…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
Obviously you don’t know the biased atheist admin (Alan Fox) history of your own site.
Why do you think moron is more acceptable than asshole? If you do, I mean. Not sure I’m getting your point.
Elizabeth,
Oh, Lizzie. Your TAMSZ ‘admins’ are ugly biased. Holly Holm would rock your weak little myopic schizophrenia studies dressed as “‘imagine there’s no heaven!’ and that I didn’t make my vows as if there was.”
Juggle ‘asshole’ with ‘moron’ in your atheist relativism, if that’s what floats your British boat. You gain no respect for it. 🙁
Then you’ve got my vote. Where do I sign up? 😉
For that matter I would say violence to impose your beliefs on others is evil whether those beliefs are extreme or not.
Nobody thinks their beliefs are extreme. Everyone thinks they are the ones being reasonable and the other guys ideas are the ones who are jacked up
peace
And if you are actually ignorant (as if you couldn’t search) of the ‘story,’ here’s a link (though Alan would cowardly crop it, with his double-standard privilege, like a TAMSZ admin jackass):
Gregory:
Gregory,
Time for a dosage adjustment?
You have already conceded that things like violence against innocents is not inconsistent with atheism.
If you know of another way to limit violence in the long term sans Christian piety that you have not shared here I suggest you work on spreading that meme.
I promise I won’t begrudge you success as long as it does not involve imposing your beliefs on others by force.
let the best “way” win
peace
Violence is consistent with bad people. You arrogantly believe that people who share your views– and only such people — are not bad. It’s kind kind of a disgusting position, actually. The sort that regularly results in horrific intolerance. But of course, you would never do that!–in spite of regular evidence of such wildly arrogant posts here.
My guess if you are willing to blow yourself up ,you are not too worried about what some else thinks
No I believe everyone is bad really bad. The doctrine is called total depravity.
At the same time I believe only God is good and that he graciously restrains our evil to some extent. That doctrine is called common grace.
I also believe that God is in the process of extending the reign of Christ so that eventually peace will extend throughout the entire universe. He does that mostly by taking really bad people and adopting them into his family and slowly confirming them then into image of his son.
It really has nothing at all to do with people who share my views being better than anyone else.
Maranatha
I hope that my total confidence in God and pessimism in humanity does not come across as arrogance. It’s not my intent.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Your total confidence entails certainty that everyone but you is wrong and that everyone (including you, I guess) is evil. Calling everyone who disagrees with you about anything certainly incorrect and extremely bad is not the best way to make friends and influence people. And it IS arrogant–even if you apologize for it.
My comment was directed towards your ridiculous claim that enacting gun control would be misogynistic. It’s still one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever seen even by your low standards.
Certainty that there is a correct answer is not the same thing as certainty that I have the correct answer. Everyone but God is wrong to some extent including me. (especially me)
No disagreement there.
There can only be one correct answer. If we disagree one of us is incorrect by definition.
If you think I’m incorrect I would hope you would show me the error of my ways. Gently if possible 😉
peace
Kind of pointless since you’re already completely certain that you’re right and everybody else is wrong. Time wasted.
I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion.
oh well
I think I will leave this one here and take a break to see if I can salvage some good will.
Thanks for the interaction
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Perhaps we could ask the Japanese. They were a brutal people at war, but have achieved a very peaceful society despite huge concentrations of population.
They are, of course, something of a conformative people, and it is naive to just ignore such cultural differences, and pursue a one-size-fits-all solution. William does so when suggesting that France would be better if individually armed. And to be fair, we do in reaction.
It is clear that the American social situation is radically different from either the European or the Japanese one. And this, ironically, despite the pervasive influence of that admittedly gentle-in-intent religion, Christianity.
That said, I don’t see an effective solution in an arms race with criminals/terrorists/bogeymen. Make it easier to get weapons, you make it easier for everyone. Attitudes hanging over from the days of the musket (It’s to protect the womenfolk! The gummint better watch out!) are looked at with some incredulity by much of the rest of the world.
Elizabeth,
It’s of course more than ‘just music.’ You’ll never be completely lost, Lizzie. And I agree that you don’t come across as angry, at least not usually, unlike many of the ‘colleagues’ who have joined your blog. But empty, confused and searching, that appears to be your current apostate worldview. At least you can still recognise beauty that comes from above. 🙂
Within man not from above
What makes you think this, other than your own projection?
Elizabeth,
The things you write on this blog, obviously. But hey, usually you respond with some kind of “I’m OK, You’re OK” refrain. And then repeat the spiritual confusion (which, don’t we all have in our own ways?) again later.
Well the belief that it is right to impose your beliefs on others is itself extreme 🙂
[Citation needed]
The preferred British term, btw is fuckwit.
ahem
Matthew 10:34
I inserted your image tags Gregory 🙂
You’re welcome.
Elizabeth,
Gosh! And Luke 12:49. Those will be among the Things He Didn’t Really Mean.
You’re clearly not okay, Gregory. And its taking a good slice of the small humanity I have left to suggest that you might want to think does posting here make you happy? Is it worth it? Are you making a (positive) difference.
If it any consolation, although I mocked your video a bit you are *dreamy*.
Erik is a whiner, a hypocrite, and a smarmy creep, almost on a par with Gregory.
Witness his responses to DNA_Jock beginning here.
Yes, but at least Christians never used threats of force to convert people, or punish apostates.
😉
hotshoe_,
It’s an interesting problem with the site rules. Everyone is supposed to interact as though they believe that everyone else is commenting in good faith. Technically that means none of us should ever accuse another participant of bad faith. This is a big advantage for people who actually are not participating in good faith — they can use the rules to get comments pointing out their bad behavior moved to Guano where they won’t be seen by people who come here via Google or who only follow a small number of threads.
I don’t know what the solution is, but perhaps the truth should be allowed as a defense. If someone is clearly posting in bad faith, calling them out with evidence shouldn’t be considered a rule violation.
Patrick,
I think there was a previous occasion when a similar issue was raised. If someone (it was Sal IIRR – sorry, Sal, I know you are trying to turn over a new leaf – keep it up!)) continued to post PRATT arguments, there ought to be some sanction against comments repeating those arguments in the face of refutations. Maybe a PRATT file?
I would not go that far.
I understand why he does not like Patrick’s repeated questions. But he has brought that on himself.
Well, I don’t like Patrick’s repeated questions myself, either. Erik’s non-responsive whatever-it-is with Patrick isn’t why I gave in to my impulse to say what I just said about him (whiner, hypocrite, creep).
I agree, Erik brings it on himself.
I have to wonder what on earth he can be getting out of commenting here.
P.S. I don’t want to get into an argument with you about whether my epithets are deserved or not, but I’m curious which – or all – you think go “too far”. IF you’d like to say …
I understand why he doesn’t like the questions. What I don’t understand is his argument. He not only won’t answer questions about historical verity, he also won’t respond to questions about the religious or spiritual meaning of the story.
I have to assume he is as off base there as with history.
Alan Fox,
That would turn the site into a heavily moderated debate forum requiring significantly more human intervention. After the first decision, regardless of merit, the moderators would be accused of bias. I don’t think it’s sustainable as a volunteer effort.
I still don’t think old-style Usenet can be beat. Completely open, everyone responsible for their own kill files, newsreaders that support threading . . . ah, the good old days.
That’s not the style Lizzie wants here, which is fine. I’m interested to see the outcome of her experiment. I do think the ability of people to hide behind the rules while demonstrating a clear lack of integrity and intellectual honesty is a flaw. I hope the rules will be modified to allow such obvious transgressions to be identified publicly.
Neil Rickert,
I’d love to know what Erik doesn’t like about my questions. They seem pretty simple to me and I’m genuinely interested in the answers.
hotshoe_,
Sorry. Not stopping. Erik can either retract his claim, clarify it, or continue to be shown to be participating in bad faith.
Yes. I’m actually quite puzzled at Erik’s refusal to answer Patrick’s questions, since — from what I can tell — Erik could do so very easily and quickly in a way that is fully consistent with his position. His refusal to do so is deeply perplexing to me.
The thread has been brain dead ever since Erik arrived.
The adult response to people who don’t understand or agree with you is to explain in different words.
What is his position?
petrushka,
I Googled “cranial rectal inversion” but none of the images were suitable to post here.
Eric seems to be understood by Mung, Gregory, and Phoodoo.
I would think one of them could define their position without recourse to insults.
Particularly the last 5 words (of the comment to which I previously responded).
He has been vague and ambiguous, and appears unwilling to clear that up. At the least, he has shown poor judgment about his audience at TSZ.
The problem on this and other threads is that theists think the way to argue their belief is the insult non-believers. There is some scriptural authority for this stance.
Since common sense evidence doesn’t support the existence of an invisible sky fairy, believers simply accuse non-believers of being blind.
Emperor. Cloak.
Not sure if I don’t consider that a feature. 🙂
I think Lizzie has shown good flexibility on the rules. Where she is consistent is in her aims. which I think are commendable, to facilitate genuine non-rancorous dialogue among discussants of widely-differing viewpoints. Whether a particular rule fails, helps or hinders those aims is not so easy to predict ahead of time and I think being reactive rather than pre-emptive is the best way to go.
Anybody who thinks the global flood a historic reality in the 21st Century is, IMNSHO, either a loon or too desperate to view the Bible as inerrant to care about consilience. Nothing will persuade them otherwise on that score, however ludicrous the position they must adopt.
Next to Flat Earth, it’s possibly the dumbest position currently espoused by adults, though I could be wrong.
Sure, but then you’ve got a lot of people who know next to nothing about natural science, and who have heard from “reliable sources” that the flood occurred and it explains everything about the geologic column. I remember hearing a professor at a Seventh-day Adventist college (some TV program) telling how the flood is necessary in order to explain all of the geology out there (it was a given that he wasn’t accepting deep time). He was trained as an archaeologist, too, so you’d think he might have some notion of strata and science, but it seems that he really thinks the Flood explains it all. Yes I think he was being essentially honest, since I’ve long known these sorts (grew up creationist and had secondary ed from them, but not only from them).
There really are a lot of people who could never understand why the Flood couldn’t explain everything, except maybe the little problem of radiometric dating (which has to be wrong, for reasons). Even in (normal non-religious) college you don’t have to learn enough science to really know better, you just have to pass the tests. To these people it’s just being willing to think beyond the constraints of “materialism” or what-not for the Flood to be perfectly acceptable within their meager knowledge base.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
It’s why there’s such a thing as mud, right? People are amazing. They’ll deny The Flood right when they’re standing in a mud puddle. They don’t get that they’re denying the existence of the crap everyone can see on their shoes right while they’re making these absurd statements!
So stupid, these Bible deniers.
GlenDavidson,
Fair enough to a point. But when one starts to discuss the evidence, that’s when one comes up against an intractable position, which no amount of science will remedy. Not without exception, obviously.