Unnecessary Confrontations

[wynn]

Given how theists usually preach, the requirment seems to be just the opposite: namely, to not put in anything personal.

How do we usually preach?

"Just try and understand" - which means: don't think, don't feel, don't speak, don't ask any questions; just repeat what you have been told.

I'm not aware of this.
Do you have any examples?

A couple of months back, you were all lovey-dovey saying how you appreciate my mind and wouldn't want to lose touch and you even gave me your email address. But within a couple of weeks, you turned against me completely, criticized me into the ground, both in private as well as in the open forums. Some time later, giving me another bout of criticism.

From this criticism of yours, it was apparent you were working with some standards of what is acceptable for me to talk about and for how long.
For me, you might as well tell me to shut up and give in.

Ah, which scripture, whose version, whose translation, whose commentary ...

An,y to begin with.

To be clear:
I am not asking you for instructions.
My questions are here to bring about discussion.

You said, more than once, how "things have been explained to me." No, they have not. What happens normally at forums is that someone asks a question, and then they get numerous answers, many of them conflicting.
This way, things have NOT been explained to anyone. They were just discussed.

(Unless you consider yourself to be the one and only authoritative representative of God and neglect the fact that theists from other religions have given their input - different from yours - in that same thread, and unless you take for granted that the asker has accepted you as such an authoritative representative.)

How can God or knowledge of God possibly be put to the test??

That's not what I said. ''and the place to put what they may have learned from people to the test.

You mean something like compare whether what the people said, is really said in scriptures as well?

Nor does it help to give in to any person or scripture that claims to be about or from God.

Why doesn't it help.
Relationships are all about giving, trusting.

I am sure the battered wives and former cult members have things to say on this topic ...

Of course, but the aim is not test love or faith, in a bid to decide whether they are real or not.

Then what do you think is the aim?

You can only know that through personal experience, it is the same with God.

I really do not think that a relationship with God could possibly function the same way as a relationship with another human.

As it is, God gives us our bodies, our minds, our senses, air to breathe, food to eat, people in our lives, etc. etc.
People cannot give us that.

And those who do have an ordinary-seeming relationship with God (ie. being His servants, friends, parents or lovers) do not know they are dealing with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

So if we get duped by a charlaton, we have to accept that as part of the whole process of discrimination. IOW, experience counts, not talk.
This is relevant in all forms of knowledge.

Sure. My point is that organized religion, in its various forms, puts people before an immense (literally immense) commitment that is all-encompassing and can be broken only at the cost of a believer's sanity.

The systems of tenets for all major theisms have such tenets that contextualize and discount any question or doubt that a person may have about the system. So if a person were to question what is going on, he would always have an answer provided ("You faith is weak," "It is your fault," "It is the devil's fault").

Nevertheless, this is the qualification, so it acts as a basis for discrimination against charlatons.

It is also a qualification that one cannot deliberately acquire. So it is pointless to hold it up as a standard.

 

[SciWriter]

Yes.


jan.

Tx. All well. God came through for me.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Signal,

A couple of months back, you were all lovey-dovey saying how you appreciate my mind and wouldn't want to lose touch and you even gave me your email address. But within a couple of weeks, you turned against me completely, criticized me into the ground, both in private as well as in the open forums. Some time later, giving me another bout of criticism.

From this criticism of yours, it was apparent you were working with some standards of what is acceptable for me to talk about and for how long.
For me, you might as well tell me to shut up and give in.

Let's get something straight, there is, and, never was any ''lovey-dovey'', ok.
Please retract statement.
Apreciating a person ''brain ability'' (not mind) does not equate to ''lovey-dovey''
And yes, I did like you at first, regardless of whether or not you were 120 year old same sex person. That has nothing to do ''lovey-dovey''.
Please correct that statement in public.

Do you know what the purpose of the private message facility is for?
Just in case it's slipped your mind, it is for the purpose of keeping aprivate, meaning not for public interest.

jan.

 

[wynn]

Let's get something straight, there is, and, never was any ''lovey-dovey'', ok.
Please retract statement.
Apreciating a person ''brain ability'' (not mind) does not equate to ''lovey-dovey''
And yes, I did like you at first, regardless of whether or not you were 120 year old same sex person. That has nothing to do ''lovey-dovey''.
Please correct that statement in public.

Do you know what the purpose of the private message facility is for?
Just in case it's slipped your mind, it is for the purpose of keeping aprivate, meaning not for public interest.

You had a thing for my intellect from the beginning on, both in public as well as in private.

And yes, given your subsequent change of mind about me (which you expressed, again, both in public as well as in private) that earlier appreciation indeed comes across as lovey-dovey.


I didn't say hanky-panky, you horny twat.

 

[Jan Ardena]

You had a thing for my intellect from the beginning on, both in public as well as in private.

And yes, given your subsequent change of mind about me (which you expressed, again, both in public as well as in private) that earlier appreciation indeed comes across as lovey-dovey.


I didn't say hanky-panky, you horny twat.

''A thing for your intellect'' :wtf:



Lovey dovey is not the description, so don't even go there, giving the wrong
impression.
You may not have meant hanky-panky, but it could constued as such.

jan.

 

[wynn]

''A thing for your intellect''

Yes. "Having a thing for something" means 'liking, appreciating something.'

Lovey dovey is not the description, so don't even go there, giving the wrong
impression.
You may not have meant hanky-panky, but it could constued as such.

By whom?? Trappist monks?
Uh. Hrmphh.

Really. This is beyond silly, Ardena.

I am sure that nobody at this forum - or anywhere else - would construe our relationship, at any point, as being about anything else than about being religious adversaries. This is what we are: religious adversaries.

The occasional nice word between us is nothing but meant cynically. I am sure everyone here understands that.

 

[Jan Ardena]

I'm from England, the birth place and home of the sexual inuendo.
So I know how that can be seen, which is why I nipped it in the bud.

We (english) can turn anything into sexual inuendo.

jan.

 

[wynn]

I'm from England, the birth place and home of the sexual inuendo.
So I know how that can be seen, which is why I nipped it in the bud.

We (english) can turn anything into sexual inuendo.

* * *


Do you have anything to say in reply to post 101?

 

[Arioch]

So....this discussion is played out. On the one hand we have straw man arguments, red herrings, and various other flavors of logical fallacy(thank you Jan), and on the other we have people trying to apply logic to the problem and come to a valid conclusion.

 

[Jan Ardena]

So....this discussion is played out. On the one hand we have straw man arguments, red herrings, and various other flavors of logical fallacy(thank you Jan), and on the other we have people trying to apply logic to the problem and come to a valid conclusion.

What you regard as ''people trying to apply logic to the problem and come to a valid conclusion'' is what is known as ''new atheism'', new kids on the block who convince themselves that ''being right'' is part of their belief system.

Now, are you going to set our discourse on track by clarifying the points I raised?

jan.

 

[Arioch]

@Jan --

There's literally nothing "new" about "new atheism" other then that people are now willing to speak up.

And I would love to clarify your points, as soon as you make some that aren't based on a straw man of my arguments. Until you start adhering to the rules of logic no rational discourse can commence.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Arioch,

There's literally nothing "new" about "new atheism" other then that people are now willing to speak up.
And I would love to clarify your points, as soon as you make some that aren't based on a straw man of my arguments. Until you start adhering to the rules of logic no rational discourse can commence.

A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]

You accused me of this fallacy because of this:

I don't think science can explain everything, plus we are living in the here and now, not in some future.

While it may be true that there are important questions which science can't answer(I stipulate "important" for a reason), we will never know until we try now will we?

I suppose if I keep taking my car to the florist for it's M.O.T., my persistence will result in a bona-fide certificate, because I really tried.
Won't it?

That statement is a metaphor.
Here is a definition of Spiritual taken from Wiki (as are all the others):

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality;[1] an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”

Note the phrase ''immaterial reality''.
How can we appoach physicists, biologists, paleontologists, astro-physicists, with notions of the immaterial?
My metaphor merely showed this.

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea;

This is precisely why I ask for definitions.

Now are you going to comply, or waste time with nonsense claims?

jan.

 

[Arioch]

@Jan --

Alright, since you're so eager for a debate-ass-whooping, I'll give it to you(I've got nothing better to do at the moment other than pound nails into my eyes).

How can you possibly believe God doesn't exist under any circumstances, and not have an idea of what it is that doesn't actually exist?

This is a perfect example of a straw man argument. I never once claimed to believe that god doesn't exist, in fact I explicitly explained that I merely lack a belief in any god or gods(which makes me definitionally an atheist). You have chosen to respond to an argument or claim which you attribute to me in the hopes of knocking it down(by catching me in a contradiction) when in actuality I never made such a claim. This is why you're rapidly losing any respect I might have given you.

So if I ask you to define God for the purpose of the discussion, you should. Otherwise you're just talking nonsense.

Lolz. You're so sure of yourself with this line of attack aren't you? No, I should not define god "for the purposes of discussion" because any definition from me would be irrelevant. Why should I clog the thread with further red herrings just to placate you?

And I want to know if you're talking about God.

And I keep telling you exactly what I'm talking about. I really don't see how I could have possibly been any clearer on that point as I not only carefully defined exactly what I was talking about but reiterated it twice. Perhaps the need for more clarity is on you as you've been incredibly obtuse in this thread.

I'm not interested in talking about gods.

*Chuckles*

Well then I guess you really shouldn't have responded to my posts about them. That's your fault, not mine.

I want to who and what God is from your experience.

When I was a christian I believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent yet paradoxically vengeful, god. However as I keep telling you, what I believed in is irrelevant, the mechanisms behind both your beliefs and my previous beliefs are identical and thus open to my understanding.

My definition is simple; God is the absolute truth, the supreme, trancendental being from who everything emanates.

That's damn close to a deistic belief, the only difference being your claimed experiences. However such a god would be irrelevant. If god is everything then everything is god and the word loses all meaning. Oh, and the entire idea of an omnipresent being as an "absolute truth" is silly. The only absolute truth known to any humans is that of the brute fact, something that can't be reduced any further(such as 1+1=2). If we reduce the universe down to it's most basic we get nothing, a zero total energy universe.

So although you were a ''christian'', you never believed in God?

Again, this is irrelevant, although I will grant that it was a response due to a lack of clarity and a misunderstanding on my part.

I never claimed that I believe in any gods, note the tense that is used. I used the word in it's present tense, so the statement you make is nothing more than an irrelevant red herring in which you hoped to catch me in a contradiction where there is none.

I misunderstood your question about the god I believed in verses the god you believe in, however I never actually claimed that I believed in the exact same god that you believe in, and this is where my lack of clarity came to bite me in the ass. What I should have said is that I understand the theistic mindset, which happens to be your mindset, fully and completely, not that I understand your position(which is still not your beliefs, though it can be interpreted that way if you so choose). And I do, the theistic mindset is something I've experienced every bit as much as you have, and the mechanics behind the theistic mindset are the same regardless of which flavor of theism you choose to embrace.

However, none of this places the definitional burden on me, it still lies squarely on you theists to define god. It's also irrelevant to the discussion we've been having up until now as I've just been discussing generalities(such as various flavors of god which can be ruled out by science) and thus specific, personal believes are absolutely irrelevant to every point I've made. Whether you believe in god as the universe as the pantheists do or the god of the bible, my points remain unchallenged.

So what are you talking about?

Simple, I can discuss the generalities without defining anything about a specific god, and if someone brings up a definition I can discuss that as well. Apply your logic, it's one of the only truly human traits we possess.

That statement is a metaphor.

Yes, yes, I already addressed this. You imply that scientists are the wrong experts to go to, however there aren't any experts on the spiritual. There are people who make lots of claims however no reason to trust them as experts any more than the crazy who says that he's talking to Thomas Jefferson in his head. They produce no evidence of being experts at anything other than fleecing people of their money, so if you happy trusting this to a bunch of conmen then you reveal yourself as a fool.

Note the phrase ''immaterial reality''.

Oh I note it alright. I also note that it's completely undemonstrated and that there are as many definitions and descriptions of said "reality" as there are people who believe it. Not only that, but I note that it's a self-collapsing term as reality denotes observation and something which is immaterial is by definition unobservable. This logical disconnect is fatal for the entire concept.

How can we appoach physicists, biologists, paleontologists, astro-physicists, with notions of the immaterial?

Leaving aside the aforementioned issues, yes. Who better to detect and describe reality than those whose job it is to do so? Surely you're not going to say that priests or shamans are better experts to turn to.

My metaphor merely showed this.

Your metaphor was both flawed and inaccurate. Flawed because it's a red herring and a straw man(implying an argument from authority when there was no argument from authority), inaccurate because you compared something with experts to something with no experts. Again, next time, try to get the argument right before responding.

Now are you going to comply, or waste time with nonsense claims?

I've not made one nonsensical claim yet. You, on the other hand, are not in the same boat as I. You make explicit claims about the beginning of the universe which are nonsensical and about some "immaterial reality" which are, by definition, self-refuting. Good job there.

Now, are you going to address the points made for once or are you going to continue on in the same manner as you've been in the rest of the thread?