Re: Collaborative Ministry is the modern buzz word but is really a load of bun

Phil Saunders wrote:

[me, in response to Ken:]
Other than that they are younger and more flexible, and therefore
better able to reform;

[Phil:]
Do you have evidence that younger people are better able to reform? You
know the kinds that shows that a 16 year old is better able to reform than
a 20 year old.

[me:]
Nope.

[Phil:]
So your point is a guess?

If that's how you would like to put it, then yes. I'd be inclined
to call it "common knowledge", myself. (Of course "common knowledge"
is wrong sometimes.)

that they have more of their lives potentially
ahead of them, and are therefore wronged more severely by being
killed;

Since you cannot know how long they would have lived surely that is just
guessing?

No. If I steal from you a lottery ticket that pays out X with
probability p, then I do you a greater wrong than if I steal
one that pays out X/2 with probability p/2.

I don't see how the probability makes the wrong greater. It might mean that
they would lose more life but since we are talking about a very small group
the general probability is hardly relevant.

I don't understand your argument, I'm afraid.

In my lottery-ticket example, one ticket is better both in
winning probability and in payout. To make the analogy with
killing people more exact, it would be better to say that
ticket A pays out 10p with probability 80% and £10 with
probability 20%, whereas ticket B has the probabilities
the other way around. Ticket A is clearly worth more, and
taking it from me is clearly a greater harm, even though
we don't know yet how either will pay off.

and that the "offence" for which Deuteronomy here prescribes
the death penalty -- disobedience to one's parents -- is not one
that merits death in any civilized society. (Even assuming for the
sake of argument that there is such a thing as a civilized society
with the death penalty.)

You would be going along the "no true scotsman" line with this one then?

No. (I don't even see how I *could*.)

"in any civilized society" !!

OK, if you're worried that I'll pull a no-true-scotsman, just pretend
that I never said that bit. Disobedience to one's parents doesn't
merit death, full stop. And: killing people for disobeying their
parents is not civilized.

(I still don't see that I'm doing, or threatening to do, anything
fallacious here. The usual setup for the no-true-scotsman line is:
I say "Scotsmen are excellent; for instance, they never eat babies";
you show me a baby-eating Scotsman; I say "ah, well, he isn't a
proper Scotsman". If I were trying to defend the honour of
"civilized societies" here, saying that among their merits
is a disinclination to kill people for disobeying their parents,
then you might be right to worry; but that's not what I'm doing
at all.)

The person being stoned is one who is young enough to be meant
to "obey" his father and mother, and to be "chastised" by them.
The word "child", indeed, doesn't appear, but we certainly aren't
talking about anyone old enough to have left home or to be taking
charge of his own life.

Since honoring and obeying one's parents go far further in other cultures
than in ours your certainty is misplaced.

Please feel free to provide evidence, if you would like to.

The Bible for one.

Jesus was lecturing adults about how they had gotten round their obligations
to their parents by claiming that what was due to their parents was for the
temple.

No evidence there that those people were required to obey their
parents, or that Jesus thought they were.

Various OT characters who were bound by their parents wishes long after
childhood.

Could you give me an example or two of the sort of bound-by-ness
that you have in mind?

--
Gareth McCaughan
..sig under construc
.

Relevant Pages

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