Doubting Didymus

The new moderator has a single, official question for the participants in this thread:

What is the topic of this thread?

I will need to know what is on, and what is off topic. Clearly "first cause" is not being discussed, but neither can I find any consistent theme here at all. I was not here when this thread was moved into to this forum, and so do not know its history, so what is this thread about?

GunnerJ

To find the answer to this, you'll have to dig through the archives to find another too-damn-long thread called "First Cause Does Not Prove God," by myself.

And don't even try to keep track of all that thread's misbegotten progeny.

Essentially, I posted a challenge to see if any theist could show how the first cause argument can prove the existence of (a) god(s). The idea is that all the first cause argument proves is the existence of a first cause. Ed posted some laughable tripe about "diversities within unities" and "aspects of personality" which were promptly decimated like the shoddy parodies of logic they were, but Ed is a tenacious little fucker and wouldn't let go of his pet argument, and wound up making a whole bunch of other BS claims to support it. Of note, he started arguing flood geology. Soon, the flood discussion took up so much of the thread space, that the original thread was closed and a new thread opened here to discuss the flood stuff. But Ed's idiocy works in branching, looping cycles, and we eventually ended up back at already covered topics. Debating with Ed is rather like being locked in a tour bus moving through a city of illogical buildings built on sparse and misinterpreted evidence.

Well, there you have it. I have studied Ed for a while, and I have come to the conclusion that Ed is not an idiotic human, but rather a very sophisticated "bot," an AI designed to respond to arguments with stocked typical apologetics. It's merely guesswork right now, but I think it's a strong hypothesis. Whatever the truth, the Ed thread phenomena is a crime against the moderation of this Board that I feel I wil never be able to apologize enough for.

Oolon Colluphid

I concur. In all this time, practically nothing of the proposed 'human' behind all this has emerged. Everyone else I know here has let little bits of the person behind the comments show through -- even only in anger or asides. I don't recall this happening with the 'Ed' entity. If he is indeed human, I find it amazing how already done-to-death lines of argument resurface a while later, barely altered from their original form. Personally, on occasions when I'm unable to completely counter a point, I'll drop it and not use that line again. But not Ed. 'He' is too much like a computer program, simply looping back again (or maybe simply loopy ) .

Anyone feel like compiling a list of areas already covered, to avoid repetition?

Don't apologise to much. I for one have learned heaps from the replies to Ed.

Cheers, DT

pz

Ack, no. Let's not have anyone waste their time plumbing the depths of this thing.

Here's a question for all of you participants in this thread: would anyone mind if we just closed the thing? No one is breaking any rules here, but the thread has gotten so unwieldy and nebulous that it might help if everyone abandoned it and started new threads that are characterized with a little more focus.

GunnerJ

Ah, the Second Great Diffusion of Ed Threads!

Trust me, this will solve nothing: you'll just end up with eleven other threads that stay on-topic for approximately two posts and then become as unweildy and nebulous as this one. Containment is a surer strategy.

Duvenoy

I really must agree. At least this way, those of us who follow this can find it easily. Much better than wandering all over the site to see what Ed's up to.



doov

Duvenoy

This is post number 666, and it's MINE!!!



doov

pz

OK, I will exert myself to do absolutely nothing.

I do wonder, though, why anyone would care to see what Ed's up to.

Doubting Didymus

If the consensus is that this thread be left as a permanent multi-purpose thread specifically for the purpose of discussions with ed (ring a bell? Vanderzyden threads!), then I propose we change the title to simply "the Ed thread". The current title is not representative.

Ed

No, that's me on the left, since Lpetrich doesn't think there is any difference between humans and apes!