Definition of Marriage gets Debated in California
-
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
he is who he says he is and has the characteristics he has revealed.
You are taking the word of men for this. They tell you they are inspired - or worse, other men tell you that the writers were inspired -- by God, but unless you are telling us you have been up on Arrarat and seen the Burning Bush, you may be deeply deceived and in the snares of the antiChrist.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
The evidence of history is that these assumptions are sound, lead to the best outcomes and have no long term negative consequences. Right down to the sub atomic infrastructrure of the universe
That's an opinion. Not a verifiable fact. You have to separate the two. Even if you think your opinion is the only valid one.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
That's an opinion. Not a verifiable fact.
As you have already admitted, when it comes to matters of the unprovable there is no way to separate the two. You have to make fundamental assumptions in order to reason. If you make them then you have to accept the logical consequences of those assumptions or you aren't capable of reason.
Oakman wrote:
Even if you think your opinion is the only valid one.
What if I think that God's opinion is the only valid one?
Oakman wrote:
unless you are telling us you have been up on Arrarat and seen the Burning Bush
If you're asking have I had direct experience of the presence of God then the answer is yes.
Oakman wrote:
you may be deeply deceived and in the snares of the antiChrist.
This is always a theoretical possibility but it is not my belief. I could go around prefacing every statement I make with 'I believe' but all that would imply is that actually I don't. As I said to Richard earlier it is only current culture that tries to insist that we all go around pretending not to really believe what we believe and that is not something I believe in.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
-
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
It is right and proper that he should display his beliefs. Equally, it is right and proper for others to display differing/alternative/complementary/conflicting points of view.
But he just said he rejected that. Are you saying that you accept with you find unacceptable? I trully do not understand.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
In terms of education, I want my children to be taught facts as presently understood not fantasies and not fables where relevance is perhaps questionable.
Do you want them to be taught that Christianity is acceptable or unacceptable? What do the facts say?
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Do we really need another "monkey trial"? [^]
Did you know that Clarence Darrow was a supporter of fascism?
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
Are you saying that you accept with(sic) you find unacceptable?
That is the very tyranny of post modernism, that nothing is allowed to be unacceptable, except unacceptability itself. Tollerance of everything except intollerance. It is a philosophy of madness and unreason that is corrupting the minds of my generation and those younger, putting the entire future of science itself at risk and undermining our society and culture. It's not the only problem but it is one that stands in the way of fixing all the others becuase it prevents the recognition of the unacceptable as unacceptable.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
That is the very tyranny of post modernism, that nothing is allowed to be unacceptable, except unacceptability itself. Tollerance of everything except intollerance. It is a philosophy of madness and unreason that is corrupting the minds of my generation and those younger, putting the entire future of science itself at risk and undermining our society and culture. It's not the only problem but it is one that stands in the way of fixing all the others becuase it prevents the recognition of the unacceptable as unacceptable.
Matthew, your arguments have been used to kill so many, many people. Remember who the poster boys for Christian intolerance are. "Exactly! We need to burn all those damned Jews at the stake unless they convert today, right, Torquemada?"
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
-
Oakman wrote:
That's an opinion. Not a verifiable fact.
As you have already admitted, when it comes to matters of the unprovable there is no way to separate the two. You have to make fundamental assumptions in order to reason. If you make them then you have to accept the logical consequences of those assumptions or you aren't capable of reason.
Oakman wrote:
Even if you think your opinion is the only valid one.
What if I think that God's opinion is the only valid one?
Oakman wrote:
unless you are telling us you have been up on Arrarat and seen the Burning Bush
If you're asking have I had direct experience of the presence of God then the answer is yes.
Oakman wrote:
you may be deeply deceived and in the snares of the antiChrist.
This is always a theoretical possibility but it is not my belief. I could go around prefacing every statement I make with 'I believe' but all that would imply is that actually I don't. As I said to Richard earlier it is only current culture that tries to insist that we all go around pretending not to really believe what we believe and that is not something I believe in.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
As you have already admitted, when it comes to matters of the unprovable there is no way to separate the two.
No, I never "admitted" any such thing. Pretty much by definition. Facts are provable; Opinions are not.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
What if I think that God's opinion is the only valid one?
You are extremely presumptious to speak for Him.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
If you're asking have I had direct experience of the presence of God then the answer is yes.
High endorphins are not the presence of God. If you saw a Burning Bush create tablets of stone that codify the laws or some other equally physical object then the answer is yes.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
This is always a theoretical possibility but it is not my belief
Good for you. With that admission you are on the road to understanding.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
-
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.
You're mixing facts and belief.
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
But he just said he rejected that. Are you saying that you accept with you find unacceptable? I trully do not understand.
Which part of [^] did you not understand.
The part where you tolerate precisely the opposite point of view. Such a position is logically indefensible. You simply cannot be tolerant of Matthew's overt intellectual rejection of your tolerance. He boldly rejects your tolerance.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
-
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
As you have already admitted, when it comes to matters of the unprovable there is no way to separate the two.
No, I never "admitted" any such thing. Pretty much by definition. Facts are provable; Opinions are not.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
What if I think that God's opinion is the only valid one?
You are extremely presumptious to speak for Him.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
If you're asking have I had direct experience of the presence of God then the answer is yes.
High endorphins are not the presence of God. If you saw a Burning Bush create tablets of stone that codify the laws or some other equally physical object then the answer is yes.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
This is always a theoretical possibility but it is not my belief
Good for you. With that admission you are on the road to understanding.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Facts are provable
Not all facts are provable that's precisely the point. If it's a fact that God doesn't exist then it's still not provable. If it's a fact that he does exist it isn't provable but one or the other must be a fact.
Oakman wrote:
You are extremely presumptious to speak for Him.
Whay would say that? He speaks for himself and if he speaks through me then it is because he chooses to. Will you place yourself between me and God as judge?
Oakman wrote:
High endorphins are not the presence of God. If you saw a Burning Bush create tablets of stone that codify the laws or some other equally physical object then the answer is yes.
So you are the judge of what is and is not an experience of God? I never said anything about the nature of my experience and yet you presume to know something about it.
Oakman wrote:
With that admission you are on the road to understanding.
:laugh: No my friend we are on very different roads you and I and 'understanding' is not the destination of either of them.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
-
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
That is the very tyranny of post modernism, that nothing is allowed to be unacceptable, except unacceptability itself. Tollerance of everything except intollerance. It is a philosophy of madness and unreason that is corrupting the minds of my generation and those younger, putting the entire future of science itself at risk and undermining our society and culture. It's not the only problem but it is one that stands in the way of fixing all the others becuase it prevents the recognition of the unacceptable as unacceptable.
Matthew, your arguments have been used to kill so many, many people. Remember who the poster boys for Christian intolerance are. "Exactly! We need to burn all those damned Jews at the stake unless they convert today, right, Torquemada?"
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Matthew, your arguments have been used to kill so many, many people. Remember who the poster boys for Christian intolerance are.
Is the goal to eliminate all beliefs and traditions which can be somehow associated with people being killed?
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
-
You're mixing facts and belief.
Any you are claiming to know which is which. Are you the final arbiter of truth?
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
Are you saying that you accept with(sic) you find unacceptable?
That is the very tyranny of post modernism, that nothing is allowed to be unacceptable, except unacceptability itself. Tollerance of everything except intollerance. It is a philosophy of madness and unreason that is corrupting the minds of my generation and those younger, putting the entire future of science itself at risk and undermining our society and culture. It's not the only problem but it is one that stands in the way of fixing all the others becuase it prevents the recognition of the unacceptable as unacceptable.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
I agree completely with you to that extent. The very notion of discrimination of any type is the only thing our society any longer has the moral fortitude to discriminate against. It is not merely an inherently ignorant intellectual position to assume, it is simply not sustainable culturally. Any other culture could easily kick our asses as long as they ain't us. It is ultimately a belief in nothingness altogether.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
-
Tim Craig wrote:
States just get out of the marriage business altogether
Back when Romney and I both lived in Massachusetts and he was trying to amend the state Constitution to make gay marriage illegal, I proposed much the same thing. There is certainly no reason to tell some old parish priest that he has to marry two men, or two divorced heteros or whatever makes him think he'll burn in hellfire forever. (Why any God worth the name would give a damn is a thread in its own right, but there are plenty of well-meaning folk who have convinced themselves they know He would.) All that has to happen is that we remove any "power invested in me by the state" from the windup of his spiel and he can marry only those he feels like doing. But, as you say, the state would consider them shacking up until they registered at City Hall - which wouldn't be all that different than getting a license today, except that it would immediately convey all the benefits that right now are associated with the word "Marriage" without benefit of clergy: bada-bing, bada-bang. Funny thing is that is exactly the way I got married. My blushing, beautiful and buxom bride-to-be and I were supposed to take a plane from Boston to Orlando on a Tuesday night and get the marriage license on Wednesday so we could be married on Saturday (3 day waiting period). Unfortunately, Boston got snowed in and we didn't arrive until Friday. :omg: Since about half the retired air force colonels and generals in the state of Florida were planning on attending, the schedule did not change. We were still "married" by her parents' favorite Baptist minister on Saturday, still went to Disneyworld for our "honeymoon," but then, when we came back, we went through a quickie ceremony with same minister who this time added the words about "invested by the state," thus making us legal. As far as I know, God did not strike him dead for faking it earlier. Essentially we got married one week and contracted a civil union the following week.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
-
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
That is the very tyranny of post modernism, that nothing is allowed to be unacceptable, except unacceptability itself. Tollerance of everything except intollerance. It is a philosophy of madness and unreason that is corrupting the minds of my generation and those younger, putting the entire future of science itself at risk and undermining our society and culture. It's not the only problem but it is one that stands in the way of fixing all the others becuase it prevents the recognition of the unacceptable as unacceptable.
Matthew, your arguments have been used to kill so many, many people. Remember who the poster boys for Christian intolerance are. "Exactly! We need to burn all those damned Jews at the stake unless they convert today, right, Torquemada?"
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
All forms of argument have been misused for evil, twisted by evil people and turned inside out by those wishing to distort, destroy, bury or forget the truth. This is the fallen nature of man. The very argument you are using has been used to allow evil to go on without raising a finger to stop it. I have advocated no stake burning or in fact anything at all harmful to anyone except the straw man you are putting up to avoid having to deal with what I'm saying.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
-
The part where you tolerate precisely the opposite point of view. Such a position is logically indefensible. You simply cannot be tolerant of Matthew's overt intellectual rejection of your tolerance. He boldly rejects your tolerance.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
He boldly rejects your tolerance
Then that is his choice. If I accept his point of view without agreeing with it, how is that wrong. Or would you have me be violently against it, if the latter, perhaps you had better state what the limitations of my violence should be that is acceptable in a civilised society.
-
Any you are claiming to know which is which. Are you the final arbiter of truth?
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Any you are claiming to know which is which. Are you the final arbiter of truth?
Facts are verifiable. Beliefs or opinions are not. Using those definitions, it is quite easy for any of us to identify which is which. So far you have shown no way to verify the existence of your god. Until you do, you are promulgating a belief - one you have already admitted may be a snare of the Antichrist.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
-
Oakman wrote:
Matthew, your arguments have been used to kill so many, many people. Remember who the poster boys for Christian intolerance are.
Is the goal to eliminate all beliefs and traditions which can be somehow associated with people being killed?
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
Is the goal to eliminate all beliefs and traditions which can be somehow associated with people being killed?
sorry, but that doesn't make any sense in this context. Perhaps you could explain firther.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
-
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
Oakman wrote:
God does not, cannot share His ineffable self with the like of you.
If you read the scripture you will find that that is precisely what he has done, even you can partake of Christ. It is the most amazing thing there is period.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
-
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
Well Oakman says your post is rational and intelligent. You have not yet pulled the wool over my eyes of course. ;) You can flower up your posts all you want, but at the end of the day you are just proposing oppression of individual freedoms of people that want to do things that you are 100% sure you will never want to do. As you are well aware we have had many past discussions regarding the constitutional support for freedom. I'm still not buying your bigoted bag of crap I don't care how fancy you wrap it up or how much perfumed prose you pour over it.
led mike
-
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Any you are claiming to know which is which. Are you the final arbiter of truth?
Facts are verifiable. Beliefs or opinions are not. Using those definitions, it is quite easy for any of us to identify which is which. So far you have shown no way to verify the existence of your god. Until you do, you are promulgating a belief - one you have already admitted may be a snare of the Antichrist.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Facts are verifiable. Beliefs or opinions are not.
I have already showed you that this is logically false so you're using bad definitions that can only lead to bad conclusions.
Oakman wrote:
So far you have shown no way to verify the existence of your god
Neither have I attempted to do that which cannot be done and is unnecessary.
Oakman wrote:
one you have already admitted may be a snare of the Antichrist.
That is simply a lie, or you simply can't read, go back and look again.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
He boldly rejects your tolerance
Then that is his choice. If I accept his point of view without agreeing with it, how is that wrong. Or would you have me be violently against it, if the latter, perhaps you had better state what the limitations of my violence should be that is acceptable in a civilised society.
If you accept that which is the opposite of what you believe then that surely says something about the weakness of your belief, or perhaps the inherant weakness of what you believe in?
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
-
Oakman wrote:
Facts are provable
Not all facts are provable that's precisely the point. If it's a fact that God doesn't exist then it's still not provable. If it's a fact that he does exist it isn't provable but one or the other must be a fact.
Oakman wrote:
You are extremely presumptious to speak for Him.
Whay would say that? He speaks for himself and if he speaks through me then it is because he chooses to. Will you place yourself between me and God as judge?
Oakman wrote:
High endorphins are not the presence of God. If you saw a Burning Bush create tablets of stone that codify the laws or some other equally physical object then the answer is yes.
So you are the judge of what is and is not an experience of God? I never said anything about the nature of my experience and yet you presume to know something about it.
Oakman wrote:
With that admission you are on the road to understanding.
:laugh: No my friend we are on very different roads you and I and 'understanding' is not the destination of either of them.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Not all facts are provable
that's a meaningless noise. Since facts are defined as those things which are objectively provable. You have just said that not all of those things which are provable aren't provable. x=!x
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Whay would say that? He speaks for himself and if he speaks through me then it is because he chooses to. Will you place yourself between me and God as judge?
That's actually amusing. But Osama bin Laden claims the same thing and offers no less proof than you.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
So you are the judge of what is and is not an experience of God? I never said anything about the nature of my experience and yet you presume to know something about it.
Actually I was resisting your attempts to rewrite my question so you wouldn't look like a fool answering it. The nature of your experience is irrelevant.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
No my friend we are on very different roads you and I and 'understanding' is not the destination of either of them
I'm heading for the Summerlands. And when I am ready, I'll take another ride on the rollercoaster.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface