[Seekers] Punishment

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Ward Fenley wrote:


> Joseph Crea wrote:

> >

> > Hello, Ward, Linda et al!

> >

> >

> > CREA

> >      You say that "Some societies teach it is very proper to eat your

> > babies"?  I think you're showing an absolute disregard for the truth here

> > and repeating unsubtantiated rumours and allegations.  If you can provide

> > reputable sources for this scurrilous assertion, I'll offer an apology and a

> > retraction, but until then, you're just another two-bit gossip and liar in

> > my book.

> >

>

> Here is a nice page from one your types for starters :o]:

>

> http://www.artnet.net/~acharya/truth/cannibal.htm


MWF    Checked, no babies mentioned at all. Only "cannibablism" was in direct relation to religious
rituals, no sources listed.


>

>

> Also:

>

> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0879759062/1947-4331251-861714


MWF    Nope. No babies there.


>

>

> http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/sci.anthropology/archive/september-1995/0367.html

>


MWF    Hmm. Prehistoric speculation. Even if true, of little relevanct to cultural history any more
recent than, oh circa 30,000 BCE, if that recent.


> More specifically:

>

> http://www.agathonvm.com/rlv/cr/eastexpr.html


MWF
    This one is merely silly. At an obviously anti-abortion site we have a credulous writer grabbing at
straws from a report in  what looks to be the Hong Kong equivalent of the Weekly World News. Doctors
eating aborted fetuses  as "dietary supplements" because they were " good for their skin and general
health".

    Talk about wide open credulity


>     <snip>

> WARD

> So then what is the problem? Lots of people identify themselves as

> Christian. Regardless, the practice exists. There is a load of info on

> the subject. You say I am a liar. I say you are.


MWF    I'd say you are overly credulous, willing to accept any report as true so long as it seems to
substantiate your obviously closely held views.


> Who is telling the

> truth? The one who has the most resources or the "best" history book?

> Come on! Be sensible. Don't you see how this is all related to the

> issue? Why do you trust ANY history?


MWF    Because I've walked through the streets of Pompey, and climbed Phillips wall from the Moorish
castle at Gibralter?  Seen an old statue of Buddha in Japan?

    Because in the end, it really doesn't matter if most of the history I've learned is all that
accurate, and those who write it therefore have nothing to gain by decieving me?


> Why do you believe what you do?


MWF    Duh, what's that supposed to mean?


> Apriori? I think not. You READ HISTORY. So you question the Bible. Do

> you question what you believe  with the same skepticism? I seriously

> doubt it, otherwise you would be a lunatic.


MWF    Not at all. A responsible scholar perhaps, but hardly a lunatic. Unless being competant is by
definition being a lunatic.

    <snip>

    Oh by the way Ward, here's my quiz one more time:

~~~~~~

    Okay Ward, maybe you can solve the following quiz. I've given it to almost a
dozen different professing Christians on assorted different lists. So fat none
have succeeded. Maybe, since you're so sure of yourself, you can succeed where
they have failed to so much as make an attempt:

    1.)  Define, via the bible, "murder".

    2.) Define, via the bible, "stealing".

    3.) Define, via the bible, "rape".

    What you should be able to do is find the applicable passages and demonstrate
that it is unnecessary to already know what "murder" "stealing" or "rape" are in
order to infer that  each is prohibited. Another way to put it is that you should
be able to go through the Bible, replace any instance of any of the above words
or their cognates, and demonstrate that the Bible defines such terms contextually
such that it is possible to know exactly what it is that is prohibited, even if that particular word
was otherwise unknown for some reason.

    Bonus question: Is it wrong, as in immoral (a sin?) for you to lose property
which someone else has entrusted to your care, and which you have voluntarily
agreed to safe guard? In legal speak, you agree to act as the bailor of the
bailees property, thus creating a bailment. At law, the bailor is liable for any
loss or damage to the bailees property once the bailment is created. That's the
law. Thus the question in effect asks: Is the law moral?

    If you cannot come up with  satisfactory answers for at least the first three
above, using the bible and strict deductive logic, then what that tells us is that
the Bible, rather than being "gods holy word" and a SOURCE of "absolute morals"
actually  -presupposes-  that the reader already HAS a moral code, and thus thus
the bible merely supplies Gods backing for the priestly punishments for violations
of the presupposed moral code by putting the sentences in Gods mouth. But note,
that adds nothing to the arena of moral discourse.

************

    Good luck.

    Ciao.


--
       Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., law student

 >>NEW->http://www.infidels.org/library/humor/lioaca.html

       http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html

       http://home.aol.com/Mfish6994

        *               *               *

        ". . . a very LONG discussion is one of the most
        effective veils of Fallacy: . . . A Fallacy which
        when stated barely . . . would not deceive a child,
        may deceive half the world if diluted in a quarto
        volume"
               Richard Whately, "Elements of Logic", p. 151

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