Who are happier -- Christians or Atheists?

Quote: FrGamble

Well said. What a great mystery of love!

The only mystery is that somebody thinks
a god, who cannot die, who is all knowing
and all seeing, dies. That's like walking on
a hot bed of coals with your shoes on and
claiming it's the same as doing it barefooted.

If there was a god (there isn't) and he let himself
be born as a man (he didn't), and he knew
everything that would happen, including his
own resurrection, where is the sacrifice? To
sacrifice, you have to give up something
meaningful to you. God was Jesus and Jesus
was god, the fix was is in, as they used to say.

Magic tricks like this don't count for anything
in the real world, only in the world self delusion
and denial.

Quote: FrGamble

To decide is to cut off or kill other options, to sacrifice the other choices one could have made.

Picture this: I'm standing outside a casino with $100 in my hand and a priest seeking donations for the poor is asking for money. There are a number of things I could do. I could give the priest my $100, I could go shopping for jewelery, I could gamble $100 at craps, or I could take out a lighter and burn the $100 in front of the priest.

Since doing the latter "sacrifices" all other options, it is the most virtuous, yes?

I apologize for the ridiculous argument, but it's necessary by a ridiculous premise.

Quote:

In making his escape he is sacrificing his one room Hilton and comfort because he has made a decision.

On the one hand a life sentence in a horrible prions, toadying up to the guards and making Norton's dirty work forever. On the other hand freedom.

Some sacrifice.

Here, if I give you a choice between food and poison, would you say choosing food is a sacrifice?

Quote: FrGamble

No one, least of all me is saying anything remotely close to what you are saying here.

Let me make this perfectly clear:

If a man even so much as whispered that loving me is any kind of sacrifice, I'd dump him as fast as I could. Because later who knows what he would sacrifice me for.

Quote: Nareed

Picture this: I'm standing outside a casino with $100 in my hand and a priest seeking donations for the poor is asking for money. There are a number of things I could do. I could give the priest my $100, I could go shopping for jewelery, I could gamble $100 at craps, or I could take out a lighter and burn the $100 in front of the priest.

Since doing the latter "sacrifices" all other options, it is the most virtuous, yes?

I apologize for the ridiculous argument, but it's necessary by a ridiculous premise.

Apology accepted. It is ridiculous. Do you think "sacrifice" is always virtuous even if what you sacrifice is a good? If you choose to sacrifice a good to do something wasteful do you think that somehow the magic of it being a sacrifice takes away the stupidity of it?

Quote:

On the one hand a life sentence in a horrible prions, toadying up to the guards and making Norton's dirty work forever. On the other hand freedom.

Some sacrifice.

Here, if I give you a choice between food and poison, would you say choosing food is a sacrifice?

Here again you are talking about choosing between a value and a non-value - that is not sacrifice. Would you choose cooking or watching hockey? It's obvious. However, would you choose cooking or visiting a sick relative in the hospital? Both are competing goods one directly benefits you the other another person. It would be a small sacrifice for you to forgo what you might normally want to do to visit your sick friend. It might not feel like a sacrifice to you, especially if you loved your friend very much, but it would be choosing a good for others over a good for yourself.

Also you would be amazed about how many people in Andy's situation will take the comfort over even freedom. Especially when freedom comes as such a high risk of every day worrying about being discovered and wondering will I be able to crawl through that pipe or die in a sewer. Andy was able to reject the temptation of the evil warden who thought he could keep Andy happy with a pretend version of freedom. Andy's values wouldn't accept false freedom, he got to the point where whatever sins he had committed he had paid for and then some. He choose, much to the wardens surprise, to sacrifice these privileges for true freedom, no matter what it cost. What a great movie!

Quote: Nareed

Let me make this perfectly clear:

If a man even so much as whispered that loving me is any kind of sacrifice, I'd dump him as fast as I could. Because later who knows what he would sacrifice me for.

That is because you always view sacrifice as negative. What if he whispered that he wants to be with you and you alone for the rest of his life?

Bob, it is very clear that you don't want to even to attempt to understand the theology behind the sacrifice of Jesus and since you clearly know everything there is about God already why don't we just focus on the simpler philosophical idea. If someone gave something to you of value it has a worth to you that is separate from what it cost the giver. I think you do understand at least the basics of Christianity that Jesus sacrificed His life so that you your sins can be forgiven and you can live forever in the joys of Heaven. Now, even if Jesus dying on the cross was easy for Him (it wasn't) how does that effect the potential value to you (if you believed)?

Quote: FrGamble

Bob, it is very clear that you don't want to even to attempt to understand the theology behind the sacrifice of Jesus and since you clearly know everything there is about God already why don't we just focus on the simpler philosophical idea. If someone gave something to you of value it has a worth to you that is separate from what it cost the giver. I think you do understand at least the basics of Christianity that Jesus sacrificed His life so that you your sins can be forgiven and you can live forever in the joys of Heaven. Now, even if Jesus dying on the cross was easy for Him (it wasn't) how does that effect the potential value to you (if you believed)?

I'll reply to this in the Jesus thread.

Quote: FrGamble

That is because you always view sacrifice as negative.

Yeah, I also always view cockroaches as pests, food as nutritious, water as wet, fire as hot and light as bright.

Quote: FrGamble

Do you think "sacrifice" is always virtuous even if what you sacrifice is a good?

Sacrifice is never virtuous.

But you claimed all decisions are sacrifices. That's so ridiculous it borders on the inane.

Quote:

If you choose to sacrifice a good to do something wasteful do you think that somehow the magic of it being a sacrifice takes away the stupidity of it?

If you sacrifice anything you're foolish. If you demand sacrifices you're vicious.

Quote:

Also you would be amazed about how many people in Andy's situation will take the comfort over even freedom.

I used to be amazed. Then I realized that's why people go to church, synagogue, mosque, etc.

Quote: Nareed

Sacrifice is never virtuous.

But you claimed all decisions are sacrifices. That's so ridiculous it borders on the inane.

Come on now, I am only saying that to choose one thing is to not chose a host of other things, surely that is self-evident. When those decisions involve choosing between competing values that are both goods but one focused on your good and the other focused on the good of someone else then the potential for sacrifice is there.

Quote:

If you sacrifice anything you're foolish. If you demand sacrifices you're vicious.

It is beginning to sound like you are not even going to discuss this anymore. In a recent thread it sounded like you wanted to just stick your fingers in your ears and shout "it is what it is!" rather than perhaps look at something a new way.

We can reach common ground here. Some sacrifices are foolish and demanding sacrifices is vicious. But to say that when someone freely and lovingly chooses a good value that benefits another over a good value that benefits themselves is foolish or wrong is to deny the premise of every good story and to call foolish all our personal and cultural heroes.