Sure we can. I think I used logic in making statements about your premises, no?

I was adding that part in to clarify that you don't need evidence to make those premises if that is what you were doing. Otherwise, I suppose I was disagreeing with the conclusion.

I would have to agree, your statement is deductive reasoning, not inductive, and is therefore hardly irrefutable logic.  You're also making a lot of unlisted assumptions.

Premise 1 - God exists
P2 - God wants humans to live up to their fullest potential
P3 - God created us (I use the term concretely here) with hearts that are capable of various levels of relational functioning.
P4 - Trusting in God because of who He is (faith) is a higher relational functioning than relating to Him based purely on intellectual knowledge.

Conclusion - God prefers that people get to know Him and out of that trust Him even when their natural senses or reason have trouble with it.

Another way to state it would be

P4 - Covenant relationship is a higher form of relational functioning than contractual relationship.

Conclusion - God prefers that people interact with Him based on covenant, rather than contract.


-Quixotic

I agree with Quix on this one.

It's not that Psychojosh's logic is particularly bad or anything.  The problem I see is that it pertains to functional reasoning.

Let's look at it again:

Or, even if not, there is still benefit to Man from faith.

Actually, the premise is that faith helps people to live up to their fullest potential.  God's will (although perhaps accurately stated) is not relevant to the logical reasoning here.

I would restate this as:
P3 - We exist with various levels of cognitive functioning that can be developed to a fullest potential, including the power to reason.


This is the problem.  There is a leap past logic into an unsupported conclusion here (i.e. it is not a premise).
I would state it as:
P4:  Developing the power to reason to its fullest potential requires a higher level of logical reasoning than accepting conclusions on faith alone.


Conclusion - Developing our reasoning abilities and looking at evidence and available information helps us develop to our full potential.

P5: Mankind is not in possession of all knowledge or intelligence.
Conclusion:  Where lack of knowledge or intelligence exists, man must use faith in established principles and beliefs to expand beyond the limits allowed by logical reasoning alone.

Conclusion 2: Exercising faith helps man develop further in reaching his ultimate potential than logical reasoning alone.

And thus we have just come back to prove premise 1: Even if God does not exist, there is still benefit to Mankind by exercising faith.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:52, Thu 23 Mar 2006.

Thank you Heath for cleaning up my statements from before.  However...



I don't see why we must use faith to make up for lack of knowledge.  I'm not saying that it can't be a useful tool in some cases, but it can certainly be detrimental in some cases.  For example, faith in established principles helped to keep concepts like the divine right of kings and the geocentric universe around for so long.

That doesn't really work. How can one have faith, and complete knowledge. That's like saying you have faith in the ability to tie your shoes. Really, you have knowledge in the ability to tie your shoes.

You don't have knowledge you will live another day.
You have faith you will live another day.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:55, Fri 24 Mar 2006.

Good point, but the "faith" depends on the subject, and that is why God's plan of genius includes a revealer of truth to help people understand if they are having faith in the right thing:  the Holy Ghost.  Plus, there is some logic to it.  Jesus said that by their works you will know them.  Therefore, having faith in something that yields to something logically not right (I'm thinking Muslim fanatics at the moment) doesn't follow with the principles of the religion.  I can't really think of a religion which, at its heart, has any evil intent or would lead to such bad results.  Unfortunately, those perversions are made by men twisting the religions...and then it is not faith, but pride and selfishness...which lead the way.

As an aside, and perhaps going off of a definition of faith no one else seems to be relying on right now, faith may not necessarily refer to the unknown, but rather to the unknowable.  The former simply covers those things we don't know, but one day might.  The latter is what we may 'know', but which is beyond conventional knowing; a reference to divine mysteries which transcend common understandings.

For instance, we "know" Jesus came back from the dead.  However, we don't truly grok it, it is not an experience our science, no matter how far it evolves, can study, dissect or explain, because Jesus' descent and return was not important because it was a literal journey, but a spiritual, internal one, unique to himself.  We "know" Buddha found the divine mysteries, but we cannot be told what those mysteries are, we can only discover them through faith.

Philosophy and religion can take us to the brink of that revelation, but that final step is, by definition, one we must take alone, as it is self-discovery.  That is the point where faith comes into play, and knowledge can serve as little more than a compass.

Found this while looking around the web today:

http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/individualendorsers.php

it's a list of soldiers who are offended by the "there are no atheists in foxholes" cliche that people toss about very casually.  They're atheist soldiers who feel their views shouldn't be belittled by this common (but unsubstantiated) claim.  Thoughts?

I saw briefly on the news recently a particular issue that came up, and despite my business in my personal life nowadays, I thought of this place.

Basically, there's a controversy over the new movie The Golden Compass. One of the antagonistic figures of the story is a extremely dogmatic church that's gone mad with power. In the novel, this was actually a successful but corrupt branch of the Catholic Church, but for the movie, I believe that they downplayed the Christian ties altogether, for PC sake, and made it something of an ambiguous depliction.

Of course, this has set some religious groups afire, protesting the movie and novel as degrading to Christianity, and it "promotes atheism in kids." Now that struck me to write this.

There's a lot of movies that deplict a Christian view of the world and say faith in a church is good. But, here's a movie that deplicts an out of control faith-based organization, and arguably disagrees with organized religion in general, and this sparks protest, this goes too far.

In this day and age, where we're supposed to accept people, regardless of their beliefs (or independant from them), and be respectful to those sorts of choices, is there anything wrong with promoting atheism? If children are constantly being promoted through the various media outlets Christian values and doctrine, is there anything wrong with teaching them the atheistic prospective as well?
This message was last edited by the player at 18:02, Sun 09 Dec 2007.

Personally, I believe it is horribly wrong to teach children ANY religious belief or lack of belief, and that includes atheism and agnosticism (which is my religious philosophy). What religious beliefs to follow are among the more important decisions we have to make in life. Therefore, they are decisions that should be made by mature adults for themselves, and not to be imposed upon children by adults taking advantage of their position as the children's guardians.

Oh, and one more thing, I don't believe the Golden Compass teaches atheism any more than Harry Potter teaches devil worship. It's just a movie, a work of fiction, for crying out loud, and the only reason there's any controversy about it is because fanatics of all types can't stand anything that doesn't fit into their worldview.

For once, Falkus, you and I agree.

As for churches gone mad with power, look at the state of politics today. With the way faith has been mentioned by our presidental hopefuls, you'd think we were trying to put a priest in office. Seriously, I think it is ridiculous. I'd vote for an atheist if I thought he (or she) could lead our country well.

Make no mistake; that series of books strike a chord.

From my perspective there is something wrong about teaching to deny God. I understand that tolerance is the new most popular term in society today. I think that can be very confusing for many people though. They think tolerance is the same thing as acceptance. That loving someone requires you accept the bad if you "really" love them.

So I can understand why someone would protest a book, or movie, or a law, etc and still love someone who is involved with that issue.

From my perspective there is something wrong about teaching to deny God.

No more wrong than teaching them to accept god.

I heard about this contraversy too, and that the movies had downplayed the role of religion that was in the books, and was rather disappointed.  I quite liked the books, and I hope the movies do them justice, which is always hard when books are made into movies.  I have no idea how they're going to downplay the role of religion in the third book, but I suppose it can probably be done in the first.  Mostly I'm just disappointed that they caved to the protestors and watered down the story.  Understandable from a business perspective, of course, but disappointing to those of us who actually liked the books.

Anyway, I'm sort of with Falkus on the idea of not encouraging religious belief (or lack thereof) of any kind in kids, but that really only makes good sense from an atheist/agnostic view point.  For those who feel their religion is the only way to some infinite reward, letting their kids "make up their own minds" is just too big a risk.  Limiting their freedom here on earth is a small price to pay for the everlasting happiness they'll get in the next life.  So while I wish everyone would just let kids be kids, and let them worry about religion when they're old enough to contemplate such things, I don't think it's actually realistic to expect or ask religious people do so.  From their point of view, they're doing what's best for the child.

As for whether the people protesting the film should be more tolerant, again, yes, in my ideal universe they would be, but it's unrealistic to expect them to be so.  If you believe what they believe, they're doing what's right.  As TitL points out, tolerance of other ideas isn't really a christian value at the end of day, it's a secular one (and a fairly modern one, to boot).  That's not to say there aren't any tolerant christians (or tolerant people of other religions), as there most certainly are.  However, their religion teaches 'X is right, Y is wrong, Z is an abomination, etc.,' and it's presumably other influences (eg, laws, documents like the declaration of independence, civil rights movements, concepts like fairness, and just interacting with people different from them) that teach them things like religious tolerance, personal liberties, etc.

Hadn't been part of the Pascal's wager discussion at the start of this thread, so I thought I'd add some thoughts.

First, the problem with the wager is that it involves infinite expectations/means, which generally leads to problems.  For example, consider this game: "You flip a coin, if it comes up tails, you stop and the game is over.  If it comes up heads, I give you a dollar, and you flip again.  If it's tails, you stop, if it's heads, I give you two dollars, and you flip again.  Then four dollars for a heads, then 8, then 16, and so on.  As long as you keep getting heads, you keep getting twice as much as you did last time."  Now, the question is: how much should you be willing to play this game?  The traditional answer to that kind of question is "any amount less than the expected/mean reward."  But in this case, expected value of the reward is infinite.  Would you be willing to pay an infinite amount to play this game?  Obviously not.  Would you be willing to pay a million dollars to play this game?  Not unless you got to play it many, many, many times.  Decisions based on expected values break down when you have infinities involved.  Another example is:  There are two envelopes with money in them.  One has twice as much money as the other in it.  I let you pick one envelope, open it up, and then decide if you want to take the other envelope or keep the one you have.  No matter which envelope you choose, the expected value of switching is (.5+2)/2=1.25 times the amount in the envelope you open, so you "should" switch.  But if you were going to switch no matter what, why not choose the other envelope to begin with?  Again, this is a problem of infinite expected values.  Since there was no stated limit to amount in either envelope, the expected value of each is infinite, since there's even chance of any number.  Basing your decision on the mean leads to nonsensical actions when infinite expected values are present.

Pascal's wager is the same way.  Not that it doesn't matter at all what the options are.  If one of them involves a non-zero chance of infinite reward, you "should" take it according to his reasoning.  We could have a "Tycho's wager" in which I argue that you should smash all your fingers with a hammer, because if you do, God will give you eternal life.  As long as you assume it's even remotely possible that I'm right, then you "should" do it.  A slightly less silly example is that you can make a Pascal's wager for every religion that promises eternal life.  But at the same time, could make a similar wager against all religions, due to eternal punishments predicted by different sects.

The only way to make Pascal's wager actually work is to ascribe some finite value to the rewards/punishments, which would probably be completely speculative.

At the end of the day we know Pascal's wager doesn't actually work, because even the people who promote it have things they don't believe which could be put into a similar wager.  It's a tool used to make an argument, but I doubt anyone has ever actually been converted to religion based on the concept.  As was pointed out earlier in the thread, if your religious views are based on making the 'safe bet,' I can't imagine God is going to be particularly impressed anyway.

I don't think it's intolerant for a church to say 'hey, this movie does not promote Christian values!  You people who this message is aimed at (Christians), don't see this movie if you are looking to cement Christian values in your children or if you do not want to financially support anti-Christian things!'  I mean, if it's just a really bad movie, or say it has a lot of sex in it, I'd like to know that too.  If I'm going to spend my time or money on something, I kinda want to know ahead of time if it's really a good investment.  If my interests include fighting bears and Christianity, hearing this message is probably good for me.  I haven't heard anyone saying 'hey, let's boycott this movie!' or 'lets petition theaters not to run it!'  So it isn't really intolerant.  It's just giving a head's up or a review.

I've not read the books (although I want to) nor seen the movie (might put it on netflix), so I can't comment on how anti-Christian it may or may not be.  I've seen things going either way.  Some people say it's clear the antagonist is a copy of the Catholic Church, others say it's a hierarchal church like the RCC, however it was created by an evil angel who split off from God (so it would be the devil-worshiping version of the RCC).

As an interesting note, when Elizabeth came out (the movie about Queen Lizzie), it very clearly painted the RCC as evil, but Protestants as mostly okay.  Of course, the RCC said 'hey, this movie casts Catholics in a bad light'.  In fact, I would argue that that movie was VERY intolerant, because it really did portray every individual Catholic and Catholic priest as a greedy, violent thug, and it seriously hampered my enjoyment of the movie.  However, I didn't see any Protestants saying 'hey, this is portraying our brothers in a bad light, let's not see it either' (some didn't support it because of the sex and violence though).  Take that as you will.

Well, I would argue it's not the lack of christian "values" that is causing people to tell others not to see it, but the depiction of an unnamed-but-catholic-looking church that commits evil acts.  And perhaps also the depiction of a world in which people can get by without a religious belief.


People have been:
http://www.pr-inside.com/catho...-compass-r282587.htm


I would say it's not anti-christian, but probably is anti-church.  "The Church" in the book resembles the Catholic church in it's power, ornaments, structure, etc., but not in its beliefs or actions.

The problem with this idea is that it completely ignores that the values of a human being are programmed when they are children.  So this is like asking them not to learn how to read and write until they are adults so they can choose to do so.  How far would that get them?

Teach them a religion, give them various perspectives, and let them strike out on their own when they're adults.  But above all, teach them to have a relationship with God when they are young so that they will pray to know what is right (religion and everything else) as they get older.

    I went and saw the movie Saturday after receiveing an email to boycott it.  I've always found boycotts disturbing.  I don't fault people who follow their concience and participate in them, unless they tell me I "have to" participate if I want to be obedient to God.  I think the bible is pretty clear that Jesus went were sinners were and he didn't just go there to preach to them.  The religious people of Jesus' day said he was a "friend" of sinners, so he must have been doing a bit more than just haning out.

    Anyway, about the movie.  I kind of wish I hadn't heard the protests before going to see it, because I went looking for the anti-Christian message.  Here's basically what the email said.  It said the author (I forget the name) wrote the books as a response to the Narnia Chronicles because he didn't like the blatantly Christian message.  The email also said the the author was a vocal athiest and offered "The Golden Compass" as an alternative to the Christian influance of C.S. Lewis' works.  I have not confirmed this I'm just stating what I was told.  I was also asked to boycott the movie and any theater that would show it.  As I said, I went right out and saw it. :p

     Whether you're looking for it or not, the anti-established religious message is there.  In one part Nichole Kidman's character who is supposed to represent "The Ministry" (a corrupt orgaization staffed by men and women dressed very conspicuously like Catholic clergy and who force thier will on people through intimidation, fear and murder) gives a "gospel" message.  I can't quote it exactally but the message was that long ago our ancestors made a huge mistake and "dust" (a substande that is fairly undefined in the movie except to show that it is a key to traveling to other dimentions).  The dust didn't effect children until they reached a certain age, but when it settled on them it made them think and do terrible things.  So The Ministry has come up with a way to make it so "dust" can no longer effect us.  The cure, it turns out, is to seperate the children from TGC's version of the human soul which renders the child in a state called "indecision", basically fearful, mindless followers.  Of course the good guys are all academics who defy the Ministy who are unashamedly wicked, powermad people who will stop at nothing to destroy people's "free-will".

     The film makers, it seemed to me, went out of their way to be the anti-Narnia just as the book is proported to do.  In Narnia, the ice queen is a wicked queen who employs, among other animals, Polar bears to fight against Aslan (the aligorical Christ figure).  In TGC, the main character's champion is a noble polar bear.  In TGC whiches are on the side of right, while they Ice Queen (aligorical Satan figure) in Narnia is, of course, a witch.  Now whether or not I noticed these differences because I was notified of the proported intentions of the author, or because they were intentional, I can't say.



I would disagree, I think the values of the author/producers/director or whoever responsible for the script made no bones about the message in the story.  However I would say this, there is also a theme of redemption and loyalty that is good in the movie.  A pastor friend of mine took his kids to see the movie, not knowing it's thesis, and was disappointed that a movie with such a good message of friendship and loyalty would have an underlying message that the church is more a bondage than a help.

     Another reason for not boycotting is, where do you stop?  I know a few people who are "christians" who have told me not to "support" this movie who religiously watch "24".  I remember watching the first season of "24" on thier recommendation and was disappointed by the futility of the message.  No matter how hard the main character fought, he always seemed to have to do the wrong thing for the right reason, and in the end, he lost his wife and had to shoot his friend.  I found it quite depressing, and not something that promoted Christian values at all (on top of the fact the main character was cheating on his wife).  My point isn't to slander "24" but to just point out that there isn't much anymore that promotes christian ethics in society, especially on television and in movies, so we'd pretty much have to hole ourselves up in our churches and be culturally irrelevant.  Oh wait, perhaps that's where we are already. ;p

BTW, I agree with Heath on the childrearing issue.  anyone who has children or cares for children should have no problem believing in an inborn sin nature.  I never taught my child to sneak candy, punch his sister or throw temper tantrums in the grocery store.  He just somehow figured it out on his own.  To me that's pretty strong evidence that we're born bent toward wanting our own way and wrong behavior.  Besides the fact that they learn and comprehend far more than we give them credit for at young ages and ask many more questions and are more curious than in later years.  Studies show that most people by the time they're 16 yrs old have pretty much decided what their life philosophy is.  Thats why us wicked christians do vacation bible school!  Get em indoctrinated while they're young! ;p

That's kind of what I'm saying.  From your perspective, you're right to teach them right away.  "Program" them when they're young, as you say.  I'm guessing you would think it's right to teach them to pray, but wouldn't, say, teach them to participate in some religion that specifically denies yours.  Thats the whole point.  You're sure your right, so you want to make sure your children are right too.  So you "program" them with your religion as soon as you can.  Ideas like "I don't know if I'm right or wrong, so I'll let the kid make up their own mind without my programming when they're older" is much more along the lines of agnosticism or atheism.  Depending on what your starting assumptions are, you'll be "right" in taking different actions.  So while I agree with Falkus and think the world would be better off if kids weren't "programmed" with religion like they are now, I know it's unreasonable to expect or even ask the followers of religion to agree to that.

Lastly, just to be a bit of a stinker, I'll draw attention to your last line: ...pray about what is right (religion and everything else). I think you know what I mean by that.  ;)

I try to be most careful where I put my money because that's where the power comes from.

For example, I refused to spend any money to watch Bowling For Columbine in the theaters because it is full of lies and propaganda, but I watched it on cable TV to make sure my earlier opinion was accurate (it was).

Same thing with movies that have different values.  I won't spend my money to give them profit.  Maybe I'll watch it to see what it's all about, but only when it's free.

Problem is with mixed items.  For example, I have HBO (for free right now), and I like some of the broadcasts, but others I find to be borderline offensive and inaccurate (like "Big Love") or extremely offensive (adult programming on HBO).  So the question is whether I continue to pay for it or not when my free trial is up...by the same token, I like to watch Big Love to see what inaccuracies are being promoted and what people on the street think.  In one episode, I started counting the inaccuracies, and found 36, everything from the way words were pronounced to doctrinal misrepresentations.

That's kind of what I'm talking about.  It's anti-church, but not anti-christian, if that makes any sense.  The actions/morals it is in favor of are ones that fit with christian actions/morals.  What it's against is the organization--the human aspect of religion more than the specific beliefs of christians (eg, resurrection, forgiveness, etc).

It's not really a matter of being right or wrong though.  It's a matter of teaching them something -- anything -- that cherishes values, family, morals, and things that are good in the world, even if it's for no other reason than establishing them within a good subculture and good examples and helping them understand their own heritage.

The talk about who is "right" or "wrong" is also indicative of atheistic/agnosticism, not so much Christian or religious thinking.  There is some goodness and truth to any religion.  It is better that than nothing at all.

I think the data is pretty overwhelming that teaching children morals when they're young and especially when those morals are lived out by both the mother and the father before those children, that the chances they will make poor life choices (ugh!  I hate politically correct statements like that.  Wish I had a fog horn!) is far less than in children and especially teens who are left to their own devices.  Now you might say that we can teach morals without teaching religion, but I think they're pretty hollow.  Why be good, and who decides what is good or bad?  At some point you have to go back to a "faith" system of some kind.