[quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< there are truths that exist but only I can genuinely know them. >>>[/quote] What if I were with you as we enjoyed oatmeal and bluberries together. What if we were together when God, in an entirely faith free experience wherein you are CERTAIN it wasn’t a demonic deception, told you personally how evil faith was? Despite the fact that Just such Satanic trickery is described in the bible.
I am running out of ways to show you the excruciating nature of your inconsistencies. You have an almost supernatural ability to blind yourself to them. Maybe you do. With a little help. Sure sounds like it. [/quote]
Ah, but you weren’t there. That’s the nature of singular and substantial experience. And judging if I am being tricked by satan would also apply equally to your example; how would I know that my judgment in ANY circumstance isn’t flawed?
You are running out of arguments because it is difficult for subjectivity as a source of self-knowledge to be defeated. Objective experiential knowledge…well…
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Wait, if atheism can’t be responsible for atrocities carried out under it’s banner, how is Theism then skewered?[/quote]
What atrocities have been carried out under the “banner of atheism”?
[quote]Sloth wrote?
If the argument is that atheism holds no such idea that believers are sub-human, non-bright, sheeple, that must be actively oppressed for the betterment of some future human state of near utopian rational being, because atheism simply lacks a belief in god, carrying none of the above baggage then Theism is exonerated too. Theism simply means a belief in a deity. It doesn’t mean a belief in oppressing unbelievers in order to bring about a theocratic world. It simply means a belief in a deity. Specifically, with the West in mind, Christianity simply means a belief in and a following of Christ. Christ, objectively, did not instruct his apostles or disciples to convert by sword. In fact, an objective reading quickly reveals that following Christ necessitates a peaceful invitation to the unconverted, in order to follow Christ.
So, if atheism is innocent because ‘atheism’ simply mean a lack of belief in a deity, without any requirements to ‘unconvert’ the converted by the sword, then so too is Christianity clean as the wind driven snow.[/quote]
No, the beliefs you described above are just that; “beliefs”. It takes a positive belief system to put someone in motion and down that nasty road. Communism, religion, Marxism, etc.; all are belief systems running on dogma. Atheism, again, is a non-belief.
Theism then, can be explicitly fingered in many, many atrocities throughout history. Why? Because they were doing those things under the banner of their belief system. They had the faith that comes with religious dogma. Islamic Jihad, christian witch hunts, the inquisition, Aztec human sacrifice, medieval trials by ordeal, the crusades, etc., all done in the name of their dogmatic belief systems.
People who shoot abortion doctors, do so in the name of god and have quite a bit of faith that they were acting in accordance with their beliefs. They had the faith of their religion to give them the perceived moral authority to kill. This isn’t even discussing the atrocities listed and commanded in the bible, which I’m happy to discuss if you’d like.
So no, atheism is a non-belief with zero dogma, where theism is a positive dogmatic belief. [/quote]
From dictionary.com:
a�??�??�??�?�·the�??�??�??�?�·ism�??�??�?�¢?? �??�??�?�¢??/�??e�??�??�??�?�ª�??�??�??�?�¸i�??�??�??�??�?�ªz�??m/ Show Spelled[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
The foundation for your arguments that it is simply a non-beleif, is bunk. It is very much a belief. If it were simply a non-beief as you say, then there would be no atheist websites, no advertisements, no doctrines or dogmas of any kind. But there are, hell you posted links to them. How do you have such things based on a non-belief? It seems to me you don’t even understand your own beliefs. And there very much is a dogma. If there were no dogma whatsoever than an atheist could believe and God and still be an atheist. But there is a dogma, to be an atheist, you must deny the existence of God. If there is a stated doctrine that denies the existence of God, you can act on that doctrine. Atheism is a NOUN.
[/quote]
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4][5][6][7] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[8][9] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[9][10]
The term atheism originated from the Greek Ã???Ã??Ã?¡Ã???Ã??Ã?¼?Ã???Ã???Ã??Ã?¸Ã???Ã???Ã??Ã?µÃ???Ã???Ã??Ã?¿Ã??? (atheos), meaning “without god(s)”, used as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves using the word “atheist” lived in the 18th century.[11]
a�??�??�?�·the�??�??�?�·ist (th-st)
n.
One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.
a�??�??�?�·the�??�??�?�·ist�??�?�¢?? �??�?�¢??[ey-thee-ist] Show IPA
noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
[i]Atheism
Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity, which implies that nothing exists but natural phenomena (matter), that thought is a property or function of matter, and that death irreversibly and totally terminates individual organic units. This definition means that there are no forces, phenomena, or entities which exist outside of or apart from physical nature, or which transcend nature, or are �??�?�¢??super�??�?�¢?? natural, nor can there be. Humankind is on its own.[/i]
[i]Definition of atheism
noun
[mass noun]
disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
Origin:
It seems to me Pat, that you’re misunderstanding concepts such as dogma, negation of belief, etc.
Atheism is very much a negation of belief in deities, as in NO BELIEF IN ANY GODS, not even yours. But to prove me wrong, all you have to do is lay out for me what the atheist dogma is; tell me what I believe in that makes me an atheist. What positive belief makes one an atheist?
[/quote]
I never said it wasn’t nor did I call it a religion. And you can scratch that whole bullshit about positive and negative beliefs, there is no such thing. Further, you can assert a negative, math does it all the time, but that’s not what atheism is. Further, if you deny that God is the basis for existence, then you must replace ‘it’ with something else as existence is. Atheism is a belief. You believe there is no God. The object of your belief is that despite the claims there is one, you don’t believe in God. You believe that something other than God is responsible for existence. These are pretty rigid claims, which smacks of dogma. Others think so too.
Atheist community? LOL! How do you center a community around a absence of belief? The whole thing is contradictory. The only way you can have an absence of belief is to never have known there was a belief.
So how would it go in your “community” which is based on nothing, according to you, if somebody didn’t believe in God, but did believe in angels, or heaven or life after death? Bettin’ they’d be shown the door of the tree house pretty quick.
All over the map my ass, every atheist I have ever read or talked to says the same lame shit you say. Either yall are not “all over the map” or stunningly unorigional.
[quote]
So just go ahead and tell me what the atheist dogma is; tell me what I believe in that makes me an atheist.
[i]“Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.”
-Don Hirschberg
[b]Unlike a religion, atheism is not organized under a common doctrine (belief system). The only shared opinion among atheists is the nonexistence of a deity. There are a few common beliefs among atheists such as views regarding morality, religion and spirituality, but these beliefs vary greatly and are outside the definition of atheism and thus are not required to be an atheist.
Largely, atheism remains unorganized and as some would say, “organizing atheists is like trying to heard cats”.[/b][/i][/quote]
Being disorganized, unoriginal and unable to logically justify your positions seems like a losing proposition to me. Hey whatever floats your boat…
[quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< You are running out of arguments >>>[/quote]I’ve only ever given you one. I have employed very numerous varying packages of presentation due to your unusually high immunity to logic in this arena. [quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< subjectivity as a source of self-knowledge <<<>>> Objective experiential knowledge >>>[/quote] Please tell me the difference in your view.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< You are running out of arguments >>>[/quote]I’ve only ever given you one. I have employed very numerous varying packages of presentation due to your unusually high immunity to logic in this arena. [quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< subjectivity as a source of self-knowledge <<<>>> Objective experiential knowledge >>>[/quote] Please tell me the difference in your view.
[/quote]
Simple – our language involves communication with another. Therefore either an experience has to be shared (but is still then factually only for those who share) or has to be open to experience. This experience then can be replicated as scientific fact.
How can creation be tested? How does one apply the scientific method to mumbo-jumbo fairy tales?
Thus creationism ain’t science and one can only know god by direct experience. (God isn’t open to experiment either.)
BTW: did you enjoy the vid? Spencer Tracey at his absolute best!!!
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
It seems to me Pat, that you’re misunderstanding concepts such as dogma, negation of belief, etc.
Atheism is very much a negation of belief in deities, as in NO BELIEF IN ANY GODS, not even yours. But to prove me wrong, all you have to do is lay out for me what the atheist dogma is; tell me what I believe in that makes me an atheist. What positive belief makes one an atheist?
[/quote]
I never said it wasn’t nor did I call it a religion. And you can scratch that whole bullshit about positive and negative beliefs, there is no such thing. Further, you can assert a negative, math does it all the time, but that’s not what atheism is.[/quote]
Sure, proving a mathematical negative is easy, proving that a mystical deity does not exist is something entirely different, now isn’t it. You could prove for me mathematical negatives all day, but how is a man supposed to prove that a mystical deity does not exist? The answer is, he cannot, it is impossible. So you have to take into account the very nature of the negative being discussed. How is a man supposed to prove positively that god doesn’t exist, when no one even knows what god is supposed to be? What is your definition of god? What makes you a christian, and not a follower of some other religion with a different god entirely?
I suspect that at this point you will retreat into some deistic stance with a broad definition of “god” as that’s what you’ve done in the past. Perhaps it would serve this discussion best if I just asked outright; are you a deist? Are you a christian? What IS your definition of “god”? This is actually important to the conversation, and should reveal quite a bit about where you stand as a believer.
As far as positive and negative beliefs, there’s certainly positive and negative assertions in atheism. Case in point is myself and Dr. Matt; I make the positive assertion that there is no god(s) based on the overwhelming lack of proof; no proof means no god for me. Dr. Matt takes a more negative stance on the issue and seems happy to simply not believe, and move on with his life. However at the core of atheism, we always come back to the basal definition of atheism; LACK OF BELIEF IN A DEITY. Which is all it is, really.
You’re trying to say that atheism is believing in not believing, that’s bunk. YOU’RE making the claim that YOUR god exists, YOU need to provide the proof for YOUR claim; simple as that. The onus is not on the atheist to provide any justification for their rejection of a theistic assertions. Of course, you could end this conversation pretty damn quick if you really wanted to; just provide the proof. Easy right? So prove me wrong and prove for god.
[quote]Pat wrote:
Further, if you deny that God is the basis for existence, then you must replace ‘it’ with something else as existence is. [/quote]
Why?!? LOL…You that uncomfortable with not-knowing?
[quote]Pat wrote:
Atheism is a belief. You believe there is no God. The object of your belief is that despite the claims there is one, you don’t believe in God. You believe that something other than God is responsible for existence. These are pretty rigid claims, which smacks of dogma. Others think so too.
No, it really isn’t a belief; reference the many definitions I posted. Atheism, at it’s core, is the rejection of belief in any god or deity. I choose to take my atheism a step further by saying that there are no gods, but that’s based on a lack of proof as I’ve already stated. I guess that makes me a positive atheist; I’m good with that. There’s simply no reason for me to believe that a “god” is responsible for existence. Penn Jillette wrote a good piece about taking atheism further than simple “non-belief”.
[i]There Is No God
by PENN JILLETTE
I believe that there is no God. I’m beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy â?? you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do. You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word “elephant” includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this “This I Believe” thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life’s big picture, some rules to live by. So, I’m saying, “This I believe: I believe there is no God.”
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there’s no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I’m wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don’t travel in circles where people say, “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,” or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that’s always fun. It means I’m learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.[/i]
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
No, the reason there are atheist websites and such, is that while there is no atheist dogma to speak of, there are numerous associated philosophies. Skepticism, freethought, etc., are just a few of these. Not believing in god is in no way dogmatic, nor does it constitute a system of beliefs that an atheist must subscribe to in order to be an atheist. If you knew more about the atheist community, you’d know that we’re all over the map. The one thing, the ONLY thing that binds us together, is that atheists have come to the conclusion that there are no god(s).
[/quote]
Atheist community? LOL! How do you center a community around a absence of belief? The whole thing is contradictory. The only way you can have an absence of belief is to never have known there was a belief.[/quote]
Better that I say “rejection of belief”? Why is it contradictory to say that atheists will have commonly associated philosophies?
[quote]Pat wrote:
So how would it go in your “community” which is based on nothing, according to you, if somebody didn’t believe in God, but did believe in angels, or heaven or life after death? Bettin’ they’d be shown the door of the tree house pretty quick.
All over the map my ass, every atheist I have ever read or talked to says the same lame shit you say. Either yall are not “all over the map” or stunningly unorigional.[/quote]
There’s great variances in atheism, and since you’re super duper smart, you probably know this already, right? No, this person you speak of would no be shown the door, he’d simply be asked for proof. If and when this proof failed to be proven, he’d be dismissed based on his lack of proof. See the difference? Atheists ask for proof of claims, theist make mystical claims with no proof and then demand of their followers that they have “faith” instead of providing proof.
http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html
[i]…Moreover, although this is not entailed by atheism in any of the above mentioned senses, avowed atheists tend also to disbelieve in supernatural entities of any kind (e.g., spirits, disembodied souls) and also in supernatural interventions of any kind in the course of nature or events inexplicable in terms of the best contemporary (orthodox) scientific understanding of the universe (for example, para psychological occurrences).
It is noteworthy, however, that the strident atheist Sam Harris has signaled an openness towards the possibility of para psychological events in nature.[10] This, of course, does not affect his status as an atheist, since the existence of phenomena such as telepathy and precognition is compatible with there being no God or gods. However, this puts him at odds with Dawkins and Dennett, for whom belief in such things is inextricably associated with the religious mentality.[/i]
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
So just go ahead and tell me what the atheist dogma is; tell me what I believe in that makes me an atheist.
[i]“Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.”
-Don Hirschberg
[b]Unlike a religion, atheism is not organized under a common doctrine (belief system). The only shared opinion among atheists is the nonexistence of a deity. There are a few common beliefs among atheists such as views regarding morality, religion and spirituality, but these beliefs vary greatly and are outside the definition of atheism and thus are not required to be an atheist.
Largely, atheism remains unorganized and as some would say, “organizing atheists is like trying to heard cats”.[/b][/i][/quote]
Being disorganized, unoriginal and unable to logically justify your positions seems like a losing proposition to me. Hey whatever floats your boat…[/quote]
My position will become illogical as soon as you can provide proof for your god, until then, show me the money. Unable to justify MY position? You still haven’t told me about the talking snake, or explained how a virgin birth works…lol
[quote]bigflamer wrote:<<< My position will become illogical as soon as you can provide proof for your god, >>>[/quote]Your position could never be logical in any case under any circumstances Sparky. They all belong to the God who’s name you unavoidably sign to your every attempt to deny Him. [quote]bigflamer wrote:<<< You still haven’t told me about the talking snake, or explained how a virgin birth works…lol [/quote] You haven’t explained how 2+2=4. That’s a whole lot harder for you to explain than it is for me to explain something as trivial as a talking snake or virgin birth. Or a parting sea. OR a coin dispensing fish. Or 5000 people being fed from a few loaves and fishes. Or people being raised from the dead. Or… nevermind. You get the point. Well, actually you don’t.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
It seems to me Pat, that you’re misunderstanding concepts such as dogma, negation of belief, etc.
Atheism is very much a negation of belief in deities, as in NO BELIEF IN ANY GODS, not even yours. But to prove me wrong, all you have to do is lay out for me what the atheist dogma is; tell me what I believe in that makes me an atheist. What positive belief makes one an atheist?
[/quote]
I never said it wasn’t nor did I call it a religion. And you can scratch that whole bullshit about positive and negative beliefs, there is no such thing. Further, you can assert a negative, math does it all the time, but that’s not what atheism is.[/quote]
Sure, proving a mathematical negative is easy, proving that a mystical deity does not exist is something entirely different, now isn’t it. You could prove for me mathematical negatives all day, but how is a man supposed to prove that a mystical deity does not exist? The answer is, he cannot, it is impossible. So you have to take into account the very nature of the negative being discussed. How is a man supposed to prove positively that god doesn’t exist, when no one even knows what god is supposed to be? What is your definition of god? What makes you a christian, and not a follower of some other religion with a different god entirely?
[/quote]
Simple, you take the arguments made for said existence and you prove them wrong. It’s not more complicated than that. It seems you cannot get out of the starting gate. You don’t have to prove a non-existence until a claim and argument is made, which it has been, in spades. Then once made, you have to prove them wrong. That’s it. It’s really that simple.
I am a Christian. What I am is irrelevent to who or what God is. The definition for purposes has been made many times, I guess you have a short memory. In the realm of proving existence, we’re talking about an ‘Uncaused-cause’ and ‘Necessary Being’, that which can act with out being acted upon. Religion is irrelevant to the question. Religion could be right or wrong about God, but has nothing to do with whether He exists or not. There is not point in discussing anything else with out establishing existence first.
It’s not a lack of beleif, it’s a belief that said deity does not exist. That is a belief, not a lack of one. The only way you can lack a belief is to never have know there could have been one.
Further there is a difference between no evidence and not looking at evidence. That’s totally on you. If you refuse to look at the evidence then all it means you refused to look, or think about it in anyway. That does not mean it does not exist.
I have provided my proofs and arguments several times, you couldn’t debunk them or beat them in anyway. Just because you are unable to debunk or even maim the cosmological argument from contingency, doesn’t mean I haven’t provided it. It’s still my main go to argument because it’s the easiest for lay people to understand. Further it’s impossible to prove wrong and it will never be, because it’s right.
Not knowing is not an answer. It’s actually pretty stupid means of reasoning… “I know there is no God, but things exist, I just don’t know why, but it damn sure wasn’t God.” Sorry, that’s flat retarded. If you deny that God is the basis for existence, you must explain then, what was. Simply saying you don’t know, only lends strength to my arguments.
Further there’s lot’s of things I don’t know, but this I do know. It’s a deductive and necessary fact and there is nothing you can do about it.
How sophomoric. That whole monologue is one pathetic cop out. Denying reality does not lend it self to knowing it better… It just gives you tacit permission to think about things incorrectly and justify it based on nothingness.
Atheist community? LOL! How do you center a community around a absence of belief? The whole thing is contradictory. The only way you can have an absence of belief is to never have known there was a belief.[/quote]
Better that I say “rejection of belief”? Why is it contradictory to say that atheists will have commonly associated philosophies?
[quote]Pat wrote:
So how would it go in your “community” which is based on nothing, according to you, if somebody didn’t believe in God, but did believe in angels, or heaven or life after death? Bettin’ they’d be shown the door of the tree house pretty quick.
All over the map my ass, every atheist I have ever read or talked to says the same lame shit you say. Either yall are not “all over the map” or stunningly unorigional.[/quote]
There’s great variances in atheism, and since you’re super duper smart, you probably know this already, right? No, this person you speak of would no be shown the door, he’d simply be asked for proof. If and when this proof failed to be proven, he’d be dismissed based on his lack of proof. See the difference? Atheists ask for proof of claims, theist make mystical claims with no proof and then demand of their followers that they have “faith” instead of providing proof.
[/quote]
What if said proof was personal experience? And how dogmatic of you to demand proof. The problem I see with atheists in general is they demand proof to be given to them, that they should have to put forth no effort what so ever, yet be provided proof. Nothing in life works that way. It’s the same backward deluded thinking that allows your lot to criticize the bible without having read it.
So no other instance in life can you get proof of anything without seeking the proof.
Do you know black holes exist? What proof do you have?
[quote]
http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html
[i]…Moreover, although this is not entailed by atheism in any of the above mentioned senses, avowed atheists tend also to disbelieve in supernatural entities of any kind (e.g., spirits, disembodied souls) and also in supernatural interventions of any kind in the course of nature or events inexplicable in terms of the best contemporary (orthodox) scientific understanding of the universe (for example, para psychological occurrences).
It is noteworthy, however, that the strident atheist Sam Harris has signaled an openness towards the possibility of para psychological events in nature.[10] This, of course, does not affect his status as an atheist, since the existence of phenomena such as telepathy and precognition is compatible with there being no God or gods. However, this puts him at odds with Dawkins and Dennett, for whom belief in such things is inextricably associated with the religious mentality.[/i]
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
So just go ahead and tell me what the atheist dogma is; tell me what I believe in that makes me an atheist.
[i]“Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.”
-Don Hirschberg
[b]Unlike a religion, atheism is not organized under a common doctrine (belief system). The only shared opinion among atheists is the nonexistence of a deity. There are a few common beliefs among atheists such as views regarding morality, religion and spirituality, but these beliefs vary greatly and are outside the definition of atheism and thus are not required to be an atheist.
Largely, atheism remains unorganized and as some would say, “organizing atheists is like trying to heard cats”.[/b][/i][/quote]
Being disorganized, unoriginal and unable to logically justify your positions seems like a losing proposition to me. Hey whatever floats your boat…[/quote]
My position will become illogical as soon as you can provide proof for your god, until then, show me the money. Unable to justify MY position? You still haven’t told me about the talking snake, or explained how a virgin birth works…lol [/quote]
That’s because the arguments have been made… You haven’t been able to prove them wrong. Suddenly pretending they don’t exist, is just lazy and sad. I will just repost what I have already posted about it. I can do that all day long.
If you want to discuss the bible, then read it, study it and understand the contexts, audience, purpose and motivation for each book and passage.
If you want to discuss the bible, then read it, study it and understand the contexts, audience, purpose and motivation for each book and passage. [/quote]
Um…okay…
Wouldn’t reading Dawkin’s God Delusion be more enlightening and less torturous?
If you want to discuss the bible, then read it, study it and understand the contexts, audience, purpose and motivation for each book and passage. [/quote]
Um…okay…
Wouldn’t reading Dawkin’s God Delusion be more enlightening and less torturous?[/quote]
Enlightening? LOL! The parts I read of that book were horrifically, face-palm stupid. Therefore it’s right up your ally.
EDIT: Chapter 3 is particularly hysterical. His counter arguments to all the things the Cosmological Argument are not, are just plain bad. So of the worse counter arguments I have ever seen.
His process follows a basic script. “Let’s take a valid argument and say a bunch of things that aren’t true about it then we will knock the things that it doesn’t say and counter argue that.”
I can only imagine his cowardice of attacking the argument based on what it actually says stems from the fact that he knows he cannot knock the actual argument down.
So let’s look at some of these comical assertions Dawkin’s makes, I am going to try to do this without laughing…
Okay so here we go…
Chapter 3 page 77: “3 The Cosmological Argument. There must have been a time
when no physical things existed. But, since physical things exist
now, there must have been something non-physical to bring
them into existence, and that something we call God.”
LOL! Uh, no. That’s not even a terribly bastardized version of the argument. Not even the badly constructed “Kalam Cosmological Argument” makes such a claim. No form of the cosmological argument asserts that at all. But let’s see what he says about it, shall we…
“All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and
invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted
assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”
Wow, this is so bad I wouldn’t know where to begin. Since he didn’t actually properly state the argument to begin with, he is attempting to debunk the phantoms of his imagination. That’s not what the argument states and it’s not reliant upon “God to terminate it”.
Let’s see, what else…
"To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God
to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big
bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown.
Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading.
What in the flying fuck is he talking about? No form of the cosmological argument even remotely asserts this. I mean the butcher job is flat painful, but funny, damn funny. And people BELIEVE this shit! LOL!
Okay let’s move forward, I am having fun…
[i]"The Argument from Degree. We notice that things in the world
differ. There are degrees of, say, goodness or perfection. But
we judge these degrees only by comparison with a maximum.
A Humans can be both good and bad, so the maximum goodness
cannot rest in us. Therefore there must be some other maximum
to set the standard for perfection, and we call that
maximum God.
That’s an argument?[/i]
No idiot, it’s not. It’s not even remotely close. The butchery of Kant’s ‘Moral Imperative’ is just sad. It was so bad I barely recognized it. It’s certainly NOT what Kant said.
Moving forward…
“The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Design. Things
in the world, especially living things, look as though they
have been designed. Nothing that we know looks designed
unless it is designed. Therefore there must have been a designer,
and we call him God.* Aquinas himself used the analogy of an
arrow moving towards a target, but a modern heat-seeking
anti-aircraft missile would have suited his purpose better.”
What horseshit. It’s not even close to the argument from design, which actually in reality resembles cosmology, just using order as it’s initial muse. But this hack job doesn’t even come close. Design arguments are not my favorite, but what they aren’t are what he just said.
That’s really all I can take right now. My dog has shit more profound things than this. I can only hope that he doesn’t take himself very seriously because if he really believe it, then he’s the delusional one.
He takes arguments theists do not make and he tries to debunk them. If you have to resort to tactics such as this, you really must not have a point. He is only preying on the weakest of minds here. I cannot imagine anybody with a half baked, high school drop-out level education falling for this crap.
I guess people will fall for anything, but this is titanic stupidity. There really aren’t sufficient adjectives to describe how bad this is.
I really hope this was not his opus magnum, if so I feel bad for him. He’s some kinda special stupid.
You think this garbage is enlightening? It’d be far more productive to find out what the arguments really actually are and what they really actually say, because if you try to present this crap as your counter arguments, you are going to get embarrassed hard core.
Like I said, this being painfully stupid, is right up your ally…This enlightenment couldn’t illuminate a match box…
If you want to discuss the bible, then read it, study it and understand the contexts, audience, purpose and motivation for each book and passage. [/quote]
Um…okay…
Wouldn’t reading Dawkin’s God Delusion be more enlightening and less torturous?[/quote]
Enlightening? LOL! The parts I read of that book were horrifically, face-palm stupid. Therefore it’s right up your ally.
EDIT: Chapter 3 is particularly hysterical. His counter arguments to all the things the Cosmological Argument are not, are just plain bad. So of the worse counter arguments I have ever seen.
His process follows a basic script. “Let’s take a valid argument and say a bunch of things that aren’t true about it then we will knock the things that it doesn’t say and counter argue that.”
I can only imagine his cowardice of attacking the argument based on what it actually says stems from the fact that he knows he cannot knock the actual argument down.
So let’s look at some of these comical assertions Dawkin’s makes, I am going to try to do this without laughing…
Okay so here we go…
Chapter 3 page 77: “3 The Cosmological Argument. There must have been a time
when no physical things existed. But, since physical things exist
now, there must have been something non-physical to bring
them into existence, and that something we call God.”
LOL! Uh, no. That’s not even a terribly bastardized version of the argument. Not even the badly constructed “Kalam Cosmological Argument” makes such a claim. No form of the cosmological argument asserts that at all. But let’s see what he says about it, shall we…
“All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and
invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted
assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”
Wow, this is so bad I wouldn’t know where to begin. Since he didn’t actually properly state the argument to begin with, he is attempting to debunk the phantoms of his imagination. That’s not what the argument states and it’s not reliant upon “God to terminate it”.
Let’s see, what else…
"To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God
to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big
bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown.
Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading.
What in the flying fuck is he talking about? No form of the cosmological argument even remotely asserts this. I mean the butcher job is flat painful, but funny, damn funny. And people BELIEVE this shit! LOL!
Okay let’s move forward, I am having fun…
[i]"The Argument from Degree. We notice that things in the world
differ. There are degrees of, say, goodness or perfection. But
we judge these degrees only by comparison with a maximum.
A Humans can be both good and bad, so the maximum goodness
cannot rest in us. Therefore there must be some other maximum
to set the standard for perfection, and we call that
maximum God.
That’s an argument?[/i]
No idiot, it’s not. It’s not even remotely close. The butchery of Kant’s ‘Moral Imperative’ is just sad. It was so bad I barely recognized it. It’s certainly NOT what Kant said.
Moving forward…
“The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Design. Things
in the world, especially living things, look as though they
have been designed. Nothing that we know looks designed
unless it is designed. Therefore there must have been a designer,
and we call him God.* Aquinas himself used the analogy of an
arrow moving towards a target, but a modern heat-seeking
anti-aircraft missile would have suited his purpose better.”
What horseshit. It’s not even close to the argument from design, which actually in reality resembles cosmology, just using order as it’s initial muse. But this hack job doesn’t even come close. Design arguments are not my favorite, but what they aren’t are what he just said.
That’s really all I can take right now. My dog has shit more profound things than this. I can only hope that he doesn’t take himself very seriously because if he really believe it, then he’s the delusional one.
He takes arguments theists do not make and he tries to debunk them. If you have to resort to tactics such as this, you really must not have a point. He is only preying on the weakest of minds here. I cannot imagine anybody with a half baked, high school drop-out level education falling for this crap.
I guess people will fall for anything, but this is titanic stupidity. There really aren’t sufficient adjectives to describe how bad this is.
I really hope this was not his opus magnum, if so I feel bad for him. He’s some kinda special stupid.
You think this garbage is enlightening? It’d be far more productive to find out what the arguments really actually are and what they really actually say, because if you try to present this crap as your counter arguments, you are going to get embarrassed hard core.
Like I said, this being painfully stupid, is right up your ally…This enlightenment couldn’t illuminate a match box…
[/quote]
Wall of text…can’t spell ‘alley’. Calls me stupid…LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Where’d you get the cut-and-paste, bugwit? Your god will punish you for not citing the author.
ITT…a guy (Pat) who has never read Richard Dawkins prints a wall of text full of fallacious restatements of Dawkins’ Arguments and then does a ‘Joe Biden’ on them.
Well, no one ever said religious people had a firm grasp on reality…
[quote]Headhunter wrote:<<< Well, no one ever said religious people had a firm grasp on reality…[/quote]Nobody is more thoroughly and hideously deceived than “religious” people.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
ITT…a guy (Pat) who has never read Richard Dawkins prints a wall of text full of fallacious restatements of Dawkins’ Arguments and then does a ‘Joe Biden’ on them.
Well, no one ever said religious people had a firm grasp on reality…[/quote]
I pulled it right out of his stupid book “The God Delusion” stupid ass. I stated book chapter and initial page, nimrod. Those are direct quotes from chapter 3. You should have recognized them since you thought this tripe was brilliant.
Go ahead and check them out if you think they are ‘fallacious’. Pages 77 - 80 in chapter 3. Idiot.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
ITT…a guy (Pat) who has never read Richard Dawkins prints a wall of text full of fallacious restatements of Dawkins’ Arguments and then does a ‘Joe Biden’ on them.
Well, no one ever said religious people had a firm grasp on reality…[/quote]
I pulled it right out of his stupid book “The God Delusion” stupid ass. I stated book chapter and initial page, nimrod. Those are direct quotes from chapter 3. You should have recognized them since you thought this tripe was brilliant.
Go ahead and check them out if you think they are ‘fallacious’. Pages 77 - 80 in chapter 3. Idiot.[/quote]
I’m going on a crusade against his evil book then, Colonel Brady! Will you be my alli…err…alley…uh…allie…ahh, wtf…will you?
If you want to discuss the bible, then read it, study it and understand the contexts, audience, purpose and motivation for each book and passage. [/quote]
Um…okay…
Wouldn’t reading Dawkin’s God Delusion be more enlightening and less torturous?[/quote]
Enlightening? LOL! The parts I read of that book were horrifically, face-palm stupid. Therefore it’s right up your ally.
EDIT: Chapter 3 is particularly hysterical. His counter arguments to all the things the Cosmological Argument are not, are just plain bad. So of the worse counter arguments I have ever seen.
His process follows a basic script. “Let’s take a valid argument and say a bunch of things that aren’t true about it then we will knock the things that it doesn’t say and counter argue that.”
I can only imagine his cowardice of attacking the argument based on what it actually says stems from the fact that he knows he cannot knock the actual argument down.
So let’s look at some of these comical assertions Dawkin’s makes, I am going to try to do this without laughing…
Okay so here we go…
Chapter 3 page 77: “3 The Cosmological Argument. There must have been a time
when no physical things existed. But, since physical things exist
now, there must have been something non-physical to bring
them into existence, and that something we call God.”
LOL! Uh, no. That’s not even a terribly bastardized version of the argument. Not even the badly constructed “Kalam Cosmological Argument” makes such a claim. No form of the cosmological argument asserts that at all. But let’s see what he says about it, shall we…
“All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and
invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted
assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”
Wow, this is so bad I wouldn’t know where to begin. Since he didn’t actually properly state the argument to begin with, he is attempting to debunk the phantoms of his imagination. That’s not what the argument states and it’s not reliant upon “God to terminate it”.
Let’s see, what else…
"To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God
to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big
bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown.
Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading.
What in the flying fuck is he talking about? No form of the cosmological argument even remotely asserts this. I mean the butcher job is flat painful, but funny, damn funny. And people BELIEVE this shit! LOL!
Okay let’s move forward, I am having fun…
[i]"The Argument from Degree. We notice that things in the world
differ. There are degrees of, say, goodness or perfection. But
we judge these degrees only by comparison with a maximum.
A Humans can be both good and bad, so the maximum goodness
cannot rest in us. Therefore there must be some other maximum
to set the standard for perfection, and we call that
maximum God.
That’s an argument?[/i]
No idiot, it’s not. It’s not even remotely close. The butchery of Kant’s ‘Moral Imperative’ is just sad. It was so bad I barely recognized it. It’s certainly NOT what Kant said.
Moving forward…
“The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Design. Things
in the world, especially living things, look as though they
have been designed. Nothing that we know looks designed
unless it is designed. Therefore there must have been a designer,
and we call him God.* Aquinas himself used the analogy of an
arrow moving towards a target, but a modern heat-seeking
anti-aircraft missile would have suited his purpose better.”
What horseshit. It’s not even close to the argument from design, which actually in reality resembles cosmology, just using order as it’s initial muse. But this hack job doesn’t even come close. Design arguments are not my favorite, but what they aren’t are what he just said.
That’s really all I can take right now. My dog has shit more profound things than this. I can only hope that he doesn’t take himself very seriously because if he really believe it, then he’s the delusional one.
He takes arguments theists do not make and he tries to debunk them. If you have to resort to tactics such as this, you really must not have a point. He is only preying on the weakest of minds here. I cannot imagine anybody with a half baked, high school drop-out level education falling for this crap.
I guess people will fall for anything, but this is titanic stupidity. There really aren’t sufficient adjectives to describe how bad this is.
I really hope this was not his opus magnum, if so I feel bad for him. He’s some kinda special stupid.
You think this garbage is enlightening? It’d be far more productive to find out what the arguments really actually are and what they really actually say, because if you try to present this crap as your counter arguments, you are going to get embarrassed hard core.
Like I said, this being painfully stupid, is right up your ally…This enlightenment couldn’t illuminate a match box…
[/quote]
Imagine the hypocrisy of a man who gets offended at atheists who post scripture and criticize the bible, while not having read the bible in it’s entirety, and then posts bits and pieces of Richard Dawkins book calling it “horrifically face-palm stupid”, while not having actually read it.
If you want to discuss the bible, then read it, study it and understand the contexts, audience, purpose and motivation for each book and passage. [/quote]
Um…okay…
Wouldn’t reading Dawkin’s God Delusion be more enlightening and less torturous?[/quote]
Enlightening? LOL! The parts I read of that book were horrifically, face-palm stupid. Therefore it’s right up your ally.
EDIT: Chapter 3 is particularly hysterical. His counter arguments to all the things the Cosmological Argument are not, are just plain bad. So of the worse counter arguments I have ever seen.
His process follows a basic script. “Let’s take a valid argument and say a bunch of things that aren’t true about it then we will knock the things that it doesn’t say and counter argue that.”
I can only imagine his cowardice of attacking the argument based on what it actually says stems from the fact that he knows he cannot knock the actual argument down.
So let’s look at some of these comical assertions Dawkin’s makes, I am going to try to do this without laughing…
Okay so here we go…
Chapter 3 page 77: “3 The Cosmological Argument. There must have been a time
when no physical things existed. But, since physical things exist
now, there must have been something non-physical to bring
them into existence, and that something we call God.”
LOL! Uh, no. That’s not even a terribly bastardized version of the argument. Not even the badly constructed “Kalam Cosmological Argument” makes such a claim. No form of the cosmological argument asserts that at all. But let’s see what he says about it, shall we…
“All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and
invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted
assumption that God himself is immune to the regress.”
Wow, this is so bad I wouldn’t know where to begin. Since he didn’t actually properly state the argument to begin with, he is attempting to debunk the phantoms of his imagination. That’s not what the argument states and it’s not reliant upon “God to terminate it”.
Let’s see, what else…
"To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God
to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big
bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown.
Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading.
What in the flying fuck is he talking about? No form of the cosmological argument even remotely asserts this. I mean the butcher job is flat painful, but funny, damn funny. And people BELIEVE this shit! LOL!
Okay let’s move forward, I am having fun…
[i]"The Argument from Degree. We notice that things in the world
differ. There are degrees of, say, goodness or perfection. But
we judge these degrees only by comparison with a maximum.
A Humans can be both good and bad, so the maximum goodness
cannot rest in us. Therefore there must be some other maximum
to set the standard for perfection, and we call that
maximum God.
That’s an argument?[/i]
No idiot, it’s not. It’s not even remotely close. The butchery of Kant’s ‘Moral Imperative’ is just sad. It was so bad I barely recognized it. It’s certainly NOT what Kant said.
Moving forward…
“The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Design. Things
in the world, especially living things, look as though they
have been designed. Nothing that we know looks designed
unless it is designed. Therefore there must have been a designer,
and we call him God.* Aquinas himself used the analogy of an
arrow moving towards a target, but a modern heat-seeking
anti-aircraft missile would have suited his purpose better.”
What horseshit. It’s not even close to the argument from design, which actually in reality resembles cosmology, just using order as it’s initial muse. But this hack job doesn’t even come close. Design arguments are not my favorite, but what they aren’t are what he just said.
That’s really all I can take right now. My dog has shit more profound things than this. I can only hope that he doesn’t take himself very seriously because if he really believe it, then he’s the delusional one.
He takes arguments theists do not make and he tries to debunk them. If you have to resort to tactics such as this, you really must not have a point. He is only preying on the weakest of minds here. I cannot imagine anybody with a half baked, high school drop-out level education falling for this crap.
I guess people will fall for anything, but this is titanic stupidity. There really aren’t sufficient adjectives to describe how bad this is.
I really hope this was not his opus magnum, if so I feel bad for him. He’s some kinda special stupid.
You think this garbage is enlightening? It’d be far more productive to find out what the arguments really actually are and what they really actually say, because if you try to present this crap as your counter arguments, you are going to get embarrassed hard core.
Like I said, this being painfully stupid, is right up your ally…This enlightenment couldn’t illuminate a match box…
[/quote]
Imagine the hypocrisy of a man who gets offended at atheists who post scripture and criticize the bible, while not having read the bible in it’s entirety, and then posts bits and pieces of Richard Dawkins book calling it “horrifically face-palm stupid”, while not having actually read it.
[/quote]
Hell, I don’t think I could sit through it. Those above parts are so painfully stupid, I couldn’t sit through the rest. The parts I have read of the book make it not worth my time. It’s clearly designed for people with weak minds.
[quote]pat wrote:<<< It’s clearly designed for people with weak minds.[/quote]This is where people like you go waaaay wrong Pat. As my man Dr. Cornelius Van Til was always ready and willing to concede. Most of the most titanic minds ever spawned upon this earth have and continue to belong to unbelievers. You’re wrong. Dawkins is brilliant. Hitchens was definitely brilliant. All these leading so called atheists are brilliant. Kamui IS brilliant. Elder Forlife is brilliant. DrMatt and DrSkepix are brilliant.
There are several other God hating pagans around this very site whose cerebral acumen and educational achievement I hold in only the very highest regard. I’ll say again. I, as a theological/philosophical child of the reformation, do not need you to be stupid to be very VERY wrong. The more intelligent and educated the unbeliever the more potential for spectacular and monumental error they are capable of.