For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

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Robin Yergenson
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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by Robin Yergenson » Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:48 am

Hi Metacrock,

I was backpacking the Seven Devils last weekend and life’s demands have been overwhelming lately. Previously you offered a few essential comments on “free salvation” and stated “none of this is arbitrary. It’s the way it has to be.” I took your words and put them in a Harveyism context as follows,
If I said, “Harvey the Invisible Rabbit was the God of the universe who offers salvation freely to all. The only necessity is that we must turn form sin because that's counter to love and love the basis of all things. When we disbelieve in Harvey we are rejecting the good. We are not being wilful and the wilful old man who has to prove he's boss steps in to preserve his authority, we are really fucking things up by assertion our own wilful refusal to accept the good.” Would it lack sufficient evidence? If so, how so? If not why not?
This Harvey question is important, so could you respond to it?

I went on to say,
? Christianity ties “pursuing the good” with accepting its unjustified claims, and to tie disbelief of those claims with “rejecting the good.” I’m trying to focus on that error.
You responded with,
No it doesn’t. It comes from a tradition that has a certain take on answers to the Question of God. You are trying to find fault with people for working within the tradition that best speaks to them. That's not fair. Your ignoring the nature of a religious tradition and imposing your own sense of ideology sans benefit of social sciences.
Here you are confusing tradition with truth. The discussion we’re having is about differentiating true things from false things. Some traditional claims are true in that they comport with reality. Others are not. Can you see the difference? If not, we may need to auger in here.

I had agreed with you and said,
Of course we think our approbations, those things that we approve of, are rational. And we both agree that often our approbations are in error. If we are in error enough of the time, we quit existing. No one is wilfully in error.
You responded,
That does not make you the arbiter of what's rational.
Of course it doesn’t. What does make each and every one of us the arbiter of right is the fact that we and we alone share the ultimate autonomous responsibility of passing final judgment on what is judged to be true and what is not. While we can help one another in this process, no one can do it for us. No one. We have no choice but to do it. We can do it well or we can do it poorly. Reality itself and a claim’s relation to it makes the claim true of false, and we are the ultimate arbiters of that relationship. Do you agree?

Now, I have claimed,
Two of Christianity’s most fundamental tenets are:

a) The claim that escaping God’s judgment to all mankind prior to and independent of any actions of our own requires belief in Jesus' resurrection.

b) The claim that God is just (that He renders that which is due).

...What’s essential here is that you believe that “a” and “b” are fundamental tenets and that the theist’s belief and the atheist’s lack of belief are pivotal to God’s judgment of salvation or damnation.


Correct me if I’m wrong, but we agree that these are two of Christianity’s most fundamental tenets so far, right? And the first point that I offer to demonstrate that these contradict one another is:
1. As rational beings, our success at arriving at an accurate knowledge base for guiding our choices and actions correlates to a great degree with our ability to be rational, in particular, to correctly associate and integrate effects with their causes. This is what rational beings ought to do.
Now, I am not claiming that my point #1 has demonstrated the contradiction. It is only the first step in doing so. The question for you then is, do you agree that this claim #1 is true?

Finally, I previously compared the miraculous claims in the Bible to magic. I should have defined magic. Here I intend it to be definition number one of the American Heritage Dictionary “The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.” According to this definition, the Biblical claims of the Bible are claims of magic.

Let’s agree on this basic points before moving on.

Rob

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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by mdsimpson92 » Mon Aug 01, 2011 7:19 am

Sorry to interupt your debate but two things.

1. Robin, what part of China were you in. I am currently in Beijing and am taking a flight back to the US in about 15-16 hours.

2. I would just like to ask permission to get involved in this conversation at certain points, I am enjoying the discussion so if that would be to much intruding then I will stick to spectating.
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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by Metacrock » Mon Aug 01, 2011 7:37 am

mdsimpson92 wrote:Sorry to interupt your debate but two things.

1. Robin, what part of China were you in. I am currently in Beijing and am taking a flight back to the US in about 15-16 hours.

2. I would just like to ask permission to get involved in this conversation at certain points, I am enjoying the discussion so if that would be to much intruding then I will stick to spectating.
I have no objection.I wanted here so that I wouldn't have 12 atheists mocking my every word in addition to trying to carry out a serious discussion with one guy. I know my boards has fewer people, and more serious polite people so it wont be the same. It wont be a distraction but a plus to the discussion.

I'll try to get to answering this tomorrow. I can't be on the net very long because of the heat. its' so hot here we can't run the the computer except in the morning.
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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by Metacrock » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:12 am

Robin Yergenson wrote:Hi Metacrock,

I was backpacking the Seven Devils last weekend and life’s demands have been overwhelming lately. Previously you offered a few essential comments on “free salvation” and stated “none of this is arbitrary. It’s the way it has to be.” I took your words and put them in a Harveyism context as follows,
If I said, “Harvey the Invisible Rabbit was the God of the universe who offers salvation freely to all. The only necessity is that we must turn form sin because that's counter to love and love the basis of all things. When we disbelieve in Harvey we are rejecting the good. We are not being wilful and the wilful old man who has to prove he's boss steps in to preserve his authority, we are really fucking things up by assertion our own wilful refusal to accept the good.” Would it lack sufficient evidence? If so, how so? If not why not?
This Harvey question is important, so could you respond to it?
I don't know what belief in Harvey means. Lack of understanding about the evidence for God or the reality of God, such that one doesn't see the evidence stacking up in such a way as to be compelling is not in itself rejecting the good. Setting yourself at enmity with God and refusing to bow the will regardless of the evidence is setting yourself agaisnt the good. That may not take hte form of just disbelief in God, or it may not be disbelief in a particular tradition.I don't think we can blame someone just because a certain tradition does not appeal to them. But heart felt refusal to accept regardless of the case is a rejection of the good.I'm not trying to judge you or anyone, but I have met people like that who said point blank, I refuse to believe regardless of the evidence.
Yergenson:I went on to say,

Christianity ties “pursuing the good” with accepting its unjustified claims, and to tie disbelief of those claims with “rejecting the good.” I’m trying to focus on that error.You responded with,
Meta: No it doesn’t. It comes from a tradition that has a certain take on answers to the Question of God. You are trying to find fault with people for working within the tradition that best speaks to them. That's not fair. Your ignoring the nature of a religious tradition and imposing your own sense of ideology sans benefit of social sciences.
Here you are confusing tradition with truth. The discussion we’re having is about differentiating true things from false things. Some traditional claims are true in that they comport with reality. Others are not. Can you see the difference? If not, we may need to auger in here.
Oooops. apparently you don't understand the way "tradition" is academic life. It has nothing to do with religion. You can find lit crit people using it this way and certainly philosophers. The idea of tradition isn ot "we use padded pews because My daddy used padded pews so we must always do it." It doesn't men the dogmatic and legalistic belief for the sake of satisfying a duty to the past. It means "a community." It's taking part in a conversation. The tradition is the conservation of a community.
Yergenson:I had agreed with you and said,

Of course we think our approbations, those things that we approve of, are rational. And we both agree that often our approbations are in error. If we are in error enough of the time, we quit existing. No one is wilfully in error.
You responded,[/quote]
Meta: That does not make you the arbiter of what's rational.
Of
Yergenson:course it doesn’t. What does make each and every one of us the arbiter of right is the fact that we and we alone share the ultimate autonomous responsibility of passing final judgment on what is judged to be true and what is not. While we can help one another in this process, no one can do it for us. No one. We have no choice but to do it. We can do it well or we can do it poorly. Reality itself and a claim’s relation to it makes the claim true of false, and we are the ultimate arbiters of that relationship. Do you agree?

for ourselves, but that doesn't exclude understanding in light of the community conversation.
Yergenson:Now, I have claimed,

Two of Christianity’s most fundamental tenets are:

a) The claim that escaping God’s judgment to all mankind prior to and independent of any actions of our own requires belief in Jesus' resurrection.

b) The claim that God is just (that He renders that which is due).

...What’s essential here is that you believe that “a” and “b” are fundamental tenets and that the theist’s belief and the atheist’s lack of belief are pivotal to God’s judgment of salvation or damnation.


Not all theists agree with that. Christians.
Yergenson:Correct me if I’m wrong, but we agree that these are two of Christianity’s most fundamental tenets so far, right? And the first point that I offer to demonstrate that these contradict one another is:
I agreed tentatively (extending caution for differences in nuance).
1. As rational beings, our success at arriving at an accurate knowledge base for guiding our choices and actions correlates to a great degree with our ability to be rational, in particular, to correctly associate and integrate effects with their causes. This is what rational beings ought to do.

Now, I am not claiming that my point #1 has demonstrated the contradiction. It is only the first step in doing so. The question for you then is, do you agree that this claim #1 is true?
to some extent

Finally, I previously compared the miraculous claims in the Bible to magic. I should have defined magic. Here I intend it to be definition number one of the American Heritage Dictionary “The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.” According to this definition, the Biblical claims of the Bible are claims of magic.

Let’s agree on this basic points before moving on.

Rob
using popular dictionary in theology rather than special theological dictionary is always misleading.


I'm sorry. you still seem to be trading in straw men. I don't know why you can't argue directly against the actual things I say.
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Robin Yergenson
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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by Robin Yergenson » Sun Aug 07, 2011 2:15 pm

Hi mdsimpson92,

Thanks for engaging. You say,
mdsimpson92 wrote:Sorry to interupt your debate but two things.

1. Robin, what part of China were you in. I am currently in Beijing and am taking a flight back to the US in about 15-16 hours.

2. I would just like to ask permission to get involved in this conversation at certain points, I am enjoying the discussion so if that would be to much intruding then I will stick to spectating.
1) I was in Zhongshan on the mainland across from Hong Kong. I've been to Japan about 75 times, but I've only been to China 4 times and that's the only part of China that I have been to.

2) I'm eager to engage others, especially philosophy majors :P , so yes, please join in. My only concern is that the "serial/string" format that is used with these threads, coupled with increased numbers of participants will be confusing for me. Or am I missing some alternate way to view these threads? Like, if say, five of us start engaging each other on a single thread, pretty soon the post that is being responded to will be so far up the chain that it will get lost. If this is the case, then we may want to start separate threads to minimize confusion. For now just jump in and we'll see how it goes. And if you or Metacrock are aware of something that will help minimize the confusion, let me know.

Rob

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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by mdsimpson92 » Sun Aug 07, 2011 4:29 pm

Robin Yergenson wrote:1) I was in Zhongshan on the mainland across from Hong Kong. I've been to Japan about 75 times, but I've only been to China 4 times and that's the only part of China that I have been to.
Ah, I spent about a month in Pinliang in Gansu province. This was the second time I have been to China.



Robin Yergenson wrote:2) I'm eager to engage others, especially philosophy majors , so yes, please join in. My only concern is that the "serial/string" format that is used with these threads, coupled with increased numbers of participants will be confusing for me. Or am I missing some alternate way to view these threads? Like, if say, five of us start engaging each other on a single thread, pretty soon the post that is being responded to will be so far up the chain that it will get lost. If this is the case, then we may want to start separate threads to minimize confusion. For now just jump in and we'll see how it goes. And if you or Metacrock are aware of something that will help minimize the confusion, let me know.
I understand, techically I am not a philosophy major (my majors are economics and chinese) however I have spent more than three years reading works of philosophy ranging from Kant, Plato, Nietzche, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard ect. . . that I think I can generally keep up. Granted I'm only 19 so of course I will not understand some things. I will try (try being the emphasized word) to avoid dominating the conversation in order to let you both be the dominant speakers here but I may at times wish to make a comment or add my own knowledge to the conversation, with that in mind I thank you for the permission.
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Robin Yergenson
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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by Robin Yergenson » Mon Aug 08, 2011 6:31 am

Hi Metacrock,

We went to see the Sean Penn and Brad Pitt movie “The Tree of Life” last night. It was a noble attempt to convey the notion of God in the context of a family’s life struggles. I was disappointed. I guess I expected too much. You say,
I don't think we can blame someone just because a certain tradition does not appeal to them.
Of course not. But blame for failing to find a certain tradition appealing is not what we’re talking about. The essential question that we are talking about is, can you ever blame and condemn someone for failing to believe that which the evidence has failed to compel them to believe (I’d give you a hint but we would be getting ahead of ourselves). You say,
But heartfelt refusal to accept regardless of the case is a rejection of the good. I'm not trying to judge you or anyone, but I have met people like that who said point blank, I refuse to believe regardless of the evidence.
Yes, I have met Christians who say the same thing. And yes, stupid people do exist. What those people don’t seem to realize is that when the evidence is sufficiently compelling AND when that sufficiently compelling evidence is sufficiently internalized by that person (stupid or not), belief happens. So then, no one is capable of such a feat. While being compelled by sufficient evidence is the right reason to believe, trying to believe things that are not sufficiently compelling is not, and requiring us to do so in order to avoid condemnation is anything but just (oops, but there I go getting ahead of myself again).

Regarding tradition you say,
Oooops. apparently you don't understand the way "tradition" is academic life. It has nothing to do with religion. You can find lit crit people using it this way and certainly philosophers. The idea of tradition is not "we use padded pews because My daddy used padded pews so we must always do it." It doesn't mean the dogmatic and legalistic belief for the sake of satisfying a duty to the past. It means "a community." It's taking part in a conversation. The tradition is the conservation of a community.
My point was not that traditions are or are not in the domain of religion. My point was that you are confusing tradition with truth. The discussion we are having is about differentiating a true thing from a false thing. Some traditional claims are true in that they comport with reality. Others are not. Coherency with “the conservation of a community” is still confusing tradition with truth. Let’s stay focused on the essential question of whether you can ever blame and condemn someone for failing to believe that which the evidence has failed to compel them to believe. Enough talk about traditions and community conversations, okay?

Regarding my popular definition for magic you say,
Using popular dictionary in theology rather than special theological dictionary is always misleading.
I’m not a theologian. I’m a regular person who communicates with words that assume a popular meaning. Let’s stick with popular language that we both know so that I don’t have to learn a new one, okay?

And finally you say,
I'm sorry. you still seem to be trading in straw men. I don't know why you can't argue directly against the actual things I say.
I don’t think I deserve that. If there is some essential point that you have made regarding our topic, then please point it out so that I can confront it openly. I’m trying to keep you focused on the argument on so that we avoid tangents to it. You tentatively agree that the following two tenets are fundamental to the Christian faith:

a) The claim that escaping God’s judgment to all mankind prior to and independent of any actions of our own requires belief in Jesus' resurrection.

b) The claim that God is just (that He renders that which is due).

You also agree with my point #1,

1. As rational beings, our success at arriving at an accurate knowledge base for guiding our choices and actions correlates to a great degree with our ability to be rational, in particular, to correctly associate and integrate effects with their causes. This is what rational beings ought to do.

Well, you say you agree to some extent. Do we need to explore to what extent you disagree or can we safely assume that we agree on these early points of my argument and move on? Of course, it is a waste of everyone’s time to argue over a strawman so if you still think that these early points are a strawman, let’s root that out before moving on.

Rob

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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by Metacrock » Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:08 am

I apologize if I offended you. I have a habit form CARM of being shall we say 'terse' in argument. It comes from too much conflict with mocking and ridicule involved. I wasn't doing all the ridiculing either.

I try to keep that stuff off of here. It is a habit. I am sorry.
1. As rational beings, our success at arriving at an accurate knowledge base for guiding our choices and actions correlates to a great degree with our ability to be rational, in particular, to correctly associate and integrate effects with their causes. This is what rational beings ought to do.

Well, you say you agree to some extent. Do we need to explore to what extent you disagree or can we safely assume that we agree on these early points of my argument and move on? Of course, it is a waste of everyone’s time to argue over a strawman so if you still think that these early points are a strawman, let’s root that out before moving on.
Not if you've read Kierkegaard.

Let me get back to you tomorrow.
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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by mdsimpson92 » Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:08 pm

Robin Yergenson wrote:a) The claim that escaping God’s judgment to all mankind prior to and independent of any actions of our own requires belief in Jesus' resurrection.
Actually, I am not sure that that is totally true in all of the major tradition. In the Eastern Orthodox church there seems to be this semi-universalistic interpretation.

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles7 ... vation.php
As we can see, Cyril emphasises the universality of the salvation given by Christ to humanity, perceiving the descent of Christ into Hades as salvific for the entire human race. He is not inclined to limit salvation to a particular part of humanity, such as the Old Testament righteous. Salvation is likened to rain sent by God on both the just and the unjust[23]. Putting emphasis on the universality of the saving feat of Christ, Cyril follows in the steps of other Alexandrian theologians, beginning with Clement, Origen, and Athanasius the Great[24]. The descent of Christ into Hades, according to Cyril's teaching, signified victory over that which previously appeared unconquerable and ensured the salvation of all humanity:

Death unwilling to be defeated is defeated; corruption is transformed; unconquerable passion is destroyed. While hell, diseased with excessive insatiability and never satisfied with the dead, is taught, even if against its will, that which it could not learn previously. For it not only ceases to claim those who are still to fall [in the future], but also lets free those already captured, being subjected to splendid devastation by the power of our Saviour... Having preached to the spirits in hell, once disobedient, He came out as conqueror by resurrecting His temple like a beginning of our hope and by showing to [our] nature the manner of the raising from the dead, and giving us along with it other blessings as well[25].
Clearly, Cyril perceived the victory of Christ over hell and death as complete and definitive. According to Cyril, hell loses authority both over those who were in its power and those who are to become its prey in the future. Thus, the descent into Hades, a single and unique action, is perceived as a timeless event. The raised body of Christ becomes the guarantee of universal salvation, the beginning of way leading human nature to ultimate deification.
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Re: For Robin Yergenson: seeking honest engagement

Post by Robin Yergenson » Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:58 pm

Hi mdsimpson92,

Hey, I appreciate your interest in these issues at such an early age. I hope I can be encouraging. I claimed,
Robin Yergenson wrote:a) The claim that escaping God’s judgment to all mankind prior to and independent of any actions of our own requires belief in Jesus' resurrection.
To which you say,
mdsimpson92 wrote: Actually, I am not sure that that is totally true in all of the major tradition. In the Eastern Orthodox church there seems to be this semi-universalistic interpretation.
You also included some quotes. I agree that there are universalist views that do not accept "a" to be true of their form of Christianity. As such they avoid this contradiction. I would say they also have to take the clippers to their Bible though, since there are plenty of verses that provide sufficient basis for claim "a" to be considered fundamental to the Christianity presented in much of the Bible. I am fairly familiar with the Bible and I don't happen to believe its claims, mostly because they appear to be too extraordinary to be believed and because I genuinely want to believe things that I consider to be justified for belief and not those that are not. I consider this a moral imperative. So, do I have to believe something that I genuinely consider immoral for me to believe in order to be saved, or am I saved independent of my lack of belief? You tell me mdsimpson92, what must I do to escape God's condemnation upon all mankind and to inherit eternal life?

Rob

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