Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

[Amarok]

Okay...fine. I'll grant that all AF members have  raise a serious objection and have refuted all my garbage claims . Thou they don't need to because my claims are based on nothing but theological buffoonery . That should not be taken seriously .

I think that covers it better

[KevinM1]

For the record, I like conversational Wooters a hell of a lot more than condescending Wooters. I'm willing to at least listen to the first guy.

[Ravenshire]

For the record, I like conversational Wooters a hell of a lot more than condescending Wooters.  I'm willing to at least listen to the first guy.

I'm pretty sure they're both the same guy. Some days he's just better at hiding the condescension.

[Amarok]

Wooter is a noxious blend of arrogance mixed with condescension .Mixed with hints of god aweful epistemology and simply repeating idiotic theist tropes and apologist flim flam .

[Minimalist]

And he's a Swedenborgian....  I wonder what other xristards think of that?

http://www.ukapologetics.net/11/swedenborgianism.htm

Without question this group's legalism, the rejection of the vicarious atonement of Christ (as being the only way that mankind could ever be reconciled to God), its rejection of the devil as a real being, its rejection of the Holy Trinity and its demotion - if not outright rejection - of all the writings of Paul, plus the Book of Acts, make the Swedenborgians a very dangeous and subversive cult. In common with numerous other cults and sects, Justification by Faith Alone is denied and it is 'justification by works' which is very clearly taught as the path to salvation. If this teaching should be correct (and it is not), one might even ask why Christ had to intervene in human history in order to die upon a cross! This group have set their own agenda, an agenda which denies several biblical teachings which are most vital.

Just as with the other founders of religions, such as Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White, Mary Baker Eddy and others too, Swedenborg claimed a whole series of 'divine visions' to justify his teachings; Swedenborgianism now upholds these claims. Of course, "divine visions" cannot be challenged - since nobody else was there at the time! - but, in common with other claimed "visions" or "new revelations" this one attempts to overturn the teachings of Scripture, a teaching which, substantially, has been accepted by all the great Christian writers and theologians and many thousands of Christian believers for several hundreds of years. Here we find a new 'Christ,' Paul the Apostle gets 'dropped from the team' (conveniently, since his writings conclusively show their own teachings to be wrong). Moreover, since Luke's 'The Acts of the Apostles' reveals that the early church did not uphold their teachings, that book too is usually rejected as being in any sense meaningful for members of this group. Do we even need to say more? As with all such groups, many sincere people will be found to be adherents, but we cannot allow such considerations to sway us. This is very clearly a cult which should be avoided.
Robin A. Brace. February 20th, 2011.

Not much, apparently.

[Astonished]

Wooter is a noxious blend of arrogance mixed with condescension .Mixed with hints of god aweful epistemology and simply repeating idiotic theist tropes and apologist flim flam .

At least he's not quite as bad as Gullible Cretin. That other bastard tries to sound like he's actually humble sometimes so he's got that additional stink of dishonesty.

[Minimalist]

Yeah, the humility of the truly religious.

There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell.


Sam Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation

GC thinks he has a special friend in the sky.

[RoadRunner79]

Okay...fine. I'll grant that there are maybe 3 or 4 AF members that can still give enough of a shit to  raise a serious objection.

Fixed that for you.

Chad, what you (and most of the other faithers who come here) just don't get is that we don't give a shit about your religious arguments. If we're arguing them at all, for the most part it's out of boredom, wanting to play whack-a-mole, whatever... Most of of come from religious households, grew up in religious communities and quite likely still live in religious communities. The arguments and evidence were unconvincing then and remain unconvincing now, especially considering they haven't changed.

Then don't blame us if  boredom, apathy, or whatever you want to call that makes many use bad and lazy arguements, lead to a poor conclusions about your intelligence. 

Constantly declaring how smart one is, while avoiding discussion or using ad arguments doesn't help much either. I go by what I see.

[Astonished]

Yeah, the humility of the truly religious.

There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of the truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell.


Sam Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation

GC thinks he has a special friend in the sky.

I mean, we could go on with, "I am also entirely incapable of being wrong or mistaken about this in any way and those who espouse belief in god but fail to come to the same conclusion as I have about it are similarly doomed and are living as futile an existence as any non-believer. No matter what evidence there is to the contrary, it is merely a trick of the devil attempting to undermine god and not down to any flaws in the scripture whatever, and god is too supremely lofty to be questioned about why he could not simply eliminate this dichotomy and any perceived flaws in the bible, leaving me uniquely privileged with absolute certainty that my particular view is the only possible correct interpretation."

[Astreja]

I don't know about the others but I'm still waiting to see all those defeaters I keep hearing about. I don't think I've ever seen a serious objection to most Necessary Being demonstrations (here and supplemented  here) or the Argument from Logic (here.)

Well, as someone who doesn't see the universe as particularly necessary (other than that I'd have no place to keep my stuff in the absence of same), the Necessary Being argument is a non-starter for me.

Argument from Logic seems to start out with some interesting premises, but I had a "Wait, what?" moment at point #8, "The Laws of Logic are Divine Thoughts."  At that point the argument seems to have stuck its tail in its mouth like an ouroboros.  It's also merely (yes, I said "merely") a philosophical argument, suggesting that there might be a divine thinker, but does not actually demonstrate that there is a divine thinker.