Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 102
- 5
What is this place?
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are
appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy;
if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
If in doubt, please post it!
Rules
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
what do you mean by burning off horrible habits, how does that work? if somebody died having stolen on some occasions, burning in purgatory is not going to reverse any of the thefts he did. and once he gets into heaven why would he need to steal anyway and if he steals in heaven, there is nothing in christianity about being kicked out of heaven, and if there was, purgatory would no longer be needed by your rationalization. the real reason why purgatory is a tenet in christianity is that it provides further deterrence against people breaking its rules, which means it would be included the same whether or not there was a story about jesus dying on the cross to save us.
But if the religion contains contradictions, then it must be false, so why should I bother with it, and why are you lying to people about it?
I have never heard this notion that we owe something to Satan in christianity. And no, its not a convincing story that Jesus tricked Satan like that, because Jesus dying in the cross is not a price paid by anybody except Jesus.
Why not dole out the punishment to satan rather than to his only son? And if its out of love, the more compelling question is why not forgive without having to punish an innocent person?
The reason there are so many theories proposed is because it does not make sense, and that you need to throw a lot of flawed theories so that one is able to slip through the scrutiny filter of an inquirer because of his particular oversights.
God is so different from and incomprehensible from us, yet he seems to care a lot about what we do in our lives, funny how that works. In any case, the most reasonable explanation for why your religion does not make sense is because your religion is fraudulent.
Imagine the world as a reinforcement learning environment that's intended to produce Good Servants of God. Emphasis on willing to serve God. Now the thing is, God doesn't care at all about punishing anyone, it only cares about burning out whatever parts of one's personality that prevented them from obeying His rules. An evil person who rejected God completely will have only a few parts of his personality lifted into the Godhood. A nice person who sinned occasionally and was upset about it will have the sinning part of himself removed, as he wanted all along, and get uploaded mostly intact.
okay but parts of the personality are not burned, if you think that's a metaphor, then you should realize that catholics talk about people actually being burned in purgatory with all its pain, its understood to be a punishment and that is why believers are concerned about it.
in order to change somebody's personality, you need to rewire their brain, this should not be a painful process, and it prompts the question about why god did not do this in their first life.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link