Devoted Unwavering Christian

[deBew]

Hey deBew, you are jumping all over the place there aren't you? Charlottes Web? We are supposed to be talking about donkeys. I luv donkeys!

Donkeys? *squeeeee!*

Ok, so I tried to think of my own examples about sensibility, and I did think of my own -- but because I'm so susceptible to indoctrination, I realized that all my own examples were ones I thought of after reading my favorite author G.K. Chesterton, so I think that I will give you some quotes from him instead. These are from "Orthodoxy" and they explain what I mean about sensibility and completeness.

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is
an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one.
The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable,
but not quite.  Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians.
It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is;
its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden;
its wildness lies in wait.  I give one coarse instance of what I mean.
Suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up
the human body; he would at once see that the essential thing about
it was that it was duplicate.  A man is two men, he on the right
exactly resembling him on the left.  Having noted that there was
an arm on the right and one on the left, a leg on the right and
one on the left, he might go further and still find on each side
the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin eyes,
twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain.
At last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart
on one side, would deduce that there was another heart on the
other.  And just then, where he most felt he was right,
he would be wrong.

He then discusses a bazillion examples, but the ones that resonate most with me are the ones that talk about how to be merciful without being unjustly indulgent, and how to have humility and still be proud of what you are. These examples are mentioned again in the sort-of-summary quote below:

This is what I have called guessing the hidden eccentricities of life.
This is knowing that a man's heart is to the left and not in the middle.
This is knowing not only that the earth is round, but knowing exactly
where it is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life.
It not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions.
Those underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy;
any one might discover mercy.  In fact every one did.
But to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe--
THAT was to anticipate a strange need of human nature.  For no one
wants to be forgiven for a big sin as if it were a little one.
Any one might say that we should be neither quite miserable nor quite happy.
But to find out how far one MAY be quite miserable without making it
impossible to be quite happy--that was a discovery in psychology.
Any one might say, "Neither swagger nor grovel"; and it would have been
a limit. But to say, "Here you can swagger and there you can grovel"--
that was an emancipation.

Other examples include how to love what is unlovable, how optimism may include sorrow, and some others I don't remember. For myself, thinking along these lines, I think that Christianity sensibly tells me why to make sacrifices for friendship and why to accept that other people might give things up for my sake...Why is there so much empty space and so many uninhabited lands, and why are they so awesome?...Why do I naturally and instinctively hold other people to higher standards than I hold myself?...Why do I get wistful for no apparent reason?...

I know I'm jumping around a lot, but by way of apology though not justification, I offer another quote from that chapter:

There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of
huge helplessness.  The belief is so big that it takes a long time to
get it into action.  And this hesitation chiefly arises,
oddly enough, from an indifference about where one should begin.
All roads lead to Rome; which is one reason why many people never get there.
In the case of this defence of the Christian conviction I confess that
I would as soon begin the argument with one thing as another;
I would begin it with a turnip or a taximeter cab.  But if I am to be
at all careful about making my meaning clear, it will, I think,
be wiser to continue the current arguments of the last chapter

which I guess means we should keep talking about donkeys in one form or another. =P

[Dante]

Saying "I'm scary but it's no biggie" is stupid,

Agreed.

unless you add, "because I'ma be rescued from my ruinousness."

Even more stupid, without empirical evidence that you'll actually be "rescued" by someone other than yourself.

You speak as if you're a despicable human being, but I doubt the veracity of that claim without context. Are you a thief, liar, murderer, or rapist perhaps? Pedophile? If not, do you believe it is solely your deity preventing you from becoming these things?

[deBew]

The response you gave is all a bunch of vauge non-answers.  Going from this, it sounds like you don't really have anything to say.  So it appears pointless to continue asking this line of question.

I have a difficult time giving hard-hitting pinpoint responses to what basically amounts to saying, "Because some other people's parents teach them different things, and because kids trust their parents, every religion is equally credible." 

However, I still want to know why you think christianity is the "most true, sensible and complete" religion there is.  Both I and Monkeymind are asking this, so we'd appreciate if you'd answer this.

Ok, I posted something about that at long last. It's not about science so some people might hate it, but I find it terribly intriguing, though I say it myself.

[monkeymind]

Ok, so I tried to think of my own examples about sensibility, and I did think of my own -- but because I'm so susceptible to indoctrination, I realized that all my own examples were ones I thought of after reading my favorite author G.K. Chesterton, so I think that I will give you some quotes from him instead. These are from "Orthodoxy" and they explain what I mean about sensibility and completeness.

So you don't have your own examples, and you understand that you are easily indoctrinated? So you let... Chesterton speak for you?

OK, I'm not saying I won't read those CKC examples of what's sensible to you about what he thinks makes sense of the bible....

But...this

which I guess means we should keep talking about donkeys in one form or another. =P

[deBew]

Even more stupid, without empirical evidence that you'll actually be "rescued" by someone other than yourself.

Empirical evidence of a future rescue...interesting concept. (Or would it be like -- looking on the horizon and seeing an approaching army flying your flag?)

You speak as if you're a despicable human being, but I doubt the veracity of that claim without context. Are you a thief, liar, murderer, or rapist perhaps? Pedophile? If not, do you believe it is solely your deity preventing you from becoming these things?

Naw, I am not any of those things except occasionally a thief and very often a liar about how much money I spent on fast food. And I think looking is as bad as touching in terms of creepiness, so I cannot exactly be proud of a spotless reputation regarding ladyfolk. Since I still do a fair trade in unsavory behavior, I can't say God has prevented me from being these things right now. But that was never His promise.

[deBew]

So you don't have your own examples, and you understand that you are easily indoctrinated? So you let... Chesterton speak for you?

I actually do give some examples at the end of the post that didn't come from anything I remember him saying. =)

[Dante]

You speak as if you're a despicable human being, but I doubt the veracity of that claim without context. Are you a thief, liar, murderer, or rapist perhaps? Pedophile? If not, do you believe it is solely your deity preventing you from becoming these things?

Naw, I am not any of those things except occasionally a thief and very often a liar about how much money I spent on fast food. And I think looking is as bad as touching in terms of creepiness, so I cannot exactly be proud of a spotless reputation regarding ladyfolk. Since I still do a fair trade in unsavory behavior, I can't say God has prevented me from being these things right now. But that was never His promise.

My apologies, my question was not as clear as intended. Let me try again.

Is it your belief that your god abhors these things that prevents you from doing them? Is it your fear of his punishment that prevents you from being truly despicable? Or is it something else?

Edited for quote breaks

[deBew]

I think you've got the question backwards.  Rather than asking whether "Charlotte's Web" (or whatever) ever claimed to be nonfiction, you should be asking whether it ever said that it was fiction.  Fictional works almost never do; of all the hundreds, if not thousands, of works of fiction that I've ever read, I've only ever read two that explicitly referred to themselves as works of fiction.  There's no reason to think that the bible would be any different from any other fictional work in this regard.

Yyyyyes...the true intent of the writers of the Bible could conceivably have been for us to shelve it next to The Babysitters Club in the library. It just seems a mite questionable.

[deBew]

My apologies, my question was not as clear as intended. Let me try again.

Is it your belief that your god abhors these things that prevents you from doing them? Is it your fear of his punishment that prevents you from being truly despicable? Or is it something else?

Ohhh, okay. Sorry =) No, I mostly try not to do them because I think they're bad.

[monkeymind]

I actually do give some examples at the end of the post that didn't come from anything I remember him saying. =)

Thanx for clearing that up.  Not to be rude, but I'm not interested in those kinds of things, but the objective DONKEY type things. Not stuff like keeping it in your pants, because that's the sensible thing to do at a church meeting. I am interested in stuff like talking donkeys, because that is not sensible (IMO).


BTW: I'm trying to see how many times I can say DONKEY in this thread.

[screwtape]

Come to think of it...besides the Bible I never saw a book include talking animals and still claim to be true. Have you ever found such a book?

That should be a giant red flag[1], don't you think?

Protip: If you meet somebody like me who says..., the ending would probably not have pushed you over the edge.

That is not a "pro" tip.   That is completely usesless as far as I can tell.

A Pro tip is something that helps, a guiding principle that makes things (whatever they are) better in some way.  For example, "always ask 'how do you know' when people make crazy claims", is an excellent pro tip.  It is one of those things, which if you follow it, keeps you from being a sucker.

So, "blahblahblah...[yhwh] wrote an ancient book by using a bunch of human writers...blahblahblah", is a crazy claim to which I ask how do you know? 

1.	with alarm bells and flashing red lights

[pianodwarf]

Yyyyyes...the true intent of the writers of the Bible could conceivably have been for us to shelve it next to The Babysitters Club in the library. It just seems a mite questionable.

The "writers of the bible", we should remember, were mostly people who were passing down stuff that had been passed down long before that thru oral tradition (which is why, for example, if you read the book of Job, you see Yahweh and Satan repeating the same lines over and over again; this is a memory-enhancing tool).  We don't really have any more idea what their "intent" was than we have of what Homer's intent was in writing the Odyssey or the Iliad, especially inasmuch as it's not even certain whether Homer even existed.

As to the people who actually put pen to paper, or stylus to clay, or whatever, their intention was to create a written document of the oral tradition -- that much we know for sure; beyond that, their intentions are unknown because for the most part, we don't even know who they were.

[deBew]

Thanx for clearing that up.  Not to be rude, but I'm not interested in those kinds of things...I am interested in stuff like talking donkeys, because that is not sensible (IMO).

BTW: I'm trying to see how many times I can say DONKEY in this thread.

Yeah, I know. I don't think it's rude =) I kind of expected it, which is why I said somewhere above, "It's not about science so some people might hate it." or at least be bored with it.

But philosophy interests be a lot more, so that's what you get with my testimonial. Sort of, "Wow, knowing this about what God is like and the nature of the foundations of the universe really helps a lot of little daily life things and profound questions click into place and become part of a whole picture. I can see it now...I can see EVERYTHING I CAN SEE FOREVER! O_O"

But then, with the donkey ( haa, when we're all done let's do a word count on this guy ) thing, I guess we're talking philosophically after all, aren't we? At least, I certainly agree that it is not possible for a donkey to gain human speech by any means within natural physics and such.

And now I must go do things in real life ( *sadface* ) so I will be back to talk to screwtape and others in the future. Later days!

[Aaron123]

I have a difficult time giving hard-hitting pinpoint responses to what basically amounts to saying, "Because some other people's parents teach them different things, and because kids trust their parents, every religion is equally credible." 

Perhaps I wasn't clear.  I asked why I should take your words over those that may make the same claims.  If you got a good answer to this, I'd like to hear it.

However, I still want to know why you think christianity is the "most true, sensible and complete" religion there is.  Both I and Monkeymind are asking this, so we'd appreciate if you'd answer this.

Ok, I posted something about that at long last. It's not about science so some people might hate it, but I find it terribly intriguing, though I say it myself.

Can you post the argument in your own words?  All you really did was quote someone else extensively.  It's hard to tell from that what's your own thoughts, and which are just his.  I will say, though, that I'm not sure what to make of the self-proclaimation that you're "so susceptible to indoctrination".


edit: fixed quoting & spacing

[monkeymind]

But philosophy interests be a lot more, so that's what you get with my testimonial.

I'm not too sophisticated about philosophy. I leave that to others like my BNLaw Phil.

But then, with the donkey ( haa, when we're all done let's do a word count on this guy ) thing, I guess we're talking philosophically after all, aren't we? At least, I certainly agree that it is not possible for a donkey to gain human speech by any means within natural physics and such.

Yeah, I agree with you about see what you mean "within natural means." It may be sensible to believe in talking donkeys, but first I have to establish if there is anything supernatural to begin with.

But if there is something above nature, how can we measure it? And if we can measure it, then it is natural. And if it is natural, how can it not obey natural laws? And if it does not obey natural laws, then is it natural? And If it is not natural, then we can't measure it. And if we can't measure it then what's the point of talking about it? Because if you can't prove anything supernatural, anyone can make up anything they want about it and we have to take their word for it. And see why I don't do philosophical? When I try, I get dizzy going around and round in circles...so I just am interested in talking about what is sensible about talking donkeys?

And now I must go do things in real life ( *sadface* ) so I will be back to talk to screwtape and others in the future. Later days!

Glad to see you believe there is a real (natural?) life separate from talking donkeys! I was worried that you may actually go looking for talking donkeys just to prove me wrong. Where's the LOL button?

But you have straightened that all out for me in your last post. It's been nice talking to you, I have to bow out of this thread as I am back to my pretend life. I imagine it will be really kewl today since I'll be imagining talking donkeys!

[JeffPT]

I have read Charlotte's Web. I love that book! I knew it was fiction the first time I read it, but I also read some books about Encylopedia Brown the child detective around the same time, and those books don't have any talking animals at all and yet I suspect they were also fiction.

Alright, so you used your reasoning to determine those books were fiction from the outset.  Well done. 

But I dunno if E. B. White ever made claims of Charlotte's Web's unassailable veracity...that would be kind of funny if he did.

Why would it be more funny for E.B. White to make that claim than the authors of the bible?  They are both books, right?  They both appear on paper, with pages and ink, right? 

Imagine for a moment you walked into a library and saw both "The Bible" and "Charlotte's Web" sitting on a table side by side, and you had never seen or heard about either one before.  After reading each one, which section do you think a completely impartial and unbiased reader like yourself would put them back into?  Fiction or non-fiction? 

I hope he did, or well I would hope he did but I don't want E. B. White to be a liar, and I don't want Charlotte's Web to be true because that would be (as the werewolf says) terrifying.

I don't want the God of the bible to be true any more than I want Charlotte's Web to be true.  I'm glad it's not.  But that is no reason, in and of itself, to deny that it is.  The fact is... You would call E.B. White a liar not because you are afraid of talking spiders, but because talking spiders are not real.  I am just asking you to use that same reasoning in regard to the bible. 

You've been told it's all true for a long time.  Now others are telling you it's not.  You owe it to yourself to explore that option, do you not? 

Or when you read Charlotte's Web, did you subsequently go to a whywontspiderstalktome.com and begin constructing arguments against? 

Right!  That would be nuts wouldn't it?  Imagine how nutty it would be to try and explain to millions of people (who really believed spiders could talk) that the reason spiders don't talk is because talking spiders aren't real and the book is simply fiction!  LOL. Those who really believe would probably give some other excuses like "spiders only talk when you can't see it" or "spiders will talk to you but only if you have faith that they talk"  Nuts right?

Then try to imagine how nutty it would be to try and explain to millions of people (who really believe a personal God is real) that the reason people don't get their limbs back is because God isn't real and the book is simply fiction!  LOL.  Can you imagine how nutty that would be?  Imagine the horror.  

Welcome to our world. 

Come to think of it...besides the Bible I never saw a book include talking animals and still claim to be true. Have you ever found such a book?

You could probably find a bunch of other religions that have talking animals, but I don't know what they are.  Feel free to look it up.  I don't have the time right now.  Have to get the kids some dinner. 

Protip: If you meet somebody like me who says "The Ultimate Everlasting Spirit Creator Of My Universe, Designer of Donkeys, Sovereign of Speech, High King over Humanity and Everything Else -- well, He wrote an ancient book by using a bunch of human writers, and this book tells me that one time, after a special man who verbally spoke with God but still kind of disobeyed him, was saved from a murderous angel by a donkey who could see angels...that donkey spoke." ... if you meet someone who says something like that, have the shrewdness to be honest with yourself and with that person by admitting that your eyebrows were raised by the beginning and middle of the sentence more than by the ending, and that if you had been able to sit through the beginning and the middle, the ending would probably not have pushed you over the edge.

You see?  Even YOU know it sounds nuts.  The whole "everlasting spirit, talking donkey, angels" sentence sounds loony to you too, doesn't it?  That's the reason you knew my eyebrow was up right? Because it sounds nuts.  Yes deBew, I had my eyebrow raised early in that.  I admit it without difficulty.  That's true.  It's the same reason your eyebrow goes up when you hear about Xenu and the galactic empire... or Mohammed and the flying horse... or Zeus and Mt. Olympus.   But wouldn't you also have an eyebrow raised if I were to start by making wild claims like yours about a God you don't believe in?   

You give special consideration to the bible.  Ask yourself why you do that?  Ask yourself if you REALLY have good reasons to do that?  Ask yourself... Do I give special consideration to the bible because someone told me to, or because logic and reason tell me to?   

That voice in the back of your mind that giggles at the thought of Charlotte's Web being real is the voice you need to listen to more. 

[deBew]

I'll respond in more detail later but for now I will just say

Now others are telling you it's not.

It's actually not the first time it's happened to me.

[Ananukia]

I stopped reading after the Age of Mythology thing.

After that I'm convinced I'm a better christian than him, He Who Must Not Be Named Sure is going to be flabbergasted.

[Anfauglir]

.....I wouldn't be able to be very happily chatting with Him.....

Can you also please expand further on "chatting with Him"?  My understanding of the word "chat" is a verbal two(or more)-way discourse, where one directs a specific comment or question and receives a related answer or foloow-on statement in return.  Is that what you mean when you talk about "chatting" with your god?  That you receive immediate and relevant responses that are clearly articulated to you?
[/quote]

Bumped.

[monkeymind]

I don't know about chatting, but the babble does say to "pray without ceasing." 1Thes. 5:17

Or was that without seizing?

[Blaze]

Hey there.

Come to think of it...besides the Bible I never saw a book include talking animals and still claim to be true. Have you ever found such a book?

Basically every single Hindu text.

Please study other religions, then give me valid reasons why yours must be true instead of them. You're just proving to us all that a devout Christian is always born one, in a family of Christians, indoctrinated by birth, who claims his religion to be the OneTrueReligion without so much as touching another religious book.

Also,

"Because some other people's parents teach them different things, and because kids trust their parents, every religion is equally credible."

So you're saying every religion is true?

[jetson]

deBew, you're not starting to waver, are you? 

[Historicity]

Come to think of it...besides the Bible I never saw a book include talking animals and still claim to be true. Have you ever found such a book?

Davedave gave examples from Titus Livy's history of the Roman Republic in the same era as the Bible and a few hundred miles away:

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,17207.msg382113.html#msg382113

[screwtape]

deBew, you're not starting to waver, are you? 

deBew, what is wrong with wavering?  Proclamations of not wavering is sort of like whistling past the graveyard, don't t you think?  Or maybe it is more like the girlfriend you had in 9th grade.  You know.  The one from Canada who let you get to third base.  Or maybe it is a bravado thing?  A spiritual dick-measuring contest: "You think your faith is big?  Shyeah.  Check out mine.  It doesn't waver.  Ever."  Boy-howdy, I bet that makes the choir singers hot.

What if you had a doubt about some part of your ridiculous belief system?  What then?  Does that mean you are a bad xian?  Does it mean your soul is in peril?  What are the implications if you were to say, "maybe these heathens are on to something"?

Frankly, I think this "unwavering" thing you are proclaiming is just ballony.  I think you waver.  You definitely waver.  But I think you are afraid to admit you waver.  I think you are afraid that if you did admit it, the whole house of cards would fall down.

[Anfauglir]

Come to think of it...besides the Bible I never saw a book include talking animals and still claim to be true. Have you ever found such a book?

Basically every single Hindu text.

You could probably add Native American mythology to that as well.  Pretty sure that creatures of some form of other speak in Norse and Egyptian mythology too.

Of course, we look at those stories NOW and say "what rubbish - nobody could be expected to believe them".  But centuries ago, they WERE believed.  The difference between them and the Bible is only one of time.

[TopolX]

Ohhh, okay. Sorry =) No, I mostly try not to do them because I think they're bad.

OK, in what way then are you an unpleasent or ruinous person as you described yourself earlier and why do you feel you need to be religious to not be the aforementioned things if you already have an idea of right and wrong (one not much different from the majority) and make decisions based on this concept. I am arguably very unpleasent because I can easily judge right from wrong but I don't factor them into my actions as I don't see them as emperical issues and are thus to me irrelevant but you don't, you want to be in the right in your own eyes. Perhaps you need to believe because you don't value your own opinion valid enough to guide your actions but I don't know.

As for the whole fiction vs non-fiction issue look at this way, mad stuff like talking donkeys, blowing up cities etc may have needed a god to be credible fiction in the past as humans had no other way of coming up with an explaination behind said fiction but nowadays we could have just as easily substituted aliens, holograms, time travelling militaries etc into the fiction so if for example if God in the bible was replaced with "Fleetlord Atvar" (see Harry Turtledove's WorldWar series) would you still feel a need to obey it's teachings or take it in any way seriously? This hypothetically assumes that the bible always included this name and thus you never heard the word god before.

[jynnan tonnix]

Come to think of it...besides the Bible I never saw a book include talking animals and still claim to be true. Have you ever found such a book?

Basically every single Hindu text.

You could probably add Native American mythology to that as well.  Pretty sure that creatures of some form of other speak in Norse and Egyptian mythology too.

Of course, we look at those stories NOW and say "what rubbish - nobody could be expected to believe them".  But centuries ago, they WERE believed.  The difference between them and the Bible is only one of time.

To expand on this and a previous post: Let's say these books - the Hindu, Norse, and Native American mythology were laid out on a table with the Bible, and maybe the Silmarillion, Harry Potter, and maybe some literature (it must exist outside of the Star Wars movies, I would think) from those who identify themselves as "Jedi" and someone with no knowledge of ANY of them was asked to pick the one which was non-fiction, how likely would they be to pick the Bible over anything else? And why?

I'm not a huge fantasy and sci-fi reader, but if I were, I'm sure I could come up with even more creation/alternate reality stories, none of which explicitly identify themselves as fiction, which would sound more plausible, and contain more internal consistency than the Bible.

[screwtape]

no deBew in a week.  I wonder where the little lad has got himself off to?

[rev45]

Maybe he got locked inside his car?