(October 15, 2012 at 9:04 pm)catfish Wrote:

(October 14, 2012 at 3:34 pm)Rhythm Wrote: You clearly have a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between your own claims and my responsibilities. Guess this one ends with "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence".

Which god should I be considering? Why would this be "an admission". Already assuming the rhetoric of religious garbage I see. How am I supposed to even consider this proposition if you cannot provide that "legitimate word" (or anything at all)? Am I supposed to be considering nothing? Already there.

I understand perfectly, that is why it is your job, not mine. You expect me to back my claims so that you can dismiss them without so much as peeking at them. I expect you to do the research for yourself and come to your own conclusions...

Conclusion: the bible is not divinely inspired.

catfish Wrote:Do you see what happens when an atheist encounters me? They start telling me that I interpreted wrong, pretty ironic, no? Is that why you want me to spoon-feed you?

There are a number of interpretations of the bible. I don't claim to know what the author's original intent was for an absolute fact. However, I do not see it as ironic that we are allowed to question your interpretation. Should we assume that your interpretation is correct, even if common sense contradicts it? (only speaking hypothetically).

catfish Wrote:My interpretation of the Bible says that you have God's law written on your heart, so you have all the tools needed to dicern the "legitimate word" for yourself...

So you claim to know, for a fact, the original intent of the bible? And you convieniently have no means to prove this? Okay, legitimate word: god is an immoral narccicistic slave driver.

wikipedia Wrote:As there are reported to be approximately 41,000 Christian denominations, many of which cannot be verified to be significant, only those denominations with Wikipedia articles will be listed in order to ensure that all entries on this list are notable and verifiable.

Seems like the ability to discern the "legitimate word" has a sucess rate of less than 1/41,000. Care to demonstrate a method to seperate the fake interpretations from the genuine one?

@Cat fish.
Produce the "legitimate word"
Produce anything beyond the text.
Demonstrate that you "understand perfectly"
Demonstrate that anything is "written" on anyone's "heart".

You can double or triple down on bullshit all day long, I'll just keep adding things to this list...and whether you feel the need to support these claims or not they will never become my responsibility. Now, there comes a point when asking someone to elaborate upon any given claim they've made that you start to suspect that they are incapable of doing so. I think we've reached that point (in truth I think we began at that point). If you feel that your responses deserve anything more than casual dismissal you're going to have to add some substance to them, if the only substance you can add is evasion and shifting...well, again...we've reached that point. I think you should really take the time to see the strange place we find ourselves in here. Your inability to support your claims has led you to proposing meaningless and fanciful shit like writing on hearts (or that hearts do something other than moving fluids). Now, I understand that this is meant to be metaphor...but when your metaphors propose idiocy...in support of fantasy, something about the notion has turned you in knots around yourself (because I'm gonna go out on a limb here and state that you probably don't believe anything at all is written on your own heart in actuality). Now, if the goal here is to promote a better understanding, or to communicate the principles or reality of your faith...I can't see how such a trite platitude is going to further that goal. More specifically I can't see how it's going to be very helpful in a conversation with me...because personally I don't accept platitudes as substitutes for understanding or knowledge. I'd suggest that you shouldn't accept them as such either..but in the end, what you decide to accept as knowledge or understanding is your own god-damned business.

(October 16, 2012 at 8:53 am)Rhythm Wrote: ..but in the end, what you decide to accept as knowledge or understanding is your own god-damned business.

Exactly...

This is the point where I remind you that what you accept and what -is- are not necessarily the same thing. Hopefully you hadn't hoped to win a point on this one... You've decided that you'll accept this laundry list of garbage as knowledge, that doesn't mean that this laundry list of garbage -is- knowledge. It doesn't qualify as such for me, and I suppose that this ties in nicely with the OP..now don't it?

(October 17, 2012 at 12:54 am)Rhythm Wrote: This is the point where I remind you that what you accept and what -is- are not necessarily the same thing. Hopefully you hadn't hoped to win a point on this one... You've decided that you'll accept this laundry list of garbage as knowledge, that doesn't mean that this laundry list of garbage -is- knowledge. It doesn't qualify as such for me, and I suppose that this ties in nicely with the OP..now don't it?

So, tell me what else I've decided...

Why would it matter? I'm only criticizing those items you've proposed here. Whatever else floats around in your head is again...your own business. Is there some other flight of fancy that you would like me to weigh in on?

(October 18, 2012 at 3:15 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Why would it matter? I'm only criticizing those items you've proposed here. Whatever else floats around in your head is again...your own business. Is there some other flight of fancy that you would like me to weigh in on?

Oh no, you've set up your own strawmen and criticized them...

I know what's written in the Bible, I know what I believe, I know that you'll tell me what you believe to refute what I believe...

So, if you want to weigh in on something, deny that what I said is actually written in the Bible and stop trying to dictate truth, OK?

Oh I'm sorry, so you don't know anything about any legitimate word, you don't know anything about any gods, you don't know anything about extra-biblical -anythings-?

Mea culpa, because here I thought you had told me that there was a legitimate word of god, that it was easy to find, that there was something beyond biblical texts to back any of this up, and (of course) throughout all of this there is the implicit claim that there is some god somewhere. Why would I care what's written in the bible Cat? I've been responding to you, not the authors of your favorite fairy tale. If you don't actually know any of this stuff then you should probably add a little disclaimer before you rant about it.

"I know whats in the bible", well, isn't that cute. I know four versions of the Tain Bo Culaign. My daughter can recite the story of The Little Red Hen, and my son sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So I suppose all four of us are capable of reading (or reciting) a story - you have to give my son a little leeway, he's only 1....but he's getting there- and?

What part of requesting that you demonstrate the veracity of the (ever increasing) list of claims you have graced us with counts as a strawman in any case?

If this or that is a metaphor in the Bible, who is to say God is not a metaphor? Because it seems to me that God always represents "whatever I think I can't rationally explain", hence platitudes such as "God works in mysterious ways" to account for events that seem excessively improbable, or why theists are always creaming their underoos to cram God into the gaps of scientific understanding.

If this is the case, why in the hell should we worship a metaphor?

(October 18, 2012 at 8:22 pm)Rhythm Wrote: What part of requesting that you demonstrate the veracity of the (ever increasing) list of claims you have graced us with counts as a strawman in any case?

Pick a claim, any claim. Make sure it's something I actually said though...