My junior year of high school I got into a very heated debate with my friend over whether Cheetos were considered chips. After half an hour of yelling about this he finally called frito-lay headquarters to ask their opinion on the matter. I was right, they're not chips :)Via Metafilter, where somebody says:
I remember an epic argument about whether Minnesota is "almost in Canada."And:
A famous argument I remember having was whether or not the crust of the bread is indeed considered to be "bread" itself, or if it is in fact another, distinct product known as "crust."I'm amused by that use of the word "famous."
Here are some things I've found myself arguing about far longer than sanity would advise:
1. Whether butterflies are insects. I found myself resorting to statements like: "If you don't think they're insects, what do you think they are? Birds?!!???"
2. At what age do you become "middle aged"? I was in my 20s and saying "middle age" must start by 40 or 45 because it's considered the longest period of one's life, and I was talking to a woman who was almost 60 and wouldn't even concede that she was middle aged. One of her arguments was that the President of the United States — Gerald Ford, in his early 60s — shouldn't be considered middle aged yet because he played golf.
3. Who was conceived in the "immaculate conception"? I was at a dinner party with Madison academics and their spouses in the 1980s and got hooted down by people who sure the answer was Jesus. I was hampered by: a. No iPhone and no Google to make the correct answer obvious, b. Not seeing any social benefit in arguing about religion at a dinner party with people who were ready to be so ignorant and assholian about religion, c. Thinking about how much money I could make taking bets and distracted by the static of the idea that it would not be religiously correct.
4. Whether it is possible to picture infinite planets. I was willing to concede that there could be an infinite number of planets, but stood firm on my own personal subjective inability to imagine such a thing. How can you argue with that? I was with someone whose point of view was: How can you NOT argue with that? I could not be left alone with my imaginative shortcoming. I said I understood the idea of infinite space and could imagine infinite space, but a whole planet.... I'm picturing each one with a number on it. You never run out of numbers. So how could there be any planet that could not have a number to go with it? I don't need you to agree with me, you can even pity me in my disability, but leave me alone with it. NO!!! It's as though my non-infinite-mindedness was contagious and he had to cure me so he didn't catch it. Or maybe he was so angry because he did catch it and it horrified him.
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261 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 261 of 261Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
The Immaculate Conception is in the Bible. "Ave Maria, gratia plena." She can hardly be "full of grace" if she is a sinner, so the implication is that she is without sin. And as every man and woman since Adam has sinned, she must have been different from birth -- or, rather, before birth.
As an atheist, I don't have a God in this fight, but from your post is sound like The Immaculate Conception is not in the Bible, that it is a conclusion reached in order to avoid a contradiction between full of grace and all have sinned.
Is it clearly defined in the Bible that full of grace == never having sinned?Is it clearly stated that every man and woman since Adam has sinned? If so, doesn't that, in itself, cause a contradiction with Mary, since she is a woman since Adam?
Is it clearly stated that there is no possible way for God to restore Mary to grace at any time between conception and when she was told she was full of grace?
I'm not trying to be an ass ( it often happens without any effort on my part ), I am truly curious as to the church's reasoning. ( but not curious enough to go to a church and ask )
"I thought the Big Bang theory had been exploded."
Not sure what you're referring to (is it a big bang joke?).
Sigh. Yes, I was trying [the operative word] to be clever. ;-)
Thanks, Ron, that was interesting. I think it would be great fun to be a synesthete. Also interesting are visual thinkers like Temple Grandin who, of course, is autistic. Grandin, who has no engineering background, can look at a plan or schematic and then visualize it sufficient detail to actually construct the device. What an amazing ability. It would be nice to think we all have such abilities if only we can access them.
Arguments: Is Eric Clapton the best blues-rock guitarist alive?
I would say no, but the qualifier is "alive" so that requires additional thought.
As an atheist, I don't have a God in this fight
Good one, Ignorance is Bliss! ;-)
Catholics have a unique way of interpreting the Bible. It doesn't pay to ask too many questions.
@mock, so you know — I got your big bang joke and thought it reflected a mind possessing wit, agility, and intelligence.
Clever goes over my head almost every time (though this time I had a hunch).
@mock, so you know — I got your big bang joke and thought it reflected a mind possessing wit, agility, and intelligence.
Thanks, Meade. That may be extrapolating things a little too far. ;-)
mockturtle said...
Good one, Ignorance is Bliss! ;-)
Not original, I must admit.
@MDT
That sounds like usenet. Man, kids these days think they know something about flame wars and trolls. Pikers I calls em.
I was a usenet admin at one time, and actually sent the EFF a correction to an item in their newly minted EFF Guide to the Internet concerning how to set up a usenet configuration file to filter the groups you wanted to see.
Once at a house dinner one of the diners declined dessert because they were dieting. I tried to reassure them by stating that you cannot gain more weight by eating, say, a doughnut than the doughnut itself weighs. The table divided vocally and endlessly between those dieting and those not. The dieters seemed more practically oriented, immune to discussions of the conservation of mass/energy.
One other time an office discussion became overly extended on the question of why mirrors flip left/right but not up/down. (Years later I read that mirrors do neither--they flip front back as if your image was pulled point-by-point through your body and your left hand is the image's left hand, too.)
Ignorance is Bliss,
Lots of things aren't "clearly stated" in the Bible, but it is understood among all of us that we are all sinners, except that Mary was not. Hence the Immaculate Conception. If you are arguing that God could have seen Mary as a sinner just like the rest of us, and wiped her sins out before impregnating her -- possible, but cheap. God isn't cheap.
Again, it's the Assumption that causes more trouble for me. Though the Feast of the Assumption existed centuries before it became Canonical.
mockturtle, it always pays to ask questions. Aquinas asked, I think, more questions than anyone now living.
Thanks again, Karen; I hadn't read any of the Protoevangelium of James. Very interesting. I would say the choice of Joseph as Mary's spouse was quite significant. The Prophecies said the Messiah would be descended from the House of David. Mary was not descended from the House of David, but Joseph was. Is it mere technicality that Christ was not actually Joseph's descendant?
Pope Siricius I
"You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord’s body, that court of the eternal king" (Letter to Bishop Anysius [A.D. 392]).
That certainly is one way to look at it.
Mockturtle: I got it and thought it was clever, too.
jebbbz,
Man, I'd forgotten that one! I too had that argument: Can you gain more weight by eating something than the thing itself weighs? (I remember asking that question, as a kid, to my parents.) Well, you can, sort of, if you add other things like water to the mix, but basically the premise is silly.
The mirror thing still flummoxes me. Did a pile of work on mirrors, too, in high school and college.
"At what age do you become 'middle aged?' I was in my 20s and saying "middle age" must start by 40 or 45 because it's considered the longest period of one's life, and I was talking to a woman who was almost 60 and wouldn't even concede that she was middle aged. One of her arguments was that the President of the United States — Gerald Ford, in his early 60s — shouldn't be considered middle aged yet because he played golf."
Without reading through this whole thread of comments to see if this has been addressed, it seems to me that "middle-aged" is that point in life where you have reached the mid-point of the average lifespan for your society. If the average lifespan is, say, 76, then "middle-age" either begins at age 38, or encompasses a span of years in which he mid-point is age 38.
Adjust according to the average lifespan of any given era or society.
If men should leave the toilet seat down when they are done and, if so, is it OK to urinate with the toilet seat down rather than up (I think the toilet seat should always be left up when not in use).
I think the toilet seat and lid should always be closed when not in use, and before flushing, (to prevent the spray of water droplets).
"God was not created but is self-existent. God created the universe ex nihilo or, more probably, from light energy."
There may be a force that is self-existent and that which created the universe ex nihilo, but it is not the "god" (or gods) we envision, and is not sentient. Such gods as we envision are entirely our creations.
Ron Winkleheimer,
You know it; I know it. People now think of trolls as a new thing. They go back at least 30 years, and they were even more vicious then. Sure, more on what we're calling now the Alt-Right and the CTRL-Left, but those were both around in the 80s.
And yes, my listservs were Usenet. That was early 90s, when the WWW was a place where uRoulette could take you randomly to something like the Icelandic Fisheries Database. That evaporated really fast. (But not before I learned what the eth and the thorn were.)
Just going to throw out the Catholic belief of "ever virgin" coupled with something I vaguely remember that apparently in ancient times "son" was used for cousin or other close relatives because there was no word for that relationship.
Yes, Karen. Best to throw it out.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."
Heavens and earth, then light. You could take the Hugh Ross interpretation that Genesis is mostly told from the perspective of being on Earth. He's an astrophysicist, so he doesn't push any of that Young Earth Creationism nonsense.
mockturtle, it always pays to ask questions. Aquinas asked, I think, more questions than anyone now living.
Like, 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?'
"Heavens and earth, then light."
Hmm. Genesis has it backwards. There were light photons before there were atoms.
I think the toilet seat and lid should always be closed when not in use, and before flushing, (to prevent the spray of water droplets).
Cookie, I agree. And I find it surprising that so many apparently leave the lid up. What are lids for, after all?
"Hmm. Genesis has it backwards. There were light photons before there were atoms."
You didn't read the rest of my comment.
...and the earth was without form, and void...
I infer from this that it wasn't there yet.
Original Mike, here's a short outline of how Hugh Ross thinks it might work.
Of course, one could also reasonably assume that the beginning of Genesis was not meant to be a literal account at all.
I wasn't there, so I don't know.
I did read it, Freeman. I guess I didn't understand it. I'll read your link.
I think the toilet seat and lid should always be closed when not in use, and before flushing, (to prevent the spray of water droplets).
And prevent things from falling in the toilet which happens to me with some frequency since I'm not good about putting the lid down.
The argument about the immaculate conception is not "pointless"; in fact the misunderstanding of that idea is very important.
Most people understand "immaculate" to mean as clean as possible. Those who say that it was Jesus who was immaculately conceived are thinking that he was conceived as cleanly as possible because he was conceived without sex, his mother being a virgin; this implies that sex is unclean -- necessary, perhaps, but unclean. Of course that's wrong. Mary was the one who was immaculately conceived, and physically she "came into the world in the usual way" (to quote Harry Chapin). God nevertheless chose to remove from her the human inheritance of sin.
Jesus, through his incarnation, life, ministry, passion, death, and resurrection, offers all human beings the same thing, removal of the inheritance of sin.
This has nothing to do with being anti-sex. Unfortunately, after several centuries the early Christian church adopted and promoted many anti-sex, anti-life doctrines, such as the perpetual virginity of Mary mentioned above. This is not limited to the Roman Catholics; many (most?) Protestant denominations have fallen into the same error. But properly understood Christianity is a religion of life. Jesus said, I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.
Nonetheless, Mary and Joseph didn't have sex, right?
Jesus, through his incarnation, life, ministry, passion, death, and resurrection, offers all human beings the same thing, removal of the inheritance of sin.
Yes, exactly. Nothing we can do to rid ourselves from inherited sin. We all need the Savior.
I do love to argue theology and hope I don't offend anyone here with my sometimes dismissive statements about the RCC. I respect you and your beliefs and am genuinely interested in them. My closest friend is a former Catholic who wrestled with these ideas for years before taking the plunge.
There's a big homeschool convention here this weekend. I would like to go, but I am not going because it is being put on by an organization that pushes young earth creationism and excludes speakers and curriculum that contradict that erroneous interpretation. Hard to believe that that's still an issue. Ah, well.
And I might add that my parents were agnostic and atheist [my mother, who is still alive and still a devout atheist] so I had neither the benefit nor the bias of early doctrinal training.
"Nothing we can do to rid ourselves from inherited sin."
How am I responsible for other's actions before I was born?
Of course, one could also reasonably assume that the beginning of Genesis was not meant to be a literal account at all.
I'm reminded of the scene in Inherit the Wind where the Clarence Darrow character is questioning the William Jennings Bryant character on the stand about the age of the earth. He points out that since "let there be light" came after the creation of the heavens and the earth, that creation might have consumed billions of what we now call "days." That interpretation would work if we believe God set things in motion and let events proceed on their own (according to His plan, of course). My greatest hope for the afterlife is that we will finally learn the answers to all our questions. Or maybe that's an earthly concern.
How am I responsible for other's actions before I was born?
Maybe the sin nature is in your DNA.
Nonetheless, Mary and Joseph didn't have sex, right?
At least according to the Roman Catholics, they didn't.
If Christ's body had been examined by geneticists, would they have found the complete compliment of chromosomes? Would any of them have come from Mary? What made Christ human as well as God?
Math is often mistaken for fact or truth. In fact, it is just a language with high definitional consistency.
0/0 is undefined. So it doesn't equal anything. The same is true of all division by zero.
Sukie, these miracles have always fascinated me. There is DNA there. Wonder what it says about that Y chromosome.
If one is going to discuss Catholic doctrine in general and the doctrine of original sin in particular, one at least ought to try to learn something about it.
Original sin means that sinfulness is intrinsic to our nature. With apologies to Lady Gaga, we're born this way. It does not mean that we are born in sin or that we are sinners and sinful from birth. Newborn infants are not sinners. It means that we are sinful by nature.
I think it was G.K. Chesterton who remarked that the Doctrine of Original Sin, which secularists may equate more or less correctly with concepts of human nature (the imperfectability of humans), is the only empirically verifiable truth in any of the world's religions.
As for the various Catholic doctrines and such not being or originating in the Bible: Catholics are not "Bible Christians." We are not Bible literalists. Our beliefs/doctrines are a based only in part on scripture, which is to say, the interpretation thereof; they are also product of the body of interpretative work built over the centuries by the Church Fathers, the papacy, Catholic theologians, decisions made in Church councils after much discussion and debate and perhaps most importantly, the dictates of an informed conscience.
What does it mean to be "informed"? Aye, there's the rub!
In the event, we recognize that Christ frequently preached using parables and riddles and metaphors, and we believe that our understanding of the Faith should be developed accordingly. The Bible is not the Koran and Christ is not analogous to Muhammed. This is not to say that there is not One Truth. It means that the our understanding of that Truth is imperfect because, hello!, humans are imperfect (see: Doctrine of Original Sin).
This is not to say that there is not One Truth.
Jesus did say, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes unto the Father but by me. So there is, to a Christian, one Truth, as you say. I think most Protestants also believe in Original Sin. Certainly, Luther and Calvin did.
mockturtle:
Yes, Christ did indeed identify Himself as the Truth. Precisely what He meant by that, however, is a glorious mystery. It is our job to explore that mystery, to undertake to figure out what He meant; to understand, as it were, the Mind of God. We will have all the answers at the end of time, when all will be made clear to us.
We all share, to greater or lesser degrees, the bafflement Pilate expressed: "Quid est veritas?" The Truth was literally standing right in front of him but he could not see it.
I think Pilate was speaking rhetorically.
I think Pilate was more perceptive than even he knew.
Jesus did say, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes unto the Father but by me. So there is, to a Christian, one Truth, as you say.
Do you believe, as I, that there are many paths to Jesus? And that we need not necessarily be walking them here on earth? I have a hard time believing God would condemn a soul because its fallible human host did not believe in Him. I come from one of the loosey-goosiest Protestant sects on earth. There's seemingly no way to avoid Heaven if you, or your proxies, have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior in the Baptism sacrament. I'm not sure what the Anglican church says about the souls of those who have not. It's been a long time since I was formally associated.
jebbbz said...
One other time an office discussion became overly extended on the question of why mirrors flip left/right but not up/down.
The reason is that up/down is an absolute direction, while left/right is a relative direction: it is relative to the direction you are looking. The mirror flips the direction the mirrored you is looking, and therefore flips the related relative directions.
Sukie asks: I have a hard time believing God would condemn a soul because its fallible human host did not believe in Him.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8,9.
What we think is immaterial. God is God and we are not. He made the rules and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Jesus made it plain when he counseled, Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matt. 7:13, 14 and, using similar metaphor, I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved .
I have a hard time believing God would condemn a soul because its fallible human host did not believe in Him.
It's actually the only unforgivable sin in the Catholic Church.
And ultimately why I left the church. Doesn't seem very loving to me.
Newborn infants are not sinners
What happens to babies who die before baptism according to the Catholic Church?
What made Christ human as well as God?
He was born, lived and died as a man.
it always pays to ask questions
Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?
What's the difference between flammable and inflammable?
I believe the adjective should be assholic, not assholian.
I couldn't care less about this topic. Or is it I could care less?
I have argued about this a lot.
SukieTawdry said...
Arguments: Is Eric Clapton the best blues-rock guitarist alive?
I would say no, but the qualifier is "alive" so that requires additional thought.
No point arguing about the best dead _____________ ( insert your subject ). We can't tell how good anyone is at being dead.
We can't tell how good anyone is at being dead.
I would say if they 'stay' dead and don't come back they are doing a good job.
We can't tell how good anyone is at being dead.
I would say if they 'stay' dead and don't come back they are doing a good job.
:-)
@Gahrie: You asked, "What happens to babies who die before baptism according to the Catholic Church?" The RC Church doesn't (as I understand it) have an official position on this, but for centuries Catholic theologians posited a state of "Limbo", in addition to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, for such souls; the theologians had different opinions about what conditions were like for the souls in Limbo. The Church recently reiterated that Limbo is not official Church doctrine, and that the Church doesn't know what happens to such souls. An admission by the Roman Catholic Church that it is ignorant on a theological matter ought to be regarded as pretty important.
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