Touché.
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Actually, if you re-read my “rant” you'll see that 95% of it doesn't mention anything at all about being a cult member; 5% does. But I’m sure you can stuff a straw man with only 5%, right?
Of course right.
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Allusion to straw-man number 1.
But just
who, really, is stuffing it? I, of course, did not say, "Your post consists of 95% the words, 'you're a cult member'", I said (this is in context now), that the basic
substance of 95% of the posts that you make here, is merely calling the opponent a cult member as many times as possible. Remember our old friend context? He's the fellow you try to pick me up on for supposedly evading below. Is the hypocracy knee-deep already?
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Regardless, don't blame the messenger.
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Messenger from
who or
what exactly? I thought theists were the only ones with messenger complexes, but no, I won't blame you for spreading the Good News that everyone who disagrees with you in the slightest manner is a stupid, brainwashed cultist.
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Because I pull no punches and am passionate about exposing this nonsense for what it is, I have a superiority complex, eh? Fine.
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As it appears to me, you have a superiority complex because you constantly belittle theists that for all you know, could have a rational justification for their belief system and not base it on conditioned thought.
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What would you call this, by the way, if not the result of an even-more-superior complex?
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Oh yes, that's right, anyone who has the
audacity to criticize you must have double-over what they accuse you of.
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At least I told the kid what's what in no uncertain terms.
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Saviour of mankind, Koyaanisqatsi, springs forth to enlighten and deprogram the dumb masses!
Forgive me for being so sarcastic, but that's really the only was to respond to such flagrant egotism.
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It should be abundantly clear to anyone who has ever read any of my posts that I do not in any way shape or form consider anything I post regarding cults and cult programming to be "empty terms."
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I do, and that's the point. You use the term
specifically to provoke emotional response, not because it is the most appropriate descriptor.
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Stuff that directly up your straw man, capisca?
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Delusion of straw-man number 2.
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As for the term having "emotional impact," again, don't blame the messenger. It is what it is. Obfuscating that fact only exacerbates the problem, IMO.
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The problem arises when you are deliberately chosing your words for maximum emotional impact.
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As I will get into later, it is not an example of "propaganda."
If you're going to act superior you should at least be able to demonstrate it, yes?
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Indeed it is, and indeed I will.
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His character? Please take note of what was emphasized.
The emphasis was placed on the inability to comprehend "any answers given" because of outside conditioning "to accept a premise as true that has never been demonstrated to be true." It had nothing to do with his character and everything to do with the fact that outside conditioning has evidently, IMO, influenced his thinking, thus his questions.
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Basically, you are saying, "You are conditioned to think the way you do." This, my friend, is an attack of character, no matter how much you try to cover it up.
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My entire “rant” was an explanation of how backwards that question is and how it is, in essence, the fallacy of the complex question; that evident within these questions is cult programming, skewing the questions to the point where they are literally turned completely around.
You saw it as innocent questions regarding agnosticism and I saw deeper based not just on this post, but his other posts that I have also been involved in, which is why my post was directed at Half Life and not you.
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My beef is that you have
no way of knowing what was the intentions behind that question! He asked:
- [Why do] you [strong agnostics] believe we can never know if there is a God or not.
The question is perfectly legitamite, since the core strong agnostic position is pretty much precisely "One can never know if there is a God or not." How you can derive a lifetime of "cult indoctrination" from this is unbelievable, as it would be exactly the same as if an atheist had asked it. It is NOT a fallacious complex question, it is a direct query for elaboration on belief.
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Impossible for me to comprehend that someone could come to an illogical belief through logical exploration? Technically, no, not impossible to "comprehend," just indicative of skewed logical processing, IMO.
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Of COURSE it is impossible to arive at illogical belief through logical thought, but you failed to note that it is indeed
possible for theism to be justified rationally (through empirical evidence), therefore it IS POSSIBLE for someone to logically arive at a conclusion of theism.
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What's more, nothing in Half Life's posts (again, not just this one) shows anything regarding his "logical exploration." What they have shown, however, is his own ability for rational, logical thought, which makes his skewed thinking all the more painful to watch for me and is precisely why I posted what I did to him, concluding my post as I did.
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You want someone to use the full potential of their mind and not be bogged down in irrational beliefs, so you create a diatribe against them? Your behaviour is perplexing, to say the least.
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I'm sorry if it wasn't abundantly clear to you that my post was directed to Half Life and not you.
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Just because of this it doesn't make you automatically immune from external critique.
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You just said, "Would you be willing to accept any evidence for the existence of a fictional creature at all, no matter how strong it might be?"
It's also the fallacy of the complex question. Have you stopped beating your wife? If not, sir, then you...blah, blah, blah...
Stuff that straw man!
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The horrible irony! How can you totally rephrase my question so that it's like me asking you if you'd accept something that's
false given strong enough evidence, accuse
me of complex question, then claim I'm building a straw-man (number 3, BTW)?!
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Obviously if someone has compelling evidence, I'll process it the same way I would process any compelling evidence, so your question was not just rhetorical, but it was a pedantic attempt at establishing superiority, so put that in your irony pipe and smoke it.
Please! You could use a bowl.
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No I couldn't! I'm already choking to death on this irony of yours as it is! And, there's nothing wrong with rewording your statements as rhetorical questions as a tool for argumentation, just ask Mr. Socrates.
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How about you respond to the salient issue? Is theism an imposed belief structure, i.e., is it forced upon you? The answer to that question in 99.998% of the time is, "yes."
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Fine. I simply misunderstood what you meant by "imposed".
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Why did I make this point? Well, in context with my “rant” it coincides with the theme of trying to derail Half Life's already derailed thought process; to make it clear to him that he will not be able to comprehend any answers given because he has been forced to accept as true that which has never been demonstrated to be true first.
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Gee, how "nice" of you.
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First, Scientific knowledge is not a belief system, no matter how many semantics dances are performed to equate the two.
Second, it is the result of natural investigation, so the only thing that could be said is that the Scientific process is "imposed" in that anything that is taught can be said to be "imposed," if your goal is tortured semantics to stuff a straw man as you are here doing.
You know as well as I do that there is a significant qualitative difference between "imposing theistic beliefs" and "teaching a method of scientific investigation," and that difference has little to nothing to do with semantics.
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Again, I misunderstood the point you were trying to make about imposition of beliefs. (Straw man reference 4.)
[quote]Can we say, "taken out of context and therefore, supported assertion?"
This is the whole quote:
- Theism is an imposed belief structure. It is not "natural," it is forced upon you.
You don't think so, but that's irrelevant. It is.
Theism is, indeed, an imposed belief structure. It is forced upon you and not "natural" (unless you know of any recorded cased of children who just spontaneously started quoting two thousand year old Middle Eastern warrior-deity dogma in Aramaic?), and it can be readily demonstrated from Half Life's posts that he does not necessarily think this is true.[quote]The precursive statement to you shouting "You're wrong, IT IS!" is merely establishing what the
it, in your assertion is. You did not support you assertion then, and you are only attempting to do so now.
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In other words, not unsupported--demonstrable--assertion.
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The ability for an assertion to be demonstrated does not mean that did in fact demonstrate it.
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Perhaps you're now confused about what an analogy is?
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Perhaps, and perhaps you're a jackass.
The analogy was hard to decipher. I wanted clarification.
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Obviously, I do not consider the "parents" of a computer to be its manufacturers-- --nor do I understand why you would.
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Who
manufactured YOU then Koy? The stork?
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The "natural" operating system is analogous to the individual's uninfluenced cognitive processes; the tabla rassa of the individual mind prior to social bias and influence, which is why I pointed out that if Half Life had been born in Palestine he would most likely be Muslim.
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Another reason your analogy is faulty, there is nothing (yet) analogous to social interaction and the creation of cognitive bias on a computer system.
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Relax, little one. It's an analogy, the resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike used to illustrate a point.
I used it to attempt to explain the fact that you are born with a default to what is natural and then conditioned to what is alleged to be supernatural, hence the changing of the default "natural" operating system with "Goddidit 6.66."
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Analogies can be useful or plain confusing. Guess which category yours falls under?
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Remember? You thought it was cute.
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Only the name.
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By all dogmatic accounts that I am aware of, God is ineffable and mysterious and cannot be known fully while alive as an essential quality to his "nature", hence my valid and logically-consistent-with-known-dogma conclusion.
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Theologians would disagree with you.
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THEY DO ON A CONSTANT BASIS.
Regardless, that was not what my argument was about; merely your confused and/or deliberate misconstruction.
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It was not a deliberate miscontruction, your statement was shockingly vague. I'm not a True Christian(tm). I cannot magically know what the True Interpretation(tm) of everything is.
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Oh, for f*ck's sake, you know what I meant. "A 'mistake,' deliberately made so that it slips under the cognitive radar," there, is that better or are you just happy to be pedantic?
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What can I say? It's fun to nitpick propaganda.
... Won't bother ...
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How is that "misdirection?" If you declare, "I will never know whether or not a God exists," then you are, in effect, declaring atheism, the absence of belief in a god or gods.
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It is the absence of any
certainty. Thus it is just as much the absense of belief as it is the absense of non-belief. Mmm, semantic waffle is good with syrup.
... Won't bother ...
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Would you care for me to write a post as long as this one regarding the word "imply" and how it is derivative of a whole and not specific?
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You do that now. There is no possible way you can derive Half-life calling atheism a "religion" or "movement", or any remote sentiment of that, from the knowledge he has revealed about himself and his teacher.
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Regardless, my statement, in context, was referring to what atheism is and the purpose of deliberately mistaking atheism with agnosticism, as I clearly perceived was the case with Half Life's questions.
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Deliberately mistaking atheism with agnosticism is NOT, and I repeat NOT, calling atheism a movement.
... Fluff ...
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It's odd that you included the entire thrust of my argument here--not commenting on the fact, I noticed, that the points I make are salient and supportive of everything you claim was just my "rant;" particularly the point I made in that first paragraph regarding what is and is not and why it is and is not a "natural" state of existence--only to then ask this irrelevant rhetorical question.
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Playing the relevance card? It's odd that you would do so, since the last few preceeding paragraphs of your original post has nothing at all to do with Half-life's question, as I have been trying to point out so painstakingly.
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The point made was that Half Life should not be asking us any questions at all, rather he should be putting the burden of proof where it belongs, on his teacher.
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His
teacher must answer for strong agnostics? His teacher was asking a simple question, which puts the burden of proof on, you guessed it, the answerer.
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To ask us why we don't believe fictional creatures factually exist is the granddaddy of all tautologies and since others had already addressed it on its face, forgive me, but I thought some other pre-emptive more salient points should also be raised.
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He did not, in any shape or form, ask the emphasized. And stop pre-empting arguments that haven't even happened yet!
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I was attempting to explain in no uncertain terms (as is my wont) that the questions are not just assuming that which is not in evidence, but further that he is asking the wrong people the wrong questions.
I apologize if that, too, was unclear and displeased you, your majesty.
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As it did. Off with your head!
... Straw-man references 5 and 6 ...
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No, I said they "throw up a smokescreen" that is meant to obfuscate that the only justification they have for their beliefs is authority. A "smokescreen," meaning, not evidence, just meant to look like evidence so that you don't see what everything is actually based upon.
That would be the purpose of a "smokescreen."
Archeology is not evidence that proves water was turned into wine or the dead resurrect into Gods or burning bushes speak; likewise extrabibilical references to a man named Jesus nor a boy growing an extra foot in Argentina.
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As I said, it does not matter one little bit how bad you think the evidence is. It is the fact that you said their only justification lies with the bible, but then said that they offer other justification (being shitty does not negate what it is).
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Try this, then: the fact that the other evidence is not evidence proves my point and demonstrates that I did not contradict myself.
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A justification is a justification is a justification. It can be the worst bullshit in the world, but it still is a goddamned justification.
... Straw-man references 7, 8 and 9 (This is fun) ...
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We do not.
Those arguments are not sound and have been demonstrated fallacious so many hundreds if not thousands of times that it's completely beyond me why the board doesn't simply post a disclaimer and close the section "Does God exist?" completely.
But then, I'm a little too hot headed to be influential to the board.
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That is YOUR opinion. There are conflicting opinions, held by (believe it or not), RATIONAL PEOPLE!
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Sweeping?? What has not been demonstrated sufficiently enough by either myself or others here ad nauseum for you to accuse me of making "sweeping generalizations?"
If you have an objection to my tone, fine, make it, but if you're going to attack my reasoning or argumentation, then you'd better damn well be able to back it up instead of fallacious grandstanding like this.
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Not all believers in God are irrational. Therefore calling every single one a "cult member" is a sweeping generalization that happens to be false.
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"Try?" Do fictional creatures factually exist? Well? Do they?
No, they do not. To contend otherwise would then carry with it a burden of proof, don't you think?
Apparently not.
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Fictional things, by definition, do not actually exist. Something cannot be both actual and fictional. By defining God as fictional, you are eliminating the
potential for God to be empirically justified as actual. Hence you are just committing fallacy of truth by decleration.
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Accept, of course, for the fact that my argument is demonstrably valid and the ontological arguments are not.
Gods are fictional creatures until otherwise demonstrated. That is an extant fact. It is therefore entirely the burden of the one contending anything different from this initial "default" truth to prove that such fictional creatures are, in fact, non-fictional.
Is that clearer for you?
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No, something is deemed methodologically non-existent until evidence is provided. "Fictional" is an extranneous property (which you are assigning without proof BTW), that means:
An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented. Applying this property to something precludes empirical justification. Thus, truth by decleration.
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And you just love avoiding the salient issues of my post. Oh, yeah, I also love using the word "salient."
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Don't forget the word "straw-man".
My issue with your post is not your therein expressed opinions on Judeochristian mythology, it is the fact that it is nothing more than an abusive rant against Half-life.
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See, I find that cults glory in the obfuscation of the truth in an Orwellian glee. Funny you should use the word "doublethink" earlier and not correctly apply it as I do.
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Hey, I'm more proficient at Newspeak than you are!
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I'm sorry. Is christianity not an example of ancient Middle Eastern Jewish warrior-deity mythologies?
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Well, you got me there.
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Propaganda implies that I am not telling the whole truth or in some way bending the truth or obfuscating the truth, precisely what my labored specificity is meant to expose.
How, exactly, is correctly describing christianity in this manner "propaganda?"
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Your ability to invent new definitions for words at will is truly, well, Orwellian. Propaganda is actually the use of
emotions to make a point.
ad hominem is therefore an example of propaganda. So is "If you're a computer hacker, you're as bad as the terrorists". Or even "You brainwashed idiots always think that way because you
blah blah".
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Oh, by the way, may I use your straw man's ashes for a papier mache skull I was going to make later? Thanks.
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You can't use ashes to make paper mache. (Final straw-man crack, at a whopping 10 in total.)
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Demonstrably in contention. I say tomato, you say strong agnosticism.
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Opinions have nothing to do with actual defintions.
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And, as I contended prior, a pointless semantics hair splitting that you are forcing onto Half Life's question, IMO, but fine.
You are interested in exploring a "strong agnostic" definition that equates strong agnosticism, IMO, with atheism for all intents and purposes in order to what? Establish that a strong agnostic does not consider it possible to ever know one way or the other that a God exists.
Have fun with that.
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Please look up "strong agnostic" in the nearest encyclopedia.
... Same point, once again ...
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It was a deliberate use of redundancy to make a point. It's called poetic license and occasionally I use mine while driving prose.
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Hehe. "Literal nonsense" is not redundant, "literal" is not a synonym for "nonsense".
... Yadda yadda ...
Blargh, that was more than I'm willing to subject myself to just to prove a little point. Until next time, folks.
04-24-2002, 07:41 AM
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