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Author | Topic: Many Christians Lack Responsibility | |||||||||||||||||||
ochaye Member (Idle past 5268 days) Posts: 307 Joined: |
'I'm well aware that he knows better than that.'
Why is 'that' not a valid argument?
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Granny writes: it usually means that they didn't truly accept the Holy Spirit in the first place. ochaye writes: Why is 'that' not a valid argument? Because it's a blatant example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
quote: Source If an encounter with the Holy Spirit is supposed to improve a person, people are naturally going to object that Christians don't seem to be noticeably more moral than those of other religions or no religion. An all-too-easy answer would be that those Christians who lapse into immorality were "not true Christians" or "didn't truly accept the Holy Spirit" after all - a clear example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Mutate and Survive "A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod
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ochaye Member (Idle past 5268 days) Posts: 307 Joined: |
quote:There are no doubt in Glasgow and elsewhere many Scotsmen who put sugar on porridge. There are possibly those, even of their own families, who look on this practice with disdain, and who regard it as un-Scottish; but they could not make serious claim that these maverick practitioners are not truly Scottish. There would be documentary evidence to prove their claims foolish, were they to do so. Unless, of course, the perhaps jocular comment that a Scotsman who puts sugar on porridge is not a true Scotsman is taken seriously, as right and valid, but in a subtler way. If certain Scots should refuse to treat another as a true Scot on the basis of eating habits, then for those people, the 'no true Scotsman' rule would be no fallacy. It would be reality, and could lead to disinheritance and ostracism of sugar users. A more likely, and apposite comparison might be that no true Scotsman could belong to a certain clan that had made secret treaties with the English- and that was indeed a claim made, and made vehemently, in past times. But even then, the 'traitors' had birth certificates etc. to prove their claim to Scottishness. There is no legal document that proves anyone a Christian, as there is for nationality or other statuses. So Christian status may indeed be said to be dependent not on documentary evidence, but on behaviour, and this places definition of membership of this faith into the same category as the view that eating behaviour defines a Scotsman, or, more seriously, that loyalty to Scotland defines a Scotsman. In view of the fact that some who call themselves Christians decline fellowship with those describing themselves as Christians whose behaviour is considered to be disloyal to Christianity, the 'no true Scotsman fallacy' would itself appear to be fallacious. The difficulty presented by the original post is that it is claimed that all who call themselves Christians have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit seems to be only selectively holy, a view that I, at least, have not come across before.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
There is no legal document that proves anyone a Christian, as there is for nationality or other statuses. So Christian status may indeed be said to be dependent not on documentary evidence, but on behaviour, So someone who describes themselves as Christian and genuinely believes themselves to have accepted Jesus as their saviour, would cease to be Christian if they did something immoral? You seem to trying have your cake and eat it. You are simply trotting out the fallacious line, unaltered. Like it or not, "Christian" is commonly applied as a noun. You seem to be trying to use it as an adjective, with a definition synonymous with "moral", a practise which I consider disingenuous. If you define "Christian" as "moral", then naturally, all Christians are moral. You are simply trying to define Christianity into a moral position, by dishonest use of terminology.
There is no legal document that proves anyone a Christian And yet there is such a thing as a Christian. Yes or no? If yes, do some of those Christians behave immorally? Yes or no? Mutate and Survive "A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod
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ochaye Member (Idle past 5268 days) Posts: 307 Joined: |
quote:That is not the criterion used by those mentioned. The criterion is more to do with attitude. A person holding the view, for instance, that stealing is acceptable would be deemed to be be unchristian, as would a person who habitually stole, and regarded Christianity wrongly, even if stealing was regarded as immoral by that person. quote:That would depend on one's definition of a Christian. If one defines a Christian as someone who self-identifies as a Christian, then history shows an abundance of the most immoral people as Christian, from the European medieval hierarchy whose behaviour was scandalous enough to stimulate the Reformation, to corrupt educational institutions, to televangelists, or even the Nazi experience, when Nazis supported certain species of people called Christian, while persecuting others called Christian. But one quite ignorant of history, though not of alleged churches, may conclude from personal experience that Christians are among the very worst people alive, and a good many have done exactly that. One could then decide that Christianity is pure invention, invention used by the worst people. But, whether gained from one perspective or another, this view makes the subject of Christianity unlikely as a genuine religion, and barely worth discussion as one such. Most of us are aware, from wider reading and from social contacts, that the infamies of history and the locally objectionable do not represent the whole truth about Christianity, which is why it is generally treated as a genuine religion. One may at the opposite extreme suppose that Christianity, though widely claimed as personal belief, is rarely actually present, if present at all. This would be on the basis that 'handsome is as handsome does', and that Christianity rightly claims to produce that which is handsome; and those many who claim to follow the 'theory', but do not produce desirable results, have not actually applied the theory. The original poster seems to have squared the circle by supposing that all who self-identify as Christians are Christians, and thus of legitimate religion, even holy, irrespective of their behaviour, which would make discussion (if not language itself) rather pointless, if morality as a product of belief counts for anything.
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Listen ochaye, I have no idea what you're talking about. You seem to talking past me. You keep talking about hypotheticals and about other people's views and about what one might suppose, without ever telling me what your own views are. I'm done for now. I'm off on holiday. See you in a week or so.
Mutate and Survive "A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod
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ochaye Member (Idle past 5268 days) Posts: 307 Joined: |
quote:Any reader who finds anything hard to understand is welcome to ask for assistance.
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Rrhain Member Posts: 6351 From: San Diego, CA, USA Joined: |
I'm waiting for an answer, Phat.
With regard to your statement that, "Stealing is stealing. Sin is sin": Always exactly the same way wrong in every single instance, no matter what, and thus every single person who commits theft should receive the exact same punishment? If I know that you're going to shoot somebody and I steal your gun so that you can't, I'm in the wrong? I should be punished as severely as, say, Bernie Madoff? Can you show me anybody, anywhere who has ever followed their complete set of moral standards every single time? Not even Jesus or the god of your holy book managed to do that. If your god can't manage to be absolute regarding morality, why on earth are you complaining that mere mortals don't do it, either? Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
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Phat Member Posts: 18349 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
OK, you have a point. the punishment should fit the crime. A man who steals a loaf of bread to feed his kids is not as bad as someone who steals expensive vitamins to get a refund on and get money to support a crack habit...but then again, they have the excuse of being an addict!
Edited by Phat, :
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Rrhain Member Posts: 6351 From: San Diego, CA, USA Joined: |
Phat responds to me:
quote: Which means you're not an absolutist but a relativist. But you still didn't answer the direct question: If I know you're going to shoot someone and I steal your gun so you can't do it, is that really wrong? Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
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Phat Member Posts: 18349 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
That's a rather thoughtful post, Stile. I will admit that I occasionally talk "to God" (an observer would report that I was talking to myself) BUT...I never yet have heard any audible response. If I were GOD, I wouldn't answer anyone because I wouldn't want them to get all giddy over hearing my reply and thus causing them to perhaps abdicate their faith and their daily responsibility to others and to the world around them.
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ochaye Member (Idle past 5268 days) Posts: 307 Joined: |
quote: So if a person does not show 'the difference', does it mean that the Holy Spirit has failed? And if a person with the Holy Spirit fails to answer a question, is that because the Holy Spirit doesn't know what He's talking about, or because He didn't notice the question?
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ochaye Member (Idle past 5268 days) Posts: 307 Joined: |
quote: So if a person does not show 'the difference', does it mean that the Holy Spirit has failed? And if a person with the Holy Spirit fails to answer a question, is that because the Holy Spirit doesn't know what He's talking about, or because He didn't notice the question?
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
Phat writes: If I were GOD, I wouldn't answer anyone because I wouldn't want them to get all giddy over hearing my reply and thus causing them to perhaps abdicate their faith and their daily responsibility to others and to the world around them. I don't see any specifically inherent danger attached to believing in God or any other deity. Regardless of their actual existence (which may very well be unattainable knowledge for us). The danger I'm afraid of is when folks take their unsubstantiated beliefs and start telling others what to do. In order to start telling others what to do, you better be able to show that what you're talking about is an actual part of reality. Especially when things become important. When people are unable to do this, and fall into this trap, that's where I feel they lack responsibility. It is almost human nature to gain personal validation by having others agree with us. It is also a part of human nature to accept "as truth" information that is provided to us from people in authoritative positions (parents, pastors, elders, friends...) Therefore, it's very, very easy to fall into the above trap, or take advantage of such a trap (perhaps unintentionally) and start getting others to do things we don't actually have any factual basis to rely on. It's the ease of this danger that makes it extremely hazardous. This doesn't mean it's wrong to do such things for ourlseves, only that it's not right to attempt to convince others of something we are unable to show is actually true, without also conveying that the information is only "personally accepted", or "without factual basis". This doesn't make it false, but to omit such a glaringly important aspect when relaying information to others is only another display of lacking responsibility. It also doesn't do anything to promote oneself as an acceptable resource for information. We all have "that friend" who you can pretty much throw out their opinion on pretty much everything 'cause you know they're just talking out their ass, even when they adamantly claim to "know" something.
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Phat Member Posts: 18349 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Stile writes: Jar and I discuss this stuff a lot. The future of this country will, as Mr. Obama suggested in his speech to schoolchildren, depend on the education and acceptance of responsibility that the new generation needs to own. My question is this: Do we owe a responsibility to the older generation (even globally) and does this take away from our dreams?
The danger I'm afraid of is when folks take their unsubstantiated beliefs and start telling others what to do. In order to start telling others what to do, you better be able to show that what you're talking about is an actual part of reality. Especially when things become important. When people are unable to do this, and fall into this trap, that's where I feel they lack responsibility.
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