(May 4, 2013 at 6:31 am)pocaracas Wrote: hehe... that's a was me trying and failing hard (as usual) to be witty... god doesn't exist, hence god-forsaken. It wasn't meant as a hostile remark.

I see. Maybe you are not the only one who has trouble reading between the lines. Duh! LOL.

Quote:SW wrote that, clearly pointing at the fact that you are enabling the existence of god in the argument.
I'm utter shit at reading between the lines... always have been.

Well, when and if you do figure it out, please keep it to yourself for a while.

I'm not done yet.

Quote:My approach? No approach works.
No argument is possible. That's why I'm in this forum and not in one of the thousands of religious fora out there.
I'm not looking to change other people's beliefs.... just understand why it is that they believe.

Deconversion is a process each person undergoes on his/her own when they see the world failing to meet the expectations set by their religions.

We may make it easier for those who leave religion, but only by pointing out that it's not the end of the world, there is no hell to go to, etc... life goes on, regardless of religious belief.

With all due respect, I think it's a bit presumptious of you to assume that no approach works. However, I do agree that the individual ultimately takes their own journey and is only aided along by others. I went down that journey myself, and I've aided others along the same journey.

Call me arrogant, if you will, but I like to think I'm just applying what I learned during my own journey, and what I've learned since.

For me, science had nothing to do with my conversion, although it's very interesting to me now.

I'll tell you what did compel me, and what I've seen compel others: every religious person holds some aspect of their faith very sacred, critically sacred in fact. If you can figure out what that is, and demonstrate to them that it is either meaningless, powerless, or wrong, you will have forced them to take the first inevitable step toward non-belief.

The rest of that journey is very long, complicated, and confusing. You don't just delete a brain wash. It takes time.

Yes, it is presumptuous, but it is valid on any theist who comes to AF.org to "tell those pesky atheists how their faith works"...

You may keep trying your approach, of course, but bear in mind that, as soon as you say "if god exists", they win the argument, because they know their god, and you know your version of their god, which is seldom their god, and they'll always claim strawman.

You claim you deconverted, at some point... did it start with the realization that god maybe dead? Or did it start a bit before?

(May 3, 2013 at 5:25 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

(May 2, 2013 at 7:09 pm)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Logic is ONLY a process. P1 and P2 must be demonstrably and observably correct before there are any "therefores."

That’s actually incorrect, in deductive logic there is no obligation for a person to demonstrate that their premises are true, premises are assumed to be true unless otherwise refuted.

That may be the correct answer in the classroom. Never formally studied it myself. However in the real world if you do not want small children to laugh at you as you walk by your premises have to be demonstrably true.

(May 4, 2013 at 9:15 am)pocaracas Wrote: as soon as you say "if god exists", they win the argument,

On this, I think i can assume that you do not have a strong religious background.

You seem to think that it's Atheists vs. Theists. It's rarely that. Most of the time, it's Theists vs. Theists, and they always offer up the premise that god exists.

That's not nearly enough to satisfy them. They almost all have an ideal version of god, and when someone else's version doesn't fit, they quite often tell each other that the other's god is bogus, or that god will not accept them as they see him.

Believe me, religious people are far more desperate to fight with each other than they will ever be to fight with the non-religious. And that alone proves your theory is incorrect.

You can't break through the armor, you have to get in there and strip it away from the inside.

Quote:“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” -- Richard Dawkins

Statler Waldorf Wrote:I never said you have to believe in my God, but in order to ask the question, “How do you know God is not dead?” you have to assume God exists. If you do not believe God exists then do not bother asking such an absurd question.

The concept exists in my head. When I speak of it, it's implied that I must be speaking in hypothetical terms since I don't believe in it. Therefore, I can rationally speak about your god without believing he exists, because a concept and an object in reality representing the concept are two different things.

Quote:No, God sustaining Humanity is also a Christian doctrine so the Muslims didn’t “one up” anybody.

Touché

Quote:This thread is about Yahweh, not Allah, so that’s irrelevant to the discussion.

But your claims are such that its as if you take it upon yourself that you ought to show why your god "one ups" all other gods, but as soon as I point out a similar trait in some other culture's god, you say my statement has no place in the discussion. Sounds a lot like communism; spreading your "propaganda" and shutting down anyone else who opposes it.

Quote:If the point of this thread was, “How do you know Allah is not dead?” then your point would be relevant. However, it is a red herring, the OP granted the existence of Yahweh, he never granted the existence of Allah. Since for the purpose of this thread we are assuming that Yahweh exists (and therefore Allah does not exist) we can certainly use the fact that people still exist and believe in Him to prove that He still exists.

Why bother spreading that bit of propaganda? You've been appointed as the dictator of this thread from the moment the OP said your god exists in real life. What's the point in saying "God exists. People believe in God. Therefore God exists"?

Quote:Not only this, but we can use the ontological truth that Yahweh cannot die.

More meaningless propaganda that you're propagating in a thread you've already hijacked.

Quote:You know that you can’t win either way, that’s why you keep being irrational by tossing out red herrings and points that are utterly irrelevant to the discussion. Once smax granted us the existence of Yahweh this debate was over.

Precisely, the discussion was over before it started. Either smax has to change his "religious views" upon making this thread OR... or, you've missed the entire point that everyone has been trying to show you.

You can't will a being into existence.

After all this nonsense, we're still at square one: why is all of your hypothetical propaganda which only "makes sense" in your hypothetical nation useful in any way, shape or form in reality? The moment I stop looking at this thread I go back to the world in which your god doesn't exist.

*shrugs*

C'mon man, show me the money.

(May 4, 2013 at 9:15 am)pocaracas Wrote: Yes, it is presumptuous, but it is valid on any theist who comes to AF.org to "tell those pesky atheists how their faith works"...

I'd like to think that for every intractable theist who posts here, there are many more (er, "tractable") ones who just read. And if these discussions help them on the road to deconversion, then they're worth the trouble to have.

(May 3, 2013 at 5:52 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Don't know, exactly....

Oh come on Pocaracas, you know good and well that those are all created by atheists (the 3rd picture was even taken at the American Atheist Conference in Washington DC last year), which certainly doesn’t prove any Christians believe that Jesus was riding dinosaurs.

Quote:
I then proceeded to use my favorite method... goes something like this:
"
If the world is as I see it (and I assume most humans see the world in the same manner), how did anyone come to get access to the information about any god in a way that enabled them to document so much information regarding such a god?

Yes, that’s a far more appropriate question to be asking. The Christian position however is not that men received a divine revelation from God and then had to remember what God had said in order to write it all down later, but that the words written down by such men were divinely inspired. So God is actually writing the accounts of Jesus’ life through Luke and so on. This removes the Human fallibility aspect.

Quote: And why did different people in different places get different information?

Well some of it is corrupted stories of true accounts (most cultures have a flood story and a long day/night story depending upon which side of the Earth they live on), and some of it is just arriving at the wrong god by inference. They were not given different information by God though, for example Christians do not believe that Allah and Yahweh are the same god who gave two different groups different information for instance.

(May 3, 2013 at 7:02 pm)Joel Wrote: I know Ken Ham [claims he] believes humans rode on dinosaurs, and that they co-existed with us - even roamed the garden of Eden.
I'm not sure about Jesus riding dinosaurs, though.

I’ve never heard ken say that he believe Humans rode dinosaurs, but he does believe the other things, as do most creation scientists. There’s some good arguments to support those positions actually, but it’s one of those things that if you want to believe dinosaurs existed long before Humans you can find evidence to support that and if you want to believe they coexisted you can find evidence to support that too. Usually those sorts of discussions lead to each side missing one another like ships in the night.

(May 3, 2013 at 7:45 pm)ThomM Wrote:

---

That one is easy

Gods are FICTIONAL characters created by humans - mostly ancient superstitions and myths and legends

Since a "real" god was NEVER proven to be alive - god's only exist in the minds and the imagination of the humans that created them

And that is where they are ALIVE - nothing more real than Leprechauns or Santa Claus - but they exist in those humans minds.

Fictional characters do not have one real characteristic - LIFE - so death is a meaningless term to apply

---

Those are some pretty definite statements for a claimed agnostic to make.

(May 4, 2013 at 12:27 am)Esquilax Wrote:

---

I hate going back multiple pages for this stuff, but my point here was that since we're just making claims without any recourse to anything verifiable, then anything we can imagine is free game. When you say god's logically the most powerful thing evar... you have absolutely no way of demonstrating that, let alone proving that it's literally true. So... since from my perspective we're all just making shit up, I'll continue to do so until you can prove the truth of your claim to the exclusion of mine.

---

Well you’re quite simply not following the premises granted by the OP then, so none of its even relevant to this thread.

Quote:Okay, so what if god got bored and decided to kill himself? Bam.

A being that cannot die cannot kill itself, again that’s not a logically cogent question to even ask.

Quote:You didn't logically arrive at any conclusion, you just asserted it. Having seen your eventual reasoning, my thoughts on this were only confirmed.

I provided a valid and what appears to be a sound syllogism, if you want to critique it be my guest but whining about it doesn’t prove anything.

Quote:
You would need to have made a rational original claim if you were expecting a rational response.

I did, and trust me, I was not expecting a rational response from you.

Quote: Thomas Jefferson: “Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”

Thomas Jefferson is not a proper authority on such matters, so that’s just a fallacious appeal to authority.

(May 4, 2013 at 5:44 am)smax Wrote: Sound?

Yup!

Quote:We've covered this.

Yes, you claim you have read it, but your displayed ignorance on the subject matter leads me to question that claim.

Quote:
And a creator powerless to do anything about it?

No…a creator who brings glory to Himself through the punishment of the rebellious creature.

Quote:Not nearly as interesting as the fact that I wont get one.

How do you know you won’t? Are you planning on converting sometime soon?

Quote:You have a ton to learn about proof, and what it actually it is. I'll help you along here by actually proving you wrong right now so that you will have a much better understand of what proof actually is.

This ought to be good…

Quote: A false antecedent is a premise known to be false, fictional, imaginary, or unnecessary. In a conditional sequence, a false antecedent may be the basis for any consequence, true or false.

Yup. That in no way contradicts what I said, premises are assumed to be false until otherwise refuted at which point they become false premises, God’s existence has never been refuted.

Quote: The subjects of literature are sometimes false antecedents. For example, the contents of false documents, the origins of stand-alone phenomena, or the implications of loaded words. Also, artificial sources, personalities, events, and histories. False antecedents are sometimes referred to as "nothing", or "nonexistent", whereas nonexistent referents are not referred to.

None of that applies to the God of scripture, so you just wasted your time.

Quote: I shouldn't take too much credit, as another poster tried to explane this to you several pages ago to no avail.

No source given for that information? Well how convenient!

Quote:Is your name attached to the quote, yes or no?

It doesn’t matter, you were quoting me and if you do it again I’ll have to report it, which I hate doing.

Quote:Do you even try to be objective at all or ever?

Why would I try to hold a position that is not possible? I am just intellectually honest and philosophically sophisticated enough to admit I am just as biased as you are. You’re the one being disingenuous by claiming to be objective when such a position is logically impossible to hold.

Quote:Every word of that response was completely subjective. And, without any objective appeal, you have no point whatsoever.

I trapped you. You just refuted your claim that Christians do not really believe what they claim to believe because it’s all based upon your subjective opinion on how you think they ought to behave if they really did believe it. Thanks for that.

Quote:The truth is, I don't care much for the subject of "God's existence". I see no real point in that discussion.

That’s only because you cannot back up your position concerning that subject.

Quote: 1. I've asked for verifiable action to prove god is real and active. None has been provided.

That’s only relevant if the personal God feels the need to comply with your silly request, there’s no Biblical support for God ever feeling that need, so that’s an irrelevant argument.

Quote: 2. I've pointed out scientific impossibilties in the Bible, and I'll admit, I'm no scientist.

Obviously not, or else you’d realize that science only deals with probabilities and therefore there is no such thing as a “scientific impossibility”.

Quote: 3. I've pointed out inconsistencies in the Bible.

No, you’ve pointed out inconsistencies in your claimed understanding of the Bible, that only proves that you are fallible, which was never really something I doubted to be the case.

Quote: 4. I've mocked god and lived to tell about it. (The Bible says "God cannot be mocked..." --- Gal 6:7)

You’ve not mocked God.

Quote: 5. I've challenged believers to prove that prayer is effective. They have not.

Depends on what you mean by effective. I find that prayer is very effective.

Quote: I'm sure none of these points are new, but that makes them no less valid. And more are to come. Many more.

You can toss out all the bad arguments you want, they don’t magically add up to a good argument.

Quote:
Something's very fishy here. Haven't quite put my finger on it, but I suspect I will. It's all a little convenient, that's all I'll say for now.

You really think that you are that good? That no atheist would ever point out the fact you screwed your reasoning up? Such hubris.

(May 4, 2013 at 11:22 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: That may be the correct answer in the classroom. Never formally studied it myself. However in the real world if you do not want small children to laugh at you as you walk by your premises have to be demonstrably true.

I do not care whether or not children laugh at me, they are hardly rational beings. I see no distinction between how logic works in the classroom and how it works in the “real world”.

(May 5, 2013 at 11:42 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: The concept exists in my head. When I speak of it, it's implied that I must be speaking in hypothetical terms since I don't believe in it. Therefore, I can rationally speak about your god without believing he exists, because a concept and an object in reality representing the concept are two different things.

Well even conceptually Yahweh cannot die, so whether you are speaking conceptually or existentially either way we know that God is not dead.

Quote:But your claims are such that its as if you take it upon yourself that you ought to show why your god "one ups" all other gods, but as soon as I point out a similar trait in some other culture's god, you say my statement has no place in the discussion. Sounds a lot like communism; spreading your "propaganda" and shutting down anyone else who opposes it.

I was not trying to “one up” anything, I was merely using the definition of my God to establish the fact that if He ever existed (which was granted in the OP) we know He is therefore still living.

Quote:Why bother spreading that bit of propaganda? You've been appointed as the dictator of this thread from the moment the OP said your god exists in real life. What's the point in saying "God exists. People believe in God. Therefore God exists"?

Simply because the OP didn’t understand what he was actually asking; I merely was pointing out that there are multiple ways to prove that God is still living.

Quote:More meaningless propaganda that you're propagating in a thread you've already hijacked.

You may think they are meaningless but I think that the definitions of terms are quite important in a discussion.

Quote:Precisely, the discussion was over before it started.

Smax didn’t seem to understand that.

Quote: or, you've missed the entire point that everyone has been trying to show you.

What on Earth are you talking about? You’re the one who’s insisted on bringing up irrelevant points over and over again. I think you finally realized that smax granted the existence of Yahweh as a premise in his original post, and now you’re trying to hide the fact you didn’t understand that from the beginning (which was obvious by the fact you were asking for proof of a god everyone already assumed existed at the beginning of the discussion). Oops! Damage control time!

Quote: After all this nonsense, we're still at square one: why is all of your hypothetical propaganda which only "makes sense" in your hypothetical nation useful in any way, shape or form in reality? The moment I stop looking at this thread I go back to the world in which your god doesn't exist.

No, the moment you stop looking at this thread you go back to the world in which God still exists.

SW Wrote:What on Earth are you talking about? You’re the one who’s insisted on bringing up irrelevant points over and over again. I think you finally realized that smax granted the existence of Yahweh as a premise in his original post, and now you’re trying to hide the fact you didn’t understand that from the beginning (which was obvious by the fact you were asking for proof of a god everyone already assumed existed at the beginning of the discussion). Oops! Damage control time!

I was adapting to my understanding of what we were talking about. Yep, I screwed up. Boo hoo.

Now to show why it doesn't even matter:

Quote:Well even conceptually Yahweh cannot die, so whether you are speaking conceptually or existentially either way we know that God is not dead.

Finally. Agreed.

Quote:I was not trying to “one up” anything, I was merely using the definition of my God to establish the fact that if He ever existed (which was granted in the OP) we know He is therefore still living.

He was "living" since the OP.

Quote:No, the moment you stop looking at this thread you go back to the world in which God still exists.

Show me the money.

See how pointless this was anyways? We're at square one.

(May 6, 2013 at 8:59 am)Tonus Wrote:

(May 4, 2013 at 9:15 am)pocaracas Wrote: Yes, it is presumptuous, but it is valid on any theist who comes to AF.org to "tell those pesky atheists how their faith works"...

I'd like to think that for every intractable theist who posts here, there are many more (er, "tractable") ones who just read. And if these discussions help them on the road to deconversion, then they're worth the trouble to have.

Back in the BBS days I did a few surveys asking simply, If you read but do not participate please speak up. It was at least five lurkers per participant sometimes approaching ten. One assumes they did not all speak up. They came to known as lurkers.

Damn im lost...what are we even arguing about now.