(March 29, 2020 at 10:51 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: WinterHold is not aware that saint Augustine whome Belacqua follows and promotes, would have him at least tortured if not killed for believing in "distorted" interpretation of Bible. Real friends those two.

This is interesting. 

I don't promote or follow Augustine. But I think I understand why you say I do.

This relates to Hofstadter's classic book about anti-intellectualism. For him, someone who is not anti-intellectual can spend time studying a subject that he doesn't agree with. 

This is obvious in the case of, say, a historian of WWII. Such a person could describe the opinions of Nazis without being a Nazi. Likewise, someone who studies theology can describe someone else's thinking without agreeing with it.

I once met a really interesting American guy who had graduated from the Buddhist university in Kyoto. He read primary sources in Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit, and published papers on Buddhist metaphysics. He was not a Buddhist. 

I don't have his level of scholarship, but I share his interest in understanding people who are unlike me. When someone on this forum says something too simple, like "Christians believe in angry sky-daddy," I can point out that this is not true of many Christians, including Augustine. From that you seem to conclude that I agree with him.

You have never read Augustine, or any of his predecessors or those who follow on from him. Your information comes from propagandists like Harris, so you only know about these subjects third or fourth hand. 


Recently you've taken to calling me a bigot, and that's also interesting. You started when I called you one, so it pretty much just seems to be "NO, YOU ARE." When I called you one, I gave a definition of what I mean by the term and reasons as to why you fit the definition. If you have a similar argument as to why you think I'm a bigot, I'd be interested to read it. Maybe I am one, in which case you would be doing me a favor by explaining it. But if you're just using the word in order to mirror it back to me, without a reason, that's boring.

(March 29, 2020 at 8:04 pm)Belacqua Wrote: This is interesting. 

I don't promote or follow Augustine.

(August 12, 2019 at 8:09 am)Belacqua Wrote: I find that people here often have a very specific idea of what the "meaningful" sense of the term is, which is very different from the view of Augustine or Aquinas or Dante.

You don't promote Augustine you promote his writings?

(March 22, 2019 at 10:44 pm)Belacqua Wrote: You could read what St. Augustine had to say about why the OT shouldn't be taken literally. Most theologians interpret the Bible with a 4-level hermeneutical system, with a literal reading being the lowest. 

Why Augustine. Why not ask Mavis in the newsagent.

(January 30, 2019 at 3:33 am)Belacqua Wrote: All of these books will be useful in pointing you to primary sources. If you're interested in the field, you'll eventually want to read Augustine, etc.

All roads lead to Augustine?

(November 4, 2018 at 8:11 pm)Belacqua Wrote: And Augustine is not responsible for anybody's greasy apologetics.

You're not a fan of this Augustine then?

I'll leave you with this gem:

(January 18, 2020 at 7:20 pm)Belacqua Wrote: Yes, the first to speculate on this question was St. Augustine, in the long discussion of the nature of time in his Confessions. 

Of course he didn't use the term "big bang," but he did address the feasibility of talking about the concept of "before" anything was created. He thought that time in the absence of anything else didn't make sense. 

I've always suspected that The Reverend Monsignor Georges Lemaître probably knew Augustine's thoughts on this pretty well.

You don't promote Augustine but it was Augustine who gave Lemaître the idea of the big bang?

(March 30, 2020 at 12:15 am)Succubus#2 Wrote: You don't promote Augustine

If you want to understand Christian thought, you have to understand Augustine. 

If you're not interested in Christian thought, there's no reason to understand Augustine.

People who talk about Christian thought without understanding Augustine don't know what they're talking about.

You're claiming you need to understand Augustine in order to understand eg; Ken Ham?

(March 30, 2020 at 7:32 am)Mr Greene Wrote: You're claiming you need to understand Augustine in order to understand eg; Ken Ham?

If you want to pretend that Ken Ham is an accurate representation of a huge and diverse group of people, then you shouldn't read Augustine. 

Or Aquinas, or Dante, or Cusanus, or Boehme, or Weil, or many others.

Take a look around you, the caliber of the believers that confront us is rather glaring.
I rather doubt any of them are avid bibliophiles.

(March 30, 2020 at 7:23 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(March 30, 2020 at 7:32 am)Mr Greene Wrote: You're claiming you need to understand Augustine in order to understand eg; Ken Ham?

If you want to pretend that Ken Ham is an accurate representation of a huge and diverse group of people, then you shouldn't read Augustine. 

Or Aquinas, or Dante, or Cusanus, or Boehme, or Weil, or many others.

Not that diverse. Ham represents the worlds creationists and there are ~160 million of the deranged fucks in the US alone. So yes, he is an accurate representation.

(March 30, 2020 at 8:08 pm)Succubus#2 Wrote:

(March 30, 2020 at 7:23 pm)Belacqua Wrote: If you want to pretend that Ken Ham is an accurate representation of a huge and diverse group of people, then you shouldn't read Augustine. 

Or Aquinas, or Dante, or Cusanus, or Boehme, or Weil, or many others.

Not that diverse. Ham represents the worlds creationists and there are ~160 million of the deranged fucks in the US alone. So yes, he is an accurate representation.

The Pope believes in evolution and Ken Ham doesn't. Are you saying that the Pope isn't Christian?

Please present evidence that Christians are not a diverse group.

(March 30, 2020 at 8:50 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(March 30, 2020 at 8:08 pm)Succubus#2 Wrote: Not that diverse. Ham represents the worlds creationists and there are ~160 million of the deranged fucks in the US alone. So yes, he is an accurate representation.

The Pope believes in evolution and Ken Ham doesn't. Are you saying that the Pope isn't Christian?

Please present evidence that Christians are not a diverse group.

The pope, the Vatican and most Catholics absofuckinglutely do not believe in evolution!
If evolution is guided by God then it's intelligent design aka, creationism.
That so many people are fooled by that cheap Vatican slight of language is mind bending. But then mebbie not, after all they are Catholics.

(March 30, 2020 at 9:54 pm)Succubus#2 Wrote:

(March 30, 2020 at 8:50 pm)Belacqua Wrote: The Pope believes in evolution and Ken Ham doesn't. Are you saying that the Pope isn't Christian?

Please present evidence that Christians are not a diverse group.

The pope, the Vatican and most Catholics absofuckinglutely do not believe in evolution!
If evolution is guided by God then it's intelligent design aka, creationism.
That so many people are fooled by that cheap Vatican slight of language is mind bending. But then mebbie not, after all they are Catholics.

I went to Catholic schools.  We were told the creation story but were taught science when it came to evolution.  In the area where I grew up the population was over 90% Catholic but I was seemingly amongst Catholics who understood that some things in the Bible were simply stories.

Don't think all Catholics are what you have pictured.