Endless Punishment, Fundie style

[turingtest]

Originally Posted by Frozenwolf150 View Post
You're the one singling him out by constantly referring to him as an authority. He's just as useless as every other apologist out there. You really ought to demonstrate that your arguments can stand on their own, rather than appealing to authority as if it proves your beliefs right just because Zacharias said so.

"Ought" implies an objective moral standard, Frozenwolf. I "ought" to be doing just as I am doing, and no amount of atheist needling will stop me.
...
Cpl Ferro

Not really; FW's use of "ought" pretty clearly was about "could" rather than "should"- or is this your admission that you can't as well as won't?

 

[Chaos]

I choose both.

Cpl Ferro

Do you think that, if you choose to be able to fly, it would be safe for you to jump off the top of a skyscraper?

 

[crhkrebs]

"Ought" implies an objective moral standard, Frozenwolf.

What "moral" standard? You were asked if your arguments could hold up without an "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.

 

[Brainache]

What "moral" standard? You were asked if your arguments could hold up without an "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.

If his aim is to demonstrate that his arguments can't hold up without appeals to authority, then he ought to keep arguing the way he is.

I guess.

 

[tsig]

Dear bruto,

Having a baby be "a sinful user of free will" is what is meant by the phrase, "monsters of iniquity." I don't find it impossible to imagine that a baby could be such a monster, regardless of how it appears to others. Ravi Zacharias is fond of quoting Malcolm Muggeridge,

"The depravity of man is at the same time the most empirically verifiable fact even as it is the most intellectually resisted."

Your peripheral questions are interesting. I don't understand why the Church doesn't hold funerals (with miniscule coffins!) for miscarriages, or baptise prior to birth.

I imagine the Church holds that until birth someone is in a kind of Limbo.

Cpl Ferro

Ok, empirically verify that fact.

 

[tsig]

I have to admit, though, that I'm almost impressed (and sort of train-wreck fascinated) by someone willing to work as hard as CplFerro at counting angels, splitting hairs, picking nits, and overall making logic scream in protest at its torture, all to justify a belief in babies born damned. But it's the sort of "impressed" I would be at a display of any other useless talent; theological sophistry is about as useful as someone who can belch hugely on demand.

Lying to oneself with a straight face.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

"Ought" implies an objective moral standard, Frozenwolf. I "ought" to be doing just as I am doing, and no amount of atheist needling will stop me.

It has nothing to do with morals. I merely requested that you to make your arguments without leaning on logical fallacies. Is that too much?

Of course, you're absolutely right that you're free to appeal to authority, assume the conclusion, and specially plead all you want. Just don't expect to make any logically sound arguments that way.

I choose both.

Cpl Ferro

Go right ahead. The only problem is that your assertion that babies are born sinners is based on a heaping helping of unsubstantiated assumptions, much like your claim in another thread that the morality of souls can never change once in hell. Given the complexities of human psychology, just how do you know this, and who are you to dictate what goes on in the minds of others?

 

[bruto]

The problem continues to be the stretching of definitions past the breaking point. If all babies are born sinners, and no babies are born (biblical miracle babies excepted of course) who are not sinners, then we have essentially removed meaning from the term "sinner," and made it synonymous with being a human being. If that is the case, then sin has no content. You're damned for what you are, not for what you do. You're damned for intellect and will even if you are born handicapped and with little or none to see, or if you are born unconscious and die an hour later. You're damned for the sin of Adam even if you are physically incapable of repeating it. If you're damned for a sin you cannot do, sin is meaningless.

To use the depravity of man as a species as an argument for individual damnation, not to mention the individual damnation of babies, is stupid. I don't care if Malcom Muggeridge or God himself said it. It's crazy.

 

[Resume]

In other words, bruto, the human being wants to sin, and that wanting is both freely chosen by that being, and sinful in its own right.

Cpl Ferro

You're presuming one needs intellect to sin, bruto. That is the sin of the angels, or of mentally developed man. The philosophy in question presumes one only needs free will and be made in the image of God.

Cpl Ferro

Dear turingtest,

No.

This is the wrong question, however. The right question is whether or not an infant born with a rational soul has any choice in his will being wrongly inclined or not. If not, then original sin falls. If so, then it appears God has cherry-picked souls who would choose wills wrongly inclined, to create, and not created those who would choose rightly inclined wills.

Cpl Ferro

Dear bruto,

Having a baby be "a sinful user of free will" is what is meant by the phrase, "monsters of iniquity." I don't find it impossible to imagine that a baby could be such a monster, regardless of how it appears to others. Ravi Zacharias is fond of quoting Malcolm Muggeridge,

"The depravity of man is at the same time the most empirically verifiable fact even as it is the most intellectually resisted."

Your peripheral questions are interesting. I don't understand why the Church doesn't hold funerals (with miniscule coffins!) for miscarriages, or baptise prior to birth.

I imagine the Church holds that until birth someone is in a kind of Limbo.

Cpl Ferro

Dear bruto,

It indicates an inimical tendency in the human heart that authors of utopia would do well to understand.

What I find interesting is the contradiction between the idea of MOI and the "spark of divinity" located in the human soul--the reason God values us in the first place. As Lyndon LaRouche has said, "God is a god of good taste."

So, there we have two warring impulses or potentials in fallen man.

Cpl Ferro

Are you pulling chains or do you actually believe this ugly, immoral nonsense?

 

[CplFerro]

Not really; FW's use of "ought" pretty clearly was about "could" rather than "should"- or is this your admission that you can't as well as won't?

Dear turingtest,

He ought not to use ought when he means could.

And, in any case, I don't fathom the concern over using quotes. A rose by any other name and all that. Must I reinvent the wheel every time I want to make a point?

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

Do you think that, if you choose to be able to fly, it would be safe for you to jump off the top of a skyscraper?

What you mean, Chaos, is that I am insane, and you are not, and that this insanity is akin to jumping off the top of a skyscraper. If I am insane, why are you talking with me?

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

What "moral" standard? You were asked if your arguments could hold up without an "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.

I did not at any time appeal to any authority, crhkrebs. I let a man speak for himself, so that his words could speak for themselves.

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

Ok, empirically verify that fact.

Atheist-sceptic types are fond of roasting the Catholic Church for its many historical and recent crimes, tsig. But the Church has no lock on corruption. So, take that corruption and spread it liberally across the entire world, for all of known human history and beyond, and that is your empirical evidence.

Cpl Ferro

 

[crhkrebs]

I did not at any time appeal to any authority, crhkrebs. I let a man speak for himself, so that his words could speak for themselves.

Cpl Ferro

Perhaps reading up on logical fallacies would be useful.

 

[Chaos]

What you mean, Chaos, is that I am insane, and you are not, and that this insanity is akin to jumping off the top of a skyscraper. If I am insane, why are you talking with me?

Cpl Ferro

You are, of course, welcome to misrepresent my words in any way you choose, but that doesn´t make your claims true.

What I mean, CplFerro, is that the unspeakable arrogance of a true believer makes some people think that reality must, by definition, conform to their beliefs because their beliefs are sincerely held and, to them in their unshakable belief, are self-evidently true. I am talking to you in order to find out inhowfar you can be counted among these people.

 

[Donn]

What I mean, CplFerro, is that the unspeakable arrogance of a true believer makes some people think that reality must, by definition, conform to their beliefs because their beliefs are sincerely held and, to them in their unshakable belief, are self-evidently true. I am talking to you in order to find out inhowfar you can be counted among these people.

Ferro can be counted all the way in.

 

[CplFerro]

You are, of course, welcome to misrepresent my words in any way you choose, but that doesn´t make your claims true.

What I mean, CplFerro, is that the unspeakable arrogance of a true believer makes some people think that reality must, by definition, conform to their beliefs because their beliefs are sincerely held and, to them in their unshakable belief, are self-evidently true. I am talking to you in order to find out inhowfar you can be counted among these people.

Dear Chaos,

My beliefs represent me conforming to a reality my intuition tells me is true. I see the dots and connect them into the image of the One, etc..

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

Perhaps reading up on logical fallacies would be useful.

And perhaps prayer would, as well, crhkrebs...

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

Are you pulling chains or do you actually believe this ugly, immoral nonsense?

So, there we have two warring impulses or potentials in fallen man.

Decoct it down and I believe that, Resume. The rest is speculation. As the book has it, "ordinary men" committed the Holocaust, not a select breed monsters alone. We are fallen from God and the question of how and when and how to remedy it--through grace and will--are secondary questions

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

The problem continues to be the stretching of definitions past the breaking point. If all babies are born sinners, and no babies are born (biblical miracle babies excepted of course) who are not sinners, then we have essentially removed meaning from the term "sinner," and made it synonymous with being a human being. If that is the case, then sin has no content. You're damned for what you are, not for what you do. You're damned for intellect and will even if you are born handicapped and with little or none to see, or if you are born unconscious and die an hour later. You're damned for the sin of Adam even if you are physically incapable of repeating it. If you're damned for a sin you cannot do, sin is meaningless.

To use the depravity of man as a species as an argument for individual damnation, not to mention the individual damnation of babies, is stupid. I don't care if Malcom Muggeridge or God himself said it. It's crazy.

Dear bruto,

If we presume free will has no part to play in defining one's culpability to original sin, you're right.

Cpl Ferro