. That's circular reasoning. The only way we know the fox is guarding the hen house is because the fox has promised it will guard the hen house, and fox's are well-known for being trustworthy when it comes to guarding hen houses. Sure, they are.:
DS: Define what you mean by "know," and then prove that the only way we "know" the Bible is holy is because Holy Writ says so.
DS: :3) An Olympian perspective is an outlook that is comparable to the mythical gods who inhabited Mt. Olympus.
Farkel: Ok, I understand: you want me to have a mythical outlook just like the mythical outlooks had by the mythical Gods. In otherwords, you want me to think like a dub.:
DS: Looks like you're also thinking like a dunce. No offense intended. :-) I did not mean that you're supposed to have a mythical outlook like the gods of Olympus. My point was that an Olympian perspective is not historically-conditioned. It can supposedly perceive "things" without the filters of finite preunderstandings. If you did not understand, all you had to do was ask, hUIE.
DS: It is a perspective that is not historically conditioned or filtered through any finite preunderstandings.
Fark: Right, 'cause it is after all, mythical.
The Olympians may have been mythical, it does not follow that an Olympian vantage point is also mythical. Besides, I'm sure you might accept certain myths such as the Big Bang Theory or the "God is dead" notion. Am I getting warm?
DS: One who articulates his or her Weltanschauung from an Olympian perspective is putatively able to transcend the existential fray of existence and speak as if his or her words are infallible in nature, ex cathedra.
Farkel: Simply put you want me to believe mythical shit as if it was infallible. At least you're starting to make some better sense now.
Your whole thesis boils down to: "Just start thinking like a dub and then you'll understand everything."
DS: If you keep failing to comprehend the clear meaning of my signifiers, I'm going to have to detain you after class, my friend.
DS: 4) You also asked me to prove that "so-called 'vile utterances'" even "bother a God "so far removed from us all that is pathetic." Well, what kind of "proof" would satisfy your mind.
Farkel: Valid, provable assertions, followed by logical conclusions. This (sic) is (sic?) the rudiments (sic?) of logic. You could not have possibly studied philosophy without being forced to understand the calculus of logic as part of your studies, so you should know perfectly well what kind of proof I demand. By the way do the Humanities Departments in Universities offer degrees in "Windbagging" these days? Just curious.:
DS: During all my years of studying the "love of wisdom," I was never "forced" to understand anything. I willingly tried to comprehend all that my instructors learnt me. And yes, certain universities or colleges do offer degrees in windbagging. Are you thinking about seeking a degree in windbagging? If so, let me know. I'll be glad to help a brother in any way that I can.
Here's to clear dinking,
Dan-ya
Duns the Scot
