The Original Messages of Religion

[Thumpalumpacus]

Oh, the endless equivocation... So much fail.

I think it's very sad that you won't defend the assertions in your original post. They are there. You are making them.

I also think it's sad that you don't realize that argumentation is a valid and important part of communication.

EDIT:
If you're here to learn, then learn:
https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain

Perhaps you should go argue with a boulder, see if you can move it with your words. Then you shall understand the futility of arguing.

I should not have been so obscure with my first post but the excitement was flowing at the time, it is most likely my fault that you think I am asserting that virtues belong to religion. No I was saying that religion had originally helped broadcast them to an entire group of people, like an ancient form of radio.

You have shown no skill on how to ask questions, if you were unsure of what I was trying to say, you could have asked.

I still do not know why you want to engage in a fruitless, frivolous, time consuming ARGUMENT about what a virtue is. But I hope in the future you will focus on more important things than such tripe.

You gave an opinion, he disagreed, and you've disagreed with his disagreement. To now declaim the value of arguing -- and there is value in contesting logical arguments -- is ignoring your own deeds.

If you don't like arguing, stop arguing.

I personally think you're just a troll, artless at that, prepossessed of some grade-school mysticism and thinking you've discovered something grand.

[Chad32]

There seems to be this belief that people never change their mind on the internet, but this is not true for everyone. I don't think Celestine is using the word argue the same way as others, unless he really believes in what I said earlier.

[Celestine]

-he argued

LOL, Celstine. Possessing an argument - is merely possessing a set of statements which can be shown to be valid and sound. That is, the statements appear to be accurate, and the manner in which you've arranged them will have the power to lead to the conclusion you've offered. It has nothing to do with "arguing" in the sense that you seem to be interpreting the word. Does that help you to understand why you've been getting so much flak?

If two people both have arguments (and we all think that we do, of course) that reach entirely contradictory conclusions, it behooves us to figure out why. People just letting things fall from their mouth without considering the strength of their statements, or the statements of others, will lead nowhere but a noisier world.

The sky is blue!
The sky is red!
The sky is black!

on and on, ad infinitum.

A calm sea can turn into a violent storm without notice.

I have 'argued' in the past in your definition, only to reach the definition of what I have now. You say the sea will be calm, but I know it to be treacherous. I learn from my mistakes. Clueless Morgan and a few others were only focused on defining virtues, that is not what this discussion is about.

If I were talking about fishing, would you want me to define hooks?

No, you know what a hook is and I need not define it for you, and it would totally circumvent the more important topic about fishing. I would say that my topic has been circumvented replaced by hooks. You may lock i when you will.

There seems to be this belief that people never change their mind on the internet, but this is not true for everyone. I don't think Celestine is using the word argue the same way as others, unless he really believes in what I said earlier.

Refresh my memory on what you said earlier if you will please.

[Clueless Morgan]

Perhaps you should go argue with a boulder, see if you can move it with your words.

I see that we've moved on to personal attacks. Shall we exchange some yo mamma quips or simply proceed to the girly-man street fight?



Incidentally, why don't you just answer the questions I raised in post #28? I'm sure it would be much more instructive for everyone than watching me kick yo ass (as ShaMan attests, I am a ninja.)

Then you shall understand the futility of arguing.

Perhaps you should actually read the definitions I've provided for what "argument" means, and then you would stop disingenuously equivocating on its meaning.

I should not have been so obscure with my first post but the excitement was flowing at the time, it is most likely my fault that you think I am asserting that virtues belong to religion.

That's not the main thrust of my objection to your OP at all, proving, yet again, that you have not read, nor comprehended, my responses.

I want to know specifically why you think abstinence is a virtue.

You have shown no skill on how to ask questions, if you were unsure of what I was trying to say, you could have asked.

Seriously?

READ POST #28!!!!!!

You can easily make me go away by defending the assertion in your OP that abstinence belongs in your list of virtues. Why? Explain it to me! Convince me and I'll go away! I will shut right up if you have rational reasons for including that in your list!

Why don't you provide those reasons? Or do you not have them and all of this "you're biased against me!" business in meant to distract us from the fact that you don't have reasons for what you posted?

I still do not know why you want to engage in a fruitless, frivolous, time consuming ARGUMENT about what a virtue is.

You gave a list of things you called virtues in your OP.

In a discussion forum.

And then when someone asks you why you think one of them is, actually a virtue, you think it's fruitless, frivolous and time consuming (read: a waste of time) to explain why you think that?

In any case, currently, I'm engaged in this thread because you continually demonstrate that you don't want to learn anything new, that you don't want to have to engage in anything that might result in you having to defend a position that you take, and, frankly, because at this point poking the bear has become fun.

But I hope in the future you will focus on more important things than such tripe.

Are you calling your own posts tripe?

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If I were talking about fishing, would you want me to define hooks?

How can you have a conversation about fishing if the person you're talking to defines hooks differently than you?

In order for the conversation to proceed there must first be agreement on what you're discussing.

I'm not asking you to define what a virtue is, I'm asking you to defend your assertion that abstinence is a virtue.

No, you know what a hook is and I need not define it for you, and it would totally circumvent the more important topic about fishing. I would say that my topic has been circumvented replaced by hooks.

What if you were having this conversation about fishing with a person who defined a "hook" as a whirligig? And you simply proceeded under the assumption that they defined "hook" as you do?

Provide me with an convincing explanation for why abstinence is a virtue, instead of just asserting that it is, and then you're thread will be back on track.

There seems to be this belief that people never change their mind on the internet, but this is not true for everyone. I don't think Celestine is using the word argue the same way as others, unless he really believes in what I said earlier.

Refresh my memory on what you said earlier if you will please.

Allow me to throw your own words back in your face:

Should you not look for the information yourself instead of trusting the word of a stranger?

Why don't you go back through the thread and find Chad's posts? That would be, after all, looking for the information yourself.

[Chad32]

There seems to be this belief that people never change their mind on the internet, but this is not true for everyone. I don't think Celestine is using the word argue the same way as others, unless he really believes in what I said earlier.

Refresh my memory on what you said earlier if you will please.

By earlier I meant the first sentence in my post. Do you really think nobody ever changes their mind from arguing over the internet?

Though I believe I have made comments about sin that you didn't respond to. Sin is well defined in the bible as disobedience to Yahweh. Even though the authors equate sin with wrongdoing, modern audiences sometimes disagree with that the bible says is good and bad.

[The Grand Nudger]

A calm sea can turn into a violent storm without notice.

-agreed?
(obvs a bit of a platitude meant to describe something else....but I understand)

I have 'argued' in the past in your definition, only to reach the definition of what I have now.

The definition of what, and what was your argument?

You say the sea will be calm, but I know it to be treacherous. I learn from my mistakes. Clueless Morgan and a few others were only focused on defining virtues, that is not what this discussion is about.

If the discussion is about what virtues we might salvage from religion, it -must- start there. Otherwise we have nothing to consider.

If I were talking about fishing, would you want me to define hooks?

If there was (or could be) disagreement as to what the term was referring to, yes - assuming you were interested in forming a persuasive argument. Are you sure - even about this, that you and I are talking about the same thing? If you were to say "hooks are too harmful to fish to be humanely used" - thinking of (and describing the issues with) trebles.....and I responded thinking of (and listing the virtues of) circles we wouldn't even be having the same discussion, would we?

No, you know what a hook is and I need not define it for you, and it would totally circumvent the more important topic about fishing. I would say that my topic has been circumvented replaced by hooks. You may lock i when you will.

See above. What you're expressing here is that the things you've decided to call "virtues" are either self evidently so, or that there is no reason to assume that the definition or set differs between you and I. Is either going to be a very productive assumption to make? Does anything about your experience with anyone here (or anywhere else, for that matter) lead you to believe that we all define virtue in the same way, or that all of us would put the same things into the "virtue" box?

[Celestine]

Refresh my memory on what you said earlier if you will please.

By earlier I meant the first sentence in my post. Do you really think nobody ever changes their mind from arguing over the internet?

Though I believe I have made comments about sin that you didn't respond to. Sin is well defined in the bible as disobedience to Yahweh. Even though the authors equate sin with wrongdoing, modern audiences sometimes disagree with that the bible says is good and bad.

No I believe there are a few people out there that are genuinely interested in discourse.

As for sin, it does have it's own definition in the bible, but it can be used secularly. I use it all the time.

what was your argument?

Sacrilege, Heresy, Blasphemy

Even among atheists.

[genkaus]

I shall start arguing by not arguing it's not going to happen.

I don't subscribe to any religious teachings, merely an observer of them

If you didn't subscribe to them then you wouldn't regard the concepts of sin and sacrifice as virtues.

I have nothing to prove, no claims to defend, they are what they are. I am not here to debate this, to be scrupulous until you feel satisfied, I am here to offer ideas.

Your ideas are the claims you you need to defend. If you offer them here without justifying them, then your offers are summarily rejected.

I am concerned that your being here isn't for an interest in unbiased dialogue but rather to promote a long held view you already had.

Promotion would require me to go around starting threads about my views. I haven't done that in a long time. And I agree - my dialogue here is biased in favor of rigorous logical standards.

Ironically, you are the one starting threads which makes you the one with the agenda of promoting your view.

Your comment on sacrifice for others beings says such, we humans have
at times been forced to sacrifice each other so that we might survive, say a group is lost in the middle of nowhere they need food but there is none to be found and so eventually they draw sticks to see who is killed so that they might eat.

Such villainous characters to you are these men who were forced to do by their own need to survive?

Yes. Most certainly. Though still less villainous than Jesus.

The sacrifice of Jesus is not different, according to Catholics and perhaps other Christians it happened so that we humans could live,

The difference is that while the aforementioned group was a victim of circumstance, the requirement of sacrifice was necessitated by their god. The difference is while that group had an imminent threat, this sacrifice did not. The difference is that while that group would eventually feel guilty and ashamed of the sacrifice they had to make, the Christians celebrate theirs.

All that makes them much, much more worse than that group.

and one of the larger reasons of the success of religion is probably due to the human instinct to survive.

As an imaginary solution, that is.

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Sin gives us a name to lump all immoral deeds in one name, that is why I like it.

And what's wrong with "immorality"?

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I still do not know why you want to engage in a fruitless, frivolous, time consuming ARGUMENT about what a virtue is. But I hope in the future you will focus on more important things than such tripe.

You think that discussing and debating what a virtue - something we claim to live our lives by - is, is frivolous?

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As for sin, it does have it's own definition in the bible, but it can be used secularly. I use it all the time.

Don't confuse the two. The secular meaning has nothing to do with salvation.

[Clueless Morgan]

Still waiting for an explanation for why abstinence is a virtue...

[Chad32]

Oh, I love that animation.