Praising Putin.

[F1fan]

Lol. Did he stop or continue our wars? Thats the bottom line.

Are you asking about trump or Obama?

 

[We Never Know]

Are you asking about trump or Obama?

Really? Obama promised to end those wars in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Did that happen?

 

[F1fan]

Look at how poorly the exit from Afghanistan was. You can see how difficult it is to just leave. Many folks were critical of Obama to get out, but as I noted, he was in a no win situation. It was like the Vietnam war, look how many presidents changed their minds about that war in thinking it was winnable. We never should have gone in at all in either Iraq or Afghanistan. But that was the decisions Bush/Cheney made, and the following presidents were left with his mess.

 

[F1fan]

Really? Obama promised to end those wars in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Did that happen?

We know it didn't. But as I noted it wasn't just walking out of the mall when you were tired of shopping. It was more and more complex than could be predicted. I disagreed with Obama ramping up the war, but that was the advice of the military. They didn't reach their goals because they didn't learn for Russia's experience. But thanks for expecting Obama to be perfect.

And no condemnation for trump letting the war go on in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020? He made promises too. Why the unfair treatment?

 

[We Never Know]

We know it didn't. But as I noted it wasn't just walking out of the mall when you were tired of shopping. It was more and more complex than could be predicted. I disagreed with Obama ramping up the war, but that was the advice of the military. They didn't reach their goals because they didn't learn for Russia's experience. But thanks for expecting Obama to be perfect.

And no condemnation for trump letting the war go on in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020? He made promises too. Why the unfair treatment?

Thats funny. In two posts you brought up Trump 3-4 times when it wasnt even about Trump. Your party loyalty shines again.

 

[John D. Brey]

This makes me curious..
Do you agree with Putin's agenda?
Or do you consider him more a "necessary evil"; one of the scourges God sends to remind people which things matter in life, and to make more more obvious the differences between the wheat and the chaff so to speak?
Or is this more a criticism towards Christians about how a leader like Putin reflects Christian values more than Western leaders in your view, and are therefore hypocrites for condemning the actions of a man like him?

My primary point throughout this thread (and I know it's not necessarily explicit in the dialogue) is not so much to make a mundane moral judgment on Putin or Russia except as morality is related to understanding that this current world order is constructed of binary realities, polar oppositions, male/female, light/dark, Jew/Gentile, such that any people, political party, nation, or civilization, that believes their mind transcends the necessary evil of binary reality, polar opposition (which makes war inevitable) are not just morally corrupt, but they're better termed "evil."

Putin appears in every way to get the fact that reality requires enemies, war, and differences of opinion that are so great they require big guns. In that sense he is sane, healthy-minded, in complete opposition to what we see out of nearly every quarter of the Western nations.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Well not as to being effeminate-looking as a child (just rather handsome), but I have mentioned quite a few times on here that I was sexually abused by an older boy so can attest to the damage that such can cause. He did seem to have a troubled childhood apparently.

I don't know you personally, but I would say that overcoming such difficulties would create a cathartic-effect, like making it through a crucible, that purifies the soul of those who really do overcome such providential suffering.

Maybe Putin is Atlas Shrugged's John Galt?



John

 

[F1fan]

Thats funny. In two posts you brought up Trump 3-4 times when it wasnt even about Trump. Your party loyalty shines again.

When you are being critical of a president for not ending a war, but ignore another one for not ending it? Why is you bringing up one president OK and me bringing up another not? Party blindness on your part? Condemn both if you are being genuine in your criticism.

And you never once mention the guys who started the wars. Funny how you only bring up the Democrat.

 

[We Never Know]

When you are being critical of a president for not ending a war, but ignore another one for not ending it? Why is you bringing up one president OK and me bringing up another not? Party blindness on your part? Condemn both if you are being genuine in your criticism.

And you never once mention the guys who started the wars. Funny how you only bring up the Democrat.

You brought up Bush, then jumped to Trump. Enough said.

 

[John D. Brey]

Sure, sure. If there is no god (a distinct, even if unproveable, possibility) then everything you're saying and supporting is all you. And you'd be a fool not to acknowledge that that is the most likely case even if a god DOES exist - because you have zero way to verify its existence, or any real way to verify that what it wants is reflected anywhere on Earth by anyone or anything. You "feel" something - not good enough. Not nearly.

In my opinion, your statement is fatally flawed in the sense that you no doubt believe with all your heart that there's no God, no transcendental signifier of truth. And if that's the soul-foundation of your epistemological development, then even if there were evidence, clear, even undeniable evidence (and I believe with all my heart there is) that a transcendental signified guided evolution to the point where biological organisms like you and me are having this conversation, the fact that you could interpret everything in your periphery as quasi-accidental (no transcendent guide) makes it patently and perfectly clear that nothing, absolutely nothing, need be interpreted by you as proof that there's a transcendent guide guiding history.

In my opinion, that's the issue here. When I first opened my eyes to see, or at least as far back as I can remember, there was no doubt in my mind that someone or something clearly designed and created everything I saw and experienced. My growth and education only made that even more evident to me.

But if someone opens their eyes as a child, and doesn't intuit that all the vast design characteristics of life and the world require a transcendent designer, then that lack of intuition is of a biblical nature, and dimension, that could never be adjusted since the evidence of a creator or designer is so great that not intuiting that immediately infers the possibility, the likelihood, that no amount of evidence, added to utterly, absolutely, sufficient evidence, will budge that mind from its initial state of lack of perception of a transcendent creator designer.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

But I believe all who are in Christ have access to the Truth, the logocentric truth, the transcendental signified.
​

Again - just think about what this sentence means if god does not exist. And again - that possibility is all too relatable, given the observable evidence at hand. Since you can't verify or demonstrate a god's existence, it is as good as it not existing. Sure, you can attribute anything you want to to this thing... but I can do the same for any other thing I choose... and people have! For many multiple thousands of years people have attributed all manner of things to all manner of imaginative deific personages! You think yours is "special?" Why? You're no closer to verifying anything related to your deity than anyone in the past ever has been. Not special.

I think I understand what you're saying. But my position might be slightly different than other's you may have debated this with. My position is that those who don't believe in God can't be made to believe in God through argumentation, or evidence, since the evidence for God is so complete, so absolute, that not believing in God from the start makes a conversion based on logic, evidence, experience, completely impossible since there's more than ample evidence for God at every turn such that not seeing it isn't a learning issue or deficit; it's something else.

This doesn't suggest that intelligent people who don't believe in God can't come to see the obviousness of God. It just means its impossible through empiricism, logic, argumentation, or rationalism. Otherwise they would have already believed in God. They're not, after all, stupid, or blind to reality.

For an intelligent person who doesn't see or believe there's evidence for God to change that opinion can't be a educational event, a learning event, since they're often much smarter, better educated, and more perceptive than most of those who believe in God.

What's required is that God reach down and remove whatever it is that makes them not see him such that now they do see him where before they didn't.

Willliam James' famous, The Varieties of Religious Experience, gave numerous case studies of just what I'm saying: brilliant, scientifically attuned men, who were atheists, experiencing conversions that they realized had nothing to do with their education, observations, logic, knowledge, but which they experienced vividly, and with earth-shattering, life-long, results.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

In my opinion, all other truth is unmoored, unanchored, and swimming in a sea of relativity.​

And what's the problem with this? You think it means we suddenly all careen into the darkness and want to cut each others throats and steal candy from babies? Why would it mean that? Isn't this how the world operates ANYWAY given that no one can evidence any particular deity they like to put stock in? Your beliefs in this area are a HOBBY. Do as you like trying to glue god together out of dead leaves and excrement, present it to your mom and feel warm and fuzzy as she pats you on the back... leave me out of it.

The problem with knowledge and or experience not having a transcendent or transcendental signifier is that if it does, and we don't intuit that, we're broken beyond repair, whereas if it doesn't, we literally can't know what we know for certain we know.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

But Putin isn't interested in that. He's only interested in being aggressive and cruel. .

Is that what you've heard from the Western media, or have you spoken with him personally and had him relate that to you?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Well, the thing is not symmetric since I am not aware of Ucraine having attacked the Russians without warning.

As noted earlier in the thread, Gorbachev was given a guarantee from the West that if he could engineer a peaceful dismantling of the USSR the West wouldn't allow any of the members of the USSR to join a Western alliance allied against Russia.

While President Biden was calling reports that we had biological weapons research going on in Ukraine conspiracy theory, in another part of Washington one of Biden's science experts was in a hearing with Congress telling them that we need to guard our bio-weapons research in Ukraine so that the Russians not get hold of them, or release dangerous pathogens into the atmosphere.

Our government lies just like Russia's government lies (perhaps not as often).

Putin is fighting Ukraine because they are breaking every treaty made when the USSR peacefully dismantled. Neither Ukraine, or their President, are the picture of courage and goodness the Western media are portraying them. They're decadent and ignorant and deserve what they're getting.

Their president could have negotiated a peaceful resolution before Russia ever moved troops to their border. Futhermore, when this is all said and done, Putin is very likely going to get far more than he would have if Ukraine was willing to negotiate rather than fight. And Ukraine is going to be a mess.

I wonder what you would think if someone bombs your house, kill you kids, while your country was just peaceful and attacking nobody. But that is not what is relevant.

Do you think that if I kill children, then it is perfectly justified if someone kills my children in return?

I think you're giving a false analogy. War is different than other violence. Soldiers aren't tried for killing the enemy unless they violate some law. But killing the enemy doesn't violate the law. On the contrary. We give out medals to soldier who are good killers. We give them metals of "honor" because killing the enemy is honorable.

If yes, is that part of Christian morality? If yes, what is so special about it? What is its real added value? Is that what Jesus came to earth for?
He could have saved Himself the trouble, since that sort of morality seems totally useless to me, and already quite widespread all over the place.

Israel wanted Jesus to prove he was messiah by defeating the Romans in war. And when Pilate asked Jesus why, if he was the king of the Jews, his people weren't fighting for him, Jesus replied that his kingdom isn't of this world.

As Christians we're caught between the Kingdom of God, and the kingdom of the flesh. The latter requires that we eat, defecate, sleep, and defend any valuables we don't want taken from us; most valuable of all being our freedom from tyranny.



John

 

[Twilight Hue]

Really? Obama promised to end those wars in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Did that happen?

I have to admit at least Obama was smart and didn't end the war.

Biden was a dullard , dosent think, and pulled the plug on it essentially handing it over to the terrorists who now have their own little terrorist playground to grow stronger and become more dangerous for the future.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Women and children die in most if not all wars. So to single out Putin as though he's different than any other leader of any other country is problematic in my opinion.



John

Putin is the instigator of the current war.
At other times the finger has pointed elsewhere.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I don't know you personally, but I would say that overcoming such difficulties would create a cathartic-effect, like making it through a crucible, that purifies the soul of those who really do overcome such providential suffering.

Maybe Putin is Atlas Shrugged's John Galt?

John

I haven't read this book so can't comment, and I can't comment how any individual might recognise such abuse (he was considered a friend, like so many), or as to how such things might affect them, but perhaps it is often down to the type of personality one is as to how one does overcome and resolve these things. I certainly knew that harboring hatred for anyone and dwelling on the past would not be productive, or as to projecting such things onto others, but I surely wasn't much of a supporter for homosexuality until my reasoning overcame what I might have naturally felt coming from such abuse. I've been through a few crucibles though - not sure what is left.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

In my opinion, your statement is fatally flawed in the sense that you no doubt believe with all your heart that there's no God, no transcendental signifier of truth.

I live as if there is not one - because by all accounts, I cannot find any, and none of the accounts of any of His proponents are at all compelling. Do you know, I didn't used to believe that we and other ape species shared a common ancestor - even as I was an atheist? I hadn't seen compelling enough evidence for such. Sure there was a lot of talk, and some of the things sounded plausible... but the evidence seemed lacking in my opinion. And then guess what? I stumbled upon the research into the comparison of endogenous retroviruses between humans and other ape species. That fixed me right up. Evidence so profound and clear that it would take a heavy does of irrationality to deny. That did it. It was a done deal. I now accept that we and the other apes are descendent of some prior, common species.

So no... it isn't that I "believe in my heart that there is no God." Your attribution of the "heart" here is telling... what a ridiculous notion... that one can "believe" in an organ used to pump blood around the body. You are what I like to call a "fuzzy thinker." You like the warm and fuzzies. Those items that don't really mean anything, if one stops to examine them, but they sound nice. Likely a psychological drive in you that you simply can't help without a healthy does of introspection. A healthier dose than a good many are willing to swallow, I'm afraid, so go ahead and get comfortable.

And if that's the soul-foundation of your epistemological development, then even if there were evidence, clear, even undeniable evidence (and I believe with all my heart there is)

There you go again... believing "with your heart." Strange that. Besides all that, there is NOT the kind of evidence that would sway a skeptic. Not. If there were, then a great many skeptics would have no room left to "live life as if not". Just like my example of endogenous retroviruses. You find evidence like that, then I am going to find it very difficult not to climb on board your train. Short of that, however, no dice. There is absolutely no reason.

that a transcendental signified guided evolution to the point where biological organisms like you and me are having this conversation, the fact that you could interpret everything in your periphery as quasi-accidental (no transcendent guide) makes it patently and perfectly clear that nothing, absolutely nothing, need be interpreted by you as proof that there's a transcendent guide guiding history.

I think deep down in your heart (hahahaha - just kidding!) - seriously though, in your mind and thoughts I have to believe that you realize that it isn't that "absolutely nothing need be interpreted by [me] as proof" - its that no high-quality evidence is available to establish that proof. You know you aren't going to be getting any. I am sure this irks you... but it is certainly not my problem. Not by a long shot. It is the problem of those who would like to brandish a particular item with scant and very poor supportive evidence as if it were bonified truth. So it's your problem. Most certainly your problem. Good luck with that one.

In my opinion, that's the issue here. When I first opened my eyes to see, or at least as far back as I can remember, there was no doubt in my mind that someone or something clearly designed and created everything I saw and experienced. My growth and education only made that even more evident to me.

And even here... with this being "oh so important" to you (apparently), you can't even provide a single detail and are only increasingly vague. Why is that? When I speak of the research for "endogenous retroviruses", I can point people to papers, data - I can give a description of what the evidence is, what it means, how the processes work that result in these "paper-trails" of viral genetic makeup appearing in an organism. When you state that you "[know] someone or something clearly designed and created everything", you say things like "when I first opened my eyes" and that some amorphous things like "growth" and "education" only made that even more evident to you. That's trash. It isn't worth the electrons supporting the electrical currents used to put those words up on my screen.

But if someone opens their eyes as a child, and doesn't intuit that all the vast design characteristics of life and the world require a transcendent designer, then that lack of intuition is of a biblical nature, and dimension, that could never be adjusted since the evidence of a creator or designer is so great that not intuiting that immediately infers the possibility, the likelihood, that no amount of evidence, added to utterly, absolutely, sufficient evidence, will budge that mind from its initial state of lack of perception of a transcendent creator designer.

One doesn't start with knowledge like this. Sure... you can have built-in knowledge of the motions necessary to affect "swimming" - and you can have involuntary reaction like a hand placed to a hot stove - but absolutely nobody has "Jesus" roll of their tongue as their first word without A LOT of prompting. Do you get what I am saying? Sure - some semblance of a "god" may be common to a lot of people to come to for whatever reason - humans do seem to abhor huge mysteries of reality - but the SPECIFIC god that people choose to believe is "real"... that's entirely up for grabs. Entirely. And you don't get to that level of specificity without HUGE AMOUNTS OF HELP FROM THOSE AROUND YOU. A book you are given, and taught how to read, for example. Or your parents guiding you with their "knowledge" on the subject. Why is that? Why isn't the ACTUAL STORY much more succinctly demonstrable? Just think if in the realm of electrical work the "story" of how electricity operates and functions was different depending on which continent you were born in. Wouldn't that just be strange? And if the thing is consistent in operation, function, and behavior overall, then what could those extra and sometimes conflicting accounts even be for? How could they all be correct? They couldn't. That's the answer. And so we need some way to boil it down, and come to the correct one. Sadly... in the realm of "god knowledge" there is no such pot to boil down in. Everybody gets to be "right." Which is just bad business when you want to throw around terms like "truth" and hope that they stick.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I think I understand what you're saying. But my position might be slightly different than other's you may have debated this with. My position is that those who don't believe in God can't be made to believe in God through argumentation, or evidence, since the evidence for God is so complete, so absolute, that not believing in God from the start makes a conversion based on logic, evidence, experience, completely impossible since there's more than ample evidence for God at every turn such that not seeing it isn't a learning issue or deficit; it's something else.

Not buying this in the slightest. It makes absolutely no sense... since there are PLENTY of things that have been observed and recorded for our usage for which the evidence is "so complete, so absolute." Items like the idea that any triangle's internal angles all sum to 180 degrees. You can't draw a triangle that doesn't conform to this. God couldn't even do it! Haha. Or how about the germ theory of disease, whereby we have demonstrated that there are tiny organisms that exist which can infect us and cause a whole host of issues. We've developed our knowledge such that we can study these things, develop strategies for combating them, and give people best-case advice on how to deal with a great many maladies caused by them. Is our knowledge 100% complete? No! But that doesn't stop the evidence and absolute truth of many items within that body of knowledge from being demonstrated, simply, by the advice working, or the ability to affect the situation being proven time and time again. God isn't like this. The realm of knowledge about God isn't like this. Not even close.

I once told a theist that they would likely claim that God is more intrinsic and obvious to the universe than my dog. And yet, I pointed out that I can hear my dog snoring from across the room. And I could get up and go over and pet my dog, see its reactions as it wagged its tail, ask it if it wanted to go for a walk, actually take it for a walk and introduce it to my neighbors, etc. etc. etc. - and then pointed out that I couldn't even affect 1 MILLIONTH of that type of interaction with any "God" that might supposedly maybe exist. Do you know what they said? All they said was "Yes, I would say that God is more intrinsic and obvious than your dog." That's all they had. They couldn't hear God snoring from across the room. They couldn't take God for a walk and introduce Him to the neighbors. They knew they couldn't, and yet they went right ahead asserting that God was more present in my reality than my dog. Preposterous! Absolute stupidity of the highest degree! Asinine, to no end moronic ravings of lunacy! Buyah!

This doesn't suggest that intelligent people who don't believe in God can't come to see the obviousness of God. It just means its impossible through empiricism, logic, argumentation, or rationalism. Otherwise they would have already believed in God. They're not, after all, stupid, or blind to reality.

There is nothing in this paragraph worth addressing, honestly. You've said nothing or import or profundity. This is basically the same as The Bible saying some crap like "There will be people who don't believe you... but take heart! Yours is the righteous path!" Specious nonsense attempting to ameliorate the bad situation that a believer KNOWS THEY ARE IN.

For an intelligent person who doesn't see or believe there's evidence for God to change that opinion can't be a educational event, a learning event, since they're often much smarter, better educated, and more perceptive than most of those who believe in God.

More nonsense...

What's required is that God reach down and remove whatever it is that makes them not see him such that now they do see him where before they didn't.

Yet more...

Willliam James' famous, The Varieties of Religious Experience, gave numerous case studies of just what I'm saying: brilliant, scientifically attuned men, who were atheists, experiencing conversions that they realized had nothing to do with their education, observations, logic, knowledge, but which they experienced vividly, and with earth-shattering, life-long, results.

Conversions to what? And how were they certain that they had reached the correct conclusions? Does that somehow not matter in this realm of supernatural and deific affectation? Doesn't matter if you're correct? Doesn't matter who or what you pray to? I am pretty sure that you wouldn't be willing to state, definitively, that it "doesn't matter." And therein lies your (and any of these foolish atheist converters') ultimate problem.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

The problem with knowledge and or experience not having a transcendent or transcendental signifier is that if it does, and we don't intuit that, we're broken beyond repair

And here we go again... you just stating things that you think sound good, or interesting. What does it MEAN to be "broken beyond repair?" What issues can one expect to suffer from being "broken" in this way? What happens? Are you even willing to discuss it? Do you even really have anything to discuss? I am willing to bet you DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT THAT FAR. If I am right about that, then please think about that.

, whereas if it doesn't, we literally can't know what we know for certain we know.

As I have told others previously who may have wanted to posit that, for all we know, we may be "living in a simulation" - that doesn't matter. It simply doesn't. We're BOUND to react, and need to react to the REALITY WE ARE PRESENTED WITH. Not some other reality... not "what one of us would like the universe to be." You react to the reality we are presented with. And within that "we" there are specific things that any of us can have demonstrated to us, succinctly, and without fanfare... and there are specific things that CANNOT be demonstrated to even have a single succinct component to them, and that CANNOT be found to maintain any sort of "presence" in the world without a whopping TON of fanfare.