Justice
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8)
There are two kinds of justice. There's the justice that's meted out retroactively. This is the kind of justice that we want brought down upon rapists and murderers and our brother when he jabs us in the side or pulls all the hair out of our Barbie doll. Then there's the justice that's proactive and seems to be more of an adverb than a verb. It involves making an action in a way that is just to all parties involved. God requires of his people both kinds of justice.
Why is it then that I hear ever so much more in church about the first kind and so very little about the other?
Could you be any more vague on the two types of justice you are referring to? I'm just saying....
ReplyDelete:-)
"There are but two kinds of justice: there is the one, and then the other."
ReplyDeletei'm just saying that church folks, even if they talk about justice a lot, focus mostly on reactive justice. you did something wrong and now you're going to be punished for it.
ReplyDeletebut it hardly ever hear church folks talk about proactive justice. i have a choice to make and there's no legal reason why i couldn't make one or the other, but is one more just than the other (will one decision inadvertently hurt someone while the other won't)?
does that makes more sense?
i wrote two rather lengthy posts here originally and didn't like either of them, so i canned them both and went with the short version. i figured that way i could just open it up for discussion in general and leave it open ended for me to think on more.
here's an example:
ReplyDeletereactive justice: punish a former slave-holder for having a slave
proactive justice: make purchasing decisions that will help to keep a person out of slavery (fair trade-ish)
i'm looking for good justice quotes if anyone knows of any.
ReplyDeleteALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN:
ReplyDeleteJustice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
ARISTOTLE:
In justice is all virtues found in sum.
CHARLES DICKENS:
Charity begins at home and justice begins next door.
DOM HELDER CAMARA:
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT:
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
ah! there's my girl. leave it to eleanor to peg it exactly.
I'm still stretching my mind around what you mean by proactive justice, especially in light of your slave example.
ReplyDeleteSo are you saying that retroactive justice occurs after a crime (for lack of a more inclusive word) occurs and proactive justice takes place before a crime occurs, rather to prevent a crime from taking place?
I had a lengthy discussion with a friend recently concerning punishment versus non-punishment of crimes as it pertains to the Bible. I don't think this is what this thread is addressing though.
Real nice.
ReplyDelete:-P
Proactive justice, it seems to me, is acting in a way that has no negative moral repercussions.
ReplyDeletehmmmm, yeah. i think that works
ReplyDeleteand this doesn't have to be a "legal" sort of discussion. in fact, that's what bugs me most about the talk of justice within the church is that it's all court-ish (which makes it very easy both to see it as something that doesn't involve us (since we're not judges) and easy to see it in a political light (which it ends up being either way -- proactive or reactive, but i really don't see that it has to be that way.)
it really is a moral issue that i'm getting at - both ways, reactive and proactive.
i can give the smaller piece of chocolate to my sister and keep the larger one for myself. there's nothing legally wrong with that, but is there something morally wrong with that? (maybe, maybe not. obviously some of this depends on context. if my sister were allergic to chocolate, then the very fact that i'm sharing at all is an issue.)
Now, throw this drop of gasoline on the fire:
ReplyDeleteCan reactive justice ever be truly moral? Isn't all true justice proactive morally? IOW, there's nothing moral about trying to fix a past wrong, since you can't change the past and overcompensating in future for past mistakes can and usually does lead to another kind of injustice
Chat amongst yourselves. :)
hmmm, i hate to not combust on you but...
ReplyDeletei think maybe proactive justice is moral and reactive justice is legal.
how's that?
I think that's a fine description.
ReplyDeleteNow, given the inability for us to assign a single cause to a result, or to know how far our actions affect others, how can we ever know for certain about proactive justice?
i don't think we can. i think that's why it's so easy to ignore.
ReplyDeleteas an example: buying something that's "fair trade" puts a lot on faith. there's faith that the people overseeing the fair trade product are actually overseeing the fair trade product. there's faith that the "rules" (or whatever you'd call them) of fair trade really do help or improve the life of the person on the other end. there's faith that the fair trade product doesn't pass through a bunch of unfair situations on it's way to you. ....
ReplyDeleteWhat if you believe something's morally right but it turns out to be wrong, in that someone was wronged without your knowledge? IOW, is morality based on what you think or on objective reality?
ReplyDelete8-0sssssssss
ReplyDeletewhat the heck is that? the air getting let out of your tires?
ReplyDeleteD, i think morality has to be based on something. there's conscience and common sense, but those still vary too widely imo to be a solid basis of morality. you know the basis i've chosen to use is the bible. but perhaps even just the Golden Rule could be used as a basis in many (if not most) cases.
Free thinkers, humanists and libertarians have settled on two basic concepts as the foundation for morality: non-initiation of force or fraud. Or, to be simplistic, don't lie to people, don't hit them and don't take their stuff. From those general rules you can determine morality for pretty much any action.
ReplyDeleteBut, I wasn't asking the source for morality, since that always leads to a discussions of relative v. absolutely morality. I was asking for a means for determining morality based on intent v. objective reality. Can an actions moral value be determined by the intent of the actor?
i think morality can really only be judged based on objective reality. a person may have the best of intentions, but how can we determine that as an outsider? it might lead to mitigating repercussions, but the morality of a situation has to be based on something other than an unverifiable intention.
ReplyDeletethat said, sometimes the "objective reality" is just as hard to verify as intentions. we're finite beings and therefore limited in our scope of understanding and information gathering.
Assume that we can know for certain someone's intention. Would that make a difference?
ReplyDeletei doubt it. if you kill someone, it doesn't matter what you're intentions are in terms of moral guilt. it just matters in terms of retroactive punishment. you would be judged less severely, but the result of your actions (assuming the bad thing didn't result from an accident but a misguided but positively intentioned action) was still the death of someone and is therefore still bad.
ReplyDeleteHow about a lesser action: I go to the office refridgerator, take out a bag and eat the lunch in it believing it's mine. But it wasn't, it was someone else's, and I didn't bring a lunch that day and had forgotten that.
ReplyDeleteWas my action wrong?
yes. and if you're a decent bloke, you'll at least offer to buy lunch for the person who's lunch you ate.
ReplyDeletethough your intentions were innocent, your actions were wrong and restitution should be made.
Okay, yeah, so I'm going to move from the drooling peanut gallery to the tossing my two cents in ring.
ReplyDeleteSo (and this is a big so/if), do all accidents fall under the category of a wrong action? In the example of the lunch that was mistakenly consumed, could there have been a "right action"? I'm not sure making a mistake in the example of the lunch necessarily constitutes a hard fast wrong or negative moral result. We (society) tend to live by the "accidents happen" philosophy (though rather selectively).
Then turn the tables: can I do something with the intent of causing harm and instead do something morally right by accident? And, if so, why would intentions matter in one case but not in another?
ReplyDeleteBut isn't Meg stating that intentions, whether good or bad, don't or shouldn't affect whether the end result is good or bad?
ReplyDeleteIn our legal system it seems that negative intentions carry far more weight then positive intentions do.
She said that a bad action with good intentions is still morally bad. I'm asking if the opposite, a bad intention that accompanied a good action, is therefore good based on that premise. So I wouldn't say she's answered already but has at least set a foundation that needs to now be tested to see if it holds true.
ReplyDeleteBut, legal systems aren't based on morality, so be careful not to confuse one for the other or the conclusions of one as basis for the other.
ReplyDeleteI watched a program earlier this year that talked spoke to this issue of good/bad intentions relative to polar bad/good result. In the program a group had the mission statement of sparking good will, happiness, and joy in society. So for example this group would get together (30 or more people) and they might ride a subway and throw a surprise party for people that got on complete with confetti singing, and decorations. All surprised people/strangers in the program seemed genuinely happy and receptive.
ReplyDeleteThough the news piece focused on an incident where this happiness group did some research, found a band that was in the infantile stages of development and decided to pack a club that the band was going to appear at. The happiness group (which easily numbered 40-50 for this event) got onto the band's web site and learned the songs and lyrics and a couple even made up some band t-shirts for the event. This band had expected only their close friends, some family members to show (they'd be lucky to have 12-20 people there on any given night), and were taken aback by the surprise turnout.
So long story short the band was on a super high given the crowd and their apparent love for their music, but quickly hit an angry low when a couple of days later the band discovered that the crowd had been an elaborate setup. In fact several local music magazines had picked up the story and had poked fun of the band.
So the intent of the group was positive (I saw the interview with the head of the group), but the results were briefly positive before turning negative.
So given a situation like this, it's near impossible to gauge the negative or positiveness of the result due to subjectivity.
Maybe I'm jumping the gun. I got the idea that she believes an action is either good or bad independent of intention.
ReplyDeleteSo ultimately an action can only be deemed good or bad after a result is observed, which may take years upon years to observe (IE. a Presidential decision).
And to further murky the water what about actions that have potentially debatable ramifications (in terms of positive/negative impact). In Freakonomics the point put forth that the legalization of abortion resulted in the lowering of the crime rate in the United States. While others would argue that abortion has the negative impact of taking a life.
ReplyDeleteAs with nearly anything, there isn't a hard and fast rule that can be applied universally to measuring the effects of an action.
Pharoah had bad intentions, yet God used it for good.
ReplyDeleteJudas had bad intentions, yet God used it for good.
Joseph's brothers had bad intentions, yet God used it for good.
But that didn't get any of them off the hook for their bad actions. Just because something good came of it in the end, their actions as well as intentions were still bad to begin with.
That might not be quite what you're looking for, though.
If someone sets out to murder their neighbor, but instead manages to rip a hole in the wall (while wildly slashing the knife) and uncovers a stash of millions placed behind the dry wall years earlier when the previous owner was a mobster and needed a place to hide the bank loot. The guy ends up not only not killing his neighbor but sharing the windfall with him. Did he do wrong? Yes. Did something "good" come of it? *shrug* yeah, i suppose so.
hmmm, i'm definitely tempted to say, "yup" to this.
ReplyDeletebut there's real world issues and there's heart issues and i think that if you have heart anger towards someone, even if you don't act on it in the real world, that's still bad.
i think if you have heart love for someone, but never express it, that seems bad, too.
which leads me to believe that this is a many leveled thought process and might possibly be hard to some up in some neat sentence such as "action is either good or bad independent of intention" much as i'd like to go that route.
yes.
ReplyDeletenor are we omniscient enough to be able to measure the effects of an action even when there is a hard and fast rule.
Well, also at that, you can't gauge morality based on the results of an action: that's called utilitarianism. Like you point out, you can't gauge the morality, and something can go from being "bad" to "good", or vice versa, simply by having one more person affected one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteBut, I said that the action was good even though the intention was bad.
ReplyDeleteImagine someone goes out and commits murder. But, the person they murder would have been the next Hitler (assume this as a given).
Is their action wrong?
by your own example the action was bad. something good came of it (just as in all of my examples) but the action itself that the person took, murder, was bad.
ReplyDeletehave you ever read any bonhoeffer?
No, I haven't (read that author). But, work with me on this. You're claiming the action was bad, but based on what standard? You said previous that, basically, if enough people are better off as a result then it's good, right? So if a mass murderer were killed before he had a chance to do his deed, then the action would be "good" by that standard, right? If one life is taken to save thousands or millions, is it then a "good" act of murder?
ReplyDeleteIf not, then doesn't that contradict the previous utilitarian-esque premise?
i can't find that. can you quote me on it?
ReplyDeletehe died by firing squad after plotting an assassination attempt on hitler. he had finally come to the decision that if you see a car careening out of control and it's about to run into a crowd of people, and the only way you can protect those people is to take out the driver, then perhaps you should take out the driver. he had originally advocated a non-violent response to hitler. (bonhoeffer was a german. he was in england when the war started but moved back to be with his own people during the war, even though he knew it put him at risk since he was a member of the confessing church (which had refused to sign the docs that the reich insisted all churches sign).)
ReplyDeleteMy bad. I misapplied Jasons's statement:
ReplyDeleteSo the intent of the group was positive (I saw the interview with the head of the group), but the results were briefly positive before turning negative.
So given a situation like this, it's near impossible to gauge the negative or positiveness of the result due to subjectivity.
to you.
To clarify, you don't base morality on whether more or fewer people are affected/benefit/are harmed by the act?
The end doesn't justify the means.
ReplyDeleteSo the intent of the group was positive (I saw the interview with the head of the group), but the results were briefly positive before turning negative.
ReplyDeleteSo given a situation like this, it's near impossible to gauge the negative or positiveness of the result due to subjectivity. -- J
You said previous that, basically, if enough people are better off as a result then it's good, right? -- D
D, I don't know how you made your conclusion from J's statement. Can you connect the dots for me.
I got it from the statement that things were positive, but turned negative and the group's intent was positive. That seemed to me to imply that it was morally bad due to that groups change in perception. IOW, had they not changed their opinion then it would have been good.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm clear on your view there, and am of the same mindset.
ReplyDeleteWhich could lead to a discussion of things like taxation, compulsory compliance and other libertarian issues. :)
You said previous that, basically, if enough people are better off as a result then it's good, right? -- D
ReplyDeleteso bad action with bad intent (BB) leads to the good of the many (M) = good action (G)
is what you're accusing J of having said.
So the intent of the group was positive (I saw the interview with the head of the group), but the results were briefly positive before turning negative. - J
But J said, that a good action (the group supported the band even to the point of learning the lyrics) with good intent (GG) turned out in the end to cause anger and resentment in the group (B) who felt like they had been tricked = (B).
The equations are utterly different (if not also somewhat ludicrous since I made up the variables and didn't really define them, but I think you get the idea.).
In fact, I would say that J's example fits more closely with the lunch example than to the murder to save many example.
ReplyDeleteOh dear Lord! And it's in writing, too!
ReplyDeleteNo: bad intention + good result = ? moral value
ReplyDeleteRight (in that Jason said it), so that results in a utilitarian equation where the left side is irrelevant and only the right side can be used to determine moral value; i.e., if more people benefit/are happy with the result than and unhappy then the action is morally good.
ReplyDeletebut that's not at all what J was saying in his example. it was a group bent on good intentions. they obviously went to watch the band with good intent, not bad.
ReplyDelete... hmmmm, i wonder how much of this thread consists in arguing over what the third person, who's not currently present, said. ;-)
ReplyDeleteNo, no, no. This was my question; i.e., if I do something for bad reasons but it has good results, is the moral quality good or bad for the action? I asked that since, before, you said that a good intention for a bad action was still morally bad.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to determine, in practice, if it's the action or the intention, or something else, that determines moral value.
I'm just going to proceed as if everything I ascribe to him he actually said. :P
ReplyDeleteOh, come on, D. That one's easy. God determines moral value.
ReplyDelete;-)
And I'm going to proceed as if everything you say includes the words "pig snouts" somewhere in the statement.
ReplyDeleteWell, I wasn't going to go there, but we can discussion it:
ReplyDeleteDoes God choose what is and what isn't morally good? If so, then morality is purely arbitrary.
Or is God bound by some ruleset that determines good/bad? If so, then even God is bound by rules.
Especially in light of Isaiah 45:7:
forming the light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil: I, Jehovah, do all these things. (Darby)
Perhaps I do that already? Gimme a break, it'S NOt like I Use submliminal messages in my posTs.
ReplyDeletehmmmm, if i am the sole arbiter in my house of what is right and wrong, and my decisions are arbitrary, that doesn't mean they're arbitrary for my kids, does it? they're not arbitrary for them because the rules are clearly set by mom. they might have been arrived at by mom in an arbitrary fashion, but once they're set in stone, they're no longer arbitrary. yes?
ReplyDeletei think what i'd say in terms of God's rules is that they are according to God's caprice, but that God is not capricious.
and here's that passage in NIV (there's a new jewish translation that i'd like to see this in, but i can't remember what it's called. i'll have to check the info. in my Genesis class notes.):
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
But the decisions are still arbitrary and not objective at all. Even if you applied them objectively (i.e., to everybody regardless of status) they are still subjective.
ReplyDeleteAs for the translation, I think it still falls under the previous statement that a bad action (creating disaster), even with good intentions, is still morally wrong.
so what would you say determines moral value?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure any thing defines morality. I think that morality is intrinsic in the freedom of choice of the participants. So long as neither side was forced to participate, and neither side is committing fraud or deceiving the other, and no third party is harmed or aggressed against as a result, then the action is morally good.
ReplyDeleteso morality (for you) is defined by:
ReplyDelete1) freedom to choose -- no one should be forced to do something,
2) freedom from deception -- no one should be fraudulent or misleading,
and
3) freedom from harm -- no one should be injured in the process.
is that a fair rewrite of what you said?
No third party should be injured in the process. And, yes, I think that's fair.
ReplyDelete3) freedom from harm -- no third party should be injured in the process
ReplyDeleteSo parties who have not been deceived and who are not being forced into doing something that they don't want to do can be killed or harmed whether or not they wish to be killed or harmed?
Yep. A perfect example is a stuntman who gets killed doing his job. That the outcoming (being dead) wasn't what he wanted or planned doesn't make his choice immoral. Dumb/stupid/senseless is not necessarily immoral.
ReplyDeleteStuntman who gets killed when assistant mishandles the equipment. It's essentially the same idea as the mistaken lunch that gets eaten. Is it morally wrong that the assistant didn't handle the equipment properly? I'd say yes. Is it wrong because in this scenario the equipment would be the second party and the stuntman would be the third? Or is the stuntman one of the parties under discussion?
ReplyDeleteA stuntman can get killed because of an accident. But, in the case of an accident that results from uncontrollable or undetectable circumstances (say, a cable that was stressed and broke but had no obvious signs of being stressed) then I would say nobody did a morally bad thing.
ReplyDeleteIf the assistant lied about checking the rig, or did a poor job while claiming to be thorough, or who was incompetent, then that falls under the previously mentioned "deception" element and the assistant is morally wrong. But if the assistant truly did the checking and the flaw was non-obvious, then he did nothing wrong morally.
Ultimately, though, it's the stuntman's responsibility to check the rig prior to the stunt, just as a parachutist is responsible for his own pack.
i came across a blog post on the problem of evil recently and i brought up this verse. the author of the post pulled out this take on the passage from matthew henry:
ReplyDeleteI think Matthew Henry's take (from 1702):
Let Cyrus, when he becomes thus rich and great, remember that still he is but a man, and there is no God but one. 2. That he is Lord of all, and there is nothing done without him (v. 7): I form the light, which is grateful and pleasing, and I create darkness, which is grievous and unpleasing. I make peace (put here for all good) and I create evil, not the evil of sin (God is not the author of that), but the evil of punishment.
The problem with that text is it's using apologetics to add what isn't in the original text. That's the fallacy of post hoc reasoning to overcome a very fundamental issue in the Problem of Evil.
ReplyDeleteBut, even still, Henry's take contradicts itself: on the one hand it says "nothing is done without him" (referring to god) but then tries to sneak in an example of something being done without god; i.e., evil in general.
Either god controls everything, or there are things he cannot control. If evil exists, he must be the ultimate cause of it if he controls everything. And it's books like Isaiah that pose huge intellectual problems for those who claim he's not responsible, since it repeatedly quotes the Hebrew god claiming to be the source of evil.
*shrug* personally, i think God is fully sovereign and created all things, whether we like them or not. who am i to say what God did or didn't, could or couldn't, should or shouldn't make?
ReplyDeleteI respect your position, though it was this kind of situation that lead me to become an atheist, though.
ReplyDeletethis kind of situation = ? that the created has to at some point accept the fact that the creator is the creator and can do whatever he pleases?
ReplyDeletei think that would be a scary thing if God weren't just and merciful. the capricious gods of rome were a scary lot indeed. the God of joseph, not so much. joseph's life was by no means easy or pleasant, and yet joseph knew God's character to the point that he trusted that all was for a purpose.
By situation I meant realizing that the problems in the Bible. I can't do the logical backflips necessary to ignore those problems or to take the position that I have to just accept it. That doing so would be necessary is why I ended up being unable to it as anything but mythology.
ReplyDeletehmmm. i don't feel like it's a back flip to think that if a being is truly a god, then they must be in control. if they're not, then they're not god. and if they're in control, then anything in the place that they govern is under their control.
ReplyDeletei think by definition, a supreme being has to be supreme. it doesn't have to be nice. but it does have to be in control over that which it's supreme over. if it weren't in control, then i think i'd use the term "guiding force" or something like that, rather than god.
But what does "in control/under their control" mean and imply? To me, that means that there can be no free will, because free will is going to be counter to that god's ability to be in control. You can't control that which can choose other than what you wish.
ReplyDeleteunless you can have both simultaneously. that's what i believe to be true.
ReplyDeleteit's like you can have right and left and it fully and truly is real and exists. and you can have up and down and that fully and truly is real and exists. and for something that is three dimensional, both things really and truly and fully exist, even though they go in differing directions.
btw, i should add that i've never met anyone else that believes this. it's just little old me. i do so like being contrary. ;-)
ReplyDeleteExcept that what we're discussing aren't diametrically opposed but are instead mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it's possible for something unreal to exist? (to use a Star Trek question)
And that's one of the things that makes me glad to have you as a friend. :)
ReplyDeletewell, to continue in my contrary fashion...
ReplyDeletewhy must two mutually exclusive things be considered unreal?
they appear to be mutually exclusive from our point of view. this might be considered a backflip in your mind. but in my mind, any 2 dimensional creature is going to have to think "outside the box" to grok a 3 dimensional world. in the same way, for us finite beings to understand a... spiritual? other-worldly? pan-dimensional? whatever... reality, i think we have to think outside the box a little.
d'aw!
ReplyDeleteBecause they cannot both exist, hence the "exclusive" part. ;)
ReplyDeletebut in my mind, any 2 dimensional creature is going to have to think "outside the box" to grok a 3 dimensional world. in the same way, for us finite beings to understand a... spiritual? other-worldly? pan-dimensional? whatever... reality, i think we have to think outside the box a little.
But, again, those higher dimensions don't contradict the lower ones; i.e., in a four dimensional universe, the first three dimension shared with ours obey the rules of our universe 100%. Those 2D people are bound by the same 2D rules as our lower two dimensions.
so if i'm in 2-d and i see a creature before me and a creature behind me, i assume those two creatures are distinct beings. but if i could back out into the 3-d and see what's going on, i'd see that the creature in front of me is the head of a being and the creature behind me is the middle of the being and the being is arching over me looking at me. what seemed completely separate was one whole, though i couldn't view it that way due to the constraints i was under. the "rules" were the same in 2-d and 3-d but the perspective was very different.
ReplyDeleteThat's the point I was trying to make with my analogy of watching a movie backwards: perspective doesn't define reality. What might *appear* to be omniscience in that case really isn't. Remember the movie Groundhog's Day? Bill Murray's character wasn't omniscience even though he knew everything that was going to happen around through that whole day.
ReplyDeletenow you're talking in riddles. if knowing everything isn't omniscience just because the knowing everything comes about from having a larger perspective then what is "knowing everything" again?
ReplyDeleteOmniscience, to be specific, is having perfect knowledge; i.e., knowing all that has, is and will happen. That's why it cancels free will: with omniscience I invalidate your ability to make a choice since I would be able to tell you your choice and you would be unable to choose otherwise even with that knowledge. It's not just a larger perspective, it's perfect, absolute knowledge. And one can only have that if events can never vary from that knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThat's more than just "knowing everything", especially since "knowing everything" can be limited to knowing just all that has already happened and not what is currently happening or what will happen in future.
It sounds like a riddle because the two concepts are completely mutually exclusive.
there's that phrase again.
ReplyDeletedude, come over to the dark side where mutually exclusive doesn't necessarily mean mutually exclusive. we take "thinking outside the box" and "pushing the envelope" to a whole new level. ;-)
I will as soon as you can tell me how to accept similar concepts, such as "2+2=5".
ReplyDeleteIOW, if we throw out fundamental logic, then I'll really have no way of discussing subjects. :-/
it's logical to you but it's not logical to me.
ReplyDeleteit's not as easy as 2+2=
there are definitions, understandings, and beliefs involved.
using your "fundamental logic," miracles don't happen. that's fine to believe that miracles don't happen, but i've chosen to believe that they do. so at such a point then, yeah, it's very hard to discuss things.
That's why I always want to be clear on terms.
ReplyDeleteBy their very definition, miracles are things that necessarily defy logic, where logic is the understanding of how the universe works (deduction and reasoning). Otherwise, they would be natural occurrences, would they not? ;) That they don't jibe with how reality operates doesn't mean they're beyond understanding or discussion: it just means that those who claim them have a burden of proving what they claim.
It's okay to believe something. But it's something else to expect others to accept belief alone as a foundation for accepting an argument, especially if they don't agree with the foundation. (yea, I know, a "very D answer", right :D )
if they're supernatural, CAN they be proved? they perhaps can be documented (as in the case of a miracle) but i don't know that you could ever Prove it.
ReplyDeleteBut it's something else to expect others to accept belief alone as a foundation for accepting an argument, especially if they don't agree with the foundation.
but i've never asked to you accept my beliefs as the foundation for an argument. i've described what *I* believe and given reasons as to *why* i believe that. we can discuss that (until we keep arguing semantics and we've basically deadlocked the discussion) but at no time did i ever ask you to *believe* it. i've just explained my view point and my beliefs or speculations.
the point we've come to is a deadlocked discussion. that's all. and i believe that's the only point i made about it as well.
Hard to say really. I would guess that one could at least prove that the outcome occurred and perhaps imply a miracle by demonstrating that no other source could have produced it, But, a lack of proof for a natural cause would never be positive proof for a miracle, so it's still always going to require some degree of belief.
ReplyDeletebut i've never asked to you accept my beliefs as the foundation for an argument. i've described what *I* believe and given reasons as to *why* i believe that. we can discuss that (until we keep arguing semantics and we've basically deadlocked the discussion) but at no time did i ever ask you to *believe* it. i've just explained my view point and my beliefs or speculations.
You're right, and I guess I wasn't clear. I was more replying to the "come to the darkside" line earlier.