So says the Duck Dynasty guy who probably wants to be considered the great bearded prophet to denounce evil America.
Oddly enough, I agree with him that “sin” is not logical. I’ve never been able to see any logic in arguments to authority. Sure, lots of things are considered sins by lots of religions, but whether a particular act is right or wrong does not depend on the opinion of an authority figure, whether the authority be God (whose identity cannot be established with any degree of accuracy) or humans claiming to speak for God. A perfect example is the man the Duck Dynasty prophet quotes — St. Paul (as well as those who believe that only they are interpreting his long lost original texts correctly, and that he was speaking on behalf of God). There is no way to have a logical argument with people who think that way, and logic is a waste of time.
The correct argument would be along the lines of “You think I’m a sinner and so what?”
But I guess some people are so fragile that they absolutely cannot handle the idea of anyone calling them sinners.
You’d almost think they believe in the basic concept.
Comments
19 responses to ““sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.””
first thing they teach you in logic 101 something can be logical and not true and something can be true ;but not logical.
The notion of sin arose in more primitive and superstitious times. It has no place in the modern world. Religions are nothing more than organized superstitions. Sin as a concept is useless in creating a just moral code for people to live by.
A woman in Sudan faces the death penalty for the sin of apostasy. She could lose her life for the dastardly act of not believing the correct religion.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27424064
Paul of Tarsus, the founder of Christianity:
The chief exponent of the new movement [Christianity} was a Syrian Jew from Tarsus, named Paul, who was possessed of ‘a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan,’ which has been interpreted as epilepsy. As described in the Acts of Paul and Thecla he was “of a low stature, bald on the head, crooked thighs; handsome legs, hollow-eyed; had a crooked nose; full of grace.’ This was spiritual grace, for Paul was always acutely conscious of his physical infirmities.
Argumentative and even querulous, he was given to alternating fits of violent rage and severe depression, and in his seizures he emitted inarticulate sounds, i.e., spoke ‘in and unknown tongue…unto God.’ In such moments he experienced ecstatic visions which he prized above all waking realities.
According to his own account he had persecuted the followers of the Messiah until one day, on the road to Damascus, he had fallen to earth and had been caught up into the third heaven and heard words which it was not lawful for a man to utter; thereupon he repented of his persecution, and became convinced that he had been personally charged to spread the faith, and to warn people of the coming Doomsday.
Impelled by the fear that the last trumpet would sound before he had fulfilled his mission, he traveled about the empire propounding the the Messiah, whom he called [named?] Jesus, had already come, had suffered a sacrificial death by crucifixion and had ascended unto heaven. He proclaimed that the Day of Judgment would be next week, or the week after, and that those who wished to be saved should repent and be baptized and protect themselves by participation in a eucharistic meal.
From Man And His Gods by H.W. Smith, page 178.
What I want to know is if the Duck Man has fits followed by visions. Maybe he’s the reincarnation of Paul. By the way, Paul never married.
It is all well and good to mock Paul or even Jesus. It is also all too glib and historically ignorant. The West ls living off the residue of morality imparted by Christianity, and more specifically by Roman Catholicism. That heritage includes specifically the dignity of the individual, which is a a major theme in the Gospels, and which persisted in Church teaching as an undertone even in its most corrupt eras. That is not a theme of Roman and Hellenistic Classic Values, except for the ruling class.
People talk about the evolution of morality, and of how altruism specifically evolves in a social animal. But, those people do not understand evolution. Evolution only selects for one thing: differential reproduction. Anything hereditable that enhances a person’s ability to produce more children and raise them to adulthood than one’s neighbors results in that person’s genes coming to dominate that population. That is the entirety of evolutionary theory.
Evolution does not select for speed, strength, intelligence, skin color, disease resistance, altruism, etc., unless they contribute to differential reproduction in particular circumstances. In regard to altruism, in many situations it is beneficial and is favored. But, it is usually limited to close kin. Selfishness is also selected for, as are honesty and dishonesty. There is a hugh literature, mostly based on game theory, regarding the issue.
Paul’s Christianity spread like wild-fire through the classical world, and Constantine’s formal adoption of it merely reflected the political reality of his time. He bowed to the majority. You might wish to ponder that while promoting Classical Values. Those values were evidently inferior to the ones that Paul proposed, and given a choice millions of people adopted Christianity. This was done, of course, by the oppressed substratum of Hellenistic/Roman society. The oppressors were happy with their Classical Values.
To see how Classical Values actually played out, one should consider the lives of the Roman emperors, or Alexander, or Clinton.
As Christianity finally dies out, our descendants will be left with the kind of society that Christianity first appeared in. That will be an ugly, nasty society.
The many failings of the Christian church throughout its history (read the letters attributed to Paul for examples) do not belie its message. If you want a religion with a truly nasty message justifying truly nasty behavior, you will find it in Islam but not Christianity. Europe is now undergoing Islamification. It is also moving away from its all-too-brief experiment with democracy back towards its authoritarian tradition. Classical Values indeed.
The West ls living off the residue of morality imparted by Christianity, and more specifically by Roman Catholicism.
Actually we are living off the rejection of the Church as supreme authority. You know – the science and technology bit.
And the natural morality of humans works out pretty well in most cases. That is because “immorality” has significant costs. As the costs are reduced or eliminated “immorality” increases. Reliable birth control has greatly reduced the need for traditional sexual morality.
Bottom line: on average people are as moral as they need to be, naturally.
which has been interpreted as epilepsy
For which we have a low cost natural non-toxic treatment. Cannabis. So good that there is a national movement to make it available to children. Which the Illinois legislature has just done. The Church has decreed cannabis use to be immoral.
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A Christian pot head looks at Christian persecution of marijuana users:
http://www.theweedblog.com/the-catholic-church-and-medical-marijuana/
Mr. Sykes, you are a reasonable man but with rose colored glasses. The rotten history of Christianity from the dark ages on was only salvaged by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That Islam is indeed more evil doesn’t rescue its sister religion from a thousand years of gargoyles, torture racks, burnings, beheadings, imprisonment, and wars. For all your praise of the seed of individualism you claim is at the base of Christian belief, you conveniently overlook that the religion of the meek was quite willing to live with a system of serfs and rulers. For gods’ sake, it practically invented feudalism. Sanctity of the individual my ass.
It’s never good to attack a specific religion, especially one rooted deeply in this country. My mistake.
Bob,
You are aware that “Classical Values” is a totally ironic name are you not?
So ask yourself – why do new religions still arise? Because conditions change and the Church does not keep up. Which in fact was the origin of that Jewish sect a long time ago.
BTW I favor the Old Time Religion. If it was good enough for Jesus it is good enough for me. Why Christians don’t follow the religion of their “savior” is a mystery. Politics would be my guess. Power and Control.
…salvaged by the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Enlightenment.
The rotten history of Christianity from the dark ages on was only salvaged by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Let me add that the Renaissance and the Enlightenment succeeded because the leaders of that movement rejected the Church as supreme authority. That gave us science and technology. We found a method to get nature to reveal its secrets instead of having to rely on the authority of a priest. You actually counted the teeth in a horse’s mouth instead of relying on a priest to give you the “right” number.
There is no way to have a logical argument with people who think that way, and logic is a waste of time.
That you fail to see the irony in that part of your post is astonishing.
Just a guy May 23rd, 2014,
Can’t a guy vent anymore without being called to task?
To see how Classical Values actually played out, one should consider the lives of the Roman emperors, or Alexander, or Clinton.
People are as immoral as they can afford to be. Emperors/presidents can afford more immorality than serfs. And the church didn’t do much to curb it. Henry the VIIIth of England proved that. And you know – given the history of some of the Popes it looks like the church was in the thick itself. Occasionally.
People are as immoral as they can afford to be.
The Church at one time acknowledged this by selling indulgences.
Mr. Sykes, c. andrew, and others
here…sometimes spite gets the better of me.
The above posts damning Christianity were over the top. I was raised in The Church and have come to reject organized religion. What I especially rail against is top down interpretation and any bureaucracy that imposes its law. Maybe I should have been born a Jew, since I find The Book of Job a philosophical masterpiece.
As Eric & Simon know, I found this site a few years after two friends were murdered by a couple of Christian fanatics who went on a rampage of burning synagogues, killing my friends, and with a long list of targets which included every well known Jew in Sacramento.
After 9/11 and my friends murders, I had a soul searching. Is blind faith the source of such evil? Would a reasonable person allow himself to twist religious dogma to commit such heinous acts? Are these just deranged people?
The answer is no. The histories of Christianity and Islam are blood soaked.
These religions rely on blind adherence to dogmatic belief. You must reject reason and logic to be a believer. A true believer can commit any act if he thinks it furthers his sacred religion.
Fly a jet into the Twin Towers, fire bomb a gay disco, kill an abortion doctor, behead an apostate…or butcher my dear friends Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder because they were sodomites.
Frank,
I’m sorry to hear about the atrocity (not tragedy, that word is entirely overused and excusatory) that claimed the life of your friends. I too was raised as a Xtian but rely more on the historical record for my antipathy to the religion than on personal tragedy.
Using tragedy in regard to your experience is acceptable because what happened to YOU was a tragedy as you had no hand in it. To me, the relevant distinction between atrocity and tragedy is deliberate and intentional human action bringing about the evil in question. I find the media use of “tragedy” in regard to man-made evils to be egregiously exculpatory because they try to gloss over the role of the perpetrator as if these things occurred for the same reasons as earthquakes and hurricanes.
But aside from that, I don’t know that I would consider your post “over the top” particularly in light of your proviso that it is actually against top-down and establishment religion. I have some of the same issues with organized religion but know a great many Xtians personally who I like and admire. The ones I reserve my ire for are those that think they have some kind of calling to impose their theology on me by public funding or gov’t coercion.
That being said, I would argue that structurally, establishment Xtianity will always have a tendency to try to seize the reins of power toward that end. At least the historical record demonstrates that, absent an opposing civilized impulse like the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, Xtians do try to do exactly that.
I find it telling that when Constantine the Great established Xtianity as the state religion, he mandated tolerance for those not practicing the new state religion. Which lasted about 60 years when the Establishment Xtians used the power of the state to go after “heretics” that they could not refute without reaching for an ad baculum argument. And they stayed on that road for better than a millennium.
As to the question of “individualism;” one could argue that there were elements of that in regard to the “next life” but precious little to be had in this one. One’s place in the hierarchical Great Chain of Being had more impact upon how the Establishment Church treated you in this world than what kind of person you individually were. And although that tendency was less pronounced in the later Protestant sects, in the early Reformation there wasn’t much to choose between the practices of Mother Church and her schismatic children.
Ironically, and something that seems to escape the xtian apologists, the most likely place that you would receive a measure of “individual” attention was when subjected to the “tender mercies” of the Inquisition, preparing you for the torturous eternity that awaited you as a heretic. Although your selection for that signal treatment often hinged on the class of person you might be and upon whether your ancestors were the “New Christians” forced to convert by Dominican led mobs 2 generations before the Spanish Inquisition.
I think that the reason that Establishment Xtianity and Islam in general are blood soaked is because of their blind faith, un-tempered by any temporal consideration. It’s not an accident; it’s their nature. Which is why, once barred from exercising dominion over gov’ts, the body count in Christendom decreased. Without temporal authority, that innate virulence is left without a means of sanctioned expression and thus becomes only the province of the fanatics. Which are a much smaller percentage than those who are practicing Xtians.
c andrew,
It is rare on the internet to find such a thoughtful, and literate, response as the one you wrote. Your last paragraph is especially insightful. Thank you for taking the time to compose this. It’s been saved and printed out for future reference.
Frank,
You’re welcome. And thanks.
It’s nice to have intellectual interaction internet-wise but it doesn’t always happen. And I’m guilty of the drive-by posting myself on occasion. (a poster deriving his net-name from the naval facilities of the 48th state sometimes brings this out in me.)
Because of my irregular work schedule, I don’t always have the option to answer at length or in a timely fashion and after a certain length of time, I think that it’s better to let the conversation lapse rather than resurrect it.
“‘There is no way to have a logical argument with people who think that way, and logic is a waste of time.’
“That you fail to see the irony in that part of your post is astonishing.”
While depending on how you look at it, there is irony in almost everything, in my experience logical arguments are a waste of time when basic terms cannot be agreed on, and when someone argues that text in a book written by a human is an edict from God, logic is lost, and arguments to logic are in fact a waste of time.