You said I would say christians are wrong to believe what the Bible says without explaining WHY the bible is wrong. First of all, I don’t go around telling religious people not to believe in God; (I’ve seen some people so messed up they need a religion to keep them in line) I tell them why I don’t believe in God; and I gave examples remember?
No straw man, I’m just exposing the absurdity of your example. You said I read a book and call it real, then another person reads a book he calls real and I call it false; and you act as if I have no justification to call his book false. You need to look into why I called the other book false.
No I’ve never said it is wrong to try to convince others what to believe. Care to try again?
No, On post #1962 you said:
This is a very fair question and I promise that we can go into this, but doesn’t it make sense to complete the first order of the debate before moving onto this? Again, I will absolutely debate this with you.
those were your exact words. Needless to say you never answered my question, now you are claiming you actually answered them. Priceless!!!
I responded to that point on post #1958. Now return the favor and answer mine.
You said I would say christians are wrong to believe what the Bible says without explaining WHY the bible is wrong. First of all, I don’t go around telling religious people not to believe in God; (I’ve seen some people so messed up they need a religion to keep them in line) I tell them why I don’t believe in God; and I gave examples remember?
Ken, I say this with respect, but this post is clearly a Captain Ahab moment for you. You are apparently losing your senses as you attempt to “save face” in this debate. I hope that you can take a few moments to reflect upon your self-refuting “answers” and also realize that you are now simply dodging. It seems that you have either not reading all of my posts, or you are not comprehending what I am saying. Regardless, I ask you to please attempt to answer my questions.
Regarding this specific quote, which is, again, a change of topic, you previously wrote that my argument “fails” because Christians try to convince others “what to believe” and that you don’t do this. While it is obvious that you are missing the implications of what you write, nonetheless, the point in fact is that you, in fact, are trying to convince others what to believe.
You write “
You said I would say christians are wrong to believe what the Bible says without explaining WHY the bible is wrong,” but this is:
- Irrelevant.
- It is irrelevant because the topic is whether or not you are proselytize or not.
- The quality of the proselytizing is irrelevant
- To the atheist this should be even more so. If an atheist is convinced that there is no God, then why would they care if a Christian, or anyone else, proselytizes?
- You are either confused or obfuscating.
- “Why” is irrelevant to whether or not you perform the same action you criticize others for.
- Refuting your original point.
- You seem to miss that you are moralizing when you attempt to justify the reasons that you perform the action that you criticize others for. (Justifying is to show reasons why one is right)
- On what basis would (why) a Christian proselytizing be “wrong?”
- Your original point is that objective morality is unknowable, why then do you moralize?
- If you cannot demonstrate (your standard) that it is truly morally wrong to proselytize, then you’ve contradicted yourself, again.
- It is irrelevant as to whether or not what a person is proselytizing about is “truth” or not.
- Say, for the sake of the argument and even though you have not even come close to demonstrating this, the Bible was false. What makes that “wrong” to attempt to make others believe that it is true?
- You can only answer this by a moral statement that you expect others to believe and live by.
- “Explaining WHY the bible is wrong” is another attempt at obfuscation. Your “why” answers have been thoroughly refuted by your own statements. You have already admitted that you could be wrong. How, if you know that you could be wrong do you persist in the self-delusional notion that your possibly wrong answers refute any point?
- The answer is that your faith is strong and, like some Christians, you feel compelled to proselytize.
- What are the reasons that you choose to participate in a Christian debate forum?
- The answer is simple and it is not because you are here to enlighten yourself.
No straw man, I’m just exposing the absurdity of your example. You said I read a book and call it real, then another person reads a book he calls real and I call it false; and you act as if I have no justification to call his book false. You need to look into why I called the other book false.
Here again, you are either missing the point or obfuscating. You write that I act as if you “
have no justification to call his book false,” yet, your own answers refute your premise. It is amazing that you don’t see the real absurdity; which are your contradicting statements and positions. Therefore, to change the topic from Ken admits he could be wrong and yet persists in positing that he is right, to a topic of why Ken is right, is clearly a straw man. Don’t you see your contradiction here?
Additionally, when you write “
You need to look into why I called the other book false” you, again, are totally missing the point or obfuscating. This statement of yours, “
You need to look into why I called the other book false” is a positive statement by you that you
believe to be the “real” issue. What makes this the real issue? You don’t seem to realize that you accept a certain axiomatic starting point, (unproven beliefs of yours), and from that point demand that the real issues derive from it. This is hypocritical of you. It is obvious and simple; you believe that you are right in how you interpret your existence and you expect others to reason from you. To put it another way, you are the center and reality flows from you. This is the very definition of subjectivity.
Regarding your “justifications,” how do they truly justify anything when you, by your own admission, admit that you really don’t know whether those justifications are true or not? It is crystal clear that you are arguing that your faith is better than another’s faith.
No I’ve never said it is wrong to try to convince others what to believe. Care to try again?
Alas, once again, there is no need to try again. Sadly, you continually seem to miss the inferences from your own points, or you know that you are contradicting yourself and are obfuscating. When you wrote “
Is Ken trying to convince the Christian what to believe? No; it's the other way around. IOW your argument fails,” What did you mean?
The inference to be drawn from “
Is Ken trying to convince the Christian what to believe? No; it's the other way around” necessarily means that (your point to me, or what you wanted to convince me of), is that what Christians do, (you specifically pointed out proselytizing), is to attempt to convince others what to believe and you do not and this somehow, and in some way negates my point. In other words, (this is a paraphrase of the meaning behind your words) “T R-R, don’t you get that because Christians proselytize and I don’t and that your point fails because of this?” To put it another way, “your point fails because proselytizing is morally wrong. Don’t you get this? Can’t you see T R-R? What are the reasons I am not
convincing you of this?” On what basis does proselytizing cause any position to fail? (Unless one, like you are doing now, was proselytizing.) Clearly a straw man.
This is clear and unambiguous that you are “guilty” of the same behavior that you criticize the Christian for. (To attempt to posit the sophomoric “I’m just stating my positions” is childish and dishonest.) This point is either way, way over your head and you are oblivious to the consequences of your own positions, or you are being obstinate and blindly holding to your faith.
No, On post #1962 you said:
This is a very fair question and I promise that we can go into this, but doesn’t it make sense to complete the first order of the debate before moving onto this? Again, I will absolutely debate this with you.
those were your exact words. Needless to say you never answered my question, now you are claiming you actually answered them. Priceless!!!
Sadly, here too, you apparently are missing whom the joke is really on. Firstly, your attempt at mockery demonstrates that you are not sincere in your debating; rather, this is clearly more akin to “trolling.” Let us do an actual examination of your mockery:
- T R-R responds to Ken’s post where he specifically writes points that are directly pertinent to the T R-R’s point that we are subjective beings and that subjective beings cannot differentiate between objectivity and subjectivity
- Ken totally misses the point that T R-R writes; it goes way over his head
- Ken asks T R-R to make the case for the point that he’s already made the case for
- T R-R states “This is a very fair question and I promise that we can go into this, but doesn’t it make sense to complete the first order of the debate before moving onto this? Again, I will absolutely debate this with you.”
- Later, T R-R addresses Ken’s question.
- This is the very definition of “I promise that we can go into this, but doesn’t it make sense to complete the first order of the debate before moving onto this,” or to address Ken’s question at a later time.
- T R-R is completely consistent
- Ken’s mockery is, to which Ken is oblivious to, upon himself
- Ken, misses that:
- T R-R already did answer Ken’s question
- Totally missed point by Ken
- T R-R addressing the point later
- This is completely consistent with what T R-R stated
- Ken mocks T R-R for being consistent (not inconsistent)
Sadly, you, apparently, don’t realize that you’re behaving childishly and foolishly by attempting to mock someone else and that you’ve in fact mocked yourself.
I responded to that point on post #1958. Now return the favor and answer mine.
Once again you are confused or obfuscating. Your answers in post #1958, combined with all of your answers, are self-contradicting. Therefore, the best and most charitable rendering of your responses are to say; that you have faith and that faith is what justifies and makes your positions true.
Since you have no substantiated justifications and no substantiated demonstrations of objectivity, the logical conclusion to come to is that you are a person of faith. How do you not see this?
While you won’t publicly admit this, (and, even more sad, you won’t admit this to yourself), you’ve, nonetheless, de facto, admitted that you are a person of faith by the fact that you state that you “could be wrong” in your positions and, yet, cling to them as objective truth. Clearly, is it your personal pride and apparent low self-esteem that won’t permit you to face this and admit it.
Regarding returning the favor and answering your questions, again it is customary to conclude one point of debate before beginning a second point. However, it is clear that you’ve lost this part of the debate and wish to “turn the tables” by scrutinizing my positions. Since you are stubbornly persistent in your dogma and refuse to be honest to this debate, or yourself, I again refer you to my post #1957, which answers your question. (Please let me know if you need further explanation of it.)
Post # 1957 “To know objectively is to know via some reference point that is able to differentiate objectivity from subjectivity. You, and I for that matter, being subjective, finite beings wholly lack this ability. Therefore, to postulate any concept as objective truth can only be discounted as not a serious intellectual position, but rather a faith statement. Knowing objectivity necessarily means that one can point to, cite, etc. a frame of reference where “all creation” (for lack of a better term) is subjected to it.”
Respectfully,
T R-R
