Group prayer on Skype on behalf of our Christian members

[I_am_not_mafia]

[Huggy Bear]

So let's look at how Huggy argues here. If he can't answer the question then he deliberately derails the conversation by coming up with something irrelevant to argue about so the original point is lost. That is undeniably intellectually dishonest and disingenuous.

Recent examples:

• He says that there are no degrees to morality there is simply right or wrong. I respond with many different contentious issues that people disagree on and he starts changing the subject to discuss each one in depth ignoring the point I made that people do not disagree.
  

*emphasis mine*
That's literally how morality is defined.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/morality

morality
1 Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

• He says that animals cannot reason so cannot be moral. I give an example of animals reasoning and he derails the conversation by drawing an arbitrary distinction between problem solving and reasoning. Then to cap it all starts talking about a Go playing computer program.
  

*emphasis mine*
You gave an example of an animals problem solving ability NOT reasoning ability, which is why I made the distinction. The computer AI was to demonstrate that problem solving ability is not the same as reasoning ability.

You think I just made up the fact that animals don't have the ability to reason?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying logic, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans. Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.

*emphasis mine*

What do you say to that?

• In response The Industrial Atheist's example of vampire bats being altruistic by regurgitating blood he avoids acknowledging the point being made by saying that the author is religious.
  

If I posted any "science" from a religious source that you didn't agree with you dismiss the information out of hand, so don't even try it. The author of the article didn't reference any particular study to back up his claims of morality, so what exactly am I to scrutinize?

On one hand you have an expert (who happens to be atheist) in the field that states he is "reluctant to call a chimp a moral being".

On the other hand you have a priest (not an expert) applying morality to bats yet you guys choose to reject the experts interpretation and go with the priest's...

Talk about cherry-picking...

• On being told by me that he cannot get his head around the scientific method so how can we expect to explain AI to him, he quotes an old post of his about a 600 foot rudder to make it look like I was previously wrong on an entirely different thread without mentioning the very next post in that thread where I refuted his example.
  

To be clear, you claimed that wooden ships could only be built so big, according to YOU the limit was 450ft in length, but according to evidence a Chinese treasure ship of 600 ft was built.

You have not refuted anything because you can't refute facts.

This is so utterly typical of how you try to debate Huggy. If someone counters what you say, you ignore what was said and derail the conversation to avoid what was said. Not to mention that this entire debate was a derailing of the original thread where I am suggesting praying to Satan for the christians on here. I think you are in dire need of guidance from the god of critical thinking.

You are intellectually dishonest and only concerned about appearing to win. It is lying for Jesus.

First of all, I've addressed all your points concisely.

Secondly, how about me repeatedly asking you for sources which you never provided (well you provided one, but you ended up disagreeing with your own source), so what did you counter my arguments with exactly?

Atheists stay losing...

[I_am_not_mafia]

Do you quote anything other than layman explanations of very wide ranging and complex subjects Huggy?

Morality. Reason. Both words laden down with thousands of years of baggage given you room to equivocate. You make an arbitrary distinction between having morals and morality for example.

You know if you do that then you can also find wikipedia links saying the complete opposite.

I mean you're putting in bold sentences starting like 'normally considered to be ...' as evidence.

You solve problems by reasoning about them.

[Huggy Bear]

Do you quote anything other than layman explanations of very wide ranging and complex subjects Huggy?

Morality. Reason. Both words laden down with thousands of years of baggage given you room to equivocate. You make an arbitrary distinction between having morals and morality for example.

Look, if you want to argue with dictionary definitions, then have at it...

You know if you do that then you can also find wikipedia links saying the complete opposite.

Post them...

I mean you're putting in bold sentences starting like 'normally considered to be ...' as evidence.

Well you can't totally dismiss the fringe crazies that feel differently, hence the term 'normal', stating otherwise would be abnormal.

You solve problems by reasoning about them.

Really?

Does a calculator solve problems by reasoning?

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure does.  They;re called xnor circuits, a physical instantiation of propositional logic that allows boolean algebra to be translated into simple addition or subtraction.

Now, multiplication is harder, and requires a more complicated array......but, guess what........

[I_am_not_mafia]

Does a calculator solve problems by reasoning?

If you arrange them into interconnected patterns with inputs and outputs and have enough of them then yes.

I mean, there's loads of artificial reasoning programs on wikipedia that can range from mathematical inference and proof theorem solving to logical inference.

And guess what, they're all powered by a computer, which if you check wikipedia does calculations.

And of course what we call a calculator is generally made up of smaller calculating units (check wikipedia about computer architecture).

Not that I know why you are saying reasoning is the another word for doing maths.

[The Grand Nudger]

They don;t call it an alu for no reason, eh, lol.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Or an fpu

[The Grand Nudger]

I prefer integrated architecture myself...though there;s definitely something to be said for parallel co-processing.
(...I think we've found our rock crushers.......)

[I_am_not_mafia]

(...I think we've found our rock crushers.......)

We lost more than just a member with the disappearance of Alex K!