In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
> > says...
> >> Note to Patrick: you might think that if I tell you I am an atheist th
at 
> >> you know what I think and how I should behave. Believe me, you haven't
 
> >> got a clue.
> >>
> > 
> > Odd. And here I thought I mentioned the whole "herding cats" concept at
 
> > some point. lol But seriously, as long as you are not one of those, "If
 
> > we are nice to the wackos, then eventually we will win!", types, we 
> > might get along. 
> 
> Me? I  am one of the wacko's, I'd think.
> 
> > If you are, then I would remind you that we have been 
> > trying that for the last 150 years and they **still** think we are the
 
> > spawn of Satan, out to destroy them, and too militant, strident, close
 
> > minded and/or confused and ignorant of the truth as they did 150 years
 
> > ago. 
> 
> Somewhere I mentioned that I am dutch. Things are a bit different here.
> 
Yeah, I noticed. I mean, its telling when you find a study, like the one 
I did a while back, which shows 100% of Europe on the side of free 
thinking and general non-traditionalism (in the sense of only ever doing 
what their religion says to do), while the US looked like a bloody 
octopus, which some tendrils jammed up through the center of the Middle 
East part of the map, all the way to the edge of it. Basically, there is 
a tendril of stupidity in this country that makes radical Islam look 
sane, in that its even "more" strict, more obsessed with traditions and 
even more religiously motivated than the biggest wackos in *any* country 
over there.

Its kind of uncomfortable realizing that, however small their number, 
there are people around you that have about as much common ground with 
you, or just basic reality, in some cases, than a wolf has with a 
rabbit, and that the only two things you have going for you is a) the 
majority are sitting some place in a mass in the middle, and b) that 
there is another tendril sticking through the middle of the European 
views, that is more liberal, nontraditional and anti-authoritarian than 
anything in Europe either (and I would say, sometimes as batshit insane, 
irrational and just plain unhinged as the authoritarian, traditionalist, 
radical religious group).

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  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <47584b83$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Warp wrote:
> >   It seems impossible for some people to grasp the concept of a complet
ely
> > normal, intelligent and rational person, perhaps one with a degree in a
> > scientific area of expertise, talking about something like religion in 
a
> > more or less philosophical way, without trying to "convert" anyone to h
is
> > religion. "He is defending his own religion" always equals "he is tryin
g
> > to convert me into his religion, I must fight back".
> 
> I'd like to. Usually, tho, when one gets to the hard questions, the 
> other side fall back on "you only disagree because you don't understand."
> 
We have people talk about religion from a purely philosophical 
perspective all the time. Then the religious people show up and start 
insisting that we are all wrong, don't understand anything, never read 
anything, etc. There two favorite *defenses* of their position is, 
"Obviously you never read <insert Bible verse of crazy book full of the 
same old, over used, arguments>", and, "You just don't understand it, 
and until you accept Jesus, you never will!"

Case in point. I read one long thread, just between two people, which 
had like 150+ posts in it. They started out talking about the 
philosophical positions, but by about post 100, you could start to see 
the cracks forming in the religious position, and by post 130 or so, 
every possible argument that could be made for religion had been, and 
been countered with logical reasons why they didn't work, make sense, or 
imply what the believer wanted them to. By post 140+ every single post 
from the believer consisted of either, "But have you read this...", and, 
"Well, if you just accepted that any part of it was true, or allowed 
Jesus into your heart, you would understand why my arguments *actually* 
make sense, even though I don't have one scrap of new information, or 
one new argument, or any valid statement that would suggest that you are 
not 100% right about everything I said so far." In other words, he 
***knew*** he wasn't going to win, since not one argument he made was 
convincing to *either* of them, and he admitted that this was the case 
in his own rebuttals, so he fell back to, "You just don't understand it 
the way I do!".

It was both enlightening, and at the time, funny as hell to read. Now, I 
just find the fact that this is *always* the result of such purely 
philosophical arguments with such people a bit depressing.

Don't believe me, then try it yourself. I absolutely guarantee that, no 
matter how smart or literate the believer, and how careful you are to 
"only" deal with the arguments they bring up, and be completely fair to 
them, it will *inevitably* sink to the point where their only defense is 
that they believe, you don't, and until you do, you won't understand the 
sublime genius of their position.

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void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
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    }
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}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> In general use, for **virtually** 
> everyone, the term "proven" implies that you have the right answer, and 
> its impossible for further evidence, discussion or data to change the 
> result.

Funny thing is, this isn't even true in math. All I have to do is point 
out where your proof has a mistake in it, and something that was proven 
is no longer proven.

> That said, I bloody well hope Darren isn't looking for "proof", just 
> evidence.

To me, "convincing evidence with no other explanation" and "proof" are 
pretty much the same.  It's only people trying to win an argument who 
say things like evolution isn't proven because it *might* be wrong, and 
there *might* be another explanation. Otherwise, the word "proof" loses 
all meaning.

Of course, that's really difficult for something like God. :-) 
Especially when you wonder "hey, could someone with a time machine have 
accomplished the same thing?"

> ***Any*** evidence, that doesn't add unneeded complications, 
> isn't arbitrarily central to the person making the claim, instead of the 
> claim itself, can't be better explained by far more well known things, 
> or isn't so vague and unspecific that its impossible to discount 10,000 
> other possibilities in favor of the one some believer insists has to be 
> the answer.

Yep. Basically.

> Put simply, the evidence has to meet *at least* the standards used to 
> imply that Big Foot exists, which despite how unlikely, unbelievable and 
> probably hoax based, never the less contains enough points of 
> contention, enough unknowns and enough uncertainty that it *might* be 
> true, unlike pretty much **every** claim made about miracles, or other 
> 'evidence' ascribed to the God hypothesis. And if you can't even beat 
> out Big Foot, with respect to the evidence available and likelihood of 
> your existence, there is a serious problem. lol

There is that. Or, alternately, what evidence have you that JHVH is more 
likely that Zeus? The greeks have plenty of stories about their gods 
producing miracles. I'd be happy to hear why a Madonna statue speaking 
to someone 1000 years ago is more likely than a Dioneses statue doing 
the same thing.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Darren New wrote:
> "Reestablish"?  (Just as an aside, I find that so presumptuous as to be 
> mildly offensive. I used to be much more offended by such things, until 
> I realized how many religious people are )

... people are so convinced that they're right and that you must be 
willfully ignoring the evidence that the idea that God *doesn't* speak 
to me personally on a daily basis is inconceivable to them.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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There are 11 kinds of people in the world:

those who utterly fail to comprehend the essentially binary nature of theology,

those who do comprehend this, but argue the subject because, for them, bickering
constitutes a source of amusement,

and the sentient.

Namaste(),
-Mike C.

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> It was both enlightening, 

My epiphany happened in university, with that roommate I spoke of, 
realizing thru careful questioning that in matters of faith, modus 
ponens just doesn't hold.  It took me about 45 minutes of questioning.

"So you believe A?"
   "Yes"
"And you believe that A always leads to B?"
   "Yes"
"And that when A always leads to B, and A happens, then B
       inevitably happens?"
   "Sure."
"And you said you believe A?"
    "Yep."
"Then you believe B?"
    "Uh, no, why would you say that?"



-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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nemesis wrote:
> Now, don't you think it's too egoistical of your part, like a stubborn child, to
> demand that God provides a particular show for your own enjoyment to restabilish
> your faith?

Or, to look at it another way:

I have faith that the chair you're sitting in right now doesn't really 
exist. What evidence would convince you I'm right?

Don't you think you're rather egotistical to ask for the non-existence 
of your chair to be *proven* beyond a *doubt*? Do you think it's 
unreasonable to expect something rather miraculous and unexplainable to 
give evidence that the chair you're sitting in doesn't exist?

If you *start* with the premise that I *don't* believe, then no, it's 
not egotistical at all. Any more than it's unreasonable for you to 
demand extraordinary proof that the chair you're sitting in doesn't 
actually exist.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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>> Oh, it's just that Jesus did talk about the commandments and the law
>> quite a bit.  It's legitimate to say that's clarification instead of
>> historical context.
>
> Huh?  The 10 Commandments needed clarification?  I thought God was
> supposed to be infallible?  Omnipotent, Omniscient, and all that?
>
> (Not trying to pick a fight here, I *really* don't understand what you're
> saying here)

Jesus Christ, being a third part of the Trintity of God,
commented on the Ten Commandments.  So contrary to
Darren's suggestion, Jesus's statements help provide a
context for forming a modern understanding of the
Ten Commandments. That's really all I meant.

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On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:07:38 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Huh?  The 10 Commandments needed clarification?  I thought God was
>> supposed to be infallible?  Omnipotent, Omniscient, and all that?
> 
> they need to be clarified for stupid humans who, even then, may not get
> it.

You'd think God would've taken that into consideration, what with him 
being all-knowing. ;-)

Jim

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On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:35:40 -0800, Tim Attwood wrote:

>>> Oh, it's just that Jesus did talk about the commandments and the law
>>> quite a bit.  It's legitimate to say that's clarification instead of
>>> historical context.
>>
>> Huh?  The 10 Commandments needed clarification?  I thought God was
>> supposed to be infallible?  Omnipotent, Omniscient, and all that?
>>
>> (Not trying to pick a fight here, I *really* don't understand what
>> you're saying here)
> 
> Jesus Christ, being a third part of the Trintity of God, commented on
> the Ten Commandments.  So contrary to Darren's suggestion, Jesus's
> statements help provide a context for forming a modern understanding of
> the Ten Commandments. That's really all I meant.

But as I wrote to Nemesis, surely God could've/would've forseen that need 
and written them clearly enough that such a clarification wouldn't be 
necessary, no?

Jim

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