…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.
Wow. Sal just reached the pinnacle of Noyau! Sadly, it’s all downhill from here folks.
Not sure where to post this, so…
Fifthmonarchyman:
http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2015-09-07
Most of the last 5000 post have been baby shit. I grant Mung and phoodoo the opportunity to vent their frustration at having nothing worth saying, but I’m a bit embarrassed that sensible people cannot resist responding.
I do not give a damn whether the moderation here is perfect. Posts show up on the sidebar, regardless of what thread they are consigned to. Everyone can see them and evaluate the intelligence of the poster.
That’s better, in my book, than not showing up at all.
My present ignore list:
Mung
Phoodoo
OMagain
Adapa
They had some usefulness for rhetorical batting practice, I may reactivate them on my screen if I need some practice.
Goodbye trolls. 🙂
Oh look, my ignore list is bigger than your ignore list!
LoL.
I can only see the side bar that Mung said something.
Whatever that troll said, I don’t have to read it, I don’t see it. HAHAHA!
C’mon Mung pour out your best insults. I won’t even have to read them. C’mon get some nasty words out. HAHAHA!
C’mon troll, blast away, my shields are up! You can’t touch me now. HAHAHA!
You’ll be typing away, and I won’t see it. HAHAHA!
LoL. Lovable Sal. Responding to criticism like he always does.
Troll Mung posted something. I saw his name on the side bar. But I have no clue what. HAHAHA! Blast away troll, you can’t touch me now.
I had to delete your garbage at UD so I didn’t have to read it, and I’m sorry I deprived your fan base of your drivel. But now you can blast away freely and they’re happy and I’m happy. You’re the only one who won’t be happy.
Take that troll!
Mung the troll,
I see you posted something, but I don’t know what. I can’t read it anyway.
You know, if you don’t have the ignore button on for me, that means….You’ll have to read what I say, and I don’t have to read what you say, anymore.
You have no more influence over me. Troll.
Take that!
LoL. Are you really ignoring someone if every time they make a comment you follow it with a comment of your own while carefully keeping an eye out to see whether they have made a comment?
Silly Sal.
I have all of you on “ignore,” for the obvious reasons.
Too bad I have to take you all off in order to find out what I’m ignoring.
But after that, you’re all on “ignore” again.
Glen Davidson
But who ignores the ignorers?
Right. I only want to ignore people who ignore me!
Sal you should realize that your childish attempt to “get” Barry by tattling on him with his personal email made you look a lot worse than it did him. Especially with your own history of repulsive behavior in changing and deleting people’s posts. But with your usual lack of self awareness you probably won’t.
I only put people on Ignore whose names begin with the lett….
Hey wait, you can’t trick me. I’m not telling you!!!
Glorious, I can’t see the trolls! Freedom!
You guys can’t ruin my day. Bwahaha! But I can ruin yours if you don’t ignore me. Bwahaha!
Ignore me, that’s fine. Read what I say, even better. Take that trolls.
I just added Gregory to the hall of shame.
Mung
Gregory
Phoodoo
Adapa
OMagain
Bwahaha. Gregory, I heard from Walto you got a blackbelt in fumbduckery. I think you’re going to be a perennial winner.
You know what, you creepy stalker, unless you ignore me, I can ruin your day, but you can’t ruin mine any more. I need not wade through your public vomit at TSZ. You stalked and insulted me for 11 years, but now, I don’t have to deal with you. At the rate you’re going, only you and Mung will be reading each other. A love feast of two trolls. Lovely.
C’mon trolls. You’re not trying hard enough. Your comments don’t seem to be getting through the ignore shields. Can you type a little more.
Bwahaha!
Oh Mung troll creepy stalker of several years, try harder.
So you tried to write a post to make me see your drivel. I didn’t even look. I just use da scroller to shield your garbage from my eyes. YOU failed to get me to read your drivel.
Now I don’t have to rinse my eyes out so frequently after reading your comments.
Try harder Mung. You ain’t getting through. Bwahaha!
Your posts no longer invade my computer screen. Ah, the world looks so much better without having to see you.
Hope you and phoodoo are keeping each other company.
I think Lizzie and company’s love affair with Sal is going to have about as much duration as a pair of Kardashian knickers.
‘Oh no, who did I just sleep with…”
It was only a matter of time before the real Sal showed his colors. He isn’t known around science discussion boards as “Slimy Sal the human shit stain” for nothing.
Sal, don’t give them the distractions they want. Barry’s true thoughts have been revealed. They may be going through the 7 stages.
There’s no love affair, but Sal does make actual arguments.
Rich,
Ok. Sorry. My bad.
I just needed to vent a little bit. .
No more distractions.
I’m done talking about Barry. Time to move on.
Time to move on to boring topics that won’t spark any flame wars. There are other discussion forums, and perhaps I’ll visit those since I’m unfortunately such a troll magnet here.
There are chemistry and math and physics forums. I need to spend time there. Need to spend time in the books. Joe Felsenstein’s book, Organic Chembooks, some physics books. Those will be good for the soul.
If I don’t see you before the New Year, have happy holidays.
Happy holidays to you too, Petruska! You too Walto. You too KeithS. You too _hotshoe. You too Patrick. You too Kantian Naturalist. You too William J. Murray. You too Elizabeth, Alan Fox, Neil Riekert, Mark Frank, Rumraket, Robin, Rob, Joe Felsenstein, Tom English, Allan Miller, David, DNA_Jock, faded_glory, RBH and my all my friends at TSZ. Happy Holidays.
See you in the new year.
Take care.
stcordova,
Happy holidays to you too, Sal.
If I may, let me recommend you another book for your reading list: Life: an Unauthorised Biography, by Richard Fortey. This is a brilliant overview of the mainstream paleontological narrative on the development of life on Earth, written for laymen and a good read that goes beyond the pure science. It does what creation geology never manages: placing the fossil record in the context of a single unified model. I think you would enjoy it, and I trust it would inform you.
fG
stcordova,
Thanks, Sal. Same to you.
I’d be remiss, however, not to admit that some of the accusations I’ve read here about you doctoring comments at another site have concerned me. I don’t know if you’ve already responded to them. If so, maybe you could provide a link? And if you don’t want to air this stuff in piblic (again?) a PM would be OK too. Don’t want to get into it really, just wanted to express my concern that those are serious charges. Even if accurate, there may have been good reasons, I suppose…. Anyhow, I’d like to hear your side of this story. Thanks. And thanks again for the good wishes.
I do not regret my guanoed post. It was factually correct, if intemperate. Fifthmonarchyman is a polite (mostly) incarnation of Joe G. Actual discussion is impossible.
And importantly, it’s pretty much that no respect is given to baseless nonsense that several theists are whining about “unfairness.” Yes, it’s true that there is a bias toward real evidence here against worthless bullshit and very dearly-held prejudices, but that’s more or less a given on a forum where most actually prefer sound epistemologies to made-up crap.
Poor FMM, no one respects errant nonsense. How very unfair!
Glen Davidson
I’d add one more thing–who ever suggested that this was a neutral forum, like phoodoo claimed at one point? This is “The Skeptical Zone,” not the any-stupid-shit is as good as anything else zone.
So yeah his feelings are hurt, he’s called on his stupidity and arrogant hatred of all who disagree with him. That’s what should happen here.
Glen Davidson
I’m pretty sure the word you were trying for is “arrant”, not “errant”?
Do you honestly think that is what the beef is about? You could not be more wrong if you tried.
Why not simply apply the same standards to yourself that you demand of others ? If you did I think you would be surprised at the response you’d get from those who disagree with you.
Why does “actual discussion” demand I concede your argument before we even begin?
Why does the only “actual discussion” have to be about the supposed superiority of atheism to Christianity?
Why not talk about science for once?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
You’re projecting. You are the one claiming a god exists. You are the one refusing to provide support for that claim. You are the one who appears incapable of understanding that some people don’t share your beliefs. Prove you can have a discussion without assuming that your deity exists before blaming others for your failures.
I’d be happy to. What’s the scientific evidence supporting your claim that a god or gods exist?
Prove you can have a discussion with out assuming that the Christian God is not necessary for existence.
Ive yet to even see you try.
For me to assume that existence is not contingent on God is to concede your argument from the get go. Why do you demand this concession?
The scientific evidence is that science itself is impossible with out God.
If you disagree please explain how you can do science with out assuming that induction is valid.
peace
fifthmonarchyman has got to be in the top ten of most boring people on the planet.
He babbles the same nonsense over and over and over and over and then whines that we don’t talk “about science”.
Hey, fifth! Wanna talk about science? Great! Get started. Say something science-y instead of god-y for a change and we’ll talk about it.
fifthmonarchyman,
These two excerpts clearly demonstrate you attempting to shift the burden of proof. Since we’re in Noyau I can say frankly that you are behaving dishonestly. You are the one claiming a god exists. You are the one claiming that “science itself is impossible with out God”. You have the obligation to support your claims with evidence and rational argument.
No, there is no such “scientific evidence”. You might have philosophical or theological argument, but you do not have scientific evidence to support this claim.
I don’t assume that induction is valid. Science does not require induction to be valid.
Yes, science is sometimes described (perhaps that should be “misdescribed”) as depending on induction. But describing science in that way only requires that “induction” be a useful descriptive term. It does not require that induction be logically valid.
Personally, I don’t consider induction to be descriptively useful.
How can you possibly know this If induction is not valid?
If induction is not valid perhaps science began to require induction 10 seconds ago and you just don’t know it yet
peace
Personally, I like apple pie.
My opinion has the same weight as yours.
peace
I intend to when Omagan finishes.
My hypothesis is that we won’t get to 10 comments before the discussion degrades to yet another kangaroo court in which you all attempt to put God on trial
peace
FWIW, I think FMM is right that his claims deserve responses. My beef is that I patiently responded to them over a period of several months, but he has just said the same stuff in every other thread, regardless of those and other responses. He SAYS he’s interested in responses to his claims that, e.g., one has to know that one is fallible in order to claim that one oughtn’t to be certain of this or that. But his actions belie those claims. His actual interest seems to go no farther than in getting people to agree with him by repeating himself.
I’m not going to get into this again (for maybe the Fifth monarchy time), but I wish he’d read Jim Van Cleve’s “Cartesian Circle” paper which carefully laid to rest that sort of “presuppositionism” way back in the late 1970s or early 1980s and stop suggesting that nobody has ever taken the time to respond to his fallacious arguments (i.e., those arguments he regularly claims not to be arguments).
But, again, other than that robotic aspect that RB has regularly pointed out, I think he takes far too much shit here. He’s been pretty consistently polite and is obviously of above average intelligence. His postings are substantive and interesting (if extremely repetitive and deaf to objections). There’s no reason why he shouldn’t bring God into his claims if he believes God belongs there. He does burden shift, certainly, but he has given (bad) arguments for why he thinks that’s OK. Plus, I enjoy the regular Biblical quotations: they’re like poetry. The aversion to that kind of thing seems weird to me. I know there are a lot of converts from orthodoxy here, but to someone like me who never took “scripture” very seriously, the allergic reactions to “gospel” seem like something Anna Freud has commented on.
Anyhow, IMHO, he’s a very valuable contributor to this site and I wish people would stop insulting him.
I suppose, but it’s rather errant as well.
Glen Davidson
walto,
You’ve just pointed out how not valuable his contributions are. He won’t support his claims, he won’t park his priors by the door, and he continuously repeats his unsubstantiated assertions. Sure, he’s more polite than some other theists here, but that’s a low bar to clear.
I don’t see any insults directed at him outside of Noyau (and after all, that’s what Noyau is for). I do find his refusal to accept that others are posting in good faith when talking about their lack of belief to be extremely insulting, though.
You are my favorite.
If there was a little more restraint in the comments threads here I know we could have some good discussions.
They would be about other things than the standard TSZ fare of course but interesting none the less
peace
I observe that science works, and that it does not appear to depend on induction.
I’m a pragmatist. I go by what works. Maybe it will stop working tomorrow, but we might as well keep on doing science until it stops working. That’s pragmatism for you.
As to the verb “to know” — I take knowing as having to do with abilities. And that, also, is pragmatism for you.
Oh right, you constantly whine that we don’t answer your stupid shit, even when we do.
No, we don’t respect your idiotic lies, especially that one that amounts to the claim that you have the truth because of some premises some morons invented. It’s as arrogant as it is mindless.
See, if Walto can’t figure out why you’re insulted for the asshole that you really are, that is why. I do apply the same standard, you just lie over and over again, because we don’t subscribe to the BS that you mindlessly repeat ad nauseam.
I’d be surprised if you could ever be honest. By that I mean not being consistent with your impossibly dishonest core beliefs.
After all, it should be possible to have discussions about things other than your vile arrogance and demands for idiotic responses when you’ve received intelligent ones. But you always return to your vomit, demanding that we feast on it.
Because it’s a fact that only evidence-based reasoning gets us to anything worth calling truth. Evidence-based reasoning is what saves us from the mindless tripe (saves us from accepting, not from suffering from) of trolls such as yourself.
It doesn’t have to be, unless the evidence is against Christianity. I suspect that you realize that the evidence in fact is against Christianity, which is why you persist in your sophomoric horseshit, insisting that it is superior to what actually makes the world run.
Oh, we do. You just interject the same mindless tripe, regardless.
Glen Davidson
Not God, your view of God.
Wow. I had never encountered that distinction. I always heard it as “errant.”
But this was nothing compared to my shock upon learning that “the die is cast” has nothing to do with molds or die-casting.
Yep.
Out of all the shit a person could say about me, telling me that I don’t know my own mind (on the subject of whether I “know that god exists” — or not) is about the most outrageous shit.
I hardly care if people think I’m dumb or smart, polite or rude, valuable contributor or pointlessly flip. And why do I care if people think I mean what I say (that it’s true for me when I say I do NOT know that god exists) — well, I don’t know why I care about that and not about other things, but I do.
But clearly it’s a violation of site rules for fifthmonarchy man to repeat that shit. He’s been corrected more than once and his response is that we’re deluded. Which is also violation of site rules.
If I were emperor of this site, I’d ban him for being unable to keep himself under control — every thread in which he chooses to interject that bullshit is yet another example. He’ll never learn. He obviously doesn’t want to learn and almost certainly is not capable of learning. One, two. three strikes you’re out.
Alea iacta est 🙂
I admit I had to look up how it’s spelled 🙁
I can see that FMM is sometimes irritating in how repetitive he is, but I strongly disagree that he breaks any site rules.
He has a certain view about how knowledge is possible. As a result he thinks that anyone who knows anything must themselves presuppose that God exists.
Interestingly enough, the non-theist response to FMM here has so far been a tu quoque, “well, how do you know that God exists?”, rather than actually describing in any detail how knowledge is possible without presupposing God. He’d be right to complain that his challenge hasn’t been met.
I think his view is utterly flawed, but he’s not breaking any site rules in maintaining. And he’s certainly far more polite than most of the other theists who post here on a regular basis.
Well, he’s harmless, at least. And much in the minority here. There is that “ignore” button as an option.
Come on. We have to be better than that. We can afford to be a little accommodating when all logic, reason and evidence is with us pragmatists.