Calling All Atheists and Interested Parties

The BBQ Pit
261

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Sorry about that, then. There was definitely a misunderstanding. I do stipulate (and actually always have) that from your perspective there is indeed no God, and it is as valid a perspective as my own (in which there is). Experience with God is an intimate, personal, and subjective thing, just like consciousness.
[/QUOTE]

Gawsh, really? I could have sworn you were the guy that insisted that all of us (ie. all of humanity) was actually Christian, whether we knew it or not.

Different guy?

-Joe

262

[QUOTE=Merijeek]
Gawsh, really? I could have sworn you were the guy that insisted that all of us (ie. all of humanity) was actually Christian, whether we knew it or not.

Different guy?

-Joe
[/QUOTE]
Definitely. If indeed I said such a thing, I was drugged or else making some other point very poorly.

263

Merijeek: what you are talking about sounds like theologian Paul Tillich.

264

True, but slavery is no longer held to be the norm anymore. Society evolved to a point now where it is considered evil. During that same time frame the belief in a high deity however has not waned in the same manner. So again, how can you just dismiss the enduring belief in a god of some kind so easily?

To simply dismiss billions of people as ignorant is the height of arrogance and ignorance on your part. I just cannot fathom what exactly in that mind of yours that makes you think this way. It’s fine to disagree, and I know you like to argue, but to truly think billions and billions of people are idiots is just beyond me. Do you think every major advance in technology, medicine, science were all done by atheists? Truly?

265

Let’s not confuse quoting/explaining the POV of certain theological schools with actually making the claims. (Part of the issue at hand involves an earlier disagreement as to whether when faced with a discussion of a religion’s concepts and doctrines, it is appropriate to step in and “call bullshit” on the religion itself.)

266

[QUOTE=Dob]
To simply dismiss billions of people as ignorant is the height of arrogance and ignorance on your part.
[/QUOTE]

The height of arrogance is to exempt yourself categorically, before the fact, from any conceivable charge of ignorance. Building your belief system upon “I am first and foremost entirely correct” is sort of a practical definition of arrogance.

Just look at the header of this page–when we are fighting ignorance, we are not fighting OTHER PEOPLE’s ignorance, but ignorance in general, including our own. To assume that you are somehow equipped to clear up other people’s ignorance and ignore the possibility of your own is both presumptuous and closed-minded.

267

You know, assholes are assholes. Asshole theists are assholes, asshole dogcatchers are assholes, asshole atheists are assholes.

Y’know what I mean?

I’d rather be around some of the nice, friendly, helpful people who also happen to be religious, than assholes who aren’t religious.

For example, we have lots of friends who are Christians. When our power was out for 8 days due to the windstorm here, Christians let us use their showers, let us stay in their homes, let us put our food in their freezers, cooked us meals. A Jewish guy lent us a generator. Our friend who believes in astrology and homeopathy had us over in her warm home many times.

Now, I suppose since I’m an atheist, I should have screamed at them that all their niceness was due to a delusion and faulty thinking, and that all their attempts to help us were vicious lies. But for some reason, I didn’t. I actually appreciated their helpfulness.

Now, if our positions were reversed, would I have helped them in the same way I was helped? Absolutely. I, the atheist, would have helped my theist and religious neighbors. And plenty of other atheists would do so as well. Niceness–in my opinion–has nothing to do with theism or lack of theism. That these nice people blame their niceness on God is a bit baffling to me, but the nice thing is that they’re nice anyway. I think nice religious people are nice because that’s just the way they are, not because they think God is looking over their shoulders. And the screaming bigoted religious people aren’t psychotic because God (or rather belief in God) made them psychotic, no, they’re assholes because they’re assholes, and God had nothing to do with it.

So what’s the point? I’m not going to scream and berate nice people, even if those people believe in astrology or transubstantiation. If they want to get into a religious debate with me, I’ll disagree with them…but as politely as they disagree with me, I’ll disagree with them. Heck, according to my personal ethics, I feel I have an obligation to argue on a MORE polite level then the people I argue against. Yeah, it’s a simple trick that confuses them. The point is, politeness is often an EFFECTIVE tool. See, my ethics are based on results.

I will get no satisfaction from being hounded into the wilderness to live my life as a hermit, muttering to myself, “I’m right, and all those deluded fools and idiots are wrong. Wrong, I say!” What good does that do? An ethical system that results in misery and hatred is a poor ethical system, an ethical system that results in happiness and niceness is a good ethical system. By their fruits shall you know them. But the funny thing is, Jesus was wrong, a bad tree CAN produce good fruit, and a good tree can produce bad fruit.

So sure, Christianity is no more justifiable than belief in Zeus. Jesus was just a guy, and I disagre with many of the ethical principles he is attributed with. But what does that have to do with the price of eggs? Does that mean that Christians are unfit to be associated with? That they should be treated without mercy? That every conversation with a Christian should be prefaced with the disclaimer that said Christian is either ignorant, a liar, or a lunatic?

268

I agree! Which is why I have never done so. However, BC, DT and yourself (and others in this post) have all done the exact thing. Your whole op is based on the “I am first and foremost entirely correct in that anyone who believes in God is an idiot”

I would just like one of you to admit that it is possible to both believe in God and be an intelligent, critical thinker who isn’t trying to convert every person they meet into a believer.

I mean… 5 billion plus people cant all be idiots. If they were the world would come to a screeching halt

269

We really need a list of descriptive terms that are okay to characterize people by, and agree to use those terms. To my mind, virtually every bit of badchad’s substance (what he’s claiming about Xianity of all stripes) would remain, and be precisely as objectionable, without the colorful language that gets you so worked up.

He’s made a tactical error in writing so colorfully, because that allows you an avenue of invalid criticism that you hang on to like a terrier with a rat between his jaws, but it’s no BFD. Polycarp is a big boy, and mere verbal abuse ought to strike him, and all Xians, as a mere nuisance. Why can’t he brush it off easily and casually? To the extent it makes **badchad ** look like a bad little chad, it should serve as an example of Polycarp’s patience and even saintlliness, but instead it’s Exhibits A, B, C and on beyond Z, mainly because I suspect you’ve got little else to argue against.

270

Wow, when you miss a point you miss it big!

I’m not trying to argue, debate, or convert. I get it, you dont believe in God, yippee for you. Nothing I can do to change that, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. I have no problems with your beliefs, just in the way you present them. A true debate doesn’t need name calling or childish lables.

Present your side, others present theirs… and leave it up to the people reading take what they want from it. You had a point to make, but nobody will ever know it because you cant be civil long enough for anyone to give a shit (and I say “you” but I mean all the more rabid athiests who posted here).

And I dont know Polycarp from Adam, so I dont what he is able to take or not take. Your insults have no affect on me, but it does lower the discourse on this subject and that bothers me.

271

But it’s not invalid criticism. No one is saying that the logic of his argument suffers from his recklessness. His logic suffers from fallacies. His argument suffers from ineffectiveness.

The only thing he’s ever proved is what any dumbass with a link to GospelCom can prove — that there are apparent contradictions between the Bible and some Episcopalian doctrines. It’s like proving that heat is hot.

272

And this sort of intemperate language, so casually accepted on SD, and the glaring anger (neither of which irks me in the least, btw) is hijacked into such a diversionary issue that people stop paying attention to the substance and fall all over themselves about how, WoW! it is that bdchd is so rude to plcrp and blablabla.

273

[QUOTE=JustAnotherGeek]
[aside]
Tris, was that comment aimed at my quote? If so, I believe it to be misplaced. I was hoping that the similarities in rhetoric were showing how obnoxious such an argument is. A parody, if you will.
[/aside]
-Geek
[/QUOTE]
Oh.

One of the problems with the tactic of disputing your opponant by demonstrating the error of his words is that . . . well, it’s not always easy to tell where the demonstration ends, and the counter argument begins.

When I hear two four year olds yelling “Oh yeah! Well you did too!” I seldom try to find out who did what first. I just tell them they aren’t making any sense, and are mostly making annoying noise.

I am sorry if I criticized you in error. However “I know you are, but what am I.” falls short of the type of discussion that brought me here, eight years ago.

Tris

274

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
And this sort of intemperate language, so casually accepted on SD, and the glaring anger (neither of which irks me in the least, btw) is hijacked into such a diversionary issue that people stop paying attention to the substance and fall all over themselves about how, WoW! it is that bdchd is so rude to plcrp and blablabla.
[/QUOTE]

Do you respond well to someone if they’re in your face? Insulting you and mocking you and everything you believe in? If someone is two inches from your face and yelling at you about what a moron you are, and following you everywhere in order to do so, does it matter if the substance of his argument is dead on? Wouldn’t you respond better to someone who, say, took a step back and let the vein in their forehead stop throbbing before going on to say “I disagree with you, and here’s why…” ?

Substance is important. So’s the way it’s presented. Badchad (and everyone else on this board) is being judged on not only his argument but the way he presents that argument and the way he treats other posters. No matter how much you, personally, pseudotriton ruber ruber, say you think he’s right.

275

You don’t think people get in my face all the time around here and call me names? I’d accept “moron” as a valentine at this point.

276

Which doesn’t really answer my question. Although I very much doubt you’ve been stalked the way Poly was.
I’ve been called worse too…does that mean I now have license to follow John Carter of Mars around and hound the living shit out of him because he dares disagree with something I feel strongly about? Sure, I probably could, but… why the hell would I bother? He’s a nice enough guy, I like him quite a bit as long as we don’t discuss politics. A number of people around here seem to have a difficult time differentiating between “I can” and “I should”.

277

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
To my mind, virtually every bit of badchad’s substance (what he’s claiming about Xianity of all stripes) would remain, and be precisely as objectionable, without the colorful language that gets you so worked up.

He’s made a tactical error in writing so colorfully, because that allows you an avenue of invalid criticism that you hang on to like a terrier with a rat between his jaws, but it’s no BFD.
[/QUOTE]

I do find his style abrasive at times, but ‘calling me names’ has never been my complaint about him. Rather, my objection (as I’ve said before) is that he isn’t interested in mutual understanding or participating in the ‘marketplace of ideas’ with a ‘may the better perspective win out in a place where they all have a chance to flourish’ attitude (or so it overwhelmingly appears); rather, he wants Debate as a Game Show Contest. Form over substance, technique & debating prowess over content.

That’s not an invalid criticism, pseudotriton, even if both you and badchad have responded, when I’ve said so, with “Ooh, but that sounds more like admiration than criticism. You’re saying he plays to win!”

If I stuck a modern person such as you in a tavern from a prior era, the loud-mouthed and fools-intolerant inhabitants of which found it self-evident in an everyday way that the sun goes around the earth, you could look pretty silly to them trying to argue that actually it’s the other way around.

Dozens of everyday observations would appear to bolster their claims, while you’d be trying to explain that actually the apparent motion of the sun in the sky is not due to the earth orbiting the sun but the earth rotating on its own axis but that it also orbits the sun, and that although the sun looks larger/closer at the horizon than when higher up the sky it’s neither lower nor closer, and in fact it’s akin to when you see clouds on the horizon from here that are overhead to people in a distant city and they aren’t closer to the ground we’re just looking at them from an angle that makes them look like they’re next to the ground, and that the way you know the earth is rotating around the sun is because of the way the stars, which are the backdrop, “move”, when actually it’s us that’s moving, and the position of the sun relative to us is moving against that backdrop although of course you can’t actually see the stars that the sun is moving across because stars aren’t visible in the daytime but they’re there anyway,

… meanwhile, the tavern regulars, in between laughing their heads off, are saying that if the earth was moving around you’d feel wind or the water pouring out of a pitcher would bend, or a feather sitting on a flat stone would be flung off and into the air. They’d come up with some other explanation for the bottoms of ships disappearing over the horizon before the sails do. Simply because complex descriptions tend to seem less likely to be accurate than simple ones when the simple ones seem to suffice, you’d lose a lot of people just trying to explain the motion of something rotating and also revolving around another object at the same time. You’d have to introduct the tilt of the axis to explain how the sun’s trajectory changes with the seasons when actually it’s the earth that’s doing the rotating… 21st century kids in science class have trouble with the concept, as do many adults, wanna bet you could convince people the seasonal changes of the sun’s path are caused by a nonchanging tilt of the earth’s axis?

So in all likelihood you’d get shouted down and the tavern regulars would laugh for days about how they made logical hash of this guy who came in trying to assert this ridiculous unsupported claim.

But winning the argument would not make them right.

278

[QUOTE=Dob]

Present your side, others present theirs… and leave it up to the people reading take what they want from it. You had a point to make, but nobody will ever know it because you cant be civil long enough for anyone to give a shit (and I say “you” but I mean all the more rabid athiests who posted here).

And I dont know Polycarp from Adam, so I dont what he is able to take or not take. Your insults have no affect on me, but it does lower the discourse on this subject and that bothers me.
[/QUOTE]

For the record, I do beleive it was Polycarp that first resorted to profanity and name calling in our discussions.

279

[QUOTE=badchad]
For the record, I do beleive it was Polycarp that first resorted to profanity and name calling in our discussions.
[/QUOTE]

He did? REALLY??? Swore at you? OMG, why didn’t you say so? That totally justifies your actions!!1! Everybody, leave badchad alone. The whole stalker thing wasn’t his fault, he was provoked. Poly swore at him.

280

then I would lump Poly into the same camp as those who lower the discourse of this subject. name calling and profanity seldom reslove anything… but can be a fun diversion from time to time.