@freddo


From Wiki;

Quote:Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Jupiter or Johnny), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet or person).[7] Proper nouns are not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier (such as "any" or "some"), and are used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have.

In English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, proper nouns are usually capitalized.[8] Languages differ in whether most elements of multiword proper nouns are capitalised (e.g., American English House of Representatives) or only the initial element (e.g., Slovenian Državni zbor 'National Assembly'). In German, nouns of all types are capitalized. The convention of capitalizing all nouns was previously used in English, but ended circa 1800.[citation needed] In America, the shift in capitalization is recorded in several noteworthy documents. The end (but not the beginning) of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and all of the Constitution (1787) show nearly all nouns capitalized, the Bill of Rights (1789) capitalizes a few common nouns but not most of them, and the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment (1865) only capitalizes proper nouns.

From reading that,it seems to me that "'God" is correct referring specifically the Abrahamic god,YHWH.However,I admit I find it all a bit confusing.

(July 23, 2009 at 10:06 pm)freddo Wrote: Oh dear, you have left yourself wide open to some doozy questions!

Why do Christians, the Catholic faith in particular, put so emphasis on prayer when it so obviously doesn't work? Or do I lack an understanding of how it is supposed to work?

I prayed for a Lamborghini when I was a Christian. It never arrived!

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of prayers ever having been answered.

This kind of prayer is not a prayer which comes out of serious faith, but out of selfish desires. You are not even praying for what you remotely need, but for what you desire, for what you lust almost. You are even sinning by praying for something like this. If you only wanted what you need, you would not be praying for materialistic desires. You would be praying for the salvation of your soul, which is the most important thing in your life.

(July 23, 2009 at 10:06 pm)freddo Wrote: While Hitler and his SS were killing so many people Christians the World over prayed for it to stop. It did stop eventually, after 12 to 14 million people had been killed because they were either Jewish, or homosexuals or had disabilities or were the wrong color. It stopped with Hitler's suicide. It didn't stop because of prayer.

The other thing you don't seem to understand at all is the whole center of the biblical -Christian- view of history, which is this: God made everything, and made man. God made man the god of this world, by giving him freedom. Human freedom is what you seem to be unable to understand. God gave man the freedom to reject goodness, to reject God, or to accept it.

If God wasn't going to give man freedom, he wouldn't have let Adam and Eve betray him. But he did let them do it. That's why you need to understand what happened in the Garden of Eden, why it's so valuable and informing a story for the the state of affairs in the world from a Christian perspective. Man separated himself from God, and God respected mans choice.

Hitler is no different from Adam there, for Hitler is only the consequence of his action, of the separation from God. Humanity is fallen.

If we pray that God erases Adams choice, we pray that God takes away humanitys freedom, which is fundamentally opposed to the purpose of Gods relationship to man, (and indeed mans relationship to man) which is freely giving charity of our very existence - love. God cannot force man to love - then it's not love.

However, all the people who are murdered or suffer all their lives, we cannot say that their suffering will not be compensated, in the next life. So from a Christian worldview, even those who suffer the injustice of their fellow man, and separation from God, in this life, might be a part of the True Church in the next one and have all their earthly suffering erased by boundless and perpetual happiness and presence of God.

(July 24, 2009 at 8:24 am)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 23, 2009 at 10:06 pm)freddo Wrote: While Hitler and his SS were killing so many people Christians the World over prayed for it to stop. It did stop eventually, after 12 to 14 million people had been killed because they were either Jewish, or homosexuals or had disabilities or were the wrong color. It stopped with Hitler's suicide. It didn't stop because of prayer.

The other thing you don't seem to understand at all is the whole center of the biblical -Christian- view of history, which is this: God made everything, and made man. God made man the god of this world, by giving him freedom. Human freedom is what you seem to be unable to understand. God gave man the freedom to reject goodness, to reject God, or to accept it.

Firstly, the effect of prayer for health of patients in hospital has been tested with negative results. Not the patients themselves were praying but other people were praying for thge patients, so there is no selfishness involved here.

What you don't seem to get is that God made kid cancer that man is putting much effort in to cure. What is your reasonable explanation for that?

(July 24, 2009 at 12:15 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Firstly, the effect of prayer for health of patients in hospital has been tested with negative results. Not the patients themselves were praying but other people were praying for thge patients, so there is no selfishness involved here.

Right. And I could quote you another study that says something else. It says nothing. It's missing the point and pretending that prayer is something which it is clearly not. Prayer is not a capitalist game where you cash in a certain amount of material success depending on whether someone was praying for you or how frequently they were praying. Prayer is the appeal to Gods will, it's the process of nearing yourself to Gods will and growing spiritually by your relationship to God. You can't measure that in quantities or in surveys. You can see it when it is there, though, and it is called sanctity and holiness.

(July 24, 2009 at 12:15 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: What you don't seem to get is that God made kid cancer that man is putting much effort in to cure. What is your reasonable explanation for that?

I have already given the explanation, but you don't seem to get it.

Mortality is a natural process of change. Man was made with a physical body which would be subject to the same mortality as the rest of the everchanging physical realm, if it was to be merely that - another body in nature with no special status. However, that isn't the case.

The point is that man was given the privileges to rise up above createdness, not by becoming uncreated by nature, but by grace. Man rejected this grace and man has thus cast himself down to chaotic changeability, death and material insignificance by acting against God and immortality, and becoming more like the unthinking natural realm which we were never meant to. This is generality affirmed as "the fall" in Christianity.

That's what necessitated the incarnation of God into humanity - the re-union of divine and human nature, so that man could participate in this uncreatedness again through Jesus Christ and achieve Godlikeness - immortality. God is therefore still our destination. We are to join God in his Godly nature, by accepting his graces, and God is unchanging and therefore himself immortality - the antithesis of the changeability of created nature. He is himself wholly apart from it, and man is supposed to rise up above the created nature and become closer to Gods uncreated nature.

So that man is at the mercy of the changing and mortal nature of the rest of the natural realm right now is because of the original rejection of Gods graces, because we are far away from God, because we are following our own plan and not God, who is immortality, unchangeability and everlasting. Because Adam and Eve chose to reduce themselves to what was not destined for them - mortality, to act like animals and not humans. This is called original sin.

(July 23, 2009 at 8:59 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 23, 2009 at 7:13 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: You write god with capital 'G', known to be the name of the christian god. For this you give no reason.

In that particular post, no, because then I will be repeating the same things in every post where I even mention God. I prefer the way I did it, which was to start with giving some of my foundations for my worldview, and then presuppose that as part of the debate. I already explained why I believe in the God of Christianity, that is, a transcendental and one God who created the universe and everything in it. I defined God as "pure actuality", which is the only concept necessary to know to understand God logically.

(July 23, 2009 at 7:13 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Why cannot Hindu be the noncontingent actuality that embodies absolute morality?

What do you mean "Hindu"? That simply makes no sense. If what you are asking is "Can the Hindu god or gods be the noncontingent actuality that embodies absolute morality?", then you should not ask me, but a Hindu, since the question depends entirely on whether that Hindu god even is held to be noncontingent and pure actuality. Since that is (as far as I know) not the case, Hinduism is simply irrelevant.

Well, what I meant with 'Hindu', was a Hundu god and you grasped that idea pretty well I think. But come to think of it, I could have said "vacuum cleaner" for I define my vacuum cleaner to be nothing less than non-contingent actuality (thanx LEDO). And don't ask me to show that my vacuum cleaner is indeed noncontingent actuality, it is so by definition and that it manifests itself also as my vacuum cleaner has nothing to do with the fact that it is non-contingent actuality.

Jon Paul Wrote:The question you are asking is though, how we know what absolute morality the noncontingent God I am speaking of does embody, and why we can't just choose an arbitrary belief as to what that is.

There are several answers to this. One is, of course, the only relevant one to what I was originally speaking about. Which was that without an absolute/objective morality as properly basic to your epistemic structure, there is no way to make moral judgements on others behalf, or in other words, there is no transcendental morality to begin with.

This is plain false or badly stated. In social groups unknowing of the christian god it is perfectly possible to make moral judgements on others behalf. In ancient Rome before the influence of christians there was moral as testified by roman legislature. In ancient Greece before the christians there was moral, in every tribe that never before had contact with the 'civilized world' moral has been found. So to have moral in society you don't need a transcendental morality. This is amply testified by non-christian human history. Moral judgement is everywhere and has been everywhere. So, if you assert that in order to have moral judgement a transcendental moral is a necessary prerequisite you have to give proof for this, because it is in flagrant contradiction with the body of evidence from human history. What are your arguments for that?

Jon Paul Wrote:That is simply an analysis of a Christian versus a non-Christian worldview, or more specifically, atheist or non-monotheist. However, what you are getting into is something completely different, as always in these kinds of debates.

We're investigating the christian moral concepts here, so it seems reasonable to me to investigate some of the characteristics of it. Or are there things about it you rather kept hidden?

Jon Paul Wrote:If we want to get into how we can know which morality is embodied by Gods transcendent being, the short and logical answer is really that of Godlikeness. Since God is the creator of everything, including nature as we know it, and maintains us in existence as free charity, our goal is really just to accept that, by acting in accord to his will. It's only a short preamble to the many conclusions that follow. It's a matter of seeing the absolute end, both by direct and more apophatic means, that is, as it reflects in nature. Which is where the precepts of natural law come in, and the reflection of the morality embodied in God by recognising his will as it manifests in nature. By this, what we can do is really to follow Gods end which also means following Gods being.

You're much too hasty my friend. You claim that your god created everything including nature (what is your evidence?), that he maintains us in existence as free charity (what is your evidence?), and that our goal is to accept that (you're wrong there, it definitely is not my goal). And that is only a short preamble. Man have you some serious homework to substantiate this! Furthermore, shouldn't people with a goal know about that goal themselves?

Since your god created everything, he must have created kid cancer. I reckon that must have been a lot of fun for the transcendent being to give existence to kid cancer as free charity. And our medical scientists would of course be out of work if he would have neglected to give us the whole plethora of grueling diseases. And now, you suggest, we can learn a moral lesson from this fact by just following him obediently without questions as interpreted by roman catholic dogma.

I did not ask you what we mortals can do according to RC-tradition, but I asked you to substantiate the claim that your god holds absolute moral. So far you have managed to present me a circular definition that I can plug my vacuum cleaner into, but you haven't been able to bring forward any substantive arguments. And it is not a reason for me at all to follow my vacuum cleaner obediently in every direction it takes me, although I must confess it looks that way when observing my vacuum cleaning activities from a distance.

Jon Paul Wrote:But of course, that entirely entails that God exists to begin with on the grounds I have given. If not, there is no objective reason to follow any will except your own.

Now we're talking. Bring on the arguments, I say.

Jon Paul Wrote:In this sense, man in his natural state did not need revelation to do something good; nor is revelation necessary to know basic moral directives, or rather, the ends manifest in nature.

As I argumented in the above.

Jon Paul Wrote:What revelation is necessary for, or let's rather say, why revelation is even relevant, is due to the nature of man. Man is, even if we don't want to admit it, the highest natural being, one of the very ends of anything. Man is the very natural being who can say: I am here. And we are. The point is really that man is like God more than anything else God has created: man has mind and intellect, man has knowledge, man has great power, man can kill himself or make himself something nearer to immortal than a mere beast can make itself,...

We have some abilities, yes, please proceed to lead me to a staggering profound argument that proofs your god holds absolute moral. Also this triggers another question. Is man the only animal that needs moral? Why should bonobos have social behaviour with elements like punishment and reward, them being only wild beasts that only want to tear the whole place down, just like atheists? BTW, my vacuum cleaner remains indifferent to your argumentation so far.

Jon Paul Wrote:...man has moral understanding as a result of his natural intellect,...

OK, is this a conclusion from thorough antropological research or just a hunch you have? And if man has that, why would he need a transcendental moral?

Jon Paul Wrote:...and therefore has the abillity to receive on a higher plane than anything in existence, understanding and relationship to God - by being more like God. Man can thus have conscious, intellectual and knowing sympathy and communication with God, in a sense that no beast has the faculties to do so.

OK, so catholicism is a bit like feeling you're god yourself, on your high level plane where you can have rational discourse with the big boss himself. Can we disagree with the boss then? I ask because in similar situations at work objectivity is easily jeopardized, and hell, although supplied free of charity, does not seem a fun place to be.

Jon Paul Wrote:How we can know when God has revealed himself and when he has not? We can know it by the already existing ends and facts of human nature and nature of reality in general - and the consonance between the proposed revelation and the truth we can naturally and indirectly know of what God has to be like.

So we have to be in tune with nature and cosmos, that sounds awfully like the sisxties, I'd say. Is god a hippie? Like in that song 'Eclipse' by Pink Floyd: "....And everything under the sun is in tune, But the sun is eclipsed by the moon." A real bummer that last sentence.

Jon Paul Wrote:And since we can establish what God has to be like by the means he himself has provided, aside from any revelation,..

Can we? What part of this course did I miss? From which means do you conclude what?

Jon Paul Wrote:...this means we can evaluate revelations with a firm starting ground. This means that for instance, Hinduism is excluded as a possibility.

Missed that argument again. Can you repeat for me why exactly Hinduism disqualifies for the task?

Jon Paul Wrote:But the more important fact is that we are basically open to God by recognising his existence, and thus we are also open to personal revelation - which is possible if God exists - since with God, all things are possible, but there would be no reason for the God we can know aside from his revelations to reveal himself personally to some being that he maintains in existence who has no and desires no and blocks every connection to God.

Well I have put this to the test when I was young. Didn't work for me. I badly needed to believe like my parents, although they were not forcing anything upon me really. I never heard god speak to me, not silently inside my head, not aloud from a burning bush. Nothing at all. There was only absolute silence. What would you conclude from that?

Jon Paul Wrote:With enough logically necessary criteria and enough natural reason applied, we as Christians can thus be justified in our evaluations as to Gods revelation - as to what is, and what is not, as to what can be, and what cannot, based on the moral content and its consonance or nonconsonance to Gods being as it is attested aside from revelation, and through the openness which opens the door to personal guidances. But the discussion, down into details, is much longer and I can only very simplistically lay out some basics here as I've done.

Very entertaining and all, like Grimm, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (don't laugh) but not something like an argument that sticks. Maybe stick to the question asked next time?

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Well, what I meant with 'Hindu', was a Hundu god and you grasped that idea pretty well I think.

A Hindu or any other person can have a limited grasp of the true God, even if their religion says something else, because the true God can be known through natural reason. That doesn't mean there are several true Gods, but simply that the one true God can be understood imperfectly outside the fullness of the truth. Like most other things that can be known.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: But come to think of it, I could have said "vacuum cleaner" for I define my vacuum cleaner to be nothing less than non-contingent actuality (thanx LEDO). And don't ask me to show that my vacuum cleaner is indeed noncontingent actuality, it is so by definition and that it manifests itself also as my vacuum cleaner has nothing to do with the fact that it is non-contingent actuality.

A vacuumcleaner is an object in spacetime which is composed of matter. It's impure actuality is not a matter of definition but empirical observation. It depends on something else in spacetime for its existence. It depends on a causal procession prior to itself for it's own actuality and formation. Indeed, it depends on the very existence of spacetime for it's own existence. This is radical contingency.

But you can define everything as you like, if you want and if it pleases you. But it won't help you understanding reality.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: This is plain false or badly stated. In social groups unknowing of the christian god it is perfectly possible to make moral judgements on others behalf.

But that has nothing to do with what I was talking about. People can adhere to moral standards and conventions as much as they like. But that does not make that morality any less subjective, and that does not mean another society won't have another moral convention which directly contradicts it. You need an outside, objective standard to _objectively_ judge which subjective moral contention is the right one.

That doesn't mean you can't still make meaningless subjective affirmations of morality. But that doesn't make them any less subjective and unbinding.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Moral judgement is everywhere and has been everywhere. So, if you assert that in order to have moral judgement a transcendental moral is a necessary prerequisite you have to give proof for this, because it is in flagrant contradiction with the body of evidence from human history. What are your arguments for that?

You simply are either addressing a straw man or genuinely don't understand my argument.

What I am talking about is not whether or not people can make moral judgements. They can, out of subjective grounds which have no objective authority. What I addressed was the grounds of moral judgements, in the epistemic structure of respectively a) Christian worldviews, b) non-Christian/non-monotheological worldviews, and that without God you have no way of transcending subjective societal conventions and subjective moral standards which have no everlasting authority. That fact nullifies all moral contentions as illusory abstractions which can be ignored with no transcendental consequence, in an atheist worldview.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: You're much too hasty my friend. You claim that your god created everything including nature (what is your evidence?), that he maintains us in existence as free charity (what is your evidence?), and that our goal is to accept that (you're wrong there, it definitely is not my goal). And that is only a short preamble.

You are completely misunderstanding what I was trying to achieve with that post.

If you are looking, again, for evidence, then you need to stop asking questions which are not primarily concerned with evidence, which PRESUPPOSE that Christian dogma exist, and then asking for evidence when I answer those questions which already presuppose the existence of Christian dogma.
Unless you start understanding what I am saying, I will no longer respond to your posts.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Since your god created everything, he must have created kid cancer.

If you are speaking of cancer in humans, I have already explained the Christian stance on mortality in humanity and this is simply another instance of that.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote:

Jon Paul Wrote:But of course, that entirely entails that God exists to begin with on the grounds I have given. If not, there is no objective reason to follow any will except your own.

Now we're talking. Bring on the arguments, I say.

We are not "talking" now. You have come into a thread and ignored everything I've already said. I have brought on the arguments; you have ignored it and expect me to repeat my rational reasons for belief in God just for your convenience. Go to page 1 and 2.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Can we? What part of this course did I miss?

Again, with such questions, you are showing you have not read my early posts in this threads or that you did not understand them.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Missed that argument again. Can you repeat for me why exactly Hinduism disqualifies for the task?

Because Hinduism explicitly contradicts the nature of God as it can be known through natural reason.

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: I did not ask you what we mortals can do according to RC-tradition, but I asked you to substantiate the claim that your god holds absolute moral.

I have already answered that question, even though you don't realise it. The reason you don't realise it is probably that I didn't explicitly use the term "moral" in my explanation.

(July 24, 2009 at 3:33 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: But come to think of it, I could have said "vacuum cleaner" for I define my vacuum cleaner to be nothing less than non-contingent actuality (thanx LEDO). And don't ask me to show that my vacuum cleaner is indeed noncontingent actuality, it is so by definition and that it manifests itself also as my vacuum cleaner has nothing to do with the fact that it is non-contingent actuality.

A vacuumcleaner is an object in spacetime which is composed of matter.

Only it's local manifestation is, it's essence equals nothing less than the whole of non-contingent actuality.

Purple Rabbit Wrote:It's impure actuality is not a matter of definition but empirical observation.

How dare you to speak with such tone about the almighty vacuum cleaner. Was Jezus physical body impure and unworthy of celestial dictatorship? Not according to your doctrine I think. Would you conclude from empirical observation of Jezus in his impure physical embodiment that he could not be god? Think again.

Purple Rabbit Wrote:It depends on something else in spacetime for its existence. It depends on a causal procession prior to itself for it's own actuality and formation. Indeed, it depends on the very existence of spacetime for it's own existence. This is radical contingency.

If that's true for my vacuum cleaner than it is true for the Christ that once walked the earth. Still the RC doctrine claims that Christ and the non-contingent actuality are one and the same. You should be happy with my vacuum cleaner as a physical manifestation of the non-contingent actuality.

Do some sincere repetence, kneel and pray in awe to my vacuum cleaner or he'll suck you into an eternal whirling frenzie.

(July 24, 2009 at 3:56 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Only it's local manifestation is, it's essence equals nothing less than the whole of non-contingent actuality.

Right. The vaccum cleaner has no necessary qualities of pure actuality (such as omnipotence, omniscience, eternality, immutability, mind, will, intellect, absolute perfection by being void of potentiality) and has done nothing to show that it has, and has no special significance within the course of the natural evolution of the universe. It is an entirely absurd suggestion.

What you fail to see is that the matter of the impure actuality of the universe only lays the foundation for the necessity of monotheism, which has nothing to do with specific questions like the divinity of Jesus. The one relevance to that is the fundamental coherence between scripture and pure actuality. God is defined as pure actuality. Yahweh means to be, and in the scriptures, this Yahweh, or He who is, defines his identity as "I am that I am". And Jesus defines himself as I AM as well, over 40 times in the New Testament, as in "Before Abraham was, I AM". All we have is the coherence between what we can know and what we need revelation to know. And here there is such a coherence. What follows are the attestations of omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and so on, that we would expect for pure actuality's selfdemonstration.

We can prove that God exists by natural means, and we can disprove theories that make no sense and are logically incoherent and contradictory of reality. We can also know that humanity has a special relationship to God, that humanity has been generated in likeness of God, by being intellectual, by having great power, by having great knowledge, by being almost the god of the universe. Indeed even the fact that humanity understands the necessity of the transcendental God for the universes existence makes for this teleotic relationship.

We can know, by natural means therefore, that suggesting a fundamental teleotic relationship between God and humanity is rational, due to the likeness that exists between pure actuality and humanity analogiously. From that, we can only compare different worldviews and see what is more likely to be true, and a Christian worldview is certainly more likely to be true given these grounds, than a worldview which does not affirm Christianity to be true.

But since this is the kind of argument you are going to continue with (which has nothing to do with the issue at hand, which I was dealing with in the post you responded to), we can either simply continue forever with absurd ideas, or I can simply stop wasting my time discussing with you. You're simply unable to stay on one topic and focus on what the topic is about.

(July 24, 2009 at 4:58 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 24, 2009 at 3:56 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Only it's local manifestation is, it's essence equals nothing less than the whole of non-contingent actuality.

Right. The vaccum cleaner has no necessary qualities of pure actuality (such as omnipotence, omniscience, eternality, immutability, mind, will, intellect, absolute perfection by being void of potentiality) and has done nothing to show that it has, and has no special significance within the course of the natural evolution of the universe. It is an entirely absurd suggestion.

I read little repentence in there. What you fail to see is that my vacuum cleaner only is a temporary physical manifestation of non-contingent actuality just what you claim for the Christ. Of course it has all the powers that go along with that, such as omnipotence, omniscience, eternality, immutability, mind, will, intellect, absolute perfection by being void of potentiality. That same non-contingent actuality that kicked your ass into this world long before you knew what happened. I deeply reject your suggestion that it is an entirely absurd suggestion. I did not spit on your Christ did I...so far. On your knees and pray three vacuum cleaner bags full of repentence son.

Jon Paul Wrote:What you fail to see is that the matter of the impure actuality of the universe only lays the foundation for the necessity of monotheism,..

Correction: not monotheism but rather monovacuumcleanerism.

Jon Paul Wrote:...which has nothing to do with specific questions like the divinity of Jesus. The one relevance to that is the fundamental coherence between scripture and pure actuality. God is defined as pure actuality. Yahweh means to be, and in the scriptures, this Yahweh, or He who is, defines his identity as "I am that I am". And Jesus defines himself as I AM as well, over 40 times in the New Testament, as in "Before Abraham was, I AM".

You haven't even read the manual of my vacuum cleaner! It clearly defines the vacuum cleaner as pure actuality: "used properly, your vacuum cleaner will function errorless". It says "errorless" not simply "I am a vacuum cleaner" (everybody can see that)! And it can clean carpets too!! Do you now what that means?! Of course it means that it is pure actuality itself!

Jon Paul Wrote:All we have is the coherence between what we can know and what we need revelation to know. And here there is such a coherence. What follows are the attestations of omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and so on, that we would expect for pure actuality's selfdemonstration.

Are you even on this earth? You just attached omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and the whole of non-contingent actuality to the words "I am" written in a book that is a text bundle from multiple tribal sources of goat herders that lived several thousands years ago, copied, altered, revised, re-interpreted many times since then. If that is coherence to you, than anything can follow.

Jon Paul Wrote:We can prove that God exists by natural means,

Another claim you haven't substantiated.

Jon Paul Wrote:..and we can disprove theories that make no sense and are logically incoherent and contradictory of reality.

My vacuum cleaner exists and is completely in sync with reality, it is a physical manifestation of non-contingent actuality (or just plain reality as it is referred to outside theologian circles). You have no shred of evidence to deny this.

Jon Paul Wrote:We can also know that humanity has a special relationship to God, that humanity has been generated in likeness of God, by being intellectual, by having great power, by having great knowledge, by being almost the god of the universe. Indeed even the fact that humanity understands the necessity of the transcendental God for the universes existence makes for this teleotic relationship.

This is a typical RC trait. The urge to be godlike.

Jon Paul Wrote:We can know, by natural means therefore, that suggesting a fundamental teleotic relationship between God and humanity is rational, due to the likeness that exists between pure actuality and humanity analogiously. From that, we can only compare different worldviews and see what is more likely to be true, and a Christian worldview is certainly more likely to be true given these grounds, than a worldview which does not affirm Christianity to be true.

Argumentam ad arrogantiam. You have done nothing to show that the powers you claim for your god cannot be the powers of a Hindu god or Zoroastra or my vacuum cleaner. You only babble about how plain this is to see from the likeness between you and your god, that it follows from nature, that you have a special telephone line with god who says so. Your argument, eloquent as it may be, is utterly hollow.

Jon Paul Wrote:But since this is the kind of argument you are going to continue with (which has nothing to do with the issue at hand, which I was dealing with in the post you responded to), we can either simply continue forever with absurd ideas, or I can simply stop wasting my time discussing with you. You're simply unable to stay on one topic and focus on what the topic is about.

If you cannot come up with hard evidence to distinguish my claim for my vacuum cleaner from your claim of your christian god, than you don't deserve my devoted attention to your postings.

(July 23, 2009 at 6:54 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 23, 2009 at 6:11 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: What made Catholicism "great" was money, power and a great deal of effort spent destroying the views and scriptures of anyone who disagreed.

If it's so, then not enough power, money or effort has been spent, apparently, since you disagree.

Or more accurately the slow push towards rights and freedom stopped the [expletive deleted]'s!

Way to avoid the basic point being made though!

(July 23, 2009 at 6:54 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(July 23, 2009 at 6:11 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Oh, and BTW, Pope Benny is a Nazi, ACHTUNG!!!!

Of course he is, because all Germans in military or official service by said regime were Nazis, just like every American is a militaristic imperialist who wants to start wars in as many countries as possible to boost the economy.

And that explains how he was in the Hitler youth movement how?

(July 23, 2009 at 6:54 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: Or maybe regardless of all cases, people are just easy to fool into bad things, as long as they are told it's for common good.

Then maybe he shouldn't be the [expletive deleted] head of an organisation that claims to be working for the good of humanity?

Kyu