In my exchanges with you, I’ve made an effort to describe my reasons for utilizing that three-letter word. You’re the one who continues to behave as if the word “God” had a meaning that anyone not being deliberately obfuscatory was aware of and in agreement with. And the meaning you ascribe to “God” is — one again — “the unreal”. So once again you are begging the question.
If you were to say “physical punishment of children constitutes abuse”, I would not find external verification the only alternative to categorizing your statement as imaginative, delusional, or deceptive. I might disagree with you, but it’s not subject to external verification because it’s not an assertion of empirical fact! (It’s also not merely a subjective taste, like “strawberry ice cream tastes better than vanilla”: it’s a statement of perspective)
You persist in addressing all assertions regarding the presence of “God” as assertions of fact.
That, at least, is itself an assertions of fact. I have made assertions about God which were not assertions of fact, and therefore when you address all such assertions as falsifiable propositions about facts, you are wrong in doing so.
Could it be that some of them aren’t so much concerned that he represents them as much as they are just irritated by his jerkitude? I certainly wouldn’t hold him against the other athiests on the board, unless they are the ones who continually try to make excuses for his incredibly rude behavior…in fact, I would think the same of anyone who did so. I just don’t get why anyone would that being caustic is appropriate on a board like this, where for the most part, people manage to debate emotionally-laden issues politely.
Not to answer for Bryan, but the difference I see is that a religious belief is not falsifiable, while “paranormal” claims generally are. If someone says God exists, I might disagree, but I can’t prove them wrong. If someone says they have psychic powers, though, that’s a testable hypothesis, and so far, the psychics have failed every test put to them.
Well, on Monday to Thursday nights the ghost of a 19th Century English butler helps me plan my wardrobe and schedule for the next day. Also, I have a guardian angel that keeps me out of traffic accidents, except for those 2 times(she had a very good explanation of why those accidents were necessary). I didn’t used to believe in that kind of stuff until I had an “Awakening” at this Wiccan ceremony I attended on a lark.
I suppose I can expect Bryan to make mulch of these cherished beliefs of mine.
What I identified is a response from you to me where I had said making fun of posters is poor form. You said making fun of their ideas was spot on OK. Labelling such a response as a nitpick is disingenuous at best, and outright lying at worst. I lean toward the latter, given your history of taking my words and twisting them into Moebius strips.
Feel free to read closely my posts and criticize where it is appropriate. I learn from my mistakes. After all, you are a professor of English, and I am but a carpenter. Even that was a mistake. I thought the sign on the door at the directional school said “Car Painter.”
Once again you have a backstory to ameliorate your ambiguity. Labelling anyone a “weakling” or a “loser” is simply bad behavior, and says a great deal more about you than it does about the object of your scorn. If those folks are so incosequential, why bother engaging them at all?
You have entirely missed my point with regards to badchad. I’ve said it before, but you may have missed it, so here it is again – GENERALLY, I AGREE WITH HIM. It is not his content, but his manner, and lack of manners, that offend. He’s a rude, arrogant, bullying, pissant. **Poycarp, tomndebb, duffer, Lord Ashtar, **cosmosdan, et. al. would all be welcome in my backyard for a cuppa joe or a cold’n frosty. Wanna know why? Because there are other matters in the world to discuss than issues of faith, and they have shown themselves to be erudite, well-read, gracious, and charming. All except for tomndebb. He disagreed with me once, and he was WRONG WRONG WRONG. He also warned me once. Again WRONG WRONG WRONG. I have allowed for the fact that my personal bias may have clouded my judgment, so, conditionally, I give him a pass.
You and your droog, however, would be subject to a blast from the garden hose. Or worse. I could release the hounds. They would most likely lick you to death, but the point obtains.
What the fuck happened to you, man, that you have to lash out at those you believe to be your inferiors? Stop pissing on the pygmies. You might get laid every once and a while.
This is exactly how I feel about this kind of name-calling. It doesn’t make me think much about the person being called a weakling or a loser, but it sure makes me think less of a person who thinks this is some kind of clever rhetorical device.
This is the point I was trying to make before. Maybe some of the atheists will contradict me, but I’ll bet most of them aren’t all that concerned that badchad will make them look bad by association (if they are, they really shouldn’t be, at least, not around here). I think it’s much more likely that they just think he’s a jerk. Personally, I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about my religion, or anything else about me…I come here to discuss issues in a relatively polite and civilized manner. If a person can’t do that, as far as I’m concerned, they probably don’t have that much that is interesting to say, anyway.
Only if you start to imply that ghosts are necessary to write schedules and guardian angels should be taken into account while forming auto insurance policies. The big issues of religion (i.e. is there a God? What is the meaning of life? Is there a soul and what happens after death? Who or what created the universe?) are quite harmless and do not overlap with science, as science has not and likely cannot answer any of them. If someone wants to believe they have answers to these questions, let them. It’s rather rude to sneer at them for it.
The application of said beliefs, and the imposition of said beliefs on others on the assumption that a real-world effect is a major problem, though. A few paranormalists on this board (and thousands elsewhere) determinedly insist that Uri Geller has supernatural powers, among other claims. I don’t have to actually mulch them; they tend to implode on their own when they can’t find any way to prove the existence of the physical mechanism that is bending the spoons (there must be one) nor why more formidable objects aren’t being bent, nor why tests that rule out the possibility of the psychic just bending the spoon with his fingers cause his abilities to vanish.
I don’t know that chad is making the distinction between beliefs and applications. My admittedly limited reading of his posts indicates to me that he doesn’t; that upon finding out that a person believes X, chad is quite happy implying that person is offering tacit support of all atrocities performed throughout history by people who believed every possible variant of X. We get it; he doesn’t like religious people. It’s not an accomplishment to point out that the beliefs lack foundation (I mean, duh) and it’s not a victory just to get the other person angry.
And I’m more of an atheist than him because I don’t need to keep proving it.
I’d like to think you’re right, but according to a poll taken earlier this year, atheists are the least trusted group in America, ranking below Muslims, immigrants, and homosexuals. Here’s the GD thread inspired by that poll. I’ve personally debated with at least one poster, an otherwise smart guy, who had never really encountered any atheists in real life, and was under the assumption that folks like badchad were typical of the breed. (I think it was this thread, but I’m too lazy to re-read the whole thing to make sure I’m right.) Atheists have a very serious image problem in this country, and jackasses like the OP or PRR are playing right into the popular image of atheists as not simply a-religious, but actively hateful anti-religionists.
That’s why I added “at least, not around here” to my statement. I have never seen bad treatment of atheists on this board, and I seriously hope that most of you do not fear that the non-atheists think any less of you because of the behavior of badchad, because I really doubt that the posters you typically encounter here would do so.
Like I said in my last post, it does happen here, if rarely. Yeah, most posters are smart enough and worldly enough to recognize that badchad is an aberration. But there are some posters, and God knows how many lurkers, who are going to see him as proof of every bad thing they’ve ever heard about atheists is true, and carry that belief with them off of the boards and into real life.
Actually, Zoe, you’re right–I’m not a member of the teaching profession this term, at least not primarily, in that I’ve just been voted by by my colleagues to administer the English Department (of a major East Coast university): that is, I now set policy and see that 70-some-odd colleagues are (by their own choice) teaching English according to my standards of what is professional and correct methodology. (Don’t worry that I’ve been kicked upstairs to prevent my appearance in the classroom, though–I still get to teach advanced English majors in a few select seminars.) My writing, while it may seem incompetent to you, has been deemed okay by editors ranging from Simon and Schuster to PLAYGIRL to Partisan Review so I’m not too concerned about your harsh judgment of my prose style (it’s a bit ornate, but I’m not editing myself so scrupulously here, just enough to be understood by anyone with a grade school education). Matter of fact, one editor (who happens to be a Doper) just last week offered me $750.00 to write an article, so I’m pretty confident that I still have some idea of how to write, your even-minded and well-intended comments notwithstanding.
You know, I think the only hope–since I’m fairly moderate as far as my radical beliefs in writing instruction go–for those of you who find this scary news is to send your kids to a good Bible college so they might learn to think properly. Or, better yet, why not home-school them through the doctoral level? That’s really the only safe course of action, IMHO.
BTW, all four of your examples seem to be okay (if somewhat ornate) English sentences (apart from an occasional copyediting error–“discuss” should be “discusses” and so on–did know that I used to be a copyeditor before I went into teaching?Yes, Iwas hired to see that standards of English prose were being used at popular magazines, some of which I’m sure you read–imagine that! Terrifying, isn’t it?)
This is one of the few tangible advantages of having a Ph. D. in writing and over fifty published pieces in popular and scholarly journals, and several books in print–you can just laugh when people get on their high horse and try to pretend that you don’t know how to write. I might get insecure if someone criticizes my cooking or my painting or my holding forth on the history of baseball, all of which I’m pretty competent at, but when someone tells me that I can’t write or teach, all I have to do is look at my paychecks and say confidently that some people are giving me a lot of money to do so nonetheless.
And also btw, "the “Rev.” Emerson quit his ministry at a young age, because he couldn’t bear the hypocrisy of Christian doctrine, so he might not be the best source of reverence or belief for you to choose. (RWE happens to be an interest of mine, so please be careful about misrepresenting his views–he also happens to be a hero of mine, as well as a model for my prose style.) You quote him as a defender of inconsistency, which you say you don’t believe in, anyway (not a strong debating point, but whatever…) and you invite me, on the basis of misreading RWE (the key word in his quotation is “foolish”–he’s not actuallly promoting inconsistency as a virtue, Zoe) to “Insist if * want to, but it’s a battle that * will lose”–ok, I’m in. Go defend inconsistency, and I’ll defend its opposite. Let’s see who loses.
From your answer to my question I can see now that you are more mature than I realized and have settled this issue about your sister long ago in your own mind. I’ve read your posts for a long time without knowing your age. (I do agree that over time we learn which times we have to just bite our tongues and let it go with our families.)
But you just said that these liberals include many atheists. You wish to give them a taste of their own medicine and point out that their religious beliefs are no more rational that a fundamentalists? I thought that you valued logic and wished to be “rational.” Oh, you are such a critical thinker.
How do you know that all of your life is anything but a delusion? Perhaps you are imagining all external verification.
All those credentials as a writer, and yet you still can’t read clearly enough to get it through your head that a good half of the people who are calling you on your idiotic anti-religious bias are atheists. How strange. And how sad that all your successes have left you such a bitter, mean little person. If I were a theist, I’d suggest you need to get closer to God. Seeing as how I don’t think such a figure exists, perhaps you should try getting laid, instead. At least find something occupy your hands and mouth, so long as it saves us from more desperate attempts to impress us.
Is that an offer? If so, I’ll have to ask you to get on line and take a number. I’m also pretty good at getting myself laid, but thanks so much for asking.
And as far as “attempts to impress you” go, before this gets out of hand, who has been bringing up my so-called credentials as a writer and a professor, me or other people? Answer: other people, to doubt those credentials (mentioned in threads other than religion-related.) What, you want me to let people taunt me “Nahh nahh, you’re no writer, you’re no teacher!!” without pointing out how little their opinion counts on those two scores? Sorry, like the tiger, I am a wicked creature: when attacked, I will defend myself.
Fuck you for implying that I’ve started the gratuitous mentioning in this thread of my personal background.
They did. The "insults’ aren’t even insults, they’re just gratuitous, incorrect statements of fact that I can neither prove nor disprove here. They’re nothing at all.
What I resent the hell out of, however, are the snarky attempts to hijack this thread onto those unprovable defenses of my credentials and then to criticize me for trying to defend myself.
Absolutely. Which is why you wrote five paragraphs refuting them, and then posted three further times in the span of thirty minutes defending the refutation. Clearly, they had no effect on you at all.
Miller, you’re not impressed? He went through all the trouble it takes to invent a career that is most likely pure fiction, and you’re still not impressed? Does that level of dedication not touch you? Is your heart made of ice?
And you even doubt his impressive skills of seduction and romance? Shame on you, shame! He has over fifty articles published on how to get laid. And several books.
This person deserves our respect and admiration. Not that, ya know, he was listing all those tidbits because he wanted to puff himself up. Nopers. It was because others brought it up first. The fact that he has no idea when to use an ellipsis means nothing. The fact that it took him almost an entire day to realize what antecedents are, what his own text’s semantic value was, and what Contrapuntal was getting at? That means nothing, too. You will respect his expertise.
Only a trained professional, secure in his credentials and the quality of his work, would work himself up into such a frothy lather in the process of trying to prove himself to anonymous strangers over the 'net. Isn’t it obvious?
What, you’d expect an actual department chair to be confident enough in his abilities that he wouldn’t need to approach a good ol’ meltdown if people he has never and will never meet questioned him? That a respected and confident career professional wouldn’t feel the need to talk about how often he gets ass? Naif.
