Ron Garrett

Everyone else responded over the weekend with what would have been my response to Radorth. It is odd to see a religion where in the god chooses the simple and unlettered to spread the word defended and extoled on the basis of the brilliance of its adherents. Whatever. This has become pointless about 7 pages ago.

One comment though Radorth. No one here is laughing at Helen or you. Helen I take very seriously and your situation is sad, not funny.

[ October 21, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Garrett ]</p>

Radorth

Which is one of the primary reasons historians like Durant believe it, as he specifically stated. And why, I have no doubt, more brilliant men than you or I have believed it as well.

So skeptics spend gobs of time answering my posts even though I have nothing worthwhile to say. Is that correct?

Would you like to be more specific about my "situation"? Fair minded juries like to hear hard evidence for slander. Oh wait, the moderators would throw you out, so you have to settle for, what did Bede call it? Childish innuendo?

Rad

Jack the Bodiless

Because Christianity is a dying religion in those "free" countries. When they were controlled by religious fundamentalists, they were not "free". The Enlightenment caused both "freedom" and the beginning of Christianity's demise. Therefore the increasingly secular "Christian" countries, who have undergone (and are still undergoing) this process, qualify as "free".

...Though we seem to have drifted far from the original topic: "God's plan".
I can't resist comparing this with the exchange on page 1:
So here's one "brilliant" man who didn't believe in the Christian message and "God's plan: Jesus of Nazareth, a.k.a. Jesus Christ, a.k.a. the Son of God, a.k.a. one-third of God Himself.

So what are we to make of the last words of Jesus on the cross, as rendered in Matthew?
Standard apologetic answer: Jesus was reciting scripture, identifying himself as the "suffering servant".

But Jesus didn't know about God's plan.

He had no idea what was happening to him or why.

So maybe we should take what he said at face value? Jesus lost his faith. Jesus on the cross was in the process of becoming one of us: an unbeliever.

Ron Garrett

No one is answering your posts because you have had something worthwhile to say as far as I can tell. You're repeating the same worn out apologetics and teflon-coated unreasoning I've seen on this site from theists every day for over two years. I don't think you're the dimmest bulb in the pack, nor the most annoying, though opinions vary on each among the other atheists here.

People are arguing with you because some just enjoy the argument. Others hope to enlighten you or the bystanders. You're particularly good for this since your argumentation is weak and your responses regarding the scripture are often just bull-headed obstinance. This makes you a good teaching foil since you embody the doctrinaire to an considerable degree and thereby only make your obstinance look even more unconsidered than it might otherwise.

But you aren't being contended with because any of what you've had to say is unique or particularly cogent. You fall into the category of "faith zombie." No slander is intended or implied Radorth. Most of us came from where you're standing.

What is sad to me is that your life is based on mythology and that your are trusting in old wives tales. I have no way of knowing if your choices in life and the results would be more satisfactory to you if you knew the truth, but personally I would rather have truth than all that I gave up to embrace it.

Yellum Notnef

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| Best post in entire thread. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Radorth

The choir here is certainly dependable.

I doubt your (rather patronizing) reasons for answering my posts. More likely you consider bystanders far less intelligent than yourself, and unable to discern the faulty reasoning of even a "faith zombie." I don't claim much use here except pointing out the incredible faith required to accept your own assumptions and theories, and the blatant contradictions between them. These are seldom if ever pointed out by other posters.

A true skeptic is more skeptical of skepticism, a la Reasonable Doubt. Few true skeptics post here IMO, and they stick out like sore thumbs. It's not like you can agree on any "cogent" theory yourselves, and I think I spend more time pointing out the incoherence of skeptics posts than supplying "worn-out" apologetics. I also spend considerable time on your "contradictions" 90% of which turn out to be nonsense. When you did find one, I admitted it. Did any other Christian do so? I don't recall.

You don't believe the most learned skeptics who were never "faith zombies" or who are far more cogent than yourself, so I won't worry much about being on some dying Christian fringe as you would like us to believe.

I do have considerable difficulty assigning more verity to "new" theories, if that is what you are saying. But truth can change weekly, right?

Rad

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

Ron Garrett

Of course, since I am merely a tool of the devil sent to deceive and damn, right? That's what the shamen want you to believe, Radorth. Of course I can't possibly actually care that you or any other believer, like myself once upon a time, have swallowed an absolute load of crap that has implications for every part of your life. If you know a way to tell someone they've been duped without it sounding patronizing, I'll switch. Intelligence really has nothing to do with it. You did not reason your way to Jesus the Incarnate God, nor to atonement, nor to any other doctrine. You were taught it and you acquiesced to it. You have accepted the proposition of a divine revelation from the start, something you cannot establish through reason or empiricism. You made an emotional decision based on an emotional appeal to which you were vulnerable. Now you are emotionally committed and thus innoculated to counter-argument. Not all bystanders are. You yourself have noted that most "believers" are only nominally so. So, in essence, your role is that of the convict in a "Scared Straight" video as I see it. They listen to the arguments both ways, and having no emotional commitment to defend a preconceded religious view, they might get the message that the Gospel is not "Good News", but rather urban legend from two millenia in the past. Agnosticism is certainly an easier path isn't it? I'm familiar enough with all the Christianisms and Judaism to know without doubt that it's bunk. Though less familiar, I know enough of Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and Wicca to make the same evaluation. I know that the claimed proofs for the necessity of a creator deity seem to be either variants of the disproven ontological proof, or variants of first cause which falls apart at infinite regression. I hardly have all the answers, but I know enough about the answer you've chosen to know it's as faulty as its cousins. The "ultimate" truth may be out there, but you haven't found it and so far neither have I. Most skepticism amounts to you propose and the skeptic disposes. Granted. The value of this is that when all faulty evaluations have been eliminated, what is left has a better chance of being true. That is why you should apostasize now and get on with the search. We skeptics agree on many things, such as formal and informal logic, empiricism, all things you yourself probably live by in other areas of thought and conscience, but suspend in favor of magical thought and deference to your religious world view. Quite a few Christians show up on this site who aren't remotely literalist and inerrantist in their view of scripture. I've been following a discussion on faithforums among a group of mostly Christians who have generally agreed that the Bible does not present itself as a rule of faith, but gets treated that way de facto since, like the scribes and pharisees, modern Christians are all about appeal to authority in place of reason-based persuasion. I can certainly accept it when a Christian who grants the uncoordinated compendium nature of scripture and the changing state of man's theological understanding represented in the Bible, says "Yeah it's a contradiction. It's an imperfect book by imperfect men. SO?" Then the discussion becomes not one of appeal to an authority, i.e., the revealing deity who does not come to testify that the Bible is his work, but rather becomes a discussion for the merits of the faith and the system.

I think some Christians take the position that scripture need not make sense as it is authoritatively dictated by a creator able to enforce his will with blood and torment. That the proper response to scripture is not to analyze it rationally and judge its teachings on the merits. but rather that the merits are assumed a priori and any contrary view is a priori in error. It's the "God says I'm right" thing.

As to your gracious granting of a contradiction, I missed that part. What I caught was the pages of Pythonesque posts is essence assertin that the dead parrot yet lives. You seem to require extraordinary demonstration to yield, if indeed you do. If by this you mean that I do not assume that because Pascal had a knack for mathematics that he knew anything at all about cosmology, or that he was somehow immune to his Christian culture, you're right. Though supposedly the wisest man in the whole world, the Biblical Solomon wasted the resources of his nation on personal hedonism and debauchery on a scale I cannot fathom, and yet much of the wisdom literature of scripture is credited to him. David, an adulterer, betrayer and murderer, was a man after your god's own heart. THe fact that a person is an icon of some sort is no indication they understand things generally or specifically. No arguing with that, and believe me, I am a conservative in many ways. Having spent two and half decades in academe, I have a healthy contempt for innovation for the sake of publication. However, I can go back to what parts of Celsus the Catholic church did not burn at its bonfires and tell you much of the critiques the church has come under in the last couple of centuries was there at the beginning and only suppressed by force for 1500 years in between. None of this is particularly knew. The church could only invent lame answers then, and these answers have not become less lame with antiquity.

Regards,
RG

Radorth

I agree for the most part, and that is how I generally argue. I guess you missed some other posts of mine.

Never said it. Don't believe it. You are simply reading it into my posts, which would explain why most of your patronizing (yes) statements are simply tendentious.

Rad

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

Radorth

BTW, I don't agree agnosticism is an easy road at all. I have the highest respect for agnostics who have studied both sides carefully.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

The agnostic position is that there MIGHT be some sort of god/creator/overlord of the universe thingy out there somewhere pulling some strings,but they really don`t know if there is or not. Theres NO proof one way or the other.

I am unaware of any agnostics who leave open the possibility that this god/creator/overlord of the universe might actually be the Christian Jesus.
Maybe there is someone or something behind the curtains,but I doubt any of these agnostics you claim to respect think theres even a slim possibility that it`s your boy in the sandals.


Fent

Btw,
I`m not in Rons "choir" and didn`t mean to sound like a cheerleader. I was just glad to see someone as eloquent as Ron finally give you a much needed spoonfull of reality.