I'm having trouble with voting altogether. There are too many good possibilities for categories like best member and best debater and too many amusing possibilities for weirdest and most opinionated.
And then there are categories I like to add, like the best crank, that is the member who is most stuck on a single, odd, conspiracy or other largely fallacious theory. Or, more positively, most informative member.
But I'm not having quite so much trouble with best theist member. I rate theists on their entertainment value in debate, and I don't mean just absurdity; there has to be a little originality and the ability to see and respond to other points of view. That of course eliminates sane placating theists who simply define god to be whatever sounds most acceptable and the merely batshit crazy. It also eliminates the traditional believers who seem unable to see that others might see different things then their own traditional interpretation. It eliminates the faith based believers too, as there's nothing to argue about if you believe without proof.
I'm going with Heywood, because he responds to argument and comes up with original ideas for proving god. They don't work, but they are ingenious in the way a Rube Goldberg machine is ingenious. On a similar and also Rube Goldberg note is the Professor whose secret code interpretations of scripture predicting Jesus or the apocalypse are even more Rube Goldberg, though not so original or thought provoking.
And then there are categories I like to add, like the best crank, that is the member who is most stuck on a single, odd, conspiracy or other largely fallacious theory. Or, more positively, most informative member.
But I'm not having quite so much trouble with best theist member. I rate theists on their entertainment value in debate, and I don't mean just absurdity; there has to be a little originality and the ability to see and respond to other points of view. That of course eliminates sane placating theists who simply define god to be whatever sounds most acceptable and the merely batshit crazy. It also eliminates the traditional believers who seem unable to see that others might see different things then their own traditional interpretation. It eliminates the faith based believers too, as there's nothing to argue about if you believe without proof.
I'm going with Heywood, because he responds to argument and comes up with original ideas for proving god. They don't work, but they are ingenious in the way a Rube Goldberg machine is ingenious. On a similar and also Rube Goldberg note is the Professor whose secret code interpretations of scripture predicting Jesus or the apocalypse are even more Rube Goldberg, though not so original or thought provoking.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.