Bustin' on the Jesus Freaks...

[DinoDoc]

Then you quite frankly are going to have to put up with the increased possibility that your daughter may become a Christian. I don't really see anyway around that.

[JohnT]

Good, effective parenting.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by JohnT
Good, effective parenting.

... wouldn't have allowed a minor violation of IP (if that) to serve as an outlet for the anxieties one feels about raising a child.

[JohnT]

Fah! That, as already noted, wasn't the only reason I turned the thieves in. It's just the... nobler-sounding... reason.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
... wouldn't have allowed a minor violation of IP (if that) to serve as an outlet for the anxieties one feels about raising a child.

I dont know. Whatever serves to help us think about and understand our anxieties is good, I think.

[DinoDoc]

I'd pay good money to be there when Sophie asks John if she can go to church with her friend.

[Wiglaf]

Please note that we named the child "Sophia", which means "wisdom" in the original Greek. This wasn't done by mistake - we wanted a common first name, not Christian, that meant something that was important to us. If we wanted to help her be susceptable to supernatural bull****, we would've called her "Mysticia" or something.

We didn't fully escape the Christian heritage in her middle name, "Caroline", which to many people refers to carols. However, we found references to old-English definitions of "Caroline" as "joyful song", which to us was perfect: Wisdom, joy, and music is the foundation of our childs name, not gullibility, backwardness, and mysticism.

Yeah..go JohnT, you can make fun of Christians while acting overly self-important. That's never been done before. (Although, to give you credit, I don't think anyone has been so vapid and useless as to brag about it on the internet)

I also don't think you're very intelligent, so it's especially humorous that you can dismiss thousands of years of theology as "backwards" while you dine at Chili's and grin wildly while fellow nerds express their support for you. As soon as people start referring to everything with such general and insulting flair, then we'll really be getting somewhere in America, won't we John?

[JohnT]

Touched a nerve, eh Wiglaf?

Why don't you rail on the church for violating the eighth commandment? Or for violating the "render unto Caesar..." law spoken by Jesus (after all, regardless of whether you like it, copyright restrictions are the law of the land)?

Because, like I said and you tacitly agreed in your SpongeBob example: it's not what I did it's to whom I did it.

And the fact that I neither need nor want supernatural and mystical reasons to form an ethos of behaviour: is that a reason for you to drop all pretense and start acting in opposition of your stated beliefs? Whatever happened to the Golden Rule in Wiglaf's life?

[Wiglaf]

Theft would be, you know, actual copyright infringement. Like Google profiting from news sources it does not credit. Not like, you know, people at Chili's wearing slightly modified "Incredibles" T-shirts ;

And you had exclusively in a post railed on Christianity, which is what this thread is all about.

[Agathon]

Please note that we named the child "Sophia", which means "wisdom" in the original Greek. This wasn't done by mistake - we wanted a common first name, not Christian, that meant something that was important to us. If we wanted to help her be susceptable to supernatural bull****, we would've called her "Mysticia" or something.

As someone who does Greek philosophy, I have to giggle at this. For virtually all the major Greek thinkers ????? is a religious notion, and most of them were very religious people. The Greek philosophical concept of ????? has more in common with Christian notions of the state of bliss than people tend to think. When people assume that Athens is necessarily opposed to Jerusalem, they are making a mistake: there is a fair degree of overlap.

IIRC the gnostics made extensive use of the concept. Nice one JohnT – giving your child a very religious name.

[JohnT]

Eh, in another thread you were the one who pointed out the Greek etymological origins of the name Sophie (though, admittedly, not in detail.) So you were in agreement with me then, but are not now.

Get your facts together: Consistency, man, consistency! Is it too much to ask?

From the link:

Sophia
Gender: Girl
Pronunciation: so-FEE-ah
Origin: Greek
Meaning: "Wisdom."
Notes: Used in English-speaking countries since the 17th century. The famou Isatanbul mosque Hagia Sofia was once a Christian church. Sophie is the French form.

[Last Conformist]

It's got nice Christian connotations, too, BTW; Hagia Sophia and all that.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
It's got nice Christian connotations, too, BTW; Hagia Sophia and all that.

Noted. Why don't you wait for the DanSing before you post.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by JohnT
Eh, in another thread you were the one who pointed out the Greek etymological origins of the name Sophie. So you were in agreement with me then, but are not now.

Get your facts together!

No. I agree with you. σοφία is a lovely word. In some respects it is anti-religious, since it is a philosophical ideal rather than a religious one. But in Greek philosophy there is a blurring of boundaries between the philosophical and religious. For example, neoplatonists would regard wisdom as being acheived by an ecstatic union with the Godhead. For Plato, Socrates and Aristotle σοφία is a valuable state precisely because it is in some respects Godlike.

Straight from the horse's mouth:

If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us. Whether it be reason or something else that is this element which is thought to be our natural ruler and guide and to take thought of things noble and divine, whether it be itself also divine or only the most divine element in us, the activity of this in accordance with its proper virtue will be perfect happiness. That this activity is contemplative we have already said.

Now this would seem to be in agreement both with what we said before and with the truth. For, firstly, this activity is the best (since not only is reason the best thing in us, but the objects of reason are the best of knowable objects); and secondly, it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything. And we think happiness has pleasure mingled with it, but the activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities; at all events the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness, and it is to be expected that those who know will pass their time more pleasantly than those who inquire. And the self-sufficiency that is spoken of must belong most to the contemplative activity. For while a philosopher, as well as a just man or one possessing any other virtue, needs the necessaries of life, when they are sufficiently equipped with things of that sort the just man needs people towards whom and with whom he shall act justly, and the temperate man, the brave man, and each of the others is in the same case, but the philosopher, even when by himself, can contemplate truth, and the better the wiser he is; he can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers, but still he is the most self-sufficient. And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace. Now the activity of the practical virtues is exhibited in political or military affairs, but the actions concerned with these seem to be unleisurely. Warlike actions are completely so (for no one chooses to be at war, or provokes war, for the sake of being at war; any one would seem absolutely murderous if he were to make enemies of his friends in order to bring about battle and slaughter); but the action of the statesman is also unleisurely, and-apart from the political action itself-aims at despotic power and honours, or at all events happiness, for him and his fellow citizens-a happiness different from political action, and evidently sought as being different. So if among virtuous actions political and military actions are distinguished by nobility and greatness, and these are unleisurely and aim at an end and are not desirable for their own sake, but the activity of reason, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in serious worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself (and this augments the activity), and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as this is possible for man), and all the other attributes ascribed to the supremely happy man are evidently those connected with this activity, it follows that this will be the complete happiness of man, if it be allowed a complete term of life (for none of the attributes of happiness is incomplete).

But such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue. If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything. This would seem, too, to be each man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It would be strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but that of something else. And what we said before' will apply now; that which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing; for man, therefore, the life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man. This life therefore is also the happiest.

[JohnT]

Godlike?

That pretty much sums up my daughters opinion of herself.

Nice passage. I'll email it to her mother, see what she thinks. Thanks!