Christians vs. nonChristians on issues
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
Excellent post - and that's coming from an atheist! >I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. To admit that is to humble most people here, as many of us (myself included) would never, ever admit we were wrong on something like religion, moral questions, etc.! Kudos. These arguments ARE frustrating, and I am amazed at both how often they come up AND that I still bother arguing with people who I *know* are not going to budge! I actually enjoy the banter/sparring though - I think it is helpful to debate the big issues in life, because you never know if some anonymous reader is going to be swayed by your arguments...
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
J. Eric Vaughan wrote: So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. As long as we're putting a coding spin of this: I might suggest that the DoesGodExist() & GodWroteTheBible() functions are closed-source (the user must have faith that they are coded properly) while the TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() function is open-source (each user is free to interpret the code themselves). "Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away." Jerry Seinfeld
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote: So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. As long as we're putting a coding spin of this: I might suggest that the DoesGodExist() & GodWroteTheBible() functions are closed-source (the user must have faith that they are coded properly) while the TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() function is open-source (each user is free to interpret the code themselves). "Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away." Jerry Seinfeld
I was thinking of these as functions inside the Chritian's mind. In the Christian's mind, these functions call other functions that examine available resources to dtermine in his/her mind whether these functions should return true. That's where you can input data to cause these function to return false in his/her mind.
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote: So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. As long as we're putting a coding spin of this: I might suggest that the DoesGodExist() & GodWroteTheBible() functions are closed-source (the user must have faith that they are coded properly) while the TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() function is open-source (each user is free to interpret the code themselves). "Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away." Jerry Seinfeld
Actually, there's another "method" in the mix as well -- CanWeProveGodsExistenceWithoutDirectScientificObservation(). Lots of people "return false;" without really giving thought to the other methods of determining truth or falsehood of something. (Historical research benefits primarily from other methods of testing truth claims.) John
"You said a whole sentence with no words in it, and I understood you!" -- my wife as she cries about slowly becoming a geek. -
I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
J. Eric Vaughan wrote:
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
You are doing a typical beginners error here: You are forcing the rather lengthy string returned by
TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong()into abool. At least you would get a compiler warning. And that brings us to the point: Fundamental Christians are narrowing the world down to bool decisions of 'Bible' or 'evil'. They do not care for the complexity of the world. Funny, this way they overlook how great gods creation is.
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
CvNC line 14: warning C4777: GodWroteTheBible() : function call is of no importance; did you intend GodWroteEverthing()? -
Actually, there's another "method" in the mix as well -- CanWeProveGodsExistenceWithoutDirectScientificObservation(). Lots of people "return false;" without really giving thought to the other methods of determining truth or falsehood of something. (Historical research benefits primarily from other methods of testing truth claims.) John
"You said a whole sentence with no words in it, and I understood you!" -- my wife as she cries about slowly becoming a geek.John Fisher wrote: Historical research benefits primarily from other methods of testing truth claims. To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found.
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
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CvNC line 14: warning C4777: GodWroteTheBible() : function call is of no importance; did you intend GodWroteEverthing()?Tim Deveaux wrote: GodWroteEverthing()? And I thought it were the countless monkeys hammering on typewriters who wrote everything! :omg:
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
I was always taught that you had to produce , at minimum, some proof for any hypothis. Take that little function DoesGodExist() for example and flesh it out - a Nobel awaits. Can you do this without resorting to the nonproveable therefore ambiguious state called "faith" ? . The function GodWroteTheBible() can be disproven historically but you do your own homework. That homosexuality is an anomaly is easily proven by simply appling what is called "the laws of nature". It does not lead to survival of the species therefore it is an evolutionary dead end. Does that make it "wrong". Probably not. But it does make it useless and therefore not something we should take a lot of time and effort on. However the same logic can be used in regards to religion. What will happen to the "current" state of religious beliefs when (A) Man creates life in the lab and/or (B) Discovers life on another planet and/or (C) Can become practically immortal and/or (D) Can raise the dead. These are all functions that have been relagated to "God".These seem like really way out things but we are getting closer and closer on a daily basis. (A) could probably be done now if not for restraints based on religion. (B) is gonna happen its just a matter of when and who discovers whom. (C) is getting a lot of research thrown at it - may not happen but who knows. (D) Happens every day in emergency rooms all over the world. Botha (A) and )B) will blow the socks off the basis of most mainstream religions. Richard "The man that hath not music in himself and is not moved with concord of sweet sounds is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; Let no man trust him." Shakespeare
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
:laugh: Good post! Only at CodeProject would I not be surprised to see the beginnings of a GOD API.:-D Will Build Nuclear Missile For Food - No Target Too Small
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John Fisher wrote: Historical research benefits primarily from other methods of testing truth claims. To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found.
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
jhwurmbach wrote: To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found. In fact, just about all science is concerned with that - just about every scientific theory around today (including all the major ones) is the result of a vast amount of testing and validation against the evidence that we have. In the cases where the theory does not match up with some particlar part of evidence, then there is usually one of two problems to resolve (and occasionally, both): 1) The theory is incorrect in some detail - and at some point a newer theory is devised that explains things more accurately. This may be a modification of the original theory, or an entirely new one. 2) There is a fault with the evidence (maybe an experiment was done incorrectly, or "historical" data has been misinterpreted). Sometimes we replace a working theory that is fairly accurate at explaining the evidence (Newtonian Physics) with one that is more accurate (Einsteinian Physics). Sometimes we can unify apparently different theories with a single one (eg. replacing electric and magentic theories with electro-magentic theory) - as long as the new theory can explain everything we know and can predict from the original ones.
Ian Darling "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
J. Eric Vaughan wrote: if ( GodWroteTheBible() ) Is that a majority view amongst Christians? Surely no serious theologian has believed that since the 17th century.. Certainly the debate in the Anglican Church is more along the lines of:
namespace IntellectualTennis
{
#undef NET
#define BIBLE HISTORICAL_DOCUMENT;foreach(BIBLE.OldTestament.ScaryBronzeAgeStatement) { while(ArgueAboutWhatItActualyMeans()) { Congregation -= 1; } }}
Ryan
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I was always taught that you had to produce , at minimum, some proof for any hypothis. Take that little function DoesGodExist() for example and flesh it out - a Nobel awaits. Can you do this without resorting to the nonproveable therefore ambiguious state called "faith" ? . The function GodWroteTheBible() can be disproven historically but you do your own homework. That homosexuality is an anomaly is easily proven by simply appling what is called "the laws of nature". It does not lead to survival of the species therefore it is an evolutionary dead end. Does that make it "wrong". Probably not. But it does make it useless and therefore not something we should take a lot of time and effort on. However the same logic can be used in regards to religion. What will happen to the "current" state of religious beliefs when (A) Man creates life in the lab and/or (B) Discovers life on another planet and/or (C) Can become practically immortal and/or (D) Can raise the dead. These are all functions that have been relagated to "God".These seem like really way out things but we are getting closer and closer on a daily basis. (A) could probably be done now if not for restraints based on religion. (B) is gonna happen its just a matter of when and who discovers whom. (C) is getting a lot of research thrown at it - may not happen but who knows. (D) Happens every day in emergency rooms all over the world. Botha (A) and )B) will blow the socks off the basis of most mainstream religions. Richard "The man that hath not music in himself and is not moved with concord of sweet sounds is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; Let no man trust him." Shakespeare
Richard Stringer wrote: Can you do this without resorting to the nonproveable therefore ambiguious state called "faith" ? There is a serious misunderstanding (even among Christians) about what "faith" means. Faith is not some ambiguous state. It just means I've seen evidence that causes me to believe something is true even though I have not personally "witnessed" or seen it. In a courtroom, no one in the jury (hopefully) witnessed the actual crime. But they can be convinced "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the crime was committed by a certain individual. Because of evidence. I've been convinced beyond a reason doubt that God created everything. Because of evidence. Not in spite (which is how most people view "faith"). Humanists, atheists, or anyone else who denies the existance of God ignore that fact that their belief is exactly that: belief. They weren't there in the beginning to witness it. So their conclusions are based on the facts that they have gathered, and they accept their conclusion by "faith" since they were there when it happened.
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote: if ( GodWroteTheBible() ) Is that a majority view amongst Christians? Surely no serious theologian has believed that since the 17th century.. Certainly the debate in the Anglican Church is more along the lines of:
namespace IntellectualTennis
{
#undef NET
#define BIBLE HISTORICAL_DOCUMENT;foreach(BIBLE.OldTestament.ScaryBronzeAgeStatement) { while(ArgueAboutWhatItActualyMeans()) { Congregation -= 1; } }}
Ryan
Ryan Roberts wrote: Is that a majority view amongst Christians? No it isn't...The majority of Christians believe that the Bible is the inpired word of God. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. if(BibleIsTheWordOfGod()) Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
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Ryan Roberts wrote: Is that a majority view amongst Christians? No it isn't...The majority of Christians believe that the Bible is the inpired word of God. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. if(BibleIsTheWordOfGod()) Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
Man, I always have a hard time pciking out names for my functions!! :doh: Thanks for the clarification. :)
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J. Eric Vaughan wrote:
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
You are doing a typical beginners error here: You are forcing the rather lengthy string returned by
TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong()into abool. At least you would get a compiler warning. And that brings us to the point: Fundamental Christians are narrowing the world down to bool decisions of 'Bible' or 'evil'. They do not care for the complexity of the world. Funny, this way they overlook how great gods creation is.
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
jhwurmbach wrote: You are forcing the rather lengthy string returned by TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() into a bool Incorrect, the function returns a boolean and its value is TRUE. The Bible clearly states that the act of homosexuality is wrong (old and new testament). Where many Christians fall down is the same Bible also says that we should love everyone, including homosexuals. That, however, doesn't mean Christians should condone the act. Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
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John Fisher wrote: Historical research benefits primarily from other methods of testing truth claims. To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found.
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation." -- Caius Petronius, Roman Consul, 66 A.D.
jhwurmbach wrote: To be precise, historical research is not concerned with questions of truth at all. All history is about is interpretation of sources and sorting out what the sources tell us. If the goal isn't to find out what really happened (the truth), then why research it in the first place? Is it just fun to come up with fanciful explanations of stuff we find lying around? jhwurmbach wrote: Archeology, OTOH is making testable claims (like "Troy was a city in a backwater province of the hethite empire.") and then tests them against the evidence found. And as I meant to indicate, living researchers did not observe it being placed there. Neither does anyone have a repeatable way of showing that said evidence arrived in said location in whatever way is assumed. Instead, they are speculating based upon logical reasoning about the way things work. This is the distinction between observational science and historical science. One allows us to observe things happenening, while the other forces us to make guesses based on logic and assumptions. However, both are used when trying to determine the correct or truthful answer to a given question. John
"You said a whole sentence with no words in it, and I understood you!" -- my wife as she cries about slowly becoming a geek. -
Ryan Roberts wrote: Is that a majority view amongst Christians? No it isn't...The majority of Christians believe that the Bible is the inpired word of God. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. if(BibleIsTheWordOfGod()) Gary Kirkham A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks
Figured it was just a fundamentalist thing - 'Revealed' vs 'Inspired'. I guess the latter leaves a lot more room for debate. Interestingly mainstream Islamic theology treats the Quran as the revealed word of god, and not derived from Jewish and Chistian beliefs. But then, I don't think that causes his argument to be voided because I know what he intended to say. Just doing the pesky athiest thing :) Ryan
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I've been reading the message boards for a good while now without getting too involved. Certain subject seem to come up over and over and we have conservative "Bible-thumpers" arguing with liberal "go-what-feels-gooders" over morality issues. It seems that everyone is missing the point. :sigh: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. It's worldviews that have to be discussed and fought. I'm a conservative Christian. I hear a lot about how "close-minded" Christians are. Well, yeah, in a sense they are. But in the same way non-Christians are. You're convinced you're right and Christians are convinced they are right. What we have here is a failure to communicate.... Here's how the Christian's worldview affects his view on, say, homosexuality:
if ( DoesGodExist() )
{
if ( GodWroteTheBible() )
{
if ( TheBibleStatesHomosexualityIsWrong() )
{
bHomosexualityIsWrong = true;
}
}
}Once the Christian gets inside he can't get a different answer. You can make all types of statements about "love knows no bounds", blah, blah, blah, but to the Christian this function still returns true To change a Christian's mind you have to get the the first three conditionals to fail, before you can ever convince him that homosexuality is OK. So the Christin's "close-mindedness" is only inside the inner if loop. I'm not afraid of studying the if statements to see if they return true or not. So far, I've put a lot of study into it and I'm conviced that they do. You will have to do a lot of convincing to get my answers to change, but as an honest truth seeker, I'm willing to study and even admit weaknesses in my own arguments, and ultimately change my mind if the truth demands it. And Christians are hard-pressed to convince anybody that anything is wrong without first proving that the 1st three conditional return true. Once they accept those, they'll be no more argument. This is why I avoid arguments about these types of issues. All you do is get frustrated and go nowhere. We're missing the point. Sorry for such a long post. :-O Had to get this of my chest. :) There.. I feel better now...
J. Eric Vaughan wrote: Noone will ever win the argument if we focus on just the issues. True. Instead we should simply accept that you believe A, and I believe B. now what are we to do about it? How can we agree to arrange a set of rules to try a nd keep us both reasobably content? BW CP Member Homepages
"...take what you need and leave the rest..."