one sick puppy
Oct. 16th, 2010 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbFrom a comments thread in someone else's LJ (I don't want to advertise the identity of the person I answered, so I will say no more):
(Anonymous) wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2010 01:56 am (UTC)
Polytheism and pseudepigraphy
"...gods in a polytheistic setting..."
Like Christianity.
Besides the old "3=1" polytheism (`cause three don't equal one, kiddies, no matter how you try to wrangle it), each separate cult of Christianity (you know: the Catholics, the Anglicans, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, etc ad absurdum) believes different ideas about its god. In a philosophical sense, they're pretty incompatible, and essentially different Christian gods.
"...a fable written down centuries after he died..."
Sort of like the gospels.
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(no subject) - fpb - Oct. 16th, 2010 06:14 am (UTC)
... wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2010 09:22 pm (UTC)
Re: Polytheism and pseudepigraphy
I can say the same, actually. That was the age at which I began questioning the cult I'd been raised in (Catholicism), so that was when I began studying the material for myself, learning the requisite languages for reading what documents I could get hold of, discovering the history of the book's composition.
And I will politely decline to respect your "expertise," along with your beliefs, as I would decline to respect the expertise of a Lochnessian scholar or a celebrated UFOlogist. Your ability to explain the "mechanics" or transubstantiation is identical to me to my college roommate's ability to explain the "mechanics" of a functional lightsaber.
And frankly, I couldn't muster any respect for you even as a person, since you actually think that anyone who forms an opinion that opposes yours could only have done so from an education as paltry as reading a few books or a couple of magazine articles. Learned students of history can, have, and regularly do view the "evidence" and come to the reasonable conclusion that it is insufficient to support such ridiculous theological claims.
You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are no way entitled to demand that the rest of us respect it or you, or the absurd beliefs you prop up with it. When Sam Harris (most recently) called the "evidence" (limited and shoddy as it may be) "copies of copies of copies of" interpretations or interpretations...man, he wasn't kidding.
Of course, none of that has anything to do "The God Engines" or Inverarity's review of it (well, maybe in an extremely tangential way), so it's all for naught. Sort of like religion in general...but there I go again. Nevermind.
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fpb wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2010 09:45 pm (UTC)
Re: Polytheism and pseudepigraphy
The worst that can be said for anyone is that they take Sam Harris as an authority. You are beyond contempt, because you have wilfully worked yourself into this disgusting state - out, it would seem, of hatred for your family background. The pathological nature of your attitude to Christianity can be recognized by the fact that you literally cannot control yourself: any time it is mentioned; one has to do no more than speak of it - perfectly in context, since Mr.Scalzi himself clearly has views on it - and hate-filled, irrelevant comments dribble from your pen. It is quite Pavlovian, and, from where I stand, revolting. Your hatred is disgusting. If I were a saint, I would also find it sad, but I am no saint.
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Since the answerer has lost no time in accusing me of censorship, persecution, inquisition and what not, let me make my position clear: it can say and publish whatever it pleases. I simply want no contact with it. I find its presence anywhere disgusting, and therefore its appearance on any comments thread will mean my disappearance from it. I don't want to have my name associated with it in any way. (Some readers will remember that I took the same position with respect to a particularly unpleasant American Catholic woman. Life is too short to have to put up with toads when you don't have to, or to sink into the mud to try to seize a few pearls back from the snouts of pigs.)
(Anonymous) wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2010 01:56 am (UTC)
Polytheism and pseudepigraphy
"...gods in a polytheistic setting..."
Like Christianity.
Besides the old "3=1" polytheism (`cause three don't equal one, kiddies, no matter how you try to wrangle it), each separate cult of Christianity (you know: the Catholics, the Anglicans, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, etc ad absurdum) believes different ideas about its god. In a philosophical sense, they're pretty incompatible, and essentially different Christian gods.
"...a fable written down centuries after he died..."
Sort of like the gospels.
Link | Reply | Thread | Track This
(no subject) - fpb - Oct. 16th, 2010 06:14 am (UTC)
... wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2010 09:22 pm (UTC)
Re: Polytheism and pseudepigraphy
I can say the same, actually. That was the age at which I began questioning the cult I'd been raised in (Catholicism), so that was when I began studying the material for myself, learning the requisite languages for reading what documents I could get hold of, discovering the history of the book's composition.
And I will politely decline to respect your "expertise," along with your beliefs, as I would decline to respect the expertise of a Lochnessian scholar or a celebrated UFOlogist. Your ability to explain the "mechanics" or transubstantiation is identical to me to my college roommate's ability to explain the "mechanics" of a functional lightsaber.
And frankly, I couldn't muster any respect for you even as a person, since you actually think that anyone who forms an opinion that opposes yours could only have done so from an education as paltry as reading a few books or a couple of magazine articles. Learned students of history can, have, and regularly do view the "evidence" and come to the reasonable conclusion that it is insufficient to support such ridiculous theological claims.
You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are no way entitled to demand that the rest of us respect it or you, or the absurd beliefs you prop up with it. When Sam Harris (most recently) called the "evidence" (limited and shoddy as it may be) "copies of copies of copies of" interpretations or interpretations...man, he wasn't kidding.
Of course, none of that has anything to do "The God Engines" or Inverarity's review of it (well, maybe in an extremely tangential way), so it's all for naught. Sort of like religion in general...but there I go again. Nevermind.
Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Track This
fpb wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2010 09:45 pm (UTC)
Re: Polytheism and pseudepigraphy
The worst that can be said for anyone is that they take Sam Harris as an authority. You are beyond contempt, because you have wilfully worked yourself into this disgusting state - out, it would seem, of hatred for your family background. The pathological nature of your attitude to Christianity can be recognized by the fact that you literally cannot control yourself: any time it is mentioned; one has to do no more than speak of it - perfectly in context, since Mr.Scalzi himself clearly has views on it - and hate-filled, irrelevant comments dribble from your pen. It is quite Pavlovian, and, from where I stand, revolting. Your hatred is disgusting. If I were a saint, I would also find it sad, but I am no saint.
Link | Reply | Parent | Thread | Delete | Track This
Since the answerer has lost no time in accusing me of censorship, persecution, inquisition and what not, let me make my position clear: it can say and publish whatever it pleases. I simply want no contact with it. I find its presence anywhere disgusting, and therefore its appearance on any comments thread will mean my disappearance from it. I don't want to have my name associated with it in any way. (Some readers will remember that I took the same position with respect to a particularly unpleasant American Catholic woman. Life is too short to have to put up with toads when you don't have to, or to sink into the mud to try to seize a few pearls back from the snouts of pigs.)
