A quick correction; I wasn’t asking why you don’t endeavor to eat Tom’s lunch regarding the rationality of his theology. I assume you can, and I’m pretty sure I can, and I accept the reasons why you don’t. As much as I disagree with Tom I respect his intelligence and I agree with everything you say above. However my questions was more to the point of; If you were to debate him on the rationality of his religious beliefs, and do so persistently, do you think you could do it in a manner that would leave him not thinking of as rude. My exact words were of this effect to see what you thought was a most effective way to argue. I’ll quote myself:
So again my question, how can one argue effectively, relentlessly, and come across as not being impolite. I personally don’t think it can be done, but I would like to hear what you have to say.
Not because I assume so, but because every incident, every experience–not just limited to the Scripture or to religious experience–has to pass some sort of test of authenticity before I (or any reasonable creature) can consider it valid evidence.
I certainly won’t hold out a one-time exception to this practice for Holy Scripture that I wouldn’t dream of holding out for any historical document. I accept certain historical events because I witnessed them, and I accept that I wasn’t imagining them because of the millions of other witnesses who, without an interest in the event’s validity, will confirm what I saw. For events further in the past, I will rely on eyewitnesses, again preferably without an interest in their testimony being accepted or rejected, supporting the event’s factuality. Where eyewitnesses diverge, the event’s occurance becomes less likely. Where they agree, the opposite occurs.
I’m sure you feel that you personally witnessed a miracle or two, but (without knowing your testimony) I suspect you lack witnesses and documentation, so I’m choosing to be skeptical of your testimony without those witnesses or documentation. I’m equally sure you feel that the Bible provides more than adequate documentation, but as you gracefully concede there are accounts of miracles in the Bible that don’t pass the sniff test, and I refuse to admit the Bible as evidence of the stories in the Bible.
When the Bible’s writers described how Joshua stopped the sun in the sky many, many years prior to the writing, they had no idea that there were Chinese astronomers watching the heavens closely and recording what they saw, so they felt free to put that whopper into Scripture without fear of being contradicted. “Vas you dere, Sharlie?” they could repost to doubters, knowing that there were no witnesses to contradict them with authority. Now that we know, however, that there were witnesses, I suspect you’re willing to cross that one off the list of miracles. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus–once a witness has been shown to testify falsely, his (or its) entire testimony is not to be trusted. I simply can’t accept the Bible as a basis for believing in what’s said in the Bible. Find me other sources, please, or accept that I’m very reasonably doubting the Bible as to the verity of the miracles described therein.
Understand that I’m not simply throwing the veracity on to you here. Maybe you could come up witih an independent witness to Biblical miracles. Unlikely, I know, but I would be in a pretty fix, wouldn’t I, if some ancient text is discovered next week in an archeological dig, written by a Roman citizen who happens to mention some amazing things he saw at this wedding in Cana? But the fact that in the past 2000 years no evidence has surfaced is pretty conclusive to my mind.
I’m sorry faithfool, obviously I’m an asshole too. Maybe I made wrong assumptions about your beliefs, but how am I supposed to know? (after all I am new to this) You sympathize with these christians because they have liberal view (which you implied you accepted). If you think they’re correct in their beliefs why aren’t you still a christian yourself? Would you rather be a christian again or are you happy something changed your mind so that you no longer profess to be one? So forget my earlier post, I have horrible reading comprehension, a bad understanding of reason and rationality, and complete lack of knowledge of your belief system. As such, can you forgive me and answer my questions?
Polycarp, I think you misunderstood me, I never said I was being rational. I just wanted to call faithfool a dumbfuck because it looked to me like he was talking shit. I guess I misunderstood though.
'Tis alright Grant. In this thread, you’ve actually caught me at one of the only other times that I’ve shown my pissed-offedness on the boards (the one before was when I kind of mangled my only pitting of another Doper over my own pet peeve… but that’s a whole 'nother thread) and as you intimate, you couldn’t possibly know, nor might anyone else unless they follow my mundane and lengthy musings. That said, the best unsolicited advice I can offer is to look before you leap. Because I really suck at reaming folks out. However, there are plenty around here who have raised it to an Olympic caliber art form. Gold medals for straight 10s all around.
I think sympathize would be the wrong belief to take away from my feelings. You see, the only thing I care about, across the board, is respect. I used to have a friend on a different site who professed to be a satanist. He was constantly ran up the flag pole and I had no problem with that, as long as it wasn’t done in a rude manner. Explain why you disagree or even think it’s silly, but don’t accuse someone of slaughtering babies in the pale moon light behind their parents’ sofa. Ya know? And like here, with the whole “Christ is a cunt” (or anyone else who used a similar epithet during the debate thread) issue, was circumventing facts that needed to be addressed simply by virtue of vulgarity. If you want to claim your co-worker’s mom is a slut, you’d probably come closer to encouraging them to share your views (or at least consider them) if you don’t say so explicitly and rather aim for “I saw Co-Worker Mother coming out of Hotel X with the entire team of the Dallas Cowboys while Co-Worker Father was at Mass.” That seems more beneficial and less of a desire to just push someone into wanting to beat the hell outta ya.
Though, I must admit, I do hold with a liberal view. But that applies to life as well as religion.
I don’t think I’m one to judge whether they are correct or not, as that is my philosophy and because I’m not really interested on determining something that’s only important to someone other than myself. I mean, I haven’t launched any campaigns to find out specifically how I feel and put forth a declaration on many things. For one, Mongolian food comes to mind, also polka ( :eek: ) music and finally any other amount of spiritual doctrines.
No, I wouldn’t rather be a Christian again, but that has more to do with my own problems than it as an entity. Which means that yes, I am happy that I no longer have that particular fear to plague me (although I’m sad to say that many different ones just rushed to take its place) nor the reasons that brought me to a fundamentalist lifestyle to begin with. I think there can be great harm in literalism. Although that is true of more things than just the bible. So I am okay with the knowledge that the best way to proceed when I perceive any sort of injustice is to do so with the aforementioned respect and pray (or whatever it is that I do now) for change. Beating anyone over the head always seems to run counter to that desire, therefore I always shun it. Or try to.
Meh. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Apology, etc. accepted and even though we can all improve our reading comprehension skills, I doubt that your reasoning or rationality necessarily needs an overhaul. Just remember to post with care, certainly in the Pit. I hear there be animals out there! And last of all, I do hope I’ve answered your questions thoughtfully. If there’s anything else I can help with, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Sniping, as you call it, in no way prevents you from laying forth your “clearcut guidelines” on how you determine what of the bible is true or not.
I can’t speak for your interactions with Der Trihs, but I would say I have put in a reasonable amount of time understanding your views in particular. I then attacked those views, not a strawman. You should know this and you are either lying to us or self deceived when you say otherwise. Again, I am more than willing to discuss this in greater detail if you think I am being unfair.
Speaking of the real world, have you gained employment in the real world? Or does your postcount indicate that you still spend most of your time chatting in cyberspace, with a computer others had to buy for you, and on a message board where others have to pay your membership? Because if any of the latter is true, I don’t think you have much room to talk in criticizing others ability to function in real life.
I’m not sure what you are trying to say here. I don’t see anyone defining a miracle as inherently impossible but rather physically impossible. We, as skeptics, do not need to define miracles out of existence, but rather point out that our collective experience tells us that physical laws hardly ever, if ever, are broken. As such anyone claiming otherwise needs to provide extraordinary evidence if we are to believe them. By what you say above, it seems that you are accepting of this requirement. I really suggest you turn your nose from the theological drivel you normally read and try David Hume’s work on miracles. The general ideas is that no human testimony is enough to establish belief in miracles because humans often deceive and/or are deceived and as such can not give sufficient grounds to adequately prove a miracle. As Hume put it, one must consider which is the greater miracle, that Jesus rose from the dead, or that the man telling me so is deceived/deceiving. The rational man will then accept that which is most likely or seems to be the lesser miracle. Based on all our experience, men being unreliable witnesses is far more common than dead bodies becoming reanimated.
I’m typing from my office so I don’t have my bible handy too look up the reference on fishes. Still it seems you are cherry picking a convenient miracle story for your case. Maybe the boy shamed people into feeding the masses but that’s not what the bible says happened. Even if we accept your ‘interpretation” then we have a story of an event that any skeptic would describe as non-miraculous and does not demand a god to do. Other miracle stories like raising Lazarus from the dead, walking on water, turning water to wine, or the physical resurrection of Jesus are miracles that most would all agree point to divine necessity but are of the type that you can not in any way adequately support.
I would agree that testimony is evidence of a sort but is insufficient to support claims that Jesus is anything more than a dead guy that once had murderous ambitions. Your personal testimony amounts to little more than surviving a heart attack and getting some nice feelings while singing a song in church one time, IIRC.
Regarding prophesy, I think you even admitted to me that the author of Matthew lied in order to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah. Did you not? Also considering that prophesy is easy to make up in retrospect, it is better to look at what Jesus obviously didn’t do rather than what people said he did. The Messiah was supposed to bring about world peace, make lions eat straw, and allow children to sleep safely with poisonous snakes, and be named Immanuel rather than Jesus. Since it is objectively easy to see that none of this happened it seems safe to say that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah. Any conclusions otherwise would certainly require some “self-serving fraudulent analysis” as you put it.
That all the miracles in the bible are made up, or exaggerations of natural events, is the way to bet. That Jesus had nothing to do with the creation of the universe, or paradise after you die, is the way to bet. If you have extraordinary evidence pointing otherwise I’d like to see it.
Regardless of how you try to spin it now, your debacle about the second coming of Christ is strong evidence that you are type of person who deceives or is easily deceived. Either way this weakens your personal testimony.
Yeah, great metaphor. Second coming as a metaphor for the coming of some other guy. How would you edit that quote to make your meaning clear? Is it similar to how you edit the Bible?
Not calling anyone a cunt would be a starting place. No name calling at all would be nice. You are not being pitted for being impolite. You are being pitted for being agessively rude to the point of assholisness and beyond. If your point is sound and valid, why are expletives needed?
Hey Guin, wanna buy a bridge? How about some ocean front property in Ohio? Poly is a crazy nutter trying to spin a story about how he was being metaphorical. I used to think he was a nice fairly rational christian person untill that thread then it became clear he is a total fucking batshit crazy loon.
Maybe. But he’s also a hell of a lot more understanding and compassionate that a lot of you. CarnalK-my heart is breaking to hear that you think I’m a dip.
He says he was wrong to think what he thought. How about you back off the invective? Has he ever said anything to you remotely like the screed you directed at him? I disagree with his views on God, but he can be a wealth of information to anyone who will take the time listen and learn.
Man, the atheists around here make me want to get religion!
faithfool, thanks for answering all of my questions thoughtfully and respectfully. From what you have written I think it is safe to say it is your stance that others beliefs are to be respected regardless of their truth or falsity. If I understood correctly then we can now have a more civilized discussion about this because I disagree. I’ve never convinced anyone of anything important by respecting their beliefs. If I were to respect their beliefs then why would they ever feel any pressure to change them to better suit my interests?(I know that sounds ominous but by “my interests” I mean protecting the environment, seperation of church and state etc.
Ah Grant, all I can tell you is that is how I came to a different understanding of Christianity, was through thoughtful, reasonable and respectful discourse. Over the years, the folks who pushed ahead like a bull in a china shop only got my defenses up and my talons out. However, just because someone disagreed with me, I’d listen if they were polite and civil. That made their ideas more appealing and heard above any roars, thus persuading me to think oppositely of what I’d been taught to believe (all out of the fear I mentioned previously). Seeing that terror juxtaposed against something sane made it possible for me to want to seek out an alternative. Hence why I left the very literal stances of the fundamentalist world and anything even remotely similar. And by extension, I hope to lead by the example I was shown (which I obviously flunk mightily at upon occasion) and offer the same humanity in return.
Anyway, I’m glad to have been able to answer your questions. Good luck in that which you long for.
Yeah, then you can sit around with that same smug self righteous look wishing to see atheists piss themselves when jesus comes to kick ass. Fuck that and fuck them.
I would say first that I wouldn’t try to debate some things unless I thought the other person actually wanted to argue about it or had expressed some willingness to defend his/her beliefs. I do tend to think it’s rude to demand out of the clear blue that a person justify his faith. I say that with some caveats. If he has averred that faith to be fact, made any demonstable factual errors in anything he has stated, demanded that others believe the same thing or has already insulted anyone who doesn’t share those beliefs then it’s game on.
If the willingness to debate is mutual then I feel no compunction about being aggressive but (if the person is civil), I also don’t try to insult the person any more than necessary, or hurt his feelings, call him names or assert that he’s crazy or stupid. I do think it can often be difficult to debate those things without provoking some anger or without seeming (to some degree) condescending or dismissive. As an example, I often tend to cateorically state that miracles are impossible by definition and I do think that some people take that as arrogant, flippant and belittling. Some, **like Polycarp in this thread) will say that I’m using an overly literal interpretation of what Biblical miracles are supposed to describe, which is fine, but which I also see as a concession that nothing supernatural happened, which was really my point to begin with. If some people are really offended, though, there’s nothing I can do about that but I can avoid adding ad hominems to the equation or drawing any conclusions about the other’s person’s intelleigence, sanity or moral character. I can say an argument or a belief doesn’t make sense – even that I find it ludicrous – without saying the other person is crazy or stupid for believing it. You can make an effective argument by just focusing on the logic and the evidence in question and sort of leaving the other person out of it.
Is it possible to completely avoid sounding rude? Not always, but the less you talk about the other person and the more you talk about the argument itself, the better your chances will be. I’ve said a lot of things about Christian theology that go right to the heart of core beliefs (especially about Christian salvation theology) and somehow I’ve managed to escape without a lot of hard feelings.
That said, the best unsolicited advice I can offer is to look before you leap. Because I really suck at reaming folks out. However, there are plenty around here who have raised it to an Olympic caliber art form. Gold medals for straight 10s all around.
