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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 10:36:57 GMT
I love that one. "I get told I'm a nice guy at poker tables." Let's not forget, he got married in a church!!! and apparently took umbrage when the vicar/priest brought religion into the ceremony. . The guy is comedy gold. You mean this one: What an absolute load of horseshit.
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chasallnut
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Post by chasallnut on Apr 10, 2017 10:44:30 GMT
You mean this one: What an absolute load of horseshit. Couldn't agree with that last sentiment more. With regards to the ceremony, in later posts it actually was a ceremony in a church. The guy is a complete berk.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Apr 10, 2017 11:58:41 GMT
I can't take him and his stories too seriously.
Which is ironic as this is exactly the way that this atheist feels about God and many of the central Christian myths.
Personally speaking I find Arch's anecdotes reasonable. The fact that many here prefer to attack the messenger rather than the message is revealing.
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chasallnut
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Post by chasallnut on Apr 10, 2017 12:04:39 GMT
I can't take him and his stories too seriously.
Which is ironic as this is exactly the way that this atheist feels about God and many of the central Christian myths.
Personally speaking I find Arch's anecdotes reasonable. The fact that many here prefer to attack the messenger rather than the message is revealing.
So you are fine with him making these up, that's ok, as long as he gets his message across? Well let's welcome back Ada.....<rolls out red carpet>.
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Post by Aj_June on Apr 10, 2017 12:10:36 GMT
I can't take him and his stories too seriously.
Which is ironic as this is exactly the way that this atheist feels about God and many of the central Christian myths.
Personally speaking I find Arch's anecdotes reasonable. The fact that many here prefer to attack the messenger rather than the message is revealing.
I can't ever take monolithic people that seriously. The same person is also a transphobe and at one point of time twisted evolution to support his racist and homophobic ideas. Also justifies the sexual assault scene of High Plains Drifter. Those other things didn't sell well so he now confines himself to teaching atheism. Still, I can understand that you are only speaking about his stories that he keeps popping up these days. But as I said, I just can't take him seriously. Regarding his stories, a few may be reasonable but I find them a bit simplistic.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Apr 10, 2017 12:18:59 GMT
Which is ironic as this is exactly the way that this atheist feels about God and many of the central Christian myths.
Personally speaking I find Arch's anecdotes reasonable. The fact that many here prefer to attack the messenger rather than the message is revealing.
So you are fine with him making these up, that's ok, as long as he gets his message across? Well let's welcome back Ada.....<rolls out red carpet>. As already said, it is ironic: plenty of things in the Bible are myths and stories to 'get the message across' so it seems odd to criticise someone for the same technique, even if one argues that everything is made up. But scriptures, too, 'get the message across'. I am not saying that Arch is without fault, but I do find a ring of truth in his anecdotes. They don't have the exaggeration, grandstanding, or lack of human detail, that one would find in much typical proselytizing for instance. Arch may be often shrill in his dismissal of faith and belief, but this tone is not evidence in his stories claimed from personal experience which is calm and detailed - patient, even, in relating events. Indeed his most striking account, that of being on the radio defending atheism a while back was shown to be correct, and he was suitably embarrassed by the failings he saw there in himself in the event. There is certainly no reason to dismiss everything he says by way of example on a few inconsistencies. I shan't write any more here on this since I don't like calling people out, for good or bad.
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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Apr 10, 2017 12:24:04 GMT
I can't take him and his stories too seriously.
Which is ironic as this is exactly the way that this atheist feels about God and many of the central Christian myths.
Personally speaking I find Arch's anecdotes reasonable. The fact that many here prefer to attack the messenger rather than the message is revealing.
The messenger acts like a dufus too much. Further, his anecdotes are only reasonable because they are boring and insignificant. His view of the religious is far more troubling the the things that get him riled up. I would rather speak to the lady who thinks men have one less rib than the person who does a blanket condemnation on the basis of a lady who thinks men have one less rib.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 12:26:04 GMT
Personally speaking I find Arch's anecdotes reasonable. The fact that many here prefer to attack the messenger rather than the message is revealing.
You find his anecdotes reasonable?
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Apr 10, 2017 14:32:45 GMT
Personally speaking I find Arch's anecdotes reasonable. The fact that many here prefer to attack the messenger rather than the message is revealing.
You find his anecdotes reasonable?
A lady always has the privilege of changing her mind. One notes, too, that this is a tale at the end that's not entirely flattering to the teller and that there's no great education. As a tale which does not aim to proselytize, it serves no purpose, other than the question posed at face value. Surely one might expect every tale to be 'worked' to a purpose if it was created artificially to serve a use. Just my two-penneth; and now I must really leave the squabble over the truth of an atheist's anecdotes to others...
*edited for sense and spelling.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Apr 10, 2017 16:38:08 GMT
Oh, sure, I don't deny that theologians have made more sophisticated arguments: I was simply referring to your average person that uses the "I can't explain something otherwise, so God." I certainly do deny that theologians have made arguments that are more sophisticated than what you can get from the believer on the street. Instead, they make the same arguments as anyone else but they apply impressive and pretentious words to appear to be erudite. For example, there's the Kalam Cosmological Argument that can be summarized thus: There just has to be a God that started everything; there can't be an infinite regress. Everything but God needs a beginning. Then there's the Teleological Argument or Argument From Design. It basically says that things appear to be designed so there must be a Designer God. But everything is made of atoms and atoms look designed so there's nothing that wasn't designed. It's a stupid circular argument. The latest theological trickery is Fine Tuning argument, something based on "the wholly unwarranted assumption that only carbon-based life is possible." (Victor Stenger) Are there examples of Christian Apologist types using the argument from ignorance, i.e "What else could it be?" Here's a recent episode from the Atheist Experience show where Florida professor Stephanie Thomason uses that argument, word for word: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKTUOzXRkII really wish you wouldn't make me defend this crap, but this kind of lazy strawmanning is why guys like William Lane Craig win so many of their debates and makes atheists look bad in the process. Just to take an example, your presentation of the KCA bears no resemblance to the actual argument, which goes: everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, the universe has a cause; the cause must be timeless, spaceless, and omnipotent, traits typically used to define God. There are numerous ways to attack this argument, but all of them are open to counters. Your notion about an infinite regress isn't even in the modern argument; instead, Craig uses scientific evidence like the Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin papers that show that the universe is finite into the pass (again, it's possible to argue it doesn't show this, but this requires a careful defining of terms). There are possible logical fallacies that can be leveled against the argument--like that of composition--but these also depend on how the terms are defined. You can argue that there are other possible causes that fit those descriptions besides God (quantum fields, eg), but there is no proof that they fit or that they created the universe. The best argument is that we know they exist and we know their potential for doing just that, and there's no reason to posit the existence of something we don't know exist and don't know how they could create a universe. But, again, such a route is open to counters. I never said that the sophisticated arguments (which, yes, require more knowledge to concoct, hence the "impressive and pretentious words") didn't reduce to the same fallacies of the "I can't explain it, so God" types, but they're much harder to unpack in order to get to that point. You quote Stenger yet seem to fail to realize that Stenger wrote an entire book in an attempt to debunk to the fine-tuning argument. You don't have to write books to debunk non-sophisticated arguments. Not to mention that it was the sophistication of that argument and complexity that "turned" a not-considerable intellectual and atheist like Antony Flew.
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Post by dividavi on Apr 11, 2017 9:52:42 GMT
I certainly do deny that theologians have made arguments that are more sophisticated than what you can get from the believer on the street. Instead, they make the same arguments as anyone else but they apply impressive and pretentious words to appear to be erudite. For example, there's the Kalam Cosmological Argument that can be summarized thus: There just has to be a God that started everything; there can't be an infinite regress. Everything but God needs a beginning. Then there's the Teleological Argument or Argument From Design. It basically says that things appear to be designed so there must be a Designer God. But everything is made of atoms and atoms look designed so there's nothing that wasn't designed. It's a stupid circular argument. The latest theological trickery is Fine Tuning argument, something based on "the wholly unwarranted assumption that only carbon-based life is possible." (Victor Stenger) Are there examples of Christian Apologist types using the argument from ignorance, i.e "What else could it be?" Here's a recent episode from the Atheist Experience show where Florida professor Stephanie Thomason uses that argument, word for word: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKTUOzXRkII really wish you wouldn't make me defend this crap, but this kind of lazy strawmanning is why guys like William Lane Craig win so many of their debates and makes atheists look bad in the process. Just to take an example, your presentation of the KCA bears no resemblance to the actual argument, which goes: everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, the universe has a cause; the cause must be timeless, spaceless, and omnipotent, traits typically used to define God. There are numerous ways to attack this argument, but all of them are open to counters. Your notion about an infinite regress isn't even in the modern argument; instead, Craig uses scientific evidence like the Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin papers that show that the universe is finite into the pass (again, it's possible to argue it doesn't show this, but this requires a careful defining of terms). There are possible logical fallacies that can be leveled against the argument--like that of composition--but these also depend on how the terms are defined. You can argue that there are other possible causes that fit those descriptions besides God (quantum fields, eg), but there is no proof that they fit or that they created the universe. The best argument is that we know they exist and we know their potential for doing just that, and there's no reason to posit the existence of something we don't know exist and don't know how they could create a universe. But, again, such a route is open to counters. I never said that the sophisticated arguments (which, yes, require more knowledge to concoct, hence the "impressive and pretentious words") didn't reduce to the same fallacies of the "I can't explain it, so God" types, but they're much harder to unpack in order to get to that point. You quote Stenger yet seem to fail to realize that Stenger wrote an entire book in an attempt to debunk to the fine-tuning argument. You don't have to write books to debunk non-sophisticated arguments. Not to mention that it was the sophistication of that argument and complexity that "turned" a not-considerable intellectual and atheist like Antony Flew. I really didn't force you to defend this crap; that was your own doing. For the Kalam argument to "work" the universe must already be in existence. The population of the early universe was quite small and it was limited to at least one creature who was intangible, immaterial and omnipotent. That's what the word universe means: the sum total of everything that exists. To Kalam believers there was something that didn't need to be created and that's God. Another view is that expressed by Lawrence M. Krauss whose main theme is how "we have discovered that all signs suggest a universe that could and plausibly did arise from a deeper nothing - involving the absence of space itself - and which may one day return to nothing via processes that may not only be comprehensible but also processes that do not require any external control or direction." What Krauss means by nothing is something I don't know but it seems to be based on virtual particles, quantum fields, cosmic potentiality and the Laws of Physics. In both cases (Kalam and Krauss), there's something, hence there is a universe that never began. That's infinite regress which is what Kalam tries to ignore. Oh, and how does a Creator create, think or do anything in a timeless void, one without time? As for the fine tuning crap, it assumes that things won't work if a few fundamental constants were slightly different with all the others staying the same. That's one bit of unspoken fakery but the cosmos would quickly fly apart if the gravitational effect varied by more than the inverse of the distance squared (2.00000). Like that precision? It must be God who finetuned basic equations to such precision. Either that, or it's a basic consequence of living in 3D space. In fact there's no fine tuning required for gravity and I assume for others. As for Antony Flew, I don't care what influenced some supposedly great philosopher to accept God. From Wikipedia: Flew also denied that there was any truth to the rumours of 2001 and 2003 that he had converted to Christianity.[42] In letter to Carrier of 29 December 2004 Flew retracted his statement that a deity or a "super-intelligence" was the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature. "I now realise that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction." He blamed his error on being "misled" by the (supposed) fact that Richard Dawkins had "never been reported as referring to any promising work on the production of a theory of the development of living matter." He was a sucker who fell for Creationist bullshit.
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chasallnut
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Post by chasallnut on Apr 11, 2017 10:28:32 GMT
You mean this one: What an absolute load of horseshit. He won't be back here for a little while. He's popped off "to give the sock drawer good seeing-to" over the new Thor trailer.
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Post by koskiewicz on Apr 12, 2017 15:41:55 GMT
...unk...unk...unknown...
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Apr 13, 2017 18:07:46 GMT
I really wish you wouldn't make me defend this crap, but this kind of lazy strawmanning is why guys like William Lane Craig win so many of their debates and makes atheists look bad in the process. Just to take an example, your presentation of the KCA bears no resemblance to the actual argument, which goes: everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, the universe has a cause; the cause must be timeless, spaceless, and omnipotent, traits typically used to define God. There are numerous ways to attack this argument, but all of them are open to counters. Your notion about an infinite regress isn't even in the modern argument; instead, Craig uses scientific evidence like the Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin papers that show that the universe is finite into the pass (again, it's possible to argue it doesn't show this, but this requires a careful defining of terms). There are possible logical fallacies that can be leveled against the argument--like that of composition--but these also depend on how the terms are defined. You can argue that there are other possible causes that fit those descriptions besides God (quantum fields, eg), but there is no proof that they fit or that they created the universe. The best argument is that we know they exist and we know their potential for doing just that, and there's no reason to posit the existence of something we don't know exist and don't know how they could create a universe. But, again, such a route is open to counters. I never said that the sophisticated arguments (which, yes, require more knowledge to concoct, hence the "impressive and pretentious words") didn't reduce to the same fallacies of the "I can't explain it, so God" types, but they're much harder to unpack in order to get to that point. You quote Stenger yet seem to fail to realize that Stenger wrote an entire book in an attempt to debunk to the fine-tuning argument. You don't have to write books to debunk non-sophisticated arguments. Not to mention that it was the sophistication of that argument and complexity that "turned" a not-considerable intellectual and atheist like Antony Flew. I really didn't force you to defend this crap; that was your own doing. For the Kalam argument to "work" the universe must already be in existence. The population of the early universe was quite small and it was limited to at least one creature who was intangible, immaterial and omnipotent. That's what the word universe means: the sum total of everything that exists. To Kalam believers there was something that didn't need to be created and that's God. You know what I mean by you "forcing me" to defend it. Strawmanning an argument in attempt to prove that it's not sophisticated is not what someone with integrity does. For the Kalam to work it merely depends on how it defines "universe," which can mean more than just "everything that exists." Specifically, it can just mean the material universe that we experience, or it can just mean "our universe" without reference to, eg, any other possible universes in a multiverse. It's not just theology that makes these distinctions but modern science as well, so don't think you can defeat the argument just by picking one possible definition ("the universe is everything that exists including God if God exists!"). Yes, I mentioned quantum fields earlier and I've argued before on RFAS that I think they form the strongest counter-argument to the Kalam. One thing I like about them is that they allow us to bypass arguing over the Kalam's central premises--everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, it has a cause--and simply argue that there's another hypothesis that's superior than God. However, arguing that quantum fields are a superior explanation isn't easy (it requires understanding the underlying science) and even then you haven't really defeated/debunked the Kalam, you've just offered an alternative that, despite its superiority, isn't proven. You assume too much. There are still fine-tuning problems that are open and acknowledged problems in science. For just a few examples: Non-Zero Cosmological ConstantHierarchy ProblemStrong CP ProblemThe flatness of the universe used to be a problem until Inflation was proposed and supported. I certainly think it's possible that these problems can potentially go away as we learn more, and I tend to think the multiverse is likely true anyway so whatever problems persist can be explained via that. The point is that Antony Flew was no dummy and to assert that he was just a "sucker" who "fell for BS" is both disrespectful and delusional. The simple fact is that he was converted because the argument IS sophisticated and isn't easy to debunk. Again, it's why Vilenkin wrote an entire book on it. You don't write entire books debunking the guy on the street who says "I can't explain it, so God." Yes, I'm aware of the controversy surrounding Flew's conversion, but there's no doubting that he, at the very least, converted to deism for some time. His last words on the matter seemed to affirm his belief in deism.
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