I am baffled, please explain

[Lily_Bernans]

Ok…

Let’s try this, friend.

I know today, July 4, that you wrote the above post. I know it now. Even though you wrote it on June 30.

Did I cause you to write it?

Am I responsible for you writing it?

No?

Even if I know that you wrote it now?

The answer is still no?

Now…

Try to take yourself out of a linear model of thinking.

Think about the Eternal Now.

There is One Being that has this position of the EN. (Ok, there’s 3 Persons but that’s scope for another thread)

So in the EN, God bears no more responsibility for Hitler’s choice in 1939 than I do for your choice on June 30.

Try not to think linearly.

In timelessness, Hitler’s choice had already happened before he, himself made it.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

One hopes. Otherwise, this thread will have been a colossal waste of time.

Not necessarily, Gorgias. I’m sure others read it even if they don’t comment. Those readers see how logical the Catholic faith is and how illogical atheism is. If there are any fence-sitters who read it, you and Peter no doubt convinced them of the logic and rightness of Catholicism.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not so fast. We all start to “believe” what we are told is “true”. It is a fully passive way to acquire a belief system without any “choice” at all. The proper word is “brainwashing”, but unfortunately this word has a very negative connotation. For quite a long time children have absolutely no critical skills, they believe what they are told.

Not so fast. I wish you wouldn’t project your experience onto the rest of us, as if you speak for all, dogmatically stating that we have all been brainwashed.

Does that mean the current “system” you subscribe to is the result of your own brainwashing by the people who had the most influence as far as your upbringing was concerned?

By the way, I taught in elementary schools for 30 years and can tell you that children can be quite critical in their assessment of what is being “handed” to them.

Your “for quite a long time” is meaningless, really. I have a niece (3 years) and nephew (6 years) who do not accept, uncritically, whatever their parents or the world around them insist is true. They have their own view of things and insist upon it – no matter how mistaken the adults around them think the inexperience of a 3 and 6 year old leads them to go significantly off the track their parents want for them.

Now your experience may be that YOU accepted what was handed to you uncritically and “passively,” but from my own experience and my 30 years working closely with young children tells me that YOUR experience is far from the norm. I know that I personally, from a very young age, questioned everything that was going on around me – that questioning is euphemistically referred to as “learning” or “gaining experience” or “maturing.”

Personally, I find your simplistic view of how children “passively” receive everything thrown their way to be insulting and stereotyped regarding the mental capacity of children, even as young as the age of two.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I accepted very little of what I was told without verifying it for myself. I never really believed in Santa Claus because I didn’t see how he could live forever and never age.

I was told that certain races were inferior to other races. I never believed that, either.

The adults around me would always get irritated with me because they said I asked, “Why?” to much of the time.

I can remember being about two and on-half years and standing in the garden thinking about God. Yet at that time, I had never gone to Church regularly, and no one really talked to me about God.

 

[Peter_Plato]

One hopes. Otherwise, this thread will have been a colossal waste of time.

Apparently, PA only learns by methods that involve brainwashing and passivity. I think you are spending far too much time trying to explain things. That requires “active” learning on the part of learner and is, apparently “a waste of time.” Just speak authoritatively in a deep paternalistic voice what you DON’T want PA to think and PA will simply rebel against that teaching and accept what you surreptitiously want her/him to. This is where you can use reverse psychology to advantage with adolescents or other assorted rebellious minds.

 

[Peter_Plato]

In timelessness, Hitler’s choice had already happened before he, himself made it.

Not “before” since timelessness is tenseless.

But still happened BECAUSE Hitler, himself, made the choice.

Minds do not rely on tense but, rather, on REASONING which is not chronological, in itself, but is conditional on “if…then.” It is the fact that we are “slow” learners that necessitates the segmenting of time sequentially so we can view and consider our choices from the perspective of time rather than mere dependency. God, however, is not so constrained or limited.

Ergo, Hitler’s choice depends upon a number of things about Hitler which Hitler determined for himself chronologically, but, even absent time, Hitler would have determined them, in God’s perspective, eternally (or even if time were absent.) Hitler STILL determined them, however.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Not “before” since timelessness is tenseless.

But still happened BECAUSE Hitler, himself, made the choice.

Minds do not rely on tense but, rather, on REASONING which is not chronological, in itself, but is conditional on “if…then.” It is the fact that we are “slow” learners that necessitates the segmenting of time sequentially so we can view and consider our choices from the perspective of time rather than mere dependency. God, however, is not so constrained or limited.

Ergo, Hitler’s choice depends upon a number of things about Hitler which Hitler determined for himself chronologically, but, even absent time, Hitler would have determined them, in God’s perspective, eternally (or even if time were absent.) Hitler STILL determined them, however.

True, and thank you for clarifying.

I understand your point even if I’m not so good at explaining myself today. You’re getting to the real core of the free will-predestination debate, and what you post is very interesting. Some of my college professors have not been as clear.

 

[Gorgias]

Apparently, PA only learns by methods that involve brainwashing and passivity. I think you are spending far too much time trying to explain things. That requires “active” learning on the part of learner and is, apparently “a waste of time.”

I have faith, though, that PA will at least be able to hear what we’re saying. Maybe not today, but hopefully, at least later, upon reflection…

 

[tonyrey]

I accepted very little of what I was told without verifying it for myself. I never really believed in Santa Claus because I didn’t see how he could live forever and never age.

I was told that certain races were inferior to other races. I never believed that, either.

The adults around me would always get irritated with me because they said I asked, “Why?” to much of the time.

I can remember being about two and on-half years and standing in the garden thinking about God. Yet at that time, I had never gone to Church regularly, and no one really talked to me about God.

You precocious creature! But you have made a valid point…

 

[tonyrey]

Not necessarily, Gorgias. I’m sure others read it even if they don’t comment. Those readers see how logical the Catholic faith is and how illogical atheism is. If there are any fence-sitters who read it, you and Peter no doubt convinced them of the logic and rightness of Catholicism.

The fact that there have been over 9,000 views of this thread speaks for itself…

 

[Pallas_Athene]

But that indicts everything. Not just religion.

But of course! In our young, formative years we learn everything from our parents (relatives, environment, friends…). Not just religion, also proper behavior, how to tie your shoelaces, how to become a nice little kid, share your toys, instead of being jealous of them. Young children are little “brutes”, angry, jealous, cruel… you name it. They need to be civilized. There is no difference between training a puppy to be housebroken and training a child to use the potty. The puppies never grow into rational, intelligent beings, but children - usually - do.

Are you sure you want to do that?

It is the case, whether anyone “wants” to go there or not. I am not afraid to look at reality, and accept what I see there. (Even when I hate what I see.)

Annnnddd it’s a good thing that Catholicism obligates us to question.

Are you kidding me? Are you allowed to question God’s existence? Jesus’s divinity? Mary’s perpetual virginity? The infallibility of the pope and the magisterium? Especially in your young years? Sure you can question irrelevant points, like how many angels fit on the top of a needle… but the serious questions are fossilized into dogmas, and you are required to accept the dogmas, even if you have doubts about them.

That would, again, make practically everything just brainwashing.

Up until the age the critical thinking develops, yes. This age varies from person to person.

Including everything you believe.

You mean… what I used to believe in my young years. Absolutely. My luck was that neither of my parents were “strongly” religious. So when I started to ask questions, they encouraged me to think the questions through and come to my own conclusions. The funny thing is that my brother was bought up identically, and yet he became a strongly religious person.

You just are brainwashed into your atheism?

No. I was brainwashed into being a nice Christian child, pray every evening, go to church… and also to learn proper social skills, to be very polite to others, always give up my seat to the elderly, open the doors for ladies and zillions of other things.

And then I started to grow up, and started to question many things. The lessons of civilized behavior passed the test of rationality. The lessons about religion did not. The process took years. But I did not “choose” to be an atheist, I became an atheist - pretty much against my will. It was so much more comforting to believe in the good, loving, caring deity; to believe that I will be reunited by my grandparents. But I was unable to reconcile that belief with the stark reality which I observed in real life.

Going back a step. Have you ever wondered why Christian parents have Christian children, Muslim parents have Muslim children and atheist parents have atheist children - most of the time? Yes, it is brainwashing.

 

[Bradski]

In regard to children’s cognitive abilities, it is common knowledge that these do not develop until quite late. In fact, there is a lot of readily available information that says that we do not fully develop those abilities until late in our twenties:

…the cortex, is divided into lobes that mature from back to front. The last section to connect is the frontal lobe, responsible for cognitive processes such as reasoning, planning, and judgment. Normally this mental merger is not completed until somewhere between ages 25 and 30—much later than these two neurologists were taught in medical school. harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html

If someone would like to dispute this, then please link to anything that would refute it.

There is no doubt that children do accept what you tell them as soon as they are able to understand what you are telling them. Anyone who has had children knows this. And there’s a very good reason for it. They are not capable of working out what is dangerous and what isn’t. You have to tell them, don’t touch that, don’t go there or you will get hurt. Those children that ignore the warnings of those who have the benefit of learned experience will get hurt. It’s evolution 101.

Stories of elves and pixies, Santa Clause, the man in the moon, Jonah being swallowed by a whale, these are all accepted at an early age without question. A five year old will readily accept them. A thirty year old man obviously won’t.

What happens as children grow older is that they understand more of how the world works through practical experience and they correlate this with what they have been told. If there is a disconnect, then they begin to question what they have been told.

Eventually they decide which facts to accept and which to reject. Their decisions aren’t necessarily correct, but whichever ones they do accept will lead to a belief. If they later reject the facts, then they will lose their belief.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Crickets? We’ve currently got 48 pages of discussion – that’s crickets?!?

If you had read the post I was responding to, you would have had the opportunity to click on the link that was provided… which was… yes… chirping of crickets.

People around here seem to love the online Catholic Encyclopedia. Here are my normal caveats about using that resource: First, it’s the 1917 edition; if you want to catch up to 21st century theology, you’d do better to look up a copy of the New Catholic Encyclopedia (published in this century ). Second, it’s not an official exposition of Catholic doctrine. So, while the articles have merit, and are useful as a reference, they’re not what you’ve been asking for – and ‘official exposition of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.’ Now, with that in mind…

As usual. if it does not support you, it is irrelevant or plain wrong. Does the “new, improved” encyclopedia explicitly assert that God does NOT know the counterfactuals? And how come that the official teaching changes in a few decades? Were the authors of the old version not guided by the holy spirit in the case of faith and morals?

In this context, ‘actual’ speaks to things that (already) exist or will come to exist. In this context, ‘possible’ speaks not to counterfactuals, but those things which might have come to pass or might come to pass in the ‘future’ … given those conditions which existed or exist or will exist in the future. It’s a subtle distinction, but a critical one, in order to understand what the Molinists are asserting.

There is absolutely no difference. Besides, I am not interested in labels. I even presented the question to the Ask the Apologist forum and quoted the question and the response. It is that “omniscience is the knowledge of past, present and future, whether it is actual of merely possible”. So, yes, God would know how a hypothetical “Joe” would behave if created, and based upon that knowledge God could decide if he wishes to carry on with creating Joe, or not. And that is where the current “derail” started.

If you have access to a BETTER “official” definition of omniscience, provide it. Because the church DOES say that God is omniscient.

LOL! That’s one way to take it. Of course, if that’s our hermeneutic, then we Christians should say “well, atheists admit that they do not know what they’re talking about when discussing the origins of the universe. Another instance when I fail to be surprised.” But… that would be unfair, uncharitable, and counterproductive. :sad_yes:

It would simply be incorrect. There is no atheist “magisterium”. which declares the “final” truths about faith and morals or the “origin” of the universe.

No: ‘coincidence’ isn’t what’s being argued here. ‘Lack of determinism’ is what’s being argued.

Do you know the phrase: “SSDD”?

1. God’s knowledge is not contingent upon our actions.
2. Our actions are not contingent upon God’s knowledge.
3. Yet there is a one-to-one correspondence between our actions and God’s knowledge.

How is that possible? Either God’s knowledge causes our actions, or our actions cause God’s knowledge, or some “third party” causes both of them, or they are independent and as such we have an astronomical “coincidence”. I guess there is a fifth option… the usual one: “it is a mystery!”. But this fifth option is simply irrational.

 

[tonyrey]

In regard to children’s cognitive abilities, it is common knowledge that these do not develop until quite late. In fact, there is a lot of readily available information that says that we do not fully develop those abilities until late in our twenties:

…the cortex, is divided into lobes that mature from back to front. The last section to connect is the frontal lobe, responsible for cognitive processes such as reasoning, planning, and judgment. Normally this mental merger is not completed until somewhere between ages 25 and 30—much later than these two neurologists were taught in medical school. harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html

If someone would like to dispute this, then please link to anything that would refute it.

There is no doubt that children do accept what you tell them as soon as they are able to understand what you are telling them. Anyone who has had children knows this. And there’s a very good reason for it. They are not capable of working out what is dangerous and what isn’t. You have to tell them, don’t touch that, don’t go there or you will get hurt. Those children that ignore the warnings of those who have the benefit of learned experience will get hurt. It’s evolution 101.

Stories of elves and pixies, Santa Clause, the man in the moon, Jonah being swallowed by a whale, these are all accepted at an early age without question. A five year old will readily accept them. A thirty year old man obviously won’t.

What happens as children grow older is that they understand more of how the world works through practical experience and they correlate this with what they have been told. If there is a disconnect, then they begin to question what they have been told.

Eventually they decide which facts to accept and which to reject. Their decisions aren’t necessarily correct, but whichever ones they do accept will lead to a belief. If they later reject the facts, then they will lose their belief.

They also learn facts about personal relationships which are far more important in the long run. Unfortunately in our secular society they are often outweighed by materialistic considerations - such as the convenience of abortions…

 

[tonyrey]

I have faith, though, that PA will at least be able to hear what we’re saying. Maybe not today, but hopefully, at least later, upon reflection…

Cynicism is a disease rather than a rational decision. As Pascal pointed out:

"Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point“
(The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing)

Of course the heart is not infallible…

 

[Bradski]

They also learn facts about personal relationships which are far more important in the long run. Unfortunately in our secular society they are often outweighed by materialistic considerations - such as the convenience of abortions…

Bring your kids up right, Tony (and I have no reason to believe you haven’t), then there won’t be a problem.

 

[tonyrey]

Bring your kids up right, Tony (and I have no reason to believe you haven’t), then there won’t be a problem.

It is far more difficult in a society dominated by materialism and erotic advertising where teenage girls become pregnant and have abortions without blinking an eyelid…

 

[Peter_Plato]

You mean… what I used to believe in my young years. Absolutely. My luck was that neither of my parents were “strongly” religious. So when I started to ask questions, they encouraged me to think the questions through and come to my own conclusions. The funny thing is that my brother was bought up identically, and yet he became a strongly religious person.

The contrast between how your parents treated you stands in stark contrast to your claims below. It is difficult to see how consistently teaching or training you to do what could be described as good and decent things amounts to “brainwashing.”

No. I was brainwashed into being a nice Christian child, pray every evening, go to church… and also to learn proper social skills, to be very polite to others, always give up my seat to the elderly, open the doors for ladies and zillions of other things.

brainwashing
noun
1.
a method for systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs, originated in totalitarian countries, especially through the use of torture, drugs, or psychological-stress techniques.
2.
any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, especially one based on repetition or confusion:
brainwashing by TV commercials.
3.
an instance of subjecting or being subjected to such techniques:
efforts to halt the brainwashing of captive audiences.

I am not sure by which definition of brainwashing you conclude you were “brainwashed,” but typically brainwashing means a systematic way of taking away the reasons for one’s existing beliefs and in some coercive manner – without assent of the subject undergoing brainwashing – targeted beliefs are altered or removed and new ones put in place. The “taking away” would be key to the definition.

It is not clear to me that your upbringing involved “brainwashing” merely because you were systematically taught a set of beliefs surrounding how to treat your peers and older people, being polite and praying, and how this could possibly – under any stretch of the imagination – be called brainwashing. It describes pretty much every form of child rearing and every form of education in every jurisdiction because they are all “systematic” in the same sense.

The fact that young children don’t typically come equipped with beliefs, and according to Bradski, at least, have no means of distinguishing true from false beliefs, does not mean the mere fact they were introduced to certain beliefs before they could challenge them intellectually makes THAT brainwashing.

You may want to make a straight claim that religious beliefs are unwarranted beliefs, in principle, and, therefore, instilling religious beliefs in any child systematically counts as brainwashing. The problem, for you, is that you haven’t shown that religious beliefs are, indeed, ungrounded.

The fact that 8 of the top 10 smartest individuals on earth (measured by high IQ) are theists and six are Christian, means that even the most intelligent people on earth, who presumably have the wherewithal to question and wittingly come to religious conclusions have done so.

examiner.com/article/of-10-highest-iq-s-on-earth-at-least-8-are-theists-at-least-6-are-christians

Minds which are brighter – I presume to add – than yours. Do you wish to go on record as saying they are theists without grounds? That would be pitting your reasons for not being religious against theirs for being religious.

I am not sure – given your mediocre defense of your reasons on this thread – that you want to go there.

 

[PRmerger]

But of course! In our young, formative years we learn everything from our parents (relatives, environment, friends…). Not just religion, also proper behavior, how to tie your shoelaces, how to become a nice little kid, share your toys, instead of being jealous of them. Young children are little “brutes”, angry, jealous, cruel… you name it. They need to be civilized. There is no difference between training a puppy to be housebroken and training a child to use the potty. The puppies never grow into rational, intelligent beings, but children - usually - do.

It is the case, whether anyone “wants” to go there or not. I am not afraid to look at reality, and accept what I see there. (Even when I hate what I see.)

Well, this discussion was colossally inutile then, because it appears that all you’re saying is that kids believe what they are told until they have the ability to critically think.

Very Catholic, that.

And then your position is that when you were able to critically think you became an atheist.

So what?



When all of us were able to critically think we became Believers.

IOW: you do actually agree with my position below:

And then we choose to believe, or choose not to believe.

 

[PRmerger]

Are you kidding me? Are you allowed to question God’s existence? Jesus’s divinity? Mary’s perpetual virginity? The infallibility of the pope and the magisterium? Especially in your young years?

LOL.

Yes.

I suggest you take a look at the name of the Host of this website.

It’s called…

wait for it…
wait for it…

Catholic…

ANSWERS.

That presupposes that there are Catholic…

wait for it…



QUESTIONS.