No Topic Thread

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I find it unethical in the context of the link I posted.
And I agreed with this many posts ago but that's just, like, my opinion, man. It doesn't mean that is the right course of action for others.

Going back to our mate Jeff and helping him because he is hurt and not because he is a potential pew-warmer - we need to remember that not warming a pew (metaphorically, of course) is more hurtful to him than anything that could happen to him in this life. If we love Jeff and want to help him then shouldn't we tell him the good word?
 
Once had 2 Jehovah's witnesses knock on my doors in a couple of minutes of each other. The first one chose the back door and spent some time trying to get in. The second came in the front and was surprised to get in!
 
The first one chose the back door and spent some time trying to get in.
I love quotes taken out of context...
benny-hill.jpg
 
Matthew 28:18-20
Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Lets address this issue of Jesus first. Although there is some evidence to suggest a delusional Rabbi was wandering around Palestine convincing the illiterate, simple minded bronze age inhabitance of his divinity, the very prophecy that foretold of his arrival doesn't even match up with the story. The 'messiah' as told in the scriptures was to be born of the house of David, or Bethlehem. Jesus of Nazareth was born in - well - Nazareth. Thus to square up the ledger, the scriptures propose some guff about a sensis in order to get him where he needed to be.
Historically, total rubbish. never happened.

The story of the nativity is nothing but a fabrication.

The credulity that it must take to accept the 3000 year old testimony of hysterical, superstitious middle eastern desert dwellers that the order of nature and the law of physics was suspended - virgin birth - resurrection - water to wine - healing lepers, whatever you like, so the fable of Christ may be true is staggering to me.


Please understand, I'm not attacking believers here, just calling ******** on the fairytale.
 
Leviticus also preaches that women experiencing menstruation should leave the camp and have no physical contact with people for a period during and after.

Sounds like a reasonable bloke this Levi. Though he really should have included the few days leading up to as well.
 
Please understand, I'm not attacking believers here, just calling ******** on the fairytale.
As happy as I am to take the above at face value, you'll probably find that believers aren't as happy to make the distinction between the two as you are.

It doesn't matter which the religion we're talking about, by virtue (if you'll pardon the sometimes pun) of the material there is no option but to have to accept some kooky ****. The entire point of any of these texts is to explain the unexplainable.
 
That is Our Lady Librarian of the Tumble-**** Shanty.
 
Where's lecterfan when you need him?.

I've stayed out of this one, much more enjoyable as a voyeur.

Were I to weigh in: divine command theory, like any dogmatic 'moral/ethical' (the terms 'ethics' and 'morals' are synonymous in this space) provides a rigid prescriptive 'ought'. Divine command theory is particularly problematic because it offers no logical or intuitive reasoning behind what is considered right or wrong; it is simply 'following the law' (insert argument about the possibility of 'true' altruism here - doing the right thing is a prescription to entering heaven, getting virgins, etc etc etc...arguably even the pious self-satisfying feeling that Kant alludes to in the Critique of Practical Reason can be seen as a type of 'reward', thus the very notion of altruism seems paradoxical - not that paradox is a major problem in some systems of thought, but it is in this one as we are working with binaries...yaaaawn... also think about other arguments that have boiled down to 'following orders' from the lawgiver).

Forgetting the difference in content between the new and old testament, the format is the same; it is 'right/just/ethical/moral' to do X because God/Jeebus/Noodle Monster said so. This removes all element of context, the stakeholder(s), the volition of the person doing the deed (as they are simply following orders), and so on. It also provides a narrative for people to follow to make sense of their life, as Bum has alluded to. As I gesture towards in my final statements, I don't think this can be universally considered good or bad, not when there is such radical global disequilibrium in a number of areas.


So to reframe the argument - are 'good' outcomes being achieved? If so, according to what principle(s)? If not, why? At what point/threshold does the 'good' deed become undone or tainted by the very fact that it is entirely conditional? Is itentirely conditional? (of course yes; the state of 'conditional' is categorical...the conditions may be greater or lesser, but either there are conditions or there aren't).

As with all real-world political issues, there is simply no cut and dried answer - but that doesn't mean there is no answer.

My personal opinion (for 'tis only an opinion) certainly errs on the side of the secular humanist (technically my politics are secular anti-humanist humanist), but then I am interested in dissensus on the grand scale as being generative and productive, and I believe that politically that is the ethical condition to strive for, as consensus must only be local, immanent and plural - not rule based, not culturally relative, but based on the articulable discourses of the parties involved. Problematic? Yes, intentionally so. Any genuinely ethical act/decision must be ultimately undecidable - the outcome can never be judged as a binary, and any 'condition' placed on an act of charity immediately eradicates the possibility of it being considered a truly ethical act (placing it more in the realm of bureaucracy)...is this necessarily (in the logical sense) a good or a bad thing? Again, the answer cannot be thought of in traditional analytic binaries.

In my context (white, middle class, employable) I side with Nietzsche in regards to Christianity (a historically-derived slave morality), but having worked for many years with Somali, Sudanese and Togalese refugees, I didn't/don't begrudge them their Christianity as it was a necessary condition of their very existence (both nutritionally and existentially).

How's that for a fence-sitting Cunticle answer? :lol:

edit: just discovered I have a minor kitchen fire. The joys of philosophy. All under control.
 
Sounds like a reasonable bloke this Levi. Though he really should have included the few days leading up to as well.

Levi is a good bloke! funny fuker too.

nek%20minute%20MOVIE%202-0-800-0-1200.jpg
 
having worked for many years with Somali, Sudanese and Togalese refugees, I didn't/don't begrudge them their Christianity as it was a necessary condition of their very existence (both nutritionally and existentially).
So many points I could ask you to elaborate upon but I shall start with the one that best demonstrates my ignorance.

Why is Christianity a necessary condition of their existence? I do not understand this.

You seem to be suggesting they would not be alive, if they were not Christians.
How is being a Christian going to keep them fed? Are you saying that the refugees you have encountered are alive because of Christian charity/aid groups? Are you saying these groups would not assist therm unless they 'converted'?
 
And I agreed with this many posts ago but that's just, like, my opinion, man. It doesn't mean that is the right course of action for others.

Going back to our mate Jeff and helping him because he is hurt and not because he is a potential pew-warmer - we need to remember that not warming a pew (metaphorically, of course) is more hurtful to him than anything that could happen to him in this life. If we love Jeff and want to help him then shouldn't we tell him the good word?


I get your point. I disagree with it but then I disagree with most of the tenets and many of the fundamentals of monotheistic religion (and polytheistic ones too) - as much as I think people have a right to believe in magic fairies if they want to, I can't make sense of it and I can't agree with it (and have no reason nor desire to do either). The prosetylisation of both the religious and non religious (some non-believers prosetylise as much as believers) irks me a great deal. If I were Jeff, I'd say please keep the good word to yourself sir. I'd say shut up about the good word and I'll found someone else to bandage my leg, thankyou very much. In fact I'll keep all my leprous sores as a reminder that even though God hates me, I refute his very existence

No need to state it's your opinion - that's accepted as par for the course in most debates of this nature.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
So many points I could ask you to elaborate upon but I shall start with the one that best demonstrates my ignorance.

Why is Christianity a necessary condition of their existence? I do not understand this.

You seem to be suggesting they would not be alive, if they were not Christians.
How is being a Christian going to keep them fed? Are you saying that the refugees you have encountered are alive because of Christian charity/aid groups? Are you saying these groups would not assist therm unless they 'converted'?


Correct - it was largely (not for all, but certainly for the majority that I worked with - which itself was only a small handful of families, possibly not representative of the experience for everyone) machine gun firing squads, torture, join guerilla/rebel groups or Christian refuge which they accepted willingly. The stories, many including smuggled photographs and physical evidence of torture on the survivors (which yes could have been faked - by a die hard masocist), were/are very moving. Not all of the refugees had access to secular or Governmental camps, and no - I certainly do not wish to imply that all/any of the Christian groups would strictly have denied them anything if they had not converted, but these families are very Christian and it was probably not rammed down their throat so much as they picked it up naturally as corollary to continued existence. An observation, not a value-judgement.

In addition, being Christian would sometimes provide a level of sanctuary in other villages or countries (bearing in mind the borders throughout much of these lands were imposed on the native Africans by Europeans, thus countries in the West of Africa such as Togo have official borders that run N-S, whereas tribal and dialectic 'unofficial' borders actually run E-W and have done so for centuries at least). A cynical analyst might suggest that it is still a pernicious condition, not one that is bargained at the outset of the interaction, but a condition nonetheless, or we could be more generous and say that they then adopted Christianity of their own volition...it kind of comes to what model of beingness/ontology you ascribe to our species.

As I said, I'm not trying to enter the debate...is it good, bad or otherwise (?)...just tossing a few observations out there. :icon_cheers:

edit: also I think it's fair to say from the intellectual/armchair position that we are taking on the subject that notions such as 'choice', 'autonomy', 'volition', even 'agency' etc are all questionable philosophically at the best of times, let alone under times of extreme duress, and then compound that with a life that has continually been lived in fragmented socio-economic-political conditions etc etc then it makes really taking a firm 'stance' on the issue very difficult without accepting a large number of presuppositions about what it is to be human, especially in a context so totally foreign to many Anglos etc.

Second edit - also given that this is about my anecdotal experiences in a prior vocation rather than the random flux and flow of thoughts, I should also qualify that the experiences of Sudanese, Togalese and Somali that I worked with weren't all directly one-for-one interchangeable, and what I have described above was for more prevalent in the Togalese experience (in the small number of people I was exposed to).
 
As happy as I am to take the above at face value, you'll probably find that believers aren't as happy to make the distinction between the two as you are.

It doesn't matter which the religion we're talking about, by virtue (if you'll pardon the sometimes pun) of the material there is no option but to have to accept some kooky ****. The entire point of any of these texts is to explain the unexplainable.



Believers should be sweet with it. They were warned on several occasions they'd be mocked and persecuted for their stand, 'I send out as sheep amongst wolves' said the book of Matthew. They should just smile at me beatifically and carry on.

Religion's irrational, hysterical, non scientific, logic-less, reasonless effort to explain anything is as much a failure as the phrase 'explain the unexplainable' is oxymornic.
 
The difference is change.

Consider a non believer that has had no reason to believe in a god and reluctant enough to not adopt one fr no reason.
In a condition of extreme duress, if adopting Christianity happens to be the most practical and easiest choice then he will do it. Also, once he is in the 'fold' he is in. He will be as reluctant to leave a belief that he knows saved his and maybe his' family's lives. Does that mean he is now a christian as might be someone that were born in a Christian family or took it up for themselves?
I don't believe it is the same thing. This, in part, also explains other fundamentalist religious zealots. Adversity is a powerful tool to convince someone. Under adverse conditions people can be made to accept things they would not consider otherwise and then they stay loyal to it. It would bind together in friendship and loyalty young men in war that might've never bothered to give the others a glance in normal life.
 
i need to go drink at lecters again my brain needs a work out.

On a heavier note you need to ring the firies for any small fire as the first question that will be asked by your insurer or your landlords insurer is. Was the the fire brigade called? they need the report before they will act on any claim. +it keeps me in work.

Kleiny

edit: public service announcement included above
 

Latest posts

Back
Top