RE: The logical consequences of omnipotence
January 23, 2013 at 9:40 pm
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2013 at 9:43 pm by Celi.)
This quote surgery is getting annoying, so I'm going to respond inside it. Colored text is mine.
(January 23, 2013 at 4:30 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: The difference between our statements, is that I call you ignorant of the facts, where you call mine impossible. Do you see the difference? I regard your opinion as under informed. You regard my position as something to be trashed. You dismiss it out of hand.
So you were saying that good triumphs over evil all the time with no exceptions? Because that's what I called irrational, and it was only one possible interpretation of one of your incomprehensible posts.
Even so, you say that my position is 'ignorant of the facts'. As in, my argument isn't logically sound due to a lack of information on my part. (By the way, if you really think there are 'facts' that you could tell me that would make me abandon my argument and see the light, why haven't you given them to me? If that's not the case, then all you really mean is that I'm wrong, not ignorant.) I said one possible interpretation of something you said wasn't 'rationally based'--as in, not logically sound. Your claim that I see your position as 'something to be trashed' and that I'm dismissing it out of hand is incorrect and unsubstantiated. I've been fairly respectful to you, I think, considering all the offensive generalizations you've made about atheists and insulting implications about my own intelligence. I've looked at your position as objectively as I can, and I don't see any evidence or logic in it.
You are being dogmatic. This is an atheist site, and like theists on theist sites, it'd all too easy to get insensitive and make dogmatic remarks in the safety of ones peers. Maybe you don't even know that you're doing it. In my community theists are quite rare, and people just aren't so aware that there are other legitimate ways of thinking.
Pretty ironic, since that's how I feel living in an entirely Christian community. Anyway, I don't see where I've been in any way dogmatic, and if you can point out specific instances of this please do so. Frankly I'm tempted to assume you're just using your own definition again, and when you do that, I can't respond properly because I don't have any clear understanding of what you're accusing me of.
My response here was I think to your own statement of "atheists are of course rational".
I never said that. Ever.
I'm not trying to insult you. I'm trying to be factual. What do you call basic lack of knowledge of a subject besides ignorance? Above I quoted you dismissing my opinion like it shouldn't ever be considered by any rational person. The storybook notion that good always triumphs over evil, always, in every situation? Yep, I don't think any rational person would find that convincing. But I also don't think that that's what you believe, anyway--right? Because it's absurd, as anyone who's lived in this world for any amount of time should know. Bad things happen sometimes. That is ignorance of my position. I think you genuinely didn't realise. Still, yours is a position of ignorance. I don't think you should get hung up on the word.
Again, what exactly am I ignorant of? I'm pretty sure when you say ignorant you just mean wrong. If I'm really ignorant, then by all means give me the facts.
I don't call you ignorant of everything else. Your exact words were 'I find the majority of atheists to be quite ignorant, not only of religion and the subject they attack without understanding it at all'. I do state that atheism is mostly a position of ignorance. Lack of belief in a deity, for example, is because you lack convincing information. Haha, yep. No one is born believing in God. Therefore everyone starts out ignorant of that position.
Er, yes, infants don't know about the idea of God. Are you implying that I've never heard of it at all? Because I have, obviously.
I do think it's harder for non believes to be tolerant of believers, because believers have all been non believers at some point, where non believers don't have to have believed first. Chances are you have never understood it.
While a baby can't be born with a religion in its head, you can indoctrinate zir from early childhood, as is the case with most religious people. If that's what you mean, then yes, I was raised Methodist.
Yes I would agree that unselfishness is pretty much a universally accepted good idea. That's my point.... You get the basis of my reasoning.
Natures neutrality, the very finality of that, is what ultimately you must base your world view on.
I still don't get what you're talking about here. Could you clarify?
That's the problem you accurately assess. Not a problem even to you, because that is reality right? It's only a problem to me in light of the solution. The solution that my reality isn't neutral. It is positive.
...Reality itself is positive? I like the universe too. The only real difference is that I don't believe it was made specifically for humanity. Doesn't mean I can't love the world, and life.
