For a while, I've been posting in an apologetics group on Facebook. There are a handful of users who can be counted on to post very bad, anti-atheist image macros.
This last one was stupid to the point of incoherence and self refutation. Also, watch this motherfucker dodge the questions like a motherfucker.
OP: <posts picture showing the vastness of possible knowledge followed up with "Now tell me again how without revelation from God that you could not be wrong about everything you know".
Me: Tell me how you could know that a revelation from God actually came from God. Tell me how you could know it is accurate.
OP: That is not the question at hand Rob. (dodge)
Me: It absolutely is. The picture claims that you cannot know anything without revelation from God. True or not, I also asser that you cannot know anything WITH a revelation from God, as made evident by my two questions.
OP: Not so Rob, and it is disingenuous for you to make that assertion. (disingenuous asshole calls me disingenuous. Also, dodge.)
Me: Dead serious: how can you know that a "revelation" you get is from God? Even if you did know that (which you can't), how could you know that the revelation is correct?
You can assume both are the case, but you can't know them. If you feel I'm wrong, please explain why. How could you KNOW either?
OP: Without revelation from God you have no basis for reason, logic and all things metaphysical.
So the onus in the op is on the atheist to provide a basis for that and not just assertion.
If you will not answer the question posed, start your own op. (bullshit assertion + dodge)
Me: "Without revelation from God you have no basis for reason, logic and all things metaphysical. "
Incorrect. This is simply an assertion with nothing to back it. There, I addressed it for you. Two other points regarding your OP:
1) You are correct that I cannot fully know anything. No one can. That's the weird thing about our reality.
2) The catch is, while we can't ever "fully" know anything, you also cannot fully know if a revelation you get is from God, and whether or not it is correct.
So, yes, I was addressing your OP, just not in the way you like. It starts with a fundamental truth (that we can't really KNOW anything), and then puts that assertion on the shelf in a form of special pleading to say that people with special, nonfalsifiable, hidden knowledge CAN know things.
OP: Yet I can point to a source for these metaphysical realities and you can point to time + chance = universe.
....and you think my position is logical? (dodge)
Me: I don't think you realize how incoherent argument that picture is making. It's saying that knowledge that doesn't come from divine revelation is questionable, and knowledge that does isn't. Now, according to that picture, the knowledge necessary to make the first premise came from one of two places: divine relveation, or something else.
If it came from divine revelation, the premise is circular (you know you have a divine revelation if you have a divine revelation).
If it didn't come from divine revelation, then according to the image itself, THAT STATEMENT IS QUESTIONABLE.
It's either a circular assertion (who cares?) or incoherently self defeating (who cares?).
OP: In your world view, why is circular reasoning wrong? (fucking really?)
Me: It isn't necessarily wrong. It's an informal logical fallacy, which means you can't use it to assert your view is correct. Right how, your claims are sort of in limbo, waiting for something to bolster them other than logical fallacies.
He never responded after that. He tends to do this sort of thing a lot.
This last one was stupid to the point of incoherence and self refutation. Also, watch this motherfucker dodge the questions like a motherfucker.
OP: <posts picture showing the vastness of possible knowledge followed up with "Now tell me again how without revelation from God that you could not be wrong about everything you know".
Me: Tell me how you could know that a revelation from God actually came from God. Tell me how you could know it is accurate.
OP: That is not the question at hand Rob. (dodge)
Me: It absolutely is. The picture claims that you cannot know anything without revelation from God. True or not, I also asser that you cannot know anything WITH a revelation from God, as made evident by my two questions.
OP: Not so Rob, and it is disingenuous for you to make that assertion. (disingenuous asshole calls me disingenuous. Also, dodge.)
Me: Dead serious: how can you know that a "revelation" you get is from God? Even if you did know that (which you can't), how could you know that the revelation is correct?
You can assume both are the case, but you can't know them. If you feel I'm wrong, please explain why. How could you KNOW either?
OP: Without revelation from God you have no basis for reason, logic and all things metaphysical.
So the onus in the op is on the atheist to provide a basis for that and not just assertion.
If you will not answer the question posed, start your own op. (bullshit assertion + dodge)
Me: "Without revelation from God you have no basis for reason, logic and all things metaphysical. "
Incorrect. This is simply an assertion with nothing to back it. There, I addressed it for you. Two other points regarding your OP:
1) You are correct that I cannot fully know anything. No one can. That's the weird thing about our reality.
2) The catch is, while we can't ever "fully" know anything, you also cannot fully know if a revelation you get is from God, and whether or not it is correct.
So, yes, I was addressing your OP, just not in the way you like. It starts with a fundamental truth (that we can't really KNOW anything), and then puts that assertion on the shelf in a form of special pleading to say that people with special, nonfalsifiable, hidden knowledge CAN know things.
OP: Yet I can point to a source for these metaphysical realities and you can point to time + chance = universe.
....and you think my position is logical? (dodge)
Me: I don't think you realize how incoherent argument that picture is making. It's saying that knowledge that doesn't come from divine revelation is questionable, and knowledge that does isn't. Now, according to that picture, the knowledge necessary to make the first premise came from one of two places: divine relveation, or something else.
If it came from divine revelation, the premise is circular (you know you have a divine revelation if you have a divine revelation).
If it didn't come from divine revelation, then according to the image itself, THAT STATEMENT IS QUESTIONABLE.
It's either a circular assertion (who cares?) or incoherently self defeating (who cares?).
OP: In your world view, why is circular reasoning wrong? (fucking really?)
Me: It isn't necessarily wrong. It's an informal logical fallacy, which means you can't use it to assert your view is correct. Right how, your claims are sort of in limbo, waiting for something to bolster them other than logical fallacies.
He never responded after that. He tends to do this sort of thing a lot.
