Totalitarianist

After reading some of the blatant, vacant-minded dribble universal in every attempt at refuting the non-existence of a Creator in theistic literature, I've concluded that the believer, who by believing does nothing more than sharpen his innate, ineffable imbecility, completely lacks any coherency and bothering with these pathetic last-effort attempts is analogous to disproving the validity of an unpleasant finger gesters from one with a childhood neurosis.

Tah!

[ May 26, 2002: Message edited by: Trebaxian Vir ]</p>

seebs

Speaking of "blatant, vacant-minded dribble"... Very impressive, and totally and completely without argumentative value. Shouldn't this be over in the Rants section?

Totalitarianist

No, there's implausible arguments to be criticized.

seebs

Sure, if you were going to be arguing - but you aren't, so far; you're just waving around vague insults. Your original post was semantically precisely equivalent to fundamentalists ranting about how people who aren't like them are going to hell. You made no point; you just ranted. Furthermore, your rant contained statements that are obviously and trivially factually false; "believers" do not necessarily have "inherent imbecility", even apart from the spelling issue. The fact is, there's at least one person out there who's smarter than you and believes something you think is "foolish"... And there are people smarter than you who think some of the things *you* accept are foolish.

The connection between intelligence and various beliefs isn't as simple as you'd like it to be. Rather, you choose to pretend it's simple so you can feel superior to people - just like all the other fundies.

Totalitarianist

"believers" do not necessarily have "inherent imbecility", even apart from the spelling issue.

I never said 'inherent imbicility'.

I merely want the best refutation against the non-existence of God.

seebs

Oops, "inate". Same deal; you still spelled it wrong, too. Anyway, the fact is, the imbecility is "inate" in all humans, or perhaps in none... but you don't get to go pretending it's only found in people who disagree with you. (Rather, you can pretend, but we'll all know you're pretending.)

Anyway, you want no such thing; you want to feel smug about how smart you are, and how stupid the people who disagree with you are. This is clear from your initial statement. If you had wanted information, you would have asked a question; you didn't. Instead, you asserted baldly that everyone who could possibly answer your question is necessarily stupid.

If you want an answer, ask nicely, and don't start by asserting that anyone who might try to answer the question is necessarily dumber than you.

To go back to the words from your original post, non-existance isn't a thing to refute; an *argument* for existance or non-existance is a thing to refute. Every argument I've ever seen on either side is *painfully* easy to refute, unless it's based on such a tangled mess of equivocation and sophistry that you can't even really dignify it with the word "wrong".

The question cannot be answered. Believe whatever makes you feel happy.

Totalitarianist

No, I said 'innate'. Look. The message has not been edited.

Totalitarianist

To go back to the words from your original post, non-existance isn't a thing to refute; an *argument* for existance or non-existance is a thing to refute.

Granted, my mistake.

seebs

That's a typo on my part. My point was that you spelled "imbecility" wrong, and asserted that it was innate in all believers. This is not conducive to an interesting debate.

I've met people on both sides of the fence who match that description perfectly - and people on both sides who are plenty rational. This isn't entirely about "rational/irrational" - indeed, I'm not sure it's *at all* about rational vs. irrational thought. I suspect it has more to do with how you go about picking your axioms, in many cases.

Totalitarianist

I'm not a linguist, nor do I intend on becoming one. I could really care less about a couple of minor rushing errors which have no bearing on the validity of my assertions. Either way, they become forgivable when you consider my age and the speed at which I type at.