What if the Church did this in response to the same-sex "marriage" debate?

[PRmerger]

I said. I can’t prove that God isn’t real. It’s a negative position. Since I can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, I have to conclude that he could either be existent or non-existent.

And I am only asking that you give the arguments for the existence of God the same degree of confidence that you give to the evidence for a pilot’s ability, in whose hands you are trusting your very life.

Do not hold a double standard and require an inordinate amount of certitude in order for you to accept God’s existence, while holding a infinitesimally small amount of conviction regarding the woman to whom you give your life, flying thousands of feet above the earth, in a flimsy metal contraption.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

And I am only asking that you give the arguments for the existence of God the same degree of confidence that you give to the evidence for a pilot’s ability, in whose hands you are trusting your very life.

Do not hold a double standard and require an inordinate amount of certitude in order for you to accept God’s existence, while holding a infinitesimally small amount of conviction regarding the woman to whom you give your life, flying thousands of feet above the earth, in a flimsy metal contraption.

Well, they’re two very different claims so I fail to see what the issue is. The fact that there is insufficent evidence to claim that God does not exist is enough to state that he could, while the fact that most pilots reach their destination safely is enough to suggest that the pilot probably will. In fact, I’d say that the evidence for the safety of the flight greatly excedes that of God. I see planes landing all the time. You do, however, appear to be asserting that I have complete trust in the pilot, and I’ve already told you that isn’t the case.

 

[PRmerger]

Well, they’re two very different claims so I fail to see what the issue is.

Try to look at the bigger picture, RA. Not about the specifics. It’s not about a claim to having faith in a pilot..

It’s about demand for sufficient evidence.

Just have the same level of demand. That’s all I’m saying.

The fact that there is insufficent evidence to claim that God does not exist is enough to state that he could,

What about examining the evidence that claims that God does exist? Is there enough of that to be as compelling as the evidence that this pilot won’t crash the plane?

Absolutely. There’s tomes and tomes written about this evidence. Yet for some reason atheists say, “That’s not enough to convince me.”

I find that disingenuous.

It’s like someone saying*, “I want 100 letters of recommendation, plus your diaries, as well as all of your confessions to your priest on tape, verified by a notary, before I will consider giving you an interview to my company”…

while also saying to a perfect stranger, “Oh? You want the job as my bodyguard and you have this letter from your mom that says you got an A in coloring in kindergarten? You’re hired!”

Keep the standard equitable. That’s all I’m saying.

*hyperbole is intentional in my analogy.

 

[PRmerger]

In fact, I’d say that the evidence for the safety of the flight greatly excedes that of God.

How do you know that it’s the pilot that’s responsible? Maybe it’s just chance that the plane landed safely. Or a delusion. Or a conspiracy to cover up all the crashes. Can you prove that it’s not any of these possibilities?

At any rate, unless you know that all of these planes that you’ve seen actually landing (and how many would that be? a dozen in your lifetime maybe?) were flown by the pilot who’s flying your plane, it appears, again, that you are putting faith in something with no evidence.

You do, however, appear to be asserting that I have complete trust in the pilot, and I’ve already told you that isn’t the case.

You have enough faith in her to entrust your very life into her hands. That’s HUGE, RA. Huge.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Try to look at the bigger picture, RA. Not about the specifics. It’s not about a claim to having faith in a pilot..

It’s about demand for sufficient evidence.

Just have the same level of demand. That’s all I’m saying.

I don’t need to. They’re two very different situations. That’s like saying I need to have the same level of demand for evidence for a claim that you’ve eaten cakes as I would for a claim that you have superpowers. I know cakes exist, and I know they can be eaten. There’s no need for me to disbelieve such a claim. However, I’ve never seen the use of superpowers before in my life and I don’t see any reason to believe they should exist. It stands to reason that you could eat a cake, but the claim of having superpowers would require much more evidence.

So, no, it makes no sense that I would want the same level of evidence for whether or not someone could fly a plane as I would for the existence of a magical, all-powerful being watching over me.

What about examining the evidence that claims that God does exist? Is there enough of that to be as compelling as the evidence that this pilot won’t crash the plane?

Absolutely. There’s tomes and tomes written about this evidence. Yet for some reason atheists say, “That’s not enough to convince me.”

There isn’t even enough evidence to assure me that the pilot won’t crash, let alone that there is a magical guy controlling the world. Have you been reading anything I’ve replied with?

How do you know that it’s the pilot that’s responsible? Maybe it’s just chance that the plane landed safely. Or a delusion. Or a conspiracy to cover up all the crashes. Can you prove that it’s not any of these possibilities?

No. Regardless of the pilot, I know that the majority of planes arrive safely. I know many people who travelled on planes, and none of them were killed.

At any rate, unless you know that all of these planes that you’ve seen actually landing (and how many would that be? a dozen in your lifetime maybe?) were flown by the pilot who’s flying your plane, it appears, again, that you are putting faith in something with no evidence.

I have evidence that the majority of planes land safely, regardless of the pilot that’s flying it. It’s not just the ones I have seen in person, but on the TV as well, and flights reported by other people.

You have enough faith in her to entrust your very life into her hands. That’s HUGE, RA. Huge.

No, I don’t. I don’t even consider it. Maybe if I had time to evaluate the pilot and make a decision, I wouldn’t get on the plane. But I know that these pilots should be checked, and should have the necessary qualifications. With this information, added onto the fact that most planes don’t end up crashing in a fiery blast of death and destruction, I feel that I can travel safely. Though, as I’ve said before, I’d still be aware that I could crash. You seem to think it’s absurd for me to admit that I could die on a plane, but frankly I’m well aware that I could die no matter where I am.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So, no, it makes no sense that I would want the same level of evidence for whether or not someone could fly a plane as I would for the existence of a magical, all-powerful being watching over me.

There isn’t even enough evidence to assure me that the pilot won’t crash, let alone that there is a magical guy controlling the world. Have you been reading anything I’ve replied with?

The way in which an issue is “framed” makes all the difference in terms of how evidence is brought to bear.

For example, what evidence suffices to justify a belief that matter on its own, and restricted to blind chance, has the power to organize itself into the myriad forms of life that exist on earth? That matter, on its own, can contrive the need for self-replication as a means to ensure the ongoing existence of living things and then organize the coding in DNA that brings about the sophisticated and delicate ordering of proteins in the cell to provide the complicated machinery to do so, requires exceptional faith in the “unknown” but magical powers hidden in matter.

An atheist must have extraordinary faith in the “magical” properties of chance and matter to bring these about. A theist proposes that intelligence of a far higher nature and quality than what humans have is the ordering power. Why is it so credulous to propose that an intelligently ordered universe, one that can be deciphered by the rational capacity of human beings might also be the result of an intelligent “ground” responsible for all of existence, but matter could have such powers of its own accord?

It would seem a pre-Copernican view to believe intelligence is only a human capacity when, clearly, the universe is intelligibly ordered. It would also seem a very egocentric POV to believe that humans are apex species in terms of intelligent development.

Speaking of faith, I view trusting in the fact that “whatever” is responsible for bringing me, my consciousness, my ability to reason, my personal identity as who I am, and all that exists around me that is consistent with and available to my faculties, also has the power to providentially look after and sustain my well-being, does not require a great deal of blind faith.

Your faith in the track record of airlines and pilots to perform at a certain standard is not unlike my faith in the universe “unfolding as it should.” The power behind the universe and its order has an exceptional track record. It brought about the time/space continuum, organized and fine-tuned matter according to the cosmological constants and coded an enormous variety of living entities into the nucleotide bases of DNA. Given those “magical” feats, I am confident that, if I do my part, this Supreme Author of life will do his.

Any complaints I might have are analogous to complaints a passenger on an airliner might make about the quality of food, trivial at best, considering the “magic” of flight or the “magic” involved in cosmic creation from the Big Bang onwards.

 

[DrTaffy]

The problem with this assertion is that the urban dictionary does not even claim to represent the truth, so the most I could be accused of is misrepresenting a misrepresentation of the truth

No, the most you can be accused of is ‘lying’ - the fact that you were lying about something so trivial just makes it more baffling. Is your point of view really so desperate for fabricated support?

Redefinition of marriage, is also about “taking liberties” and “misrepresenting the truth,” is it not?

Christians redefined ‘marriage’ back in the 4th century. The modern alleged ‘redefinition’ is in fact no more than removing unjustified unilaterally imposed restrictions put in place back then.

 

[DrTaffy]

The New Testament has been proven by the science of textual analysis to be the most accurate historical record of the time.

…]

And like I said we have your word on that right? You are a Roman era historian of note? Perhaps you have translated some interesting Manuscript that the rest of us are ignorantly unaware. Maybe you have done new exciting research. Strange that you did not tell us in the beginning that you were an authority on Roman legal tradition.

And like you said we have your word on that right? You are a New Testament era historian of note? Perhaps you have translated some interesting Manuscript that the rest of us are ignorantly unaware. Maybe you have done new exciting research. Strange that you did not tell us in the beginning that you were an authority on New Testament tradition.

I don’t need to produce sources for the assertion that our word ‘marriage’ comes from the Latin, because a far more convincing proof is for you to go and look yourself. That way you can be sure that I am not directing you to a spurious website, and the fact is so well known and beyond doubt that the most incompetent twit should be able to confirm it for him or her self in a matter of seconds.

Try it and let us know how you get on.

 

[down_under]

And like you said we have your word on that right? You are a New Testament era historian of note? Perhaps you have translated some interesting Manuscript that the rest of us are ignorantly unaware. Maybe you have done new exciting research. Strange that you did not tell us in the beginning that you were an authority on New Testament tradition.

I don’t need to produce sources for the assertion that our word ‘marriage’ comes from the Latin, because a far more convincing proof is for you to go and look yourself. That way you can be sure that I am not directing you to a spurious website, and the fact is so well known and beyond doubt that the most incompetent twit should be able to confirm it for him or her self in a matter of seconds.

Try it and let us know how you get on.

I have given you a source the New Testament and the words of Jesus. Yet you fail to give us ANY RATIONAL basis for understanding your argument (any of them) then your word. Which is worth precisely nothing in a factual debate. Nor is your opinion of what is a well known fact. Marriage is a fundamentally religious idea from the beginning brought to us by the Jews (the Torah is my source) perfected in Christ who founded his church on a monogamously married man. You have no case, and no amount of posturing will change that. And if you call me and incompetent twit again I will get you banned. This is a factual debate based on facts and sources. Its called a debate.

As to verifying with quick internet searches
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin
Classical Latin (the written kind) only goes back to the LATE Roman Empire. The original was an unwritten language “an only partially deducible colloquial form, the predecessor to Vulgar Latin.”
I just want to have a factual debate ya. You can’t just say whatever you want because it helps you case.

So anything that can be arbitrarily asserted can be arbitrarily denied. You say “Marriage goes back to Latin roots”

I say no it doesn’t

that’s a rule of LOGIC.

 

[Peter_Plato]

No, the most you can be accused of is ‘lying’ - the fact that you were lying about something so trivial just makes it more baffling. Is your point of view really so desperate for fabricated support?

Let’s track down the evidence of my “lying,” then, shall we? Recall that I did not quote the urban dictionary verbatim, nor claim to have done so. I did not insist that my definition of “mute point” was the exact definition found in the urban dictionary only that it was similar to it, or “somewhat” the same or supported by the one found there. Following my definition, that, I claimed was “defined as,” I included a pointer to the urban dictionary. I did not anywhere claim that my stated definition was the identical one from the urban dictionary.

The fact that I included the words “of being worthy” does not alter the essential meaning from that dictionary. In fact, dictionaries often define words with all kinds of qualifiers and different dictionaries define words with slightly attenuated wordings. Does that make dictionaries that do not use identical wordings for the same definition, liars, as well?

Explain, please how “…the added quality of complete silence,” means something essentially different from, “…the added quality of being worthy of complete silence?”

Explain how you are not being trivial, here?

This was my exact post:

However, you were indeed making a “mute” point, defined as a remark with “no height, length, or width; only position, with the added quality of being worthy of complete silence.”
Refer to the urban dictionary.

As to:

Christians redefined ‘marriage’ back in the 4th century. The modern alleged ‘redefinition’ is in fact no more than removing unjustified unilaterally imposed restrictions put in place back then.

Marriage is a natural partnership between a man and a woman that results in the procreation of offspring to this particular pairing, a reality that has existed ever since human beings walked this planet. Attendant to the partnership is an implicit responsibility for the well-being of said offspring. That you would ascribe this natural and biological reality to invention by a Roman state is pure fabrication. Certainly the Roman state codified terms of the partnership, but it didn’t invent it. Christians may also have added additional terms at a later date, but that, in itself does not support a claim that the Roman state invented the biological state of male-female procreative partnership.

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t need to. They’re two very different situations.

Of course. No one has been positing that they are very similar.

They are alike as analogs only.

Take this very simple analogy:

Christmas tree : ornament :: earlobe :: earring.

One can clearly see how the analogy works.

But someone may posit: your analogy is false because a Christmas tree and an earlobe are clearly 2 very different things.

True, this. But to say this demonstrates an inability to think in the abstract, don’t you think?

That’s like saying I need to have the same level of demand for evidence for a claim that you’ve eaten cakes as I would for a claim that you have superpowers. I know cakes exist, and I know they can be eaten. There’s no need for me to disbelieve such a claim. However, I’ve never seen the use of superpowers before in my life and I don’t see any reason to believe they should exist. It stands to reason that you could eat a cake, but the claim of having superpowers would require much more evidence.

Fair enough. You have no evidence that I have any superpowers. I grant you that you may indeed offer great skepticism if I claim that I can make myself rubbery, like ElastiGirl. There is no evidence for this to be a human ability.

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And you need not offer any skepticism whatsoever if I tell you that I have eaten cake today.

But my point is this: there is indeed evidence for God’s existence. Quite a bit of it. I recently proffered you 20 of them. And they don’t even begin to scratch the surface.

But for some reason, when this evidence is proposed to atheists, their standard for proof becomes astonishingly strict.

If you have a very low threshold for entrusting your life to a stranger, then you ought to have a very low threshold for contemplating the existence of God, using the manifold proofs at your disposal.

Now, have you examined those proofs that I directed you to yet?

 

[PRmerger]

There isn’t even enough evidence to assure me that the pilot won’t crash, let alone that there is a magical guy controlling the world. Have you been reading anything I’ve replied with?

Then you are the first atheist that I’ve been in discussion with who does not live by reason.

Reason demands that if you get on a plane you are proclaiming that you are reasonably sure this pilot can fly a plane.

And, again, if you are proclaiming that you do not give heed to your reason, logic and intellect, then, I sadly must put you in the genre of the 6000 year old earthers who live their lives in defiance of logic and reason.

And I don’t dialogue with people who do not cede to their reason. It’s an inutile endeavor.

 

[DrTaffy]

I have given you a source the New Testament and the words of Jesus.

You have given me a vague assertion. You have not specified where or how you think Jesus explicitly defined ‘marriage’ - either the english word or the legal (as opposed the social or religious) institution.

Yet you fail to give us ANY RATIONAL basis for understanding your argument (any of them) then your word. Which is worth precisely nothing in a factual debate. Nor is your opinion of what is a well known fact.

Unless it is a well known fact and a few seconds of effort would confirm it for you. As I pointed out, that way you know that I am not giving you a distorted set of evidence.

But still, since that seems to be too much effort for you, let me Google that for you.

Or if even watching an automated Google search is too much for you, here is a direct link to an etymological definition of ‘marriage’, or you might prefer “Ancient Law Its Connection to the History of Early Society” by Henry Sumner Maine for an overview of how Roman law influenced our own.

Happy?

And if you call me and incompetent twit again I will get you banned.

Oh get over yourself. All I said was that ‘the most incompetent twit’ should be able to confirm these facts without any pointers from me. That just says that it is trivial, too trivial to need references, but it says nothing about you - until you pop up to (apparently) assert that you cannot do so. Which does, admittedly, make you look silly (and actually implies that you are worse than ‘an incompetent twit’ ) but that is all your doing, not mine.

All I did was use a turn of phrase like “any idiot can see that…”

This is a factual debate based on facts and sources. Its called a debate.

Then why are you resorting to threats of trumped-up complaints?

As to verifying with quick internet searches
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin
Classical Latin (the written kind) only goes back to the LATE Roman Empire. The original was an unwritten language “an only partially deducible colloquial form, the predecessor to Vulgar Latin.”

What? Did you read that article? Classical latin covers from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, which is quite early enough, and archaic latin goes back further, and why is this relevant? Latin is still the root of the word ‘marriage’.

So anything that can be arbitrarily asserted can be arbitrarily denied. You say “Marriage goes back to Latin roots”

I say no it doesn’t

that’s a rule of LOGIC.

No, that’s a baseless assertion.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Sorry for the late reply. I completely forgot about this. I’ll type what I can now, and do the rest tomorrow .

Of course. No one has been positing that they are very similar.

They are alike as analogs only.

Take this very simple analogy:

Christmas tree : ornament :: earlobe :: earring.

One can clearly see how the analogy works.

But someone may posit: your analogy is false because a Christmas tree and an earlobe are clearly 2 very different things.

True, this. But to say this demonstrates an inability to think in the abstract, don’t you think?

Hm, I wouldn’t say they’re alike so much as analogies. Maybe slightly, but they’d only work to a certain extent. But to compare the existence of God to whether or not someone can fly a plane is still absurd. A better analogy, and something that I feel is much more similar, would be to compare the existence of God to something else supernatural or supernormal, such as Bigfoot or magic.

Fair enough. You have no evidence that I have any superpowers. I grant you that you may indeed offer great skepticism if I claim that I can make myself rubbery, like ElastiGirl. There is no evidence for this to be a human ability.

http://www.sprichie.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Elastigirl-from-Incredibles.jpg

And you need not offer any skepticism whatsoever if I tell you that I have eaten cake today.

But my point is this: there is indeed evidence for God’s existence. Quite a bit of it. I recently proffered you 20 of them. And they don’t even begin to scratch the surface.

But for some reason, when this evidence is proposed to atheists, their standard for proof becomes astonishingly strict.

I don’t believe that you honestly think I would have the same standard of evidence for whether or not someone can fly a plane as I would for the existence of God. Obviously, I know people can fly planes. That’s demonstrably true. I’d need much less evidence to convince me someone could fly a plane than I would for the claim that a god exists. Besides, belief doesn’t work by some kind of line of evidence that, if passed, automatically makes me believe. I need to be convinced of something. One single argument could be enough to do that, as you guys on this forum proved with abortion.

If you have a very low threshold for entrusting your life to a stranger, then you ought to have a very low threshold for contemplating the existence of God, using the manifold proofs at your disposal.

I entrust my life to strangers all the time, often without evaluating the circumstance. I don’t understand your claim that by doing something that I could possibly die from I am somehow putting faith in someone, or something. I could possibly die all the time. Even walking down the street doesn’t come without its dangers.

Now, have you examined those proofs that I directed you to yet?

Partly, but I don’t understand a lot of them, if I’m honest. The first one, for example, claims that change, such as growth, must happens through some kind of outside force. I don’t really understand why the division of cells would require a God to happen. Animals don’t move merely through desire or will, but through a nervous system and muscles. The second argument doesn’t convince me because it lacks any kind of imagination. Just because something is uncaused, doesn’t mean it needs to be a god (of course, it depends on what you define as being a god). They’re certainly clever, and well-thought out, but they don’t really move me from my place as an agnostic-atheist/weak athestic/whatever-label-you-want-to-give-me-ist.

I’ll write some more in the morning. It’s getting late.

 

[PRmerger]

Hm, I wouldn’t say they’re alike so much as analogies. Maybe slightly, but they’d only work to a certain extent. But to compare the existence of God to whether or not someone can fly a plane is still absurd. A better analogy, and something that I feel is much more similar, would be to compare the existence of God to something else supernatural or supernormal, such as Bigfoot or magic.

Huh? You believe in Bigfoot? You have to proffer some example in which you believe something with very little evidence, for it to supplant my example.

IOW, RA, the point is that you believe in something with very, very little evidence. You simply get on a plane and make a profession of faith, “I believe, without ever having met this woman, that she can fly this plane.”

Now, if you are going to stick by your, “I have no idea whether the pilot can fly this plane,and in fact, it may crash, but I get on the plane anyway!” paradigm, then I sadly must depart from dialogue with you because you are the most illogical atheist I have ever chatted with.

And it’s fruitless to dialogue with someone who is not compelled by logic and reason.

So, are you really going to profess that you fly on airplanes with no degree of assurance that this pilot knows what she’s doing?

 

[PRmerger]

Oh get over yourself. All I said was that ‘the most incompetent twit’ should be able to confirm these facts without any pointers from me. That just says that it is trivial, too trivial to need references, but it says nothing about you - until you pop up to (apparently) assert that you cannot do so. Which does, admittedly, make you look silly (and actually implies that you are worse than ‘an incompetent twit’ ) but that is all your doing, not mine.

All I did was use a turn of phrase like “any idiot can see that…”

Be careful, Taffy. It would be a shame for you to be banned, for it is good for you to be here and in dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics.

Using words like “twit” and “idiot”, besides betraying an ugly disposition in one’s nature, can quickly get folks banned.

 

[Matilda_Bennett]

General Reminder:

This discussion has strayed from its original topic of the definition of marriage. Please return to the original topic under discussion. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

 

[faithweakdesire]

As the state adopts the doctrine of demons called “same-sex marriage”, what if the Church began to always call marriage between a man and a woman either “sacramental marriage” or “natural marriage” instead of just “marriage” to distinguish marriage as it was in the beginning from newly invented artificial concepts of “marriage”?

There is nothing natural about a man being with another man, sexually. So, to condone it in the Catholic church with allowing a marriage to be performed in wrong. Put whatever label you want on it, it’s still wrong in nature and as should be in the church also.

Why do the gays want to have society accept them as being normal, when they are not. First in the laws of nature and in the views of the church?

 

[guanophore]

 And using the criteria homosexual couples shouldn't be allowed to get married, because they're not open to life, as claimed by the poster I was originally responding to, is equally absurd, .....

That was my point.

I agree with you, but the attitude of being “open to life” that is required is actually not one of the impediments. There is a difference between being open to life, and being unable to produce life.

There are no circumstances in which a homosexual couple can unite their bodies to produce life.

There’s a ton of arguments one could use against homosexual marriage, but claiming they can’t naturally have children is about the weakest.

Sarah x

I agree there are many arguments, the one that they cannot naturally have children being only one. But this should not be confused with the attitude of being open to life.

Heterosexual couples are enjoyed by the Church to recieve all fruit from their union as from God. It is not possible for homosexual couples to produce fruit from their union, so it is a moot point.

 

[PRmerger]

I agree with you, but the attitude of being “open to life” that is required is actually not one of the impediments. There is a difference between being open to life, and being unable to produce life.

There are no circumstances in which a homosexual couple can unite their bodies to produce life.

Indeed.

While homosexual relations may be sexual, they will never be nuptial. They will never be ordered towards life.

Some married couples (the elderly, post-menopausal women, women post-hysterectomy, etc etc etc) may have sexual relations that are infertile but their acts will always still be ordered towards life. While they have zero chance of conceiving, their marital embrace is still ordered towards the proper end of marriage: procreation and union.

What’s the difference, some may ask?

I think this analogy, borrowed from the wickedly funny yet orthodox and trenchant Catholic blogger, Marc Barnes, limns the difference quite well:

Imagine a senior citizens baseball team that shows up to play the 2011 World Series champs, the St. Louis Cardinals. They have absolutely no chance of achieving the proper end of baseball (gaining more runs than the other team), but so long as they play according to the rules their play is still ordered toward its proper end.

But in the case of homosexual unions, the play itself is changed. It would be like showing up at the game without bats, wanting to play with their backs to each other, so that even if they have the intent of winning a baseball game, what they are doing can’t possibly be ordered toward that end because they are, quite simply, no longer playing baseball.