(November 22, 2010 at 1:08 am)Arcanus Wrote: ....the only way a proposed deity can account for all features argued [by the Transcendental Argument] is by fine-tuning the definition of said deity until it possesses all the properties of X.

Well well, looky there. Oh, I'm sure you meant all proposed deities except yours.

Quote:But since this gets away from young-earth creationism and dinosaurs, this is not the thread for exploring such issues.

C'mon this is Atheist Forums. Damned near every thread derails into a thread about something else. I do believe establishment of a creator is relavant to a discussion of creationism, is it not?

Quote:That would require examining your IPU theology, which has not been done. But since it is admitted as a parody religion;

I guess you missed that part that said "Humor me for a minute and say (for the sake of arguement)........." The point of compelling reason and evidence is the 'gist' of my inquiries, not the IPUs themselves. However I do believe you know this and are simply engaging in diversion.

Dotard Wrote:There exists no contradictory evidence for the existence of invisible dancing gnomes in my backyard. Is it rational to believe they exist?

Quote:The rationality of a belief is not determined by the absence of contradicting evidence (though that helps) but by the presence of supporting evidence or reason for said belief.

Well neat-o! I've been waiting, and searching, for approx. 28 years for some of that supporting evidence or reason. Found none and none has been presented to me that could not be easily applied to any God or supernatural entity. i.e. Transcendental Argument.


Side note: When responding to me, if it'll save ya a bit of time, I really don't give a fuk about who got credit for saying (writing) what. As Joe Liberman said....., As D.H. Lund said...., as Abraham Lincon said..... means nothing to me if Joe, Frank, Abraham, Arcanus, whoever said something. What matters is the meat of the citation, that does not change, nor give extra credence, based on who said it. It carries equal meaning whether said by a well known person or said by a unknown street bum.

(November 22, 2010 at 10:38 am)Dotard Wrote: [quote='Arcanus' pid='106492' dateline='1290402517']


C'mon this is Atheist Forums. Damned near every thread derails into a thread about something else. I do believe establishment of a creator is relavant to a discussion of creationism, is it not?

This thread is supposed to be about Dinosaurs, not Creation Science in general. Though it's been quite entertaining watching Arcanus school you guys in this discussion.

Unlike you, who couldn't school a banana, let alone even a grade school child. With such a deficiency, perhaps Arcanus contributing is an act of charity on the behalf of a certain retard who plays an epic game of poor to nonexistent definitions and goal post moving.

Quote:Creation Science in general

An oxymoron if ever there was one.

(November 22, 2010 at 5:10 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:Creation Science in general

An oxymoron if ever there was one.

An intellectual crime whose prepetrator could be lobotomized at no loss to society whatsoever.

(October 18, 2010 at 1:19 am)Loki_999 Wrote: Well, at Statler Waldorf's suggestion, because he seems to believe dinosaurs are not relevant to his discussion about the age of the earth, here is a new thread for this topic.

Ok Statler Waldorf - go for it, tell us about the dinosaurs. Tell us your scientific explanations about their existence (or non-existence?!) and how this fits in with a young earth.

I think you know the position of most people here is that we accept current thinking on their existence and age of the planet etc.

This an explanation some creationists will give about dinosaurs. The name dinosaur has only been in existence for 200 years or so. Before then they were called dragons or behemoths (see my bible quote below). How did they survive the flood may you ask?, well Noah put baby dinosaurs into the ark instead of adult ones.

Job 40:15-24
‘Look at Behemoth,
which I made just as I made you;
it eats grass like an ox.
Its strength is in its loins,
and its power in the muscles of its belly.
It makes its tail stiff like a cedar;
the sinews of its thighs are knit together.
Its bones are tubes of bronze,
its limbs like bars of iron.
‘It is the first of the great acts of God—
only its Maker can approach it with the sword.
For the mountains yield food for it
where all the wild animals play.
Under the lotus plants it lies,
in the covert of the reeds and in the marsh.
The lotus trees cover it for shade;
the willows of the wadi surround it.
Even if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened;
it is confident though Jordan rushes against its mouth.
Can one take it with hooks
or pierce its nose with a snare?

(November 22, 2010 at 4:57 am)orogenicman Wrote: Anecdotal evidence is not scientific. As I pointed out to you before (and you brushed it aside), personal revelation, the very foundation of Christianity, is by definition first-person. As such, no one is under any obligation to believe one man's personal revelation over another's. And, as such, science doesn't rely on them as evidence of anything. 10 anecdotes are no better than one, and 100 no better than ten.

What the fuck does that have to do with what I wrote?

Where did I ever suggest anecdotal evidence is scientific? Nowhere. Where did I ever suggest that one's anecdotal evidence should be persuasive for someone else? Again, nowhere. Where did I ever suggest that science does, or even should, rely on anecdotes as evidence of anything? Once again, nowhere.

In other words, all of that had sweet fuck all to do with what I had actually written. Thanks for regaling us so irrelevantly with such vociferous screed. The Straw Man fallacy consists of attacking a position that is different from or weaker than your opponent's actual position, but I'm not sure what fallacy is committed when you fabricate some completely different and ridiculously asinine position your opponent has never held but you nevertheless pretend he does.

I habitually "brush aside" such brain-farted irrelevance as that. Get used to it.

orogenicman Wrote:This is also where I invariably hear Christians claim that God is outside of our physical realm and, as such, cannot be empirically tested. And if that is (rather conveniently) the case, then there is no empirical test that can be devised to prove this God's existence. And so the idea of testing for the existence of God is a non-starter.

Thanks for repeating the very fucking point I was making (along with Michael Shermer)? God forbid you should just quote the point and say, "I agree"—as if by repeating the very point you can pretend it was your own valuable contribution to the discussion.

orogenicman Wrote:In addition, if this deity is outside the realm of reality in which we mete out our existence, then it seems to me that he could be defined as an alien. And so the question that comes to my mind is, what vested interest does this alien being who doesn't reside in our world have in our world?

Are you so exquisitely out of touch with what Christianity teaches that you cannot even answer that question? Some experience with thoughtful skeptics and critical thinkers would soon teach you that before a person rejects a position he should at least be familiar with its most elementary teachings first—so as to know what it is he's rejecting. If you truly don't know what the answer is to that question, then that speaks volumes about you. If you actually do know, then this display of disingenuous sophistry says just as much.

(P.S. I may brush aside this or that comment of yours, but you ignored an entire post of mine, addressed to you.)

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(November 22, 2010 at 10:38 am)Dotard Wrote: Oh, I'm sure you meant all proposed deities except yours.

Well, yes, that is sort of how the TAG works. As I said, "If the God of Scripture is X, then any other deity is necessarily ¬X," by definition. This refers to the identity of indiscernibles, a logical principle predicated on the law of identity. Fine-tuning the properties of some proposed deity until it attains the same achievement ends up resulting in it possessing every property of X, "the God of Scripture," such that everything true of one is true of the other and vice-versa (e.g., if everything true of Ryan's father is also true of William's son and vice-versa, then they are actually one and the same person, Robert.) Every ¬X at some point must fail the test precisely because it is not X, since X alone accounts for all features argued by the TAG.

Dotard Wrote:C'mon, this is Atheist Forums. Damned near every thread derails into [being] about something else. I do believe establishment of a creator is relevant to a discussion of creationism, is it not?

Sure, and so is establishing that other minds objectively exist, that the Bible is the authoritative word of God, that inductive inference works, etc. There are countless issues relevant to a discussion of creationism, but there comes a point where the participants have to assume those things for the sake of argument, that is, in order to even have the argument. Is the existence of God relevant? Certainly. But if what you want is someone to establish that God exists, the sheer enormity of that task calls for it to have its own thread. In a thread about dinosaurs under young-earth creationism and the scientific merits of its arguments (if any), surely we can assume for the sake of argument that God exists so as to even have the discussion.

Dotard Wrote:I guess you missed that part that said, "Humor me for a minute and say (for the sake of argument) ..."

I did humor you. The "cognitive dissonance" part was a sardonic aside (as it seemed 'humorous' to ponder an atheist believing in a deity). I got the gist of your inquiry and answered it: "since it is admitted as a parody religion; i.e., not real, your having a sincere belief in IPUs qualifies as delusional."

Dotard Wrote:When responding to me, if it'll save ya a bit of time, I really don't give a fuck about who got credit for saying or writing what.

It was less for your benefit and more for mine, that is, adhering to forum rules: "When quoting from a source other than yourself, give credit where credit is due. Use citations, links, names, etc. when possible. Academic integrity is important to a lot of the members here and it's only fair to give credit where it is due."

(November 22, 2010 at 10:31 pm)Arcanus Wrote:

orogenicman Wrote:This is also where I invariably hear Christians claim that God is outside of our physical realm and, as such, cannot be empirically tested. And if that is (rather conveniently) the case, then there is no empirical test that can be devised to prove this God's existence. And so the idea of testing for the existence of God is a non-starter.

Thanks for repeating the very fucking point I was making (along with Michael Shermer)? God forbid you should just quote the point and say, "I agree"—as if by repeating the very point you can pretend it was your own valuable contribution to the discussion.

So Arcanus do you believe god can in no way be measured or tested, and also his influence on anything measurable or testable can in no way be measured or tested? I'm not sure if that's what you actually believe, but that's what I'm getting when you (seemed to?) agree that "...there is no empirical test that can be devised to prove this God's existence."

(November 23, 2010 at 12:19 am)cdog Wrote: So, Arcanus, do you believe God can in no way be measured or tested, and also his influence on anything measurable or testable can in no way be measured or tested? I'm not sure if that's what you actually believe, but that's what I'm getting ...

The question is blatantly a scientific one. As Shermer asked, what is the operational definition of God, in terms of a specific process or set of tests, the quantifiable criteria by which one could falsify (i.e., "reject" or "not reject") the null hypothesis of God's non-existence through observable experiment? Without definitions, criteria, observations, etc., a scientific inquiry cannot even start. Worse yet, and perhaps the most important point, this universe is the only one we have access to, whether God exists or not, rendering it impossible to falsify either hypothesis.

(November 23, 2010 at 1:33 am)Arcanus Wrote:

(November 23, 2010 at 12:19 am)cdog Wrote: So, Arcanus, do you believe God can in no way be measured or tested, and also his influence on anything measurable or testable can in no way be measured or tested? I'm not sure if that's what you actually believe, but that's what I'm getting ...

The question is blatantly a scientific one. As Shermer asked, what is the operational definition of God, in terms of a specific process or set of tests, the quantifiable criteria by which one could falsify (i.e., "reject" or "not reject") the null hypothesis of God's non-existence through observable experiment? Without definitions, criteria, observations, etc., a scientific inquiry cannot even start. Worse yet, and perhaps the most important point, this universe is the only one we have access to, whether God exists or not, rendering it impossible to falsify either hypothesis.

Parsimony removes the need for the hypothesis of god. Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là