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Questions for a Catholic
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Post by
128491
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Skyfire
And by the way, these aren't the Middle Ages, nowadays there are but few people who actually believe the Book of Genesis
Survey says:
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
!
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Lunch break, but I only have like 5 minutes....I won't be getting home till around 9 tonight -_-
So be patient.
Post by
128491
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
At risk of merging threads, you can't prove that a rock has no infinite end in the same way that humans have an infinite end.
Motion. (Again, I'm not specifying locomotion.)
Nature, End, and Motion are all coexistent. If there is any disparity between the nature and the end, there will be a natural movement present.
There is no self-motion in the rock, nor is there any external force moving a rock to an end intrinsic to the rock. Now take a human. There is self-motion, and it doesn't stop. I'm a great chef...hurray! but I still try harder and harder. There is always something I can do more so enhance my cooking. And should I become the perfect chef, by nature I would have to search out another good.
Motion, motion, motion.
You say that a human's infinite end is to continually seek more good.
No. Continually seeking good is the means to the end. The end is the achievement of the end.
Gravity's infinite end would be to continually draw more towards it.
Gravity by definition exists as a force between two things. Once there is nothing left to attract, there is no gravity. The
power
of gravity will always exist, of course, but there will be no
actualizing
of that power. By definition it requires a physical thing.
Goodness is not a physical thing. Things can be good, but no
thing
is goodness--it's what's called a
transcendental
.
In short, the difference is that man's end does not depend on any physical thing, while gravity's does.
The reason I brought up the concept of a 'spirit' is because the 'earth argument' suggests that the human body is irrelevant to the discussion. A bunch of blood and bones has no end other than to exist biologically, no?
Think about this. What happens after someone dies? The body decays. So the end of the body is to serve the soul/intellect/will. Once that is gone, the body has been 'de-natured' it is no longer a 'human body' just a 'body.'
Your 'proof' that the good must be infinite is based on the premise that it is insatiable.
Insatiable by finite goods. Give me one finite good that can compel the will--if you can find one,
that
is the final end.
But then you can follow the same logic with gravity, and demonstrate that it must therefore an intellect, on the basis that its nature to pull other objects towards it is insatiable?
Again, it is satiable. There is no gravity if there is nothing to interact with. Once the nature has been filled, there is no more motion.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
My question... What made you choose the christian bible as the answer to life, the universe, and everything
42 is my answer to life, the universe and everything.
The Bible is one helpful step to achieving it.
Perhaps it was not a choice, but instead is because as a child you had this nonsense thrown at you and were told to believe it... OR ELSE?
It was a choice. Somewhere near the beginning of this thread I talked about it. I grew up Catholic, fell away and was an agnostic for some years, then became a Catholic again after much thought and prayer.
Do you think you'd be christian if you were born in India?
I really have no idea. Assuming the drive for finding the truth I have is something genetic/spiritual and not societal, then yes I think I probably would...though It might have taken longer.
Or is it likely you'd be worshiping Shiva right now and making love to a sacred cow?
I can guarantee that the latter part would never happen. But Shiva is pretty hawt, so I'm not totally sure about that part.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
And by the way, these aren't the Middle Ages, nowadays there are but few people who actually believe the Book of Genesis
Survey says:
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
!
I find that very surprising. Why? Because if I were to give that very same survey I can guarantee I would have different results. I doubt if even 60% of Americans even know what Genesis is, let alone believe it literally.
Secondly, 1000 people? To make a statistic claiming to be about 300 million people based on what 1000 people said? That's .00033% of the US.
1000 people is what you use for finding statistics about cancer patients or senior citizens, not the whole fracking US.
Post by
TheMediator
So then you believe that those people in India are just less likely to seek out the truth than people who live in Western countries?
Secondly, 1000 people? To make a statistic claiming to be about 300 million people based on what 1000 people said? That's .00033% of the US.
Also... you don't know enough about statistics. As long as that 1000 people are a randomly selected part of the population, that is enough to generalize entirely about a certain group (1000 home owners polled could draw conclusions about homeowners... we won't know the true proportion when we factor in the homeless etc.)
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
So then you believe that those people in India are just less likely to seek out the truth than people who live in Western countries?
No, I didn't say anything about them. I'm the only one I said anything about.
Also... you don't know enough about statistics.
As long as that 1000 people are a randomly selected part of the population
, that is enough to generalize entirely about a certain group (1000 home owners polled could draw conclusions about homeowners... we won't know the true proportion when we factor in the homeless etc.)
That's the point. The smaller your group is compared to the whole the higher chance that it isn't a perfectly random sampling.
Post by
374287
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
There is no self-motion in the rock, nor is there any external force moving a rock to an end intrinsic to the rock. Now take a human. There is self-motion, and it doesn't stop. I'm a great chef...hurray! but I still try harder and harder. There is always something I can do more so enhance my cooking. And should I become the perfect chef, by nature I would have to search out another good.
Motion, motion, motion.
That's an presumption with no basis. How can you demonstrate that there is no self-motion in the rock? There is no locomotion, definitely. But how do you measure self-motion, without the presumption of a will? How do you know that the rock doesn't want to become a better rock? Or become a mountain, for that matter?
No. Continually seeking good is the means to the end. The end is the achievement of the end.
I thought we agreed to give each other a bit of leeway when it comes to the use of terms? It doesn't change the interpretation.
Goodness is not a physical thing. Things can be good, but no thing is goodness--it's what's called a transcendental.
In short, the difference is that man's end does not depend on any physical thing, while gravity's does.
That's because you're defining man's end as something immaterial that happens to be obtained through material means. Why can't a rock also want infinite good? A river? If you can say that as a cook, becoming a better cook gives you 'good', is it not possible that a river that erodes its banks and grows can consider it to be 'good' also?
Think about this. What happens after someone dies? The body decays. So the end of the body is to serve the soul/intellect/will. Once that is gone, the body has been 'de-natured' it is no longer a 'human body' just a 'body.'
That's on the presumption that a soul/intellect/will exists. Which is why I mentioned animals before, because animals have very similar motivations to humans. You can more easily suggest that animals (as opposed to rocks and rivers) have the same end as humans - infinite good.
Again, it is satiable. There is no gravity if there is nothing to interact with. Once the nature has been filled, there is no more motion.
If infinite good is satiable, then it is finite. If it is unsatiable and infinite, then it's unachieveable and cannot be an end (by one of your earlier comments). Your two concepts are contradictory.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Do catholics believe that Genesis is the literal truth?
To quote myself from earlier in the thread
:
There is a fourfold method of interpreting scripture: literal, analogical, anagogical, and moral. All senses are taken as true unless they can be rationally proven to be false. Just to help you understand this I'll give you a rough interpretation of one passage:
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Literal - God created light with his word. He looked at it. It was good. Light and darkness were separated. Light was called day, darkness night. The end of day one passed, then came day two.
Now there are a couple of this that rationally don't make literal sense. God does not have a mouth therefore he can't speak. God does not have eyes therefore he cannot see. Light by it's very nature is "not-dark" so it's literally impossible to separate the two being as they would never be together. Lastly, there cant' be days because the sun hadn't been created yet.
So we're left with the literal meaning being: God created light and it was good.
Analogical - God created light in a way analogous to a man creating a word; he knew it, and from that knowing, "spoke" it forth. Once it was created, God knew it qua creature and then compared that to his knowing it qua his perfect plan, and he saw that they corresponded and thus was good. The naming and separating is just a further extention of the "word" analogy as stated above. The "day" is just analogous for a period of creation.
This is a perfectly fine analogous interpretation to start out, but as you begin to study Theology and understand more and more what God is and what it mean for him to act, you might be able to modify this interpretation slightly. I happened to pick one of the harder passages by chance, some are a lot easier to find analogous interpretations.
Anagogical - The light signifies the angels, They were good in their very nature. But some fell and he had to separate the dark ones from the light ones. The evening and morning signify the angelic coming-to-know, taking the knowledge into themselves to contemplate (evening) then radiating the truth that it leads them towards (morning).
There is nothing rationally wrong with this interpretation of scripture. It fits with the rest of scripture (the angels had to be created at some point).
Moral - N/A
As far as I can tell, this passage has no moral layer (because moral deals with our ascent towards God, and man isn't even mentioned yet).
Post by
Squishalot
Also... you don't know enough about statistics.
As long as that 1000 people are a randomly selected part of the population
, that is enough to generalize entirely about a certain group (1000 home owners polled could draw conclusions about homeowners... we won't know the true proportion when we factor in the homeless etc.)
That's the point. The smaller your group is compared to the whole the higher chance that it isn't a perfectly random sampling.
Agreed, but at the same time, your sample is also likely to be biased.
Personally, from what I know of US culture, I believe that a number of those 1000 people would be people who identify themselves as Christian, and by default, take everything in the Bible literally, even if they don't fully understand what it's about (as so many Christians don't).
Personally, from my own friends (which you can say is biased, but I think against getting a significant positive result), around 10% of the Christians believe that Genesis can be taken literally. Granted, a few of them understand enough about old languages to form their own interpretations of the words, but there are a couple who do believe that the world was created ~6000 years ago.
Post by
TheMediator
That's the point. The smaller your group is compared to the whole the higher chance that it isn't a perfectly random sampling.
Sort of. That variability is already accounted for with the margin of error. Here's part of that article,
An ABC News poll released Sunday found that 61 percent of Americans believe the account of creation in the Bible's book of Genesis is "literally true" rather than a story meant as a "lesson."
Sixty percent believe in the story of Noah's ark and a global flood, while 64 percent agree that Moses parted the Red Sea to save fleeing Jews from their Egyptian captors.
The poll,
with a margin of error of 3 percentage points
, was conducted Feb. 6 to 10 among 1,011 adults.
That margin of error accounts for the variability on the population. Assuming they used the standard 95% confidence level... that means there's less than a 5% chance that the true proportion of homeowners in the United States who believe Genesis falls outside of the range 58%-64%. Its possible, but unlikely.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
...better rock?
That makes no sense. This isn't any fancy philosophical argument I'm making, it's just common sense. Hold two rocks up, is one a better rock than the other? No. Hold Hitler and Mother Theresa up, is one a better human than the other? Yes.
You might call this rock a better paper weight, or this rock a better skipping rock, but neither of those are their ultimate nor their natural ends.
I thought we agreed to give each other a bit of leeway when it comes to the use of terms? It doesn't change the interpretation.
I would have, except you said "You say...." which I didn't. To me they are two completely different things.
That's because you're defining man's end as something immaterial that happens to be obtained through material means.
I said quite the opposite. I
can't
be achieved through material ends. Finite + finite + finite =/= infinite.
Why can't a rock also want infinite good? A river? If you can say that as a cook, becoming a better cook gives you 'good', is it not possible that a river that erodes its banks and grows can consider it to be 'good' also?
Yes those are both finite goods. Both can end. As I said, once the cook perfects the art of cooking, by nature he will be compelled to seek a further good. Once water erodes everything, it's just going to sit there at rest...'content' if you will.
That's on the presumption that a soul/intellect/will exists.
And what you said was on the presumption that it didn't exist. I was demonstrating that it can go either way.
Which is why I mentioned animals before, because animals have very similar motivations to humans. You can more easily suggest that animals (as opposed to rocks and rivers) have the same end as humans - infinite good.
Which is why I'm not getting to them yet. For the record, they do have souls.
If infinite good is satiable, then it is finite. If it is insatiable and infinite, then it's unachievable and cannot be an end (by one of your earlier comments). Your two concepts are contradictory.
I don't exactly understand what you're saying. Uptil now I've been applying the term 'insatiable' to the will/motion towards the end. Now your applying it to the end, which I think is a misuse of the term.
Post by
Squishalot
The poll,
with a margin of error of 3 percentage points
, was conducted Feb. 6 to 10 among 1,011 adults.
That margin of error accounts for the variability on the population. Assuming they used the standard 95% confidence level... that means there's less than a 5% chance that the true proportion of homeowners in the United States who believe Genesis falls outside of the range 58%-64%. Its possible, but unlikely.
Yes - this is correct, sortof. It's saying that the group this sample was pulled from will fall in the range 58-64%, with 95% confidence.
That's the point. The smaller your group is compared to the whole the higher chance that it isn't a perfectly random sampling.
Sort of. That variability is already accounted for with the margin of error.
This is different to the above. Hyper is pointing out that if you sample housewives, you're going to get a 58-64% confidence that housewives believe that, not home owners. It's experimental validity, not statistical validity.
Post by
Squishalot
Hold two rocks up, is one a better rock than the other? No. Hold Hitler and Mother Theresa up, is one a better human than the other? Yes.
This is subjective. You're applying a moral framework to ascertain whether Hitler or Mother Theresa is better. In the context of who achieved more 'good' (which I'm still not 100% clear on - can I interpret that as utility?), from the perspective of acting in accordance with their nature, I don't think it's a clear debate, especially considering that Hitler was physically prevented from achieving as much as he wanted to.
If you're defining 'good' to be 'morally good', on the other hand, you're presupposing the existence of a god to provide a moral framework, and further presupposing that a human's nature is to be 'infinitely morally good', which is a huge jump from where we started off discussing. I'm hoping that this isn't what you're saying, but just wanted to put it to you to confirm.
And what you said was on the presumption that it didn't exist. I was demonstrating that it can go either way.
The existence of a will is irrelevant to the end of a human body. You're the one with the burden of proof to demonstrate that it exists, not me. I can work with either.
I don't exactly understand what you're saying. Uptil now I've been applying the term 'insatiable' to the will/motion towards the end. Now your applying it to the end, which I think is a misuse of the term.
I'm still suggesting that something 'infinite' can't be an 'end', by definition because it's unattainable.
Post by
TheMediator
The poll,
with a margin of error of 3 percentage points
, was conducted Feb. 6 to 10 among 1,011 adults.
That margin of error accounts for the variability on the population. Assuming they used the standard 95% confidence level... that means there's less than a 5% chance that the true proportion of homeowners in the United States who believe Genesis falls outside of the range 58%-64%. Its possible, but unlikely.
Yes - this is correct, sortof. It's saying that the group this sample was pulled from will fall in the range 58-64%, with 95% confidence.
That's the point. The smaller your group is compared to the whole the higher chance that it isn't a perfectly random sampling.
Sort of. That variability is already accounted for with the margin of error.
This is different to the above. Hyper is pointing out that if you sample housewives, you're going to get a 58-64% confidence that housewives believe that, not home owners. It's experimental validity, not statistical validity.
To the first part, all you can get is /sigh.
To the second part, I don't know how ABC polls compared to Gallup, so they might not be 100% reliable, but I'm just going guess that they poll
well enough.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
This is subjective. You're applying a moral framework to ascertain whether Hitler or Mother Theresa is better. In the context of who achieved more 'good' (which I'm still not 100% clear on - can I interpret that as utility?), from the perspective of acting in accordance with their nature, I don't think it's a clear debate, especially considering that Hitler was physically prevented from achieving as much as he wanted to.
Utility is a good, so yes that is part of this. Same with morality, however this has nothing to do with morality in the sense you are portraying it. I'm talking about all goods.
I didn't say who was better, did I? I just said one was. They both moved towards different ends of the spectrum so only one could have been moving towards the end correctly.
Rocks don't move towards different apparent ends.
If you're defining 'good' to be 'morally good', on the other hand, you're presupposing the existence of a god to provide a moral framework, and further presupposing that a human's nature is to be 'infinitely morally good', which is a huge jump from where we started off discussing.
You're the one bringing in moral good. When I say good I mean all good. The good of a nice meal, the good of winning a chess game, the good of being married, the good of loving your neighbor, the good of worshiping God. Every good is a species of Universal Good.
So no I'm not defining good as moral good: I'm defining moral good as good, I'm defining artistic good as good, I'm defining appetitive good as good, etc.
I'm still suggesting that something 'infinite' can't be an 'end', by definition because it's unattainable.
How is it in the nature of infinite to be unattainable?
It's in the nature of the infinite to be unattainable by the finite, yes. (That was my whole argument that if the end is infinite good, the will cannot be something finite.) But the what's to prevent the infinite from attaining the infinite?
Post by
Squishalot
To the first part, all you can get is /sigh.
To the second part, I don't know how ABC polls compared to Gallup, so they might not be 100% reliable, but I'm just going guess that they poll
well enough.
No, I wasn't disagreeing with your use of the statistics. I was more trying to clarify that the sample it's drawn from isn't necessarily 'homeowners'. So I defined it a bit more carefully.
I disagree that Gallup, or any other surveying company, can get a 'well enough' poll. For example, higher paid people are less likely to participate in surveys, on the basis that it costs them more to do so. So you're inherently biasing your sample by taking voluntary surveys.
I once saw the results of a Toyota post-sale surveys that said that the bulk of people who purchase their Echo/Yaris small car are aged 61-70. You can't tell me that voluntary surveys will result in 'well enough' data.
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