Dave . . . . and you think your last post is NOT an attack upon the person (Jan)? . . . . . . SHAME on you! . . . . or, to paraphrase from a well-known text source: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!"
In regards to atheism.
- Thread starter garbonzo
- Start date
If that is true then it is the most worrying thing you have said.
True: engaging with you expecting reasoned and reasonable discourse is indeed the height of irrationality. And I have been doing that for far too long.
Probably when you stop evading, obfuscating, and actually start discussing. Although that does presume that you have ever truly engaged in discussion.
Oh, wow. You do say some utter crap in your time but this really is among the funniest.
And given your seeming utter devotion to your strawman that you've displayed over the past... well, too long, to be honest, and from which nothing can seem to tear you away, I think I'll just leave you two alone for a while.
When you start showing signs of genuinely looking to discuss things with other actual people, though...
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I have attacked Jan's tactics.
Some forms of behavior are required in a civilized discussion.
If Jan asserts something meaningless to everyone else, such as 'God Is', he has an obligation to explain and then defend it. He doesn't get to just say 'oh, you wouldn't understand.'
That is arguing in bad faith. We get to call Jan out on that.
If it had been once or a few or even dozen times, I might pass, but this has become Jan's primary defense - he has no other - and it is a cheap, desperate, evasionary tactic.
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So you can understand everything.
I'll bear that in mind.
No it isn't.
It stands to reason that if you're atheist, you do not comprehend God.
Can you explain what you think I mean by" God Is"?
So you're telling me you cannot comprehend what I mean bjy "God Is", or anything I've said that is related?
You seem to be bent on winning this, especially from a not so educated theist who has the gaul to bypass your misplaced superiority, and pin you to the fact that you are without God. Because as far as you're aware, God does not exist.
All you have is ad-hominems, because you can't accept me, or what I'm teaching you.
Jan.
You really don't understand what is meant by "God Is"?
I find that hard to believe.
You are without God (from a theist perspective), the stands to reason that you do not understand God, because you only have concepts to work with. I'll bet you think everybody, like you, only have personal concepts. That there is no God who some can access and some can't.
Jan.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You don't get to make the decision about what others can't understand. Your obligation is to explain it, not make stuff up.
As Sarkus pointed out, you have stopped discussing with us, and have constructed a straw man to stand in front of and argue and that instead.
No.
Can you explain what I mean by glarble? You see, that is why you are stuck believing in God. You cannot comprehend glarble.
And that, of course, is your problem, not mine. You are incapable of understanding glarble.
See what playground logic that is? In reality, my invention of the term glarble says absolutely nothing whatsoever about you. It is (if I were serious) a playground ploy.
You made the term up. This allows you to use it in place of a rational logical argument.
No. I just bristle at dishonest people.
I don't think you know what an ad hom is. An ad hom is not just any old attack. It is an attack in place of a valid argument within the discussion.
I am not trying to make my case when I accuse you of arguing in bad faith; I'm demanding that you argue honestly, which you are not doing.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
It is not even a complete sentence. It is mystery word salad.
You have explicitly denied that it means the only logical thing it might mean - to wit: that God exists.
As are you, you just don't know it.
Nor do you. Being convinced you understand something doesn't mean you do. It doesn't even imply that thing exists.
There are people who are convinced that the government is beaming thought control into our brains. Show that your concept of God is any less delusional.
As do you.
You have yet to demonstrate that God is not merely in your mind.
In all this time, you have been unable to show that.
It really has nothing to do with what I can or can't understand about God. I'll bet you don't understand how to tie a bowline with one hand - but I'll bet I can show you.
You know why? Because bowlines exist.
They don't know how to deal with my approach, so they go after me.
I think the atheist gets away with too much in discussion, or debate.
Jan.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Your approach is dishonest.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Glarble Roods.
Jan cannot understand a world without God because he cannot comprehend glarble, or what it means for glarble to rood.
I could spend the next thousand posts simply saying that over and over again, but really, until Jan lets go and tries to understand glarble, he will always be without glarble. He is aglarbist.
And that is proof enough that glarble roods. It even roods for Jan, he just can't see it. And that's a pity.
The above is, if we were to allow it, a perfectly valid, compelling argument that glarble really does rood.
Jan cannot understand a world without God because he cannot comprehend glarble, or what it means for glarble to rood.
I could spend the next thousand posts simply saying that over and over again, but really, until Jan lets go and tries to understand glarble, he will always be without glarble. He is aglarbist.
And that is proof enough that glarble roods. It even roods for Jan, he just can't see it. And that's a pity.
The above is, if we were to allow it, a perfectly valid, compelling argument that glarble really does rood.
That's why I said it. My protests can be summed up as an appeal to reason. Why is it reasonable to believe in god? I certainly don't accept your notion that belief in a non-material entity conjures it into one's conscious presence, thus reinforcing that belief. My alternative explanation, which I think is reasonable, is that this constitutes self-hypnosis, and that the entity in question is entirely imaginary. I think it's important to have a good reason to believe something.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I don't think that anyone in this thread does (including you). I certainly don't.
If you intend to communicate something to others by repeating your "God Is' phrase over and over (which I increasingly doubt), you aren't succeeding. You need to make some effort to explain what you mean when you say it.
From the atheist perspective you are without God just as surely as they are.
Everyone is in the same situation, because there isn't any God to be 'with' or to 'understand'.
The issue in this thread is choosing between the perspectives. And that, at the very least, requires some understanding of what each one is asserting and what kind of propositions they are committed to.
If you have anything more than concepts, then WHAT IS IT??
What is the theist alternative to the supposed atheist condition of being 'without God'? What do you mean when you speak of "accessing" God? (You've been asked that question before and you had no reply.)
You seem to be hinting at some kind of religious experience which theists enjoy and atheists don't. That needs a lot more explanation.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
He has what everyone else has when they have certainty without evidence. He has faith.
I have no faith in faith
I had faith
I had faith this thread would get better
Look how that turned out
It is for you to make yourself understood on a forum.
You are failing at that.
They go after you only in so much as it is your character that seems to be preventing you from making yourself understood.
Your character gives rise to your approach.
Your approach is unhelpful and based around incoherencies that you deliberately obfuscate around rather than offering any attempt at clarification.
Most sites would know full well how to deal with such an approach, for the short time you are allowed to post there.
What exactly do you think the atheist gets away with?
You are just projecting your own inability to respond to their questions and arguments, and making yourself out to be the victim.
If you think they are getting away with something then call them out on it.
Put forth a coherent argument that counters what they are otherwise "getting away with", just as they do when they think you are trying to get away with something.
I am simply using "Is" as a verb, from the verb "To Be". IOW, existence is a part of God's aspects. Things exist because God just Is.
In the Bible, when, Moses asked God, who shall he tell the ISRAELITES who sent him, God replied...
Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you...
... And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
Now regardless of what you may think or feel about this, you have to take this aspect into consideration when you discuss God. If you can't, then there is no legitimate discussion about God, only a one that suits you.
So to summarise, God Is, means God neither comes in, or goes out of existence. Whereas everything else does.
I've explained on a few occasions, but it seems the need to go after me was stronger than making a small effort to comprehend what I'm saying.
Of course I am. Because God does not exist, as far as they are aware. This has partly been my point all along.
At last, someone gets it
We already know that God does not currently exist for any atheist, hence the term. The atheist chooses to challenge the theist to produce evidence (from the atheist foundational position), to show that God exists. But the atheist, by dint of being atheist, cannot comprehend God which is why they are atheist.
The atheist does not accept any defined aspects of God. Mainly because God does not exist as far as they are aware.
This means the atheist will reason about God, without these included aspects. In fact they seek to disprove them, or explain them away as myth, and folklore, etc...
So one cannot reason with such an atheist, because they deny any aspect which make God, God.
Next they want to know why people accept, and believe in concept with no supernatural aspects, that can not be found to exist (by their standards).
They will not entertain any possibility that they are currently incapable of comprehending God (note the term "currently"). Not unless their standard has been met.
A standard in which for them, God does not exist, and as such cannot be comprehended.
Why do they regard the possibility as an ad-hominem?
I've already explained, plus I gave a link which scientific experiments revealed that children are proved to believe in God, without having to be indoctrinated, or due to learned behaviour.
It may not seem like much to the atheist, because as far as they are aware, God does not exist. But it strikes a chord with the theist, because it is actual.
It seems the explicit atheist cannot accept that, and deems it as nothing, with regard evidence of God. But we know why that is.
I do reply, but you don't accept.
There is no effort in comprehending God, it as normal, as an atheist not comprehending God. Most, if not all theists, do not believe in God 100%. To do would mean you offer everything, including your mind, and body, to God.
That is a different level of devotion.
So theists also slip into atheism, that is to say they also sometimes act as though God does not exist.
This could be merely such a time for every atheist.
Can you be more specific, as I am sure I have made no such hint.
Jan.
I have no faith in faith
I had faith
I had faith this thread would get better
Look how that turned out
It's got the atheists, including yourself, interested.
I think secretly, these guys like this kind of challenge, rather than the usual, boring banter.
Jan.
The thing is, SP. We can never arrive at a compromise, because we are currently oceans apart.
To you, there is no God, and to me, God Is. I accept it. Why can't you?
Jan.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
It's no secret.
We simply ask that you argue in good faith.
Fallacy: Definitional retreat - a form of equivocation – changing the meaning of wording to deal with an objection raised against the original wording.
So, God does not exist then, is what you're saying.
That's your assertion. If you can't have a legit discussion without referent to some thing of your choice that's your problem, not anyone else's.
This is an unevidenced assertion.
Unless you can defend it, it stands as mere faith.
Or, as far as you have been able to show, does not exist for you either - you just don't know it.
Etymological fallacy – which reasons that the original or historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its actual present-day usage.
No. FIRST the theist asserts God exists. Rational people simply say "Is that so?"
After 1500 posts, that's still where we are.
Already explained.
Huh?
That's understandable, given the fact that God does not exist as far as you're aware.
Unfortunately you will never know in your current condition.
It's not just that it is historical, it is the basis of atheism.
Maybe you should involve them in the discussion.
...the atheists are desperately trying to defend their weak position, to no avail.
Jan.