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Post by nikita on Aug 12, 2010 17:14:32 GMT -5
This is just the Socratic method. It's Socratic method with the added idea that matters of faith can't be proven in the empirical world. We don't know about the intangible world in terms of the empirical world, but we all start from some kind of assumption. (What is faith and how do you prove it?) To say that you have a position on whether that there is a God or not, you had to start with some assumption. They are matters of faith, whether that faith is faith in science, the natural world, human intellect, the goodness of mankind, karma, the universe, or the tenets of religion. It is a kind of circular reasoning, but ideally, it doesn't make logical errors in the execution of that circular reasoning. It also doesn't start out with the desire to demean or demoralize your opponent. You can then say that presuppositional apologetics adds to Socratic method the presupposition that you have to believe in something as a starting point. I found examples of what constitutes presuppositional apologetics versus what constitutes classical apologetics which I think goes a long way toward illustrating what the difference really is and what I am talking about here: Presuppositional apologetics:Allen: I am an atheist and evolutionist. Prove to me there is a God.
Paul: I do not think I can do that, because of your presuppositions.
Allen: Why not?
Paul: Because your presuppositions will not allow you to examine without bias the evidence that I present to you for God's existence.
Allen: That is because there is no evidence for God's existence.
Paul: See? There you go. You just confirmed what I was stating.
Allen: How so?
Paul: Your presupposition is that there is no God; therefore, no matter what I might present to you to show His existence, you must interpret it in a manner consistent with your presupposition: namely, that there is no God. If I were to have a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you'd say it was a special effect. If I had a thousand eye-witnesses saying they saw Him, you'd say it was mass-hysteria. If I had Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament, you'd say they were forged, dated incorrectly, or not real prophecies. So, I cannot prove anything to you since your presupposition won't allow it. It is limited.
Allen: It is not limited.
Paul: Yes it is. Your presupposition cannot allow you to rightly determine God's existence from evidence -- providing that there were factual proofs of His existence. Don't you see? If I DID have incontrovertible proof, your presupposition would force you to interpret the facts consistently with your presupposition and you would not be able to see the proof.
Allen: I see your point, but I am open to being persuaded, if you can.
Paul: Then, I must ask you, what kind of evidence would you accept that would prove God's existence? I must see what your presuppositions are and work either with them or against them.Classical apologetics:Allen: Can you give me a logical reason why God exists?
Matt: I will try (simple logic). The universe exists. The universe cannot be eternal because if it were eternal then it would mean that an infinite amount of time has passed in order for us to get to the present. But you cannot transverse an infinite amount of time. Therefore the universe is not infinitely old.
Allen: That is an interesting argument. Do you have anything else?
Matt: Sure (Cosmological Argument). All things that came into existence are caused to exist. There cannot be an infinite regression of causes because this would mean that there was an infinite amount of time in the past that had to be traversed in order for us to get to the present. Again, you are not able to cross an infinite amount of time. Therefore, it is logical to say that there must be a single uncaused cause. I propose that that uncaused cause is God.
------ They are two very different ways of arguing the truth of a Christian belief, in this case the existence of God. Where I see presuppositional apologetics used with great frequency nowadays in Reformed discussions results in nothing being allowed outside of scripture, which they have already given a ready-made interpretation for. If you don't accept the inerrancy of scripture as rendered and their interpretation of it then the discussion doesn't get anywhere. They are not open to outside arguments or arguments from external sources and reality. I brought this up only because I think this type of apologetics trickles down into the teachers and congregants in sermons and books and conferences and is the reason things become so insular. The outside world serves the already agreed upon interpretation and is not permitted to change the interpretation. And since most people are not philosophers and theologians it probably gets a little fuzzy in the execution in every day interactions but it is there, in the background, infusing the thinking of the faithful. Do all reformed people think in this way? Not necessarily. But it is a modern apologetic stance that is rooted in the Reform theological schools. And it is primarily Reform teachers and pastors who are driving the current QF/P movements and moving through the evangelical church world today so that is the kind of reasoning you are seeing more and more out there. I'm not talking about people in seminaries who are steeped in theology and philosophy, but everyday people in the trenches. This is what I see out there.
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Post by cindy on Aug 12, 2010 17:16:47 GMT -5
KM,
You wrote:
This isn't un-Socratic. Socrates saw the state as the foundational element in the very same way in which you are positing Christian faith as a kind of foundation. I think it would be more accurate to argue that this is the Socratic method as interpreted by conservative Reformed Christianity. By the way, is this a Dominionist doctrine? Do these people see the state as foundational in any way?
Both Van Til and Clark wrote specifically about how to articulate the Christian faith within this concept that I don't deny is very Socratic. You say that it's more accurate to say this is Socratic method as interpreted by Reformed Christianity. I completely agree with you. Did I give the impression that I was talking about something else.
You ask whether this stuff is Dominionist. I guess you have to define what Dominionism means and how you define it. What is Reformed Christianity?
As a Christian, in the general sense, I am a dominionist like all Christians. I am Reformed. I especially like how Francis Schaeffer, James Sire, John Frame, and John Robbins do/did articulate presuppositional apologetics. What I reject is the hijacked, distorted, aberrant, spiritually abusive garbage that is now passed off as Reformed apologetics. I think that you can believe the principles, but I completely disagree with how many interpret, present, and carry out these principles.
John Robbins HATED this QF stuff, and I understand that John Frame and his associates don’t accept the QF stuff either. They would deny that these men are Reformed and that they model presuppositional apologetics. Those men definitely don’t “see the state as foundational.”
Do you mean “the state as foundational” to how to share Christianity with the world, by taking over the government and birthing “Christian America through Covenant Families”? These men I’ve mentioned would refuse this. Actually, Rousas Rushdoony did, too. He actually talked about his fears of what the homeschooling community and the Reformed Church would turn into, and he warned against all that QF has become. He said some problematic things, but he was worlds away from Gary North who did teach that we should take over the government and save the world by birthing. That stuff came from Gary and not Rushdoony, and the two were very different in their views, though Rushdoony certainly paved the way for the problems by paving the way for Gary North. Rushdoony spent his later years battling this garbage and keeping the aberrant teachers out of their literature.
Actually, the Dominionists associated with QF would deny that they “see the state as foundational” also. They hate the state, and many of them teach their children that they don’t need driver’s licenses because it’s none of the state’s business. They refuse government assistance and see it as sin. They would also deny that they are working for a theocracy, though that is what they say effectively and it is how they act.
I think that one can believe these things and have them not be abusive and aberrant. As I stated earlier, I think that what most people are more familiar with is the Gary North insanity, and there are plenty of people who believe these concepts and are nothing like Gary North, save for the terminology that has been hijacked.
The other thing about these men I’ve mentioned – they didn’t live like nuts and didn’t live legalistically. Rushdoony did not think birth control was wrong, for example. He surrounded himself with strong women. He didn’t live in an agrarian compound eating storage food and stockpiling generators. He was not afraid of the culture.
That, of course, does not alleviate him of responsibility for the problematic things he did say, and I take issue with many of them. I think that in the long run, the fact that his writing was complicated and long has complicated many things for people, and what he wrote opened more than a few Pandora’s Boxes of problems. He did help create the environment that fostered this weirdness, though he did warn against it and saw is as a major concern.
There are many guys who ascribe to reasonable ideas, and they are nothing like Gary North and Doug Phillips.
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Post by arietty on Aug 12, 2010 18:36:52 GMT -5
This is interesting to me, all the pentecostal teaching. I was very very very set against pentecostal theology, name it and claim it, prosperity and the idea that everything bad that happened to you was because of sin. My mainstream church would dive into varying Pentecostal streams (Vineyard, spiritual warfare..) every few years as a kind of revival. Things were really moving when they were on one of their pentecostal teaching kicks.. which would fade, and be replaced by something else as church is always given to fads. I enjoyed arguing against all these things. They were quite divisive as anyone not embracing the current fad was automatically seen as less spiritual and in need of great prayer by those who did embrace it.
My theology was this: if good things happened to you it was because God loved you. You hadn't earned these things, they were just random Grace that fell out of the sky onto you (I didn't actually say it like that, but that's pretty much how I viewed it). When bad things happened to you they were ALL because of "the Fall". We lived in a fallen world and just like you could not avoid dying and the eventual decay of your cells in old age we could not avoid other products of the fall such as crime, illness, natural disaster. God loved us and would at times do good things for us but there was no escape from the fall until we were dead and in heaven. It was a kind of fatalism that I found quite comforting because it meant random bad stuff was not anyone's fault directly but rather a product of the state of the world.
I made one exception to this. Even though I accepted that people got cancer and other things which they died from I believed that I would NOT have any severe or fatal problems in pregnancy and childbirth. I sincerely believed that God wanted me to open my womb to all the children he would give me and that everything WOULD work out. I actually only shed this conceit over the first few months I started reading NLQ (in part because I had no reason to look at it as I was not having any more children). I think the QF mandate was so powerful for me that it came with it's own special theology that I would not have applied to other physiological processes. I didn't worry about how to fit in bad things happening to other moms though.. that was also conveniently a product of "the fall", and no doubt if I had lost a baby or something else terrible had happened I would have adjusted my special theology to include the fall for my own child birthing.
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Post by cherylannhannah on Aug 12, 2010 19:08:17 GMT -5
Presuppositional apologetics!! That was the term I was going for. It's pretty much a Reformed Theology type of apologetics and it doesn't leave much room for other interpretations of scripture or thought. I think that is why it is so hard to reason with people who are being taught in these kinds of Christian groups. Not reason with them about whether God is God, but about anything scriptural or spiritual at all. They know it because they know it. Evidence to the contrary and other interpretations aren't admitted or taken seriously. It's a real problem. Whew. I feel better now. FWIW, I'm very familiar with presuppositional apologetics. Rather than locking you into a particular interpretation, what it does is allow you to see the presuppositions, or unprovable, faith-based foundational beliefs that undergird *any* system.
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Tor
New Member
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Post by Tor on Aug 12, 2010 19:11:28 GMT -5
The thing that I get so frustrated by is that my experience with those who believe in this "everything happens for a reason / name it and claim it / signs are everywhere" belief system are fitting God into their own idealogical whims. God doesn't function any higher than people. It assumes that God is so easily understood that everything that happens can be so clear and defined - to me that makes for a very small, ungod-like God.
I had a friend who told me that god showed her how far away she was from him because of the death of someone in her church. Could not understand the kind of arrogance, narcissism, and small faith it took to believe in a god that would have to kill someone just to get her attention. Its a harmful belief. Especially when you've got an entire community of people telling you all the reasons God decided to screw with your life.
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Post by cherylannhannah on Aug 12, 2010 19:27:14 GMT -5
By the way, is this a Dominionist doctrine? Do these people see the state as foundational in any way? I'm not sure if I am a former Christian Reconstructionist yet or not since I haven't had time to sit down and thoroughly revisit everything. I've got a number of books by Gary North, RJ Rushdoony, and Greg Bahnsen that I've kept because there is a lot of good stuff (IMHO) in them. Most of what I have seen presented on this board as being characteristic of the CR movement is more like a caricature than what I am familiar with. WRT the state-- Rushdoony, in particular, was always warning people that the answer to life's problems is NOT found in statism. Civil gov't is only one of the realms of life and it is not meant to cover all the bases. It has a limited role and function just as the Church does. For instance, there are things that are listed as sins in the Bible that are not civil crimes. Therefore a church should deal with apostacy and heresy in her midst, but this is not a matter for civil gov't. There may also be some cross over, however. IF a person was found to be sexually molesting his daughter, this becomes not only a matter for church discipline, but also a crime in which the State is to execute justice on behalf of the victim. Where people draw the lines between self- gov't, family gov't, church gov't and civil gov't will vary depending on who you are talking to. The basic idea is that one level of gov't builds upon the other. And the more self-governed you are internally, the less you will need of external gov't by the other realms. Clear as mud?
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Post by cherylannhannah on Aug 12, 2010 19:37:12 GMT -5
One of the things that my business/life coach has had to work hard at drumming into me is that "There is no meaning. And it is meaningless that there is no meaning."
The point of this is similar to what Nikita was saying earlier in that a flat tire is just a flat tire. We are meaning-making machines, however and we can make anything have whatever meaning we assign to it. Thus a flat tire can become a trial, a test, or a dart of Satan, depending on your mood, theological underpinnings, and where you are in your menstrual cycle and whether or not your boss yelled at you for something.
Once I grasped this idea, I quit trying to determine what in the world God was doing. The fact is we can be at the same place at the same time and experience the same thing and come up with very different interpretations over what it all means. And we can be diametrically opposed in the meaning we assign it. Who is to say who is right? As I lack the gift of omniscience, I have quit trying to put God in a box in order to make meanings of stuff.
I would note that prophecy works best when viewed in retrospect.
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Post by nikita on Aug 12, 2010 20:35:12 GMT -5
Presuppositional apologetics!! That was the term I was going for. It's pretty much a Reformed Theology type of apologetics and it doesn't leave much room for other interpretations of scripture or thought. I think that is why it is so hard to reason with people who are being taught in these kinds of Christian groups. Not reason with them about whether God is God, but about anything scriptural or spiritual at all. They know it because they know it. Evidence to the contrary and other interpretations aren't admitted or taken seriously. It's a real problem. Whew. I feel better now. FWIW, I'm very familiar with presuppositional apologetics. Rather than locking you into a particular interpretation, what it does is allow you to see the presuppositions, or unprovable, faith-based foundational beliefs that undergird *any* system. Well of course you would say that. Because of your presuppositions.
You know I had to say that, right? Right??? Seriously though, I am not attacking your faith or your system of apologetics. I don't share them (Catholic and tending toward the classical myself) but I am not saying you are deluded or wrong for thinking or believing what you do. But I do think that John and Mary Average sitting there in the pew whose exposure is not to the heady philosophies of Sproul, Rusdoony, Clark, and Van Til - they hear and understand what is taught to them and what they read in more accessible books and magazines, as do most people everywhere. And when you apply presuppositional apologetics technique to every aspect of your life it can make it slow slogging for other points of view to break through. I get the same problem with my Reform friends who have strong views about predestination and the elect. Once I refuse to come into the fold they just decide that I am clearly not the elect and there is no longer any point in bothering with me. Not that I want to be bothered with, but it is disturbing to find your friends have decided you are destined for hell and there isn't really anything I can do about it so why bother with me at all? Is that the intention of the doctrine? I don't know. Is that what they are doing with it? Unfortunately, yes. They are closed to me now. I am not elect. I am dunzo. Sigh. All this to say, that if you have determined that God's word says you must leave your womb open to as many babies as He sends your way, complete with prooftexts, and that is the end of it, then any other input is going to be rejected. The presupposition is that God's word is correct and that this is God's word. Period. Everything else bows to that determination. Allowing that other interpretations may be correct or that biology or circumstances or what have you may offer more input to the decision to continue to have more children would not be considered if you have shut the door to anything that doesn't flow from the original supposition. Should that be the way it works? Does Reform Theology or even the art of presuppositional apologetics require that it work like that? I don't know, I guess not from what you are saying. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't play out that way in the pews and homes and conferences and books that people are more closely affiliated with and respond to. I would allege that it is Doug Phillips and Nancy Campbell's basic go-to stance for their teaching and preaching. As Vyckie asked: how does God break through that? Obviously He can do anything and He does break through it. But damn. They make it so hard.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 21:33:35 GMT -5
KM, You wrote: This isn't un-Socratic. Socrates saw the state as the foundational element in the very same way in which you are positing Christian faith as a kind of foundation. I think it would be more accurate to argue that this is the Socratic method as interpreted by conservative Reformed Christianity. By the way, is this a Dominionist doctrine? Do these people see the state as foundational in any way?
Both Van Til and Clark wrote specifically about how to articulate the Christian faith within this concept that I don't deny is very Socratic. You say that it's more accurate to say this is Socratic method as interpreted by Reformed Christianity. I completely agree with you. Did I give the impression that I was talking about something else. You ask whether this stuff is Dominionist. I guess you have to define what Dominionism means and how you define it. What is Reformed Christianity? As a Christian, in the general sense, I am a dominionist like all Christians. I am Reformed. I especially like how Francis Schaeffer, James Sire, John Frame, and John Robbins do/did articulate presuppositional apologetics. What I reject is the hijacked, distorted, aberrant, spiritually abusive garbage that is now passed off as Reformed apologetics. I think that you can believe the principles, but I completely disagree with how many interpret, present, and carry out these principles. John Robbins HATED this QF stuff, and I understand that John Frame and his associates don’t accept the QF stuff either. They would deny that these men are Reformed and that they model presuppositional apologetics. Those men definitely don’t “see the state as foundational.” Do you mean “the state as foundational” to how to share Christianity with the world, by taking over the government and birthing “Christian America through Covenant Families”? These men I’ve mentioned would refuse this. Actually, Rousas Rushdoony did, too. He actually talked about his fears of what the homeschooling community and the Reformed Church would turn into, and he warned against all that QF has become. He said some problematic things, but he was worlds away from Gary North who did teach that we should take over the government and save the world by birthing. That stuff came from Gary and not Rushdoony, and the two were very different in their views, though Rushdoony certainly paved the way for the problems by paving the way for Gary North. Rushdoony spent his later years battling this garbage and keeping the aberrant teachers out of their literature. Actually, the Dominionists associated with QF would deny that they “see the state as foundational” also. They hate the state, and many of them teach their children that they don’t need driver’s licenses because it’s none of the state’s business. They refuse government assistance and see it as sin. They would also deny that they are working for a theocracy, though that is what they say effectively and it is how they act. I think that one can believe these things and have them not be abusive and aberrant. As I stated earlier, I think that what most people are more familiar with is the Gary North insanity, and there are plenty of people who believe these concepts and are nothing like Gary North, save for the terminology that has been hijacked. The other thing about these men I’ve mentioned – they didn’t live like nuts and didn’t live legalistically. Rushdoony did not think birth control was wrong, for example. He surrounded himself with strong women. He didn’t live in an agrarian compound eating storage food and stockpiling generators. He was not afraid of the culture. That, of course, does not alleviate him of responsibility for the problematic things he did say, and I take issue with many of them. I think that in the long run, the fact that his writing was complicated and long has complicated many things for people, and what he wrote opened more than a few Pandora’s Boxes of problems. He did help create the environment that fostered this weirdness, though he did warn against it and saw is as a major concern. There are many guys who ascribe to reasonable ideas, and they are nothing like Gary North and Doug Phillips. Cindy: I think these people see the state as foundational in quite a different way from that articulated by Socrates. He understood it as the foundational arbiter of how people should live, to the point that, as you know, he submitted to execution by the state rather than seeking sanctuary outside. He saw it in a spiritual way in the sense that "one has to believe in something," and he believed that the citizen had the moral duty to submit to this, the product of the greatest minds of his society (If only society were run this way now...). I am going to try to remember that you are in Canada here, and, as such, have little personal experience with the damage that Dominionists in large numbers can do to Democratic freedom... By the way, Francis Schaeffer set the stage for these things every bit as much as Rushdoony did. He is possibly more insidious in the US because of the fact that the La Bri culture passes him off as a sound Christian theologian for young hipster evangelicals. My liberal evangelical sister was shocked--shocked!--to learn that he advocated abortion clinic bombing and actively promoted Rushdoony (whom she had never heard of). By the way, it doesn't help me to know that Rushdoony lived with strong women when he also advocated the state executions of LGBTQ people and so-called "unchaste women." I kind of don't care how he actually spent his days? Anyway... I do believe that Dominionists of the "City on a Hill" type see the theocratic Christian state as a telos of sorts. It's the end goal, the Kingdom of Heaven brought to earth, the work of God. Socrates didn't understand the state in this way, even if he related to it in an almost spiritual way. Also, what you've said about presuppositional apologetics... Very influenced by analytic philosophy (and analytic readings of Immanuel Kant), which is Not My Area. Not surprised that it fits well with Reformed theology, though. Analytic thinkers and Reformed theologians like to have solid answers that they come about through mathematical proofs and all sorts of other soulless endeavors. Yes, I am biased.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 21:37:28 GMT -5
Presuppositional apologetics!! That was the term I was going for. It's pretty much a Reformed Theology type of apologetics and it doesn't leave much room for other interpretations of scripture or thought. I think that is why it is so hard to reason with people who are being taught in these kinds of Christian groups. Not reason with them about whether God is God, but about anything scriptural or spiritual at all. They know it because they know it. Evidence to the contrary and other interpretations aren't admitted or taken seriously. It's a real problem. Whew. I feel better now. FWIW, I'm very familiar with presuppositional apologetics. Rather than locking you into a particular interpretation, what it does is allow you to see the presuppositions, or unprovable, faith-based foundational beliefs that undergird *any* system. Now, that sounds more interesting.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 21:40:15 GMT -5
IF a person was found to be sexually molesting his daughter, this becomes not only a matter for church discipline, but also a crime in which the State is to execute justice on behalf of the victim. So, LGBTQ folk and "unchaste women" are on the same moral plane as the man who molests his daughter? Ugh... That's despicable.
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Post by nikita on Aug 12, 2010 21:54:45 GMT -5
IF a person was found to be sexually molesting his daughter, this becomes not only a matter for church discipline, but also a crime in which the State is to execute justice on behalf of the victim. So, LGBTQ folk and "unchaste women" are on the same moral plane as the man who molests his daughter? Ugh... That's despicable. Not quite following you around that bend there.
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Post by cherylannhannah on Aug 13, 2010 1:30:29 GMT -5
Nikita, from what I have observed, the patriarchal and QF philosophy is indiscriminate wrt which theological school you come from. It appears to cut right across church denominational boundaries and various theologies. Thus, I can't say that it is particularly the bastard child of the reformed faith though quite a number of reformed folk have participated in it.
Given enough time, and if a person is teachable, I find that God will break through the most stubborn and obstinate stance though you may be bloodied in the process.
For myself, I have given up being dogmatic about very much just because I thought I was right so many times before only to find out that I was wrong. I've been reduced to "God be merciful to me, a sinner." and I'm content to leave it there.
Sorry to hear that your reformed friends wrote you off.
And there is much in the Natural Philosphy of Roman Catholicism that I like and agree with.
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Post by cherylannhannah on Aug 13, 2010 1:31:57 GMT -5
KM, I don't know what your "LGBTQ" stands for.
And I'm not sure I understand what you meant by molesters and unchaste women being on the same plane...
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Post by nikita on Aug 13, 2010 2:50:04 GMT -5
Nikita, from what I have observed, the patriarchal and QF philosophy is indiscriminate wrt which theological school you come from. It appears to cut right across church denominational boundaries and various theologies. Thus, I can't say that it is particularly the bastard child of the reformed faith though quite a number of reformed folk have participated in it. Given enough time, and if a person is teachable, I find that God will break through the most stubborn and obstinate stance though you may be bloodied in the process. For myself, I have given up being dogmatic about very much just because I thought I was right so many times before only to find out that I was wrong. I've been reduced to "God be merciful to me, a sinner." and I'm content to leave it there. Sorry to hear that your reformed friends wrote you off. And there is much in the Natural Philosophy of Roman Catholicism that I like and agree with. Catholic philosophy is like cool waters to my fevered brain. YMMV. However, I should just stay out of discussions when I've had almost no sleep for a couple of days, nothing good can come from it and I express myself poorly. But I do appreciate the effort you've made to understand what I was saying and relate it to your own reality and experience. 'This is what I think but what the hell do I know?' is an excellent default position and I'm gonna go stand there now. And hopefully get some sleep while I'm at it.
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Post by nikita on Aug 13, 2010 2:53:56 GMT -5
KM, I don't know what your "LGBTQ" stands for. LGBT = lesbian gay bisexual transgender I haven't seen the Q added before. I will let KM explain the Q.
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Post by kisekileia on Aug 13, 2010 4:27:26 GMT -5
Q = queer and/or questioning
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Post by km on Aug 13, 2010 7:13:37 GMT -5
So, LGBTQ folk and "unchaste women" are on the same moral plane as the man who molests his daughter? Ugh... That's despicable. Not quite following you around that bend there. Rushdoony also wrote that LGBTQ people and so-called "unchaste women" should be executed by the state. Same as the perpetrator of incest.
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Post by km on Aug 13, 2010 7:15:47 GMT -5
KM, I don't know what your "LGBTQ" stands for. And I'm not sure I understand what you meant by molesters and unchaste women being on the same plane... Ah, sorry, LGBTQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. I explained about the "same moral plane" comment above. I think his list of people deserving execution was pretty indiscriminate and disgusting.
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Post by coleslaw on Aug 13, 2010 8:01:28 GMT -5
One of my online atheist acquaintances has written down in his house a 16 digit number. I have seen posts that he has made to theists telling them that if they want him to convert, they should pray to God to reveal to them that number. If someone comes up with the number, he will convert to that person's religion.
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Post by nikita on Aug 13, 2010 8:36:50 GMT -5
KM, I don't know what your "LGBTQ" stands for. And I'm not sure I understand what you meant by molesters and unchaste women being on the same plane... Ah, sorry, LGBTQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. I explained about the "same moral plane" comment above. I think his list of people deserving execution was pretty indiscriminate and disgusting. CherylAnnHannah wrote: When she said 'execute justice' that was a term meant to convey 'execute' as an active verb meaning 'to do' as far as context goes. At least that is my reading of the sentence. Not 'execute' as a verb meaning 'to kill'. That is where I wasn't seeing the connection you were making. When a religion or body of people or a state determines that certain things are wrong it doesn't automatically convey the same level of severity of either the wrong-doing or the punishment for it. If I say that going into a shop and stealing the tip jar is a crime and the police should make an arrest and punishment result, and then say that going into a shop and shooting the shopkeeper is wrong and the police should be called and punishment result, that does not automatically elevate the tip jar thief to the level of the murderer. Likewise, saying certain behaviors are 'wrong' is not to say that all the listed things are of equal 'wrongness' or require the same response. Not to say that LGBT people are not treated with contempt and sometimes the most dire pronouncements made against them by certain religious people. Believe me, I've heard some stuff that would infuriate you. But simply saying that because a group finds child molesting a crime among other crimes does not mean that the group equates all crimes equally in terms of criminality. Now if you are aware of a quote from Rushdoony where he addresses LGBT people and says they should actually be executed as 'killed' by the state then that is a different matter. But that wasn't implied by CAH's statement IMO. (actually slept three hours - not certain the sense is being made yet) As for the Q part of LGBTQ, what is the purpose of the Q? Doesn't the previous LGBT presume the Q? How is 'Q' a separate subset of person from one of the LGBT series? I don't understand.
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Post by km on Aug 13, 2010 9:03:34 GMT -5
nikita: But I am acquainted with Rushdoony's teachings already, and I know that he advocated state executions for LGBTQ people and what he referred to as "unchaste women" in his writing.
I'm not really in a place where I can explain the significance of the Q. Anyone else, feel free to take it on. If not, will do from home.
Modified for clarification.
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Post by km on Aug 13, 2010 9:11:05 GMT -5
Or see Cripchick's description of her own queer identify here: blog.cripchick.com/archives/7304It need not always involve polyamory, though, and sometimes people use the term "pansexual" for what she's describing. In any case, it's because it captures important aspects of identity that L, G, B, and T do not for some people.
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Post by nikita on Aug 13, 2010 9:17:33 GMT -5
nikita: But I am acquainted with Rushdoony's teachings already, and I know that he advocated state executions in his writing. I'm not really in a place where I can explain the significance of the Q. Anyone else, feel free to take it on. If not, will do from home. Okay, I understand then. It wasn't information that was apparent from what CAH wrote so your statement made no sense to me in context. If he said it elsewhere then that is a different matter.
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Post by nikita on Aug 13, 2010 9:17:51 GMT -5
Or see Cripchick's description of her own queer identify here: blog.cripchick.com/archives/7304It need not always involve polyamory, though, and sometimes people use the term "pansexual" for what she's describing. In any case, it's because it captures important aspects of identity that L, G, B, and T do not for some people. Learn somethin' new every day. Thanks.
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