Anyone wish to get back to Thucydides' damn thesis, which is why we're here in the first place?

What about 'If Jesus were alive today' and then work out where he would stand on all of the key issues facing society today based on what we knew about him 2000 years ago

He'd be Barack Obama, and equally f*cked as he was back then.

Thesis, kiddos?

I thought maybe Sacha Baron Cohen

I don't think Jesus would support of drone strikes, and Obama loves drone strikes. Loves 'em.

I feel that if we wish to discuss such matters, a new thread should be started. This guy's trying to get some ideas for his thesis. I'm pretty sure he doesn't need this nonsense.

+! to Timur for putting us all back on task.

Not being well acquainted with the academic field, I am a member of Rotary International, and I'm deeply interested in international microlending, and its capacity to address issues of food and water security and nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa. I'd be particularly interested in a comparison of microlending to IMF-style macrocredit programs. Has much academic work been done in this area (he asked ignorantly)?

Sacha Baron Cohen plays the BIg J! Booking the ticket now.

Aww, Timur you know it sounds good to you too.

With current levels of over-fishing across the globe the last thing we need is Jesus coming back.

YJ,

"Honestly, he's talking about metaphysics and the Eucharist to a physicist/atheist, so the idea is not going to earn a whole lot of initial regard"

Not to be pedantic, but I think you mean physicalist, not physicist. There are plenty of physicists who believe in the Eucharist.

Yes, the physicist part was to offset the metaphysics, atheist to offset Eucharist.

No, they aren't opposites, but when I hear somebody invoking metaphysics, I tend to brace myself for a load of crap on the incoming. I often attribute that reaction to my grounding in the empirical, which metaphysics, by definition, lacks.

Oh.

You're a physicist?

Ocatvious - Didn't Jesus just pull fish out of thin air? That should have no impact on current fish levels...

@Yellowjacket: Maybe you still haven't grasped this yet, but my entire thesis is a rational argument *against* transubstantiation, claiming that it is metaphysically impossible. My only point in this whole conversation was that you cannot really dismiss something as "garbage" or "lunacy" unless you can rationally say why you make that claim. So, I can say that transubstantiation is false because I have examined the arguments for it and believe that I can engage those arguments on their face and refute them. I *could* play devil's advocate and argue for transubstantiation, but that's not something I really want to spend time or effort on.

At the end of the day, I'm not trying to be a "pretentious asshole," I'm just trying to maintain rational dialogue.

@hecks: Well, I suppose technically you're right, nothing is metaphysically impossible. The specific argument I'm making is that the Catholic account of transubstantiation appropriates the Aristotelian terminology of substance and accident but uses those terms inconsistently with Aristotle's own philosophy of substance and accident, and thus that their account is internally inconsistent and thus impossible.

@semck: ya. Did you just think I was a ranting buffoon? Well, I can be :P


@ral: no I grasp just fine, and I think I've made it pretty clear that it's the need for close examination of tripe that I'm challenging here. I don't need to listen carefully to the arguments for astrology to dismiss them. Same goes with this. Personal experience with these matters allows me to spot nonsense of the faith-based kind pretty quickly.

If you ask a garbage man to examine your pail, he may not be able to identify everything inside it - but he sure knows it's trash.

@hecks

Quite a lot, least so far as I know. It's an interesting topic though. Microcredit is complex and interesting.

It's a weird picture. Not everyone who gets a loan should get one. But it's certainly better than the loan sharks that existed before, that much you can almost guarantee. Almost.

@Yellowjacket: I see where you're coming from. I suppose that if you come from a background in which the Eucharist in general is not something taken seriously, then you will not find it necessary to argue specifically against transubstantiation. This observation would then lead to a discussion of the validity of Christianity. And I'm sure that you have rational reasons that you would put forward against Christian claims, or even theistic claims in general.

I used to, but now I just point and laugh. As I said, it's not worth investing the energy to do anything more. I got done kicking that horse in my 20's. If I feel partial to entertaining logical argument on this matter I Instead just http://www.atheist-experience.com/ and get some chuckles in - these guys are far better at taking them seriously than I am.

Wait, you guys are arguing whether transubstantiation is possible, even theoretically? Transubstantiation is one of the greatest miracles. The wafer changing its very elemental composition? That requires protons to move around, nuclear fission, energy requirements that are devastating to the human body. It's been a few years since I had physics and calculated this for fun, but if I remember correctly, transubstantiation would be the equivalent of Hiroshima.

Well, my argument, as I've said, is metaphysical in nature: examining whether a thing can lose its substance and gain an entirely different substance, yet remain accidentally the same as the bread and wine supposedly do in transubstantiation. The physics of it are, I am sure, equally implausible.. but I suppose that's where the miracle stuff comes in.

@ralli,

"The specific argument I'm making is that the Catholic account of transubstantiation appropriates the Aristotelian terminology of substance and accident but uses those terms inconsistently with Aristotle's own philosophy of substance and accident, and thus that their account is internally inconsistent and thus impossible. "

There is always the possibility, isn't there, that they take the terms and use them inconsistently with Aristotle's philosophy, but that his usage was wrong, and they develop another (correct) philosophy on the same terms (but different uses)?

I'm not a Catholic, and I'm not saying that happens. It just doesn't seem you have ruled that out just by saying that they use the terms wrongly by Aristotelian lights.

@dub,

"The wafer changing its very elemental composition? That requires protons to move around, nuclear fission, energy requirements that are devastating to the human body. It's been a few years since I had physics and calculated this for fun, but if I remember correctly, transubstantiation would be the equivalent of Hiroshima."

But Catholics don't believe that the elements change around physically -- your computations were for naught! (Or, well, perhaps they were for some strain of Christianity that's much less popular than RCism, and which I'm not aware of). Again, I don't believe in transsubtantiation myself, but I'm just defending it from an attack that completely fails to land.

@YJ,

"@semck: ya. Did you just think I was a ranting buffoon? Well, I can be :P"

lol. No, but I just inferred you were more of a poli sci type from the kind of conversations you most readily participated in.

In fairness, though,

"I used to, but now I just point and laugh. As I said, it's not worth investing the energy to do anything more."

I have seen you get involved in these discussions even recently. ; )

Well, very few people come around like redhouse recently did and ask questions directly in my professional wheelhouse. And when they do, it's probably not a debate, it's me explaining how things work. So I talk about other stuff that interests me.

re: discussions, You sure I wasn't just trolling? I love engaging with the faithful, but it's mostly just to get cheap shots in (see various discussions with mutejus, for example, in one of which you had some participation). I don't think I've had a real theological debate with anybody here. If you need further convincing, you can check the long running "great debate" thread,"from which you'll notice my presence has been blessedly absent (much to the relief of all involved, I'm sure).

I could be wrong, in fairness :) my memory is not so good - especially when I'm wrong.

Sorry, I cannot accept an argument that goes "the thing itself is no different physically, but its substance is." That's mincing words, and Jesus said to let your yes be yes and your no be no. #JesusWasAPrescriptivist

"Well, very few people come around like redhouse recently did and ask questions directly in my professional wheelhouse."

Fair enough. Likewise, obviously. Just missed that fact. Good to know.

"re: discussions, You sure I wasn't just trolling?"

lol, yeah. It was our one with Dexter Morgan and others over a year ago (I think), involving various arguments. I'll PM you more detail about what was involved.

@dub,

"Sorry, I cannot accept an argument that goes "the thing itself is no different physically, but its substance is." That's mincing words, and Jesus said to let your yes be yes and your no be no. #JesusWasAPrescriptivist"

That's fine, dub. That's actually an argument that addresses what Catholics say they believe -- unlike your prior argument.

It's not a particularly GOOD argument, but it's at least an argument (and it's not a completely awful one, either. Mostly, the reference to Jesus is weak in this context).

haha OK, I love reading old posts I'd forgotten about.

@semck: "There is always the possibility, isn't there, that they take the terms and use them inconsistently with Aristotle's philosophy, but that his usage was wrong, and they develop another (correct) philosophy on the same terms (but different uses)?"

This is exactly what the Catholic philosophers want to do. The only way they can defend transubstantiation is with the language of substance and accident, which basically works like this: every discrete thing is a substance, which is what it formally is, and every substance has accidents which inhere in it but are not essential to it. Aristotle's conception of accidents is such that accidents can only exist if they inhere in a substance. The problem of transubstantiation is that the accidents (the taste, smell, feel) of bread remain but the substance of the bread is gone, and it would be very odd to say that the accident of bread-taste now inheres in the subject of Christ's body. So, yes, the Catholic philosophers want to overturn the Aristotelian thought that accidents can only inhere in a subject, and the subject of my thesis is that there is no metaphysical way to conceive of accidents as existing independent of any substance in which those accidents can inhere.

@dubmdell: "Sorry, I cannot accept an argument that goes "the thing itself is no different physically, but its substance is." That's mincing words, and Jesus said to let your yes be yes and your no be no."

I think that's exactly right.