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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   4633 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 28, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Jesus dude. This is crazy talk, even by my low expectations regarding religious thinkers.

I think this is pretty mainstream, among some (large) segments of Christianity?

It follows pretty quickly that we deserve hell if you just take sin seriously. When all sin is in some respect against God's infinite majesty, that makes sin pretty bad, even if it's something that we might ordinarily think of as minor. (I could cite some passages of scripture, but I get that you might not care.)

This makes salvation more breathtaking.

I'm here if you want to message or talk to someone.

If this is due to concern that I'm unwell, I'm not. I like to think I'm pretty well adjusted, I have friends, etc.

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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."

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