Best Living Spokesman for Atheism

[drfuzzy]

Are you capable of explaining Hume's principle, or are you just going to mock it with a non-sequitur butchered god reference, in hopes that we'll accept your ad hominem that Cato (!!) is not up to the task of presenting a cogent argument?

I don't think you're following the line of argument. 

What's as yet unexplained is what problem Cato has with my argument, given that he can't express an objection.

You didn't present an argument.  You presented a non-sequitur dismissal and an ad hominem attack.  You were hoping that we wouldn't notice.  But we could have predicted it, because nearly every post you have made since your first thread have just called atheists "stupid" for not agreeing with you.  Whine, whine, whine, dismiss, dismiss, dismiss, deflect, deflect, deflect.  That precious ego and your ridiculous monster of an imaginary friend really need protecting, don't they??  It's getting really old.  Why don't you just go away, pat yourself on the back for "winning" all these arguments, and brag to your xtian cronies about how smart you are?

[Delicate]

I don't think you're following the line of argument. 

What's as yet unexplained is what problem Cato has with my argument, given that he can't express an objection.

You didn't present an argument.  You presented a non-sequitur dismissal and an ad hominem attack.  You were hoping that we wouldn't notice.  But we could have predicted it, because nearly every post you have made since your first thread have just called atheists "stupid" for not agreeing with you.  Whine, whine, whine, dismiss, dismiss, dismiss, deflect, deflect, deflect.  That precious ego and your ridiculous monster of an imaginary friend really need protecting, don't they??  It's getting really old.  Why don't you just go away, pat yourself on the back for "winning" all these arguments, and brag to your xtian cronies about how smart you are?

Rawr. Atheist be angry.

[drfuzzy]

You didn't present an argument.  You presented a non-sequitur dismissal and an ad hominem attack.  You were hoping that we wouldn't notice.  But we could have predicted it, because nearly every post you have made since your first thread have just called atheists "stupid" for not agreeing with you.  Whine, whine, whine, dismiss, dismiss, dismiss, deflect, deflect, deflect.  That precious ego and your ridiculous monster of an imaginary friend really need protecting, don't they??  It's getting really old.  Why don't you just go away, pat yourself on the back for "winning" all these arguments, and brag to your xtian cronies about how smart you are?

Rawr. Atheist be angry.

Incorrect.  More deflection and ad hominems.  Same old pattern.

[Edwardo Piet]

Other than "other", Sam Harris is winning.

I iz a happy turtle about that.

[vorlon13]

Honorable mentions for:

Oral Roberts (and his 900 foot tall Jesus)

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and all their fucking bullshit

Joyce Meyers (a WOMAN pimping Christianity ?? Jesus fucking christ, has she read Paul yet?)

[The Valkyrie]

Losty.

[vorlon13]

she puts a nice face on harlotry too

[Esquilax]

If the standard of justice is as I say it is (99 is not equal to 100), then I'm right, it is practically impossible, isn't it? And whether or not you would accept $99 back or not, it's still true that you deserve $100, and anything less would not make you whole, correct?

What does this have to do with anything? What is your actual objection to Dawkins' point? The more you say, the less clear your initial contention becomes.

You seem to raise three different issues in your post:

1) Why attempt justice if it's impossible, you ask. 

For one, we all implicitly assent to perfect justice- whether or not it's achievable, we all believe this is what people deserve and ought to receive. This is a standard we ought to strive to conform to. Second, there are some exceedingly rare individual cases where we can, in fact achieve perfect justice. And third, while perfect justice cannot be achieved, approximate justice allows victims and sufferers to better cope with the injustice, by reducing the extent of the injustice they bear.

Which is essentially Dawkins' point, and explicitly contradicted by the tenets of the christian religion: Dawkins' assertion was that one should take responsibility and attempt to make amends for your own wrongdoings, approximating perfect justice as much as you can. Meanwhile, the christian religion states that one need not care about perfect justice at all, since the whole system has been bypassed by Jesus and his sacrifice. The interesting thing about your argumentation is that it implicitly acknowledges this truth: your examples all concern people being wronged getting equal recompense as perfect justice, and yet Jesus enables the believer to ignore this entirely and gain the reward anyway. No responsibility to the victims need be paid under christianity, since the ostensible payment has already been made, without any mind being paid to the victims or to the perpetrator; everything you've listed as an example of perfect justice gets completely ignored and bypassed by the big sacrifice for christianity, yet somehow you think it's Dawkins who has the wrong end of the stick regarding justice.

How on earth do you even do that?

2) You say the justice system is predicated on me being wrong. However, the above is perfectly compatible with our justice system. Even when we cannot achieve perfect justice, we try to approximate it for the above reasons. If it's not, where does it contradict the justice system?

So if you find an approximation of perfect justice acceptable under human endeavor, why did you object to that exact sentiment when Dawkins made it?

3) The argument against Dawkins is like the following:
a) True justice is an all-or-nothing affair (see the reasons I provided above)
b) Simply taking responsibility never achieves true justice
c) Therefore Dawkins leaves us with a hollow, dissatisfying, conception of justice, a poor knock-off of a complete notion of justice whose existence as an ideal we not only affirm, but we desire, and we strive for. But we have no hope of achieving.

Taking responsibility is a poor knock-off.

Do you even know what was meant by "taking responsibility," or are you simply arbitrarily choosing the least charitable interpretation because you just don't like them dern atheists much? Because when I hear "taking responsibility," in that context, it entails making amends for the wrongdoing, not simply acknowledging that it happened.

[vorlon13]

Jesus fucking christ, if I wasn't already on board, that would have done it.

[Cato]

I don't think you're following the line of argument. 

What's as yet unexplained is what problem Cato has with my argument, given that he can't express an objection.

Did you not understand my reference to Hume's guillotine? Or are you simply incapable of seeing its immediate applicability to the is/ought you established in your justice example? I thought the argument would be understood by someone that hurled a 'problem of induction' grenade in another conversation (the problem predates Hume of course, but his is the most famous and thorough treatment).

Not only did I succinctly express my objection, but simultaneously unveiled your ignorance notwithstanding your constant reminders of your intellectual superiority.