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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katelew who wrote (84051)	9/13/2008 1:07:26 AM
From: freelyhovering	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541789

I remember in the early 70's seeing "Steambath" by Bruce Jay Friedman on PBS. I have been looking for it for years and it finally showed up on Netflix. Some will find it amusing and some will be offended by it. It is about a Puerto Rican towel boy in a steambath who is God, making pronouncements and smiting various people when it relieves him of boredom. It is obviously based on the Old Testament. <g> netflix.com

To: Katelew who wrote (84051)	9/13/2008 8:20:49 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541789

I can't decide for God that agnostics should be excepted. That was your decision, not god's. Here's what you said: "So rejecting the word of Christ IS the same as rejecting the word of God. Not to the Jewish world, of course, but to Christians." You were making an exception because you didn't want to offend any Jewish thread members. Christ didn't say "He that is not with me is against me--except for Jews, which are an exception." The exception to treat Jews different from other non-followers of Christ is yours. I tried to lay out the logical flow that always leads back to atheism and it is also difficult to comprehend. But I think I've done all I can to explain it. You've explained it well. I understand what you said. What you have explained is why Christ lumps agnostics and atheists together and treats them as adversaries, equivalent and indistinguishable for his purposes. I understand that notion. That's like my saying that I don't care whether that green pile is collards or kale, I don't want it on my plate. I reject it. All the same to me--inedible. But that doesn't mean that there no longer exist any such thing as collards and kale, only "greens." The plants don't suddenly look the same and their labels don't suddenly disappear from the dictionary. You haven't offered any explanation for why Christ rejecting multiple categories of non-supporters and lumping them together for his purposes somehow makes the categories disappear. There are lots of categories in Christ's adversary pile: Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, atheists, pagans, devil-worshipers, agnostics, etc. The categories still exist whether Christ recognizes them discretely or chooses to treat them as one big indistinguishable lump. Christ may treat them the same but the categories still exist as separate conceptual entities useful for a variety of human purposes. Getting back on point, your point, that is, you were endeavoring to support your notion that there is no such thing as agnosticism with Christ's statement in Mathew that those who reject the doctrine of Christ are all the same, adversaries. Christ sees those adversaries as the same, therefore agnosticism can't exist, that it is really atheism. If that were the case, then paganism, for example, couldn't exist, either, and pagans would be atheists, too. And Buddhists. Well, that clearly doesn't work. So, if you still want to claim that agnosticism doesn't exist, perhaps there's other scripture out there, more on point... I don't make the rules. Christ only effectively makes the rules for Christians, at least for as long as we exist in this life. Wouldn't it be more correct to say Agnostics BELIEVE there's no way to know? I take your point. Poor choice of words given the sloppiness that has befallen the words "believe" and "know." What I meant is that there's no way for humans to know for a fact, that is, to prove it one way or the other. Indeed, some people claim to "believe with certainty" which they regard as knowing, and which makes the word a poor choice.