Another apologist with his "clever" questions

[The Grand Nudger]

No, goblygoop isn't logic, you told us it wasn't very plainly...that's the whole point of proposing goblygoop in the first place - so that a hypothetical god, in a hypothetical universe...can do illogical things like making 2+2=5.  

Goblygoop is illogical, because goblygoop is a set of rules (loosely put) that exist for no other purpose than to facilate the illogical in your hypothetical.  If your hypothetical god, in your hypothetical unverse, operates on logical rules...then there's no need for goblygoop at all...but then, I suppose, it couldn;t make 2+2=5. This is extremely simple....I'm not sure why you seem to think you can have illogical logic. You can have a coherent set of rules, if you like, different than the ones we call logic. Bobs to our Freds. We've already agreed on that...if things were different, things would be different.

However, insisting that Bob -is- Fred, is pointless...and, amusingly, illogical. This is a basic principle, a law even, called identity. It may not be in goblygoop-land, but it is here...and here, to be logical, or to be logic, is to adhere to a certain set of rules..which you are adamantly determined to avoid in the case of your hypothetical god. Your use of the term, as such...is an equivocation. Again, that may not be an issue in goblygoop-land.......but it is here.

You've huffed and puffed about me not accepting the hypothetical, but you're the only one who seems to have a problem with it. Can we get over your ludicrous need to have the god of goblygoop considered to be a logical god and get back to the non-sequitur you proposed it in defense of...or are you going to waste more of our time?

[GrandizerII]

I am sure you are all well aware of religiously inspired (mostly Christian and sometimes Islamic) "ministries" that aim to preach and convert people... They have a new tactic called "apologetics" which in their deluded minds is how to attack atheists like us and convert us.
This Indian man came to America and now preaches to all denominations and attacks what he deems "naturalism", a code word for atheism.
His name is Ravi Zckerias. (http://rzim.org/media/questions-answers/)

He has a ministry and all.

You all love debating... here are his six questions from the website. He thinks these will convert any atheist:

1.    If there is no God, “the big questions” remain unanswered, so how do we answer the following questions: Why is there something rather than nothing?  This question was asked by Aristotle and Leibniz alike – albeit with differing answers.  But it is an historic concern.  Why is there conscious, intelligent life on this planet, and is there any meaning to this life?  If there is meaning, what kind of meaning and how is it found?  Does human history lead anywhere, or is it all in vain since death is merely the end?  How do you come to understand good and evil, right and wrong without a transcendent signifier?  If these concepts are merely social constructions, or human opinions, whose opinion does one trust in determining what is good or bad, right or wrong?  If you are content within atheism, what circumstances would serve to make you open to other answers?
2.    If we reject the existence of God, we are left with a crisis of meaning, so why don’t we see more atheists like Jean Paul Sartre, or Friedrich Nietzsche, or Michel Foucault?  These three philosophers, who also embraced atheism, recognized that in the absence of God, there was no transcendent meaning beyond one’s own self-interests, pleasures, or tastes.  The crisis of atheistic meaninglessness is depicted in Sartre’s book Nausea.  Without God, there is a crisis of meaning, and these three thinkers, among others, show us a world of just stuff, thrown out into space and time, going nowhere, meaning nothing.
3.    When people have embraced atheism, the historical results can be horrific, as in the regimes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who saw religion as the problem and worked to eradicate it?  In other words, what set of actions are consistent with particular belief commitments?  It could be argued, that these behaviors – of the regimes in question - are more consistent with the implications of atheism.  Though, I'm thankful that many of the atheists I know do not live the implications of these beliefs out for themselves like others did!  It could be argued that the socio-political ideologies could very well be the outworking of a particular set of beliefs – beliefs that posited the ideal state as an atheistic one.
4.    If there is no God, the problems of evil and suffering are in no way solved, so where is the hope of redemption, or meaning for those who suffer?  Suffering is just as tragic, if not more so, without God because there is no hope of ultimate justice, or of the suffering being rendered meaningful or transcendent, redemptive or redeemable.  It might be true that there is no God to blame now, but neither is there a God to reach out to for strength, transcendent meaning, or comfort.  Why would we seek the alleviation of suffering without objective morality grounded in a God of justice?
5.    If there is no God, we lose the very standard by which we critique religions and religious people, so whose opinion matters most?  Whose voice will be heard?  Whose tastes or preferences will be honored?  In the long run, human tastes and opinions have no more weight than we give them, and who are we to give them meaning anyway?  Who is to say that lying, or cheating or adultery or child molestation are wrong –really wrong?  Where do those standards come from?  Sure, our societies might make these things “illegal” and impose penalties or consequences for things that are not socially acceptable, but human cultures have at various times legally or socially disapproved of everything from believing in God to believing the world revolves around the sun; from slavery, to interracial marriage, from polygamy to monogamy.  Human taste, opinion law and culture are hardly dependable arbiters of Truth.
6.    If there is no God, we don’t make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent?  How do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I feel unfulfilled or empty?  Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?

Ok, my thought blog was meant to be "private" or at least not disclosed publically, but I did have a go at addressing these questions a while ago, and so for anyone interested in my take on this, visit this link and scroll down below till you get to the sections in red and blue (ignore everything else in the post as the bulk of it has nothing to do with the OP of this thread). Keep in mind that nothing is perfect about my points, and I'm sure people can point out errors here and there, but it helps me to organize my thoughts more properly and just putting in the effort to answer these questions more thoroughly than I usually do helps a lot with developing and refining my thinking on these matters.

[The Grand Nudger]

While none of those questions seem to be the sorts of things that would convert, they do express the authors deep seated disgust and resentment of his own humanity, and the humanity of others, lol.

1. No one's going to deorbit hubble because "god".  It's not as though "god" has been particularly productive with answers......nor have christans, themselves, stopped seeking answers on the basis that god answers some question.

2. The stalin/mao/polpot bit is tired.  Post hoc ergo propter hoc?   

3. Does the author truly believe that we would leave a thorn in our foot because "well, like, there's no god...man"...?

4. It's pointless to argue, suggest, or imply that we cannot have standards without god (or morality, or meaning). I plainly and clearly do, and that much is a brute fact that cannot be denied by disagreeing with their specifics.

5 We're wish makers, but our wishing for things doesn't suggest that said things exist.  I wish my wife had beer flavored nipples. We make little to no sense -regardless- of whether or not there's a god.

[FallentoReason]

No, goblygoop isn't logic, you told us it wasn't very plainly...that's the whole point of proposing goblygoop in the first place - so that a hypothetical god, in a hypothetical universe...can do illogical things like making 2+2=5.  

Refer to Fred and Bob again.

Goblygoop is illogical, because goblygoop is a set of rules (loosely put) that exist for no other purpose than to facilate the illogical in your hypothetical.  If your hypothetical god, in your hypothetical unverse, operates on logical rules...then there's no need for goblygoop at all...but then, I suppose, it couldn;t make 2+2=5. This is extremely simple....I'm not sure why you seem to think you can have illogical logic. You can have a coherent set of rules, if you like, different than the ones we call logic. Bobs to our Freds. We've already agreed on that...if things were different, things would be different.

The trouble you have is that you're universalist (kind of like sexist or what have you, but to do with universes).

You say that if things were different, then they would be different. Perfect! That's as much as we can agree on. But then you add your universe's superiority by implicitly calling it the True Logic ™. Goblygoopians can play that game too, and would they be wrong in doing so?

However, insisting that Bob -is- Fred

I'll stop you there, because this is an explicit show of your inability to understand what I'm saying. I didn't once say they were the same person. I said they were both *human*, just like our logic here and goblygoop are both axioms.

[The Grand Nudger]

Refer to Fred and Bob again.

I'll refer to it as often as you like, specifically the fact that fred is not bob, regardless of whether or not they're both human.  Similarly, logic is not goblygoop, even if they're both a set of rules by which a hypothetical (or actual) universe can be said to operate...regardless of whether or not a god had anything to do with either.

The trouble you have is that you're universalist (kind of like sexist or what have you, but to do with universes).

You say that if things were different, then they would be different. Perfect! That's as much as we can agree on. But then you add your universe's superiority by implicitly calling it the True Logic ™. Goblygoopians can play that game too, and would they be wrong in doing so?

The trouble, Fall, is that you can't rationally argue against my actual position, so you have to invent them for me, and feel empowered to do so.  We're not going to get anywhere this way because we aren't playing by the same rules. Though I don;t even know why you;d go through the trouble of trying, since you could always appeal to goblygoop instead of doing the work required to competently argue your position by logical means.

I'll stop you there, because this is an explicit show of your inability to understand what I'm saying. I didn't once say they were the same person. I said they were both *human*, just like our logic here and goblygoop are both axioms.

Should I quote you as saying that goblygoop is logic or even that 2+2=5 is logical in some alternate universe?  I shouldn't have to.  Or the later dumpster dodge that they're "the same class of thing" as though this were relevant, informative, or even a matter of disagreement between us?  I shouldn't have to.  You should respect your own thought droppings enough, at least, to remember them...and not require others to spoonfeed them back to you everytime you hit a snag in your goblygooping. If you don't, it's difficult to imagine who will.....certainly won't be me. I'll call massive bullshit and laugh in your face.

You -know- this about me.........?

[Excited Penguin]

Oh, this thread.

You're merely choosing to use different meanings of the word logic(al), that's all.


Like, really, this is a debate mostly in form. Try and see that.

[The Grand Nudger]

I've already opined on that, using the term as such is equivocation.  A no no.  Logic isn't -just- a set of rules, or axioms, it's a specific set, and obviously not the set proposed and called goblygoop, in which 2+2=5. As such, the provlamations of goblygoop aren't -logical-...they don't adhere to logic, hey adhere to goblygoop.

All of this, ultimately is evasion from the equally ludicrous main point in which it was raised anyway, so I'm gonna give the presenter hell until they give up. That shit is irritating, and more and more it's the coin of the fucking realm round these parts. Works like this;

-Say something fantastically ignorant
-Immediately run at 90 miles an hour as far away from the ignorant thing as possible.
-Return, when all has been forgeton, to said ignorant thing...as though the whole sad tirade had never occurred.

*bonus round: feign ignorance regarding -all- of the above.

Profit.

[FallentoReason]

Rhythm, when I say goblygoop is logic, I'm using the term "logic" as an adjective. Yes, I know I literally didn't do it just then, and it can be read as goblygoop being the object of what we, on this universe, call logic. But if this entire time you've been thinking that I'm saying the set of rules called 'goblygoop' are the same as the set of rules called 'logic', then that's not what I'm saying. The only thing making our rules "LOGICAL" is the fact we're conditioned to this space-time. There is no reason for thinking that an alternate set of rules couldn't be logical. I bet the Rhythm in the other universe would be rooting for goblygoop 100% just because that so happens to be the rules over there. It does not have to be so.

[The Grand Nudger]

Your failure to accurately communicate your own position has never been and will never become -my- problem, no more so than whatever alternate rhythm in a different universe where things are different assigns credibility to speaks to anything in this universe, in this thread, regarding me.  Get your shit together.

What did you expect, that I would esp this nonsense, or just run the risk of strawmanning you by imagining that your position was something entirely less silly than what you described...and continue to describe it to be? Yeah, I'm sure you wouldn't have cried bloody murder about that......

[The Grand Nudger]

The rules of goblygoop *are* logic. If you're implying something logical is A, and goblygoop is ~A, then you're misunderstanding my position. Texas hold 'em and the other rule are A. So is our logic in this universe and in the other one. There is no error in describing goblygoop as A.

You shameless thing, you. I wasn't thinking it, you said it, and you've doubled and tripled down on it, backed off from it, them propped it right back up again since. Make up your mind.