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PRmerger
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Love ya for acknowledging that! :hug1:
Well, there are acts that are objectively sinful. Gravely sinful. But I don’t know whether I would say that they are objectively “mortal” sins because, as we’ve stated, we don’t know the degree of a person’s intent and knowledge.
Others oughtn’t be doing it either. That’s above our pay grade.I don’t wonder whether Person A commits mortal sin; it isn’t my job and I’m happy to let others do it.
Certainly atheists are moving towards God when they perform acts of selfless love, without knowing the existence of God.
But the point is, atheists have not been able to climb on the high dive, so to speak, and perform a selfless act of love ala Max Kolbe.
Oh, we’re not talking about kindness, Alan. Some of the kindest people I know are atheists.
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atheistgirl
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So you’d like to think.
But the evidence of the work of the likes of MSF with displaced populations in war zones says otherwise.
Sarah x
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atheistgirl
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On another thread I asked a similar question, and found out that there are those who do say this. That whether the atheist knows it or not, every time they do something good, they can only do that because of God working through them. So when the atheist does bad, it’s because she’s an atheist, when she does good, it’s because of God working through her.
Which makes it really funny to hear some that would claim no atheist could risk or sacrifice their life for another, (utterly discredited now) when they also claim the only reason women like Linda Norgrove could do what she did, was because of God working through her :doh2: :whacky:
So God works through a Catholic priest, God works through Linda Norgrove.
But the Catholic priest wins the high diving competition in self sacrifice.
It would be funny, if it wasn’t so churlish, and insulting and offensive to the memories of both Saint Max Kolbe and Linda Norgrove and the many great women like her.
Sarah x
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PRmerger
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No doubt.
Yes.But the Catholic priest wins the high diving competition in self sacrifice.
I don’t see anything insulting whatsoever, Sarah.Sarah x
I give great kudos to Linda Norgrove et al. They are heroes, to be sure!
It’s just that no one (atheist) has met the qualities of what the great St. Maximilian Kolbe did.
One needs to be a Christian in order to do this.
And this is made evident by the fact that no evidence has been provided for an atheistic equivalent to Kolbe.
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AlanFromWichita
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Once I was watching George Carlin, and there was a pretty hot button-ish topic he started to talk about. He said, “they say you can’t joke about this. Well, you can joke about anything; it just depends on how you frame the joke.”
I hereby invoke the Holy Hand Grenade to allegorically obliterate all seriousness from all posts on this thread, previous and future … this one included.
The number of the count shall be three.
Alan
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ReapReason
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Assertion without explanation as to why it is relevant to my argument. I doubt that you comprehend your own argument, let alone mine.So you’d like to think.
But the evidence of the work of the likes of MSF with displaced populations in war zones says otherwise.
Sarah x
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AlanFromWichita
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atheistgirl
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That’s right, my poor little brain - it amazes me everyday I can manage to get safely through to nightfall
Sarah x
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Sair
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Well, that is the real question, isn’t it? Is selfless love even possible, let alone a desirable ideal? And if it is those things, it its exercise only possible for those who are Christian believers? That seems like a lot to prove - or a lot to assume with the statement, “Only Christians are capable of selfless love.”
I don’t think the goal of feeling good in the here and now ever really gets a guernsey with religious believers, to be honest. The querying of motivation is what is under discussion. The claim has been made, in no uncertain terms, that Christian martyrs for charity are solely and entirely motivated by disinterested human love for their fellow humans, and that only Christian faith can be behind that kind of love - if that kind of love even exists. You have done a fair job of questioning the purity of such motivation in this post.
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tonyrey
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Excellent post. The only reservation I have is that “simplistic” is usually derogatory.
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PRmerger
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I don’t know who you believe has made that claim, but I have not read that proclamation by any Christian on this thread, to be sure!
No Christian here ought to be professing what another Christian’s motivation may be.
And, it must be stated, even if she did, to say that another Christian is “solely and entirely motivated” by anything is, well, a bit over-reaching.
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AlanFromWichita
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Selfless love knows how to accept gifts of love, too. When we need help, others like to help in ways they can. When they offer, and we need the help, refusing the help denies them of an intended act of mercy. Accepting gifts is itself humbling. One can become resentful or even self-accusing – or one can learn gratitude. When you learn gratitude, you will see that what you do for others is also a great gift to them. Of course that’s a simplification, but for me it works like that.
Wrap any of the characters in my story above with a “Christian” or “non-Christian” label, and I keep the same opinion. Giver or receiver can be identified with whatever social/religious group; we’re on this planet together. It takes trust to look out for others and let them look out for us. When they are in different groups we know they think differently, so they aren’t as predictable and it’s hard for some people to get used to that in a friendship. But we are all made the same way – whether in the image of God, or if you don’t believe in God then at least in our genetic blueprint. What we believe about shapes our world views and colors our experiences, but doesn’t change our origin.
Alan
PS who thinks this thread will make it to the “1000+ post” condition?
Wrap any of the characters in my story above with a “Christian” or “non-Christian” label, and I keep the same opinion. Giver or receiver can be identified with whatever social/religious group; we’re on this planet together. It takes trust to look out for others and let them look out for us. When they are in different groups we know they think differently, so they aren’t as predictable and it’s hard for some people to get used to that in a friendship. But we are all made the same way – whether in the image of God, or if you don’t believe in God then at least in our genetic blueprint. What we believe about shapes our world views and colors our experiences, but doesn’t change our origin.
Alan
PS who thinks this thread will make it to the “1000+ post” condition?
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PRmerger
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Indeed. We need only look to Christ, accepting the help of St. Simon, to see the truth in what you say.
Yep.
True.
Me: an agnostic on this.
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Sair
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Statements such as, “Only a Christian can reach the height of selfless love demonstrated by Kolbe” are quite unequivocal, if indirect, assumptions of motivation.
That being the case, why assume that Christian faith is necessary at all, just because there is a prominent example of a man who happened to be a Christian offering to die in place of another? The possible additional motivations behind Kolbe’s action have been speculatively discussed already; whence the assumption that the essential ingredient was Christian faith? It might, for example, be true to say that, “Only a person who has had enough of their earthly suffering and longs for the afterlife (or for oblivion) can volunteer to die in another’s stead.” This says nothing about Christian faith or about selfless love, but provides a potentially valid explanation of the behaviour nonetheless.
To open yet another branch of this discussion - one that may get us to the 1,000+ post mark (who knows?) - if Kolbe was simply seeking a way out that squared with his personal beliefs (suicide not being an option, obviously) does this lessen our estimation of his action? If it does, why does it? Why, when a given action has the same tangible effects regardless of why a person acted, do we set so much store by that person’s motivations or intentions? I’m not talking about an action performed from malicious motives that goes awry and benefits rather than harms an intended victim - that is obviously still contemptible (though perhaps not quite as much as if it played out as planned) - but an action performed by a person who knows it will benefit others and wants it to do so, but for whom that benefit may or may not be their primary motivation.
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PRmerger
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No, not motivation. Ability.
Only a Christian has the ability to jump off the high dive of sacrificial love.
I assume it based on the (lack of) evidence.
My fall back position, like your fall back position, is: I don’t believe in this entity until someone can provide evidence for his existence.
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PRmerger
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Because the “essential ingredient” of Kolbe was, of course, his Christian faith.
Sure. If you could provide some evidence for this motivating factor?
Else you have as much evidence for that as you do for the flying spaghetti monster.
And I’m assuming you don’t believe in the possibility ofhim now, too, do you?
Since his personal beliefs were, well, Christian, what he did was quite consonant with his personal beliefs and as such we venerate what he did, not view them as “less”.
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AlanFromWichita
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Of course? As in goes without saying? It isn’t like we can do controlled experiments.
Do we have evidence that the Christian faith was THE “essential ingredient?”
Just askin’ …
Oh well, getting back to:
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Sair
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It does open the possibility that he felt no particular love for the man whose place he took, though. Unless you have privileged access to his state of mind at the time, you are left to making assumptions along with the rest of us.
If you are talking about only Christians having the ability to make this kind of sacrifice, then firstly, I think you are mistaken. As has been shown in previous posts, believers and unbelievers of all stripes have taken part in humanitarian work at real and present danger to their lives - and even given their lives directly (although I’m not about to say that Buddhist faith is the one and only essential ingredient in being able to set yourself alight and quietly burn to death to protest an unjust war). Are you saying that at the pivotal moment, when it came time to make the choice between avoiding the extremity of commitment to the cause and going the distance, the only thing that would get you over the line is belief in Christ? Because that’s a very large and quite unsubstantiated claim.
Secondly, what exactly does Christian faith add to the mix that gives a person the ability to die willingly, either for the sake of another person or for a cause? A martyr is, from a purely practical perspective, doing nothing different to a person who commits suicide. The only difference is that the former is not motivated by despair, but by other considerations - which may be manifold, not just related to religious belief. Are you saying that the only two things that give a person the ability to die voluntarily are despair and Christian faith?
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tonyrey
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If one doesn’t believe in the possibility of selfless love or cannot justify belief in selfless love one cannot be capable of selfless love unless one is inspired by the example of some one who believed in selfless love and demonstrated that selfless love is possible or by another source of inspiration.
The issue is how belief in selfless love originated and how it can be explained if we are animals.
The issue is how belief in selfless love originated and how it can be explained if we are animals.
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