Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Eddie Teach]

Berkut is correct; if you accept the basic tenets of Christianity, salvation trumps all other considerations. However, most modern Christians won't come out and say that.

[Jacob]

I don't think the author thought so...?

Nu?

Here's how I think the conversation went:

Beeb: Serious Christians would not argue that saving souls justifies doing terrible things. Serious Christians are those who know of and reference scripture in their arguments.

CC: But the guy was quoting scripture to support his argument that any miseries of residential schools were worth it since it brought people into Christianity (i.e. as per Beeb, he's doing the things that is evidence of being a serious Christian to argue for something serious Christian's would not support; an apparent contradiction).

MM: He didn't support his argument with those quotes, more like undermined it (implying he's not a serious Christian because he sucks at understanding scripture).

J: He thought he was supporting his argument though (implying that he at least thinks he's serious Christian even if you and Beeb disagree).

[grumbler]

Except I don't think I've ever said that TV televangelists, right-wing blowhards, or the like aren't Christians.  You say you believe in Christ, you're a Christian.  The Christian brand is decidedly mixed around the world, with both really high highs, and really low lows.

But I think you can make a distinction between a serious Christian and an unserious one.

What is the basis for that distinction?

Substituting "no serious Christian" for "no true Scotsman" doesn't make it any less a logical fallacy.

[Berkut]

I actually feel really bad for Barrister. He is a good guy trying to figure out how to square being a religious conservative with what modern religious conservatives have become.

He isn't willing to abandon his faith, nor is he willing to abandon his core identity as a "conservative", but keeps finding himself in company with a bunch of crazy, dangerous, immoral people. He is none of those things, but has to somehow square the reality that his political identity is tied up in modern fanaticism, and doesn't want to examine how that happened.

Oh good grief.  Just because I refuse to engage in debate with you lot when I get called names doesn't mean I'm incapable of introspection.

Nobody called you any names. Quite the opposite in fact - all the personal vitriol has come exclusively from you.

[Razgovory]

You guys have been attacking BB a lot recently.

[Berkut]

You guys have been attacking BB a lot recently.

I have not attacked Barrister at all recently.

Not agreeing with someone is not an attack, even if they feel like it is.

[Eddie Teach]

You did attack him in the other thread.

[Berkut]

No, I did not.

[DGuller]

Whether BB was attacked or not, he really needs to work on his "I'm done here" game.  He spends more time being done with an argument than being pre-done.

[crazy canuck]

You guys have been attacking BB a lot recently.

I criticized both the fact that he suggested part of the article was correct and the erroneous factual statements he made to support that conclusion.

He took it very personally.

That is on him.

[crazy canuck]

You did attack him in the other thread.

pfff, that was barely a Languish flesh wound.

[Valmy]

You guys have been attacking BB a lot recently.

He seems to be ready for battle at least.

[viper37]

That these were cemeteries, not mass graves.  Also true.  But also that the government and churches made zero effort to maintain those cemeteries (the graves of which were adorned with simple wooden crosses) so the locations were very quickly lost.

back then, only rich people could afford a tombstone.  My great grandparents on my father's side don't have one because the family was too poor to afford it.

[viper37]

In fact, setting the baseline of deaths overall at a very high level is the first point raised after saying the current narrative in the media is "entirely made up".

First, we have always known that many children died in the residential schools, which were active through the 19th and 20th centuries. Child mortality was relatively high during that period to begin with; Indian mortality overall was astronomically high; and the Church-run schools for native children were systemically underfunded by the government, resulting in subpar facilities and inadequate medical care.

mortality was high because Indians were put on reservations and not fed taken care of thereafter.  Most of these people were nomads, following the bisons or reindeers, depending where they were.  Then the bisons were no more.  And they were forced to sedentary life styles in places where agriculture was extremely hard to perform. And then there are the epidemics transmitted by the whites, unwittingly that adds up.  And the experiment in maltrunition in the boarding schools, under the guise of science.  It will be hard to distinguish what was the result of neglect what was unavoidable mortality for the time.

[viper37]

You guys have been attacking BB a lot recently.

I criticized both the fact that he suggested part of the article was correct and the erroneous factual statements he made to support that conclusion.

he specifically quoted the parts that were wrong and said so, as well as telling us which part was partially right: the high indian mortality of the time.

I don't see anything wrong with it.