Religion, Parenthood, Brainwashing and Branding

[Reepicheep]

But the analogy is incorrect. Contrary to general misconceptions in math there are no absolute, objective truths. Every true proposition (theorem) is the derivative of the chosen axioms. And the axioms can be anything, they can be chosen arbitrarily. The only requirement is that they must be internally consistent.

Just a simple example:In one system 1 + 1 = 2
In another one 1 + 1 = 10
In yet another one: 1 + 1 = 1
And one more: 1 + 1 = 0

All are correct - but the underlying axioms are different.
Morality has no axioms. Morality does not even deal with facts or IS-statements it deals with OUGHT-statements.

If I have* this many button |||| and I then add this many ||| then I will have this *many buttons in all. |||| |||
The number of buttons in my possession will be the same regardless whether I do my counting in base two, base six, base ten or base twelve. The symbols used to express that total will look different depending on the base being used, but the reality will be the same.
I will not have more or fewer actual buttons if I count in base eight than if I count in base twelve. The truth will be the same.

You say morality has no axioms. Have you ever heard of a nation where men boast proudly of how cowardly they are, or pride themselves on their treachery, or urge their children to practice the virtue of sloth? Different cultures may disagree with each other over how a man should prove his bravery, but everyone agrees that courage is praiseworthy.

 

[Reepicheep]

According to your sins? Now that’s not true, is it, Christine.

‘Hey, how come you ended up here?’
‘Me? Darn it, I was playing with my genitals. You?’
‘Genocide. I ordered the killing of a few million people’.

Did you know that 95% of males admit to masturbation and 5% lie about it. I’m not sure about the figures for genocide.

And do you know anyone who is an atheist who tells their children that it’s OK to do what they want? It’s a view that’s not even worthy of response. Except to say that you don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, no Christian believes it…in fact there has never been a person alive who believes it. Why do we keep getting this nonsense?

Because [Here Begineth Ye Rhetorical Statement] the Church teaches that the sin of masturbation is exactly equivalent to the sin of genocide*.[End Rhetorical Statement*]

Also you don’t go the Hell for small sins. It has to be **mortal **sin, which involves much more serious matters than ‘playing with your genitals’.
About your claim that all males masturbate, what’s your source? What evidence?

I do not know of any atheists who teach their children that it’s okay to do what they want.
I have heard of some fundamentalists who throw this up to atheists, and I think the fundamentalists are wrong to do so.*

 

[Reepicheep]

Are they both in hell for eternity, or not?

Which is worse, to be burned with a match or to be burned with a blowtorch?

The Lost are in Hell for eternity but worse sins == worse suffering.

 

[Reepicheep]

Again, you are not correct. Man has decided what will get you into hell. And man says masturbation and genocide will see you in hell for eternity.

There are men who make that claim. The Catholic Church, however, teaches something just a bit more nuanced than “play with your naughty bits and you burn in hell”. Further we don’t make up the rules. We teach what God has given us.

And when you point out that only a lunatic would consider that justice, all we get is a shrug of the shoulders: ‘Hey, we don’t make the rules’. When it is plainly obvious that you do.

We don’t make the rules, and we don’t claim that masturbation is equivalent to mass murder. Of course the accusation gets thrown up to us all the time by those who wish to condemn us.

And I was going to say that I really don’t believe that you cannot comprehend that there are reasons for being moral that don’t include a belief in God. But maybe you actually can’t. I find it incredibly difficult to understand, but maybe you really can’t.

It would mean that if you temporarily lost your belief, you would have no idea how to explain to anyone why stealing or murder was wrong. I’m at a loss how that could actually be true. It’s a little chilling.

I can’t speak for Christine77. I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea that an atheist can believe that murder, theft, adultery, treachery, etc. are morally wrong, and teach his children to shun such behavior.

 

[Bradski]

You say morality has no axioms. Have you ever heard of a nation where men boast proudly of how cowardly they are, or pride themselves on their treachery, or urge their children to practice the virtue of sloth? Different cultures may disagree with each other over how a man should prove his bravery, but everyone agrees that courage is praiseworthy.

Reep, could I ask you to have a word with Christine? She’s unsure of the basis for morality. Explaining these axioms to her might shed some light on the matter.

 

[Reepicheep]

Reep, could I ask you to have a word with Christine? She’s unsure of the basis for morality. Explaining these axioms to her might shed some light on the matter.

I don’t think so, Brad. I don’t think so.

 

[Bradski]

Which is worse, to be burned with a match or to be burned with a blowtorch?

The Lost are in Hell for eternity but worse sins == worse suffering.

So the genocidal maniac - they really get medieval on him, whereas the guy who committed a mortal sin by spilling his seed upon the ground gets…what? Limited wi-fi?

But I could swear someone posted that the two acts were equivalent. Ah, yes. Here it is:

Because [Here Begineth Ye Rhetorical Statement] the Church teaches that the sin of masturbation is exactly equivalent to the sin of genocide*.[End Rhetorical Statement*]*

Or was that meant to be sarcastic as opposed to rhetorical? It must have been, because you say in the next post:
Reepicheep;14391091:

We don’t make the rules, and we don’t claim that masturbation is equivalent to mass murder. Of course the accusation gets thrown up to us all the time by those who wish to condemn us.

I think that you need to clarify exactly what you mean.

But in any case, where do you get this idea of relative punishment from? Is there some table for every mortal sin that gets you to hell? A divine Excel sheet to which you could link? I reckon I’m up for quite a few. I’d like to know what I’m in for.

 

[fisherman_carl]

The natural division of mankind is not political or national, but familial. Political parties are not naturally born, but families are. If it is perfectly fine to tell your child he or she is American, Canadian, or African, then how much more acceptable and natural is it to tell him that he or she is Christian. Families should have the say in what their kids are taught. The problem is the government increasingly wants to take that right away from them. Both big business and big government wants to destroy the family, and substitute it with itself.

 

[inocente]

“I teach you this because it’s true” does not equal “believe this or I’ll cut off your head.”

Tell me, Inocente: do you know of any cases in the last, oh, fifty years, when a major Christian church practiced or condoned execution for failure to believe in Christ?

50 years? That’s moral relativism if it’s trying to stop me saying the obvious, that the Christian lesson was to believe in our god or get burned at the stake. Which was a lot more painful and drawn out than the guillotine or axe.

Telling a child that unless she believes in your truth then your god will torture her forever is just replacing physical violence with mental violence.

 

[PseuTonym]

in math there are no absolute, objective truths. Every true proposition (theorem) is the derivative of the chosen axioms. And the axioms can be anything, they can be chosen arbitrarily. The only requirement is that they must be internally consistent.

It sounds as though you are placing number theory outside of mathematics.

For example, if positive, whole numbers numbers x, y, z, and n, with n greater than 2, were discovered such that (x to the power of n) plus (y to the power of n) equals (z to the power of n), then Fermat’s Last Theorem would be refuted.

Sophisticated theory versus specific, verifiable fact …
… is like soap bubble versus hammer.

The soap bubble doesn’t survive the confrontation.

 

[Reepicheep]

So the genocidal maniac - they really get medieval on him, whereas the guy who committed a mortal sin by spilling his seed upon the ground gets…what? Limited wi-fi?
But I could swear someone posted that the two acts were equivalent. Ah, yes. Here it is:

Or was that meant to be sarcastic as opposed to rhetorical? It must have been, because you say in the next post:

I think that you need to clarify exactly what you mean.

But in any case, where do you get this idea of relative punishment from? Is there some table for every mortal sin that gets you to hell? A divine Excel sheet to which you could link? I reckon I’m up for quite a few. I’d like to know what I’m in for.

The [rhetorical] statements were sarcastic/ironic and meant to make a point by being so.
I was explicitly contradicting the claim that the Church ever taught that masturbation was equivalent to genocide.
But since you find that unclear, I will try to remember next time to actually say it in so many words, should I wish to be sarcastic.

As to the ‘idea of relative punishment’ – I was describing the teaching of Mother Church. You don’t go to Hell at all unless you have committed mortal sin (which means you did something very seriously evil, and knew you were doing evil and actually freely chose to do it) and then refused to repent of it till the moment of your death.
That being said, even among the damned some are worse than others and God’s justice punishes according to the nature and severity of the sins.

 

[Reepicheep]

50 years? That’s moral relativism if it’s trying to stop me saying the obvious, that the Christian lesson was to believe in our god or get burned at the stake. Which was a lot more painful and drawn out than the guillotine or axe.

Telling a child that unless she believes in your truth then your god will torture her forever is just replacing physical violence with mental violence.

1. In two thousand years of history we had some awful people do awful things in the name of Christ.
   And Islam had some awful people doing awful things in the name of Allah.
   And especially in the last century atheist governments had some awful people doing awful things in the name of the State or the People.
   Why is it that only Christianity gets told that what was done in the past, even the remote past, must be what we approve of in the present?
2. If you can’t show examples from the last half-century or so then you can’t plausibly claim that we do such things in this generation (or that we did them in the last generation before this one); and it’s this generation we’re arguing about.
   If the present is not like the past then throwing up the past to us is not evidence, it’s merely obfuscation. And that’s even if you can show that such evils were typical of us throughout history, which you can* not*.

“Believe or burn” is not the Christian way. Pointing out that there are sinners, even horrible sinners, in our past does not prove that it is.

Your last sentence is perfectly true. It just is not what Christianity teaches. I was raised to believe in Jesus. I was most emphatically not threatened with punishments if I did not believe. Nor did I see other children being so threatened.

 

[Bradski]

The [rhetorical] statements were sarcastic/ironic and meant to make a point by being so.
I was explicitly contradicting the claim that the Church ever taught that masturbation was equivalent to genocide.
But since you find that unclear, I will try to remember next time to actually say it in so many words, should I wish to be sarcastic.

Just for future reference, the three terms are not interchangeable.

As to the ‘idea of relative punishment’ – I was describing the teaching of Mother Church. You don’t go to Hell at all unless you have committed mortal sin (which means you did something very seriously evil, and knew you were doing evil and actually freely chose to do it) and then refused to repent of it till the moment of your death.
That being said, even among the damned some are worse than others and God’s justice punishes according to the nature and severity of the sins.

First up, your definition of seriously evil and mine are two different things. The church says that any mortal sin, un-repented, will send you to hell. St Paul says masturbation amongst others and the catechism says any of the ten commandments, so adultery will get you eternity in hell as will being an atheist and skipping mass. And they are seriously evil and demand the same punishment as killing millions of people?

OK. That’s your view and you are entitled to it. But where do we get to find this list of punishments? What does God specifically do to the guy who skipped mass compared to the genocidal maniac?

 

[Bradski]

I was most emphatically not threatened with punishments if I did not believe.

You weren’t told that if you did not believe then you were bound for hell? Nobody mentioned hell at all?

When did you get to hear about it? After you decided you were Christian?

 

[rcwitness]

So the genocidal maniac - they really get medieval on him, whereas the guy who committed a mortal sin by spilling his seed upon the ground gets…what? Limited wi-fi?

The way you convey your impression of hell is a silly characiture. Who is “they”?

 

[PRmerger]

You weren’t told that if you did not believe then you were bound for hell?

Nope. Not a single time.

Nobody mentioned hell at all?

Of course it was mentioned. But it was mentioned within the context of the entirety of the kerygma.

Just like no one ever told me: you get a shot.
Without an explanation of why I was getting it.

 

[Reepicheep]

Just for future reference, the three terms are not interchangeable.

Noted and acknowledged.

First up, your definition of seriously evil and mine are two different things. The church says that any mortal sin, un-repented, will send you to hell.

Yes, and that was what I said. I did point out that it has to be a serious matter to be mortal sin, that you have to know it’s serious and that you have to do it willingly.

St Paul says masturbation amongst others and the catechism says any of the ten commandments, so adultery will get you eternity in hell as will being an atheist and skipping mass. And they are seriously evil and demand the same punishment as killing millions of people?

If I mis-stated the teachings, that’s my fault and mea culpa. Still it takes an unrepented mortal sin, to send someone to Hell.
Also, atheism and skipping Mass? Do you picture God sitting up there on His Holy Throne watching and waiting till Reepicheep fails to report for Mass, then shouting gleefully “gotcha!” and flipping the switch to send me to the everlasting fires?
Also also; atheism is not *per se *a sin.
Some people proclaim themselves atheists because they don’t want to deal with God, or obey Him.
Some people are atheists because their parents taught them atheism is true, and they believe what they were trained to believe.
And some people are atheists because they are genuinely and honestly convinced that atheism is true.

Honest error is not the same as dishonest error. “I refuse to admit God is real because I don’t want to give up my pleasures”, is dishonest error and a sin. “I trust what my parents taught me” is not the same thing.

OK. That’s your view and you are entitled to it. But where do we get to find this list of punishments? What does God specifically do to the guy who skipped mass compared to the genocidal maniac?

I have no idea ‘what God specifically does’ to individual sinners in Hell. Nor am I interested in speculation.

 

[Bradski]

The way you convey your impression of hell is a silly characiture. Who is “they”?

Maybe you can clarify the situation by explaining the degrees of punishment meted out as reep has implied. I’d not heard of it before.

 

[Reepicheep]

You weren’t told that if you did not believe then you were bound for hell? Nobody mentioned hell at all?

When did you get to hear about it? After you decided you were Christian?

I was taught about Hell. I was taught that if I did evil things and didn’t repent of them I would be in danger of Hell. I was never told as a child that I would go to Hell if I didn’t believe what someone told me.

And I don’t recall at what point in my life that I learned there were people who would threaten other people with Hell for not believing. I do know that I learned to think very poorly of ‘hellfire and brimstone’ preaching–which in any case I heard over TV from some Protestant preachers but didn’t hear from Catholic priests.

 

[Reepicheep]

Maybe you can clarify the situation by explaining the degrees of punishment meted out as reep has implied. I’d not heard of it before.

I refer you to my post # 176.