Tell us about the dinosaurs

[Ryft]

Anecdotal evidence is not scientific. As I pointed out to you before (and you brushed it aside), personal revelation, the very foundation of Christianity, is by definition first-person. As such, no one is under any obligation to believe one man's personal revelation over another's. And, as such, science doesn't rely on them as evidence of anything. 10 anecdotes are no better than one, and 100 no better than ten.

What the fuck does that have to do with what I wrote?

Where did I ever suggest anecdotal evidence is scientific? Nowhere. Where did I ever suggest that one's anecdotal evidence should be persuasive for someone else? Again, nowhere. Where did I ever suggest that science does, or even should, rely on anecdotes as evidence of anything? Once again, nowhere.

In other words, all of that had sweet fuck all to do with what I had actually written. Thanks for regaling us so irrelevantly with such vociferous screed. The Straw Man fallacy consists of attacking a position that is different from or weaker than your opponent's actual position, but I'm not sure what fallacy is committed when you fabricate some completely different and ridiculously asinine position your opponent has never held but you nevertheless pretend he does.

I habitually "brush aside" such brain-farted irrelevance as that. Get used to it.

This is also where I invariably hear Christians claim that God is outside of our physical realm and, as such, cannot be empirically tested. And if that is (rather conveniently) the case, then there is no empirical test that can be devised to prove this God's existence. And so the idea of testing for the existence of God is a non-starter.

Thanks for repeating the very fucking point I was making (along with Michael Shermer)? God forbid you should just quote the point and say, "I agree"—as if by repeating the very point you can pretend it was your own valuable contribution to the discussion.

In addition, if this deity is outside the realm of reality in which we mete out our existence, then it seems to me that he could be defined as an alien. And so the question that comes to my mind is, what vested interest does this alien being who doesn't reside in our world have in our world?

Are you so exquisitely out of touch with what Christianity teaches that you cannot even answer that question? Some experience with thoughtful skeptics and critical thinkers would soon teach you that before a person rejects a position he should at least be familiar with its most elementary teachings first—so as to know what it is he's rejecting. If you truly don't know what the answer is to that question, then that speaks volumes about you. If you actually do know, then this display of disingenuous sophistry says just as much.

(P.S. I may brush aside this or that comment of yours, but you ignored an entire post of mine, addressed to you.)

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Oh, I'm sure you meant all proposed deities except yours.

Well, yes, that is sort of how the TAG works. As I said, "If the God of Scripture is X, then any other deity is necessarily ¬X," by definition. This refers to the identity of indiscernibles, a logical principle predicated on the law of identity. Fine-tuning the properties of some proposed deity until it attains the same achievement ends up resulting in it possessing every property of X, "the God of Scripture," such that everything true of one is true of the other and vice-versa (e.g., if everything true of Ryan's father is also true of William's son and vice-versa, then they are actually one and the same person, Robert.) Every ¬X at some point must fail the test precisely because it is not X, since X alone accounts for all features argued by the TAG.

C'mon, this is Atheist Forums. Damned near every thread derails into [being] about something else. I do believe establishment of a creator is relevant to a discussion of creationism, is it not?

Sure, and so is establishing that other minds objectively exist, that the Bible is the authoritative word of God, that inductive inference works, etc. There are countless issues relevant to a discussion of creationism, but there comes a point where the participants have to assume those things for the sake of argument, that is, in order to even have the argument. Is the existence of God relevant? Certainly. But if what you want is someone to establish that God exists, the sheer enormity of that task calls for it to have its own thread. In a thread about dinosaurs under young-earth creationism and the scientific merits of its arguments (if any), surely we can assume for the sake of argument that God exists so as to even have the discussion.

I guess you missed that part that said, "Humor me for a minute and say (for the sake of argument) ..."

I did humor you. The "cognitive dissonance" part was a sardonic aside (as it seemed 'humorous' to ponder an atheist believing in a deity). I got the gist of your inquiry and answered it: "since it is admitted as a parody religion; i.e., not real, your having a sincere belief in IPUs qualifies as delusional."

When responding to me, if it'll save ya a bit of time, I really don't give a fuck about who got credit for saying or writing what.

It was less for your benefit and more for mine, that is, adhering to forum rules: "When quoting from a source other than yourself, give credit where credit is due. Use citations, links, names, etc. when possible. Academic integrity is important to a lot of the members here and it's only fair to give credit where it is due."