Why do we need a God?

[Arioch]

@LG --

But faith quite demonstrably doesn't work as a tool for the evaluation and understanding of spiritual/religious claims as it leads to such disparate conclusions that most of them are mutually exclusive.

So I'll ask again, what tool should I use for the evaluation of spiritual/religious claims?

 

[lightgigantic]

@LG --

But faith quite demonstrably doesn't work as a tool for the evaluation and understanding of spiritual/religious claims as it leads to such disparate conclusions that most of them are mutually exclusive.

So I'll ask again, what tool should I use for the evaluation of spiritual/religious claims?

If you can't concede how your favoured answer to the problem is simply a consequence of poorly thought out questioning to the problem (which is what I meant by the James Thurber quote) I'm afraid all you will have left are generic hackneyed arguments about religion that really bear no immediate connection to the discussion at hand.

I suggest you go back to post 436 ... or maybe go back to post 340 and see precisely what JamesR did over two posts (aside from politely suggesting that he was less intelligent or a dunce, which seems to be the only thing you picked up on) that you couldn't do in 20.

:shrug:

 

[Arioch]

@LG --

So if that's the case, and I am incapable of seeing it on my own, then just stop evading and tell me, straight up, in your very next post, what tool it is I'm supposed to be using.

Oh, and if you think that my comment about my intelligence was serious then you need to learn a few things about reading comprehension. The bottom line is this, I will not allow you to dictate the terms of this discussion any longer. You've had over a month to tell me what it is you think you know and you have been anything but forthcoming with the answer.

I'm giving you one last chance to convince me, in your very next post, after naming the tool. After that I'll simply assume, based on the strength of a month's worth of evidence, that you just don't know what you're talking about.

 

[lightgigantic]

@LG --

So if that's the case, and I am incapable of seeing it on my own, then just stop evading and tell me, straight up, in your very next post, what tool it is I'm supposed to be using.

You already know the tool - you were at the point of declaring it when it became blatantly obvious that trying to portray your run in with the president as something that occurs outside his terms was a dud

Oh, and if you think that my comment about my intelligence was serious then you need to learn a few things about reading comprehension. The bottom line is this, I will not allow you to dictate the terms of this discussion any longer. You've had over a month to tell me what it is you think you know and you have been anything but forthcoming with the answer.

If you think that was a comment about your intelligence you need to think about your comprehension skills.

I suggest you go back to JamesR's post to find a few clues about progressive questioning instead of repeating the same old prattle while tagging a few inconsequential discussion prompts that you copied from him

I'm giving you one last chance to convince me, in your very next post, after naming the tool. After that I'll simply assume, based on the strength of a month's worth of evidence, that you just don't know what you're talking about.

Fine

Go away.
Dealing with your presence on this thread for the most part of 200 posts has been like dealing with a turd in a thermos

 

[Arioch]

@LG --

It was. He happened to be outside where I happened to be outside, several times. It was on neither of our terms as neither of us arranged it.

I'm not going away, I'll simply call lie any time you assert by fiat that science can't evaluate and understand spiritual/religious claims, especially in cases where it demonstrably has or can.

 

[lightgigantic]

@LG --

It was. He happened to be outside where I happened to be outside, several times. It was on neither of our terms as neither of us arranged it.

the schedule of a president is anything but spontaneous to the point of lacking any arrangement on his or his representatives behalf

I'm not going away, I'll simply call lie any time you assert by fiat that science can't evaluate and understand spiritual/religious claims, especially in cases where it demonstrably has or can.

That's fine but you should also remember that if it remains of a sufficiently low quality it can be classified as trolling

 

[Arioch]

@LG --

the schedule of a president is anything but spontaneous to the point of lacking any arrangement on his or his representatives behalf

Oh he may have been there on his terms, but I was there on my terms. The sighting was a coincidence, nothing more and nothing less.

That's fine but you should also remember that if it remains of a sufficiently low quality it can be classified as trolling

Considering that your posts don't seem to meet that criteria I highly doubt that mine ever will.

The bottom line is that you can give me no alternate tool to use in the evaluation of spiritual/religious claims and you can't even defend your assertion that science can't evaluate them(which is to be expected because science can and has). Given that you're supposed to defend your assertions on this site I'd say that you've got some work to do.

 

[wynn]

Oh he may have been there on his terms, but I was there on my terms. The sighting was a coincidence, nothing more and nothing less.

If you think such meetings are mere coincidences, no wonder the whole process of meeting the President (or God) seems so haphazard as to be rendered irrelevant.

Considering that your posts don't seem to meet that criteria I highly doubt that mine ever will.

The bottom line is that you can give me no alternate tool to use in the evaluation of spiritual/religious claims and you can't even defend your assertion that science can't evaluate them(which is to be expected because science can and has). Given that you're supposed to defend your assertions on this site I'd say that you've got some work to do.

What nobody else but you can do, is apply yourself.

It's not that we cannot give you any alternative tools: it's that you refuse to apply them.

We can neither apply you instead of yourself; nor can we motivate you.

The most I can do now is to direct you to some tools to investigate your intentions for change - see Motivational Interviewing.

You yourself have said you want to be convinced (such as in post 443). I have already noted that the desire to be convinced by others is psychologically problematic.


As it is, per your own assessment, you have been requesting the same bit of information from the same person for a month, in numerous posts, over and over again, with no success.

That fact alone should alarm you. A common definition of insanity is "to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

You have previously blamed LG (and me) for not providing you a satisfactory answer, you might possibly do so again, focusing only on our failure, while considering yourself blameless.

Perhaps neither LG nor I can help you; perhaps you need to find someone else to answer your question, perhaps you should change your attitude in how you communicate with us and you would get different results.

Either way, your vehement insistence in asking the same question and then refusing to cooperate isn't leading anywhere good.

 

[spidergoat]

A common definition of insanity is "to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

 

[wynn]

A common definition of insanity is "to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

Don't underestimate the effect that saying that sentence ("Insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result") can have.

Obviously, one may have to hit a nail with a hammer many times, repeating the same movement over and over again, before the nail finally sinks into the material; and one may have to beg over and over again to have one's request granted.

The thrust of that definition of insanity is the advice that one ought to look for more effective, more productive ways of accomplishing a goal.

 

[spidergoat]

So does this apply to prayer?

 

[aaqucnaona]

If you can somehow come to favour a particular approach to abiogenesis, pre big bang physics or any one of a number of scientific claims that excludes/contextualizes other claims that seek to do the same, you already have the tools to solve this problem.

Which are what exactly?

 

[lightgigantic]

@LG --



Oh he may have been there on his terms, but I was there on my terms. The sighting was a coincidence, nothing more and nothing less.

On the contrary, he was there on his terms for the sake of giving audience to persons precisely like yourself

Considering that your posts don't seem to meet that criteria I highly doubt that mine ever will.

The bottom line is that you can give me no alternate tool to use in the evaluation of spiritual/religious claims and you can't even defend your assertion that science can't evaluate them(which is to be expected because science can and has). Given that you're supposed to defend your assertions on this site I'd say that you've got some work to do.

Just try and see the president on your terms for a clear understanding of the subject (No doubt you will try and explain how your encountering him in a public forum fulfills this criteria ..... which serves as an example of trolling that I mentioned earlier)

 

[lightgigantic]

Which are what exactly?

depends on who is doing the speaking

For instance grumpy is in favour of the Panspermian version of abiogenesis

 

[Arioch]

@wynn --

You two made the assertions and have yet to back them up. The onus to convince people that you're right lies with you, I have no responsibility to convince people you're wrong(especially not since history has already done that).

 

[lightgigantic]

@wynn --

You two made the assertions and have yet to back them up. The onus to convince people that you're right lies with you, I have no responsibility to convince people you're wrong(especially not since history has already done that).

deny everything
blame everyone
be bitter

:shrug:

 

[Arioch]

@LG --

Who's bitter? Sounds like you're doing the same thing that Wynn tried, and failed, to do the other day, psychoanalyze me despite having no qualifications and having next to no knowledge of who I am.

Arrogance much?

You still haven't supported your assertion. Even granting a similarity between scenarios B and D you still need to both state what tool will work and why it works better than science.

In other words, you still haven't answered my questions, which means that you don't have answers for my questions.

 

[lightgigantic]

@LG --

Who's bitter? Sounds like you're doing the same thing that Wynn tried, and failed, to do the other day, psychoanalyze me despite having no qualifications and having next to no knowledge of who I am.

Arrogance much?

You still haven't supported your assertion. Even granting a similarity between scenarios B and D you still need to both state what tool will work and why it works better than science.

In other words, you still haven't answered my questions, which means that you don't have answers for my questions.

The discussion is becoming less and less about god or anything related and more and more about why you have such dreadful discourse skills.

Why is it that JamesR can achieve in 2 posts (ie progress the discussion ... even about topics he doesn't even necessarily agree about) what you can't in 20?

 

[Arioch]

@LG --

Why is that relevant to why you haven't answered my questions after more than a month?

The answer is that you simply don't have any answers and are seeking to both invalidate science(good luck with that one) and obfuscate your points so you don't have to go through the bother of supporting them. Follow that with some red herrings(the post above is a perfect example of this), some non-sequiturs, and some straw man arguments and you have a recipe to almost unfailingly replicate your posts.

And who lacks discussion skills here? Oh that's right, it doesn't matter because you simply can't answer my questions.

Oh, and unlike James, I refuse to play this game by your rules.

 

[James R]

I'm done playing with lightgigantic in this thread.

Let the record show that lightgigantic cannot specify which methods one must use to investigate God.

Done.