I just love that “Of course.” People have no idea whatsoever whom **badchad ** means when he writes the words “nominal Christians.” Tom no doubt pondered those words for an hour or two in serious pursuit of the implication of those two words, consulted all sorts of dictionaries, shed a few tears of frustration, and then decided to berate badchad for the serious crime of deliberately using misleading language.
You’re more than just pathetic. You’re a sick, sick man, Tom. Get some help.
So you admit to making inflammatory posts for the attention?
He’s made his meaning quite clear.
I know that if I were him, I’d be sick of being baited by an admitted troll, too.
Six billion pigeons, six billion pigeonholes…and each pigeon has his/her views that are ignorant one way or another, and views that are logical one way or another. Respecting each others views is the key here, badchad…and dare I cite the Serenity Prayer…
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
You don’t even have to use the first word in this prayer to see that you are banging your head against a wall here. The statement, “It’s taking longer than we thought.” is a tongue-in-cheek acceptance that the human race is not infallibly logical. Whether it’s religion, politics, cultural differences, etc., no human is infallibly logical. Why you think Christianity is the most tempting target to refute is probably born out of your life experience, but I (as well as the other 6 billion minus 2) did not live your life and have other life experiences that give rise to divergent viewpoints that are not consistent with yours, as well as your need to label Christians as illogical hypocrites. Just as long as you don’t harm me, and I don’t harm you…we’ll be fine. It’s those who kill and/or harm in the name of religion (or against it) in the present that I would worry about. You’ve stated your feelings about the topic, we read it, we respect it (well most of us do), and we alone decide whether to accept it or reject it. That’s all that you can do. Peace.
This is an interesting point. I’ve thought about it before. I think there are two possibilities:
1/ people tend to gloss over points quietly made. They instead respond to strident posts because such posts are “in their face”. That is to say, strident posts get attention and quiet posts don’t. Which is I guess what you are suggesting.
2/ people see some strong points quietly made and don’t really have an answer, so they read it but just go quiet. Strident points made in a challenging and obnoxious fashion get a response (although arguably more a response to the provocation than the logic). That is to say, both sorts of post get attention but only one sort gets a reaction.
I genuinely don’t know which of these it is. The former might be more influential on the “catch more bees with honey than with vinegar” principle. However, sometimes people are very good at totally ignoring uncomfortable problems until they get so in their face they can’t be ignored.
The latter method might legitimately be based on the principle that sometimes yelling “Go!” to the donkey isn’t enough to get it to move. You have to whack it with a stick: not because it won’t move except on threat of pain but because unless you do something to get its attention your words are wasted.
I dunno. It might surprise Tomndebb (given my posterboy status ;)) to learn that I tend towards the latter theory albeit only slightly. Or then again that might just reflect my inherent lack of self confidence in my own effectiveness.
If you would be happier being more strident, go for it. (Just refrain from personal attacks in GD.)
Sure. And I am, on occasion. Thinking on it, I tend to post more stridently if I feel like ensuring I’ll get included in the debate, and less stridently if I just feel like singing my song and then being gone.
Only this:
Emphasis mine.
I don’t think there is sufficient reason be believe in the existence of any gods, however you as a Christian are making a much more specific and extraordinary claim in that your god, Jesus, is the only real god, creator of the universe, yadda yadda yadda.
[quote]
It’s not in the same league as my saying “The Archangel Gabriel and a bunch of his buddies came down to my place for a jam session last Thursday; and they miraculously recorded the whole thing on CD, and I’ve got the disc on my shelf”.
[quote]
Saying that Jesus is the god, who came down to earth, walked on water, healed the sick, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and had his words recorded in a book on your shelf, is pretty much akin to the Gabriel story you just fabricated. The only substantial difference is the Jesus stories were fabricated a long time ago and as such are harder to falsify.
Humans are very superstitious and often irrational. Brilliant people buy lottery tickets, and smoke cigarettes too, but that don’t make either activity very smart.
Arguments for a deist god stand up with equal strength to that of the invisible pink unicorn living in my garage. Arguments for the existence of the Christian god have fallen in a very messy heap due to the problem of evil, among others. Christians just don’t care about the philosophical shambles their religion is in, they just blame their puny brains, that can not understand god’s will.
Sorry bad coding above.
I don’t think there is sufficient reason be believe in the existence of any gods, however you as a Christian are making a much more specific and extraordinary claim in that your god, Jesus, is the only real god, creator of the universe, yadda yadda yadda.
Saying that Jesus is the god, who came down to earth, walked on water, healed the sick, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and had his words recorded in a book on your shelf, is pretty much akin to the Gabriel story you just fabricated. The only substantial difference is the Jesus stories were fabricated a long time ago and as such are harder to falsify.
Humans are very superstitious and often irrational. Brilliant people buy lottery tickets, and smoke cigarettes too, but that don’t make either activity very smart.
Arguments for a deist god stand up with equal strength to that of the invisible pink unicorn living in my garage. Arguments for the existence of the Christian god have fallen in a very messy heap due to the problem of evil, among others. Christians just don’t care about the philosophical shambles their religion is in, they just blame their puny brains, that can not understand god’s will.
That miracles are conceivable does not necessarily make them possible. It is conceivable that I will sprout wings in the next 10 minutes and start flying around the earth, but in all honesty I think it’s really impossible and I don’t think many of you would disagree nor believe me if I said it happened.
That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
I think it is DtC that says that. I think he is probably right but I don’t feel I need to define miracles out of existence to make my arguments, and I’m certainly not dogmatic about it. In this thread I’m just saying the resurrection is no more likely, and no more believable than the 6 day creation. I can easily grant that a miracle could possibly happen but would follow it up that it would be absolutely ignorant for any person to believe any human testimony to accept said miracle. From your response it seem evident that you still haven’t read Hume’s work on miracles.
Also, I notice now that you are arguing in favor of miracles, but at other times are bending over backwards to come up with non-miraculous explanations for the so called miracles described in the bible. You certainly are wishy-washy.
What you don’t understand is that the ancient world, and even the modern world (in uneducated regions) is ripe with miracles stories. There is absolutely no shortage of them whatsoever. What there is a shortage of, is actual evidence than any of them are true. Given there is never objective evidence (which is telling in itself), all one has to go on to believe in any said miracle is personal testimony. Overwhelming experience and observation tells us that the laws of physics hold true, nearly all the time, and probably more truthfully, all the time. People on the other hand have been shown to be deceived or deceivers quite frequently. As Hume put it one must then consider which is the greater miracle, that some physical law was broken or that the person telling me about it is deceived or deceiving. The latter always being more likely one must always reject the physical miracle.
If this miracle (by your definition) is possible, it is still such a rare event that no human testimony could substantiate it. I really think you should take up reading some secular philosophers because right now you’re just chasing straw men, certainly if you think it pertains to my argument.
I really don’t think the promoting of superstition, as was your hobby, really contributes to one’s learning.
Believe me, it does.
Being as how your belief structure lacks coherence, variations in the timeline of YEC should be ok. Right?
Yes, we know, Matthew lied about things to make Jesus look like the Messiah. Admitting as much sure weakens any claims as to the actual divinity of Jesus, don’t you think?
But seeing as how the gospel writers were often mistaken, or as you indicate, fabricators of fiction, it certainly seems most probable that the resurrection of a dead rotting corpse falls under the category of stuff someone just made up rather than stuff that really happened.
I think your points 1 and 2 both true but I would add that cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias will suggest that people will ignore that which they find contradicting to their and carry on just as before. Arguments as you word them, as good and articulate as they are, thereby pass right through them as steel jacketed bullets through fog, as E.O. Wilson once put it.
As such I fight this by asking questions and commenting in such a way to put a person’s contradictions in belief right in front of them in a way that’s really hard to ignore. Then when they ignore my questions or comments I just state them again as necessary. As Churchill said, most men stumble over truth, and then pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing ever happened. As these theists stumble over my truth and then carry on, I like to think that I at least leave them with a limp.
FWIW, I think a combination of approaches is the best method, sort of a good cop bad cop approach like took place here…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=7907204
…particularly when Godzillatemple joined in the debate.
You seem very content to let people believe whatever they wish. If you really cared about others suffering/death, or following the teachings of Jesus, I would expect you to be trying real hard to change peoples beliefs. Certainly you would not be so shy about your own beliefs, assuming you really have faith that you are right. WWJD?
Bugger. Just lost a long post. Anyway, firstly your link doesn’t go where you mean it to go, badchad.
Secondly, while I largely agree, with the substance of what you say, I think you’re style goes a bit too far towards causing your foggy opponents to reflexively get behind the barricades. So (to stretch the analogy to breaking point) perhaps your steel jacketed bullets don’t even get to the fog.
Just out of interest, what specific tactics would you expect to be used in such an effort?
Sorry here’s the correct link:
I’ll try to respond to the rest of your post in the next couple of days. I’m sorry to miss the substance in your longer post, so respectfully, if you think it’s of interest please feel free to go on.
Actually my longer post said about the same but was more long winded. Sometimes god has a way of telling you when you need to shut up and be more succinct 
“Yadda yadda yadda”? :dubious:
What I was saying was in response to pseudotriton ruber ruber assertion that belief in any god was an “extraordinary claim”, and I hadn’t even attempted to argue for the existence of the Christian God. But as to “the only real god”, put me down as one who opines that we should not multiply omnipotent entities without cause.
“Fabricated”. Nice non-judgmental word there. As to “pretty much akin”, that’s very much a point of view. The Jesus story, while including a number of accounts of miracles that you find hard - impossible - to swallow, has a good deal more internal consistency than a pick-up band of archangels playing music in my backyard for no discernable reason.
Brilliant people no doubt grasp that the potential improvement in their quality of life should their number come up, and the insignificant loss to them of the stake money, compensate for the bet being a poor one in strictly mathematical terms. Regardless, you have to accept that belief in God is not the preserve of the feeble-witted, and you don’t get to play No True Genius with believers simply because they have some religious sensibilities.
It’s interesting you should say that, in that I’ve yet to hear any definition of the invisible pink unicorn as anything other than “an imaginary entity that I made up for the sake of being contentious”.
Whereas you contend that, if God did exist, we would naturally be in a position to understand his every thought and deed, and what’s more, to correct him?
While I’m here, you posted a rhetorical question a while back as to what conclusions I’d draw about the efficacy of prayer, if my prayers for you to be less angry and bitter were not answered by a reduction in your anger and bitterness. I found the question interesting, since I wouldn’t expect an avowed rational thinker to expect anyone to infer causation from an isolated instance of correlation.
You’re displaying some signs of illness, too, if you believe that I am not only a troll but that I’ve admitted to being one.
Or are you using Tom’s definition again here: “troll”= “someone whose argument pisses me off but that I can’t form a coherent counter-argument to”?