Ernest Sparks

Sorry, Rew

You sounded like you were drumming up a blood match with winner-take-all prize!
You seemed to be hot for your unbeatable champion going toe-to-toe with Secular Web's best. I thought that ridiculous!

You might very well be concerned about christian innocents landing on a site like this and unable to defend themselves. We might very well worry about some of our infidel innocents wandering onto apologetic sharpee sites. We are both subject to the full scope of humanity. Plenty of present day unbelievers will come to confession of Christ because the day arrives when each wants it. It works both ways.

You really didn't know who "Glenn Miller" was? He-he!

Jazz

I will leave you all in peace while you all give the Amalekites another whirl.

Happy posting!

Ernie

[quote]
While skeptics have certainly dealt with Miller and Turkel, I don't know if the term "effectively" is the most optimal one. It seems like Holding always manages to get the last word in online "debates" with skeptics--not that that always guarantees victory, but it also doesn't mean the skeptic has dealt "effectively" with him.
[quote]

Huh?

The fact that someone continues to post volumes of ad hominems and drivel after their arguments are refuted does NOT mean that the refutations presented were somehow ineffective or flawed. Even a chicken will continue to run around for a short while, after being be-headed.

There are some people who simply can't stand to not have the last word - whether they are right, or not. Turkel is one of those people.

[QUOTE]
La Pede
Actually the prohibition in Deuteronomy about people not being "put to death" for the sins of the fathers is a prohibition against MAN putting people to death on account of the sins of their fathers.[QUOTE]

Ezekiel 18:20
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."

This is in a long passage of Ezekiel speaking ex cathedra as god. It's part of set of promises in god's bargain with the Israelites.

You are correct about the passage in Dt, which is part of a general set of instructions. Regardless, La Pede, it is immoral to kill anyone when an infinity of other methods for rectification is available
god is omnipotent and omniscient). It is always wrong to kill children. Not even our death-penalty crazed society puts children to death. Note that the killing of the first-born of Egypt was pretty much useless; Pharoah unbent when his own son was caulked, the sufferings of his people meant little. Thus, those were wasted deaths. Finally, god had already, according to scripture, "hardened" Pharoh's heart, thus demonstrating he could change the ruler's mind at any time, obviating the need for any demonstration, like exterminating the first-born of Egypt and sending plagues of painful boils on dumb livestock.

[QUOTE]From what I've read, the Caananites were an exceedingly wicked people, sacrificing their children to their pagan gods, into witchcraft, and all kinds of sexual deviancies. Archaeology is supposed to confirm this. The question may rather be why God let them go their way for 400 years- till their "iniquity was full." He let the Israelites rebel and sin and sin in their idolatry for hundreds of years also before bringing the Assyrians and then the Babylonians on their kingdoms. That to me shows a genuine "longsuffering"- but not an "eternallylong-suffering" aspect of God's nature. The God of Judgement is the same God as the God of Love.[QUOTE]

This is so sick I'm going to assume it is sarcasm.

Michael
turton@ev1.net

Also, I looked over Miller's response to the issue of Israel's arocities in the invasion of Canaan. He really only deals with the deaths of children by claiming that it was OK because the jews had no resources to care for them (WHAT!) and because, without parents, they would have starved or been eaten by wild animals anyway.

He also says it wasn't a wholesale slaughter, just a deportation. Only a few die-hards were killed. Hahahahahahahaha.

You can hardly take seriously a mind as sick as that. The rest of his justification for genocide -- and nothing justifies invading another's land, putting its inhabitants to the sword and stealing their property --
is the usual word games, and justification by appeal to the awful behavior of the Canaanites, although the Chilluns of Israel were doing the same things. It's the usual blame-the-victim crap.


Michael
turton@ev1.net

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Omnedon1:
[quote]
While skeptics have certainly dealt with Miller and Turkel, I don't know if the term "effectively" is the most optimal one. It seems like Holding always manages to get the last word in online "debates" with skeptics--not that that always guarantees victory, but it also doesn't mean the skeptic has dealt "effectively" with him.

Quote:

Huh? The fact that someone continues to post volumes of ad hominems and drivel after their arguments are refuted does NOT mean that the refutations presented were somehow ineffective or flawed. Even a chicken will continue to run around for a short while, after being be-headed. There are some people who simply can't stand to not have the last word - whether they are right, or not. Turkel is one of those people.

Omnedon1,

I know Turkel gets hit with that "ad hominem" charge a lot, and frankly, I wish he wouldn't do that. That's the one tactic of his I don't endorse. But when another skeptic claimed (as you are) that all Turkel does when being rebutted is launch into ad hominem thinking this a substitute for hard facts, Turkel challenged that skeptic to look at his answers to the atheists and calculate the percentage (ratio, I suppose) of ad hominem to solid answers.

I challenge you to do the same. See, while Turkel does throw in his wisecracks, he still backs his stuff up with facts and data.

Rew

Ernie,

Glad I could clear up the misunderstanding there! And I sorta figured you were talking about another Glenn Miller.

You will find it interesting to note that when I first stumbled upon the Sec. Web in April that I was one of those "Christian innocents" whose only apologetics background was Josh McDowell and Paul Little. So when I first found this site, I was very troubled and had my faith severely challenged.

Nowadays I am glad for the challenge to my faith that Infidels gave me, for I believe it has been strengthened more than it could've been otherwise. (Of course, I can also thank Tekton for strengthening my faith as well.)

Good day.

Rew

[quote]
I know Turkel gets hit with that "ad hominem" charge a lot, and frankly, I wish he wouldn't do that. That's the one tactic of his I don't endorse. But when another skeptic claimed (as you are) that all Turkel does when being rebutted is launch into ad hominem thinking this a substitute for hard facts, Turkel challenged that skeptic to look at his answers to the atheists and calculate the percentage (ratio, I suppose) of ad hominem to solid answers.
[quote]

His ratio would be rather high, in favor of ad hominems. He is almost un-readable at times, because of either (a) long winded ad hominems, or (b) tireless self-congratulation.


[quote]
I challenge you to do the same. See, while Turkel does throw in his wisecracks, he still backs his stuff up with facts and data.
[quote]

Not that I have seen. I've read volumes of his material. He quotes from sources that have no standing in the field in question (for example, quoting from a Ph.D. in Theology when the topic at question is in Archaeology). That's a hard one to explain without a single example, so I'll give you one.

In his lame attack on the Jury and their rebuttal to Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict", he quotes a Baptist minister (Gregory S. Neal) as an expert on Hebrew grammar. It's possible that this minister knows something about Hebrew - at least you might think so, until you discover the errors that Turkel's source made in the explanation of the grammar itself.

He also is a fan of the "any way out" school of thought. In other words, if a given scripture is shown to be historically inaccurate, then suddenly he starts creating outlandish "what-if" scenarios. He did this, in his 'defense' of Darius the Mede as an actual historical figure. The sources he quoted were abysmal. Furthermore, the assumptions that the reader would have to agree to, in order to keep Turkel's interpretation from being junked, were incredible.

The real reasons that people ignore Turkel are more straightforward:

1. He insists on using a pseudonym, for an entirely bogus reason. This alone makes him appear overly pretentious for the task he has given himself;

2. His material is rarely original thought. He is adept at gathering material from various sources and stitching it together into a web page. But actual analysis or independent thought is not frequently found in his work;

3. People only have so much time to investigate any kind of apologetics. Because of the high volume of ad hominems, most people would prefer to read Miller or someone else, so they don't have to actively filter out the noise. If you only had an hour a week to read anything, would you rather read something carefully written and well-researched, or something that Turkel wrote?

You said the ratio WOULD BE rather high. Have you actually calculated it for yourself?

I don't get it. You say he made errors and leave it at that. What are these mistakes and misquotings you're accusing him of? Do you know anything about Hebrew grammar with which to correct Turke's error? Let's get specific here.

Again, the vague generalizations just keep jumping out at me. Where are your specific examples? (Notice "examples" is plural.) For instance, what are these "abysmal sources" and what makes them so "abysmal"?

That's irrelevant--especially considering the fact that most people know his real name is Robert Turkel anyway. The reason I read on his site for using the psuedonym is that he used to do it for protection from the ex-cons he was with while working in the prison and since leaving there, he's seen no reason to change his whole website around just to change a name on it. The name someone goes by is completely irrelevent in dealing with the material he/she presents to you.

Oh now, this is news to me! While on his main essay page (http://www.tektonics.org/Tekton_TOC.html), only 35 out of 75 may be Turkel's alone, this is somewhat rare for the rest of his site. Almost everything in his Rogue's Gallery, Cemetery, Bible Contradictions, etc. is written by him alone. Rarely original thought? The "Lincoln Challenge" is rather original. Profiles of every atheist on the Web/market and in the grave I've never seen done before. No other apologist has ventured to formulate full-fledged rebuttals to "The Jury Is In" or "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy" to the extent that Turkel has.

Your argument here doesn't really hold water. Facts are facts, data is data, and arguments are arguments no matter where their sources lie. Turkel has merely taken the best, most detailed arguments and evidences for the Christian faith and compiled them into one single area on his site--and has even added a WEALTH of his own material to supplement it.

Using your line of reasoning, I could make some rather unreasonable claims about, say, Jeffrey Jay Lowder and/or James Still. Their website Infidels.org is so unoriginal b/c all it does is compiles a whole bunch of other skeptics' work with only a little bit of their own, so none of it's worth dealing with. Obviously, I don't believe that, but using the logic you suggested above, one may be able to argue that.

Actually, I can agree with that to a certain extent. (Although both Turkel and Miller write such long essays that I wonder who would have time to read them only an hour a week--LOL!) As I've said before, I don't endorse Turkel's wisecracks. But as one who frequents his website, they're not THAT hard to get past in order to get to the main arguments. But I concede that that's a matter of opinion. And as I said at the very beginning of this thread, I think Glenn Miller--like Turkel--is one of the best Christian apologists out there. I encourage anyone to read his work.

Omnedon1, you seem to believe you have Turkel pretty well figured out. Why don't you try taking up his "Chicken Challenge" and refuting some of his "lame," "any-way-out," "outlandish," "abysmal" work? I'm sure he'd be interested in hearing from you.

Good day.

Rew

I was just pointing out that Deut. contained a social prohibition as opposed to a moral one. But I did say, that the Bible contradicts itself even in that area. I mentioned that the children of Achan (the guy who took the robe from Jericho) were ordered by Yhwh to be stoned by the Israelites, which is in direct violation of that prohibition. Also, as I pointed out, the ten commandments does in fact contradict with Ezekiel 18:20, despite attempts to have "iniquity" not mean "iniquity."

[quote]
You said the ratio WOULD BE rather high. Have you actually calculated it for yourself?
[quote]


It's not mathematically possible to calculate that objectively, and Turkel knows it. In other words, it's a meaningless challenge, designed to trick individuals (such as yourself) who don't understand mathematics. What am I talking about?

Consider this: I consider very few of his answers to be solid, and most of his answers to be ad hominems. So if I were to calculate a ratio, it would be some low value X divided by a very large Y.

But if he were to run the same ratio, he would come up with a different answer. What kind of a challenge is that? Until someone can step in and define authoritatively which answers are "solid" and which answers are not, then neither side can post a mathematical ratio for this. It's nonsense.