Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
This is interesting. Do you have a link or reference that you could share?
Nah, just buy her a box of chocolates.
Neil, to J-Mac:
Particularly if your source contains a whopper like this:
Any “scientist” who would interpret tribal mythology as “proof” that the people evolved “from simpler forms of life swarming in the life-rich Amazonian muddy waters” is incompetent.
More likely that the source from which J-Mac got this information is incompetent, or that J-Mac himself mangled it.
What is the first error on the “Presuppositional apologetics” page? If you can’t say, will you withdraw your criticism? If not, why not?
Heh, I thought he was trying to be funny. It’s so hard to tell without the “lol” at the end.
Yeah, particularly when he earnestly says things that are equally inane on a daily basis.
ALurker:
fifth:
fifth,
You are the one who implied that, through your woodenly literal interpretation of Luther’s statement:
Brighter folks can figure out what Luther meant. You’re lost, as usually happens when the topic is religion. It’s a weak subject for you.
ALurker,
Here it is, straight from the
horse’sass’s mouth:Never mind that he’s constantly talking about atheists as if they existed.
Incompetence, thy name is ‘fifthmonarchyman’.
Of course I meant to imply that what ever you love most of all that is your God. I think my interpretation of Luther was spot on.
I want to know if ALurker really loves his girlfriend most of all or if she is just a means to an end or a subsidiary love.
I love my wife but she is not my greatest love. She was given to me by my greatest love.
peace
I haven’t read the “Presuppositional apologetics” in a while. My comment was about Wikipedia in general not about a particular page.
I would point this page to folks who think that Presuppositionalism is faulty somehow because it’s is “circular reasoning”.
quote:
The only alternative to “circular reasoning” as engaged in by Christians, no matter on what point they speak, is that of reasoning on the basis of isolated facts and isolated minds, with the result that there is no possibility of reasoning at all.
end quote:
peace
Not very good at getting into the specifics are you.
It’s faulty because you are faulty. It’s quite simple.
It was a joke.. I was being sarcastic…
The beauty of my research has been that I have traveled to most distant and isolated places in the world… While it wasn’t a part of my research, I have found it very amusing that none of the isolated tribes and national groups I have ever come across were atheistic…. None. Zero. The 100 or so tribes recently contacted in Brazil are just another proof that we possess an inherent, inescapable need to believe in a higher power…
While the beliefs vary among the tribes, one stands out…
Interestingly, the stories of a global flood are quite common among the many tribes I have come across… as well as almost total absence of the “diseases of civilization”, including scepticism…
The beauty of presuppositionalism is that it is not about arguers or their skill or competence it’s about presuppositions.
I might very well be a royal doofus and that would not change the fact that God is faithful. In fact it would magnify God’s importance in sound reasoning
here is another quote supposedly from Luther
quote:
God uses crooked sticks to draw strait lines
end quote
peace
That is odd because if there was indeed a global flood then there was only a single tribe that survived it. Unless, of course, you believe all these tribes you are talking about are descendants of Noah?
So how do you suppose these individual tribes have such stories when if indeed the story was true the tribe would not exist to have it as a story in the first place?
How lucky for you. You are right regardless of your ability to convince others you are right.
What fun it must be to be you.
You are not saying that those isolated tribes evolved independently, are you? Convergent evolution perhaps? lol
Definitions are a means to understanding. I’m trying to understand what you say, so we need to agree on definitions of words like “know” and “god”. Hence my question to you:
Well, you’re the one making the claim that “Everyone knows God exists.” What exactly do you mean by “God” in that assertion? If it’s anything like the Christian god, I don’t believe in that.
Your definition is particularly important when you say things like this:
and this:
It doesn’t help in the slightest, actually. When you make a claim like “Everyone knows God exists.” without further clarification, it is reasonable for those reading it to assume that you are using a common definition of the word “God” such as this:
“1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as
a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe
b Christian Science : the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit : infinite Mind
2 : a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship; specifically : one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality Greek gods of love and war”
I do not believe in any being like that, so your claim is refuted. If you mean something else, you should be more clear unless your goal is confusion and equivocation.
That’s fine. Simply take back your claim that “Everyone knows God exists.” and I’ll be happy to drop the subject.
What more justification do you need than me stating, quite honestly, that I do not believe in any god? According to the rules of this site, you must accept that I am posting in good faith and you are not allowed to accuse me of dishonesty. I do not believe in any god. Your claim is refuted.
Thanks. I can’t tell if he’s simply wrong or if his goal is to be so vague that the word “god” is meaningless.
I find that remarkably sad. Both for your wife and you.
I see comments moved to Guano for pointing out instances of demonstrable dishonesty. Surely accusing someone of dishonestly stating his own beliefs warrants the same result?
Possibly, but I haven’t seen FMM explicitely doing that and I doubt that he is even aware that you perceive his comments that way. Discussions with FMM tend to get a bit surreal at times, so lighten up a little 😉
He’s been made aware many times that people perceive his comments that way, that he’s calling all atheists liars. He does not care as he’s not capable of caring because he knows we’re all lying.
A presuppositionalist wanting that? Naaaaaaaah!
When a presuppositionalist writes that kind of shit what they mean is that they won’t allow any examination of their claims or “worldview,” that any attempt will be faced by handwaving, mockery and deformation, and that you believe the way the atheists of their fantasies believe, and if you say otherwise it won’t matter, you still believe the way the atheists of their fantasies believe.
I’m sensing the voice of experience in your comments. This should be an interesting foray into a new world for me.
The thing about presuppositionalists is that all you need to know about them is in the name. All the things they need in order to dismiss everything you will ever say, is pre-supposed to be true before any introspection or attempt at rational thought even begins.
When you argue with presuppositionalists you must remember that. They have constructed a sealed epistemology. They have made it impossible for themselves to discover through use of reason and evidence that they are wrong, because they assumed before the game even begins, that reason and evidence is impossible without God there to somehow “make it work”.
Think about if. If your worldview contains the foundational proposition “the fact that we are even capable of having this discussion is because my beliefs are true”, then the person having that worldview is incapable of discovering whether he is wrong. Presuppositionalists have closed their own minds.
There are only two ways to argue with presuppositionalists. Either you simply mirror them, and hope that they realize by seeing it put against them, how their own worldview is intrinsically closed-minded and and incapable of discovering reasons to change it, or you ask them how they know the things they claim must be true. What you will get is just more claims. Ask them how they know those to be true. What you will here discover, and hopefully they will too, is that all they can do is just repeat the same claim over and over again.
At this stage you have done all that can be done. They will either realize that yes, they really have closed themselves off hermetically to even the possibility of being wrong, or they will not.
Also remember, all their presuppositions are based on particular and literal interpretations of scriptures. Those are the ones that present this whole closed-loop worldeview of theirs. It is a combination of at least the following claims:
God IS logic and reason. In so far as anything is capable of logic and reason, that is because God.
God IS truth. (Makes sense? No, but that doesn’t matter, scripture is assumed to be true).
Deniers are perverse and deluded in some intrinsic way and have “no excuse”.
They expect and want to be mocked, their scriptures say they will. So when you mock the sheer and deserved idiocy of their views out of frustration that they can’t see through it’s circularity, they will take this as prophetic confirmation of scripture. Brilliant, right?
And from there on it’s facepalming all the way down. You have been warned.
Yeah…substituting God with natural processes without any evidence is your way to reason…
You don’t have to hide it you are a bias moron… We get it…
J-Mac:
Your ‘research’? Do say more, O Researcher.
Oh and also, remember, they feel vastly superior to you. They’re “saved” after all, and you’re just this poor lost soul in a perverse “rebellious” denial. And they’re just trying to save you from this terrible fate. So they’re always super fake-nice to you, wish you peace, throw pearls before you (swine) and so on.
Which is so nice. For the low, low price of your critical faculties, you too can have this sealed sense of absolutely certainty that you’re right and everyone else is wrong.
ALurker, to Entropy:
Best accompanied by an appropriate soundtrack. I recommend Lather and White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane, and Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) by Kenny Rogers and The First Edition. (Yes, that Kenny Rogers.)
Thank you for the detailed explanation. It sounds more like the plot to a dystopian novel or the backstory for an inmate in an asylum than a set of beliefs people really hold.
How does pity work? It seems the most kind response.
ALurker:
Pity doesn’t work either, because presuppositionalists simply cannot accept that they are deserving of pity, not respect.
There’s none. Just refuse to play their game. Never assume that any of their questions is an honest question. They never are. So, catch the absurdity of their questions. Don’t translate their absurdities into something that makes sense, and then answer your own translation. They expect you to do those translations and to start answering their loaded questions, but right there you’ve been fooled and immersed into their word-game traps. From that point on you’re defending something you don’t adhere to in the first place. The number of things you end up defending that you don’t adhere to increase as you try and answer more and more loaded questions, etc. So, careful with those hidden assumptions. Point to the absurdities and laugh, or facepalm, or pity them, or whatever, but don’t assume they care. They don’t.
They won’t learn either way, so don’t expect that to happen.
ALurker,
The solution isn’t to guano fifth’s comments, but to abandon the rule altogether. Lizzie created it with the best of intentions, but she didn’t think things through carefully. The rule has never worked as intended, and it does far more harm than good.
Consider this: I pointed out above that although fifth claims to believe that atheists don’t exist, he isn’t telling the truth. He clearly does believe that they exist; he mentions them constantly and (rightly) refers to us as atheists. He’s just not bright enough to see the contradiction between his claimed belief and his actual beliefs.
Enforcement of the rule would require my comment to be guanoed. That would be detrimental to TSZ, because fifth’s dumb mistake deserves to be pointed out. It’s an obvious inconsistency that invalidates his claim. There should be no penalty for exposing it.
Now, just as I claim that fifth doesn’t believe what he says he believes, fifth claims that I don’t believe what I say I believe. The fact that I am contradicting fifth’s claims about his own beliefs, or that fifth is contradicting my claims about my beliefs, is not the problem. Neither claim should be guanoed on that basis. The problem is that fifth’s claim is demonstrably false, while mine is true.
But of course we don’t want a rule allowing moderators to guano statements they consider to be false. The moderators already have too much power and too little wisdom. Such a rule would be even more of a disaster than the current “assume good faith” rule.
So we’re better off without either rule. Let fifth make his poor arguments, and let us rebut them, with no restrictions and no misguided assumptions about “good faith”. When that happens, it becomes obvious that fifth has made yet another dumb mistake and that his opponents are right.
fifth,
No. You misinterpreted Luther. Keep in mind that religion is a subject in which you are particularly weak, so your misinterpretation isn’t surprising.
Here’s your Luther quote:
To a wooden literalist like you, that means that if a man passionately loves spinach, then spinach is his god, and he is therefore not an atheist. He believes in a god — spinach — so he cannot be an atheist.
Brighter folks recognize your interpretation as idiotic. We realize that Luther is complaining about people who value things — “wealth or self, pleasure or renown”, in Luther’s words — more than they value God. He is not literally saying that those things are gods to the people who love them. People do not pray to renown to heal their sick children. They do not believe that renown created the universe.
You might be dumb enough to argue that if person X loves renown, then renown is person X’s god, and person X is therefore not an atheist. That is not what Luther is saying, and it does not follow from his quote — unless you interpret it in a moronically literalist way.
people didn’t generally pray to Mars to heal their sick children but he was certainly considered to be a god.
People do at times sacrifice their children to gain or keep renown.
People didn’t think that Thor created the universe but he certainly was considered to be a god.
People at times think that renown is the most important thing in the universe
You have too narrow an idea of deity. You think that the only thing that qualifies to be called god is the silly straw-man you rejected as a child.
No one believes in that guy
peace
Reminder that moderation issues should be raised in the appropriate thread.
And another reminder: The usual rules apply in Sandbox. For “gloves off” please use Noyau.
The correctness of a proposition is never established by how it is presented to you.
I fully expect that I wont be able to convince anyone here to abandon their rebellion. That is what the Holy Spirit is for?
peace
Now you are my new favorite. 😉
Life is far too short to let little things bother you.
peace
You’ve got it backwards J. Natural processes are what surrounds you, making them obvious. Gods are fantasies. So we start with natural processes. Substituting nature for gods without any evidence is what’s ridiculous. When something is unknown, the best approach is to assume nature. Fantasy beings as default position require quite a bit of wishful thinking.
It’s not biased to default for what’s within our grasps. It’s only natural. 😁
I’m not making that claim that was Paul of Tarsus. 😉
I only made the claim that humans are hard wired to believe in God.
God is beyond human definition but that does not stop us from trying. I’m particularity fond of this effort but since it came from humans it’s not guaranteed to be with out error
quote:
The Lord our God is but one God, whose subsistence is in Himself; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light, which no man can approach unto; who is in Himself most holy, every way infinite, in greatness, wisdom, power, love, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; who giveth being, moving, and preservation to all creatures.
end quote:
1644 LBCF
I prefer to let God define himself he does that in the Bible mostly.
peace
I’m not saying you are lying.
I’m saying that you are self-deceived when it comes to this one thing.
We all deceive our selves at times. Did you read the article I linked?
peace
Ask me that one please. I’d love to answer it.
I know things the same way you do, the same way anyone does by revelation.
I know things because someone at some time revealed them to me
I know my wife loves me because she tells me so.
I know its cold in New England because the weather man told me
I know New England Patriots CEO Robert Kraft, Head Coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady claim to have a good working relationship because they issued a joint statement on the matter
etc etc.
I think I just proved that one wrong 😉
It’s revelation all the way down
peace
You know there’s no God. I’m not saying you are lying. I’m saying that you are … etc etc.
lol
peace
Isn’t that exactly what atheists do?
According to most folks here no reasonable and intelligent person could ever believe in God.
They claim that we Christians hold to our faith out of fear or habit or because we like the music or some such thing.
that sort of thing does not bother me why should it bother you all?
I suggest lighten up and learn to get along.
peace
fifth,
Imagine how you appear to your fellow Christians right now. They know that atheists exist. They’ve seen you affirm that atheists exist. They know that no one in their right mind would deny that atheists exist.
And still you do it. You, a Christian, are stating an obvious falsehood — one that even you don’t actually believe — in order to save face.
Do you see what a huge liability you are to your faith? Interestingly, it seems that you do. Whenever I’ve suggested that you send TSZ links to your pastor, your fellow bible study members, and your co-congregants, you’ve resisted. You’re aware of how poor your behavior is and you would prefer to hide it from them.
You know that it doesn’t bring glory to God when a Christian obnoxiously and defiantly states an obvious falsehood. Yet you do it anyway, because that is what your ego demands.
It’s a pitiful performance.