RE: Argument from "better to seek proper vision".
October 24, 2017 at 11:13 am
(This post was last modified: October 24, 2017 at 11:50 am by emjay.)
(October 24, 2017 at 10:45 am)Khemikal Wrote: You're coming at it from the wrong angle Em. The point of these "arguments" is a show of religious devotion. They're mantras..not meant to argue a position; but to reenforce an existing belief through recitation and response. That's why they contain mystical language, and also why they so often drift into admonishions towards doubt and questions of the motives or nature of any criticism.
It's meant to set up a religious melodrama with dogmatically proscribed boundaries as self fulfilling prophecy, and in so doing further convince the already convinced.
It's funny you should say all that because, just out of curiosity, I've started reading the Quran today, and read it for a few hours already... and it struck me that it was very similar to how he talks; framing 'deniers' as destined for hell as willfully rejecting an evident truth (which it is not... just bold assertions and threats to non-believers... so far). So I get what you're saying here about it being a possible melodrama he's playing out, trying to cast us into the role described in the Quran.
ETA: It could also possibly explain another thing that was curious to me; so far, from what I've read, there doesn't seem to be much leniency towards non-believers... in other words it doesn't seem to be a religion all about conversion... it's you either accept it as evident or you reject it and are forever after beyond the pail, destined for hell. So with that in mind, I wondered what his purpose was in preaching to us non-believers... if not conversion, then what else? So what you've said about a self-reinforcing and self-fulfilling prophesy makes perfect sense as a possibility in light of that.
