It was after I had posted the original discussion here, in the post entitled "Your par for course debate with Christians on Facebook.", which he commented upon that I noticed that he had his own blog, where he'd been blogging his take on what the debate had amounted to. I wrote a few comments on there (and here and here etc) to clarify a few things and to present a link to the original discussion so that people could read the debate for themselves and make an honest, informed opinion based on the actual argument, and not solely on the tail end of one of the final comments of a 46 page, almost 23,000 word debate... where after 3 days of debating with him only sliding further and further into absurdity I finally snapped and dealt him some well deserved insults. (As he had copy pasted just the last bit of one of my final comments, and not even the whole comment, to try to cast me in a bad light.)
After a bit of commenting there, I decided to write him again on facebook and try to approach the issue from a more human standpoint, to give a little background as to who I was and what my personal experiences with religion were etc.
Unfortunately this too only quickly devolved into the most frustratingly absurd back and forth with Don's impenetrable delusion... where not even the most simplified explanations seemed to have any effect. Where not even clearly pointing out the fallacies for the Nth time, the clear contradictions, contrary statements, invalid arguments, flat out dishonest ones, utter lack of evidence on his part in the face of absolutely overwhelming evidence to the contrary... nothing gets through to him. (which led me back to his blog to leave the angry third comment on the first "here" comment link above.)
At this point I don't see how I can continue with it... it's gotten me so angry at this point that I just quickly stoop to angry insults peppering my rebuttal of his mindlessly repeated invalid excuse making... impervious to even the most basic standards of reason, logic, evidence, honesty, etc... he mindlessly chants his mantra of "it's all just made up opinion! the atheist agenda to rewrite history! only the bible is an accurate account of history and everything else is just a conspiracy to try to rewrite history! science is just an atheist agenda that has no facts whatsoever... and is wholly invalid... and is worthless in contrast with the truth of the bible, the ONLY REAL truth!" etc. (of course that's a paraphrase, but you get the idea.)
Another method that he has increasingly relied on is the Straw Man argument... where he repeatedly misstates what science is, what science's methods and intentions are, what my intentions are, specifically and intentionally misstates things I've already clearly stated to the contrary in the very same discussion etc...
A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar yet weaker proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
... and then tries to invalidate those misstatements using further arguments that are in themselves fallacious and invalid on top of the misstatement. They're not even really properly formed Straw Men... they're more like another fallacious method of argument he's been increasingly relying on... Red Herring distractions from the main facts and argument where he brings up the BP oil spill, the date of Christmas, belief in Unicorns, Hillary Clinton's claims about a right wing conspiracy etc... all to try to distract us from the valid facts, sound reasoning etc...
Similar in category, but with darker implications than ignoratio elenchi, a "red herring" is an answer, given in reply to a questioner, that goes beyond an innocent logical irrelevance. A "red herring" is a deliberate attempt to divert a process of enquiry by changing the subject.
... by using distracting statements that aren't even relevant to the matter at hand, are not even accurate statements in themselves most of the time, and completely ignore previously established facts about the differences between objective facts and subjective claims etc. Again, just layer upon layer of demonstrably invalid, erroneous, dishonest, and thoroughly fallacious arguments drowning in clearly evident cognitive biases (and that's putting it mildly).
A cognitive bias is the human tendency to draw incorrect conclusions in certain circumstances based on cognitive factors rather than evidence. Such biases are thought to be a form of "cognitive shortcut", often based upon rules of thumb, and include errors in statistical judgment, social attribution, and memory. Cognitive biases are a common outcome of human thought, and often drastically skew the reliability of anecdotal and legal evidence. It is a phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology.
And I suppose I should include it here for the sake of completeness, that insulting someone while providing evidence and reason to back up that insult.. is not a fallacious argument. Saying "you're an idiot because you refuse to admit that there is any possibility you could ever be wrong, while simultaneously admitting that you don't really understand the issue and don't have any proof that you're right... and yet still insist that all the actual real world evidence is wrong, and your belief is absolute and cannot be argued" etc. THAT makes one an idiot. Now on the other hand, saying "you're wrong because you're an atheist" or "science is wrong because it's just an atheist agenda of opinions trying to rewrite history"... well, those ARE fallacious ad hominem type arguments that fail to address the validity of the actual facts and instead solely seek to try discrediting the messenger so to speak.
"An ad hominem, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), is an attempt to persuade which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise."
And from Common misconceptions about ad hominem;
Gratuitous verbal abuse or "name-calling" itself is not an argumentum ad hominem or a logical fallacy. The fallacy only occurs if personal attacks are employed instead of an argument to devalue an argument by attacking the speaker, not personal insults in the middle of an otherwise sound argument or insults that stand alone. "X's argument is invalid because X's analogy is false, there are differences between a republic and a democracy. But then again, X is idiotically ignorant." is gratuitously abusive but is not a fallacy because X's argument is actually addressed directly in the opening statement. "X is idiotically ignorant" is not a fallacy of itself. It is an argument that X doesn't know the difference between a republic and a democracy.
I've explained this to him numerous times now, even clearly defined a logical fallacy for him and so on... but yet his entire argument rests on these kinds of willfully repeated fallacious arguments and stubborn denial of the facts etc.
Now I can't help but think that his behavior when dealing with the presentation of all these facts and valid reasoning etc... that the more overwhelming they get, the more blatantly he flat out denies their existence or validity and starts quoting atheist conspiracy theories etc... that Don (and many other Christians) descend into textbook pathological denial, which is defined as follows:
Level 1 - Pathological
The mechanisms on this level, when predominating, almost always are severely pathological. These four defenses, in conjunction, permit one to effectively rearrange external experiences to eliminate the need to cope with reality. The pathological users of these mechanisms frequently appear crazy or insane to others. These are the "psychotic" defenses, common in overt psychosis. However, they are found in dreams and throughout childhood as well.
They include:
- Delusional Projection: Grossly frank delusions about external reality, usually of a persecutory nature.
- Denial: Refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening; arguing against an anxiety-provoking stimulus by stating it doesn't exist; resolution of emotional conflict and reduction of anxiety by refusing to perceive or consciously acknowledge the more unpleasant aspects of external reality.
- Distortion: A gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs.
- Splitting: A primitive defence. Negative and positive impulses are split off and unintegrated. Fundamental example: An individual views other people as either innately good or innately evil, rather than a whole continuous being.
- Extreme projection: The blatant denial of a moral or psychological deficiency, which is perceived as a deficiency in another individual or group.
And while I certainly don't think that Don is pathologically neurotic, with some fundamental physical malformation in his brain or something... I do most certainly think that he is incredibly irrational and displays at least some extent of every one of these symptoms as a result of his brainwashing by his own religious beliefs... beliefs he is now so invested in that he is utterly unwilling to, and incapable of, considering to be in error... regardless of the overwhelming level of evidence and sound reasoning to the contrary.
Anyway... read for yourselves and see what I mean.
On a somewhat friendly side note. :)
Myself June 17 at 3:51pm
It seems a bit unfortunate that your son and I got off on the wrong foot on such a divisive issue, as we have other things in common.
The reason I have so much time to spend on these discussions is because I am self employed as graphic design and web development guy who also does general IT work etc (and have been for over 15 years now, including working for GM and Ford world headquarters in Detroit, the tribal government up north as variously network admin, webmaster, and even interim IT manager for a bit...)
The relevant point being that for the past 2 years my main job has been as the head admin running a Japanese language learning website. http://thejapanesepage.com/
Interestingly enough, my boss is actually #religion removed for privacy#. ;) He and I have debated religion a few times, but generally we avoid it because we really enjoy our friendship and working relationship outside of that.
My interest in Japanese is actually what brought Jack and I together here on Facebook as friends, as he taught a number of my friends at ########## and is a friend of one of our longtime family friends Rod ######, and knows my father etc. When I found out that he lived in Japan now we started talking and became friends here on FB... and this was only a few months ago.
I just happen to be very unapologetic when it comes to religion because of my many years as a Christian, involvement in DecoTEC etc... and the kind of irrational hate I faced when I eventually began questioning my beliefs and after many years of in depth research and critical assessment eventually became the atheist I am today (at 36 years old).
As a result, my own father has unfriended me here on facebook, half of my relatives... my uncle called me a threat to his family as real as a murderer or rapist... my own mother said that because I was an atheist I'd be happy to put out a hit on her and my father and have them killed because they were Christians... something SO insane that my father actually defended me for the only time EVER... coming out of the bedroom to say to my mother, and I quote; "Melody, have you lost your fucking mind!?"
(Or for instance when she said she didn't care if EVERY Nobel laureate scientist on Earth agreed on a particular fact and had all the evidence in the world to prove it... if it contradicted what the bible said, they were completely wrong and the BIBLE 100% right. In spite of, for instance, being an insulin dependent diabetic who relies on medical science instead of prayer to keep herself alive...)
I've seen the harm first hand that religious irrationality can do to a family when a provably false religion, imaginary friends, and so forth are put ahead of your own children and your relationship with them... you know, like Jesus says to do in Matthew 10:34-39 (NIV) that I referenced in our other discussion...
34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn " 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - 36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'
37 "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
I have had my own mother threaten to disown me for talking to my own sister about religion, and recently reiterate that she was perfectly right in that threat... I was accused of being possessed by demons, rather than simply well educated and making well informed and well reasoned statements based on that education. I was considered the black sheep of the family, a failure on my parents part to raise me right in spite of not only being the only child (out of my living brother and sister and I) to actually graduate high school, but to go on to college... to work out in silicon valley during the dot com boom, and some of the other aforementioned jobs etc... and in spite of being a generally good person with a very loving and kind girlfriend who while also being an atheist, works in adult foster care taking care of mentally handicapped older men, visits her family almost every day and talks to them every day etc.
I have lived for years now with the kind of irrational hatred that Christians have for atheists purely because Christians are absolutely unwilling to even CONSIDER that they might be mistaken, or to acknowledge the illogical clash between admitting that you have no proof of something, and yet simultaneously claiming that you will not argue that issue, and state that nothing could ever change your mind about it... and atheists thus exist as a threat to that unfounded and irrational belief system because we present the facts, the sound reasoning etc... we pose a threat to a cherished belief that Christians have built lives around.
For instance you have gone to school to learn your religion, made a life for yourself as a religious man...
To admit at this point that you might be mistaken would be to admit that you might have wasted years of your life invested in something untrue. That could be embarrassing... and not only that, but it could threaten the relationships with the friends you've built relationships with... or even threaten your relationship with your family, as it did mine... it would remove the unfounded surety that you'll get to live in a magic castle in the sky when you die... that someone is always loving you and looking out for you.... and easy black and white answers to problems without having to think too hard or do too much research etc...
These are all valid reasons to be resistant to admitting the possibility of a mistake, and I understand that. I have lived through them myself.
So while I'm sure you're a very nice guy, and we probably do have things in common... and the same with your son etc... having been a Christian myself, having lived through both sides of the equation... and having seen the negative effects of religion on myself, my friends, and countless other people throughout the world who are deprived of rights, oppressed, and even hurt and killed by the irrationality inherent in religion, it is the one thing I can't abide. I simply expect more of people who claim to be rational, intelligent, mature adults... and to be clear, people who otherwise ARE good people, with the best intentions etc.
My argument against 1 particular belief a person holds is not an attack on their character as a whole, or a statement that they are completely stupid (unless they actually are)... because even my father, who I consider a smart man... is an idiot when it comes to religion and I've told him so. But luckily he isn't as REMOTELY as insane as my mother. But I digress...
The point was that I am a human being. I have had my own experiences and have a life outside of arguing religion. I am defined only as an atheist so much as religion exists to be a non-believer of, and so long as it persists as a cancer on human progress, to stand up and speak out against.
I would be a much happier man if it simply didn't exist, and quite frankly even your life would really be no different if you stopped believing. You just might have to think a little more and re-evaluate some of your friendships and what they're based upon.
It can take a strong person to admit that nobody knows what happens when you die and that you'll probably just turn back into dirt... or to admit that you don't have an imaginary friend always loving you and looking out for you and your best interests and to instead rely on your friends and family. But it really isn't so different from your every day life... the vast majority of which you do without ever thinking about Jesus or religion.
If anything I see the world much more clearly since leaving the faith... as the cognitive dissonance melted away... it was like a breath of fresh air to not have to compartmentalize my beliefs... to feel that discomfort of knowing that the real world around me didn't match up with what religion claimed as fact...
For instance, if a man walked up to you and said he saw a man walking across the water of the Pere Marquette Channel, you would say he was lying... you'd ask for evidence... you'd try to think of a rational explanation for how he managed it... a bridge just under the surface of the water or something... and this same type of critical thinking and rational assessment of fact applies to essentially every other aspect of your daily life.
And yet when a book written thousands of years ago by primitive and ignorant bronze age tribesmen claims that a man walked out on the sea and told another man that if he believed hard enough he could do it too... you believe it without question. You don't apply the same rational assessment to those ancient mythological claims as you do everything else in your daily life.
That is the compartmentalization... that is where the cognitive dissonance comes in when someone points out that disparity in your beliefs... the disparity in your application of critical assessment.
"Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing them. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
And since you have already decided that you ABSOLUTELY believe in your chosen faith, confirmation bias then comes in to subconsciously influence you to reject information contrary to your preconceptions and focus solely on that which might reaffirm your existing beliefs.
"Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses, independently of whether they are true. This results in people selectively collecting new evidence, interpreting evidence in a biased way, or selectively recalling information from memory."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
This bias is inherent in ALL of us, and so powerful and subconscious that science has had to develop methods of working around it because human beings essentially cannot be unbiased even if they try.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_experiment#Double-blind_trials
etc...
But as I'm digressing a bit far afield, and I only originally meant to write the first part about how I know Jack and what we have in common with your son etc, I'll just leave it at this.
I hope you'll read an consider what I've written. :)
Thanks.
Don Sr. June 17 at 4:17pm
You didn't get off on the wrong foot with me or him either. My daughter #######(friend of your sister) explain to me how you were raised. Don and I call these people"Chrispy Christians". According to them, I will be sitting next to you in hell. LOL
Don Sr. June 17 at 4:32pm
First to address your statement
And yet when a book written thousands of years ago by primitive and ignorant bronze age tribesmen claims that a man walked out on the sea and told another man that if he believed hard enough he could do it too... you believe it without question. You don't apply the same rational assessment to those ancient mythological claims as you do everything else in your daily life.
Yes, yes,yes yes.................... that is my point exactly. It's like putting a new car togather with a book about antique car assembly
It need to be relevent to today.
In the beginning God created the internet? I don't think so. That is why I want to get past the redeculous(sp)
My belief is not like the "Crispy Christians', and I think I'm a nice guy. MY BELIEF says that I can't judge you and I won't. I am way to sinfull for that. I am ordained by a non denominational branch and am not ti
Don Sr. June 17 at 4:37pm Report
I am not tied by my ordination to any denomination. There is no watch dog making sure that I don't offend the faith. You may call me a rogue preacher, but as I tried to explain before.....My faith is between God and Me. Yes, I am biased, but not stupid in the face of logic and common sense. I really hate conversing this way as it is very impersonal. Its just words typed on a screen.
Myself June 17 at 5:08pm
The point you're not getting is that your concept of God, along with your assertion that Jesus Christ specifically died for your sins etc... those things CAN be addressed, as I did.
Put simply, you have derived your faith from the bible and Judeo-Christian religion, presuming their validity and authority, and are now trying to remove that foundation while still expecting the house built upon it, upon which it necessarily relies, to remain standing... which it doesn't.
This is why I referenced wishful thinking, negative proof, burden of proof, judicial impartiality, logical consistency, special pleading, etc... because all these things are fundamentally related to your assertions about your religious beliefs.
You cannot just make up your own religion, without any evidence to support it, and then use that unsupported belief that you've invented (and in reality based soundly upon Christianity) to justify flat out denying the validity of beliefs which DO have a wealth of evidence to support them.
That is where your overwhelming (logically fallacious) bias comes in where you allow your own unsupported beliefs to stand without evidence (any at all), while flat out denying in every way you can modern scientific knowledge that IS based on an absolute wealth of convergent and mutually conformational information from numerous disparate fields of science... fact based, tested, independently confirmed as OBJECTIVELY true... not subjectively opined etc...
The reason I keep trying to get you to pay attention to the logical fallacies and cognitive biases you're falling victim to is because until you actually understand what constitutes sound reasoning, valid logic, etc... you're just going to keep making these mental blunders in your reasoning.
And I don't mean that to try to insult you, it's just a statement of fact. If you read some of those links I provided you (a number of times now), maybe you'll see from their examples how and why those rules exist and why they are right.
You know, like the difference between fact and opinion... that difference itself is a FACT. It's like saying a stone and a blue-jay are two different things. That is a statement of FACT. It is not an opinion. It is an objective observation about a physical object in the natural world. It is not just an opinion any more than saying blue is not red, or up is not down, or I am not you etc... those are just statements of fact.
Opinions are things like "I don't like cheese", or "Mary is mean" etc... they are SUBJECTIVE opinions about things based on your own feelings, thoughts, emotions etc...
Objective facts can be independently verified because they have nothing to do with the observer.
Subjective opinions can and do differ between people because they deal with the observers feelings, emotions, etc... and those are different from person to person.
When you claim that numerous objective facts are nothing more than opinions, you are making an error in your assertion, whether intentional or not.
The reason I have been trying so hard to get you to actually read and think about what I'm saying is so that you'll stop making all these little fundamental errors in your reasoning... so that you can more accurately deal with the actual facts.
And you might want to ask Kaylee about the fact that I have an IQ in the 98th percentile, skipped the sixth grade because I was too smart for my own good, etc... I'm not just making shit up... this is all WELL established fact and so forth, and I have done a great deal of studying over the years to educate myself.
And before you YET AGAIN try dismissing the collective knowledge of science and academia as "opinion", go back and re-read what I just wrote to you... and don't let your confirmation bias trick you into just letting it all go in one ear and right out the other to preserve your preconceptions, or to ignore the point I clarified about standards of evidence that goes in tandem with that difference between objective facts and subjective opinions etc.
"Objective – is a statement that is completely unbiased. It is not touched by the speaker’s previous experiences or tastes. It is verifiable by looking up facts or performing mathematical calculations.
Subjective – is a statement that has been colored by the character of the speaker or writer. It often has a basis in reality, but reflects the perspective through with the speaker views reality. It cannot be verified using concrete facts and figures."
http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-objective-and-subjective/
And science inherently is based upon objective facts. Things that you can independently verify, test, etc.
Your belief in God is a purely subjective opinion, and one that even goes so far as to be contrary to the objective facts we do have... of which we have an absolutely overwhelming amount.
And again, I have to stress that you just DENYING all that information because it doesn't agree with you is not valid nor honest.
And again, that's not to offend you... it's just a statement of fact. :(
Myself June 17 at 5:11pm
And just to be clear, I would like you to read that entire message carefully and think about it before you respond. If you don't, there is no point in us discussing this any further because you're not learning anything and not addressing the information presented as I am doing with you. (And I am clearly investing a LOT of my time and emotional energy into this, to the detriment of my JOB as I should have been working for these past almost 4 days now... and when you consider that I make $## an hour, I think you can understand that my investment in this discussion with you is not only an emotional one.)
Thank you for your consideration.
Don Sr. June 17 at 5:29pm Report
First of all ....no offense taken. Again I most likely can't measure up to your IQ. To me, the world is not black and white. I can't prove or disprove that Jesus walked on the water. I've seen magicians and illutionist do that. I wasn't there when this happened. Maybe I need to symplify this for my sake as well as yours. If tonight I am beamed aboard the Star Ship Enterprise and am shown that Jesus was actually Mr. Spock being held up by a tractor beam, I might have a change of heart. I don't see that happening. If you think this is rediculus, remember that space travel to the moon was laughable back in the biblical times. My faith is nothing new or inventive, I just choose not to be identified by my denomination or anything else. I am smart enough to know that the bible is old, and we can argue if the flood covered the whole earth or the whole Known world. Our faith grows because it is
Don Sr. June 17 at 5:38pm Report
Living. Yes faith is believing without seeing. i believe a person can think for themselves and my faith is not formed by DR. James Dobson.
The fact that I can, makes it reality. If I'm wrong and end up worm bait for enternity, you are more then welcome to laugh. That I believe that life is alot more then the few years we have on this planet gives me hope in living and sharing my life with others. Is that the difference between optamism and pesamism(sp) ? Science, I love it, embrase it and know that it is falable. After all it is not perfect and it continues to grow, just like relegion.
Myself June 17 at 5:56pm
So why aren't you a Muslim? A religion with just as many people claiming that miracles happened in the name of their God, in a religion that denies the divinity of Christ, and a more recent revelation of the Abrahamic faith, as Christianity was to Judaism? Why are those 1.2 to 1.5 BILLION people wrong, and their eye witness accounts in their scriptures?
Or why aren't you a Jew, who were there before Christianity, with Jesus actually being one... and upon the authority of which Christianity was founded and Jesus himself staked his claims?
What makes those religions false, but yours true?
How about Hinduism? It predates Christianity by well over a thousand years, and has almost a billion followers? And also has eye witness accounts.
Again, you're failing to see that you're not following the logic through... you're not applying the same standard of critical assessment to your own religious beliefs as you're applying to others. You're not acknowledging that by the same standards that you assert the validity of your own beliefs, the others must be true as well... and they cannot all be true, as there are numerous mutually exclusive claims between them, contrary goals, etc.
We do know that magicians and illusionists make it look like they walk on water... but today people know that magic isn't real, and we can see how they did the tricks etc. That really doesn't relate to the claims of a book from thousands of years ago... which is better address by what I just wrote a moment ago.
This is the reason why, given the problem I laid out, why we base our decisions on sound reason, actual evidence, etc... because that is the best way we as human beings have to establish the nature of the reality in which we live... what is true and false... what is objective fact verses opinion or fallacious claim etc.
Also, like I said, atheists don't claim that there isn't anything in the universe beyond our understanding. We only claim to know what is true or false based on what we DO know... and based on that, we DO know that Christianity itself is nothing more than one of many absurd ancient mythologies, and wasn't even the most popular in its day... and really only took off because of the ideas about redemption, salvation, eternal life, etc.
The problem is that while you're trying to imply that you only believe in some vague concept of an impersonal deistic God, a concept less difficult to defend than that Abrahamic God and Jesus specifically... the God you specifically cite, both in the manner you describe your belief, and even explicitly in your words, is the Christian God and your faith in Jesus Christ as your savior etc.
The point is that you're claiming your absolutely objectively unsupported claims of FACT are MORE valid and somehow deserve more merit than the actual wealth of ACTUAL OBJECTIVE FACT that we have that proves your beliefs WRONG.
That's not an opinion Don. It's a fact that we know based on all that objective evidence and verified and validated understanding of it. All things which your beliefs are utterly lacking.
You cannot claim to be RIGHT about something you yourself admit you cannot possibly know. You can't claim it as true, and you can't deny actual REAL FACTS because they contradict that claim for which you cannot possibly know.
And as for science, as I explained to you already, science inherently acknowledges its fallibility. The entire scientific method is built on the understanding that human knowledge is limited, and seeks to expand itself through studying the objective facts, testing its hypotheses, trying to intentionally disprove them so that it can correct its own errors.
It is nothing like religion, again as I already explained... so please don't start irritating me by repeating things that you've already misstated and I've already corrected more than once.
Myself June 17 at 6:02pm
Now answer me honestly, are you actually reading what I'm writing? You seem to not have read or understand at all the information about the difference between and objective fact and subjective opinions or beliefs, in spite of me having repeated it at least 3 different times now and even gave a link to an article further explaining it...
It just seems like you skim a little of what I say, having already decided you're not going to really think about what I'm saying... and you just go on and continue denying what I'm saying and asserting the validity of your own position.
For instance we CAN prove that by EVERY SINGLE THING we know as OBJECTIVE FACT about the world we live in.... there is NO WAY Jesus could have walked on water in the miraculous sense clearly meant in the bible (considering that Peter sunk when he began to doubt, so we know he wasn't just standing on a sandbar, aside from the fact that that would completely negate the intended miracle of it).
So because we know that there is no way, based on all the objective, factual evidence that he walked on water as written, that leaves us to consider how accurate and authoritative the biblical account itself is, and how its claims stack up against other religious claims both contemporary to and preceding and proceeding it.
And that is where you have to face the fact that if you believe these things as true solely because the book itself claims them to be true... then the very same kind of claims, by the very same standard of evidence, of other religions, must also be true... and because we know they can't all be true... then we MUST rely on what we DO know to be true... the objective facts rather than the unsupported ancient mythological claims that contradict those established objective facts.
So you need to answer the question about why it is that you claim the validity of your particular religion and deny the validity of the others?
The answer seems fairly clear to me... but I want you to try to answer that question for me, based on everything I've just explained to you.
And please don't just tell me I'm wrong and insist why you think you're right. I want you to answer my questions and work through that problem in your head and deal with it rather than trying to skirt around it.
Tackle that cognitive dissonance head on and TRY to answer me rationally.
Thanks.
Don Sr. June 17 at 6:44pm Report
Ok let me explain this another way. The bible is the only historical book of that age. Am I missing another book written at the beginning of time. I don't think so. Athiest now want to invent there own history. Everyone wishes they could write their own history but they can't Facts are facts. I hope I havn't waste this time in trying to explain something so simple. lack of evidence is what bothers athiest. History, eyewitness of people who lived during the time vs. guesses from athiest with an agenda. Sorry to get rought with you but that is history.
Myself June 17 at 7:08pm
Yes, in fact you are missing things from earlier religions... like Hinduism etc... and Egyptian etc... who also have their own distinctly different gods, origins, miraculous claims etc...
And for instance at the very time Judaism claims the world was being created, civilizations such as the Egyptians and Sumerians etc were already well in swing and didn't seem to notice or mention this creation, nor especially a giant flood was wiping out all life on Earth at the time claimed, etc.
I think you're missing the concept of Historical Fiction, something I thought I'd mentioned already.
Just because your favorite book says it, doesn't mean it's true... AGAIN, the reason we contrast with contemporaneous religions, earlier religions, later religions, and especially objective facts as we know them today, archaeological evidence, geological evidence, and everything we know scientifically about the actual age and formation of the Earth, solar system, and on and on and on.
We know for a fact that the Old Testament cannot be considered as an infallible source of accurate information about early events. And you know it too. So when we are trying to establish what is factually true, again we use the methods as listed.
We're not INVENTING HISTORY Don. We're actually establishing what is OBJECTIVELY REAL AND TRUE based on the ACTUAL EVIDENCE.
Hinduism claims that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle, held up by 4 elephants standing on its back.
Now why don't we believe this? Because we've obviously traveled all around the world now and even out into space USING F'ING SCIENCE for that latter bit no less... and we've looked at the entire planet, as a sphere floating in the void of space... bound by the principles of physics as we know them, validating science that had clarified this contrary to the ancient biblical claims of a flat Earth... and we traveled to the moon, that the ancients believed was a lesser sun, with the sun and moon being two of the same kind of bodies, and the stars being entirely different... more things we have learned better than since then.
So you trying to claim that we're just INVENTING these things is the polar opposite of what is actually happening.
YOU RELIGIOUS PEOPLE invented all this crap based on feelings and imagination etc... and science is now ACTUALLY REALLY ANSWERING those original questions.... undoing the long standing mythologies that religion put in place and told us not to question.
You know... to have FAITH in.
Also, get it through your head that we actually have evidence that proves Christianity wrong. So it's not a lack of evidence Don, it's the fact that you stubbornly insist that your "NO evidence" is better than our "LOTS OF evidence".
Got that yet?
And I'm sorry, but for as many times as I've explained that point and you still don't get it... *sigh*
WE'RE NOT FUCKING GUESSING DON. THESE ARE PROVEN, VERIFIED, OBJECTIVE FUCKING FACTS. FACTS THAT YOU CAN EVEN VERIFY FOR YOURSELF BECAUSE THEY FUCKING EXIST FOR REAL.
There is no "atheist agenda". Science isn't pro-atheist... it's simply about finding the objective truth about how things work based on the actual real world evidence etc.
You're not getting rough with me... you're just getting stubbornly stupid and it's starting to tick me off again because I tire of fucking repeating myself like I'm hand holding a child because you just can't wrap your head around these very simple explanations.
So when treating you like an intelligent adult doesn't work, what the hell else am I supposed to do?
"History, eyewitness of people who lived during the time"
That particularly is a stupid statement considering that I just pointed out that other religions are based on their own eye witness accounts of creation etc... by the claims of their scriptures, both before and after your religion... and they claim DIFFERENT things.
Thus the whole damn explanation I already gave you that, just as I feared, went in one ear and out the other.
Allow me to leave you with a quote that illustrates the fundamental simple point here that you just can't seem comprehend because it isn't what you want it to be.
"You don't use science to show you're right, you use science to become right." --xkcd
Got that?
Science isn't about serving any agenda. It's entire methodology is created to avoid that specifically, using things like the double blind testing methods etc that I already linked you to earlier. It's a method of acquiring knowledge about objective facts and truths, correctly previous information, and using that to make accurate predictions of further information etc.
You use that methodology to understand objective facts that exist irrespective of us and our wishes.
So you use that methodology to BECOME right by learning what the facts ACTUALLY ARE.
NOT by deciding what they are before hand, as you have done, and then trying to find ways to confirm your preconceptions.
Can I possibly make that any more clear? I don't think so. And if you can't grasp that Don, I'm sorry but you're an idiot beyond my help because I've run out of patience.
Don Sr. June 17 at 9:07pm Report
I read and I just don't understand . Just because you don't like history you cant write your own. One question, what other history book is there. Fact Fact Fact Thae fact that science and athiesm can't disapprove . Please wake up or move on. You are avoiding the truth, there is nothing else matter how you try to change history, you can't. Don't insult people with saying that you know more then the people who were there and wrote about it. Please, it is insulting to everyone.
Myself June 17 at 9:34pm
No Don, YOU don't understand. There is nothing that makes your bible inherently any more accurate than all the other histories written by other cultures before and after the bible was written that contradict what it says and make their own same claims of eye witness accounts etc.
So we're not INVENTING a history, as YOUR religion did (and the others as well), we're establishing what we DO know of history based on ALL of the ACTUAL EVIDENCE that we have. Corroborating contemporary evidence between cultures that lines up with the archaeological evidence, geological evidence, etc.
You have a fucking book. That's it.
The Hebrew Calender and Judeo-Christian religions etc state the Universe as having been created in 3760 BC.
But we know FOR A FACT that that is wrong by literally a factor of almost a MILLION TIMES. And that fact has been verified through numerous different independent methods by independent researchers around the world for years now.
We have all the evidence that proves your book wrong.
You are a deluded idiot who cannot accept that you have NOTHING to stack up against all the real world evidence that WE ACTUALLY DO have. Just your obviously deep seated need to cling to a provably false ancient myth because you've invested your life in a demonstrable lie.
We have TONS and TONS and TONS of actual REAL EVIDENCE Don. YOU HAVE A BOOK. A PROVABLY WRONG BOOK. That's it.
You're clinging to a fucking ancient middle eastern tribal myth because it makes you feel better.
A small child could understand this... I honestly cannot fathom how you can be so willfully self deluded and dishonest. It's this kind of abject fucking stupidity that makes me hate religion so much... because it takes a grown man like you makes him too fucking stupid to realize that the FACT BASED, EVIDENCE BASED, SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE we have that built the fucking computer sitting in front of him... technology beyond his comprehension (but not mine), was discovered, refined, and built into the machine in front of him using that scientific method... the same damn method that shows, based on all we know now, after 2,000 years of continued advancement, new discoveries, enlightenment etc... THAT WE DON'T LIVE ON THE BACK OF A GIANT FUCKING TURTLE JUST BECAUSE A BOOK WRITTEN BY FUCKING IGNORANT DESERT SHEEP HERDERS THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO SAYS SO.
YOU IDIOT.
(And that last part was meant as sarcasm, which you'd probably also miss if I didn't point it out... YOUR book says we live on a flat disk with a mechanical dome overhead that holds up a second water ocean, within which are suspended 2 giant twin lights for lighting the day and night, and other tiny lights to navigate by, with the earth as the immovable center of of this system. Only slightly less retarded than the turtle, but just as WRONG.)
I'm sorry Don... I give up. You're beyond help. I'm just pissed at this point that I wasted so much time on this... I seriously just don't get how people can be so fucking stubbornly self deluded that they LIE about shit like this.
YOU HAVE A FUCKING BOOK AND YOUR WISHFUL THINKING.
THAT'S IT.
You haven't done a fucking thing aside from deny even that book, that is the ONLY "evidence" you even have... while claiming that it alone somehow invalidates 2,000 years of human progress, enlightenment, discovery, knowledge, understanding, and immeasurable amounts of actual REAL WORLD OBJECTIVE FACTS... convergence and mutually confirmation evidence from countless fields of study.
Fuck it... I don't know why I'm wasting my time. Enjoy wallowing in your deluded willfully self imposed ignorance... I have work and study to do.
DON'T write me back or I'll block you. You've wasted enough of my time. Try rereading all the information presented and maybe eventually you'll get it. If you want to talk then remotely on my level, then you may contact me. Anything short of that and I'll block you permanently.
I hope I've made myself clear.
Good luck.
