"Conservatives"

[fpb]

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/british-mp-urges-government-to-force-churches-into-same-sex-unions?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4aa5467bd0-LifeSiteNews_com_Intl_Headlines09_08_2011&utm_medium=email

What is breathtaking is that no British news medium seems to have given this any attention.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Morality is only a matter of feelings when the whole notion of making sense of it has been driven out. If feelings were in any way a reliable guide to morality, the vast majority of mankind's "yuck!" reaction to homosexual acts would totally overshadow the small minority who don't suffer from such instinctive reactions. The only thing that kept the whole gay movement from being squashed and silenced with little effort is that people silenced their own feelings and listened to argument. Feelings are irrational and dangerous.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

vast majority of mankind's "yuck!" reaction to homosexual acts

Again, I am not denying that this may be true, but this is such a wide statement that I'd appreciate evidence of it. (It is ridiculously far from anything I've ever thought myself, but then humans do a lot of things which are far from anything I could contemplate, so I certainly wouldn't take my own experiences as 'truth'.)

listened to argument

And again, I am opening a can of worms which I should have more sense than to open... but what are the rational, scientific arguments for religion; and particularly for Catholicism being the 'correct' religious view?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Now you want me to bring you "evidence" that 60 or 70% of seven billion living people - let alone the dead - have an instictive reaction of disgust to the idea of homosexual sex acts? Let's just forget it, shall we?

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I have twice asked for evidence and twice you have not given it. I have never ever said that your facts are wrong, but I have asked for evidence that the numbers of Pagans are dwindling and that the vast majority (incidentally, I would not count 60% of people as a VAST majority) of people immediately think 'yuck' at the idea of homosexual activity. Also, you have not responded to my request for rational, scientific arguments for religion, and for Catholicism as the one-and-only-true-religion.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I did not say that actual pagans are dwindling, although I admit that what I said could be read that way. If I did, I withdraw it. What I wanted to say is as follows: first, the population from which the Politically Correct world is drawn is not growing, and is certainly both growing older and growing smaller as a percentage of total mankind; second, Islam, Evangelical Christianity, and Catholicism, are certainly growing; third, even not considering relative levels of growth, the difference in sheer numbers between the one and the other is such that, compared to these three groupings, paganism barely registers.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And I have responded to your request for etcaetera. Perhaps you haven't read my answer yet.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As for the "rational scientific" arguments for Catholicism: first, this is plainly unacceptable as a concept. Reason cannot be reduced to science, and rational does not mean scientific. As for scientific arguments for religion, that is simply nonsense. You might as well ask for arguments for Catholicism out of football or stamp collecting. Science only measures the perceptible world; since religion is by definition about metaphysical realities, to claim to use science to assess the validity of the category of religion as such means to ask science to do what science is incapable of doing. As well ask a man to eat his own head. That does not mean that science cannot disprove certain religious claims. The creationist account of physical reality is a particularly curious case, since it was effectively invented long after it had been disproved. Working in concert, historical investigation, geology, and paleontology, had already by about 1830 wholly disproved the notion that the world had been created 6000 years ago; but the series of publications that made this a matter of faith - called "Fundamentals", hence "Fundamentalism" - were only published in America in the last years of the nineteenth century. But science also disproves the Buddhist account of an ever-existing world in which mankind has existed at roughtly the same level of civilization for millions upon millions of years - an account which is fundamental to Buddhism, because otherwise it would have no space for its vast mythology of previous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas - and historical research, if not science, contradicts the historical claims of Islam. These are things that science can do; but to ask science to judge about the validity of metaphysics itself is utter nonsense.

As for reason as such, I happen to be a thoroughgoing and devoted rationalist. And being very firmly rationalistic, I reject, for instance, those superstitions that place illogical restrictions upon God - as if God, for instance, could become incarnate in a human being but not in a piece of bread. Logically the two things are exactly on the same level, since ontologically a human being is not much closer to God than a piece of bread. Or that accepts the existence of God but not the possibility that God might make miracles. These are irrational notions that reason ought to reject. But reason cannot be the judge of the existence or otherwise of God, because reason can only work on objective reality. Reason can tell you - in fact, that is all that reason ever does - that A is not non A, that you can't have a thing or its contradiction, that you can't have your cake and eat it; but reason can't tell you whether you have a cake or not, or whether A exists.

You might try to ask me whether I have any historical reasons to believe in the Catholic account of things. After all, I am a historian, not a scientist. But that is way too long a story and I will not discuss it here.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I put a comma between 'rational' and 'scientific' which you have removed. This makes a difference to what I was saying. I was asking about rational OR scientific arguments. And as you say, when it comes to science it is nonsense. And you do not explain why your metaphysical viewpoint is more valid than any other - and to be honest, you could do so and I could pick holes in it, and you could defend those holes from now until eternity (were eternity to exist).

But there is no rational nor scientific nor, indeed, historical reasons to say "I can demonstrate that my Catholic God exists and therefore that my view of morality - mostly, albeit not entirely, based on what the Catholic God allegedly tells me - is correct."

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Did you read what I wrote? I said that reason cannot prove or disprove the existence of ANYTHING, even a blade of grass! Reason, that is the use of logic, works only with things already existent and known. Reason is the thing that tells you that you can't have your cake and eat it, that you can't say yes and no of the same thing, that A is not non-A. You can't prove by reason that your own young boy exists; a sufficiently smart arguer could easily convince a third party that you are delusional about Mouse's existence. EVERY ACTUAL FACT CAN BE BOTH PROVED AND DISPROVED BY REASON WITH EQUAL LIKELIHOOD; and it follows that we absolutely must limit the ambit of reason to things whose existence we know on the grounds of experience. In actual fact, many kinds of insanity are very rational indeed.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

EVERY ACTUAL FACT CAN BE BOTH PROVED AND DISPROVED BY REASON WITH EQUAL LIKELIHOOD

So, if we can't trust feelings because they're "irrational and dangerous" and we can't trust reason because it can be "proved and disproved with equal likelihood" and we can't use science because ir only defines "the physical world", what should we believe in?

God? And if so, why YOUR version of God?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Everything is good in its place. Morality deals with actual human beings, human beings whose existence we know; and in dealing with such things, it is certainly right and proper, indeed it is necessary and just, to use logic and reason. Metaphysics deals with that which we cannot know by the senses, and in that area, as I believe Kant has shown, reason is at a loss, because, lacking an anchorage in physical facts, it can literally argue everything and its opposite with equal likelihood. And, as I said clearly and at some length (you really ought to try and read what I write every now and then!) science can certainly be used to DISPROVE specific religious claims, but not to argue about the status of religion and metaphysics as such. Kant thought he had got rid of metaphysics; but there is probably more of it since his time than before.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

So, given that you're saying that there's no reason in science, facts or feeling that I should agree with you; and in history there's no reason where I should come to the same conclusions as you have come to...

Basically, you're saying "I'm right, because I know from my own opinions, and from what I have felt on a religious and metaphysical level, that I am right."

Fair enough. I am not so confident, so I can't say it with as much conviction; but given the same level of defence, I can certainly defend my own position.

(Also, being not so confident, I probably won't read any response to this in case I become a shivering wreck. I'm sure your God would be pleased if I did; but my son - real or imaginary* - wouldn't be.)

*The edit was because I used the wrong word first time! Despite knowing that I wasn't going to read a response, the mis-use of a word annoyed me too much to leave it!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My God is Love. He does not will evil for anyone, at worst He allows it as a trial. The only way a human being can damn him or herself is by his or her own choice. As CS Lewis beautifully says, in the end there are only two kinds of people: the kind who says to God, "Thy will be done", and the ones to whom God says, "Thy will be done". Which one any of us is will only be revealed in the end. But even if you find me reprehensible, it would be very silly to take it out on "my God".

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As for there being no HISTORICAL reasons to believe in Jesus and in the Church - speaking as a historian, that is plainly false. There are enough for me.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I could equally argue that there are "enough for me" reasons for a lot of things (including the sky being grey). And I could bring historical and scientific and rational and religious fact to back me up.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Now let us practice some reason. If you say that "there are no historical reasons to convince anyone of the Catholic claims", it is quite enough to disprove your claim to say: "Yes there are, for I am a historian, and they have convinced ME." I am not saying that I am right or wrong in taking this view of the universe; I have however just proved that the sweeping claim that a person of moderate intelligence cannot be converted to Catholicism by the study of history is just plain wrong. That is, of course, unless you want to argue that I am a moron or an ignoramus. Which you very well might, as you have just said that I am "unworthy of rational argument".

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

But there is no reason to say, given history, that your viewpoint must be right because the Catholic argument is so strong that anyone who HAS moderate intelligence should be converted to it.

My comment about "rational argument" should be read alongside my opinion that one should argue without being personally abusive. If you feel the need to be aggressive (your word, not mine), to be honest I'm not certain I feel that arguing rationally will get me anywhere.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Coming from someone who has just said that I did not deserve "rational argument", that is not just rich, that is Rockefeller rich.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

From someone who has argued that you cannot use 'reason' as a method of argument, I could say the same.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Please read what I said. You may not believe me, but I am being patient here. I never even began to say or to suggest the words you put in my mouth; WHAT I SAID IS THAT IN CERTAIN CLEARLY DEFINED CIRCUMSTANCES REASON IS NOT A HELP TOWARDS TRUTH. These circumstances are, in ordinary life, pretty rare, and to use reason in deciding, for instance, whether you ought to make a certain expense, or whether and how you ought to complain to a certain person, is right and proper and just and right. Please, please, please, I beg you: read what I said, not what you would like me to have said.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I will add this: that even in circumstances where logic and reason cannot be used as an instrument to find out truth, it can be good to use them merely as a kind of intellectual game, to see how much a certain argument can be developed. Our Alternate Universe fics, for instance, are of this kind, and the best of them hinge on the change of a single feature between the "reality" of canon and the story.

Sometimes, the imaginative use of reason and knowledge in unreal settings can actually prelude to reality. In 1930, a journalist wrote a novel that was later seen to have predicted the whole course of the Japanese-American part of WWII in considerable detail. This man had simply asked himself: given what I know of Japan and of the US, what would happen if...? Conversely, in 1859 a novel was published in South Carolina that predicted, one year ahead of time - and at a time when Lincoln had not yet been heard of - the secession of the South and the war between the states. However, it was grossly and self-aggrandizingly wrong in its predictions of the final outcome: it described a North destroyed in battle and torn apart by further sedition - the very opposite of what happened. That means obviously that the author understood his own people - the South - but was ignorant of what he could expect from the North, and therefore his rational projection of expectations failed him altogether. And to show that it was possible, even then, to get it right, there is Sam Houston's devastating prophecy: "Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of states rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South."

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I never said that any intelligent person exposed to my experience of history should reach my conclusions. In fact, if you asked me whether such is the case, I WOULD MOST EMPHATICALLY DENY IT: I would regard it as an insult to another person's intelligence and experience to say that in the same circumstances he MUST reach the conclusions I did. Any intelligent person can reach any view about any issue; even grossly and ludicrously wrong views. It was not a fool who proposed Colin Renfrew's theory of Indo-European history (to mention one area where I can speak with authority).