GunnerJ

I simply don't know why I bother.

Maybe I'm something of a masochist. I don't know. All I know is that Ed is an embarrasment to Christianity.

Of course, I don't think much of the Xian religion anyway. But the people who follow it are generally all right. These are the people, the "Christianity," whom Ed slanders, and whose intellectual reputations are sullied, by his constantly fallicious argumentation. I've given up on Ed. His thick skull, aided by the warm, padded walls of his own buttocks, protects the seat of his mind, the brain, from any penetration by logic and reason. I hope that this will be instructive to someone, perhaps some Xian, as an example of how not to argue.

Just as there are no passages specifically on the Trinity, but you claim they are "implied?" We actually have very good examples of the Bible, as interpreted by standard Xian theology, indirectly contradicting genetics. For example, the idea that two humans, father and daughter, no less, sired the entire human race 6,000 years ago.

Sure it does: six days. Ed's fuzzy "day-age" arguments not only contradict themselves, but also betray just how desperate he is to salvage the Bible in the face of empirical evidence. He can't be serious about man being made six days after the BB, or that each "day" could be a billion year span and that the events in them are actually consistant with the evidence. If so, his crippling ignorance shines through as a beacon of stupidity to be avoided by thinking people everywhere. If Ed, or any other Xian, hopes to convince people of the Bible's relevance in a time when "revelation" is not longer the dominant paradign for finding out how the Universe works, he'll have to try harder. I doubt he will, though.

Let's put aside the fact that this is pure, unadulterated horseshit that anyone with half a
brain cell and a knowledge of geology rightfully turns their nose up at. Let's unsheath good ole Occam's razor.

The Global Flood involves the entire surface of the Earth, up to the tallest mountains, being covered in water. Some questions arise: Does Ed know how much water would be required to do this? (Hint: A huge fucking lot!) Where the hell did it come from? Where the hell did it god? It sure as hell ain't here today! These questions can only be answered with supernatural non-explainations, and therefore get shaved away.

For the education of the lurkers, here's a tiny list of <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html" target="_blank">problems with the Global Flood story</a>. I hope someone gets something out of this. Ed probably won't bother to click on it, as knowledge gets in the way of his ability to make ignorant, unevidenced assertions.

Here, we see Ed cowardly avoiding the issue of how modern linguistics is in no way compatible with the Tower of Babel story. It's too bad he doesn't have the balls (no offence to all the fine lady debaters here who don't engage in such shoddy practices) to deal with the actual thrust of my argument, and must instead misdirect the focus of the debate.

See him dismatle it piece by piece with logic.

I'd like to know where you sourced that list. I don't recall a standard definition of what life is being issued by any conference of biologists. Further, this definition seems rather vague. Life must "develop," but that's not the same thing as "change?" That's a new one on me! (That is, that "development" is not "change") This seems to mark bacteria as non-living. After all, once a bacteria is spawned by mitosis, it doesn't "develop." It just goes around eating until it splits as well. Perhaps a concrete definition of "development" is in order, but I won't hold my breath. I know how hard it is for you to actually define something.

I suggest you carefully study the actual work of Louis Pasteur before twisting around his actual experimental results.

Here we see Ed nitpicking to avoid the issue. I know full well about the open nature of "possibility," and I think Ed knows I know this. But by deliberately ignoring the eliptical nature of my statement, he can misrepresent my position with a needless nitpick and make me look the fool. I wonder why Ed feels the need to engage in such dishonest tactics... maybe it's because he knows how much his argument is failing.

Just to make sure you have no wiggle room, Ed, let me restate my counter-argument:

Ed: "It may be theoretically possible for persons to come from the impersonal but such a theory is irrational that is my point."

My respose: It is not irrational at all, as it is logically possible for something (i.e., the "impersonal," or a woman) to cause or produce something which is its opposite (i.e., the "personal," or a boy). Therefore, since it is both logically and theoretically possible for the impersonal to produce the personal, and since you have yet to actually define those things and show why there is a causal/developemtnal barrier between them, you have absolutely no argument whatsoever. So stop being a goddamn pussy and pony up to my actual arguments.

Please define these things, specifically, "will" and "conscience." The first is vague, the second's existance is in question.

See above about mirepresenting the actual findings of science through willful ignorance.

This is irrelevant. The fact that we don't have a sharp, fast-and-clear distinction between "personal" and "impersonal," but rather, we have varying levels or "shades" between them, and the fact that the more "primative," in an evolutionary sense, an animal is, the less "personality" it has, seems to suggest that "personality" is highly evolvable, and requires no divine assistance.

I also wonder about your views on evolution, specifically, why you seem to be comfortable invocing theistic evolution when convienient, day-age creationism when that's useful for you, and YEC literalism when put into a corner. Why don't you stick to one belief and stop arbitrarily adopting one or the other when it suits your fancy? How about some consistancy?

More of Ed's classic nitpicking and misdirection. I wonder how much longer he can keep this up? I wonder if he knows, deep down in inside, that I meant "proof" beyond a reasonable doubt, that is, scientific proof, something with evidence to support it. Maybe he knows that he can't do this, and is stalling for time...

Well, Ed, consider yourself smoked out. Put up or shut up.

Of course not, you silly little jackass. But why it's so obvious to me that if you can't prove something irrational, it really isn't, and why this simple fact is not obvious to you baffles me. Oh, wait. The stupidity. Never mind.

No, it's lame-brained obfuscationism. Tell me: is God beyond the jurisdiction of his own morality?

Up next is an example one of the saddest spectacles in the world: theists trying to justify the barbarous, immoral actions of their monstrous, evil god. It's like the child of an alcoholic father making excuses for why his dad beats his mom and won't get a job. Except, whereas the child's situation is merely pitiable and tragic because an actual father exists to be rationalized, the theist's situation is also laughable, becuase their Middle-Eastern mythological sky-warrior Father God is a fiction. How truly sad, and funny, it is to see adults trying to justify the actions of a mythological villain as if he were a real being!

Prove it, and then prove its relevance. And yes, just so you don't pussy out of this one again, that's "prove beyond a reasonable doubt, with evidence."

This is one of the worst cases of cognitive dissonence I've ever seen. Only someone so blinded by their idiotic faith could see having a fetus ripped from it's mother's womb as "rescue." I'll bet Ed considers himself "pro-life."

Hey, doofus, why doesn't this omnipotent, all-merciful god try to, I don't know, reform the "barbarous" society they were living in, instead of annihilating it? Frankly, the idea of having your soldiers rip open the wombs of pregnant women is as barbarous as anything I can think of.

Ed seems to be unaware that "side-effects" are the result of fallible, limited beings trying to achive one goal, and mistakenly enacting another. I wonder if Ed really has such low esteem for his God's intellect as to presume that he didn't know before hand that innundating the entire Earth was going to kill an awful lot of animals, some with partial personalities.

More unevidenced bullshit assertion.

...which he surely would have know was going to happen anyway, and could have prevented entirely, right? I mean, you don't have to be omniscient to know that when you make something both mysterious and forbidden, kids (Adam and Eve) are going to want to play with it...

They were kids! Little children, not a thought in their head for what the consequences of their actions are! This only further demonstrated what a stupid, short-tempered asshole the Xian god is. Hey, I just mocked god! I wonder where all the she-bears are... why was this "punishement" only inflicted once?

Wow. Just stunning. One wonders why god wasn't so concerned with women being single and alone when he ordered the Hebrew soldiers to massacre the women's families and friends. More half-assed thinking from the cog-dis mind.

And I'm sure those women were just thrilled to have the "privilage" of marrying the murderous bastards who just killed their families and destroyed their homeland. They must have lept into the arms of their "liberators!" Say, did the term, "keep them for yourselves," which is what God instructed the Hebrews to do with these virgin girls, mean "marry" back then? I've learned soemthing new today! What a "humane" society those lucky girls got to live in!

I'll bet Ed has a tough time keeping up witht he flow of and argument, as he does all things that require the expediture of mental energy. To refresh him, let's look at this sequence of replies:

It seems that Ed's definition of "personal" is "whatever make a person, a person." I've long since put away any hope of him seeing what circular, illogical bullshit his arguments are, but it should be painfully obvious to any lurkers now.

Look, Ed, so many people are ripping you a new asshole on this thread that I can't keep track of it all. Can you just copy & paste?

He actually references it like it's a valid refutation...

...right, your cowardly misdirection by nitpicking. I saw it. Unless you prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there is a causal/developmental barrier between any of those things, you have no argument.

...which, in spite of your willful ignorance of how the Universe is the limit of our observational abilities, you have yet to provide. This becomes tiresome, Ed. Let me suggest that your replies to me be actual logical arguments, not pithy one-liner assertions.

Ed seems to be a bit confused here. Actually, "stunningly ignorant" is the better description. Perhaps it would do him well to look into the electromagnetic force, so he can discover what prevents two rocks from occupying the same space. Although, this would cripple his ability to argue from his own ignorant confusion of physics and logic.

Look in the mirror.

I simply can't believe he does this with a straight face.

Idiot. Do you really think these one-liners serve as actual refutations? Give me one good reason why an effect must share the properties of it's cause. I don't care how you like to twist words around, that is your argument.

Ed completely ignores god's instruction, yes, instruction, to Moses to look not at his face, but his ass. This is not convienient anthropomorphizing for us to understand, otherwise there'd be no danger.

Ed ignores the simple, logical explaination to intorduce germ theory to the mythological writings of a people (and, if Jesus is any guide, a God) who considered evil spirits to be the cause of dissease.

The passage is Deuteronomy 23:12-14. The reason for covering the dumpings of the soldiers was not because God didn't like the smell, as I thought. It was because God was walking among them and didn't want to "see" any unclean thing. Just goes to show how easy it is to hide something from God's "sight."

Funny, I've had just the opposite experience trying to "communicate" with him; that is, no "experience" at all. This pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo is not very effective evidence, Ed. It also does nothing to counter my point.

Because, if you've actually been reading the posts on this thread, which I sometimes doubt, you see that it's proven wrong. Repeating it over and over again is not going to make it true.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> It's amazing that someone can be so blisteringly dumb as to ask someone to "disporve" something he hasn't even proven. Let's try to get this straight, numb-nuts: your assertions are not correct until proven otherwise, they must be proven before anyone has any obligation to disprove them. Arguing from ignorance and through circular means don't cut it.

It seems Ed is agreeing with me that he must prove his unfounded, ignorant, and logically absurd assertions before anyone has any obligation to disprove them. It makes me wonder why he hasn't tried harder. Ed, I'm tired of beating around the bush with you. If you can't display in your response that you understand the concept of burden of proof, and how you are the one who has it, that I will write you off as an idiot with brainpower too low to even bother arguing with, as I'm sure countless others have already done.

Ed

Yes, there was some disagreement over the biblical data but these men were being guided by the holy spirit to the most true to the biblical data position.

Quote:

Ed: JWs use a erroneously modified bible, ie their own made up version. Rim: On what authority to do state that their version is wrong? LP: More likely, they have their own interpretations.

No, on November 24, 1954 in a magazine called Pursuer's Proof the vice president of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and one of the "translators" of the JW Bible, Frederick W. Franz admitted under oath that he could not translate hebrew.

Quote:

Ed: Yes, and Jesus' life was documented by his enemies. Rim: What, in the Talmud? That was written even later than the Gospels! Caeser has people in his own lifetime who opposed him chronicling his actions. ... LP: The Talmud states that Jesus Christ's father had been a Roman soldier named Panthera (Pantera, Pandira); does Ed believe that? This story may have been invented to explain away the virgin-birth story as a coverup of JC's true paternity; the putative father's name is a pun on the Greek word for virgin (parthenos).

Thereby confirming the scriptures that there was something unusual about Christ's birth. While it doesnt confirm his virgin birth, it is evidence that the jews were trying to refute something unusual about his birth.

Quote:

Ed: Jesus left behind followers that documented his teachings and lived according to them. Rim: No, sir, his "followers" composed, decades after the supposed life of Jesus, a set of conflicting biographies. This is nowhere near the caliber of proof for Caeser's Gaulic campaign; as LP noted, Caeser at least wrote something himself. LP: Biographies that might better be described as hagiographies, something like Parson Weems's biography of George Washington, which had contained the first mention of him and the cherry tree and similar stories. Furthermore, there is abundant evidence of plagiarism (Mark and "Q" -> Matthew and Luke), and some implausibilities involved in the Crucifixion story. In that story, Pontius Pilate is described as weak-willed, contrary to more sober historians' picture of him as tough and ruthless. It's almost as if the Gospel writers wanted to get JC subjected to a Roman style of punishment, crucifixion (the Jews preferred stoning), while letting the Roman authorities off the hook and blaming the Jews.

There is big difference however, two of the gospels were written by people who actually knew and lived with him. If you had a choice of someone to write an accurate biography of you, who would you rather have write it? Someone from your own circle of family and friends or some stranger who you have never met? Especially if you considered your family and friends the most honest and truthful people you have known. I would not call it plagiarism, rather it is utilizing historical sources to help cover areas that the author didn't have information about. As far as Pilate goes, one slightly out of character decision strongly influenced by his wife whose opinion he may have greatly admired doesnt qualify as totally distorting his personality. Having the Romans not stop the killing of an innocent man when they easily could have is hardly letting them off the hook.

Quote:

Ed: Actually according to the great linguist Noam Chomsky there is evidence of one original language that later diversified fitting what the scriptures teach. LP: Noam Chomsky claimed no such thing; he claimed that human languages have a shared "deep structure".

A shared deep structure means it is very likely there was one original language especially if there was one point of origin for humans, which most of the evidence points to.

[b] Which confirms my point about propositional communication. Propositional communication, ie verbal language is one the aspects of humans which makes us personal. No other creature can communicate propositionally.

lpetrich

Guidance presumably including such methods of settling arguments as one faction showing up early for a meeting and locking out rival factions.

Says who? It's generally thought that the Gospels date some decades after when Jesus Christ had been executed, if there had been a historical Jesus Christ.

Which begs the question of why the Jewish authorities had needed the Roman authorities to do their dirty work when they could simply have stoned Jesus Christ to death.

However, we could have some brain wiring that leads us to create this deep structure.

So what? Can fertilized egg cells use true language?

Synaesthesia

Ed,
You know those blasted Jews, if they attempt to disprove a supernatural claim there must be a conspiracy to hide a mysterious or supernatural event. There is nothing at all indicating that they took the claim seriously, in fact it’s quite implausible to suppose that this is the case. Their aim was clearly to attack the memes, the belief in miracle claims made of Jesus. (It was, after all, competition.)

It is certainly possible that the Jews could have believed something supernatural had occurred. Even if this were the case - all evidence points against it - superstition and delusion are ubiquitous throughout history amongst all cultures and simple biology is enough to account for a pregnancy.

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>

Infinity Lover

Okay people, lets go over the options here. There's everything, something, and nothing!
That gives us: everything/everything, everything/something, everything/nothing, something/nothing, nothing/nothing, and something/something. Six choices.

Nothing's nothing, so it isn't an option.
You can have more than anyone else, but you can never have it all! Infinity isn't an option.

Which leaves you with something or something; which doesn't sound like much of a choice. But something can be anything, and it's never the same thing twice.

Infinity isn't an option, its every option out there, because there is always something!

Life's about choices, but existence has no choice but to exist!

Because nonexistence doesn't exist; that what it does, nonexisting!

If you say there has to be such a thing as first cause, you're not really into infinity are you?

GunnerJ

Marcel... What... the hell? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Synaesthesia

Marcel,
6 possibilities relating to what?

Mageth

you're not really into infinity are you

Nah, I much prefer Lexus.

Ed

He is one personal divine being.

Ed

Laws can produce some complexity but it is not specified and they cannot produce information. And life has both.