Per

OT

What is the answer to this riddle?? There IS an answer, right? Please tell me there is.

Tom Sawyer

Per:

I couldn't make this add up either. After seeing the answer, I felt kind of silly. The question really does a good job of tricking you into looking at it the wrong way:

<a href="http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57921.html" target="_blank">Ask Dr Math</a>

Vibr8gKiwi

Can I answer this to move things along? By telling a true story you tell something that corresponds accurately with reality.

Can we deal with the apparent double standards and seeming hypocrisy that has appeared in some of your posts now?

P.S. I hate these pokey chains of leading questions some theists ask to "guide you along" to some supposed larger point. Get to the frigging point, we're not kids. It also seems to me that most the time these points that are "creeped up on" are eventually shown wrong or irrelevant anyway (which is probably why they don't want to actually get to the point in the first place).

If the point is good, it can stand on it's own and won't require a lot of lead-in to (mis)lead people.

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Vibr8gKiwi ]</p>

Vanderzyden

The answer is that this is a false statement:

"Well, each man has now paid 9 dollars for the room, right?"

The more important explanation would be how this is analogous to our topic!

Vanderzyden

Dr S

(V) Now we are back to silliness.
(S) I'm assuming that you belong to one of those churches that have the congregation give set responses. Real life doesn't work that way. You ask a question and I get to pick my answer, not you.

(V) So, let me be simple and explicit:
Have you ever told a true story?
The manner in which you answer will signal to me if you genuinely desire to participate or if you refuse to address what appear to be difficult questions for you.
(S) Ya know what I'm being signaled? I'm being signaled that you are manipulating me in an attempt to play with semantics. This is very tedious of you.

I have told stories that were fact. I have told stories that were fiction. And I have told stories that were a combination of the two, which by default would be fiction.

(V) All indications are that we are wasting precious time--yours and mine.
(S) Nonsense. If you were worried about wasting time you would simply get to your point.

--------------------
Story…decide if it is true and state your reasons:

This weekend was so lovely that I decided to see some of the tourist spots around San Francisco. I went to Market Street and boarded the "F" line. It is a restored streetcar from the 1950's.
Mayor Willie Brown rode by in the back of his limo. The streetcar went down Market Street and turned on the Embarcadero. It stopped a Fisherman's Wharf. There were dozens of sea lions sunning themselves on the docks of the marina. I decided to visit Alcatraz and got on the line for the ferry tickets. But, since it was Labor Day, the tickets were sold out. I strolled out to the end of Pier 39, lowered myself over the side and walked across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz. Once I got there I was disappointed to find that there was no food service on the island.

There you go, is it a true story or not? It's filled with checkable facts. Even obscure ones like the sea lions and the restored streetcars. It has only one uncheckable fact in it. Since all the checkable ones are correct should you assume that the uncheckable one is too? If not, why not?

garthoverman

Okay. I didn't check all of the facts but here's my best guess - and forgive me for intruding on your conversation.

My guess would be that the story is not necessarily true because the only uncheckable fact in the entire story is the "I" who is telling it. Did s/he really do all those things, or fabricate them all with facts that s/he knew could be corroborated? Does the corroboration by real places and things make the story true? Not necessarily. I would say, "Show me some photographs."

Yours,

Garth

Godless Sodomite

Yes, show me the Polaroids. Particularly the ones where you walk across the bay.

-Jerry

garthoverman

AARGH! I read right over that one. Does that really qualify as an uncheckable fact, though? I'd say its rather apparently impossible.

Yours,

Garth

Dr S

For I say unto thee, Jerry, blessed is he who duth not have Polaroids or even One Hour Processing but believes only because I tell him to. For am I not God's only begotten nephew, His sister's oldest?

Odd, when I say it, it sounds like crass sarcasm. Yet how different is this from what Xians are demanding that we believe?
Here's a story set in a known time and place. An actual political leader is mentioned. This story has crowds of tourists as witnesses to a miracle, none of whom will ever mention it--exactly like the NT stories. In fact it has one of the same miracles that the NT talks of.

But no one, in their right mind, would give my story credence. You all know that people can't walk on liquid water. You probably assume that people who claim familiar relationships with god have a screw, or two, loose.
Why think differently if the story is set in the first century instead of the twenty-first?

Godless Sodomite

Ah, yes, if only we could say these things in earnest, we'd be filthy rich with scads of hangers on. Alas, it is my lot in life to be more sincere than the snake oil sales folks polluting the airwaves. The Religion racket--even Tony Soprano couldn't wish for more.

-Jerry

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Godless Sodomite ]</p>