Like Deb Frisch? You’ll Love This…
Sometimes reality is so insane that simply reporting facts makes you complicit in the lunacy. Some events are so unbelieveable that even a picture won’t suffice. Sometimes, the only way to really understand something is through comics. With that, I’m proud to present “Deb and Jeb’s Goodtime Revival Throwdown.”
“Why not grow a set and actually ask a Christian philosopher some of your questions? Are you scardy-scared of the answers? Are you, pussycat?”
Well, I didn’t go out of my way to try to do this, and if a Christian philosopher came to campus and sat himself down at the EMU, maybe I WOULD be asking him. If I saw anything that passed for Christian ‘philosophy’ on campus, I would jump at the opportunity. I was busy that night, so I didn’t go to that “Why was Todd Shot?: WHy good things happen to bad people” or whatever BS it was called, but both my roommates did, and they confirmed my suspicions, that it wasn’t even ‘philosophy’, but just Christianity presented through a thin veil of feel-good bullshit..
Maybe I engage people who aren’t philosophers because I, myself, am not a philosopher so I would rather prefer to discuss religion with people who are my peers in the sense that they are merely lay practitioners.
Let me ask you: Who do you consider a Christian philosopher nowadays? I haven’t heard of any prominent ones (as i explain below I am asking because I currently am ignorant, and WANT TO KNOW the ANSWER)? What qualifies someone to claim they are a Christian philosopher?
I’m NOT scared of the answer, mr “Brights-B-Ware”, I am actually SEEKING them, which is why I occasionally go out of my way to educate myself about different religions, which for me includes learning about the extremists of said traditions. Me and my roommates had some Mormoms knocking on our door the other day, and we invited them in because all we know about Mormonism is just the stereotypes, and actually wanted to see what ANSWERS the Mormons had to give. Part of the reason I’m an atheist is because I consider myself a seeker for truth, and I understand that truth could come from anywhere, which is why I question things, to see if they really DO provide the answers they claim to.
I ask because I’m scared of ignorance, I’m a very curious person and I want to know more.
Besides, thanks for assuming that I haven’t asked these questions of a Christian ‘philosopher’.
Fr Frenulum: That’s not a question for me at all, since I don’t even believe in a God to begin with. For a Christian, however, I would imagine that WOULD be an important question, which is why I asked him, to see if he had an ANSWER. Even if it isn’t, say, a college-level philosophy question, I don’t claim to be a philosopher or even a philosophy major. In those fields I am a layperson, who is mostly self-educated or what I gleaned from my minister when I was going to church as a younger kid. I was trying to see if he was intelligent enough to respond to actual questions people had, or if he would ignore me and jump back into his (probably rehearsed) spiel (which IS what happened).
The individual that I am now cares greatly about free will and individuals, and if it turned out that i started believing in an omnipotent god, then this WOULD be a question I would start asking.
Why I would consider this an important question (especially for Christianity): If there really is no free will, if God is manipulating EVERYTHING in the world, then concepts of morals, responsibility, even SIN (which Jeb didn’t even touch on when I asked him this question) become meaningless, because even though we may be conscious of our actions, we have no control over them, and thus no direct relation to them OR their consequences, they become merely things that happen. If there wasn’t free will, then your life would become disposable, any person could fill your place and act how God wanted them to.
I sense another Clash of Titans.
Andrea, get your camera ready!
Ted, pen poised!
Anyway, how can the question not be “real”? It would be a philosophical concern, and thus worthy of being asked. So what if it isn’t the most intelligent thing you’ve heard today, I’m probably not the most intelligent person you’ve met. Either way, it is vastly different than just hurling insults at him and making a scene (like Deb or most other people there). I was actually trying to engage him on a level other than merely causing a spectacle, to see if he could work like that. I wanted to actually spark a discussion, instead of a shouting match where no one really listened to what the other side has to day because they consider them “the other side” like it’s a bad thing. If saying “i need a new book” is the best you can come up with, you need a new brain, sir.
“We believe that the University should be a forum for rational and informed debate–instead of the current climate in which ideological dogma, political correctness, fashion and mob mentality interfere with academic pursuit.”
Hm.. Doesn’t sound all THAT different than from what I was trying to do.. Jeb is probably pretty educated in Christianity, and I am a truth-seeker who had questions (that still are left unanswered)
Mob mentality? Look at the group that gathered around him merely to hurl insults..
I think a rabies shot is in order.
And somebody should burn Jeb’s pastel blue blazer. It’s for his own good.
Alex: First off, I guess that you do believe in a “god” or “gods” — though they are idols. Unless you are a true psychopath, it’s very difficult for an “atheist” to not believe (or a least behave) as a pagan. True, you probably call your gods “truth” or “justice” or “science” instead of Zeus or Thor, but it’s all the same. I know this, as I once in the same place.
Second, let’s define what you mean by “free will.” It’s quite clear to me that Jesus believed in free will, to take up the Cross is a willful choice. The entire concept of Sin requires free will. So where are you confused on this?
Third, there really are Christian philosophers, though sadly not as many as ther should be (I blame the culture at large for this). I would suggest a book called “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” by Norman L. Geisler. There are other good apologetic books by William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland and Ravi Zacharias. Note these are philosophers who use reason and logic to illustrate the Truth.
Fourth, you can find several websites which might help you answer your philosophical questions. I would suggest this one: http://www.tektonics.org/
“(I blame the culture at large for this)”
DRINK!
Brights-B-Gone: “these are philosophers who use reason and logic to illustrate the Truth.”
Whoops, you just inadvertantly pointed out one of the reasons no one takes Christian apologists seriously. You see, in pure science and philosophy, reason and logic are an end unto themselves. Available facts and data are analyzed, and a conclusion is reached based on the information. Deductive reasoning.
Christian apologists, on the other hand, start out with a conclusion (big Jebus in the sky) and find evidence to back it up, simultaneously discarding evidence that conflicts with it. This is called a front-loaded thesis, and it’s the hallmark of poor reasoning.
CJ:
Actually you illustrate a point of why so-called “atheists” are just pagans worshiping idols. For example, can you show me where you have proved “the scientific method is truth” using only the scientific method? Replicate this in a laboratory for me.
Show me the lab results that proves the scientific method is the ONLY way to understanding existence. How about where the scientific method proves morality? Justice? 2+2=4? Why child abuse is wrong? Love?
This isn’t to say that the scientific method isn’t a valid tool. It works great for good science, not as a faith. Christians also start with facts backed by logic and reason. And Christian philosophers respect science and reason as other means to help us better understand God, others and the world. Feel free to disagree, but you may want to look at your sneering in the mirror and see how ugly it looks.
sneering>naivete
“For example, can you show me where you have proved ‘the scientific method is truth’ using only the scientific method? Replicate this in a laboratory for me.”
Please don’t be facetious, Brights. We all know that science’s sole purpose is to create faster, more efficient ways of aborting babies …
“This isn’t to say that the scientific method isn’t a valid tool.”
The understatement of the year.
“And Christian philosophers respect science and reason as other means to help us better understand God, others and the world.”
Um, some do. But this really depends on your definition of “God”, doesn’t it (and “truth”, sorry, is not a god)? I define him as some sort of intangible force — an unseen thread that connects us in a time and a place, without purpose or motive. I mean, I guess I could simply believe that everything in a book written between 1500 - 2200 years ago, then transcribed by functional illiterates before being translated and retranslated is the infallible truth. That makes sense too.
*** How the fuck is “truth” a God? Are you fucking retarded?
Actually you illustrate a point of why so-called “atheists” are just pagans worshiping idols.
Haha. In the year 2007, what the hell does this even mean anymore?
You could simply believe the Bible, or you could use your brain to really believe it. It’s your choice and your life/afterlife, potty-mouth.
I guess I could believe that Plato was a real person, or Aristotle, or that Constitution in my history book has same words as the document that was signed by the Constitutional Convention, or that Pliny the Younger actually witnessed the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD…actually I do believe all of these to be true, as I’m not a nitwit…
“You could simply believe the Bible, or you could use your brain to really believe it”
What the hell does this mean? This doesn’t make any sense to me.. Oh well, i guess I am merely reading it instead of using my brain to really read it.
Ok, I’ll admit that sin and Jesus taking up the cross are Christian recognitions of free will.. I wasn’t thinking of those at the time when I asked Brother Jeb, and he didn’t bring those up, which is why i asked in the first place, because I WANT the ANSWERS. Jeb’s answer was something like “When you say ‘i will’, you are asserting your well, when you say ‘i am going to’, you assert your will”; but my response to that was “what if when you say ‘i will’, it’s merely an illusory will, not actually free will at all, but merely another thought planted in your brain” and then he tried to talk about how we can’t interact with illusions.. but for any person, any god they don’t believe in is only an illusion, and it’s clear that people can even base their lives around illusory concepts. When I told him that, he just repeated himself over and over again like it was some rehearsed response (doesn’t justify being labeled an ‘answer’ to me)
He didn’t touch on sin at all, which is why I was still a little bit in the dark…
BBW: Actually, I (along with most people in this world) DO need a new book… If the book you are talking about replacing is the Bible.
err BBS..i must have gotten stupider since school let out
Brights-B Scared: “Show me the lab results that proves the scientific method is the ONLY way to understanding existence.”
(Sigh)
I never said it was the only way. It’s not. It just happens to be the most reliable way to understand our physical universe.
“This isn’t to say that the scientific method isn’t a valid tool. It works great for good science, not as a faith.”
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere…
“Christians also start with facts backed by logic and reason. And Christian philosophers respect science and reason as other means to help us better understand God, others and the world.”
And then you go and completely contradict yourself. Christians don’t start with facts; they start with an scientifically unsupportable position. That’s why it’s called faith. You know what your problem is? Ever since Thomas Aquinas, y’all Christian apologists have been trying to mix reason and faith, and frankly it’s bullshit. Faith by definition precludes the use of reason or observable phenomenon.
“You could simply believe the Bible, or you could use your brain to really believe it.”
This statement makes my head asplode.
Means: Using logic and reason.
“I never said it was the only way. It’s not. It just happens to be the most reliable way to understand our physical universe.”
EXACTLY my point CJ…
Science doesn’t always deal with absolute truths.. Look at conjectures in mathematics, they are statements likely to be true but not proven so, but mathematicians still treat them as true. Science is full of many theories, that, while not 100% proven to be true, are theories that describe the way the universe exists more accurately than any other theory out there. We know they aren’t 100% true, that’s exactly WHY we keep searching to try and figure out what’s wrong in these theories to improve them. you’re assuming that since we treat theories as true, we believe they actually ARE true.
Science is LARGELY about admitting when you’re wrong at the same time you search for the right answer.
Except you can’t prove it’s “most reliable” using the scientists method. You are making an assumption, taking a leap of faith.
Actually you have completely contradicted yourself. Science starts with a scientifically unsupportable position. As I already mentioned, you can’t prove the scientific method in a lab.
You clearly have a limited understanding of the words “reason” and “faith.” Faith is about what is believed, rather than about how it is believed. You have faith in the scientific method. Others have faith in the Bible and God. We can talk about which faith is more rational based on the facts. But to use “science to prove science” is just question begging and mental masturbation.
Further, why does a materialist like yourself even care about the truth? Or morality? None of these can be “proved” in the physical universe. Shouldn’t you be out breeding or slaying beasts or whatever your Selfish Gene deity is telling you to do? Debating is no way to get ahead in evolution man!
Lastly, your knowledge of theology and Church history is quite lacking. Chrisitan faith has ALWAYS been based on reason, as God is pefectily rational
Except you can’t prove it’s “most reliable” using the scientists method. You are making an assumption, taking a leap of faith.
Actually you have completely contradicted yourself. Science starts with a scientifically unsupportable position. As I already mentioned, you can’t prove the scientific method in a lab.
You clearly have a limited understanding of the words “reason” and “faith.” Faith is about what is believed, rather than about how it is believed. You have faith in the scientific method. Others have faith in the Bible and God. We can talk about which faith is more rational based on the facts. But to use “science to prove science” is just question begging and mental masturbation.
Further, why does a materialist like yourself even care about the truth? Or morality? None of these can be “proved” in the physical universe. Shouldn’t you be out breeding or slaying beasts or whatever your Selfish Gene deity is telling you to do? Debating is no way to get ahead in evolution man!
Lastly, your knowledge of theology and Church history is quite lacking. Chrisitan faith has ALWAYS been based on reason, as God is perfectly rational — “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God…”
For an example of my last post:
I largely believe in TIbetan Buddhism, their metaphysics, their evaluation of the universe, and how they evaluate relationships and behavior. However, I recognize that it IS a theory, so while I believe in all of this, I don’t really believe that “nirvana” is something special outside of abandoning all preconceptions and incorrect views. Up to this point in my life, Tibetan Buddhism explains all of these more sensibly and rationally than any other system I’ve found, so often I treat it like it IS true. So far, every time I’ve been in an emotionally charged situation / conflict where I was able to “step back” from my ego and attempt to evaluate the situation and our behaviors from a TB perspective, the results have been VERY positive for me, so I treat Tibetan Buddhism like it’s true. I could give examples of these situations if you’d like….
I can admit the possibility that my beliefs about the universe may be wrong, which is why I WANT to know the logic or explanation behind other beliefs. Right now I believe that there isn’t a god, but I could be wrong, and so could you (for example, if a god OTHER than the Judeochristian YHWH/god/allah is the one that actually exists)
P.S. Don’t think I don’t like you guys, I love this! For me discussion is a chance to actually figure out exactly what i believe before I say it, and a chance to see other people’s beliefs and consider taking part of their beliefs to better me. This is exactly what I was trying to do when Jeb was here, to interact at a level other than mob mentality, and equating “the other side” with “incorrect”, “wrong”, or “evil”. Even though i may think that some of your beliefs ARE incorrect, those are just beliefs and holding those beliefs doesnt inherently make you an incorrect, wrong, or evil person; you’re just a guy (or girl possibly) who has different beliefs, seems educated about them, and is willing to explain them. For that, I thank you, Brights-B-Scared.
Lastly, I’ve already admitted that my knowledge of christianity is lacking.
“Debating is no way to get ahead in evolution man!”
DRINK!
(Is that right? I don’t really know the rules…)
Haha.. Yeah, I guess not.. Natural selection doesn’t favor the intelligent so far.
Watch Idiocracy, directed by Mike Judge if you have any questions about this. It is, by far, the most amazing documentary film I have ever seen.
Alex: I undersand when you talk about “believing” — you are describing how many people describe “faith.” It might not be a strong faith, but’s still faith.
Another point to consider is that Christians have doubt all the time (at least the honest admit it). I have had my faith in God shaken several times based on sad or tragic events, though I always have come back. And then you wonder if that’s the whole point…(but I digress.)
As far as why you don’t believe in God or Christianity, I’m not sure what I can do for you without knowing more about how you have arrived to where you are today. Do you contemplate if the universal had a beginning and did it have a purpose and creator? Do you think Jesus was a real person? Do you think the Bible is accurate?
For me, I became a theist through philosophical study of ethics and metaphysics. I became a Christian through the study of history (discovring the Bible was accurate — so many of the answers to Big Questions are right there on the pages) and weirdly through the study of politics (trying to figure out why the West was so sucessfull while other cultures were not and why it’s failing now.) Growing my faith was largely the result of things that happend in my life, both good (getting married) and bad (deaths, etc.)
Most of my hold-ups back when I was an “atheist” came from ignorence and bigotry. For example, I couldn’t understand why “good things happen to bad people” (answer: mankind’s sin - which is easily and rationally provable by turning on the news), etc.
Thank you for keeping an open mind.
PS: I hope you understand from my positions that I am not “anti-science” or “anti-reason.” I believe both are valid means to understanding, though they alone can’t answer the Big Questions in life. My pet peve is when when people use bad-science and poor-reasoning to try to “prove” my positions are unscientifc or irrational…
That’s it, Brights-B-Scared. I’m fucking done. Every sentence you write is so full of factual errors and logical fallacies that it would take all day to address them. But before I leave you to wallow in this rhetorical shithole you have created, allow me to address one last thing:
“Science starts with a scientifically unsupportable position. As I already mentioned, you can’t prove the scientific method in a lab.”
No. Good science starts with NO position. The scientific method isn’t a fucking position. It’s a method, as the name happens to imply. You can’t prove or disprove a method. Furthermore, I don’t have faith in the scientific method. Neither do scientists. That’s why they continually try and disprove the results of their experiments. You and your ilk, however, only try to reinforce your beliefs with layer upon layer of dogma and circular logic.
Alright, peace out. Have fun hangin’ with Brother Jed for the rest of eternity.
“Chrisitan (sic) faith has ALWAYS been based on reason, as God is pefectily (sic) rational”
Wow, what a convincing tautology, BBS.
Nice surprise. Profanity. Pointing-out-typos. Such “rational” arguments here…
“You can’t prove or disprove a method.”
Exactly…which is why you have operate under the FAITH that it works. You can’t use science to prove/disprove the truth of the scientific method anymore than you can use science to prove/disprove Christianity. We can approach both of them under the catagory of “reasonable faith.”
Thank you for proving my point.
As a Christian, I can explain the existance of things like love, or morality, or reason, or logic, or sin, or the purpose of our lives and the universe. You can tell me how my coffee maker produces coffee. Of course I can do that too, as the Lord doesn’t mind science (or coffee). But as a materialist, you are stuck being a dishonest hypocrite anytime you ever have had a strong opinion about an abstract concept that wasn’t made up of matter (oops, I guess “reason” or “methods” are not made up of matter either, so you are out of luck). And since you can’t measure “honesty” in a test tube or prove it with science, I’m not sure why you care anyway.
I’ll say “Hi” to Brother Jeb when I make my arrival. He might be a tad annoying, but it beats the alternative. Can you say “Hi” to Deb Frisch when you see her for all eternity?
Deb is going to a very special hell, Brights.
“anymore than you can use science to prove/disprove Christianity.”
Yes, but if you had scientific proof that a man named Jesus Christ was born from a virgin and was resurrected you would hop on that.
This is the standard “NOMA” (Non-Overlapping Magisteria, the claim that Science and Religion occupy separate ‘realms’ of human knowledge).
“anymore than you can use science to prove/disprove Christianity.”
Yes, but if you had scientific proof that a man named Jesus Christ was born from a virgin and was resurrected you would hop on that.
This is the standard “NOMA” argument (Non-Overlapping Magisteria, the claim that Science and Religion occupy separate ‘realms’ of human knowledge).
Actually you illustrate a point of why so-called “atheists” are just pagans worshiping idols.
Haha. In the year 2007, what the hell does this even mean anymore?
Here is just one example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFpQKnnBLnk
(hey, you asked…)
Brother Jeb used to preach on the pentacrest at the Univ. of Iowa. I always liked the way he shouted “MAS-TUR-BATION!” After awhile the crowd would join in and a good time was had by all!
Sulla:
I just died a little bit inside.
[...] catch up on all the Frisch fun, check out the archive. There’s also the Deb Frisch comic, which is one of the best things the Commentator has ever run in its 25 year history. If you want [...]