Definition of Marriage gets Debated in California
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You are of course welcome to have an opinion even if, as in this case, it has no apparent basis in fact or reason. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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You are of course welcome to have an opinion even if, as in this case, it has no apparent basis in fact or reason. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Matthew, if you wish to accept ancient biblical writings as the basis for your belief, then do so. Not everybody accepts those ancient biblical writings as fact.
Absolutely, although the logical implication of my accepting something that says it is the truth and everyone should believe it is that I believe that everyone else should believe it too. If I didn't believe that I would be at least a self contradictory hypocrite whatever the fashionable meta-belief system of the time says about 'imposing' ones beliefs. In other words pretending not to actually believe what I believe is against my religion ( and also objectively irrational ) even if it is the only acceptable behaviour in current society. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Sorry mate, I never got on it. I'm simply reporting the facts, not asserting them on my own authority, has nothing to do with my personal experience, or in fact with me at all. I'm not imposing anything, God is by virtue of being God. You invent the concept of foobulbar then you own it, you get to say what is and isn't foobulbar and when and where it applies. If I come and along and disagree then it doesn't change anything, it's not my concept to change. How much more so with God who's concepts determine the very fabric and operation of the universe. Trying to redefine marriage is like trying to redefine causality, a futile exercise in self agrandisement and self delusion.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Damnation: replied to you a while back and it hasn't stuck. Must be gods fault. In any case I like marriage so much I keep doing it and you can't use the word 'facts' and 'god' in the same sentence. There is no connection between the 2. Unless and until you can prove the existence of your god please keep it to yourself: you don't hear me ramming my atheism down people's throats at every opportunity: it's as boring as your theism is. Actually, one thing I don't get is let's say you can prove the existence of your god (and I accept it) why do you feel the need to worship it? Is your god so mentally feeble that it requires the prostrations of mere men to make it feel worthwhile? Seems a bit weak to me.
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Absolutely, although the logical implication of my accepting something that says it is the truth and everyone should believe it is that I believe that everyone else should believe it too. If I didn't believe that I would be at least a self contradictory hypocrite whatever the fashionable meta-belief system of the time says about 'imposing' ones beliefs. In other words pretending not to actually believe what I believe is against my religion ( and also objectively irrational ) even if it is the only acceptable behaviour in current society. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
that I believe that everyone else should believe it too
Shout it from the rooftops if you so wish. But I will be deaf to your words of wisdom. Since the masses learned how to read and write, they are no longer dependent upon the local vicar's pontifications. We are no longer the ill-educated that can be led by the nose blindly towards a particular belief or religious viewpoint.
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Damnation: replied to you a while back and it hasn't stuck. Must be gods fault. In any case I like marriage so much I keep doing it and you can't use the word 'facts' and 'god' in the same sentence. There is no connection between the 2. Unless and until you can prove the existence of your god please keep it to yourself: you don't hear me ramming my atheism down people's throats at every opportunity: it's as boring as your theism is. Actually, one thing I don't get is let's say you can prove the existence of your god (and I accept it) why do you feel the need to worship it? Is your god so mentally feeble that it requires the prostrations of mere men to make it feel worthwhile? Seems a bit weak to me.
digital man wrote:
you don't hear me ramming my atheism down people's throats
Strangely that's exactly how your post with statements like
digital man wrote:
Unless and until you can prove the existence of your god please keep it to yourself
comes across. You place your acceptance or otherwise of an argument you demand from me above my right to express what I believe and even above any evidence. This is classic atheism by false assumptions, e.g. my understanding defines reality. God is defined by my understanding of the concept of God. All anthropomorphic projections of my self onto my concept of God are valid and override your understanding of God to the point of being assumable be your opinion. What these all ammount to is the unacknowledged false belief summed up as 'I am God and will accept no rivals', otherwise known as the original sin. None of this is unusual or unexpected, most people hold the same position you do. They are all equally wrong, none of them is God either. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
that I believe that everyone else should believe it too
Shout it from the rooftops if you so wish. But I will be deaf to your words of wisdom. Since the masses learned how to read and write, they are no longer dependent upon the local vicar's pontifications. We are no longer the ill-educated that can be led by the nose blindly towards a particular belief or religious viewpoint.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Shout it from the rooftops if you so wish.
Thank you, I will.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
But I will be deaf to your words of wisdom.
Sadly true as without the spirit of God no one is capable of faith.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Since the masses learned how to read and write, they are no longer dependent upon the local vicar's pontifications. We are no longer the ill-educated that can be led by the nose blindly towards a particular belief or religious viewpoint.
This carries the tacit assumption that all such belief and religious viewpoints are false and therefore less likely to be accepted by more educated people. Of course if one such belief or viewpoint were in fact to be true then all good education would only increase the level of acceptance of it. In fact as the fundamental truth all good education would be based on it. Perhaps this is why most of that drive to educate that you identify as having occured was originally led and promoted by Christians, even the predecessors of very vicars you disagree with.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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digital man wrote:
Show him where Tesco is and he doesn't have to sit in the cold by a river all day.
Show him France and the government will feed him for free.
Frogs and wine? :-D
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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digital man wrote:
you don't hear me ramming my atheism down people's throats
Strangely that's exactly how your post with statements like
digital man wrote:
Unless and until you can prove the existence of your god please keep it to yourself
comes across. You place your acceptance or otherwise of an argument you demand from me above my right to express what I believe and even above any evidence. This is classic atheism by false assumptions, e.g. my understanding defines reality. God is defined by my understanding of the concept of God. All anthropomorphic projections of my self onto my concept of God are valid and override your understanding of God to the point of being assumable be your opinion. What these all ammount to is the unacknowledged false belief summed up as 'I am God and will accept no rivals', otherwise known as the original sin. None of this is unusual or unexpected, most people hold the same position you do. They are all equally wrong, none of them is God either. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Err, you started it, I just asked some questions. Deflection and ibfuscation are the cornerstone of, well, you. The are no false assumptions in atheism since there were none to hold in the first place: only theism makes assumptions about their gods. Actually I am god. Prove me wrong.
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Err, you started it, I just asked some questions. Deflection and ibfuscation are the cornerstone of, well, you. The are no false assumptions in atheism since there were none to hold in the first place: only theism makes assumptions about their gods. Actually I am god. Prove me wrong.
digital man wrote:
The are no false assumptions in atheism since there were none to hold in the first place
That statement proves itself wrong, no further evidence of your lack of Godhood is required.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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What utter nonsense. People get married for all sorts of reasons and they are not always religious in nature and not everyone who gets married is Hindu or even believes in a god. And then the bitch leaves and... oh shit, wrong thread... :laugh:
Well said. :laugh:
Cheers, Vikram.
Zeppelin's law: In any Soapbox discussion involving Stan Shannon, the probability of the term "leftist" or "Marxist" appearing approaches 1 monotonically. Harris' addendum: I think you meant "monotonously". Martin's second addendum: Jeffersonian... I think that should at least get a mention.
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Frogs and wine? :-D
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
Heh. Yes. Actually, the French food is good. Some of the people...well...not so good. There are, of course, exceptions.
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digital man wrote:
The are no false assumptions in atheism since there were none to hold in the first place
That statement proves itself wrong, no further evidence of your lack of Godhood is required.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
That statement proves itself wrong, no further evidence of your lack of Godhood is required.
Personally I wouldn't want to be a god: all that charging around creating and destroying shit and then having these billions of annoying little meat-bags harping at every little thing I do for them. Or don't do for them. There's no pleasing some species. It's not like some of them have the sense to think for themselves, oh no. It's just God this and God that... I didn't mean to stop you thinking; you can't just believe in me 'cos you're scared of reality or it's easier than thinking about things that really only I, as your god, should think about. Besides, when was the last time I bothered to show up for a wedding or funeral? What sort of an unfeeling brute am I? Oh, and the marriage thing. It was a joke: I told JC to tell you but in all furore it slipped his mind. Bummer.
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
That statement proves itself wrong, no further evidence of your lack of Godhood is required.
Personally I wouldn't want to be a god: all that charging around creating and destroying shit and then having these billions of annoying little meat-bags harping at every little thing I do for them. Or don't do for them. There's no pleasing some species. It's not like some of them have the sense to think for themselves, oh no. It's just God this and God that... I didn't mean to stop you thinking; you can't just believe in me 'cos you're scared of reality or it's easier than thinking about things that really only I, as your god, should think about. Besides, when was the last time I bothered to show up for a wedding or funeral? What sort of an unfeeling brute am I? Oh, and the marriage thing. It was a joke: I told JC to tell you but in all furore it slipped his mind. Bummer.
There you go again not only imposing your beliefs on others (against your creed if not mine), even God, and making the very assumptions you've just denied making. :doh: Lets for one moment assume you're entirely correct. The logical consequence of that (as your statements are contrary to themselves) is that we live in an irrational and inconsistent universe about which nothing can therefore be known. Either this is ture in which case you don't even definitely exist and neither does this thread or it's false in which case you're wrong. That's the problem with logic, if you believe in it you just can't stop using it and if you don't it's just meaningless to you. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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There you go again not only imposing your beliefs on others (against your creed if not mine), even God, and making the very assumptions you've just denied making. :doh: Lets for one moment assume you're entirely correct. The logical consequence of that (as your statements are contrary to themselves) is that we live in an irrational and inconsistent universe about which nothing can therefore be known. Either this is ture in which case you don't even definitely exist and neither does this thread or it's false in which case you're wrong. That's the problem with logic, if you believe in it you just can't stop using it and if you don't it's just meaningless to you. :)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
a) I'm fucking with you. b) No I'm not. c) Would you actually know if I was?
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
There you go again not only imposing your beliefs on others (against your creed if not mine), even God, and making the very assumptions you've just denied making.
I was being sarcy. Whilst many perceive this to be the lowest form of wit it's usually only deemed so by those that don't have the wit or skill to be sarcastic in the first place.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Lets for one moment assume you're entirely correct.
But I'm not!
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
we live in an irrational and inconsistent universe about which nothing can therefore be known
Untrue: we know lots of stuff and what we don't yet know we'll figure out. Exceptof course you religious types: you'll just say it was gods will or we aren't meant to know and leave it at that. How very mundane and boring. Might I suggest we start a new thread to play this out? This one is creeping ever closer to that point where I lose the will to hunt for it. :-)
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a) I'm fucking with you. b) No I'm not. c) Would you actually know if I was?
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
There you go again not only imposing your beliefs on others (against your creed if not mine), even God, and making the very assumptions you've just denied making.
I was being sarcy. Whilst many perceive this to be the lowest form of wit it's usually only deemed so by those that don't have the wit or skill to be sarcastic in the first place.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Lets for one moment assume you're entirely correct.
But I'm not!
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
we live in an irrational and inconsistent universe about which nothing can therefore be known
Untrue: we know lots of stuff and what we don't yet know we'll figure out. Exceptof course you religious types: you'll just say it was gods will or we aren't meant to know and leave it at that. How very mundane and boring. Might I suggest we start a new thread to play this out? This one is creeping ever closer to that point where I lose the will to hunt for it. :-)
Be my guest on the new thread but what is there to debate? Is the universe logical? Empty because if it isn't the question is meaingless. Does God exist? Equally impossible to prove or disprove particularly as we can't agree on an understanding of our limited concept of God let alone come up with a testable definition? Is the postmodernist insistence on not 'imposing' your beliefs on others a hyprocritical and self contradictory piece of nonsense? Well that's self evident. Does 'religion', even by your undifferentiated understanding of it, stand in the way of progress and science and understanding? A non question because 'religion' includes the opposite or negation of everything it includes so the answer can equally be argued both ways by selecting different invalid subsets of an invalid definition. If you've got any other burning questions by all means go ahead. :-D
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
that I believe that everyone else should believe it too
Shout it from the rooftops if you so wish. But I will be deaf to your words of wisdom. Since the masses learned how to read and write, they are no longer dependent upon the local vicar's pontifications. We are no longer the ill-educated that can be led by the nose blindly towards a particular belief or religious viewpoint.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
We are no longer the ill-educated that can be led by the nose blindly towards a particular belief or religious viewpoint.
Do you really believe that there is less effort to control mass opinions by means of state based education today than at anytime in the past? I mean, how much of your visceral loathing towards someone of Matthews point of view was imparted to you by the state?
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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But it does bring up the broader issue of whether or not we are a culture in any meaningful sense of that word and what institutions within our society should have some degree of authority to define the parameters of that culture. Marriage is about as fundamental to the definition of 'culture' as there is. To maintain that marriage is whatever any two, or more, individuals say it is, and that the rest of us have no option but to accept such associations is to say that we are not a culture in any way at all. I have no problem with such an open, cultureless, society as long as one of the other principles of that society is that I am free to discriminate against any part of it I like, in whatever way I like for whatever reason I like. But if I can be forced by the very same government which is not supposed to define marriage to accept whatever bizarre forms of marriage get created, than what is the difference in that and just leaving society the way it is and force marriage to remain between a man and a woman? Either way, the government is imposing itself upon the definitions of culture.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
But it does bring up the broader issue of whether or not we are a culture in any meaningful sense of that word
No it doesn't. You don't get to define the word culture.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I have no problem with such an open, cultureless, society
Nobody cares
Stan Shannon wrote:
Either way, the government is imposing itself upon the definitions of culture.
Whatever.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Sorry mate, I never got on it. I'm simply reporting the facts, not asserting them on my own authority, has nothing to do with my personal experience, or in fact with me at all. I'm not imposing anything, God is by virtue of being God. You invent the concept of foobulbar then you own it, you get to say what is and isn't foobulbar and when and where it applies. If I come and along and disagree then it doesn't change anything, it's not my concept to change. How much more so with God who's concepts determine the very fabric and operation of the universe. Trying to redefine marriage is like trying to redefine causality, a futile exercise in self agrandisement and self delusion.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I'm simply reporting the facts, not asserting them on my own authority, has nothing to do with my personal experience, or in fact with me at all.
And who told you what God was thinking? How dare you presume to speak for Him? Get down on your knees and beg His forgiveness, you insignificant worm. You are not worthy. You will never be worthy. God does not, cannot share His ineffable self with the like of you.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Who the hell cares if 2 people (of whatever sex) choose to get married? Why is it anyone else's business? What harm are they doing? Once again one person trying to tell another how to live based on their own narrow world view.
digital man wrote:
Who the hell cares if 2 people (of whatever sex) choose to get married?
Since we're looking at redefining marriage, by removing the religious context and arguing that nobody has the right to tell you who you can and can't marry... I would like to know what supporters of gay marriage think about polygamy. It's always been frowned upon, more so I think than the idea of gay marriage, and largely for the same religious reasons. I'd be interested to know if gay marriage supporters see it as different or would give it the same arguments. If we're tossing tradition out the window and rewriting the definition, is there any reason to keep the "2 people" clause? And if so, what makes it different? We'll save the question of whether or not it should be restricted to people for later. ;)
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