Atheism, Evidence and the God-of-the-Gaps

[Esquilax]

And I have explained to you on more than one occasion why it is reasonable to believe that God exists.

Gee, you've BEEN TOLD. Why do you continue with your dishonest claims that God does not exist when you already know the truth?

See my point? Yeah, you've TOLD me what Darwinism means...I just don't believe your interpretation is applicable in a social situation.

So, I'll argue for what I believe based on what I believe, and you, of course, will continue to do the same.

The difference, of course, is that words have meanings, and if you're going to discuss something that significantly varies from what that meaning is, then you are no longer discussing the subject of the word. In your case, you are misrepresenting what the concepts associated with Darwinian fitness in order to make the whole subject look bad; aside from being a guilt by association fallacy, and an appeal to consequences, when you assert that a term means one thing when you know it was coined with the intention of meaning something else entirely, that is dishonest.

Because this isn't just my opinion versus your opinion, where both interpretations are equal, that's not how language works. Words mean things: if I give you a glass of water, and you attempt to assert that I actually gave you a glass of poison, to make me look bad, then you are factually in error.

The usage of the concepts that I am using isn't just my opinion, it's the meaning they were given when they were coined. It's the meaning as Darwin understood it. It is the literal embodiment of "Darwinian" theory, and the reason you are being dishonest isn't because you haven't instantly jumped to my way of thinking, it's because you are attempting to replace the ideas Darwin actually proposed with ones he did not, and call that "Darwinism" anyway.

It's roughly the equivalent of me taking the whole text of Mein Kampf and attributing those ideas to Jesus; is that an honest representation of the words of Jesus? Am I able to lean on "my interpretation is that Jesus is best embodied by Mein Kampf," as justification? Are all interpretations equal then?

Or is it that people can be factually incorrect when it comes to their interpretations? And that when they use their interpretations even after being corrected, when they knowingly attempt to rewrite history because it better suits their ideological goals rather than the facts that they know after having been told, that they are acting dishonestly?