Thanks, iampunha!
Heh, heh, heh!
Watch out, N H I B I!
When the next big word attack comes, you’re gonna be out-gunned!
We got some big words now, you betcha! Are we afraid?
Oh, yea, Target’s got some brilliant philosophy. Down the aisle, right past the dorm furniture, can’t miss it.
Just as long as neither of three things happens, you’re all set:
-
Giant sentient squid feed on enough of those things and their descendents to appear somewhere (probably the coast of some country).
-
You don’t catch pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
-
A radical (or maybe not so radical) party of antidisestablishmentarianists doesn’t emerge from within a small town.
You’re just being silly, that’s where the small electrical appliances are.
Occam’s Razors, for example.
Why should he? He wasn’t talking about god, he was talking about ghosts, psychics, and the like. I knew it, and Lib knew it.
Uh, it’d been half an hour, dude. Maybe you want to wait a few hours. Or maybe you think you’re being funny.
I’m pretty well set on NHIBI’s side in this one. Libertarian was being a smartass, something he knew he could get away with because his victim didn’t have the intellectual ammunition to nail him for it. Hell, far smarter people than NHIBI got caught up in the web. I don’t know if Lib actually believes that “proof”; it seems impossible to me, but I know that some do. I also know he’s easily capable of hiding his real opinion in layers of conditions, exceptions, misdirections, and changes of subject. When the soundness of the argument was challenged, he defended its validity (which had not been questioned). When I challenged one of the predicates of the argument (that a supreme being implies necessary existence), he defended its converse (that necessary existence implies a supreme being) – a statement which, even stipulated, gets nowhere.
When a strong man uses his strength to help others, he’s a hero; when he uses it to harm others, he’s a bully. When a smart man uses his wits to intimidate a lesser man into giving up his position (instead of convincing him), or to confuse him into defending positions he doesn’t even hold–well, it’s certainly not heroic. One might even say it’s…coercive?
Sure.
Thanks for the link, Lib. I’d gotten the general gist of the argument before, but that page helped me understand it more thoroughly.
WOWSIE!
Now we’ve really got some bigguns!
Hooo! Youbetcha!
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is way cool!
I like this word for its sheer unpronouncibility; ‘FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION’.
If we resist the urge to limit ourselves to words of the English language, then we can rejoice in KYUKITSUROHEKIMENFUCHAKUNENRYOSEKISANRYO meaning ‘the accumulated amount of fuel condensed on the wall face of the air intake passage.’
PS:
Thanks, Gadfly!
Fneh. Flocksinocksinihillipillifickashun.
Let’s just not allow medical terms, else someone be tempted to bring in a polysaccharide with a name longer than a Faulkner sentence. Yes, they exist (not sure if they’re specifically or particularly polysaccharides, but I believe they’re organic molecules).
Round of applause there. Memorably clever. I will be quoting this soon at dinner parties - you will do the setup and I will say, dry as Death Valley, “Occam’s Razors, for example.”
Man, them’s some $10 words.
::scratch::
Anselm derails on point one and moots the whole thing:
“Now we believe that [the Lord] is something than which nothing greater can be imagined.”
A real life, mortal person who sacrifices and succeeds and helps others and through it all achieves real, mortal happiness, and dies and is fondly remembered, is the greatest thing imaginable. A supernatural being, who lives without obstacles, bereft of humility, and acting as dictator in chief of the Universe is hardly the epitome of greatness.
I agree with Nametag. I think in the original thread it was obvious that the OP meant ghosts, spooks, poltergeists - that kind of thing. To, within 6 posts, jump from “my friends are shitheads for thinking ghosts are making the creaky noises in their houses” to “YOU’RE INSULTING MY RELIGION!!!111 And…**I can prove it with logic **RIGHT IN YOUR THREAD!!!111!lOMGLOL” is completely ridiculous.
I think the OP should take a deep breath and a step back - which he has TRIED to do by specifically asking that this thread be locked (and then was taunted for it - nice pile-on, guys) - but I don’t think his ire is entirely misplaced.
For a second there I thought you were asking me to be your straight man:D
And this:
in light of the past few days’ events, is true in a most bittersweet way.
Well, we’re getting closer. Let’s see. You asked for an explanation of the symbols. I linked you to a very thorough one. I don’t know whether you read it. You came back and ridiculed Tisthammer, something about him working at Target. (He actually is a philosophy grad student, and has posted here at the Dope.) You asked me whether he originated it. I gave you a link to one of the originators, Alvin Plantinga, an eminent 20th century philosopher. You responded with a link to the 11th century theologian, Anselm of Canterbury. So where are we? I guess if you’ll move on through Descartes, Kant, Leibnitz, Godel, and Hartshorne, you’ll be where you can tap me on the shoulder.
The word you’re looking for, I believe, is “sophistry.” I’m sure Lib is smart enough to trot out a beautifully reasoned argument that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that leprechauns exist. One can either expend vast amounts of effort trying to pick the argument apart, or one can simply recognize that the conclusion is obviously nonsense, and just walk away. If one enjoys the intellectual challenge of trying to figure out where the logical holes have occurred, more power to him, but if one is trying to make sense of the real world, Lib’s contributions are often, shall we say, less than helpful.
Well, I don’t know anything about leprechauns, and I can’t prove they exist. But in GD, I just informed someone that law is for the purpose of protecting government, not citizens. I think that’s helpful in the real world, isn’t it? 
Congratulations…y’all have just given the biggest attention whore exactly what he wanted. :rolleyes:
I guess I didn’t make myself clear enough. I’m in the “walk away” camp.
By “away” did you mean “into the thread”?