Apparently, God hates Sweden now, along with America, Canada, and "fags"

Actually he admitted that absolute morality does collapse into relativism in another thread. He has an interesting interpretation of the "fall" story in that we first understood the singular absolute and that eating from the tree of knowledge allowed man to create his own moral absolutes... thus creating relativism.He considers (he can correct me if I got this wrong) life as a quest for the true absolute, though we will not actually understand it until we die.So far he has seemed to stay consistent with this position. I suppose it is a bit self-serving in that it allows him to attack everyone (as a relativist), but at least it seems logically plausible.(edited in... nevermind, just testing a glitch I am having with EvC)This message has been edited by holmes, 02-09-2005 15:12 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

This may indeed be the case. If so, however, such condemnation is muted or overwhelmed by the raucus chorus of those who agree with Phelps & co, or who for whatever reason refuse to condemn a "fellow Christian's witness". It may be simply I "don't get out enough" - I'm not really in much contact with Christianity outside of my Catholic wife and message boards such as this one. If you tell me that other Christian groups are counter-propagandizing, I have no reason to doubt your statement. It hasn't trickled down to me, is all. Yep, them's the ones. Amazing how well funded they are by private donations, isn't it? Makes you wonder how many "True Believers" they attact at a few bucks a pop, doesn't it? I certainly understand your frustration. If it makes you feel any better, I tend to take people one-at-a-time, regardless of affiliation or belief structure. One of the advantages of being atheist, I suppose - no preconceptions (or at least, no religious ones ).

A setting like this, although conducive to a touch here and there, cannot handle the many facets of your previous post and where they would lead to be explored. You understand this as well.
But your Christian friends are their brother's keeper, at least they love a friend? and should be willing to take him the distance they have come? Here is what I know - they could say - and so much more I do not yet understand - but Christ said come let us reason together and nowhere does it say the questions cannot be tough as steel.
A three-beer first chat, and then many other chats. For sure!

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Actually he admitted that absolute morality does collapse into relativism in another thread. He has an interesting interpretation of the "fall" story in that we first understood the singular absolute and that eating from the tree of knowledge allowed man to create his own moral absolutes... thus creating relativism.

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But that is just the problem. He claims to follow a religion based on "absolute morals" and a clear doctrine of how to follow those absolute standards i.e. the bible. Yet, when people justfify murder, rape, slavery, war etc. based on those "absolutes" he uses, as Quetzal points out, the no true scottsman fallacy. He may be consistent but it is a total copout and a dangerous one. If you can justify anything based on your claim to an absolute standard..and worse, convince millions of people to agree, you end up with the potential for extremely anti social behavior...living in Germany, one is constantly reminded of the extremes to which this can lead. To then brush it off as, oh well, nobody involved was a true Xian is just as dangerous since it insures a repetition of the event..or at least increases its liklihood.

Yeah, but while this is true, he states that no one including himself will actually know the absolute rules. In a way he has already indicted those which attempt to make the statement of what they are, including other Xians, other than to say in general that there are (or were) absolute moral rules.It certainly provides an easy exit strategy on moral debate, and definitely fits into a no true scotsman issue if/when he says no true Xian says X... however I was just trying to point out that he himself has acknowledged that absolutism collapses into the worst form of relativism in practice.I didn't mean to say you were wrong, just trying to save you some time before finding out that he's end up agreeing with you in the long run on that particular bit.I do agree that the no true scotsman fallacy is a dangerous one in this context. I'm not sure how powerful a guy has to be before people admit that a real section of a movement (in this case Xianity) has extremist and potentially harmful views. Yes it should not brand all Xians as such, but that does not mean that that segment is not Xian. I guess Xians should start getting used to the idea of saying "X it is not the form of Xianity that I practice", just as muslims are trying to explain to Xians with respect to OBL.By the way, how are things in germany?As of the New Year it is now illegal to be outside one's house without proper documents. Supposedly this was to ensure our safety and would only be used in important matters. So far they fined a few people a couple hours after midnight (one a later night partier and the others a couple bicycling with a broken taillight), and arrested a woman, jailing her and her baby until proper documents could be found.I don't know about God, but I am beginning to really hate the Netherlands.By the way TO ANYONE... I cannot access the website under discussion. Try as I might it never loads. Is it still working? Is it possible that it is blocked within Europe or the Netherlands?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

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I didn't mean to say you were wrong, just trying to save you some time before finding out that he's end up agreeing with you in the long run on that particular bit.

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You are probably right. I can't tell really if Phatboy is a Xian apologist or whether he is struggling himself with issues of absolutism. But absolutism is absolute nonsense.

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By the way, how are things in germany?

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Things are pretty disasterous here in my field. They just got rid of free education and now universities will charge money to attend..with no provisions set up for people who cannot afford the cost (about 500 Euro a semester going to 2,500 in some states). The worst is, there is no guarantee that the universities will see this money. It may go to fill in other holes in the countries finances. So it is a de facto tax. There are also federal vs. state debates that are making it basically impossible to stay in research here. I will give them credit. I have never seen a government with such aptitude for shooting itself in the foot when it comes to education policy...they almost make the US government look competent.The extreme right wing parties here caused two scandals. One, two fo the most extreme are now in parliament in two states. They will join forces for the national elections next year. They will probably do rather well. In one state, those in parliament marched out during a moment of silence for the survivors of Auschwitz then came back and claimed that the real holocaust was the allied bombing of Germany. The response of the government is to try to ban the party and make rules about protests that would not only curtail right wing extreme groups but any political party i.e. they are playing right into the neo-nazi's hands.But all in all, things are not as bad as it sounds in the Netherlands. On the other hand, I live in Munich which is the first or second richest city in Germany with a big foreign population, lots of international companies and a low unemployment rate (compared to the rest of the country but which is still sky high). From other cities I have seen in Germany, including Berlin, it is not representative at all.

Ah yes, privatization is on the march. As well as the jackboots.Sometimes it seems that Europe is intent on making the US the free-est nation on the planet, though for what reason I can't figure out.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Google Fred Phelps. It will have links to allof his crap.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Out of all of his sites the only one which will load is god hates fags. This is on more than one browser program as well. Does anyone know why these other pages of hate would for some reason not load? Are other people able to see them with no problem?I am beginning to wonder if the internet is being censored where I am.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Try godhates{fill in the blank}.com with fags, america, sweden or canada and see what happens.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I did. I was telling you my results. Even from inside the godhatesfags site, if I tried to navigate a link to one of the others it would never load.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

This would explain a lot...

Try a trace route to the addresses and see where they stop.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Cool, how do I do this? By the way, thank you for your help. I am very interested in seeing that site. The few preview clips they had at "fags" made it look like a riot.As a side note, at wikipedia it mentions that some people think he is not real and merely a performance artist (like andy kaufman and his wrestling character), is there any justification for this belief. Honestly some of that stuff was so outrageous I couldn't imagine anyone writing it with a straight face.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

The first step (assuming your on a windows box) is to see if tracert is a supported command. From a command prompt typetracert ForbiddenIf it finds a route to the site it will print a list of each machine it went though to get there.But that will not tell you everything. It's possible that only certain ports (in the case of websites port 80) are being blocked.But step one, tracert.If on a UNIX or Linux box (or mac OS X) the command is traceroute.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion