Fairytale?

[Nathan Poe]

It is all argument from personal incredulity because it all hinges on your unwillingness to believe that God exists. Were you willing to believe then everything the Bible says becomes a possibility and a reality.

Are you saying that possibility = reality? How rational.

 

[thaumaturgy]

...

 

[FoeHammer]

Are you saying that possibility = reality? How rational.

No, I am not saying that.

FoeHammer.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

No, I am not saying that.

FoeHammer.

Well, thanks for clarifying your initial statement. Really, big help.

 

[Aron-Ra]

FoeHammer, somehow you still don't know what rationalism is despite the fact that I've explained this to you at least a couple of times already, and cited authorative sources to support that explanation. You were never able to defend your objection, but you've said before that any probability we consider, you think must be an act of faith regardless how we came to whatever opinion we do; and you've said that gods are the only beings which even can think without relying on faith. Thus you've rendered that definition meaningless since it includes everything obligately. Of course the real definition of faith from every definitive source says you're wrong, and even the Bible says that some men do not have faith. Faith requires that we assume things as true just because we want to believe them, and assert them as fact even without any reason to say so at all, and that we refuse to ever reconsider our position no matter what, even after being proven wrong -which is why you'll never even recognize your own mistakes much less correct them. I proven you wrong about this before, and could do it again and again and again, but you'll never admit it because your faith forbids it. That's why faith is inherently dishonest and offers no way to ever discover the real truth about anything.

But rationalism is a philosophy which consciously denies faith for that very reason. Rational beliefs must be reserved, tentative, and limited only to those things which are posatively indicated by objectively-verifiable logical or physical evidence. I have no faith in evolution because the evolutionary conclusion is not priori for me the way the creationist conclusion is for you. What matters is not the conclusion, but the reason and the methodology behind it. My beliefs are my best estimate of the evidence at hand. I have no emotional attachment to those beliefs, and am free to change my mind in a moment if given reason to. Somehow you think your purely emotional dependance on logical fallacies and personal incredulity borne of ignorance should count as evidence, but of course it doesn't. I'll need more than the ravings of mad men, charlatans and shysters to convince me of the magical things you're talking about.

Yes it is magic, by definition. And yes, the Biblical authors were certainly primitives ignorant of many things, most especially the construct of the cosmos. They've made many erroneous claims on that topic which cannot be true either individually or collectively. But of course you'll never accept that because you have a desperate need-to-believe.

Others, like myself don't have any such need. Instead, we have only a desire to understand. So I'm not afraid of any fact like you are. I'm perfectly willing to believe in a god again, and would whether I wanted to or not -if someone could show me one good reason to. I would very much like to believe in something of a spiritual nature, especially something like the Tao. Your notion of God is a bit infantile from my perspective. When I believed in a deity, and even when I was still a Christian, my version of God was much more appealing than yours, and far superior, largely because MY god didn't depend on that repugnant bigotry in the Bible. Even more than the contradictions and absurdities, the atrocities attributed to God was the primary reason why the Bible could not have been his word. Those are the words of inferior beings, not a supreme one.

Yes, I had a "pre-conceived notion" of God -since everyone told me he was a loving, wise, and just creator. But the horrible thing the Bible worships is not that way. Far from any faith-based preferencial denial, my position is one of resignation rather than resolve. I didn't want to stop believing, either in God, or in the Tao, nor anything in the astral realm, and certainly not in my own soul. But it doesn't do any good to make up something I'd rather believe -even if its not evidently true. Neither do I have any need to invent some external meaning for my existence. I am, that's enough.

Unlike you, I do not base my perspective on arguments from assumed authorities, either scriptural or clerical. If we are discussing what Christians believe, then citing famous clergymen is hardly a logical fallacy. But your perspective cannot be independantly discovered from anything outside the articles of religion; it was given to you by men, and they used your faith to deceive you.

Neither is it a logical fallacy to note that the Bible cannot be interpreted completely literally without contradicting itself. This is well-understood by all the Biblical scholars too. You should note also that I make sure to distinguish the creationist subset from the larger Christian collective, though you curiously fail to do this and accuse me of your same failure.

Were you open to intellectual discussion, I'd be happy to go over all the reasons behind all of this. But you can't be objective. You can only be offensive and inefficiently so. Because for you this is a deeply emotional issue, so you can only retaliate with hostile personal attacks lacking anything substantial. Your arguments are wrong, and all your accusations are both wrong and empty. Having no ability to debate any better than you do, and having to dishonestly evade every point or query put to you, then you can't do your own case any good and can't convince anyone else either. So I would suggest you not talk to me anymore, and I will ignore you as well -until or unless you come up with something of substance which you can show to be actually true.

 

[FoeHammer]

I wonder why you think its OK to outright ignore every question directed to you, while you berate me by repeating your one question which I've already answered every way I know how. Perhaps if I knew what that question means to you? Because you may not be phrasing it very well.

Well let me give you the answer to the question then perhaps you will finally understand the question.
It doesn’t.
Does that help?

It think Probably. Buddha taught that whether God [Brahma] existed or not was irrelevant, because however one chooses to answer that question, it would not change how he still must sustain himself or die. All the laws of the universe remain in effect either way, so what difference does it really make while we live?

What has any of this got to do with what it is in reply to?

But you're still fixating on the false dichotomy that we must either completely reject all religious beliefs, or we must subscribe only to your particularly narrow view of theism, being entirely dependant on the worship of doctrine.

I am not ‘’fixating’’ on any such thing… you are. There is a God or there isn’t. Which religion and which God is another question and unrelated in this instance.

See? I told you, you worship scripture, just as I said.

Fragment (consider revising)
You are such a child sometimes, it’s like being back in the playground.

And you're so dogmatic that you are unable to even consider any of the topics discussed in this forum.

How does being dogmatic stop one from considering and/or comparing other topics?

Why then do you bother even coming here?

To challenge the likes of you.

Because I'm comparing philosophies beyond your comprehension

LOL. You like to think so.

to subjects I've studied in-depth but which you refuse to know anything at all about.

I knew enough about them to reject them. None of this is really relevant is it? When you consider the question I asked with regards to atheistic evolution what has any of this got to do with it?

You can get as angry as you like and shout that "Aesop said the tortoise won and I accept that", but that's not going to compell anyone else to believe as you do, and it certainly isn't going to sway anyone who really knows anything about either science or theology.

I’m not angry and I am not here to compel or sway anyone to do anything I am here expressing my opinion that’s all.

So I would think you'd be happier if you run along to one of the other boards of this forum where you might find people of your own level to talk to.

I think it is you who would be happier if I did then your ego wouldn’t take such a battering.

That's right, you did advise me not to try to reason with you, and I just explained why it would be a waste of my time to try.

This kind of response damages your credibility still further.

***** SNIPPED. *****

I am not interested in your interpretation of what God did/does do, or how He did/does do it. Everything you have said in reply to me with reference to God and/or scripture has demonstrated a severe lack of understanding and a total lack of respect. I have noticed that your defence of ToE usually results in an attack on scripture. Why is that? Evidence lacking?

Manipulating seemingly natural sequences of events toward a desired result, (which modern theists believe) as opposed to using acts of dramatic magic as creationists believe he used to do, but doesn't do anymore.

Even with this the original question doesn’t make any sense.

Because you worship the Bible, just as I said.

I worship God.

I don't know why you keep arguing against me since you prove my point each time you try.

You’re on an ego trip D Gullible’s travels ).

Its not personal incredulity. Its not "personal" at all. The Bible cannot be absolutely literal without disproving itself, and leading theologians admit this.

There you go again with the argument from authority thrown in.

That's an empty assertion. But if it were so, then you wouldn't need faith to believe in him, would you?

Then you don’t understand faith.

But you keep admitting everything I accuse of you. By your own admission, I've got you pegged.

Not by any admission of mine you haven’t… Only by an omission of yours.

See? Again you react exactly as I predicted, admitting that you do have exactly the dichotomy I said you had, and which we have already easily shown to be false. Again, most "evolutionists" are Christian and most Christians are evolutionists, and all of the pioneers of evolutionary science were initially Christians, and many of the leading proponants of modern evolutionary science are still Christians today. So your dichotomy of worshipping the Bible as a literally historically accurate absolute authority vs the rejection of all religious beliefs with the acceptance of evolution is indeed false.

This is becoming tiresome. You can’t see me for the straw men you keep creating.

You are sadly typical of your ilk, and completely predictable.

That’s not much of response at all really is it?

Well, it isn't "the almighty" doing that. But of course you'll never believe

me.

Why should I?

Because faith is a matter of assuming your own conclusions without adequate consideration, making yourself believe them without question, and refusing in advance to ever allow any amoung of logic or evidence to cause you to reconsider your position honestly.

That’s not my faith in God that’s your faith in atheism.

All it means is that you're determined to be unreasonable.

No it doesn’t. This simply means that you can cease to reply to me and feel justified in doing so. It’s a cop-out.

I already knew that. I'm not trying to convince you of anything.

You bet me that you could prove to me that men are apes in another thread… and you failed because I was not prepared to accept everything on your terms. What really bothers you is that I’m not willing to play by your arbitrary rules. Your atheistic evolutionary worldview dictates, and you believe, that man and apes share a common ancestor. My creationist Christian worldview dictates, and I believe, that they do not. It’s all about choice and free will.

I'm using you as an example to others, the innocently-deceived sheep who may not realize how disingenuous faith is -until they see how your tactics trying to debate with me. But I must add that, as strong as you think your faith is, even you know that its not. Because if your strength could bare even the slightest test, then you wouldn't have ignored any of my questions the way you do. You wouldn't need to do that unless yours was a frail and fragile faith. Were you to let go of your dependance on logical fallacies and actually honestly engage me systematically, by answering and properly addressing every point or query -ignoring none- then your "faith" would billow away like so much dust.

So you’re the shepherd of the sheep are you? You’ve come to save them before it is too late and I am to be used as an instrument in their salvation?…. How gracious of you.
God knows the strength of my faith. It is not determined by whether or not I choose to answer meaningless questions based on a meaningless philosophy in relation to a meaningless process.

FoeHammer.

 

[Aron-Ra]

You bet me that you could prove to me that men are apes in another thread… and you failed because I was not prepared to accept everything on your terms. What really bothers you is that I’m not willing to play by your arbitrary rules.

You refused to participate, that's true. But if you had, or if you ever do, then I will also prove that it is not "arbitrary" by any means. The fact that you are an ape is objectively determinable, and not "dictated" by anything either of us would rather believe. Quit trying to project your own feeble childishness onto me.

 

[Inan3]

...

Is this supposed to mean something? I've seen you do it a couple of times. Just wondering.

 

[Inan3]

GOSH! Who would have thought you have to maybe understand legal matters before pontificating on them???

It's like evolution! You have to have a nodding acquaintance with the science before you can decree it "wanting"!

It's so hard to debate people when you don't have the facts.

But I do like the response. It fits in well with my new bumpersticker idea:

Christians: Not Perfect, but Never Wrong.

[bible]Proverbs 16:18[/bible]

Oh thaumaturgy, are you mad at me or something? It's okay, I forgive you, Buddy.

 

[Inan3]

You’re on an ego trip D Gullible’s travels ).

You made me LOL literally! That is too funny! Nothing against you AR just thought it was good line! I would have laughed no matter what side it came from. Oh, laughter is so great. Life is so great!

 

[Wiccan_Child]

You made me LOL literally! That is too funny! Nothing against you AR just thought it was good line! I would have laughed no matter what side it came from. Oh, laughter is so great. Life is so great!

I think someone needs to lay off the happy pills for a while.

Here, give them to me, I'll look after them

 

[Inan3]

I think someone needs to lay off the happy pills for a while.

Here, give them to me, I'll look after them

Not so much you, but I do think happy pills would be a great addition to some CREVO posters. Wow, now that would give this place a shot in the arm wouldn't it?!

 

[Inan3]

[/color]You just better hope everyone realized you are the arbiter of what real christianity is.

Get a grip TM. Stop twisting what I said. You need to lighten up. It's not healthy for you to be so uptight.

I'll assume you haven't read much about the history of Christianity.

You'd be wrong.

I have to admit, this surprises me. So you agree with Madelyn Murray O'Hair?

No, my motives are entirely different than hers

Wow. I am amazed.

[/color]

No sex ed? Good. YOU pay for the increase in teen age pregnancies and the skyrocketing rates of STD's.

A few points:

1. By 2002, one-third of teens had not received any formal instruction about contraception (Lindberg LD, Changes in formal sex education: 1995–2002, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2006, 38(4):182–189.)

2. Despite [a] decline, the United States continues to have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world—almost twice as high as those of England, Wales and Canada, and eight times as high as those of the Netherlands and Japan. (Singh S and Darroch JE, Adolescent pregnancy and childbearing: levels and trends in developed countries, Family Planning Perspectives, 1998, 32(1):14–23)

3. Every year, roughly nine million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) occur among teens and young adults in the United States. Compared with rates among teens in Canada and Western Europe, rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia among U.S. teens are extremely high. (Weinstock H et al., Sexually transmitted diseases among American youth: incidence and prevalence estimates, 2000, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2004, 36(1):6–10.; Darroch JE, Frost JJ and Singh S, Teenage Sexual and Reproductive Behavior in Developed Countries: Can More Progress Be Made?, Occasional Report, >New York: The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 2001, No. 3.)



I'm glad I don't have any kids. Because I would most assuredly not want them around uninformed hormone-weilding urchins such as yours.

Well if you had kids you would know that they are not as "uniformed" as you might think and even though their hormones might be raging it's not anything they can't control ... but then, why should they? Society says it's okay. Even though they are educated in the diseases that they might contract, they are so young emotionally and experientially that they think it won't happen to them, even though, it does all the time.

Safe sex is not enough. Children need to know how to mature rather than being taught it is okay to exlore "safely" their bodies and to indulge in sexual relationships they are not ready to handle. Teaching children other alternatives to sexual involement spares them from a whole lot more than unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Is this supposed to mean something? I've seen you do it a couple of times. Just wondering.

It's a post I deleted after thinking about it.

Believe it or not, despite being a swine lacking integrity, sometimes I feel bad about having said something.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Oh thaumaturgy, are you mad at me or something? It's okay, I forgive you, Buddy.

Thanks again for the forgiveness! I do love it when you LORD it over people!

Are you....JESUS?

 

[Lilandra]

Well if you had kids you would know that they are not as "uniformed" as you might think and even though their hormones might be raging it's not anything they can't control ... but then, why should they? Society says it's okay. Even though they are educated in the diseases that they might contract, they are so young emotionally and experientially that they think it won't happen to them, even though, it does all the time.

Safe sex is not enough. Children need to know how to mature rather than being taught it is okay to exlore "safely" their bodies and to indulge in sexual relationships they are not ready to handle. Teaching children other alternatives to sexual involement spares them from a whole lot more than unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Facts don't seem to have as much effect on you as what you would rather believe instead.

Nevermind that states like Texas already are teaching abstinence based sex ed. Nevermind, here in west Texas an average of 20 percent of the live births are to teen mothers.

Nevermind the pesky facts, they don't need to be educated about birth control.

The new President of the State Board of Education agrees with you.

Don McLeroy, president of the State Board of Education, noted that sex education is mainly a local issue, with state law requiring each district to have a local committee that decides what will be taught.

“The idea that just giving them a lot of information is going to solve it, I think, is kind of naive,” he said. “Certainly, it’s more of a societal problem than it is a school problem.”

http://www.oaoa.com/news/texas_5376___article.html/county_rate.html

If more babies are born to teens, because they don't have "a lot of information" about sex, ya'll can always pray for them.

 

[Inan3]

Facts don't seem to have as much effect on you as what you would rather believe instead.

Nevermind that states like Texas already are teaching abstinence based sex ed. Nevermind, here in west Texas an average of 20 percent of the live births are to teen mothers.

Nevermind the pesky facts, they don't need to be educated about birth control.

The new President of the State Board of Education agrees with you.


http://www.oaoa.com/news/texas_5376___article.html/county_rate.html

If more babies are born to teens, because they don't have "a lot of information" about sex, ya'll can always pray for them.

Well by your own statistics this sex education stuff is NOT working.

I am not suggesting that they only teach abstinance. To me that will be met by the kids the same way as sex education. Sex education is just a bandaid on a much more serious problem. The problem kids have today is not sex or drugs. The problem is peer pressure. They don't know how to deal with that. There have been many kids who did NOT want to have sex yet cave in under peer pressure. Same with drugs. They want to fit in and be loved, just like everyone, that's the underlying issue here. It needs to be reinforced that they CAN make their own informed and intelligent decisions without the pressure from their peers to give in. They need to know that is what makes a person really cool!

I have said for years that if they were taught at an early age, together in the classroom... what peer pressure is, why we give in to it, how to deal with peer pressure from others, why do others pressure us to be like them, etc. that we would not have had "bully" situations exploding in our schools, kids would learn to "just say no" to drugs and alcohol, and there would be far less sex happening in their ranks.

I do not expect kids or adults to live by my morals but I do believe that kids need more than just free hand outs of condoms and "we won't tell your parents" permissions. Kids need to know who they are and what they can do with their lives and how their lives can be ruined by stupid mistakes. That they are responsible for their mistakes not everyone else. If we start this at an early age way before the teen years we just might help many to avoid such terrible consequences in their lives.

 

[Inan3]

Thanks again for the forgiveness! I do love it when you LORD it over people!

Are you....JESUS?

No but I know him.

Come on, TM. Are you saying that you never forgive people? That's kind of sad isn't it! Forgiveness is very healing to the person who forgives it's just the opposite of lording over people. It's just plain loving them more than yourself. We can hate TM but it's better to choose to love. It's a happier, more peaceful life.

 

[Inan3]

It's a post I deleted after thinking about it.

Believe it or not, despite being a swine lacking integrity, sometimes I feel bad about having said something.

I believe that! and I think it's nice.

 

[Nathan Poe]

Well by your own statistics this sex education stuff is NOT working.

I am not suggesting that they only teach abstinance.

Good, because that's exactly what's not working.

To me that will be met by the kids the same way as sex education. Sex education is just a bandaid on a much more serious problem. The problem kids have today is not sex or drugs. The problem is peer pressure. They don't know how to deal with that. There have been many kids who did NOT want to have sex yet cave in under peer pressure. Same with drugs. They want to fit in and be loved, just like everyone, that's the underlying issue here. It needs to be reinforced that they CAN make their own informed and intelligent decisions without the pressure from their peers to give in. They need to know that is what makes a person really cool!

Assume you're right -- and I do think you're onto something here -- let's see where this goes...

I have said for years that if they were taught at an early age, together in the classroom... what peer pressure is, why we give in to it, how to deal with peer pressure from others, why do others pressure us to be like them, etc. that we would not have had "bully" situations exploding in our schools, kids would learn to "just say no" to drugs and alcohol, and there would be far less sex happening in their ranks.

Are you suggesting that kids succumb to peer pressure because they don't know what it is?

I do not expect kids or adults to live by my morals but I do believe that kids need more than just free hand outs of condoms and "we won't tell your parents" permissions. Kids need to know who they are and what they can do with their lives and how their lives can be ruined by stupid mistakes. That they are responsible for their mistakes not everyone else. If we start this at an early age way before the teen years we just might help many to avoid such terrible consequences in their lives.

Sounds noble -- but I know too many adults who could use similar lessons.