Posts by flamegrilled

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Flamegrilled, if you're going to call other people stupid, you should make sure your sentence doing that isn't written incorrectly. Viviane

I beg your pardon? I don't believe I called anyone stupid. And I'm not going to apologize for any gramatical or spelling errors (whatever they were) on a forum. I have a day job too. Please don't be petty.

If its not too much trouble can you let me know the page number of the post you want me to read. Besty

Page 53. 4th post. (and then some subsequent exchanges I guess)

If you know an owner who claimed to love his dog was beating it mercilessly with a big stick, and its discovered that he has been starving it and leaving it out in the cold all night, would it make sense to conclude that his definition of love is perverse? Cofty

Sure. What's that got to do with my analogy?

If there was an owner who did anything cruel to his pet then he is cruel, not loving. That's just simple defininition. I don't know why you think this is relevant.

The simple point is that from a pet's point of view it is possible that something that might seem cruel actually is not. By extension we can say that from the point of view of a lower being ... blah, blah, I'm just repeating what I said above. If you can't get it by what I've all ready written then unfortunately I don't think you will.

You can't even hint at what these facts might be because you know that nothing could possibly turn the drowning of a qaurter of a million people into a perfect act of love.

Drowning 250K people is not a perfect act of love. Who said it was? Why would I need to find a way to prove that it is? You are making connections where they do not logically exist.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

and that applies how to wiping out 250k humans?

My previous comment was in response to this in case it wasn't clear.

speculate please on what might be the 'true facts' we can't comprehend from the Tsunami? or you can decline to speculate if you prefer.

My only point at this stage is to reason with you that such facts might exist. If you cannot cross that barrier then any speculation would be pointless. Even if you could cross that barrier the specualtation would still be speculation.

But Cofty wants to stick to the point. He contends that the tsunami is a death-blow to theism. All I am demonstrating is that such a firm conclusion is illogical.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

To anyone who is unable to think in terms of concepts. logic and principles it doesn't apply at all.

For the rest you will have to read my comments, as I'd only repeat myself.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

besty - I did it several pages back with the anaology of a domestic animal unable to comprehend why a loving owner might inflict pain on it

(sorry I don't know how to link to specific previous comments)

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

What's your definition of murder? And who said the tsunami was an act of love?

Your logic seems very loose to me.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

It does prove that there is something fatally flawed about christian theism. Cofty

No it doesn't. You can dismiss the pet analogy all you like, but the fact remains that we CAN conceive of a circumstance whereby it seems irrational to reconcile the loving nature of a higher being from the viewpoint of a being that has more limited ability to assess the true facts. If we CAN conceive of such a situation then we cannot dismiss that such a thing is occurring in our case. If we cannot dismiss it, then we cannot say that any form of human suffering ("natural evil" as you call it, or otherwise) proves a fatal flaw in theistic belief.

Therefore your above statement is simply logically false.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Viviane

But I didn't criticize Cofty for that. I was only pointing out that those seemed to be the rules of this thread, and I was both attempting to operate within them, and pointing out their limitations.

How can you answer YES to #1 considering your YES answer to #2? That's surely a contradiction.

Your #3 addendum isn't logical or helpful. To say something is "a mystery" defines it in a persistent way. I've never proposed that.

That would be like a courtroom hearing part of the evidence and declaring the case closed as "a mystery" even though it acknowledges that there is currently insufficient evidence to make a ruling and/or that more evidence might become available. It is simply not a helpful or logical way of describing the available data.

However, to acknowledge (as you have) that there are factors involved that we are not capable of grasping would not make them irrelevant.

I return to the pet analogy. From the POV of the pet, the fact that it cannot grasp the intention behind what it perceives to be a cruel act does not make it irrelevant to the pet does it?

You say that whatever cannot be grasped is irrelevant. I say that there is no logic to that. If we are capable of determining that something might be outside of our sphere of knowledge, then we can certainly factor that into our decision making.

FG

40

Did You Ever Hear An Elder or Bethelite's Comments That Made You Question ??

by minimus in

jw
friends

years ago, the society's speakers used to give many off the cuff statements.

a lot of personal opinions and questionable remarks.. anything ever stand out for you in this area?.

flamegrilled

jw women are kissing corpses ...

??????

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Viviane - To present my comments as "it's a mystery" is just a crude attempt to avoid the logic.

Let me rephrase the points I made earlier in terms of direct questions to you:

1) Do you believe we have every fact necessary to reach a logical conclusion on this matter? YES/NO

2) Do you accept the possibility that there are factors involved that we are not capable of grasping? YES/NO

How would you directly answer these YES/NO questions?

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Ah, but you missed my point Viviane. I did not say that we were the animal and God was the owner. I already made the point to Humbled after he referred me to the (very entertaining) Louie C.K. interview - this is not an illustration that can be stretched to fit like a glove.

The point is far more simple than that. We can acknowledge that it is possible that a higher being has a reason for doing something that appears unloving from our standpoint - but only because we have incomplete information. It does not mean that the higher being (should He exist) is unloving, simply because we cannot reconcile the information available to us and explain a clear answer in human terms.