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steinrokkan posted:Vessbot, I think your attributes are rat-like. You make noises like a rat, you use your appendages like a rat. Your heart beats like a rat's, you have the faculty of perception, like a rat, and a capacity to make certain decisions, and to engage in cognitive processes - like a rat. I think you are a rat, a filthy plague-carrying rat and nothing more. People who claim you aren't a rat are merely trying to rationalize their previous relationship with you, and are probably rats also. "Yes, but rats have a central nervous system so you have proven my point for me.  "
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Feb 27, 2015 01:42
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e:fuuuuck
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Feb 27, 2015 01:43
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vessbot posted:Theologian: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/january-web-only/god-watches-big-game-william-lane-craig.html?paging=off vessbot posted:Random Christian from the internet: http://www.gotquestions.org/does-God-have-emotions.html http://www.gotquestions.org/attributes-God.html posted:God is eternal, meaning He had no beginning and His existence will never end. He is immortal and infinite (Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalm 90:2; 1 Timothy 1:17). God is immutable, meaning He is unchanging; this in turn means that God is absolutely reliable and trustworthy (Malachi 3:6; Numbers 23:19; Psalm 102:26, 27). God is incomparable; there is no one like Him in works or being. He is unequaled and perfect (2 Samuel 7:22; Psalm 86:8; Isaiah 40:25; Matthew 5:48). God is inscrutable, unfathomable, unsearchable, and past finding out as far as understanding Him completely (Isaiah 40:28; Psalm 145:3; Romans 11:33, 34). Vessbot, you are arguing against a straw man of Christianity you have constructed here. Craig and the fundamentalist website you quote generally make bad arguments, that they think God is a dude and fail to realize he needs a body is not one of them.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:46
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Randarkman posted:They didn't make it in because they held several meetings to decide on what orthodox Christian doctrine was to be, and part of this was agreeing on a canonical Bible. Part of the prerequisites were that they had to have been written by one of the apostles (though modern scholarship things that most of them were written about 100 years after Jesus died) or someone who knew Jesus and his works, and that they had to present Jesus as the son of God and emphasizing belief in the resurrection as the path to salvation. i basically agree with this point
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Feb 27, 2015 02:56
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steinrokkan posted:Vessbot, I think your attributes are rat-like. You make noises like a rat, you use your appendages like a rat. Your heart beats like a rat's, you have the faculty of perception, like a rat, and a capacity to make certain decisions, and to engage in cognitive processes - like a rat. I think you are a rat, a filthy plague-carrying rat and nothing more. People who claim you aren't a rat are merely trying to rationalize their previous relationship with you, and are probably rats also. That is a great analogy, and one that supports my argument. In the grand scale, we are very similar to rats in significant ways, with all of those similarities stemming from our shared biology, which itself stems from our shared evolutionary heritage. The body outside the nervous system serves as a good analog for humans, because of which rats are a common subject of medical experiments. The nervous system itself is also a great analog, including for things like emotions, familial bonds, etc. They've fine experiments where they alter brain chemicals that alter sexual desire, mother-pup relationships, and things like that. I realize what you were going for, which was to show that things can be similar in one respect but different in another. But that fails an analogy to God and humans because their similar respect is an essential part of the tale, and not an ancillary effect than you can cast away in favor the differences and be left with anything resembling conventional religion. The only reason you could have chosen rats is because of their biological similarity to us. You're not gonna gonna be able to say "crap, bad example" and regroup and come back with something else, because the less similar the subject is to us, the less representative it is of how we relate God to humans. If you used, say, an algae colony, or a boat propeller, or a magical self-programming cosmic AI, you could not say anything meaningful. Barlow posted:You are seriously arguing this guy thinks that God is a kind of human being in the sky? Did you do any reading on Craig? That would contradict pretty much everything he was going for with his Kalam cosmological argument. Craig is an idiot but you have to stop misquoting and take his arguments seriously if you are going to cite him. Let's not reply to the particular point I made or anything, which is that a concern for human minutiae like the happenings of a football game answers the challenge to find a citation agreeing that God has human-like thoughts. Can you speak to that? That you found a contradiction within religious writings is not surprising and does not undermine that finding. It only undermines the coherency of the Christian position. Par for the course is to have contradictions everywhere, often in the same sentence; don't lay it at my feet. By the way, an essential piece of his Kalam argument is that only a mind could have created the universe. (The mind, of course, being wholly rooted as a concept in what the human brain does, but when convenient it's not human at all, no siree Bob!) Similarly, you provide no justification for dismissing all of the human emotions listed by the other site, such as love, hatred, justice, etc., as meeting your challenge.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:13
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steinrokkan posted:You could make a Platonic / Socratic argument that longevity / eternity of a thing is a necessary component of perfection, and that happiness, too, can only be perfected by bringing it closer to the unchanging, eternal world of ideas. Anything good that lasts for a discrete amount of time is just a glimpse into the desirable. The problem is, what does it mean to be happy, or blissful? It certainly isn't a bodily experience, and it seems to me quite possible that it is effectively a negation of one's individuality as we understand it, because if we achieve a state of true perfection, how could we distinguish individual parts of the whole body of the Church? The Catholic doctrine teaches us that souls have a matter, but is that enough to keep them distinguished in the afterlife, or is it more accurate to imagine it as some sort of singularity (for instance, imagine that the purpose of the soul isn't to be propagated for eternity as an entity in itself, but rather to contribute to the development of a universal spirit which matures thanks to the activity of the soul, but isn't identical with it)? I see. This... sort of narrows the common ground. I mean, I understand this, I think, pretty well, but Christians often seems to be baffled by atheists' lack of "interest" in the afterlife, and I was hoping that my arguments would be comprehensible to a Christian. That is, if you take into account that I don't believe in a world of ideas or in souls... which kind of makes my hypotheticals moot (or at least very confused), since I start with placing no value on these ideas and souls...  Oh, well.Your reply reminds me of something, though. Namely, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and the conception of the afterlife there. I read the books in my late teens when I still was a Christian but my ideas were, I guess, rather basic, and I thought it was already un-Christian to depict souls as dissipating into Dust which combines with all the other souls. From your reply it seems to me that some people would subscribe to this image quite readily... By the way, I'm assuming here that you're a Christian, and it would be rather embarrassing if you were simply building even more hypotheticals here.
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Feb 27, 2015 07:04
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supermikhail posted:Your reply reminds me of something, though. Namely, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and the conception of the afterlife there. I read the books in my late teens when I still was a Christian but my ideas were, I guess, rather basic, and I thought it was already un-Christian to depict souls as dissipating into Dust which combines with all the other souls. From your reply it seems to me that some people would subscribe to this image quite readily... By the way, I'm assuming here that you're a Christian, and it would be rather embarrassing if you were simply building even more hypotheticals here. I'm not a Christian, but I don't think I'm building hypotheticals at all. The bit of my previous post in parentheses was meant to channel Hegel, who is a major Christian modern influence, but who is also arguably representative of the sort of intellectually detached thinking that is so far removed from Christ and from the basic messages of the Bible that I understand why to a lot of people it may not appear Christian at all. The ideas about using one's will to seek greater understanding of the eternal through Grace, and about living in accordance with metaphysical laws are rather orthodox across Catholicism as well as reasonable Protestant denominations. Anyway, even in these threads you'll find a VERY wide range of opinions on what exactly is the afterlife and how to "deserve" accession into it from believing Christians.
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Feb 27, 2015 08:55
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steinrokkan posted:I'm not a Christian, but I don't think I'm building hypotheticals at all. The bit of my previous post in parentheses was meant to channel Hegel, who is a major Christian modern influence, but who is also arguably representative of the sort of intellectually detached thinking that is so far removed from Christ and from the basic messages of the Bible that I understand why to a lot of people it may not appear Christian at all. The ideas about using one's will to seek greater understanding of the eternal through Grace, and about living in accordance with metaphysical laws are rather orthodox across Catholicism as well as reasonable Protestant denominations. To elaborate on some things that I find contradictory, and to perhaps indulge in hypotheticals: Catechism makes some important points about the Heaven: "To live in heaven is "to be with Christ." the elect live "in Christ," but they retain, or rather find, their true identity, their own name." At the same time: "He makes partners in his heavenly glorification those who have believed in him and remained faithful to his will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ." And "This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description." Also in Heaven the souls of the true believers gain the capacity to behold directly the true visage of God, which is explicitly made impossible for living human beings. So it would seem to me that in order to make these doctrinal conclusions true, one must admit that some change takes place in the process of purification / ascension: - The property of living man which prevents him from seeing God face to face must be removed. - Any properties which make crucial difference between Christ and man must be removed (i.e. only a "common core" of their identities can be left after the incorporation into a single body) - I find it plausible to say that in order to satisfy the above, the accidental properties of man's substance are not necessary or even desirable for his life in Heaven. Accident in a being is a differentiating, imperfect aspect which has the opposite role of the unifying essential properties. It is what moulds man into flesh and soul, and what inhibits his ability to achieve perfect understanding (vision) of God (due to the substantial qualities of human reason) on par with the angels and such, and what makes one man stand apart from another in every possible sense. - So in conclusion, is it possible that when it is talked about people finding their name and identity in Heaven, it refers to their loss of a part of their former substance and embracing an identity which is the same as their essence?
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Feb 27, 2015 09:15
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Ooh. That's going kind of deep. To my simple understanding there's a simple followup to the original question: What are the properties of your afterlife that make it better than my non-existence? In the "hive-mind of Christ" scenario everything you do on Earth also hardly matters if you are stripped of your un-Christ-like experiences, and in a sense you may as well have not existed at all, although that's simplifying the matter. And, of course, there's also the topic of this thread.  Edit: Aaand I have the premise of my upcoming reasonably block-busting book. I was about to ask what's the point of having a Christ-based supercomputer after all the problems have supposedly been solved. DO NOT STEAL! supermikhail fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 09:43
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Vessbot - there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that 'in the image of God' entails (a) a nervous system or brain or (b) something biological in nature at all. In fact, it is hard to see how this could possibly be intended to be true of something incorporeal. You have constructed a straw man argument. I'm sure you must really feel as if you're on to something because everyone ITT has split their vast differences to call you a moron, but sometimes there is a wisdom in crowds.
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Feb 27, 2015 11:28
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steinrokkan posted:So in conclusion, is it possible that when it is talked about people finding their name and identity in Heaven, it refers to their loss of a part of their former substance and embracing an identity which is the same as their essence? Not just possible, that's exactly it. And that essential humanity is Jesus as Christ. And It looks like this: We are all the brothers or sisters of Christ (we share the same essential human nature). All that is required is acceptance. Hence something like "Accept that you are accepted". That's all that is needed to participate in heaven. steinrokkan posted:I'm not a Christian, but I don't think I'm building hypotheticals at all. The bit of my previous post in parentheses was meant to channel Hegel, who is a major Christian modern influence, but who is also arguably representative of the sort of intellectually detached thinking that is so far removed from Christ and from the basic messages of the Bible that I understand why to a lot of people it may not appear Christian at all. Which is why the existentialist reaction occurs and initially it's in Christian language using Christian symbols (Schelling and Kierkegaard, among others). And the Hegelian synthesis is broken apart. But the Christian existentialist side of things ends up being able to use it anyway (Which I don't have time to explain right now, catch me after I'm done moving). You end up with Christian neo-platonists who are also Christian existentialists!
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Feb 27, 2015 16:58
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Disinterested posted:Vessbot - there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that 'in the image of God' entails (a) a nervous system or brain or (b) something biological in nature at all. You don't know what a strawman argument is. It is an argument where one attacks an easy position that his opponent does not hold. I have made no such argument, I have not constructed any direct positions on behalf of the other side. Note that I have been challenged to provide quotes of what I claim to be attacking, and have provided them. But after I did that, the challenger fell strangely silent on the direct point and tried to divert the subject to something else (an example of a consistent pattern where my responses to their first-level rebuttals are ignored and then they act exasperated that my arguments are so sophomoric and go on to declare themselves the victor and me the idiot). Also note that from the positions they actually hold, I can construct positions that they don't, if I can show that the former logically entails the latter (which I have, and will expound on again) - and this is not a strawman but rather valid argumentation. This is a crucial difference that you need to realize. Let's say I started talking to you about an incorporeal gas engine. You say fine - we can imagine such a thing that is not physical; it can be represented as a schematic on paper, as a model in a computer program, an image on a screen, or even a visualization in our imaginations. Clearly we would be taking about the human invention that is an Otto cycle engine, and we could examine its function in creating power from a chemical reaction - theoretically. But then I say "no no, there is no chemical reaction, or anything like it." You object, "How does this work then? What would move the pistons, the connecting rods, the crankshaft?" I answer that "you're thinking about this way too simplistically, there are no pistons, rods, or crankshaft, there aren't even any valves, valve train, ignition system, air/fuel metering system... anything." More puzzled, you ask, "Well then how would this engine work without any of those components? Is it a different type of engine? Is it a Wankel rotary? Is it something even more radically different, like a turboshaft engine? A jet engine? A rocket engine? Some sort of sci-fi antimatter accelerator? What are we even talking about here?" I reply, "I'm talking about an incomprehensible, inexpressible, infinite engine. It makes torque necessarily by definition. The word 'engine' is only an analogy, you see, to make it more relatable to our finite brains." What I've shown here is me talking literal nonsense, as in it makes no sense. It describes nothing, can prove nothing, and can refute nothing. It cannot stand in a logical relationship with anything else under discussion. And that's the exact same so-called argument as the religious position here. We start from a human emotion like love, which is based on the physical state of the neurons and neurotransmitters of a species of African ape, and somehow end up with an incomprehensible, inexpressible, infinite incorporeal mind. This is a fantasy that literally carries no meaning (or at least no more than the incomprehensible, inexpressible, infinite incorporeal Otto engine) and you somehow find the gall to challenge me to prove things about how it is supposed to work 
vessbot fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 19:04
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Why do you require so many   Again, you continue to assume that the two things (human beings; God) are intended to be regarded as very directly related. That is not an assumption that theology actually makes. 'In the image of God' is a looser description than you take it to be. You also assume that when people say 'God is x by definition' that that is intended to be a methodological description of the way in which God is supposed to work. It's not.
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Feb 27, 2015 19:20
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BrandorKP posted:Not just possible, that's exactly it. And that essential humanity is Jesus as Christ. And It looks like this: We are all the brothers or sisters of Christ (we share the same essential human nature). All that is required is acceptance. Hence something like "Accept that you are accepted". That's all that is needed to participate in heaven. I defy you, Jesus! I defy you!
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Feb 27, 2015 19:27
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Disinterested posted:Why do you require so many No assumption. I get it from the common religious accounts of God who has human emotions, wishes, and proclivities. He is said to care about people's hopes about which group of other people can more effectively cooperate to move an inflated elliptical skin bladder across a mark on a grass field FFS. Quit acting like my only basis is a single phrase. quote:You also assume that when people say 'God is x by definition' that that is intended to be a methodological description of the way in which God is supposed to work. It's not. You also assume that when people say 'incorporeal piston engine is x by definition' that that is intended to be a methodological description of the way in which the piston engine is supposed to work. It's not.
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Feb 27, 2015 19:34
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vessbot posted:You don't know what a strawman argument is. It is an argument where one attacks an easy position that his opponent does not hold. I have made no such argument, I have not constructed any direct positions on behalf of the other side. I avoided using the word "strawman" because I haven't had any (formal or otherwise) argumentation training and I've only assumed what a strawman argument is, based on people frequently throwing accusations of it at each other in the Internet. Now that you've defined it, I'm confident in saying that you have constructed a position that no one in this thread holds and are attacking that position. The strawman I'm seeing is this: "It is a mainstream religious belief that the phrase 'man is created in the image of God' means that God is based on human biology." You have only shown that it's a mainstream belief that man is created in the image of God. No one contests that. You have not shown that the phrase is generally understood to mean that God is based on humans or their nervous systems. No part of the argument is meant to be about the existence of God but what people's beliefs about Him (real or not) are. I hope you understand that. I've fallen silent because you yourself said that it's not even theoretically possible, even for the sake of an argument, that there exists an intelligent being that is not, as you put it, "ape-based. I can't argue a position I do not hold.
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Feb 27, 2015 21:53
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vessbot posted:No assumption. I get it from the common religious accounts of God who has human emotions, wishes, and proclivities. He is said to care about people's hopes about which group of other people can more effectively cooperate to move an inflated elliptical skin bladder across a mark on a grass field FFS. Quit acting like my only basis is a single phrase. The problem is that your argument requires you to be able to tell people what they believe. If you ask any given religious person whether or not they think your argument is correct, they will almost certainly tell you no, because god isn't as you describe him. You can't disagree with that because you don't know better than other people what they believe about god, and claiming to do is is literally the definition of a straw man argument. You are claiming that your opponent holds a position they will universally profess not to hold and then arguing against that position, rather than their actual stated position.
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Feb 27, 2015 22:29
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Valiantman posted:I'm confident in saying that you have constructed a position that no one in this thread holds and are attacking that position. The strawman I'm seeing is this: "It is a mainstream religious belief that the phrase 'man is created in the image of God' means that God is based on human biology." 1. I'm not saying that people in the thread necessarily hold it. Mainstream Christianity, however, does; and I've provided many quotes backing that from sources going far beyond the mere "made in God's image" phrase. (God's emotions, his care for football prayers, poll showing people considering him a person) 2. You encapsulated too much in your summary of my claim. The first part (made in God's image, that he's s person, and that he has human thoughts) is the religious position. The second part (that it means that he's based in biology) is the implication of that position that they of course want to disclaim. quote:You have only shown that it's a mainstream belief that man is created in the image of God. No one contests that. You have not shown that the phrase is generally understood to mean that God is based on humans or their nervous systems. No part of the argument is meant to be about the existence of God but what people's beliefs about Him (real or not) are. I hope you understand that. I don't think that it's generally understood that God's mind is based on human nervous systems. If you point that out to most people, they'll say "of course we don't believe that" (case in point, this thread). That that general understanding exists is not something I hold, and it's not a premise that any of my argument rests on, so it's not something I need to show. What I'm showing is that it's true, apart from religious people's general understanding of it. quote:I've fallen silent because you yourself said that it's not even theoretically possible, even for the sake of an argument, that there exists an intelligent being that is not, as you put it, "ape-based. I can't argue a position I do not hold. You've got that wrong, I said the opposite and wrote extensively about it. I aggregated those posts into one, where they appear in italic. It's on page 25 about 3/4 of the way down. The section starts with "Our intelligence and emotions are products of our neurology fed with inputs from our physical and social environment. On the contrary, we have a huge sample size of those things;" In short, non-human intelligences are clearly possible (as evidenced in the animal kingdom) but each of those examples is intelligent on the same basis as humans are (i.e., nervous systems) and therefore undermines the apologetic argument of an intelligence that lacks any similarity to humans. OwlFancier posted:The problem is that your argument requires you to be able to tell people what they believe. My argument does no such thing as telling people what they believe. I sourced it from the beliefs of regular believers (Pew poll), theologians, and some guy that wrote a FAQ-style website. I didn't make any of that stuff up. Where you seem to have trouble, along with Valiantman and Disinterested, is that you can't distinguish between a belief held by a person, and its logical implications that may or may not be held. For example, Andy says that the moon is made of cheese. Bob points out that that means that the moon contains a milk product. Bob in this case is not telling Andy what he believes, and he is not making a strawman argument. That is true even if Andy is embarrassed by the implication that the moon is made of milk product, and maintains steadfastly that he does not believe that. To maintain coherency, he needs to either 1. drop the belief that the moon is made of cheese, 2. accept that it contains milk product, or 3. show that Bob's implication from cheese to milk product is faulty. vessbot fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 23:09
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vessbot posted:My argument does no such thing as telling people what they believe. I sourced it from the beliefs of regular believers (Pew poll), theologians, and some guy that wrote a FAQ-style website. I didn't make any of that stuff up. Except the believer isn't required to do that, they can just say "god can do that because he's magic" or even something as simple as "god is very powerful because he created the universe so it stands to reason that what we see of him is not the entire thing" God doesn't really have logical implications on account of being, well, god. He can be as needlessly complicated as he needs to be. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 28, 2015 00:02
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OwlFancier posted:He can be as needlessly complicated as he needs to be. An interesting view indeed.
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Feb 28, 2015 00:13
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OwlFancier posted:Except the believer isn't required to do that, they can just say "god can do that because he's magic" or even something as simple as "god is very powerful because he created the universe so it stands to reason that what we see of him is not the entire thing" Remember that I qualified the requirement with "to maintain coherency." Without that, you're right that there is no requirement and the person can just tell me to go pound sand instead. You're also right that when religious arguments have their feet held to the fire, they often are forced to escape quandries with "it's just too complicated to explain to you  " or, even more laughably and more revealingly, "because magic."Whether the above is a coherent position is, as another poster put it, in the eye of the judge. But at the risk of putting words in people's mouths, I would venture to say that most religious defenders would not accept that standard when it comes to any other topic. So I think it's important to force the issue in order to reveal that level of their so-called reasoning, and, thereby, reveal their hypocrisy.
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Feb 28, 2015 01:04
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vessbot posted:Remember that I qualified the requirement with "to maintain coherency." Without that, you're right that there is no requirement and the person can just tell me to go pound sand instead. How do you even type your posts with a giant fedora obscuring your view.
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Feb 28, 2015 01:08
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steinrokkan posted:How do you even type your posts with a giant fedora obscuring your view. Remember, I'm the anti-intellectual. Can you even process what I'm presenting to you?
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Feb 28, 2015 01:11
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vessbot posted:Remember, I'm the anti-intellectual. No, because it's complete gibberish. I've seen homeless smackheads making more cogent points in their rants than what you are offering.
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Feb 28, 2015 01:17
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vessbot posted:
Just a reminder for everyone that torture actually does not work.
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Feb 28, 2015 01:21
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For some reason I have no trouble understanding why
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Feb 28, 2015 01:23
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steinrokkan posted:For some reason I have no trouble understanding why It's because you've lost the argument and have no possible response.
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Feb 28, 2015 01:28
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Will someone explain what is even being argued? e: present a thesis or something Miltank fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 28, 2015 01:32
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Miltank posted:Will someone explain what is even being argued? I'm pretty sure that vessbot is arguing that a belief in God leads to absurd implications unforeseen for believers themselves. And doing it in the most autistic way possible.
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Feb 28, 2015 01:41
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Miltank posted:Will someone explain what is even being argued? To summarize: 1. God, as commonly told, has human thoughts. 2. Having human thoughts implies that he has some processing facility similar to the human brain. 3. 2 is either A) unacceptable to Christians, thereby providing a modus tollens and disproving Christianity, or B) accepted, and stands as an absurdity. Who What Now posted:I'm pretty sure that vessbot is arguing that a belief in God leads to absurd implications unforeseen for believers themselves. And doing it in the most autistic way possible. How would you do it instead?
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Feb 28, 2015 01:53
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vessbot posted:How would you do it instead? I wouldn't, because it's not an effective argument if your goal is to persuade people away from belief in God. Your criticism boils down to "this thing is silly" and every single believer's answer is going to be "I don't give a poo poo". All you're doing is pissing into the wind and the only one getting wet is you.
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Feb 28, 2015 02:21
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Who What Now posted:I wouldn't, because it's not an effective argument if your goal is to persuade people away from belief in God. Your criticism boils down to "this thing is silly" and every single believer's answer is going to be "I don't give a poo poo". All you're doing is pissing into the wind and the only one getting wet is you. Ok but you're not saying that it's unsound or has a false conclusion though?
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Feb 28, 2015 02:35
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vessbot posted:To summarize: (e: it's the 1st point that's unacceptable, not 2nd. 2nd sounds logical.) To summarize a mainstream Christian belief you think you're cleverly fighting against: 1. God, as commonly told, cannot be accurately described by human understanding or language. We know what thoughts and feelings are, however, so those are used as a good-enough approximation to get important points across. 2. God loves you, and He shows it in various ways. Or He hates sin but loves the sinner. Or guards you with jealousy. 3. Understanding the 2nd point in everyday life doesn't require understanding the first point, so normally it isn't necessary to attach to every single sentence in case someone deliberately takes everything too literally in order to play a game of gotcha where there isn't one. I though you wanted to discuss or understand matters of faith but you simply thought you'd found a loophole that no one in the last few millenia had found and tried to use that to "disprove Christianity". Who What Now posted:I wouldn't, because it's not an effective argument if your goal is to persuade people away from belief in God. Your criticism boils down to "this thing is silly" and every single believer's answer is going to be "I don't give a poo poo". All you're doing is pissing into the wind and the only one getting wet is you. This guy gets it. "It's crazy" is right there in the Bible. That's not news. Valiantman fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 28, 2015 02:47
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vessbot posted:Ok but you're not saying that it's unsound or has a false conclusion though? Worse, I'm saying that it's trivial and meaningless.
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Feb 28, 2015 03:39
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Who What Now posted:Worse, I'm saying that it's trivial and meaningless. I have gained a new level of respect for you. Truly, only vessbot is worthy of the fedora.
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Feb 28, 2015 05:59
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All I can say is that you appear to be taking the most tortuously long winded approach to pointing out that religious belief is often a bit silly by the standards of non believers.
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Feb 28, 2015 10:58
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OwlFancier posted:He can be as needlessly complicated as he needs to be. does a perfect god have needs? also this thread comes back from the dead more often than Christ!
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Feb 28, 2015 16:39
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vessbot posted:To summarize:
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Feb 28, 2015 20:37
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Miltank posted:This is why it is important to have at least a cursory understanding of theology before you try to debate it. Picking through the Old Testament is not going to cut it. Because the person who's argument isn't simply "because I said so" sounds silly? How does that work?
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Feb 28, 2015 20:58
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JawKnee posted:does a perfect god have needs? I believe the traditional way to answer any question about god, is yes, even when it's contradictory.
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Feb 28, 2015 22:11
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