The Glade 4.0

In this case, willful ignorance cuts both ways, and you shouldn't accuse me of it when you readily acknowledge that you choose to remain so, as well. Now, if you were to approach me with Christianity in the manner the author presents it, I'd listen. I'd at least give you an honest listen. The way this argument has gone, keep it to yourself, I'll pass.

Your accusations of lack of compassion quite stand on their own without the need of reading material to understand it though. And those accusations are what I was addressing, so on the topic I'm discussing, I don't think I'm ignorant at all.

Then there's no point in discussing it further with you. You list all the things you would do out of compassion, but fail when you walk past the beating victim lying in the ditch, because xyz. If that's the sort of situational Christianity you practice, I want no part of it.

Funny thing is, I'm betting the article isn't nearly what you seem to think it is. But you'll never know.

You say "There's no point in discussing it further" then follow up with yet another strawman logical fallacy. *scratches head*

That's probably because it wasn't a point of discussion, just a comment on how I perceive you to practice Christianity. *shrug*

There is no beating victim lying in the ditch in this case.

It's someone who has leaped off a cliff in the past, given significant amounts of charity, told "don't do that, you'll get hurt", and then does it again, and expects everyone to rush to his aid again when he willingly repeated the same action expecting different results with regards to him getting hurt.

Sometimes, unfortunately, people have to be hurt before they learn not to jump off cliffs. There is nothing within Christianity that disagrees with the notion that sometimes, people have to take their mistakes on the chin.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

You know... I really tried to not comment on this part, I figured my comment would be really off color and uncalled for... but you know... I really do not give a **** anymore.

So you, the FNG, comes to this board and now have the audacity to tell us [a community that has known eachother, shared our lives with eachother (some of us only for a few years, some of the older members for well over 10 years)] how we are, but then tell other people not to make the same assumptions of you?

At least Monty had the long term relationship to get up in people's interwebz like that... but you...

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Make all the assumptions you want, I really don't care. I only go by what you folks put out here. If having compassion for a man who did a dumb thing is something to be criticized for, that says more about you than me. At least I understand more than to stand around and watch his life go up in flames. If you can live with such a decision, that also says a lot about you.

However, I only commented that way because IMO Vindicarre said what he said as an attempt to deflect the discussion away fro the actual issue. The discussion is about men who would stand around with their hands in their pockets while a man's house burned down, and the BS excuses they come up with to try to justify themselves.

Much like Monty was... you have just found your way to the ignore feature.

You dismiss arguments on a feeling, regardless of what logic was used in any argument against you. You make presumptions against the members of this board. The powers that be say you are not Monty but you are arguing like he did. And I have no time for anyone like he was... hell or you for that matter. I will not suffer an upstart to ruin my board experience.

AMF.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

When you hold up a mirror for people to look in, you usually get 1 of 3 reactions, or a combination of the first two.

Either they don't like what they see so they start making excuses to justify themselves, or they attack the person holding the mirror, or a combo of those two. But the third is the person who honestly looks and says, "I can be better than this."

People who fall in the third category are the people worth getting to know.

Bye

Stupid needs to hurt so folks learn... so they CAN be "better".

He should have learned from his previous mistake, but he didn't. Hopefully, he'll learn and there won't be a next time... hopefully he'll learn before anyone gets hurt.

Sometimes people only learn when the cost of ignorance becomes too high.

I taught my kids to ride their bikes, and when they fell, I stood and watched. They needed to learn to get back up. Same thing when they got in fights later in life, I had to let them fight their own battles. When one of my kids got married and I didn't think he was ready, I still smiled and stood up and gave the bride away. And now that he's getting a divorce and he comes complaining about the cost of lawyers and how troubling it is for him, I pat him on his hand and tell him I love him, but I don't fix things for him 'cause he wouldn't learn from that.

Being a parent means raising a kid to be self-reliant. You can't pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire and teach them to be self-reliant at the same time. You may learn that some day, you may not... but for your kids sake, for the sake of those that you have influence with, I hope you do.

It's pretty selfish for you to deny someone the benefits of that lesson just so you feel good about yourself.

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In time, this too shall pass.

So, did you allow your kids to play in the street, so they could learn that lesson the hard way?

And that comment yet again demonstrates quite distinctly how willfully blind and ignorant you continue to be.

Or the fourth who says "Hey, get a rear mirror instead of the painting showing what you think of them instead of what they really are."

Which is what's happening in this case.

And yet the IAFF disagrees with the actions of those firefighters, and at least some Christian writers disagree, also. Defend them all you want, it's still just rationalization.

Another logical fallacy: Appeal to authority.

Oh, and a non sequitur to boot.

http://www.iaff.org/Comm/PDFs/SouthFulton.pdf

Yes, they do. Issued shortly after the incident. The facts are a little skewed and the Contacts name is a little amusing given the profession.

This is a polarizing issue, will continue to be so, and you aren't going to change each others mind. Positions have been duly noted.

Give it a rest.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

This has nothing to do with strict adherence to the law. The decision was up to the fire chief - as he (or his predecessor) had in fact decided to come put a fire out for this same guy under the same circumstances in the past.

The individual firefighters, as Christians, are also bound to obey civil authorities - Jesus never advocated rebellion, took great exception to people attempting to get him to do so, and even when pointing out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees still told the people to obey them, just not to do as they did.

Individual firefighters, moreover, do not decided to go fight a fire on their own. The must work as a coordinated team both for their own safety and to be effective.

You coulc make the cricticism that the chief should have, as a Christian, made this decision, but there are numerous problems:

1) The Chief might not be a Christian at all
2) The Chief is not, unlike the Samaritan, utilizing his own resources. He is utilizing the resources of the town. He also has a responsibility, both as Chief and as a Christian if he is one, to be a good steward of those resources (as discussed at length there is a serious risk of jeopardizing funding of the fire department)
3) The Chief is responsible for the safety of his men; risking the men for someone who did not pay the fee is another questionable action
4) The man has already been helped out once and still refused to pay the fee; this makes his status as someone in need of compassion questionable at best. Christianity is not an excuse for other people to abuse one's charity.
5) The man clearly had money, hence his offer to pay for the costs of the firefighting at the time, leading to the obvious conclusion that he had insurance or other means to replace the home, which, by the time he got around to calling (you may forget he had spent considerable time fighting the fire himself) was no doubt past saving anyhow since it was a moblie home. It does not show any lack of compassion to save one's help for those that lack the means to help themself when someone who has the means has refused to do so until an emergency arose.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I know you want to keep dragging the straw around in hopes others will let you make a man, but try to remember the parameters of the circumstances surrounding this issue - none were in danger of bodily harm.

Except, perhaps, if the firefighters had tried to rescue mere property. Then there would have been danger of bodily harm. You should really be more compassionate and consider that.

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In time, this too shall pass.

You are utterly ridiculous,

This is not the same as walking past the man in the ditch.

This is as if, after already rescuing the man from the ditch the first time, the Samaritan tells the man to go buy a sword before travelling in case of more robbers. The man not only doesn't buy a sword but goes and gets drunk before travelling (i.e. he decided to burn trash and elave the fire unattended). When robbers acost him a second time, he tries to fight them off with his fists, then sees the Samaritan coming up the road again and demands that the Samaritan come fight off the robbers for him, offering to pay. The Samaritan lets him get robbed again, then directs him to the nearest inn and tell him to pay for his own care this time since he evidently has money (despite the robbery) and didn't have the good sense to buy a sword with it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well, not *entirely* true. I at first had the position when hearing of this, that "Wow, they'd have to be awful cold hearted to let a house burn down over 75 bucks," but then after a little research into the facts, became much more sympathetic to the Fire Fighter's position. (Especially when seeing that it happened on the Kentucky/Tennessee border, since I'd lived in rural Kentucky for some time in one of those houses out of range of any fire fighting entity).

Fulton/South Fulton is right on the border (Fulton on the Kentucky side), and they seem to have a partnerships of sorts in covering what they can. They used to have more rural coverage than they did now, but in the early 90's had to cut it back because of funding issues. The Fulton Fire Department also had to take over Ambulance services, and have to work throughout the year to collect funding for it too.

There are a *lot* of areas out there pretty distant from any kind of town, that are beyond any Fire Dept's capability to cover, especially with their funding, and it sounds like that 75 dollar fee is a way for South Fulton to at least be able to afford to cover some rural areas which would otherwise out of their reach.

Do you even begin to grasp why this is irrelevant?

At all?

Do you not understand why your examples, and your attempt to simplify the issue down to "standing there with your hands in your pockets" is not convincing anyone?

Evidently you don't grasp how issues are discussed here. On this particular forum of this board, issues are discussed in terms of the facts and with attempts to apply logic and reason to understanding them. Sometimes we do better than others at this, but that's the general goal.

This guy Monty, who you are evidently only passingly familiar with having arrived right before his demise as a poster here, did, among his other atrocious habits, exactly what you are doing.

1) Attempted to oversimplify issues down to what had the strongest emotional impact. In this case, the mental image of firefighters not fighting a fire.
2) Along with that, failing to consider other, larger issues because they lacked a strong mental image. In this case
3) Impugning other people's religion even though he did not understand the faith in question by selectively picking biblical anecdotes and applying them according to his interpretation of what they meant and then dismissing anyone with mroe extensive knowledge of the Bible and Christianity as a whole who pointed out that it did not have the meaning he was ascribing to it
4) Loudly proclaiming moral castigation on people for disagreeing with his emotional assessment of 1) above
5) Getting all butt-hurt when people responded in kind to his moralizing

This is what led him to become the board butt monkey (among other bad habits) and why people were suspecting you were his sock puppet based on this thread.

If you want people to have regard for your opinions, you need to support them with reasoned argument. Simply posting an article is a good start, but you need to be able to defend that article, and in this case you're over your head because Christianity is not an area you seem to have much knowledge of.

At the very least, you need to address the larger issues surrounding this, such as fire department funding. When talking about what could happen in the future, as long as your prediction is reasonably relevant, you can get away with saying "it's my subjective analysis and prediction" and not get dogpiled like this.

When you just ignore those points, in favor of just repeating like a broken record that the image of firefighters not fighting a fire is repulzive to you, and then topping it off with lectures about how you don't want to know about Christianity because of that and because of irrelevancies like disagreement between Christians, you make little headway. It helps even less when you top that off by dredging up examples like "letting your children play in traffic", relying on the fiction that because Taskiss said that in relation to an incident like this, that he must mean it for any and all circumstances because he didn't explicitly qualify it. At that point, it's just trolling.

I have a feeling you're going to totally ignore this too, but I suppose at least I had enough compassion to try and explain why you're getting dogpiled.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

As Coren pointed out, this is an appeal to authority, Being an international association, the IAFF is not likely to be intimately familiar with the conditions of rural America. Like most such international organziations it tends to be heavily European and Europe is notorious for simply wondering why America isn't Europe while looking down its nose and failing to understand the differences.

Furthermore, obviously its rationalization. There is noting wrong with rationalization. The IAFF and the writer you cited are also rationalizing.

Claiming that something is "just rationalization" is essentially saying that "something is immoral because it appears immoral to me, and no amount of reasoned argument why it actually is not immoral will sway me because I think its immoral."

It is a form of circular reasoning.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There's another lesson I taught my kids that just came to mind...

Buy a ice cream cone for 2 kids and one kid drops his, you express sympathy but move on. Don't buy another cone.

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In time, this too shall pass.

And as I pointed out, a man fighting a house fire with a garden hose is in danger. Walls collapse, etc.

But, whatever. I'm sure the guy has learned his lesson, as well as a whole bunch of lessons you folks are unaware of and probably don't care about. If I were that fire dept, I wouldn't come around his house asking for donations to the fireman's fund.