(November 27, 2012 at 3:00 am)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I also happen to be doing an assignment for school. If any of you who ARE Christian could answer this, that would be just awesome. Good luck!
Well, I'm a Christian, so I guess that makes me a legitimate respondent.
Quote:1. What do you believe about make-believe?
...uh, I guess I believe that make-believe is make-believe. This question makes no sense.
I believe that flights of fancy are just passing thoughts in the mind of whatever person is imagining them.
Quote:2. What do you believe about "nothing"?
...uh, again, weird question. It's a useful concept for constructing and analyzing certain propositions. For example, "Nothing is better than true love" means "There does not exist anything that is better than true love". Contrarily, "Anything is better than nothing" means something more like "If S is a non-empty set, then having S is better than not having anything."
Quote:3. What do you believe about the gullibility of human beings?
Human beings are prone to certain cognitive biases and the influence of emotion rather than reason, resulting in frequent irrational judgments.
Quote:4. If God doesn't believe in atheists, what does he think of agnostics?
Well, if we assume "God doesn't believe in atheists", and we suppose that X is an agnostic, then all we can conclude is "If X is atheist, then God doesn't believe in X." It depends on how you define 'agnostic'; if agnostics aren't necessarily atheists, then you can't really deduce anything vis-a-vis agnostics from the given assumption.
Quote:5. What do you believe about life and suffering?
Suffering seems to be a part of (everyday?) life for most people. Whether we're better off from the suffering...hard to tell. It's difficult to weigh the known history against counterfactuals--what would have happened if a certain instance of suffering had not occurred--since in general we do not have access to accurate counterfactuals.
Quote:6. How do we get knowledge?
- a. From the assertions of ancient books.
- b. Observation/experience.
- c. Pulling stuff out of your ass.
Depends on what you mean by "knowledge". If you mean something like Plato's "justified true belief", then if we are to know p, we must meet the 'knowledge' criteria.
That is, we must:
1) believe p, and
2) we must have a justification for our belief in p.
Belief in p can be acquired in many different ways--perhaps from a book, perhaps "pulled out of your ass" (i.e., you thought up p yourself), perhaps as a judgment or inference based on our experiences.
What it means to acquire a justification for our belief in p will depend on your theory of justification. If you're a modern American, your theory of justification might be that a justification for p must take the form of a chain of reasoning or evidence regarding p. (How you access whatever you define "evidence" to mean will of course depend on your epistemology).
So (a), (b), and © can each be legitimate sources of truth.
Quote:7. Why is God's beard grey?
God has a beard?
Quote:8. How do you determine right and left?
Well, first you have to understand what is meant by "right" and "left" (i.e., the arbitrary assignment of coordinate directions). Determining which direction is which in a given circumstance amounts to being sufficiently aware of context.
For example, if someone is facing you and asks, "Which direction is right?" You would probably point to your left, which would of course be his right.
Quote:9. What is the meaning of life for God?
To exist authentically according to His nature, I imagine.
Quote:10. If woman was created from a rib, why do we need condoms "ribbed for her pleasure"?
Because women get pleasure from certain stimuli in their vaginal canal.
Quote:11. If you have a specific denomination you belong to, please explain how it's anymore truthful than all the many other denominations.
I don't have a specific denomination.
Quote:12. Which is more closely related to the trinity?
- a. Multiple personality disorder.
- b. Polyamory
- c. Polytheism.
- d. The three stooges
Probably ©.
Quote:13. If God is all-good and all-knowing, how can he ever play a game fairly?
If God knows everything, then He knows what He would do if He weren't omniscient. He can then just do that.
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
