The Parable of the Absent Parents

Discussion in 'Religion' started by James R, Feb 3, 2020.

  1. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    James: People/Parent(generally) have been doing this for years, some kids listen some break all the rules, probably end up in jail.

    If your talking about the bible, from a Christian perspective, the rule is pretty cool.
     
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  3. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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  5. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    This quote problem must be the forum, I am using a different browser, thought I'd fixed it. Can someone tell me if they're having the same problem please?

    EDIT: Sorry for these posts I'm reposting because of a problem I have with the chrome browser. Not even checking my spelling on Twitter, nightmare, I can't spell!
     
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  7. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    James R:


    In the case of God, of course, we are told that the very real punishment is to be eternal, after death. God abstracts his wayward followers from their metaphorical hell and keeps them for all eternity in a literal hell.

    It's actually 12 month max. I don't think your sentence will be too bad. It depends how many points I get.
     
  8. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    God certainly isn't faultless in this case. blame him, seriously(God we are talking about, I assume the christian flavour, jehovah). Nobody asked to be born, Adam didn't. No one does. Then we have to put up with two dozy adults on some self righteous high, work(most people work most people who don't work have the hardest job) all your life, generally in a job you hate, I will not go down the woman hating route, just to say get married(generally) and let 3 more come down the chute(like santa, but bearing trouble!). It's a rabbit hole.
     
  9. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    There was, that's why Jesus came. Mark(bible) 12:30-31. That commandment covers all the ten commandments and adds love. The new covenent with man.

    My spell checker is not working. So don't think I'm totally stupid.
     
  10. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    A: "Guns are safe in the hands of trained professionals."
    B: "Guns kill people! Do you want to murder people? Are you a monster!"
    C: "I said nothing about killing people."

    B had no valid argument against A's assertion, so instead, B erected a straw man that is a perversion of A's argument, and then attacked that instead.

    A: "I like driving this highway because it's surrounded by beautiful tracts of forest".
    B: "What? This highway is obsolete - just look at the the traffic!"
    A: "What does obsolescence have to do with this beautiful view?"

    Ditto.
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Well, sort of. Asking questions is not really a strawman. A more accurate example would be:

    B: "Guns kill people! You support guns the same way terrorists support guns, so you must support the same things. Why do you support terrorism?"

    That is a strawman, because it is not a position that A has espoused.
     
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  12. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Such rhetorical questions aren't questions; they're accusations.

    But yeah. You example is more concrete.
     
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  13. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks Dave, but I still don't get it.
     
  14. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    hmmm I think I get it! I'm going to copy and paste this into a text file, it makes sense.

    Thanks
     
  15. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    A straw man is a misrepresentation (often an exaggeration, or slippery-slope version) of an argument that has been made, which an opponent argues against instead of the argument that was actually put, because he thinks it will be easier to refute (often on the basis that anybody who actually held the viewpoint in the straw man version of the argument would be irrational or immoral).

    Here's another example:

    "When it comes to abortion, I'm pro-choice."
    "You advocate the killing of innocent babies!"

    The straw man there is the idea that the pro-choice person is promoting or advocating for the killing of innocent children. They certainly didn't mention any such thing, and besides, the straw man version of the argument against abortion has just tried to sneak in some ideas under the radar - ideas like murder and evil intent and babies (as opposed to embryos, foetuses, etc.) - none of which were mentioned in the initial statement.

    Another example:

    "I support marriage equality ("gay marriage")."
    "So you're saying that anybody should be allowed to marry whoever or whatever they like? You must be supporting people marrying animals, and adults marrying under-aged children, and people marrying their cars!"

    Err... no. Nobody mentioned people marrying lobsters, or that they advocate pedophilia, there.
     
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  16. davewhite04 Valued Senior Member

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    Wow. I was hoping billvon's answer was right? By the sounds of it as you put it, to the strawman creator is trying to win and argument against a stronger opponent. I suppose there's a lot of them, mat I use strawman or have in the past and not realised it, but it sounds like people create them intentionally?

    Thanks for the help, to everyone else thanks.

    I'll await your reply.
     
  17. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    No, I believe morality comes from the divine and can express itself through the divine spark in any human.

    Yet you don't name any of these supposed secular moral (oxymoron?) rule books.
    Men wrote the Bible, and it's morality successfully ended a lot of barbarism. Human sacrifice replaced by animal sacrifice, charity for the poor and infirmed, etc..

    Aside from that fact that God is central to such communities, why hasn't any non-theistic rule book done so? Just happenstance, or that theism, itself, creates a nature affinity for such communities?

    Not an argument and beneath you. If you have a counterexample, please, substantiate this straw man. If what you know of Christianity is only what you knew as a child or young adult, then you don't really have an adult understanding of the subject.

    That's a silly question that only further illustrates your lack of adult understanding of religion. I would probably be an atheist too (and did reject religion for a time), if my understanding didn't evolve with age. Adult Christians follow the rules because they've come to see the reasons, as God does. Just as children come to understand the reasons for their parent's rules, and no longer fear punishment. Questioning whether God is necessary for the one is just as silly as questioning whether parents are necessary for the other.

    You, as you seem to assume that religious adults only follow out of fear. If not, it sure sounded like it.

    Any analogy to religion. If you want to beg off that analogy, that's fine by me. My interest in you're little story ends there.

    Hope you're not being intentionally obtuse.
    You contrasted God "telling you what to do" versus an absent God. That's as much a false dilemma as you only identifying present parents by them "telling you what to do". Neither are encapsulated by "telling you what to do". At least I hope your parents aren't.

    Yet the general public are completely unaware of any of it, and it does not even engender a sense of community. Something crucial must be missing from it.
    Got any secular rule book with even a tiny fraction of the impact or recognition of the Bible? We all know the answer to that.

    Again, it's not externally imposed punishment. It's internally imposed separation.
    No, free will makes any such separation the individual's choice.
    Again, the boy is a runaway, not an orphan. You're little story is a fundamentally flawed straw man. No one can answer your loaded questions, knowing that they are a straw man analogy to religion. Parents abandoning their child can be at fault without that being any honest analogy to religion.

    Again, for the umpteenth time, it is not externally imposed punishment; it is internally imposed separation. God wants all to join, and only those who reject God cannot, because they decide they will not. Only you decide if you go to hell.

    It may be beyond you.

    No, just putting it in modern terms.

    Do you think the Ten Commandments where meant to be all encompassing, when you've already mention the number of Jewish laws yourself?
    But yeah, I suppose if humans didn't have a conscience and free will, you would have to include contract law, penal codes, etc., huh? 9_9

    It's cute how you call a straw man a parable.
    Arguably, criminals are only caught because they make mistakes. Prison is just the natural consequence of such mistakes. The authorities are there to subvert vigilante or mob justice, which most would consider a worse fate. Likewise, God gives you a chance you would not have otherwise. Your initial rejection doesn't instantly damn you, just like your commission of a crime doesn't instantly get you killed by a vigilante.

    In the original, Jewish conception of hell, it was a real place, Gehenna, where children were once sacrificed by fire or a perpetually burning garbage heap.
    The Roman Catholic Church defines Hell as "a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed." One finds oneself in Hell as the result of dying in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love, becoming eternally separated from him by one's own free choice immediately after death.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell#Christianity
    Why do you, an atheist, torture yourself ceaselessly questioning the beliefs of theists? What are you missing that you hope to find?
    Again, please show me the people who fear a literal fire and brimstone. Are they Appalachian snake handlers too?

    Again, do you only identify your own parents by them imposing stuff on you? You're just repeating your false dilemma of "telling you what to do" versus being absentee.
     
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    And caused a lot - the Crusades and the Inquisition come to mind. Understandable; when Moses gives instructions in the Bible to his soldiers on which women prisoners to kill (the ones who have known a man; save the virgins for your own use) some overly-religious people might take that as an invitation to follow the Bible's teachings.

    Fortunately most people know to disregard much of the Bible, and adopt a more sane morality.
    The US Constitution does a reasonable job there, even if Republicans consider it phony. Paine's "Common Sense" and the Magna Carta do a reasonable job as well.
    Let's all hope you reject most of the rules in the Bible, like "kill the gays" and "kill anyone who works on Sunday."
    Did you just make the argument that things that the general public is unaware of are invalid? Wow!
    The US Constitution. Just because you are not aware of its contents, or think it is phony, does not mean that it is not widely recognized.
     
  19. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    I've repeatedly told James that God doesn't punish.

    Should be obvious that it wasn't a exhaustive list.

    Leviticus just says not to sacrifice your children to Molech. And mediums and necromancers are humans.

    Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
    Psalm 115:4

    Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
    1 Corinthians 10:7

    Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
    Colossians 3:5

    12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.
    Exodus 34:12-16​

    Only if you're extremely literal-minded.
    It is a prohibition of blasphemy, specifically, the misuse or "taking in vain" of the name of the God of Israel, or using His name to commit evil, or to pretend to serve in His name while in fact, failing to do so. ...

    In the Hebrew Bible itself, the commandment is directed against abuse of the name of God, not against any use; there are numerous examples in the Hebrew Bible and a few in the New Testament where God's name is called upon in oaths to tell the truth or to support the truth of the statement being sworn to, and the books of Daniel and Revelation include instances where an angel sent by God invokes the name of God to support the truth of apocalyptic revelations.[2] God himself is presented as swearing by his own name ("As surely as I live …") to guarantee the certainty of various events foretold through the prophets.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_take_the_name_of_the_Lord_thy_God_in_vain
    A woman claiming to be married while cheating is using her husbands name in vain. She is not honoring the use of his name.
    Honor means respect, even if only the fact that they gave you life (all the more impressive in the age of abortion on demand), which means you have the obligation and gratitude to care for them later in life.
    In the Torah, keeping this commandment was associated with individual benefit and with the ability of the nation of Israel to remain in the land to which God was leading them.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour_thy_father_and_thy_mother#Hebrew_Bible

    The words of Jesus and the teaching of Paul indicate that adult children remain obligated to honour their parents by providing for material needs. In the gospels, Jesus is portrayed as angry with some people who avoided materially providing for their parents by claiming the money they would have used was given to God (Matthew 15:3–8, Mark 7:9–12. In these passages, Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour_thy_father_and_thy_mother#New_Testament

    Sure, in more modern societies with relatively effective law enforcement.

    Killing in war is typically not defined as murder, in any society. And?

    So you think greed and lust aren't unhealthy? That neither have anything to do with jealousy? That neither have moral consequences? Okay? Maybe we know your preferred sin.

    And? Most Christians believe the New Covenant superseded Jewish law. Seems you're arguing out of ignorance.

    Only latter could people understand the generalization in light of the previous commandments.
     
  20. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Paine references God many times. https://americanvision.org/1657/thomas-paine-common-sense-making-biblical-case-for-independence/
    For that matter, so does the Magna Carta. I asked about a secular moral rule book, not ones that are obviously influenced by religion.

    The New Covenant supersedes the Jewish laws.

    No, I made the argument that people would necessarily have to be aware of something for it to harbor a sense of community. Please read what you respond to.

    That's not a moral rule book, which is what we're talking about. That's is law. One is compelled while the other is voluntary. Hence the phrase "you can't legislate morality".
     
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  21. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    B.F.S.
    They had invented compassion, courtesy and decency by 1800BC. They had already figured out what it means to "not to do mean stuff to other people if you don't want them doing mean stuff to you".
    Nobody ever needed all the necromancer, idolatry, other gods nonsense.
     
  22. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    You're historically illiterate if you believe that people didn't need to be taught to sacrifice animals instead of other people (to their false gods) and not do things just because "might equals right".
     
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  23. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    I am historically literate enough to know that nobody ever needed to be taught to sacrifice anybody to anything.
    Some assholes invented gods that demand sacrifice. (I even know how that came about in three - longish, say 10,000 years each - steps). Had people been smart enough to sacrifice those assholes first, we'd never have been saddled by all these parasitic gods.
    But people are not smart.
     

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