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Family has 18th child

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release_the_bats
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22 Dec 2008, 8:46 pm

violet_yoshi wrote:
release_the_bats wrote:
violet_yoshi wrote:
release_the_bats wrote:
Yeah, why pass judgment or make assumptions about people you've never even met? How do their beliefs or "lifestyle choices" affect you?

I'm just the resident librarian here - providing information from other sites in response to people's queries. :)


Well there is the perspective that we already are running out of resources on this planet as it is, and it is selfish for someone to say I want a litter, who cares if it affects anyone else or even my children. Who cares they won't get the attention or support they need, cause I want what I want!


That is a good point. But where would you draw the line? Do you believe that people should have no children? Or no more than one or two?

And do you think this should be enforced by law? If so, how would the law be enforced? How would it account for accidental pregnancies? Would there be exceptions for adoptions and foster parenting? And how would it be balanced with our rights to freedom of belief, religion, and religious expression?

(I'm not taking a position here - just asking questions.)


Well most people probably would say more than 10 is unreasonable.


Wouldn't that depend on the culture? Are you speaking globally or in regards to the U.S.? Or North America? And you've got to allow room for variation in individual beliefs too . . .



drowbot0181
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23 Dec 2008, 3:06 am

slowmutant wrote:
Obviously I don't "know" this. As a human being I can't have any direct knowledge of the Creator. Obviously.

This is the way I see it: If God revealed too much of Himself at any given time/place, it would offset the delicate balance of Free Will vs. Belief in God. That's quite a feat, if you think about it. If God intervenes too much, people will be too heavily influenced by Him. If God intervenes too little, no one will have faith in Him.

If a man claiming to be Jesus the Christ showed up on your doorstep one day and offered to forgive your sins, how believing would you be? Honestly?

And if you were witness to a seemingly impossible "miracle," like the sight of someone being raised from the dead, how quick would you be to deny what your eyes were showing you? Honestly?

There is no visible form God could take which would not be doubted, denied, rationalized away.


I think you admitted that you make it up out of nothing in there somewhere. That's all I wanted.



Xelebes
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23 Dec 2008, 3:21 am

I prefer the old Catholic definition of god (prior to the Black Death) as opposed to the newer Catholic definition (after the Black Death and into the Renaissance.)

Old: God is the unknowable, the Great Mystery.

New: God is all powerful and all knowing, the Great Man.

The older definition is much more defensible.



ShadesOfMe
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23 Dec 2008, 4:12 am

All I can ever think when this woman has another kid is, "Here that b***h goes again, having babies when so many can't have even one" I know it's spiteful, but that's how i feel. This sums their family up perfect:


Image
Image

and they look so creepy, like those evil perfect kids in horror movies.



slowmutant
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23 Dec 2008, 7:38 am

drowbot0181 wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Obviously I don't "know" this. As a human being I can't have any direct knowledge of the Creator. Obviously.

This is the way I see it: If God revealed too much of Himself at any given time/place, it would offset the delicate balance of Free Will vs. Belief in God. That's quite a feat, if you think about it. If God intervenes too much, people will be too heavily influenced by Him. If God intervenes too little, no one will have faith in Him.

If a man claiming to be Jesus the Christ showed up on your doorstep one day and offered to forgive your sins, how believing would you be? Honestly?

And if you were witness to a seemingly impossible "miracle," like the sight of someone being raised from the dead, how quick would you be to deny what your eyes were showing you? Honestly?

There is no visible form God could take which would not be doubted, denied, rationalized away.


I think you admitted that you make it up out of nothing in there somewhere. That's all I wanted.


That's not quite what I said. Read it again.



drowbot0181
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23 Dec 2008, 9:22 am

slowmutant wrote:
...I can't have any direct knowledge of the Creator. Obviously.

This statement renders everything after it irrelavent. I you don't know anything, therefore you are just making it up.

slowmutant wrote:
This is the way I see it: If God revealed too much of Himself at any given time/place, it would offset the delicate balance of Free Will vs. Belief in God. That's quite a feat, if you think about it. If God intervenes too much, people will be too heavily influenced by Him. If God intervenes too little, no one will have faith in Him.

Perhaps I have missed the sentence in there explaining how you came up with this.

slowmutant wrote:
If a man claiming to be Jesus the Christ showed up on your doorstep one day and offered to forgive your sins, how believing would you be? Honestly?

And if you were witness to a seemingly impossible "miracle," like the sight of someone being raised from the dead, how quick would you be to deny what your eyes were showing you? Honestly?]/quo

There is no visible form God could take which would not be doubted, denied, rationalized away.


You readily admit that God cannot be rationalized. If he existed and had an effect on the natural world, it could be tested and measured. There has been no effect, so it is silly to believe he is there. If he does exist and is simply unknowable and unmeasureable, then he is irrelavent and it is still silly to base you life on something that has no effect on it.



Chibi_Neko
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23 Dec 2008, 1:07 pm

slowmutant wrote:
If a man claiming to be Jesus the Christ showed up on your doorstep one day and offered to forgive your sins, how believing would you be? Honestly?


I would not believe a word, I already get enough Jehovah's Witnesses on my front door step annoying me, some dude claiming to be Jesus would just be hysterical.

The point is no one would believe it, reason being is people today are not as gullible as they were 2000 years ago. God went through prophets when no one was around, but people back then believed it because no one knew how the world worked during the time, so everything was explained in supernatural means and people would believe anything you told them.

I bet that if I could go back in time and said "God came to me last night and said that I must lead you all to a new land"
People would fall for it.


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Last edited by Chibi_Neko on 24 Dec 2008, 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

drowbot0181
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23 Dec 2008, 1:56 pm

Chibi_Neko wrote:
I bet that if I could go back in time and said "God came to me last night and said that I must lead you all to a new land"
People would fall for it.


Sounds like a plan! We should collaborate. I'll come up with the religion, you invent the time machine... :P



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23 Dec 2008, 11:13 pm

I have watched the show. Two words "Birth Control." I agree with Slowmutant the father needs to get "fixed".


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violet_yoshi
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24 Dec 2008, 12:06 am

preludeman wrote:
I have watched the show. Two words "Birth Control." I agree with Slowmutant the father needs to get "fixed".


Seriously, letting those two have reproductive possiblities, is like letting 2 babies play with a metal fork and an outlet.



Mage
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24 Dec 2008, 10:24 am

Except the 2 babies would stop pretty quick, either from learning the pain of it or death.

I've always thought the Duggars were terribly flawed with their idea that if God wanted them to stop, they would suddenly become infertile. I thought Christians believed in free will? It's like a serial killer rationalizing his murders by saying, "If God wanted me to stop, he would have struck me down by now." We all know how often God does stuff like that. :roll:



slowmutant
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24 Dec 2008, 10:41 am

Yes, we all know how many serial-killers have claimed religious motives. :roll:



drowbot0181
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24 Dec 2008, 10:46 am

slowmutant wrote:
Yes, we all know how many serial-killers have claimed religious motives. :roll:

So do pedophiles and the Nazis that protect them...



slowmutant
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24 Dec 2008, 10:48 am

drowbot0181 wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Yes, we all know how many serial-killers have claimed religious motives. :roll:

So do pedophiles and the Nazis that protect them...


Would you mind explaining that ... nicely?



drowbot0181
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24 Dec 2008, 10:59 am

slowmutant wrote:
drowbot0181 wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Yes, we all know how many serial-killers have claimed religious motives. :roll:

So do pedophiles and the Nazis that protect them...


Would you mind explaining that ... nicely?


Wow, really? Okay, well there were a lot of children molested by a lot of Catholic priests. It went undiscovered for a very long time because the Pope, then known as Cardinal Ratzinger, was in charge of covering it up and transfering the pedophiles to new parishes, and of course, new victims.
The Nazi part is just me being crass. Yes, he was a member of the Hitler Youth, but he had to be. It was the law.



slowmutant
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24 Dec 2008, 11:10 am

Oh, okay.

But I wonder how the Pope recalls his days in the Hitler Youth movement. Proudly? Sadly? Nowadays, Catholic Popes are seen as evil incarnate, as are the priests. The Church certainly has a deserved reputation for moral corruption, abuse of power, but I wonder how extensive the cancer really is. Is reform possible after all these centuries?

As a lifelong member of the church, these are my thoughts.