Debate me!

[theVOID]

The thing is fr0d0, there are many many theists who do believe they have justified beliefs, all theists who value intellectual pursuits over emotional or experiential ones necessarily believe that they have justification. They are the Christians who are worth debating, it's absolute futility to engage in debate with someone who is admittedly uninterested in the intellectual viability of their position, like yourself.

You aren't the arbitrator for Christianity.

And precisely what is thus subject you'd like me to address? Perhaps we can have a debate about that.

[fr0d0]

Well we have both ridden the carousel many times VOID, both publicly and privately, with me explaining the pure rationale of my position and you blindly and repeatedly trotting out this well worn misnomer about warm fuzzy feelings and a lack of interest in intellectual viability, whilst at the same time agreeing with any logic presented. Yours is a strange perspective indeed.

What you're banging your head with is proof over logic. Understand how to remove that obstacle and you can start to understand the subject. Until then, good luck in finding a logical Christian who has proof of God's existence. Me I'd rather not waste eternity.

[theVOID]

You're under the illusion that you gave a concise model of your world-view to being with, in reality it's a rather jumbled collection of refutations.

"Warm fuzzy" is a joke used to illustrate how vague your presentation of your worldview is, not some serious description of your beliefs.

As for this supposed 'intellectual viability' you've claimed, let's go over what I have gotten from you previously that you believe satisfies this.

1. Rationale: For you to use rationale does not make the belief rational. A rationale is simply the foundation for a belief or a system, that alone does not make the foundation rational. The assumption that the world was created by a giant serpent is the foundation for the dream time rationale, but the belief in dream time is not rational.

2. Being able to rationalise (the other word you are fond of) your beliefs is also entirely unimportant, Andrea Yates was also able to do this Anyone can rationalise anything to themselves potentially.

And to say I agree with your logic is misleading, when we have assumed for the sake of argument that Christianity is true to look at the theology we have agreed on some things, so what? I have never came close to believing you have any kind of valid reason for believing the massive assumption that is at the foundation of your 'rationale'.

You somewhat seem to have a 'properly basic' belief, to reference Plantinga. Is that an accurate assessment of the state of your belief system?

[LastPoet]

Ill debate you! Oh wait, we would agree on almost everything...

Can we do it if I play the devil's advocate?

[fr0d0]

Well I note you felt the need to try to insult VOID, whatever your meaning.

1. For me to use logic is to attempt to examine every aspect of my world view and put it up for scrutiny. I'm limited by my eloquence, and so are you. How are you dismissing dreamtime exactly? Which of it's truths do you find falsehoods?

2. You also rationalise your own position I would hope. Or are you saying that you don't??

Saying that you agree with my logic is not misleading, it's fact. Never have I said that you understand the whole thing, I could never credit you with that.

No a basic belief system is a million miles off my personal stance.

Have you made any effort to find someone to discuss your interests with personally or is this the sum of your efforts - requesting a shallow debate where there's very little chance of takers?

Were you to get over your basic ignorance in denying something that you don't understand without evidence to back up that denial I might have some respect for you. Currently I consider you to be somewhat of a fool for that.

[Rhizomorph13]

One doesn't have to agree with the position one is debating, it is perfectly acceptable to simply choose a side and present the strongest case for it that one can muster. It is, of course, vitally important to be mature enough to avoid apeing a belief in the side that one is supporting and trying to purposely make it look r-tarded.

[God]

If your debate had purpose, it might be worth pursuit. One must look at
it as if it were placing a bet on a race horse. Many will bet based on statistics, or
fact. Some will bet on gut feelings. But their is no way you can prove which horse
will win, at least without special circumstances including human interference and
such. All you can do is believe your horse will win. As stated, some can point to facts,
some can point to feeling. Both have been right in the past. So neither are foolproof.

[Rayaan]

If your debate had purpose, it might be worth pursuit. One must look at
it as if it were placing a bet on a race horse. Many will bet based on statistics, or
fact. Some will bet on gut feelings. But their is no way you can prove which horse
will win, at least without special circumstances including human interference and
such. All you can do is believe your horse will win. As stated, some can point to facts,
some can point to feeling. Both have been right in the past. So neither are foolproof.

Facts are usually more foolproof than a person's mere feelings (about the existence of something). At least such a feeling should be rationalized with your own understanding of the world, because otherwise, there's a good chance that you're deceiving yourself by having those beliefs and/or feelings.

You won't be able to convince people about your beliefs if you can't support them with any reasonable arguments at all.

[God]

who said im trying to convince anybody? debate is meant for the
betterment of understanding. to bring closer an absolute answer.
im only adding my 2 cents.

If your debate had purpose, it might be worth pursuit. One must look at
it as if it were placing a bet on a race horse. Many will bet based on statistics, or
fact. Some will bet on gut feelings. But their is no way you can prove which horse
will win, at least without special circumstances including human interference and
such. All you can do is believe your horse will win. As stated, some can point to facts,
some can point to feeling. Both have been right in the past. So neither are foolproof.

Facts are usually more foolproof than a person's mere feelings (about the existence of something). At least such a feeling should be rationalized with your own understanding of the world, because otherwise, there's a good chance that you're deceiving yourself by having those beliefs and/or feelings.

You won't be able to convince people about your beliefs if you can't support them with any reasonable arguments at all.

[theVOID]

Well I note you felt the need to try to insult VOID, whatever your meaning.

1. For me to use logic is to attempt to examine every aspect of my world view and put it up for scrutiny. I'm limited by my eloquence, and so are you. How are you dismissing dreamtime exactly? Which of it's truths do you find falsehoods?

That's not an excuse is it fr0d0?

Dream time makes unsupported claims about the universe and thus cannot achieve justification, that's why I dismiss it.

2. You also rationalise your own position I would hope. Or are you saying that you don't??

Everyone does fr0d0, I never said otherwise. The point was that simply being able to rationalise a position to yourself does not give belief in the position justification, which is what I am concerned with.

The fact that you have spent so much time thinking about your beliefs and still haven't managed to achieve any form of substantiation is really telling.

Saying that you agree with my logic is not misleading, it's fact. Never have I said that you understand the whole thing, I could never credit you with that.

Here you are thinking you have something worth knowing. Go ahead and make as many claims as you like but without the ability to back up a single one of them you're position is as whimsy as ever.

I bet you couldn't even explain the whole thing anyway, because it's plainly incoherent and you're just performing mental gymnastics in order to convince yourself that you're the one who has this genuinely true and perfectly reasonable belief. You could try and explain yourself, but you've vigorously avoided all opportunities to do so in the past so it's not really surprising that you've simply skipped over it again.

No a basic belief system is a million miles off my personal stance.

Which is?

Have you made any effort to find someone to discuss your interests with personally or is this the sum of your efforts - requesting a shallow debate where there's very little chance of takers?

We were trying to get the debate forum active again fr0d0, as would be clear from Adrian's thread explaining it. This is part of that effort. I love how as soon as you can't back up your own beliefs you make these completely arbitrary objections to side track discussion.

Were you to get over your basic ignorance in denying something that you don't understand without evidence to back up that denial I might have some respect for you. Currently I consider you to be somewhat of a fool for that.

Another arbitrary objection

If you're going to call me ignorant you might want to explain about what and why, rather than you know... just asserting it like you usually do. And really fr0d0, do you think the god concept is hard to grasp? It's not, ancient illiterate fuckers came up with it back in the primacy of civilization and almost all forms of it are crude anthropomorphisms of natural events, you're god id no different, though he's more vague than crude.