As stated in the original post it is fairly easy to say the right thing to do is save the child. Even so, it’s certainly possible to dream up scenarios where the answer is not so simple: if the child will grow up to be Hitler; if there’s a hostage situation with other children going on; or whatever else we can dream up. You might say that’s farfetched and the situation is simple. But life is complicated and strange scenarios can happen. And if the situation is an allegory for life in general then its capacity for complexity is infinitely multiplied. If there is anything we can say about life with certainty then it’s probably the fact that we don’t understand it. To me the brave thing to do in stepping away from a JW mindset is not to swap one set of absolutes for another, and go proselytising the new ‘faith’, but to recognise the uncertainty in our perception of reality and be ready to listen to the perspectives of others.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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168
Moral responsibility.
by nicolaou inno subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
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168
Moral responsibility.
by nicolaou inno subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
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slimboyfat
It's such a relief as a former theist to no longer have to defend the indefensible
Were you defending slavery when you were a Christian? I can see that would be psychologically taxing.
Where did I mention happiness? Don't strawman me or we are finished.
You’re like a constant storm in your own personal teacup 😂
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168
Moral responsibility.
by nicolaou inno subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
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slimboyfat
Christianity is widely credited with making infanticide taboo because of its teaching about inherent human dignity. The world was a much more unpleasant place before Christian ethics replaced a classical outlook.
It’s worth checking out the book Dominion by Tom Holland, or his many interviews online on the impact Christianity. He’s a non believer himself who was surprised by his historical research into the impact of Christianity.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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slimboyfat
Oh okay. 👍
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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slimboyfat
Making money on YouTube is probably a (relatively) transitory phenomenon. I’d be extremely surprised if businesses are still operating on YouTube as they do now in 20 years time. Many YouTubers feel this way too and see it as a way to make a lot of money quickly, and put it away for the future. It’s unlikely to be around (in any form recognisably like it is now) when most YouTubers reach retirement anyway. I’m a pessimist but I think nuclear war and/or AI oblivion are far more likely than YouTube monetisation and Patreon still being a thing in 20 years time. Either the world will be a far worse place or it will be a far better place in 20 years. The idea that it will be anything like roughly equivalent to the world we know now seems entirely unlikely. If humans are still around in significant numbers in twenty years I’d hope they would have pretty effective treatments for heart disease, cancers and HIV by then too.
Since CF never used his name I don’t think it’s fair to use his name here, unless there has been some development I’ve not noticed and he’s using his name online a lot.
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11530
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars
by Newly Enlightened inoriginal reddit post (removed).
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slimboyfat
I don’t think he will ever quit in the sense of turning off his Patreon. He may stop making his stupid videos and yet keep collecting the money anyway. He has already suggested that he deserves to be compensated for his historic output in perpetuity. I suspect this is his medium term plan: to stop making videos altogether but leave old videos up and keep collecting donations from whoever is stupid enough to keep sending him money. That would probably amount to substantial free money each month for years to come. -
168
Moral responsibility.
by nicolaou inno subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
-
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slimboyfat
Iriddle80 it’s true that people were destroyed in the flood, not all Israelites made it to the promised land, and Jesus did say he would divine people into sheep and goats.
But the difference about the final reckoning is that all creation will be reconciled to God.
Phil 2:9-11
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.There’s nobody left outside.
1 Tim 4.10 says that Jesus is the saviour of everyone, “especially those who believe”. So Jesus saves everybody non-believers included.
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168
Moral responsibility.
by nicolaou inno subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
-
-
slimboyfat
Theists proclaim the necessity of belief (believe or perish) in a god as follows
I don’t believe in that kind of God. Personally I think God is greater than any of us can understand and that he is able to rescue all humans in the end - if that’s what he wants to do. And the Bible tells us in a number of places that’s exactly what he want to do. Remember this verse JWs used to quote to explain why Armageddon hasn’t arrived yet.
Jehovah is not slow concerning his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire anyone to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.
When I had a JW mindset I used to paraphrase that verse in my head to mean something like: “Jehovah is being patient because he wants as few people to die at Armageddon as possible”. But that’s not what the verse says. What it actually says is that Jehovah doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed but wants all to attain to repentance - not just a few, or some, or even ‘as many as possible’. It says ‘all’, plain and simple. Can God accomplish what he wants? If God wants all to be saved can he make that happen?
Universalism has a long history in the Christian tradition, from Origen in ancient times to the modern theologian and author David Bentley Hart, who makes an excellent case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_universalism
Charles Taze Russell was I believe a universalist at heart. His opponents accused him of being a universalist and he disowned the label because he couldn’t quite see that everyone would be saved according to the scriptures. But he had a much broader view of salvation than many of his contemporaries and than JWs today. The man who ‘turned a hose on hell’ ruled out eternal punishment as completely contrary to God’s character well ahead of the mainline churches who have since moved closer to his position. He reckoned pretty much everyone would get a resurrection, including Adam and Eve, and that many would accept the invitation to live in perfection. He didn’t rule out salvation in other churches. He didn’t go the final step and say that everyone would be saved, but he was closer to that position than the more narrow prospectus of modern JWs.
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168
Moral responsibility.
by nicolaou inno subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
-
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slimboyfat
Why do you call the honest attempts of other people to understand the world we live in “sophistry”? Maybe I have some good ideas, maybe you have some good ideas, or less so in either case as the case may be. I don’t see what is gained by undermining the genuineness of other people when they explain how they attempt to make sense of reality. It doesn’t make any one view more likely. It comes across as a bit weak and insecure.
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168
Moral responsibility.
by nicolaou inno subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.
please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.
a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!
-
-
slimboyfat
I see a few possible scenarios:
1. God has a reason for letting bad things happen that I don’t understand. Just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason. There are many things I don’t understand, or can’t understand even.
2. God let it happen because he doesn’t meet our measure of goodness.
3. There is no God, so he didn’t let it happen, it just happened by itself.
4. God will undo all suffering in the reconciliation.
5. Or something else I haven’t thought of.
Some Christians would argue that we know God is good on other grounds so that, even when we can’t explain how God could let a terrible thing happen, the other things that we know allow us to believe in God despite this serious challenge to that belief.
A possible scenario of conversation with God I imagine might be:
Person: why didn’t you save the child?
God: it’s okay he will be resurrected and have a good life in eternity.
Person: that’s not good enough, what about the suffering he had now, the life that he lost now, and people who mourned the loss of the child?
God: that’s okay, the future life will be so good no one will even care to remember the suffering of the past.
Person: that’s not good enough at all! No amount of forgetting can undo the terrible suffering here and now.
God: okay listen up. If you really want to know then this is how it is. I won’t just provide a blissful future. And I won’t just make people forget the terrible suffering of the past. What I will do instead is I will go back in time and stop the child from being killed. Is that good enough?
Person: I suppose, but why did you let it happen at all?
God: if I go back and stop it from happening then it never did happen.
Person: can you really do that? It doesn’t seem to make sense.
God: I’m God, what do you think? It’s no more difficult for me to prevent an accident last Tuesday than it is to prevent an accident next Tuesday. I’m outside time. It’s all the same to me. If I go back and stop it, then it never happened. You won’t just “forget” it, it will ever have been.
Person: then why do we live in a world full of suffering here and now?
God: well the plan is to prevent all this from happening at the time of the final reconciliation of all creation.
Person: I thought the final reconciliation was just a consolation for all the bad that has occurred.
God: it’s more complicated than that. It’s not just a consolation, or rectification, it is a complete undoing of all the bad that has occurred present and past as well as future. Not just “forgetting” about it, but actually making sure it didn’t happen at all.
Person: why didn’t you tell us this?
God: I did kind of tell you, but it is not easy for you to understand.
Person: I still don’t get it because the fact is we are suffering here and now.
God: indeed, and it can’t make sense to you how completely I will change reality, past present, and future, for the better, until I show you.
Person: I’m still skeptical how this makes sense.
God: I know.