Yes. Please do.

(January 3, 2014 at 9:59 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Is my claim that there are children that are raised religious and reject Santa but remain convinced of god wrong?

Not at all, it’s just irrelevant in regards to whether belief in God is rational or not.

Quote: EDIT: Nice attempt at a Strawman argument though.

No straw-man here, you know what you were trying to imply with that association; I merely called you out on it.

Quote: Where's your fucking courtesy, Stat?

I still take the time to respond to you, do I not?

Quote: I thought you took it upon yourself to answer everything?

I do.

Quote: Are you just going to stay silent about how I called you out for misrepresenting the views of this forum's members?

What views are you referring to and how have I misrepresented them?

Quote: C'mon, aren't you going to tell me I'm wrong?

If you believe that belief in God is somehow like belief in the Tooth Fairy, then yes you are wrong. If you are merely saying that children believe in the Tooth Fairy and God as well as 2+2=4 then you are not wrong but simply pointing out the obvious. Either way, I see nothing profound in what you are saying.

Quote: Or are you silent because you realized you screwed up and were not honest in your dealings with your fellow man, and now you've gone off to a corner to kneel and pray for forgiveness?

No, I have a life outside of this forum.

Quote: Good luck getting anything to respond besides the delusions and voices in your YEC head.

Anything or anyone? This just sounds like whining to me.

(January 4, 2014 at 2:36 am)Drich Wrote: Minnie is that really what you look like?

Maybe 35 years ago

(January 3, 2014 at 9:14 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: All of scripture is the inspired word of God and used as His direct revelation to us in order to fulfil His redemptive purposes.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”- 2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV)

That's a very impressive quote, back to the old circular reasoning trick.

Quote:No, I have deductive reasons for believing what I believe. That is superior to anything inductive.

I've seen you bring up this deductive nonsense a few times now, and it's time to put that myth to bed along with the others. Outside of formal systems of maths and logic, deduction doesn't give you a get out of jail free card. In the words of AC grayling, deductions "have psychological novelty but never logical novelty". A deductively valid argument is capable of espousing complete shit. An argument is only deductively sound if we know that the information in the prems are true. Since there is clearly not agreement on the outrageously confident claim that all scripture is the word of god, your arguments do not automatically trump any induction. On the contrary, outside of maths and logic, we entirely rely on the critical thinking concepts of 'inductive force' and 'rational persuasiveness'. Consulting any philosophy/critical thinking text book will verify this. A case can only be deductively sound if no counter case can be placed on the table, and seeing as everyone on this forum, and indeed every rational person on the planet can present an inductively forceful argument that casts doubt on divine origins of scripture, then your deductions don't prove a thing. Penning a few P1, P2 and C in standard form doesn't impress anyone here, it might win over your gullible church buddies but the inductive force of your arguments is weak.

Quote:This is blatantly false. When it first looked like we had found human and dinosaur footprints together in the Tumbler Ridge region of Canada there were evolutionists claiming that it would be evidence for time travel and not that humans and dinosaurs ever coexisted during the Earth’s history. You have provided another great example of how a person forces the evidence to fit the paradigm. Rather than believing dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old you’d rather believe that soft tissue and proteins can last for millions of years even though that directly contradicts what we observe to be the case.

LOL, the dino footprints one again. I provide a great example of the rational persuasiveness of the scientific method, that is one that values radiometric dating techniques over highly dubious dino footprints. There is only one person with a pre-determined conclusion here, and it's you. Don't call on scientific methods when you've already decided the conclusion, that's not science as science has built in error correction mechanisms and has the balls to explain exactly what could disprove a theory. Religion conceeds no such weakness because it is arrogant and dogmatic.

Quote:I do not think “contradict” means what you think it means.

Person A: “I went to a party last night and Martha was there”
Person B: “I went to a party last night and Martha and Mary were there.”
Person C: “I went to a party last night and Tim was there.”

These accounts do not contradict one another, neither do the resurrection accounts.

John: Mary Magdalene > the body had been spiced
Matthew: Mary Magdeline AND the other mary > they came to see the tomb
Mark: Magdeline, mother of james and the other woman > they'd already seen the tomb, but bought spices
Luke: Magdeline, Joanna, Mary mother of james and the other woman > had already seen the tomb, but bought spices

I see, so its possible that they were all at the party but the authors couldn't agree on who came together or whether they were alone. John says that the body was already spiced when Magdeline arrived, yet Mark and Luke seem to imply that she came to spice the as of yet un-spiced body. Lets say we give you the benefit of the doubt on this dubious narrative, you've then got to contend with:

Matthew: The tomb was not open (28:2)
Mark: The tomb was open (16:4)
Luke: Was open (24:2)
John: Was open (20:1)

and who was there when they arrived, maybe at the same time but maybe not together? :

Matthew: One angel sitting on the stone
Mark: One young man sitting inside on the right
Luke: two men standing inside
John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed

So Magdeline has come to spice a body both with her friends and without them, the body that wasn't spiced yet but was already spiced, and the tomb was not open but it was open, and there was one angel on the stone, a young man, two young men and two angels......... And did the women tell anyone what had happened? Mark says No (16:8) but the other three say yes. There are then discrepancies regarding who Jesus visited and where, after he came back from the dead.

Quote:What on Earth are you talking about?

The gospel of peter says that two young men descended from the sky and went inside the tomb, then two men with massive heads carried out a third man, followed by a cross. A voice from heaven asks "Have you preached to those who sleep?" and the cross answers "Yes"

Quote:Yes we do and it was already open when they arrived. Rather than getting these off of atheist websites you’d be better off just reading the gospels for yourself.

Well i'm reading it right now in my paperback copy of the bible....

Quote:…so you are conceding that believing in RNA spontaneous generation is just as much of a faith position as believing in God? Well ok then.

This really is the key element to your argument. You repeatedly assert that abiogenesis is pure faith, yet the basis of your argument is that to believe molecules could begin to self replicate on a planet with the early stages of what we might call an atmosphere..............is mentally retarded (despite it being rationally persuasive in the context of what we currently know about DNA and RNA) and that the subsequent evolution of species from such beginnings is mental...............but that in the depths of space at the beginning of time, an alternative being can suddenly appear from nothing, not just as a single celled organism but instead posessing ultimate power to manipulate all time and space. So basically conditions can't foster spontaneous generation of life, but at the same time can, just so long as a heavy dose of special pleading is injected in to the equation.....

Quote:Knowing that scripture is God’s word is something that is deductively known; deduction does not rely upon demonstration.

What a load of toilet. Deductions only serve to validate the quack of the brainwashed with you

Quote:Deduction does not require demonstration. Study up.

Please, read a critical thinking textbook and then come back and apologise for being so painfully wrong. Deductive soundness requires something to be truthful, and truth is not relative. There is no such thing as a deduction that proves god, hence critical thinking texts are rammed with this subject matter, amongst others. You are mad.

Quote:I did not appeal to my senses like you did. I appealed to an axiomatic truth within my conceptual scheme. You are not allowed to do this because your conceptual scheme does not allow for the existence of God.

Farting sounds. And please, drop the endless (sic) bollocks. Most of us don't spend hours proof reading this forum shit, we're not so pedantic as to pick up on every typo in the world. I'm more concerned with the substance of an argument rather than the spelling contained within. Please, if you're going to be a fundy lune, at least try and minimise the prick emissions.

(January 4, 2014 at 1:01 am)RDK Wrote: This may be an older comment made some days ago, but I have to comment on the fallacy or should I say the impossibility for animals to evolve from one to another.
Animals are like automobiles, in that, they only function as complete systems. Any parts that are removed for the function of the system and the car stops moving. All creatures are systematically constructed, not hap-hazzardly assembled from floating parts which are not compatible. A system has to operate with all of its parts in order to live. You do not see most animals with any extra unused parts. These items are already integrated to be a part of its whole system. Those extra pieces are designed to fit the animal to which they are attached.
Now don't just assume that since I take this stand, I don't believe in natural selection. By selective breeding we can produce all different types of dogs, tall ones, short ones, ones who climb on rocks... but they are still dogs. Genetically they can only mate with their own type.
Every animal has its exclusive DNA pattern which prevents it from mating with any but its own kind.
If animals could have come from one another, all animals should be able to crossbread, like that plant that had to be interfered with in order to produce different fruit.
A system (animal) has to have an opposite mate with which to reproduce. The chances that two opposite pairs ,that are required in almost all animals, negates the possibilty, that even with time, pair coupling could be possible by happen-chance.
The system approach to understanding creation should help you realize that none of the individual parts of a creature could be added over time without the animal being able to integrate it into it's body The system only works when all of the parts fuction togeather to give the animal its life.
I think that it is fantastic that an animal can adapt to its surroundings. Just goes to show that creation is not a dead thing, but something which gives an animal an advantage in a new environment. The animal does not know what it needs to survive somewhere else. The animal has been given the ability to modify itself to create the variety of all the various attributes within its own species.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKYQ5ibxslI

(December 23, 2013 at 12:27 am)orangebox21 Wrote:

(December 20, 2013 at 12:10 am)Esquilax Wrote: Things that are demonstrable, repeatable, falsifiable, and in proportion to the claim being proved.

Personally. I can't speak for everyone else, mind.

If you say you can only speak for yourself you imply that standards are relative, that they are not absolute. Do I have that correct? And if the standards for evidence/proof are relative how could a person prove anything to you? If you accept "relative" standards then you would have to accept anyone's proof/evidence so long as they fit within their own set of standards for evidence.

What are the theist standards? Not Christianity's, but theism's. Does it make sense to claim that since theists don't all hold the same standards for evidence/proof, it implies that standards are relative, not absolute? Or does it just mean that theists are a diverse bunch and just being a theist doesn't mean you hold ANY standard of evidence/proof AS a theist?

Esquilax is a rational skeptic, THAT is the context for his/her standards of evidence/proof; not his/her atheism.

---

(January 3, 2014 at 9:55 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Snip

In fact, these are far more analogous to being taught that God does exist because the parents believe these things are true much like they believe God exists. They do not believe that the Tooth Fairy exists. It was a totally fallacious analogy and you’re usually better than that.

Good point, maybe whether the parents believe it is true is key to whether the kids will believe it is true when they get older.

(January 13, 2014 at 9:05 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

(January 3, 2014 at 9:59 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Is my claim that there are children that are raised religious and reject Santa but remain convinced of god wrong?

Not at all, it’s just irrelevant in regards to whether belief in God is rational or not.

Nice strawman...again. We were never on the topic of whether or not belief in a god is rational or not. I was making an observation, and that's all I was doing in this case. You just squirm a little when you hear people equate belief in something that's not real (i.e. the Tooth Fairy) to belief in something that's also probably not real even if you believe it is (i.e. Yahweh).

Whether conviction of these facts or rejection of them happens in childhood or adulthood is a red herring placed in this discussion by none other than you, Stat.

SW Wrote:

Quote: Are you just going to stay silent about how I called you out for misrepresenting the views of this forum's members?

What views are you referring to and how have I misrepresented them?

From just this last page:

Quote:Sweeping generalizations, is it? And what's it called that you're doing with atheists when you lump us all together into one box?

I can make these generalizations about religion because there is truth in my claim. You claim you know each atheist so well; you call us naturalists, materialists, and other such titles without even checking to see if that's true first. You are a class act asshole, and if your purpose is to sit back and misrepresent this forum's population by trying to tell us what we believe, then I'm pretty sure that's akin to flaming and trolling.

You completely ignored this, and we are left wondering why.

SW Wrote:

Quote: C'mon, aren't you going to tell me I'm wrong?

If you believe that belief in God is somehow like belief in the Tooth Fairy, then yes you are wrong. If you are merely saying that children believe in the Tooth Fairy and God as well as 2+2=4 then you are not wrong but simply pointing out the obvious. Either way, I see nothing profound in what you are saying.

At this point I was asking about if I was wrong about the post from the last page, not the thing about Santa and the Tooth Fairy, but since it's the only thing you seem capable of addressing, I feel compelled to rebut on this point.

Belief in god is exactly like belief in the Tooth Fairy. They're both beliefs in things that can't be evidenced as fact, fuck you very much. Missing the logic in this is akin to you missing the fact that 2+2=4 and 5x5=25 are both mathematical equations. I'm being intellectually honest here when I say I don't know if there's a god, but there's no evidence to indicate that there is; we can also say there's probably no Tooth Fairy because there's a generous lack of evidence there as well.

You, Stat, tell people that there is a god. Great. It's a bold claim, but maybe you have something there. We'll believe this great claim if you have great evidence to corroborate what you say. Now, this is the part where you might want to show us where you read about god...y'know, where you saw what people wrote about him 2000 years ago in a collaboration of books called the Bible. You don't see the problem with this? At all?

This thing called testimony (I mention this word because that's all there is throughout the Bible) can only be accepted in this case if there is acceptable evidence to back up the words of these long-dead men. In the same way that the claims of eastern/alternative medicine cannot be backed by consistent, reproducible results, truth claims about the existence of any kind of divinity fall flat in much the same way.

There is definitely a certain kind of profundity, for instance, if I pointed out the similarity between Mormons believing in the Angel Moroni visits to Joseph Smith Jr. and the claims made by so-called alien abductees.

SW Wrote:

Quote: Or are you silent because you realized you screwed up and were not honest in your dealings with your fellow man, and now you've gone off to a corner to kneel and pray for forgiveness?

No, I have a life outside of this forum.

My questioning was ill-timed here. I realize you out for surgery, but I wrote this before I found out. Truth be told, I was still a little irked that you had completely ignored the point I was making about you misrepresenting many views on this forum, and that's why I said what I did. I'm actually glad to see that everything went well on your end (at least I assume it did since you're here posting right now).

It's evidence of a revelation from God if you believe God exists for other good reasons there is deism for instance a belief in a God or creator of the universe without an associated holy book or revelation. Though if you have come to the rational conclusion that God must exist you may as well believe in a God that is able and willing to tell us something about himself. This revelation will be something we know about of course and will take the form of a religion of faith, the key word is faith but you can have a rational basis for it.

(January 14, 2014 at 12:45 pm)WesOlsen Wrote: That's a very impressive quote, back to the old circular reasoning trick.

The trick you were using when you used your senses to justify the use of your senses? Or the time you appealed to your memory to justify appealing to your memory?

Quote:I've seen you bring up this deductive nonsense a few times now, and it's time to put that myth to bed along with the others.

This ought to be good…

Quote: Outside of formal systems of maths [sic] and logic, deduction doesn't give you a get out of jail free card. In the words of AC grayling, deductions "have psychological novelty but never logical novelty". A deductively valid argument is capable of espousing complete shit. An argument is only deductively sound if we know that the information in the prems [sic] are true.

…so far so good.

Quote: Since there is clearly not agreement on the outrageously confident claim that all scripture is the word of god, your arguments do not automatically trump any induction.

You were doing so well too! The truth of a syllogism’s premises is in no way dependent upon consensus or majority agreement by all parties.

Quote: On the contrary, outside of maths and logic, we entirely rely on the critical thinking concepts of 'inductive force' and 'rational persuasiveness'. Consulting any philosophy/critical thinking text book will verify this. A case can only be deductively sound if no counter case can be placed on the table, and seeing as everyone on this forum, and indeed every rational person on the planet can present an inductively forceful argument that casts doubt on divine origins of scripture, then your deductions don't prove a thing.

This is also false; we are dealing within the realm of logic, not outside of it. Pointing to inductive reasoning in no way provides a counter-argument against something that is deductively true. The deductive argument always wins.

Quote: Penning a few P1, P2 and C in standard form doesn't impress anyone here,

That is a poor reflection upon the rationality of those here and not upon the merit of my argument.

Quote: but the inductive force of your arguments is weak.

On the contrary, induction itself depends upon the soundness of my argument.

Quote:LOL, the dino footprints one again. I provide a great example of the rational persuasiveness of the scientific method, that is one that values radiometric dating techniques over highly dubious dino footprints.

Did you even read what I posted? Apparently not.

Quote: There is only one person with a pre-determined conclusion here, and it's you. Don't call on scientific methods when you've already decided the conclusion, that's not science as science has built in error correction mechanisms and has the balls to explain exactly what could disprove a theory.

I am appealing to empirical evidence, you are not. Since you brought it up, what exactly could disprove your paradigm? Be specific.

Quote: Religion conceeds no such weakness because it is arrogant and dogmatic.

Or because it is true.

Quote: John: Mary Magdalene > the body had been spiced
Matthew: Mary Magdeline AND the other mary > they came to see the tomb
Mark: Magdeline, mother of james and the other woman > they'd already seen the tomb, but bought spices
Luke: Magdeline, Joanna, Mary mother of james and the other woman > had already seen the tomb, but bought spices

These statements, even as they are roughly stated, do not contradict one another since they never make exclusive claims.

Quote: I see, so its possible that they were all at the party but the authors couldn't agree on who came together or whether they were alone.

Where do any of the Biblical authors say that only certain women went to the tomb or that they were alone? Nowhere.

Quote: John says that the body was already spiced when Magdeline arrived, yet Mark and Luke seem to imply that she came to spice the as of yet un-spiced body.

Now we are talking about spices? Joseph and Nicodemus added spices to the body when they wrapped it in accordance with Jewish law. Mark and Luke never say the body was not yet spiced, it’s perfectly reasonable to think the women were going to add spices to an already spiced body. The fact that I added salt to my soup last night does not imply that my wife never added salt to it when she was cooking it.

Quote: Matthew: The tomb was not open (28:2)
Mark: The tomb was open (16:4)
Luke: Was open (24:2)
John: Was open (20:1)

This one is easy. Matthew does not say that the tomb was not yet opened when the women arrived; on the contrary he says the earthquake had already taken place.
.
“Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. 2 And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. 3 And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4 The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. 5 The angel said to the women, “[a]Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. 6 He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.”- Matthew 28 (NASV) [Emphasis added by SW]

Quote: and who was there when they arrived, maybe at the same time but maybe not together? :

Matthew: One angel sitting on the stone
Mark: One young man sitting inside on the right
Luke: two men standing inside
John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed

Matthew does not say there was only one angel, he merely only mentions one. Mark also does not say there was only one angel inside the tomb, he merely only mentions the one who speaks. These are easily harmonized if there was an angel sitting on the stone and two inside the tomb. In fact, we do not even need the one sitting on the stone since Matthew never says he is still sitting upon it when he speaks to the women (he only says he sat upon it after rolling it away) and could easily be one of the two now inside the tomb.

Quote: So Magdeline has come to spice a body both with her friends and without them,

Where does it say that it was only Mary Magdalene?

Quote: the body that wasn't spiced yet but was already spiced,

Where does it say that the body was not yet spiced?

Quote: and the tomb was not open but it was open,

Where does it say the tomb was not open when the women arrived at it?

Quote: and there was one angel on the stone, a young man, two young men and two angels.........

Or merely two male angels, one who rolled the stone away, sat upon it, scared the guards, and who later spoke to the women while they looked inside the tomb.

Quote: And did the women tell anyone what had happened? Mark says No (16:8) but the other three say yes.

Mary the mother of James and Salome run off initially intending to tell the disciples but then tell no one due to fear until they later run into the risen Christ who calms their fears at which point they go and tell the apostles what they saw.

Quote: There are then discrepancies regarding who Jesus visited and where, after he came back from the dead.

Such as?

Quote:The gospel of peter says that two young men descended from the sky and went inside the tomb, then two men with massive heads carried out a third man, followed by a cross. A voice from heaven asks "Have you preached to those who sleep?" and the cross answers "Yes"

We’re discussing scripture, not later docetic gospels.

Quote:This really is the key element to your argument. You repeatedly assert that abiogenesis is pure faith, yet the basis of your argument is that to believe molecules could begin to self replicate on a planet with the early stages of what we might call an atmosphere..............is mentally retarded (despite it being rationally persuasive in the context of what we currently know about DNA and RNA) and that the subsequent evolution of species from such beginnings is mental...............but that in the depths of space at the beginning of time, an alternative being can suddenly appear from nothing, not just as a single celled organism but instead posessing ultimate power to manipulate all time and space. So basically conditions can't foster spontaneous generation of life, but at the same time can, just so long as a heavy dose of special pleading is injected in to the equation.....

God did not ever appear because He is eternal and immaterial. Now that we got that mischaracterization out of the way we can address your faith position. Yes, RNA spontaneous generation has never been directly observed to take place in Nature, so believing it somehow took place 3.5 billion years ago under unknowable conditions is a matter of religious blind faith.

Quote:What a load of toilet. Deductions only serve to validate the quack of the brainwashed with you

You really think deductive arguments rely upon demonstration? Let’s use the most famous sound syllogism…

P1. All men are mortal
P2. Socrates was a man
C. Therefore Socrates was mortal


Please demonstrate that “all men are mortal” and that “Socrates was a man”….I’ll wait.

Quote: There is no such thing as a deduction that proves god,

You know this how?

Quote:Farting sounds. And please, drop the endless (sic) bollocks.

Stop making me.

Quote: Most of us don't spend hours proof reading this forum shit

Nor do I.

Quote: I'm more concerned with the substance of an argument rather than the spelling contained within. Please, if you're going to be a fundy lune [sic], at least try and minimise the prick emissions.

If you were not so uncivilized and arrogant I would not point out your simple and embarrassing grammatical errors; but until you learn to behave as civil adults do I will continue to knock you down an intellectual peg or two.

(January 14, 2014 at 4:12 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Good point, maybe whether the parents believe it is true is key to whether the kids will believe it is true when they get older.

Perhaps that is a factor, although my theology differs a bit from that of my parents’.

(January 14, 2014 at 7:24 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: You just squirm a little when you hear people equate belief in something that's not real (i.e. the Tooth Fairy) to belief in something that's also probably not real even if you believe it is (i.e. Yahweh).

So you concede that you were trying to equate the two? Then my objections were warranted.

Quote: Whether conviction of these facts or rejection of them happens in childhood or adulthood is a red herring placed in this discussion by none other than you, Stat.

It’s not a red-herring at all; it demonstrates that the two beliefs are not actually analogous.

Quote:You claim you know each atheist so well; you call us naturalists, materialists, and other such titles without even checking to see if that's true first. You are a class act asshole, and if your purpose is to sit back and misrepresent this forum's population by trying to tell us what we believe, then I'm pretty sure that's akin to flaming and trolling.

Are you saying that you are not a naturalist or materialist? You believe the supernatural and the immaterial exists? Really?

Quote: You completely ignored this, and we are left wondering why.

I actually merely overlooked it, my apologies.

Quote:At this point I was asking about if I was wrong about the post from the last page, not the thing about Santa and the Tooth Fairy, but since it's the only thing you seem capable of addressing, I feel compelled to rebut on this point.

Please do.

Quote: Belief in god is exactly like belief in the Tooth Fairy. They're both beliefs in things that can't be evidenced as fact, fuck you very much.

How can belief in God not be evidenced as fact? Merely asserting that does not make it so. You’re welcome.

Quote: Missing the logic in this is akin to you missing the fact that 2+2=4 and 5x5=25 are both mathematical equations.

So?

Quote: I'm being intellectually honest here when I say I don't know if there's a god, but there's no evidence to indicate that there is; we can also say there's probably no Tooth Fairy because there's a generous lack of evidence there as well.

You mean there is no evidence that you accept for God right?

Quote: You, Stat, tell people that there is a god. Great. It's a bold claim, but maybe you have something there.

It’s not a very bold claim at all, the overwhelming majority of people agree with this claim making it rather ordinary.

Quote: We'll believe this great claim if you have great evidence to corroborate what you say.

What do you mean by great evidence?

Quote: Now, this is the part where you might want to show us where you read about god...y'know, where you saw what people wrote about him 2000 years ago in a collaboration of books called the Bible. You don't see the problem with this? At all?

No, there is no problem with this. When I point out the problems with assuming your senses are reliable I am doing so within the context of presupposing a materialistic conceptual scheme. If we presuppose this conceptual scheme all knowledge is rendered impossible due to this problem. Now, if we presuppose a Christian conceptual scheme we no longer have this problem because the same God who created us created the world around us and desires for us to learn about His creation. Yes, I can use my senses to learn more about this God but this is completely reasonable and not circular within this conceptual scheme.

Quote: This thing called testimony (I mention this word because that's all there is throughout the Bible) can only be accepted in this case if there is acceptable evidence to back up the words of these long-dead men.

According to whom? You keep assuming I am going to accept your self-serving standards of evidence.

Quote: In the same way that the claims of eastern/alternative medicine cannot be backed by consistent, reproducible results, truth claims about the existence of any kind of divinity fall flat in much the same way.

This is committing a category error between a metaphysical immaterial claim and a material claim. For some reason you seem to be laboring under the misconception that all claims are proven or supported in the same manner.

Quote: There is definitely a certain kind of profundity, for instance, if I pointed out the similarity between Mormons believing in the Angel Moroni visits to Joseph Smith Jr. and the claims made by so-called alien abductees.

I am not following you here.

Quote:My questioning was ill-timed here. I realize you out for surgery, but I wrote this before I found out. Truth be told, I was still a little irked that you had completely ignored the point I was making about you misrepresenting many views on this forum, and that's why I said what I did. I'm actually glad to see that everything went well on your end (at least I assume it did since you're here posting right now).

Well I actually did all the pre-op visits but then the storms in the Northeast postponed the surgery until this coming Thursday; so I figured I’d get back on here for a couple days. I appreciate the best wishes and I assure you that I was not ignoring your questions, I merely overlooked them. There’s no need to get irked (although I understand the frustration), next time just show me where you feel I have missed something you brought up and I promise I will address it as best I can.

-SW

With respect to testimony it is a bit hypocritical. We all believe testimony. Textbooks by nature are testimony. A scientist observes something you believe him. Matthew observes something and you cry liar. Most people have never gone to a lab or looked through telescopes or out to dig sites. Yet you believe the testimony of science. If your honest and consistent about your disregard for the integrity of the author(s) of the Bible you must apply consistent criticism to the authors of text books. Look back a couple hundred years to the science of that time. How much of that is true today? Does the sun orbit the earth? Is the earth flat? Is the smallest component of matter an atom? If you extend out the logic in a couple of hundred years what science believes today will not be true in a couple hundred years. So why use it as your ultimate authority. It is constantly changing through new technologies and discoveries. If people are not to be trusted then people are not to be trusted. You do not seek evidence because there is evidence. There are Ph D scientists who through scientific evidence claim creation and thus a creator. Just like there are Ph D scientists who through scientific evidence claim evolution. So there is evidence for and evidence against. Albert Einstein believed in a creator and thus creation. He didn't believe in the God revealed through the Bible but he still believed in creation. So to just blanket statement creationists as unintelligent is either ignorant or a lie. Scientifically minded atheists are looking for answers revealed by science. God chose not to reveal himself through science (not ultimately) but rather through His Word. His word is rejected because it testifies against mankind. It says we are rebellious and sinful and wickedly minded wanting our own way rather than His. "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." You don't reject the Bible for a lack of evidence you reject it because you love the darkness.

(January 19, 2014 at 7:24 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: With respect to testimony it is a bit hypocritical. We all believe testimony. Textbooks by nature are testimony. A scientist observes something you believe him. Matthew observes something and you cry liar.

Yeah, let's look at the difference: Matthew was an anonymous gospel author from a pre-scientific age with no idea how anything worked, contributing to a set of books with a long history of being edited and redacted by third parties with their own ideological motivations, and with a long history of being demonstrably wrong.

Meanwhile the scientist has years of study and credentials behind him, having presented his work to a peer review apparatus to be reviewed and checked for factual accuracy over and over again, using the cumulative scientific knowledge and technology of our time in combination with the scientific method and available evidence, and without an ideological bent in any way, bar a desire to most closely align with the facts, and who presents a replicable and falsifiable method for coming to the same conclusions.

Yep, terribly hypocritical to disbelieve the anonymous bronze age peasant making claims of magic, yet believe the trained, modern day man backed by evidence making mundane, physically possible claims.

Quote: Most people have never gone to a lab or looked through telescopes or out to dig sites. Yet you believe the testimony of science.

Yes, because we could do those things. Very much unlike god, who nobody has ever been able to produce evidence for. Incidentally, science is pre-doubted: it's called peer review.

Quote: If your honest and consistent about your disregard for the integrity of the author(s) of the Bible you must apply consistent criticism to the authors of text books.

Except you don't actually want criticism based on factual inaccuracy, do you? You just want it based upon what you do and do not personally agree with. That's why you've curiously decided to skip over the widespread criticism of factually wrong things in textbooks, like creationism and intelligent design. Not to mention the rigorous fact checking that happens before the books ever go to print.

Quote: Look back a couple hundred years to the science of that time. How much of that is true today? Does the sun orbit the earth? Is the earth flat? Is the smallest component of matter an atom? If you extend out the logic in a couple of hundred years what science believes today will not be true in a couple hundred years. So why use it as your ultimate authority.

Because it best fits the available evidence. See, that's the vast difference between science and religion; yes, science does change in accordance with new evidence, but even the wrong theories at the time were the most correct we could make them, and also had evidence behind them. Religions never outright change, never have the same level of evidence behind them, and yet you want us to believe them? Fuck no.

Quote: It is constantly changing through new technologies and discoveries. If people are not to be trusted then people are not to be trusted. You do not seek evidence because there is evidence. There are Ph D scientists who through scientific evidence claim creation and thus a creator.

Except the mainstream body of scientists doesn't accept that. You're asking us to believe the lunatic fringe over the peer reviewed main body. Why? Because you already want to believe it?

Quote: Just like there are Ph D scientists who through scientific evidence claim evolution. So there is evidence for and evidence against.

The evidence for creation has mostly been debunked.

Quote: Albert Einstein believed in a creator and thus creation. He didn't believe in the God revealed through the Bible but he still believed in creation.

No he didn't. He believed in Spinoza's god, which is a kind of deistic admiration for nature, not a literal creation. A letter he wrote shortly before his death mentioned his lack of religious beliefs.

Quote: So to just blanket statement creationists as unintelligent is either ignorant or a lie. Scientifically minded atheists are looking for answers revealed by science. God chose not to reveal himself through science (not ultimately) but rather through His Word. His word is rejected because it testifies against mankind. It says we are rebellious and sinful and wickedly minded wanting our own way rather than His. "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." You don't reject the Bible for a lack of evidence you reject it because you love the darkness.

Fuck off, you preachy shitstain. Come back when you want to have an adult conversation and not just bitch about how unfair it is that we evil atheists want evidence and not the crazy rantings of bronze age assholes.