Sure, I understand based on your entirely wrong views of the text, how that could be unclear.
Given they were not "made up", however, and that there is a clear and discernable progression in Judaism and Christianity, with the means of application extensively presented, one can actually apply a methodology to it. This is why, in fact, there are qualifications for various roles in the religion based upon learning the history and content of the religion and it's text, which, typically, requires years of formal study to be ordained for.
Yes, you get to make up a childish dismissal, with zero backing of your claims, of something you're entirely ignorant of. Just be clear that this doesn't matter in any way.
"Violence and killing" is precisely what's being discussed, as the reason for objection in the example given of this group's actions in Israel.
That I addressed on the grounds of the specific mandates to not be killing people without justification.
The equivocation of this narrow event including violence to the general notion of "accelerating the end", to suggest the former entails the latter (erroneously), and to suggest moral blame for the former is equivalent to the latter (erroneously) is addressed by the fact there is strong objection to the basic notion of "accelerating the end" in -any- fashion. Did you have some non-self-contradictory reason to object in the -absence- of any attribute of violence or harm to others?
I've covered both levels of the question. The fact that the issue was framed dishonestly in the first place, I don't see as my issue.
Having been here many times, I have no doubt that "reliable" will be re-defined to mean "whatever would exclude whatever I'm presented with".
As for meditation, no, that would, in itself, not be a comparable test. A test for 'God' should explicitly include 'God' as an element of the testing actions. One might assume that if I ask the Judeo-Christian God for an experiential awareness, it wouldn't be Zeus providing it. One might also assume that all direct sensory data (including all the ones abstracted from such and known as "science") would equally be open to your objection. But, this would seem to be a straightforwardness of thought that would probably be a precondition to such a pursuit as hesychasm being successful.
So, good luck in your future personal negotiations with entropy.
Okay, so your response is just going to be the directly absurd, then.
Ockham, Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Newton, Bayes, Linnaeus, Euler, Faraday, Babbage, Mendel, Pasteur, Kelvin, Planck, Lemaitre, Knuth... all demented fools compared, no doubt, to the awesome intellectual prowess of... let me guess... you.
As for Taoism, I was thinking of the simplified Western notion from which Zen is derived, but thanks for demonstrating yet again that with sufficient insistence on denigrating it, one can play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (not the Roger Bacon duly listed) with anything.
Yes, probably they should have bothered to read the Revelation they presumed they were acting upon, and that at least 186,000 Jews would be given a "leadership position" for these very events, making their scenario rather inane--and avoided this rather-foreseeable outcome provided by the Turks.
Okay, and your worldview has signed-up for being 100% eliminated en masse by Natural Selection--which permutation of interpretation leads to something worse for you?
In reality, you can indeed look at the overall statistical behavior of the group to determine which are likely decisions based on considered analysis of that group, much like how for -any worldview whatsoever- a similar process of rationalization can take place. That it can occur does not mean it is accurate or unquestionable by more reasonable interpretation. We have a notion of the actual outcome, rather than your armchair conjecture about what theoretically could happen, in this very thread already. A strong objection to an activity pursued by 1 in 2 million Christians. Have you something you'd like to compare success rates with, rather than a content-free "look at that other guy"?
If we want to talk about where it can vary in an -unlimited- sense, and does, nothing beats ethical subjectivism. Were you proposing to offer an alternative here, that is, offer anything at all?
Show me something in any human endeavor (any political party, any philosophy, any ethical system, any economics model, any science other than the subset of a subset of hard physics, etc., etc.) and we'll talk.
Just kidding, your expectation isn't even the case in hard physics.
Until then, it seems clearly the preponderant view, and the one supported by reference to the respective religions' defining document. If you want to argue otherwise, feel free to... actually argue otherwise. This would mean your own references on the topic and reasoning therefrom.
You are aware that Mayan religious belief and Fundamentalist Christian belief are two entirely unrelated worldviews, and neither would take the other's predictions as authoritative, right?
I'm just wondering how you would arrive at the notion that Fundamentalists are going to think 2012 is the end because Mayan "paganism" says so.
Well, yes, "real" in the sense of a) actually reflecting the content of the religion, rather than proposing that acts opposite from what the religion says to do are what the religion says to do--and b) being statistically significant considering the size of the demographic, which, handily for you, you have none specifiable for yourself for any useful relative comparison of outcomes.
Thanks for posting from your void-utopia with no particular stances to contradict, and no demographic you consider your stance "responsible for", from which you propose we make a meaningful comparison of the number of negative outcomes we can cite, relative to your non-demographic.
That aside, you are mangling all sorts of issues that actually require particular consideration of one's own context and social context. Which normative system are you suggesting does -not- require contextual application? Certainly not the secular legal system, with its overt contradictions over a much shorter period of time, while lacking the means for resolution theism has long incorporated.
Anyway, you are conflating the notion of requirements for Jews or Gentiles, required versus prohibited versus discretionary, generalities versus extraordinary circumstances, in a manner that, I presume, could only work in your unspecified utopia. Care to elaborate what that system might be?
Until then, we make our best decision based on context and our best understanding of the letter and spirit of the text. If we are wrong in the resulting assessment, we will be corrected. Why do I think this can work? Because it obviously is, as a matter of basic reality, which you aren't going to alter by "talking away" those 2.1 billion practitioners.
Elazar Shach, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Ponevezh yeshiva and a leader of Lithuanian Judaism, objected to the call for "forcing" the Messiah's appearance, an idea advocated by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.[77]
This statement itself contains multiple links to the individuals and their respective authority within Judaism, as well as the specific citation.
Quote is from here, should you wish to follow up on this particular argument--though it is not difficult to find in many other such positions. It comes up frequently in internal debates as to the nature and goals of Israel and the anticipation of the Messiah, which is where I'm familiar with the arguments against from the perspective of Judaism.
For myself, a Lutheran Christian, I am quite aware that scripturally, we are told to "watch and pray" regarding this, and there is no suggestion we should commit acts of violence to "hasten the end", and such a case as was noted elsewhere in the thread would be covered by more general prohibitions against murder or property destruction.
Denial of what? It was, and is, my overall perception.
Now that you've posted, though, let's see... 80 members of this group (estimating in your favor), 2.1 billion Christians.
That gives us, for this group from the 1980's, one in 26,250,000 Christians, and we are, as I stated, at the level of statistical noise for your claim.
I am, however, now aware that the notion isn't absolutely entirely unfounded--just almost. Thanks.
I understand it scares you, but you should be aware that acts intended toward "accelerating the end" are prohibited in both Christianity and Judaism.
I'd like see a citation/link on this... I've always gone with the more plausible notion that atheists simply entirely make up that any theists say any such thing, are so motivated, or act in such a way, even for the statistically insignificant percentage one hears this about as a biased estimate.
I'm sure your -primary- motivation is alleviating your fear here, as claimed, though, so I'll expect those links/quotes to be forthcoming.
Having seen what religion of any sort has done to the minds of mankind, I cannot believe that my tinkering with it would help.
Neat. Could you specify which of these have suffered your vaguely dire suggested outcome--or name, say, even a single theoretical cognitive downside to, say, Taoism?
"You don't need evidence to tear down such things, they have none to support it."
For any given value of "such things" and "it". You might, if you want to appear to have a margin of intellectual honesty, though, at least make the singular-plural of your intended omniscient declarations match, in the absence of any specified scope or specifics.
"The testable evidence for both god and pink dragons that fart nerve gas is identical."
Meanwhile, the testable evidence for the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the Everett Interpretation is identical.
Now what?
Glad you added "testable" into the claim, though, as it least has the possibility of not being a directly-known-false-by-the-speaker-precisely-while-being-claimed statement (i.e. a direct, deliberate lie), as by now, the notion that there is no "evidence" per se should be well-known as erroneous.
As for testable, what is your objection to testing via the "hesychasm" process? A variant worked well enough for me.
Atheist: "There's no test for 'God'." Theist: "Here's a test, try it yourself." Atheist: "No."
No, there are many proposed god-like figures, intentionally or unintentionally fictional. This is unrelated entirely to the number of actually-existing entities.
Most of these fail on a mere internal-consistency basis within an hour of reading their primary-source documents. Yes, you really can do this, with a reasonable willingness to apply some time and intellectual rigor to the question, and failing to know enough historical mythos to make a relative evaluation of plausibility between them is just your personal failure, nothing else.
Though this seems like one of the more "worthy" recipients of the approach, this seems like another example of a "privatize profits, socialize costs" endeavor.
As the division between "public" and "private" gets increasingly hazy, shouldn't there be at least a nominal analysis of the overall economic results of this type of structure? We no longer have a common expectation that the results of public-funded science projects belong to the public, so given that "it will create (some) jobs" is something that can always be said, while discounting the jobs that could have been created by alternate use of the total capital involved--what metrics are there around what is a "good candidate" for such a public/private endeavor, other than opportunity-cost ignoring "feel good" numbers supporting arbitrary political favoritism?
This doesn't seem to even be a "Republican" versus "Democrat" issue anymore--we seem to be rushing full-speed ahead with overt corporatism, and I'm personally doubtful that this approach can be sustained with simple hand-waving as to the actual overall economic effects. If there are cases where these types of projects should be objected to, by what means could one object, given this justification "methodology" that seems not to face, nor even have the expectation of, any real critical analysis?
Must be nice to argue relative moral success from your void-utopia of no particular position (other than "no god") and no particular demographic you take any responsibility for.
To be serious for a moment, though, are you actually claiming that -no crime is committed by atheists-?
Wow. Quite a bit of DNA propagation advantage for the Israelites there. Go evolution!
Anyway, with respect to my actual comment and the actual claim I was responding to... one != several != all. His claim could only be accurate in the case of "all".
Okay, well, I've said it before but how many people -claim- to adhere to a worldview has nothing to do with how many actually are, per what the worldview actually says.
Failure to hold to a standard does not alter what the standard says, regardless of how many there may be.
It's morally perverse to argue not against the behavior in contradiction to the moral premise stated by the worldview, but rather claim the worldview's position -is- that premise, when it isn't. What do you want, exactly? You appear to want neither "love thy neighbor" nor its antithesis.
Slashdot Mirror
Not "impression", rather certainty.
That your reality is the subset of reality specified by Naturalism, doesn't make it what reality actually is.
Sure, I understand based on your entirely wrong views of the text, how that could be unclear.
Given they were not "made up", however, and that there is a clear and discernable progression in Judaism and Christianity, with the means of application extensively presented, one can actually apply a methodology to it. This is why, in fact, there are qualifications for various roles in the religion based upon learning the history and content of the religion and it's text, which, typically, requires years of formal study to be ordained for.
Yes, you get to make up a childish dismissal, with zero backing of your claims, of something you're entirely ignorant of. Just be clear that this doesn't matter in any way.
"Violence and killing" is precisely what's being discussed, as the reason for objection in the example given of this group's actions in Israel.
That I addressed on the grounds of the specific mandates to not be killing people without justification.
The equivocation of this narrow event including violence to the general notion of "accelerating the end", to suggest the former entails the latter (erroneously), and to suggest moral blame for the former is equivalent to the latter (erroneously) is addressed by the fact there is strong objection to the basic notion of "accelerating the end" in -any- fashion. Did you have some non-self-contradictory reason to object in the -absence- of any attribute of violence or harm to others?
I've covered both levels of the question. The fact that the issue was framed dishonestly in the first place, I don't see as my issue.
Having been here many times, I have no doubt that "reliable" will be re-defined to mean "whatever would exclude whatever I'm presented with".
As for meditation, no, that would, in itself, not be a comparable test. A test for 'God' should explicitly include 'God' as an element of the testing actions. One might assume that if I ask the Judeo-Christian God for an experiential awareness, it wouldn't be Zeus providing it. One might also assume that all direct sensory data (including all the ones abstracted from such and known as "science") would equally be open to your objection. But, this would seem to be a straightforwardness of thought that would probably be a precondition to such a pursuit as hesychasm being successful.
So, good luck in your future personal negotiations with entropy.
Okay, so your response is just going to be the directly absurd, then.
Ockham, Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Newton, Bayes, Linnaeus, Euler, Faraday, Babbage, Mendel, Pasteur, Kelvin, Planck, Lemaitre, Knuth... all demented fools compared, no doubt, to the awesome intellectual prowess of... let me guess... you.
As for Taoism, I was thinking of the simplified Western notion from which Zen is derived, but thanks for demonstrating yet again that with sufficient insistence on denigrating it, one can play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (not the Roger Bacon duly listed) with anything.
Yes, probably they should have bothered to read the Revelation they presumed they were acting upon, and that at least 186,000 Jews would be given a "leadership position" for these very events, making their scenario rather inane--and avoided this rather-foreseeable outcome provided by the Turks.
Okay, and your worldview has signed-up for being 100% eliminated en masse by Natural Selection--which permutation of interpretation leads to something worse for you?
In reality, you can indeed look at the overall statistical behavior of the group to determine which are likely decisions based on considered analysis of that group, much like how for -any worldview whatsoever- a similar process of rationalization can take place. That it can occur does not mean it is accurate or unquestionable by more reasonable interpretation. We have a notion of the actual outcome, rather than your armchair conjecture about what theoretically could happen, in this very thread already. A strong objection to an activity pursued by 1 in 2 million Christians. Have you something you'd like to compare success rates with, rather than a content-free "look at that other guy"?
If we want to talk about where it can vary in an -unlimited- sense, and does, nothing beats ethical subjectivism. Were you proposing to offer an alternative here, that is, offer anything at all?
And no non-religious worldview will do better than the 1-in-26-million adherents cited on the question of doing something illegal, either.
And... "document" should be plural in that post, and...
"people disagree" != "nobody's right"
Show me something in any human endeavor (any political party, any philosophy, any ethical system, any economics model, any science other than the subset of a subset of hard physics, etc., etc.) and we'll talk.
Just kidding, your expectation isn't even the case in hard physics.
Until then, it seems clearly the preponderant view, and the one supported by reference to the respective religions' defining document. If you want to argue otherwise, feel free to... actually argue otherwise. This would mean your own references on the topic and reasoning therefrom.
You are aware that Mayan religious belief and Fundamentalist Christian belief are two entirely unrelated worldviews, and neither would take the other's predictions as authoritative, right?
I'm just wondering how you would arrive at the notion that Fundamentalists are going to think 2012 is the end because Mayan "paganism" says so.
Well, yes, "real" in the sense of a) actually reflecting the content of the religion, rather than proposing that acts opposite from what the religion says to do are what the religion says to do--and b) being statistically significant considering the size of the demographic, which, handily for you, you have none specifiable for yourself for any useful relative comparison of outcomes.
Thanks for posting from your void-utopia with no particular stances to contradict, and no demographic you consider your stance "responsible for", from which you propose we make a meaningful comparison of the number of negative outcomes we can cite, relative to your non-demographic.
That aside, you are mangling all sorts of issues that actually require particular consideration of one's own context and social context. Which normative system are you suggesting does -not- require contextual application? Certainly not the secular legal system, with its overt contradictions over a much shorter period of time, while lacking the means for resolution theism has long incorporated.
Anyway, you are conflating the notion of requirements for Jews or Gentiles, required versus prohibited versus discretionary, generalities versus extraordinary circumstances, in a manner that, I presume, could only work in your unspecified utopia. Care to elaborate what that system might be?
Until then, we make our best decision based on context and our best understanding of the letter and spirit of the text. If we are wrong in the resulting assessment, we will be corrected. Why do I think this can work? Because it obviously is, as a matter of basic reality, which you aren't going to alter by "talking away" those 2.1 billion practitioners.
Sure, no problem.
Elazar Shach, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Ponevezh yeshiva and a leader of Lithuanian Judaism, objected to the call for "forcing" the Messiah's appearance, an idea advocated by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.[77]
This statement itself contains multiple links to the individuals and their respective authority within Judaism, as well as the specific citation.
Quote is from here, should you wish to follow up on this particular argument--though it is not difficult to find in many other such positions. It comes up frequently in internal debates as to the nature and goals of Israel and the anticipation of the Messiah, which is where I'm familiar with the arguments against from the perspective of Judaism.
For myself, a Lutheran Christian, I am quite aware that scripturally, we are told to "watch and pray" regarding this, and there is no suggestion we should commit acts of violence to "hasten the end", and such a case as was noted elsewhere in the thread would be covered by more general prohibitions against murder or property destruction.
Will that suffice, for your purposes?
Denial of what? It was, and is, my overall perception.
Now that you've posted, though, let's see... 80 members of this group (estimating in your favor), 2.1 billion Christians.
That gives us, for this group from the 1980's, one in 26,250,000 Christians, and we are, as I stated, at the level of statistical noise for your claim.
I am, however, now aware that the notion isn't absolutely entirely unfounded--just almost. Thanks.
I understand it scares you, but you should be aware that acts intended toward "accelerating the end" are prohibited in both Christianity and Judaism.
I'd like see a citation/link on this... I've always gone with the more plausible notion that atheists simply entirely make up that any theists say any such thing, are so motivated, or act in such a way, even for the statistically insignificant percentage one hears this about as a biased estimate.
I'm sure your -primary- motivation is alleviating your fear here, as claimed, though, so I'll expect those links/quotes to be forthcoming.
Having seen what religion of any sort has done to the minds of mankind, I cannot believe that my tinkering with it would help.
Neat. Could you specify which of these have suffered your vaguely dire suggested outcome--or name, say, even a single theoretical cognitive downside to, say, Taoism?
"You don't need evidence to tear down such things, they have none to support it."
For any given value of "such things" and "it". You might, if you want to appear to have a margin of intellectual honesty, though, at least make the singular-plural of your intended omniscient declarations match, in the absence of any specified scope or specifics.
"The testable evidence for both god and pink dragons that fart nerve gas is identical."
Meanwhile, the testable evidence for the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the Everett Interpretation is identical.
Now what?
Glad you added "testable" into the claim, though, as it least has the possibility of not being a directly-known-false-by-the-speaker-precisely-while-being-claimed statement (i.e. a direct, deliberate lie), as by now, the notion that there is no "evidence" per se should be well-known as erroneous.
As for testable, what is your objection to testing via the "hesychasm" process? A variant worked well enough for me.
Atheist: "There's no test for 'God'."
Theist: "Here's a test, try it yourself."
Atheist: "No."
"You cannot serve both God and Money."
--Matthew 6:24
Okay, followed it.
Note: Regardless of how argumentatively useful or popular a claim it is, direct contradiction of a religion is not that religion.
No, there are many proposed god-like figures, intentionally or unintentionally fictional. This is unrelated entirely to the number of actually-existing entities.
Most of these fail on a mere internal-consistency basis within an hour of reading their primary-source documents. Yes, you really can do this, with a reasonable willingness to apply some time and intellectual rigor to the question, and failing to know enough historical mythos to make a relative evaluation of plausibility between them is just your personal failure, nothing else.
Though this seems like one of the more "worthy" recipients of the approach, this seems like another example of a "privatize profits, socialize costs" endeavor.
As the division between "public" and "private" gets increasingly hazy, shouldn't there be at least a nominal analysis of the overall economic results of this type of structure? We no longer have a common expectation that the results of public-funded science projects belong to the public, so given that "it will create (some) jobs" is something that can always be said, while discounting the jobs that could have been created by alternate use of the total capital involved--what metrics are there around what is a "good candidate" for such a public/private endeavor, other than opportunity-cost ignoring "feel good" numbers supporting arbitrary political favoritism?
This doesn't seem to even be a "Republican" versus "Democrat" issue anymore--we seem to be rushing full-speed ahead with overt corporatism, and I'm personally doubtful that this approach can be sustained with simple hand-waving as to the actual overall economic effects. If there are cases where these types of projects should be objected to, by what means could one object, given this justification "methodology" that seems not to face, nor even have the expectation of, any real critical analysis?
Must be nice to argue relative moral success from your void-utopia of no particular position (other than "no god") and no particular demographic you take any responsibility for.
To be serious for a moment, though, are you actually claiming that -no crime is committed by atheists-?
Wow. Quite a bit of DNA propagation advantage for the Israelites there. Go evolution!
Anyway, with respect to my actual comment and the actual claim I was responding to... one != several != all. His claim could only be accurate in the case of "all".
Okay, well, I've said it before but how many people -claim- to adhere to a worldview has nothing to do with how many actually are, per what the worldview actually says.
Failure to hold to a standard does not alter what the standard says, regardless of how many there may be.
It's morally perverse to argue not against the behavior in contradiction to the moral premise stated by the worldview, but rather claim the worldview's position -is- that premise, when it isn't. What do you want, exactly? You appear to want neither "love thy neighbor" nor its antithesis.