Where is the

"I couldn't give a fuck" vote button?

(December 6, 2012 at 7:45 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:

(December 6, 2012 at 7:12 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: You don't get to decide when and where I engage you in good faith. I do.

You're a grown man. I expect more from you than I do from the others.

You're correct, in that you get to decide when you engage in good faith.

That you appear to choose to do so infrequently doesn't say good things about your character, IMHO.

I actually had hoped you were turning over a new leaf, because I think it's actually possible that you might have something interesting and thought-provoking to say. However, after seeing you alternate between calls for rationality and being a demonstrative proof of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, I have to say that my interest has waned.

I have no interest in attempting to have serious intellectual discourse with someone like that. It's not worth the effort.

No trolling, let's be real.

There was serious discussion going on. Nobody was even talking to you and jumped in and tried to troll the discussion.

And now you're talking to me about character?

You're like those anti-homosexuality Republicans who get caught diddling teenage boys. The best thing you can do is accept it and move on.

I know that was harsh, but you gotta admit it was true. And your post in that thread vouches for it.

(December 6, 2012 at 9:12 pm)apophenia Wrote:
I don't know about you, Vinny, but I've never had any difficulty having serious discussions here. I can't say that I've experienced what you claim to be experiencing. I'm active here and on one other forum, and I fault that other forum, vocally recently, for being entirely too lax and namby pamby. When I settled into these two forums, I originally avoided serious discussions because I found them unsatisfying; they had a tendency to devolve into an endless series of posturing and picking nits. As such, originally my preference was for that other forum, where the emphasis was on fun and frivolity, and serious discussions took a back seat. (I've also, recently, suggested that the quality of serious discussions there is lacking, because the protection of posters who can't compete in a serious discussion means you end up with a lopsided representation among the membership. Granted, that's just a theory, but for whatever reason, I find their serious discussions less satisfying than those here.) So I started out avoiding serious discussions, and spending a lot of time over there. Over the past six months, I find myself spending more and more time here, eclipsing the time I spend there, and it's the quality of the discussions which has a lot to do with that.

More, reading your posts of late, I see a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy; you want something to be true, so it becomes true. I've remained mostly silent in the face of it, but you, in my eyes, have a grossly distorted view of other people and what goes on here. I think this "perception" of yours may be contributing a lot to your apparent dissatisfaction here. Just suggesting that you're seeing what you want to see, and it's not necessarily there. Granted, I'm probably not the best witness; I'm very broad minded, and so likely interpret things more charitably than most; and because of my personality, I'm likely to flourish regardless of the environment, so maybe I see things as rosier than they are. (I'm reminded of the studies of self-esteem in which they found that teams with high self-esteem won more games; in retrospect, their higher self-esteem seemed to be the result of them winning a lot of games, not the cause of it.)

I think you've got a big chip on your shoulder, and a bag full of preconceptions about how people are going to behave, and how they are going to treat you, and surprise, you end up seeing exactly what you expect to see.

I personally could care less whether you come or go. But don't pretend that just because you say things are one way that that necessarily means they are that way.

You're simply not that prescient. And this will be said sooner or later, so I'll say it now. I think your arguments are crap. I think you're a terrible reasoner. I say this not just to dig on you but to point out the real possibility that you're not that bright, and that perhaps many of your conclusions may be (are) wrong. The key point here is, this isn't just limited to the deductions and inferences you make about Bayes theorem or the Cosmological argument, it also afffects your ability to come to valid conclusions about the social world around you. I think many of your complaints are ultimately sourced there, in your inability to draw sound and robust conclusions about your social environment.

Perhaps there are a lot of people you've angered, and perhaps they have an active dislike of you. I'm not going to take a poll. But your theories about why this is, or why the people on this forum behave the way they do are much the same as your other theories. They're crap.

Granted, I could be wrong. About a lot of things. But atheists a lot smarter than you and me vouch for what I believe.

But I'm supposed to think I'm wrong, and really respectable intellectuals like Graham Oppy and Quentin Smith are wrong because....some Grover City community college graduate with an associate's degree in carpentry says so on an internet forum? Forgive me for being skeptical, pops.

And even if I am wrong, am I supposed to be convinced by "OMG THATS STUPID", "UR AN IDIOT", "CATHOLIC SPIES DID IT", "UR ARGUMENT IS LAME"? Perhaps your broad-mindedness could see it fit to determine that responses like this don't entirely convince me of wrongness.

I won't even stop there. Since you've said I am wrong, and you know I am wrong, I invite you, no- I dare you, to explain to me precisely how I'm wrong. We can tally it up, and at the end give out cash and prizes based on your success.

Just not in this thread, because I foresee a long and stimulating discussion with you that deserves its own thread. Would you like to prove me wrong?

Cat = Vinny

(December 7, 2012 at 12:47 am)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: No trolling, let's be real.

There was serious discussion going on. Nobody was even talking to you and jumped in and tried to troll the discussion.

And now you're talking to me about character?

You're like those anti-homosexuality Republicans who get caught diddling teenage boys. The best thing you can do is accept it and move on.

I know that was harsh, but you gotta admit it was true. And your post in that thread vouches for it.

Yes, by all means, let's be real.

First of all, this is a public forum. Allow the meaning of that adjective to sink in for a moment, and then consider what it means.

Secondly, serious discussion? Such as this gem that I was responding to?

(December 6, 2012 at 6:26 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: How the fuck can it be improbable and certain at the same time you fuckwit?

Pay particular attention to the bolded part, if you will.

Fuckwit? That's serious discussion?

Before you object and claim that the person you were responding to was indeed being fuckwitted, allow me to expand upon what he was saying.

(December 6, 2012 at 6:02 am)Ben Davis Wrote: It's the actual occurrence of the event that changes the probability from a possibility to a certainty.

While Ben may have been a little imprecise in his wording, the odds of an event occurring are predictive in nature. Once an improbable event has occurred, arguing against it on the basis of improbability is folly. It happened.

Let me illustrate. The odds of being dealt any specific 5 cards in order in 5 card draw poker is on the order of one in trillions.

(1/52) * (1/51) * (1/50) * (1/49) * (1/48) * (1/47) = 6.3 x 10 ^ -11

That expression of odds is useful to predict whether a particular sequence of 5 specific cards will be dealt in the future. But let's say that I am deal the 2 of spades, the king of clubs, the ace of diamonds, the 7 of hearts and the 5 of spades in sequence. Aside from the observation that I should not play this hand, we can deduce that despite the astronomical odds against being dealt these particular cards (or ANY particular) in sequence, it happened.

The odds that it happened, since we know that it did, is unity. Thus, the event is both extremely improbable (from a predictive viewpoint) and certain (looking backwards). It matters not whether the odds are many orders of magnitude more improbable. Once it happens, it happened, and the predictive power of odds are irrelevant, except to predict future events. In this case, it would only be remarkable if it were predicted to occur and a sufficiently insignificant number of trials were conducted. Given the vastness of spacetime, it is a certainty that individually improbably events are happening with regularity.

Considering all of that, your statement that Ben is a "fuckwit" is unwarranted, and given my status as a moderator here, you're fucking-A right I'm going to call you on it.

So please, take your mock indignation and bluster and pound it up your ass.

Vinny, gotta say if you were hoping to get attetion mission completed. They will not understand that but I do.

Once again, buy a dog.

(December 7, 2012 at 12:47 am)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: Granted, I could be wrong. About a lot of things. But atheists a lot smarter than you and me vouch for what I believe.

Fucking priceless, the man who came on-board to school us in logic felt it was compelling or useful to add that other people vouch for his beliefs.....

Seriously. I tell you that your arguments are crap, and your response is an argument from authority? That's just precious.

Moving on.

(December 7, 2012 at 1:29 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:

(December 7, 2012 at 12:47 am)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: No trolling, let's be real.

There was serious discussion going on. Nobody was even talking to you and jumped in and tried to troll the discussion.

And now you're talking to me about character?

You're like those anti-homosexuality Republicans who get caught diddling teenage boys. The best thing you can do is accept it and move on.

I know that was harsh, but you gotta admit it was true. And your post in that thread vouches for it.

Yes, by all means, let's be real.

First of all, this is a public forum. Allow the meaning of that adjective to sink in for a moment, and then consider what it means.

Secondly, serious discussion? Such as this gem that I was responding to?

(December 6, 2012 at 6:26 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: How the fuck can it be improbable and certain at the same time you fuckwit?

Pay particular attention to the bolded part, if you will.

Fuckwit? That's serious discussion?

Before you object and claim that the person you were responding to was indeed being fuckwitted, allow me to expand upon what he was saying.

(December 6, 2012 at 6:02 am)Ben Davis Wrote: It's the actual occurrence of the event that changes the probability from a possibility to a certainty.

While Ben may have been a little imprecise in his wording, the odds of an event occurring are predictive in nature. Once an improbable event has occurred, arguing against it on the basis of improbability is folly. It happened.

Let me illustrate. The odds of being dealt any specific 5 cards in order in 5 card draw poker is on the order of one in trillions.

(1/52) * (1/51) * (1/50) * (1/49) * (1/48) * (1/47) = 6.3 x 10 ^ -11

That expression of odds is useful to predict whether a particular sequence of 5 specific cards will be dealt in the future. But let's say that I am deal the 2 of spades, the king of clubs, the ace of diamonds, the 7 of hearts and the 5 of spades in sequence. Aside from the observation that I should not play this hand, we can deduce that despite the astronomical odds against being dealt these particular cards (or ANY particular) in sequence, it happened.

The odds that it happened, since we know that it did, is unity. Thus, the event is both extremely improbable (from a predictive viewpoint) and certain (looking backwards). It matters not whether the odds are many orders of magnitude more improbable. Once it happens, it happened, and the predictive power of odds are irrelevant, except to predict future events. In this case, it would only be remarkable if it were predicted to occur and a sufficiently insignificant number of trials were conducted. Given the vastness of spacetime, it is a certainty that individually improbably events are happening with regularity.

Considering all of that, your statement that Ben is a "fuckwit" is unwarranted, and given my status as a moderator here, you're fucking-A right I'm going to call you on it.

So please, take your mock indignation and bluster and pound it up your ass.

Take the technical discussion to its appropriate thread.

Your personal attacks are not impressive. Nobody asks you to intervene in my discussion with somebody else. If you do, you deal with the consequences like a grown up and stop complaining.

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(December 7, 2012 at 2:16 am)apophenia Wrote:


Seriously. I tell you that your arguments are crap, and your response is an argument from authority? That's just precious.

Moving on.

No. I tell you that you simply asserting it is crap is worthless.

You have no reasons.

Therefore your opinion carries no weight.

You're unable to provide any reasons.

Therefore your assertion fails.

Stay. Go. Linger. Change approach. Whatever! I think I'll let Montgomery Scott speak for me regarding AF:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js_32tdy2kQ

(December 6, 2012 at 11:36 am)Darkstar Wrote:

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(December 6, 2012 at 8:22 am)Daniel Wrote: Honestly, as a Xian, I do not understand why it is so important for you guys to know whether or not you can categorize someone as "atheist" or not. What difference does it make?

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If an atheist poe came to a Christian forum mocking Christianity and trying to make Christians look bad, whilst denying that he was an atheist, wouldn't you be at least a little annoyed?

The amount of BS you get from anyone with an anonymous pseudonym on internet forums can be annoying. What I mean though, is this. Why are you guys here so insistent that you want to know whether you can categorize someone as "atheist" and then judge that person for their beliefs. The question should be, how would you like it if all I did here was judge the atheists for their beliefs??

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(December 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Are you using this thread to express a grudge against apophenia?

No not at all, sorry if it came across that way. I think all of you here need to seriously think about what my main point here which is this: Why do you judge people with different beliefs to you. If you want to discuss the topic further I'll make a new thread, all I mean is to bring it to your (collective) attention.