Atheists and Some Well Known Logical Problems.

Atheists have destroyed logic. When I went to debate workshop in high school one of the first things we learned was he who asserts an argument must prove that argument. The affirmative in a debate has the obligation to prove their case. They present the warrant and plan for change. But the negative has a responsibility to prove it's arguments. A negative speaking in a debate about air bags can't get up and say "Air Bags are dangerous and they don't work, make the affirmative prove is not so" and then not present evidence to back up that claim. Any debater attempting such a strategy would be the laughing stock of the tournament. Yes Atheists use this tactic on message boards all over the net.

Atheists are always saying "the believer has the burden of proof, religion is evil prove its not." I was in a debate the other day on Tweb where the atheist said "what makes Jesus God?" I gave some arguments which he couldn't answer so they began to say "but first you have to prove he existed, and you can't do that." Sot he whole debate became a totally new topic all because he could not answer hte first one. When I objected to that tactic he says "you know nothing about logic." Then he spends the rest of the thread going "Metacrock doesn't know anything about logic he has the burden to proof to show that Jesus existed." But in reality I don't. Jesus is assumed to be a historical fact by historians the myther has the burden to prove that there's a reason to doubt it. But this atheist I was arguing with worms his way around that by saying "its impossible to prove the negative. Therefore it's unfair to ask me to prove the negative." Thus because he can't prove the negative he gets totally shift to another top or bring up his handy dandy fundie stopper fail safe (myther thesis) because he can't answer my arguments? No that's obvious a crock.


The assertion that Jesus did not exist is asking us to obliterate history as we know it. Jesus is a historical fact. To assume he was not requires a change of the status quoe, that that gives the myther the burden. Now it's true they can't prove Jesus didn't exist and that would be proving a negative but they do have a burden. They must show that there is a reason to think he didn't exist. That would be esay if he didn't exist because then the Talmudists who wrote about him would say "he's a myth, hhe didn't exist" instead of making up a bogus history. Since we have wrintings by people who met his friends and by the communities who saw him and heard him the Jesus myth hpothesis cannot trade off of shifting the burden to proof.


as Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers says:

Let me give a more concrete example: Why should the claim "I have a brother" be held to a higher standard of proof than the claim "I do not have a brother"? Surely, if I make either claim I should have a reason for it. But isn’t the memory that I did grow up with a brother on the same footing evidentially as the memory that I did not grow up with one? Wouldn’t the fact that a brother is listed in the birth records for my family be on the same level as the fact that one is not listed in them? Why should a claim of existence require more evidence than a claim of nonexistence?

The evidence used to argue the existence or nonexistence of a brother is the same: my own memory, the testimony of relatives and family friends, what is recorded in birth and medical records. What this evidence says should settle the matter. I don’t have to produce any extra evidence to argue that a brother exists than to argue that one does not.

Who is Really Self Actuzliaed, Atheists or Theists?

Yeat another example of atheist attempt at social sciences, on the blog: God is for suckers

An atheist on the blog linked above discovered that actual sercet to realising the reality of God and he's too ignorant and vein to even figure what it means. He's trying to prove that Atheists are self actualized nd religious people not. In fact the studies actually, including those by Maslow whom he quotes and lauds, quite the opposite. Studies show that religious people are self actualized and atheists are not. But this guy, can't find his name, doesn't have a clue. So he uses anecdotal evidence and just asserts "all the atheists I nkow are like this so they must be self actualized, I hate Christianity so it must not be."

Here is how this advanced self actuzed enlightened human describes his site:

Commentary, news, and rants on the evils and stupidity of belief in the big invisible daddy in the sky. Illuminating and watchdogging the widespread attempts to institutionalize the theocratic rule of the US. Making fun of believers everywhere.

---

The graphic is from his blog

Now he's going to tell us what self actually is:

Atheism As Self Actualization

12 August 2007 by KA

Let’s talk about actualization, you and I. Take a good, strong look at where we stand.

Abraham Maslow, in 1943, a leader in humanistic psychology, came up with the theory of self-actualization.

No, this is no New Age nonsense: it’s not some Deepak Chopra chaff. It’s a theory that makes a lotta sense.

Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs is as follows:

a theory in psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of man’s innate curiosity. His theory contended that as humans meet ‘basic needs’, they seek to satisfy successively ‘higher needs’ that occupy a set hierarchy. Maslow studied exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”^[1] Maslow also studied one percent of the healthiest college student population. While Maslow’s theory was regarded as an improvement over previous theories of personality and motivation, it had its detractors. For example, in their extensive review of research that is dependent on Maslow’s theory, Wabha and Bridwell (1976) found little evidence for the ranking of needs that Maslow described, or even for the existence of a definite hierarchy at all.

his description of the nature of self actualization. He's quoting an article on Answers.com Even though he basis his arugment upon Maslow he takes issue with Maslows ideas.

I disagree with this last sentence. We require our physical needs be met. We yearn for security, routine. As pack animals, we absolutely must be loved, and provided with a sense of belonging. From those three, flows the fourth. We are, after all, hierarchal creatures.

My addendum to this, is that the religious folks are pretty much stuck at the Esteem level.

As pack animals we must be loved? He's making leap into unsupported claims by implying that love is a need of pack animals. He makes the unsupported assertion that religious people are stuck in one of the phases. Of course he can't see atheists aer stuck just the rule keeping stage. This is a rank armature.I am betting he's in high school, it's certain he has not studied social sciences at the college level.

Now he's going in deeper, from supported claims to anecdotal evidence.

Let’s elaborate, with a personal anecdote. I had a pretty tough childhood (yeah, I know, we all did, just bear with me). Insecure, bullied, wrestling with the divergent hormone avalanche, I sought out alternative ways of validation. Food was one. The occult was another.

It gave me a secret, it gave me the illusion of power. Adolescent fantasies of strength. Luckily, I outgrew all that folderol.

And here is my take: there are many, many things in this life, this world, this universe, that are out of our individual control. Weather, other people’s behavior, other variables over which we exert zero control.

Of course if his low self esteem is what drove him to atheism, then we would search through a succession of positions that would grant him the best illusion of power and worth. It somehow just doesn't occur to him that since he hasn't gotten healed emotionally then the one stuck with is just the one that offers the greater illusion. So my theory about atheists is that they are into the hate because it give them the rush of feeling Superior. They can prop up their failing self esteem by saying "look at these stupid religious slobs, they are so much dumber than i am." One would never think that by reading he hateful intro to his blog above.

So it is in this cloak of flesh we wear, that insecurity plagues us, dogs our footsteps, and sends the wearer on various bunny trails.

Gnostic dualism yet?

So, of all the paths we tread, those that are most tempting, are the ones that are well trodden, that whisper of the ego of personal power. Whether it be of ourselves as the mighty warrior or the keeper of darkness, the vessel of some ghostly power that will act upon us or to impart some supernatural element in hopes that all will be made right one day, that keening wail of the down-trodden that someone comes someday to pass judgment so that the scales will be righted.

If we look at the fifth level, the formula comes clear: most atheists I know are in possession of those attributes (that I know of: there are exceptions, no doubt).

Atheism is what adults do, that is, when the bloom is off the adolescent rose.

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Let's talk about what adult don't do. First of all, if they have academic training at all, even at the undergraduate level, they don't' blather unsupported assertions and they try to support them with nothing more anecdotal evidence. This is nothing more than the atheist tendency to play social scientist which we see going awry in so many failed atheist arguments all over the net. This is about the worst one I've ever seen. Another thing adults don't do is mock, ridicule and deride people with other view points just becuase they differ from our own. The only reason this guy doesn't this is because he's not an adult he's probably a high school kid rebelling against Dad because because he's gotten a big does of super ego to counter his own id, and obviously he discovered some bits of psychoanalytic theory and he can resist trying to play shrink.

And so we as atheists go about, attempting to educate our fellow adults, who are trying to clutch the dreams of their youth with tremulous hands. It falls to us, then, to lead the world to maturity.

This is the
Apostate, signing off.

so that's what they are doing when they mock, deride, and ridicule me and claim I didn't go to graduate school and refuse to read the posts I spend hours researching, and tell me I have never read the books I've read. They are trying to educate me. In what? In anecdotal evidence?

To be an educator my deal little ignoramus you must know something! You do not know shit from shinola!

The fact of the matter is Maslow would have thought this approach imbecilic. Maslow, though an atheist, did not think religious people were fools. he said "atheists and believers can go a long way down the path together." He admired religious people adn thought they were strong. He admired because the research data that he did proved that people with religious experience re much more self actualized than those who don't have it.

I'll say it again. The studies show that people who have religious experience (what Mslow called "peak experience") other call "mystical," score much higher on self actualization tests than do atheists.

Maslow was concerned with showing healthy psychology. He noted that Freud,Jung, and all the major thinkers in the field of psychology focused on what makes people abnormal, they wanted to know what makes people healthy. His notion of self actualization is the idea, the epitome of healthy psychology. In his research Maslow discovered that religious people tended to be more self actualized than those who do not have religious experiences and he wrote a book about it: Religious Values and Peak Experience (the entire text of the book is on line).



studies have validated Maslow:


Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 3, 92-108 (1982)
DOI: 10.1177/0022167882223011

Scale Development and Theory Testing

Eugene W. Mathes

Department of Psychology, Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois 61455.

The research reported here involved the creation of a measure of the tendency to have peak experiences called the Peak Scale, and the testing of several hypotheses drawn from Maslow's theory of peak experiences. It was found that although individuals who report having peak experiences are also likely to report having experiences involving intense happiness, they are even more prone to report having cognitive experiences of a transcendent and mystical nature. This suggests that although the peak experience involves positive affect, it is primarily a transcendent and mystical cognitive event. Individuals who report having peak experiences are more likely to report living in terms of Being-values, such as truth, beauty, and justice, than individuals who report not having peak experiences. Finally, self-actualizing individuals are more likely to report having peak experiences than less self-actualizing individuals, though the relationship is not a very strong one. In general, these results are consistent with Maslow's theorizing.

Many other studies have done as well.



Dr. Michale Nielson,Ph.D. Psychology and religion.
"http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/ukraine/index.htm"

Quote:

"What makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."

Gagenback

Quote:

In terms of psychological correlates, well-being and happiness has been associated with mystical experiences,(Mathes, Zevon, Roter, Joerger, 1982; Hay & Morisy, 1978; Greeley, 1975; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987) as well as self-actualization (Hood, 1977; Alexander, 1992). Regarding the latter, the developer of self-actualization believed that even one spontaneous peak or transcendental experience could promote self-actualization. Correlational research has supported this relationship. In a recent statistical meta-analysis of causal designs with Transcendental Meditation (TM) controlling for length of treatment and strength of study design, it was found that: TM enhances self-actualization on standard inventories significantly more than recent clinically devised relaxation/meditation procedures not explicitly directed toward transcendence [mystical experience] (p. 1; Alexander, 1992)

But let us turn to quotations by Maslow himself, becuase it's very instructive. Maslow was an atheist but the had Buddhist leanings and he did not hate religious people. He respected religious people, especially mystics. He said:

My feeling is that if it were never to happen again, the power of the experience could permanently affect the attitude toward life. A single glimpse of heaven is enough to confirm its existence even if it is never experienced again. It is my strong suspicion that even one such experience might be able to prevent suicide, for instance, and perhaps many varieties of slow self-destruction, e.g., alcoholism, drug-addiction, addiction to violence, etc. I would guess also, on theoretical grounds, that peak-experiences might very well abort "existential meaninglessness," states of valuelessness, etc., at least occasionally. (These deductions from the nature of intense peak-experiences are given some support by general experience with LSD and psilocybin. Of course these preliminary reports also await confirmation.

This then is one kind of peak-knowledge of whose validity and usefulness there can be no doubt, any more than there could be with discovering for the first time that the color "red" exists and is wonderful. Joy exists, can be experienced and feels very good indeed, and one can always hope that it will be experienced again.

and again:

Now that may be taken as a frank admission of a naturalistic psychological origin, except that it invovles a universal symbology which is not explicable through merely naturalistic means. How is it that all humans come to hold these same archetypical symbols? (For more on archetypes see Jesus Chrsit and Mythology page II) The "prematives" viewed and understood a sense of transformation which gave them an integration into the universe. This is crucial for human development. They sensed a power in the numenous, that is the origin of religion."

"In Appendix I and elsewhere in this essay, I have spoken of unitive perception, i.e., fusion of the B-realm with the D-realm, fusion of the eternal with the temporal, the sacred with the profane, etc. Someone has called this "the measureless gap between the poetic perception of reality and prosaic, unreal commonsense." Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I, fromPeak Experience

Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred and the eternal is blind... does that sound like the adult Maslow is ready to join in with your friend in mocking and ridiculing religious thought?

The Greely study spcificially disproves the notion this guy sets forth that religious people are losers and unsuceesful and trying to pretend about a "sky daddy" becuase they can't make it in life:

Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)

Long term effects of religious experience have been demonstrated by such major studies as Noble and Wuthnow:

Long-Term Effects

Wuthnow:

*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion

Short-Term Effects (usually people who did not previously know of these experiences)

*Experience temporarily disorienting, alarming, disruptive
*Likely changes in self and the world,
*space and time, emotional attitudes, cognitive styles, personalities, doubt sanity and reluctance to communicate, feel ordinary language is inadequate

*Some individuals report psychic capacities and visionary experience destabilizing relationships with family and friends Withdrawal, isolation, confusion, insecurity, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, panic, restlessness, grandiose religious delusions

Links to Maslow's Needs, Mental Health, and Peak Experiences When introducing entheogens to people, I find it's helpful to link them to other ideas people are familiar with. Here are three useful quotations. 1) Maslow - Beyond Self Actualization is Self Transcendence ``I should say that I consider Humanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a preparation for a still `higher' Fourth Psychology, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, selfactualization and the like.''

Abraham Maslow (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being, Second edition, -- pages iii-iv.



2) States of consciousness and mystical experiences
The ego has problems:
the ego is a problem.

``Within the Western model we recognize and define psychosis as a suboptimal state of consciousness that views reality in a distorted way and does not recognize that distortion. It is therefore important to note that from the mystical perspective our usual state fits all the criteria of psychosis, being suboptimal, having a distorted view of reality, yet not recognizing that distortion. Indeed from the ultimate mystical perspective, psychosis can be defined as being trapped in, or attached to, any one state of consciousness, each of which by itself is necessarily limited and only relatively real.'' -- page 665

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.



3) Therapeutic effects of peak experiences

``It is assumed that if, as is often said, one traumatic event can shape a life, one therapeutic event can reshape it. Psychedelic therapy has an analogue in Abraham Maslow's idea of the peak experience. The drug taker feels somehow allied to or merged with a higher power; he becomes convinced the self is part of a much larger pattern, and the sense of cleansing, release, and joy makes old woes seem trivial.'' -- page 132

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.




Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration. Unpublished paper by Jayne Gackenback, (1992)
http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

"These states of being also result in behavioral and health changes. Ludwig (1985) found that 14% of people claiming spontaneous remission from alcoholism was due to mystical experiences while Richards (1978) found with cancer patients treated in a hallucinogenic drug-assisted therapy who reported mystical experiences improved significantly more on a measure of self-actualization than those who also had the drug but did not have a mystical experience. In terms of the Vedic Psychology group they report a wide range of positive behavioral results from the practice of meditation and as outlined above go to great pains to show that it is the transcendence aspect of that practice that is primarily responsible for the changes. Thus improved performance in many areas of society have been reported including education and business as well as personal health states (reviewed and summarized in Alexander et al., 1990). Specifically, the Vedic Psychology group have found that mystical experiences were associated with "refined sensory threshold and enhanced mind-body coordination (p. 115; Alexander et al., 1987)."

(4) Greater happiness


Religion and Happiness

by Michael E. Nielsen, PhD


Many people expect religion to bring them happiness. Does this actually seem to be the case? Are religious people happier than nonreligious people? And if so, why might this be?

Researchers have been intrigued by such questions. Most studies have simply asked people how happy they are, although studies also may use scales that try to measure happiness more subtly than that. In general, researchers who have a large sample of people in their study tend to limit their measurement of happiness to just one or two questions, and researchers who have fewer numbers of people use several items or scales to measure happiness.

What do they find? In a nutshell, they find that people who are involved in religion also report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not religious. For example, one study involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness



Argyle, M., and Hills, P. (2000). Religious experiences and their relations with happiness and personality. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 157-172.

Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

< face="Arial Narrow">

Recent Empirical Studies Prove Religious Believers have less depression, mental illness lower Divorce rate, ect.

J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

Quote:

"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical staus in whihc research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alchohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and martital satisfaction, (9) Physical Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies....The authors underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of teh few longevity or mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who attended chruch...at least 70% of the time, increased religious commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from problems."

[The authors conducted a literature search of over 2000 publications to glean the current state of empirical study data in areas of Spirituality and health]

70% of the time believers are more likely than non believers (or at least experiences are more likely than non experiencers) to have these effects of self actualization.

Atheists hate to lose

on carm I pasted their hides to the wall. I bet them on a God argumen it's so obvious they had nothing to day for a whole thread. it's totally ridiculous.

they are so angry because they couldn't answer that they are resorted to saying things like "don't trust anything Metacrock says.



http://www.christiandiscussionforums...d.php?t=188676

in this next one one of them who is so totally angry because I won the God arugment hat he's just beside himself took something I said totally out of context and passed it off as my own actual belief system so he could mock and ridicule me, but he jus totally left out the fact that it's not what I believe and I made that quite clear.

the post where I say that is actually in the firs link. Here's the link where the takes it out of context.

http://www.christiandiscussionforums...d.php?t=188860


one calling himself "teabagsalad" who is commonly quite rational rests to this which nothing to do with anythin gI said.


Quote:
You just totally skip over the part where I tell ossification that this is what I think the "B" theory of time is about. I admitted I don't know much about it and I was running that by him to see if I got it right.
Ah another nut. If I make a claim that I didn't really know what I was talking about then they might not notice that what I said didn't make any sense.

Quote:
Pity you don't understand about context.
Best just use another one. I'll go back to attacking them again...chuck it in the middle of a paragraph and they might get a bit offended and forget that I said I didn't know what I was talking about.

Quote:
But that does expalin why atheists never get the context of a bible verse.
Ah context. So Meta, tell us what context should we take the Biblical commands about stoning gay people to death, oh and people who work on the sabbath...and what about kids who answer back...what context should we take the explicit instructions given? Maybe as part of a bronze/iron age document that has no moral relevance to the modern world. Maybe you should start reading it for what it actually is...just a set of myths made up by men (and not very advanced men at that)? Surely a man of your self proffessed intellect can see the Bible for what it really is?

Oh and before you start to point out that I left a debate with you I would just like to say that the sort of drivel you just posted is the reason why.

He's close to raving.

so when you make an argument they pelt you with mocking and ridicule then when you stump them and they can't answer it they get really surly. It's ludicrous. why can't these people think? why do they not react like normal humans?

they are so full of rage and anger and hostility they love being snide and mocking showing how superior they think they are but all of their alleged superiority is based on not understanding liberal arts.

More Stupid Atheist Tricks (2089?)

This is from the comment secontion in the lattest installment of Metacrock's Blog.


Anonymous dmcderm said...

Um, Metacrock, hate to bust in like this again, but your fish analogy doesn't make any sense. The direct analogy for humans would be air, not God, and humans have known about air for thousands of years. You might consider readingthis wiki article to shore up this obvious gap in your knowledge. If humans can detect air, I think its fair to say that fish scientists would be able to detect water.

When I read things like that, and after I stop laughing, I have trouble taking the rest of what you say seriously. After all, a philosophical argument is only as strong as its premises, and if you think that we can't detect the air around us, when we clearly can, then you apparently haven't grasped that important principle.

9:15 PM
Delete


Blogger J.L. Hinman said...

Um, Metacrock, hate to bust in like this again, but your fish analogy doesn't make any sense. The direct analogy for humans would be air, not God,

my answer:
first of all, I don't think you understand what analogies are. Anagloeis are not proofs. They illustrations. Thus they only have to match up with they are illustrating. Yes, there is something more analogus to water for fish than God for humans. In other words If I was doing the Miller analogy test and I saw this:

Water is to fish as

(a) air is to humans

(b) God is to humans

I would pick A. But I'm doing the Miller analogy test. I'm illustrating the idea of how you miss something that is so close to you that that's why you miss it. See? So the point is God is very close to us and that's why we don't see him. He's not far away he's in us. he's part of us we are part of him. get it?

and humans have known about air for thousands of years. You might consider readingthis wiki article to shore up this obvious gap in your knowledge. If humans can detect air, I think its fair to say that fish scientists would be able to detect water.

Here are you merely displaying your ignorance. Three men in the history of scinece who discovered that air was good for you. Yes, we knew about air since time in memorial. we did not always know it was good! understand? that's part of the history of science and I studied it as my Ph.D. dissertation. Boyle was a big part of my dissertation. SO I know what I'm talking about I'm an excerpt on that era and you are not.

When I read things like that, and after I stop laughing, I have trouble taking the rest of what you say seriously.

But you see that's because you are stupid and you are not well read. you are very ignorant and like ignorant people you are arrogant becuase you think you know stuff becuase you are too ignorant to know how much you don't know.

After all, a philosophical argument is only as strong as its premises, and if you think that we can't detect the air around us, when we clearly can, then you apparently haven't grasped that important principle.

9:15 PM


this is an example of how stupid you are. You assume I'm saying we can't detect air becausre you are too dumb to follow the analogy and too ignorant to understand the history of human thought. So you jus tthin duh, we know air exists so ther's nothing here to see, duhy!

go read something stupid! go look up Robert Boyle you idiot and learn something.

7:10 AM
Delete


This makes me angry because here's this guy who knows absolutely nothing about the history of scinece. He probably doesn't even know that there is a history of scinece. I knew that there was a time when people didn't understand the set up with air and breathing and didn't really understand why if you block the air form someone they die. People knew that, but they didn't know why. I knew this way back in high school because i'm bright, and imitative and i heard it or read it or something somewhere and I just knew it. This guy didn't know it because he's not very observant.

But the real anger making thing here is that he doesn't understand how analogies work. They are not proofs. you start with the idea that you want to illustrate and find something that is as indicative or like it as you can, there are going to be things that are more analogous but you are not trying to illustrate those things. I am not trying to illustrate that humans need air. I'm trying to illustrate that the reason we don't see God and we have an obvious empirical knowledge of God si not because God is too far away, it's because he's too close.


The fish analogy is just amusing cartoon idea that a fish scientist is assigned to find out what this strange substance humans about is; water. He can't find it and it never occurs to him that he's looking through it while he's looking for it. Since this guy doesn't really understand what analogies are for he thinks the literalism of the correspondence is more important the illustration of an idea. Analogies are not proof. Most atheists argue by analogy which is fallacious. Analogy is only used to illustrate concepts.

Here's another analogy, this guy is like Jethro Bodine on the Beverly Hillbillies. He thinks he's ultra smart because he went as far as he could go in the educational system of the bustling metropolis of Bugtussel Arkansas.So when he comes up against something he doesn't understand in Beverly Hills California he just compares it to what he knows form the hills back home and assumes he must be right.

Debating my God Arguments

Hate group atheism strikes again.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/comment/reply/18281/259687?quote=1


Rational response sqade, (hysterical response squad) is attacking my God arguments. People on their message board. I can't do anything about it because they have their boards set up so that I can't cut, paste or use spell check. For me that's really below the belts. The little band of Hitlerian thugs march on. Just for grins here's my answer to their stupidity. This made me angry because I feel that I'm unable to fight back. Now I wonder why should I view it as "fighting?"

this guy just listed the argument titles from the God arguent list and then makes a bunch of one line answers. I think he truly did not know that it was a list of titles and each one was linked to more pages. I think he really thought the list itself was one long disconnected argument.

1. Based on the false assumptions of every event needing a cause and of the impossibility of an infinite regress

You don't get to assume that ICR is estabilshed fact and opposing it is a fallacy. You must prove that it is. Logicians do not recognize this as a fallacy. You must prove it is. I have arguments that demonstrate the impossibility of ICR. You must answer them. You don't get to assert them.

My argument does not assume that everything needs a cause. It's carefully designed to avoid that, and I explain it very carefully. This makes me think that you didn't read it. I also think you didn't know this was a list of arguments.

2. (It's "New!" ) Assumes something "beyond empirical" in order to support a "beyond empirical" being. A.k.a question-begging

He even mocks the idea of a new argument on the list. That's nuts. To be so hyped up on hate and so desperate to make any sort of criticism that you actually criticize having a little icon that says "new" by an argument, that's pathetic.

3. Assumes a "before the universe" which may actually be inconsistant. False assumptions in 1 and 4.

He's confussed by this quote that I use by Dr. Odenwald a NASA physicist:

Dr. Sten Odenwald (Raytheon STX) for the NASA IMAGE/POETRY Education and Public Outreach program

Q:Which came first, matter or physical laws?

"We do not know, but matter is derivative from energy, and energy is derivative from 'field' so in some sense, the physical laws that determine the quantum dynamics of fields must have been primary, with matter as we know it coming much later."

Clearly a NASA physicist is aware of the paradox of no "before" before time. But he's not saying there is literally a time before time.He's clearly talking about the physics that would govern the expansion of the singularity. There is a time before the universe. It's not a time before time but here is a time before the universe when the inflationary period first starts and before the actual universe is formed. It lasts about a nono second.

the argument doesn't depend on that. It does depend upon the idea of physical laws but that's the same requiring a time before time.

4. Ignores the observed fact that complexity can be built up from non-complex items and rules

That's a fallacy. The argument is not about complexity per se and it doesn't argue against moving from simple to complex. It's about probability he cant' demonstrate that fine tuning is not improbable.

5. Seriously? An argument from instinct? This is just silly. Equates evolution with "random chance" (as usual), and part e (that religion promotes health) is not actually supported by any research.

So typical of know nothing hate group atheism to poison the well. The dildo didn't even read the argument he just calls it some names. If evolution is not the product of random change whan what rationalistic force governs it? How does that differ from God?

I think what we have here is another ignorant little illiterate who thinks that all Christians are creationists. He thinks I'm arguing against evolution. why do these incredibly stupid people insist upon making comments on these ideas are so far over their heads they have no chance of every knowing anything aout them?

6. Argument from NOMA. See my earlier post in this thread as to why "beyond science" is ultimately meaningless.

This is some bizarre little atheist-speak they have developed that has nothing to do with real thinking. The ideologues are brainwashed into believing that this NOMA thing assures thier sucess and you can't doubt it or argue against because it's a fetish or totem of their cult. It has nothing to with my argument. He has about as much chance of understand Kuhn as the man in the Moon. But he's so determined that Kuhn is an evil creationist because he's not spouting the ideologoy of the cult.

If he ever goes to graduate school, or the moon. he wil find that Kun was not a creationist and he will be thunderstruck.

7. Assumption 2 is probably false and at least non-demonstrable. Ultimately it's a claim that science will never be capable of explaining mystical experiences, which is not supported in any way. Again see my earlier post with regards to using supernatural as a causal explanation.

Well at least there's some evidence that he read it. He didn't understand it but he read it.

here are the three assumptions, assuming he meant assumptinos and not propositons:

(1) The trace produced content with speicificually religious affects

(2)The affects led one to a renewed sense of divine relaity, are transformative of life goals and self actualization

(3) Cannot be accounted for by alteante cuasality or other means.

He says that number 2 here means that I'm saying science will never understand mysticism. What he means by "understand" is "explain away." No science will never explain away mysticism. That's not what I'm saying here. He can't argue with this assumption it has nothing to do with science explaining it and it's backed up by 300 studies. But he's talking about proposition 2 not assumption 2.


(2)These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.

He can't demonstrate that he can reduce them. He merely asserts that they have been.Of course he hasn't read my answers which the idiocy of thinking that the stupid brain chemistry studies prove anything.

(1) God has to use brain chemistry to communicate because that's how we communicate. So we can expect to find brain chemistry associated with these effects. that does not prove they are reduced to brain chemistry. that's just an argument from sign. that's where the ideology of cult kicks in and says "If there's a link to brain chemistry that the whole thing is disproved because a link means causality." Any other time these guys would argue that a correlation does not prove causality but when reductionism is at work then it does. They want to reduce it such that they lose the phenomena so all the need is a correlation and that's enough for them.

(2) Hood demonstrates that the M scale validates Stace's theory. That means that it can be used to determine the authentic nature of a mystical experience. John Hick proves that brain chemistry studies don't use the M scale. So most of the studies which claim to have produced mystical experience by chemicals cannot truly make that claim because they can't prove it was really mystical experience that they produced.

(3) There is a hos of other arguments that make commencement out of this assertion, it's actually doing nothing more than losing the phenomena. They can't explain why it has long term positive effects. They explain why it enables one to navigate in life. Most chemical embalances are determinable. this is the only case where they produced a much better life than one had before. They can't explain why that would be.

8. Assertion 3 is false. We know the "real world" exists due to independent confirmation. If I see a chair, I can ask another person if he sees that chair, and if we both see it then I can believe it's real. Also this is more an argument that mystical experiences are real without actually arguing that their supposed sources are real.

This is the Thomas Reid argument. He asserts "independent confirmation." What a stupid and meaningless phrase? What the hell is that? What sort of "independent confirmation is independent of one's perceptions? He asserts the illusion of the world can just be taken for granted and the problem of other minds will just go away because he wants confirmation. As it so happens I included "shared" or Inter subjective in my criteria. he should have seen that. RE does fit that criterion. But even so there' s no way to oprove our perception of other minds is real. We have to accept it and make a judgment to accept it. that' s my argument that's why he tried to deny.

I'm stopping here. I've demonstrated his arguments are pie crust. I am willing to debate him or any of them. It has to be on my turf. I have a board with a 1x1 debate board.

Just let me know when you are ready.

OK Hermit where's the insult?

this is on this thread on carm:


here are the links to the various posts. they are not linked but you can see where the other guys began to attack me. Where the read bold is starts the insults. You can see clearly that before they start it's going ok and I am not insulting them. Below are the eight posts I make between my first on the thread and their beginning of the attack. Now you tell me where I made the big insult that really deserved what they are doing?

also note these are in reverse orde. So the lat one is first. and going down on this list is like going up on the board.


Naturalist Did Jesus exist? 2 Days Ago, 11:02 PM
Mada How do we know you exist than. 2 Days Ago, 11:08 PM
Naturalist Are you serious? I'm not interested... 2 Days Ago, 11:15 PM
Metacrock I hae stunning proof. I have tons of... 2 Days Ago, 01:14 AM
Billi How do we know if Santa Clause is a... 2 Days Ago, 11:13 PM
Naturalist This is the stuff I hoped to avoid....... 2 Days Ago, 11:19 PM
Metacrock yes fine, read this link. I have tons... 2 Days Ago, 01:14 AM
Notorious Some guy named Jesus who was a rebel of... 2 Days Ago, 02:17 AM
Metacrock no you don't. I call you on that. As a... 2 Days Ago, 02:26 AM
Notorious I'm not going to take the time and... 2 Days Ago, 02:32 AM
krew07 lIKE mEAT SAYS, the evidence is... 2 Days Ago, 02:57 AM
Metacrock (1) you are expecting a guy living in... 2 Days Ago, 01:35 PM
MFFJM2 The Josephus mention of Jesus, occurs... 2 Days Ago, 01:46 PM
Metacrock wrong. there are a few historians who... 2 Days Ago, 02:33 PM
Gao While I agree with you that there was a... 2 Days Ago, 02:41 PM
Metacrock He didn't say "the Mishna." He said... 2 Days Ago, 03:02 PM
Metacrock I am getting all those little guys out... 2 Days Ago, 03:09 PM
Metacrock Suetonius G. Galen H.Celsus ... 2 Days Ago, 03:10 PM
Gao You seem to be conflating the idea of a... 2 Days Ago, 02:19 PM
Metacrock that sux. what an attitude! Give me the... 2 Days Ago, 01:04 PM
Notorious Meta, you know as well as i do that i... 1 Day Ago, 08:38 PM
Metacrock that's just ideological bunck. Science... 1 Day Ago, 09:58 PM
Dr Pepper The problem with history is that it is... 1 Day Ago, 11:14 PM
Metacrock that's why you need the documents. ... 1 Day Ago, 12:07 AM
Harry C True, that’s why you can’t call Jesus... 1 Day Ago, 12:15 AM
Metacrock It doesn't take much to prove someone... 1 Day Ago, 12:43 AM
Notorious By science i mean natural science, i... 1 Day Ago, 11:17 PM
MFFJM2 Maybe he keeps coming off his... 1 Day Ago, 11:49 PM
JHFC Amen! 1 Day Ago, 12:06 AM
Metacrock He asked for the evidence... 1 Day Ago, 12:15 AM
JHFC Quoting for posterity. 1 Day Ago, 12:18 AM
Metacrock what is your problem? you just don't... 1 Day Ago, 12:19 AM
JHFC I'm not the one calling people stupid... 1 Day Ago, 12:28 AM
Metacrock you are the one destroyed the therad... 1 Day Ago, 12:37 AM
God-free I guess I should've read further into... 1 Day Ago, 05:28 PM
Metacrock so when you get your *** kicked in... 1 Day Ago, 12:14 AM
JHFC Wow. LOL. OMG. 1 Day Ago, 12:17 AM
Metacrock here is what the first post says: ... 1 Day Ago, 12:23 AM
Harry C He does this all the time. Pay no... 1 Day Ago, 12:25 AM
Metacrock face your dishonesty troll. I tore the... 1 Day Ago, 12:40 AM
Dr Pepper You remind me of Howard Cosell. He too... 1 Day Ago, 12:57 AM
Metacrock Look I used to value your opinion and... 1 Day Ago, 01:04 AM
JHFC YOU are responsible for your own... 1 Day Ago, 01:43 AM
Metacrock you are so transparent. One can only... 1 Day Ago, 04:16 PM
JHFC That's a good thing. Well you see,... 1 Day Ago, 07:21 PM
Metacrock But the problem is I don't have time to... 23 Hours Ago, 09:03 PM
JHFC EDIT Nope. It sure doesn't stop you.... 22 Hours Ago, 09:48 PM
MFFJM2 Amen. 8 Hours Ago, 12:24 PM
Metacrock Yes but you are shallow,... 6 Hours Ago, 01:32 PM
Dr Pepper The problem is that history isn't fact... 1 Day Ago, 01:10 PM
Metacrock (I) that does not help your argument... 1 Day Ago, 04:13 PM
Dr Pepper I'm afraid I am off thread a bit here. ... 1 Day Ago, 05:40 PM
JHFC Unfortunately that is true.... 1 Day Ago, 01:40 AM



couting from the post where he started and moving back up the therad toward the first:

Suetonius

G. Galen

H.Celsus

http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/HistJesus7.html

Talmud

http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/Talmud_JC.html

that's one

---------------

I am getting all those little guys out of order like Galen. I admit those are not major sources. But the overall effect of all of them means there was quite a bit more about Jesus being said in the first two centuries than mythers want to admit.

here are links on my pages on them.

Thuallus and Phlegan

http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/HistJesus5.html

Lucean

http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/HistJesus6.html
__________________
Metacrock

Zaveric: "To be sure, things that make real things pop into existence require an explanation beyond "They don't require explanation".."
that's 2

----------------

stop me when we come to the insult

He didn't say "the Mishna." He said "the Jews."


you know his works don't survive we have to take the apologists refutting him at their word:

Origen, Contra Celsum 1.28


Quote:
"Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her living by the work of her own hands. His mother had been turned out of doors by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being convicted of adultery [with a soldier named Panthéra (i.32)]. Being thus driven away by her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard. Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing. He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god."
more (you may have to scroll down on this page).

http://www.doxa.ws/Jesus_pages/HistJesus7.html


Quote:
What passage was this, and was it something they found or "reconstructed?"

Could you be a bit more specific here? Which book and where?
I think all we know of his writing come from other people. But I don't think it would be a good argument to accuse the apologists of lying. maybe they left our or never saw damaging stuff but it's not cricket to accuse them of lying.






Quote:
[COLOR=blue][COLOR=#000000] Please provide a specific reference.

First of all, please provide the specific Celsus passage where he says this. Second, didn't Celsus also say that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier? Doesn't that contradict the whole geneology thing?

I'm not sure that we should take that as propaganda any less than the Gospels. After all, the Christians had motivation to exaggerate and change things in the opposite direction.

Celsus didn't say anything about the genealogy that is from the Talmud. the issues that are the same between the two are the implication that he was illicit, implication that his mother was a whore, the specific allegation that she was a hair dresser (which carried the connotation fo lose morals). there are some other things.




Quote:
How do you know Luke ever met with them?
I may be wrong,I might to re read that passage but I believe he was on that trip where Paul met them. If not, it doesn't really make sense that he knew Paul and he searched for different source and did research but he wouldn't contact them? If not they they aren't a major source for Luke perhaps but for Paul they would have been.

contrary to popular opinon Paul has a lot connection with Jesus teachings, so much so that Koester argues taht he had a say source.


Quote:
I'm not sure that these two points tell us anything about whether this Gospel had good sources. It just means that they wrote something in a more personal way than the other Gospels.
Not sure to what you are referring.



Quote:
Seriously? We know nothing about what he wrote, and the only reference that comes close to talking about Jesus just says that he mentioned an eclipse that he believed to be natural. I don't think you can use this as evidence for anything about Jesus. In addition, I've heard a lot of arguments about the date of his writing.
what we know comes from Africanus. Africanus was a highly respected historian. Holding and Miller both have big things on how good he is as a source.


Quote:
I'm pretty sure that he got this information from Pliny the Younger or a Christian, and I doubt he researched it much, since it was essentially a brief footnote.



Quote:
Wrote about a Chrestus who caused problems in Rome. I agree that it was probably a mangled reference to Jesus, but it's hard to tell what he knew. There is nothing here that says that he researched much about Jesus or Christianity at all.

He briefly mentioned that there were followers of Christ. This tells us nothing about a historical Jesus or whether he existed.

right right but it's he thought Christus was his name. He didn' t know about Jews to understand they used Christos to mean Messiah. He neither knew nor cared what "messaih" meant. He's not a great source but it does mean the followers in Rome understand Jesus as a historical guy at that point.



Quote:
Possible, but I'm not sure if "What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished," really fits Jesus that well, since Judea stopped being a kingdom in 6 AD, which was well before Jesus was even an adult.
that's what a foreigner would have understood of "Messiah" that's he's the decedent of the line of kings and that makes him a King. there are deposed kingdoms in exile that go on. There's in Guatemala that's been around since the Spanish conquest and they still know and keep secret who the decent of their king who would be on the throne is at this time.




Quote:
I'm just going to say that from what I've seen, this is a much more debated point than you make it out to be. It's hard to tell what's a reference to Jesus (if anything), and it was oral tradition anyway, and that's not the most reliable method of preserving information. In addition, these texts were not intended as history, so I doubt anyone tried to check the facts in them.
Oral tradition is highly relaiable in cultures where they used it and taht's demonstrated in modern bardic survivals.

http://www.doxa.ws/Bible/Community2.html


Quote:
Could you give specific references? I'm having trouble finding relevant passages.
to what exactly?
__________________
Metacrock

Zaveric: "To be sure, things that make real things pop into existence require an explanation beyond "They don't require explanation".."

"things don't just pop into reality" (Ibid)
Metacrock is online now Add to Metacrock's Reputation Report Post Reply With Quote Multi-Quote This Message
Metacrock
View Public Profile
Send a private message to Metacrock
Visit Metacrock's homepage!
Find More Posts by Metacrock
Add Metacrock to Your Contacts

vBulletin Message

Cancel Changes

Quick Reply

thats' three

-------------------

wrong. there are a few historians who regard it as a forgery, the vast majority regard it as either totally geniune or a tweked version of a genuine core and they regard the core as good evidence Jesus existed.

here is the documentation on major scholars:

Quote:
A List of Scholar who accept at least some core passage.

John P. Meier
Raymond Brown
Graham Stanton
N.T. Wright
Paula Fredrickson
John D. Crossan
E.P. Sanders
Geza Vermes
Louis Feldman
John Thackeray
Andre Pelletier
Paul Winter
A. Dubarle
Ernst Bammel
Otto Betz
Paul Mier
Ben Witherington
F.F. Bruce
Luke T. Johnson
Craig Blomberg
J. Carleton Paget
Alice Whealey
J. Spencer Kennard
R. Eisler
R.T. France
Gary Habermas
Robert Van Voorst
Shlomo Pines
Edwin M. Yamuchi
James Tabor
John O'Connor-Murphy
Mark Goodacre
Paula Frederiksen
David Flusser
Steve Mason


Alice Whealy, Berkely Cal.

The TF controversy from antiquity to present

Twentieth century controversy over the Testimonium Flavianum can be distinguished from controversy over the text in the early modern period insofar as it seems generally more academic and less sectarian. While the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by Protestant scholars and while in the same period Jews outside the church uniformly denounced the text's authenticity, the twentieth century controversies over the text have been marked by the presence of Jewish scholars for the first time as prominent participants on both sides of the question. In general, the attitudes of Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular scholars towards the text have drawn closer together, with a greater tendency among scholars of all religious backgrounds to see the text as largely authentic. On the one hand this can be interpreted as the result of an increasing trend towards secularism, which is usually seen as product of modernity. On the other hand it can be interpreted as a sort of post-modern disillusionment with the verities of modern skepticism, and an attempt to recapture the sensibility of the ancient world, when it apparently was still possible for a first-century Jew to have written a text as favorable towards Jesus of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum.








Quote:
The second simply mentions him as having been crucified, and appears to be more credible than the aforementioned. Unfortunately, much of what is written in the Gospels is wrong or internally inconsistent, like the fact that Nazareth didn't exist until much later than the reported death of Jesus.

your opinion about the Gospels is unsubstantiated and merely based upon the ideology. The second mention of Jesus by Jo is enough to prove he existed as a man in history. that's the issue here. we are not discussing deity or the resurrection.
__________________
Metacrock


that's four

------------------


(1) you are expecting a guy living in the boonies to have the same access to information and outlets of media that someone living in a major center would have. that's just not realistic.

(2) you are expecting people in the aincient world to have the same access to information that we do today. If a guy in Jesus' day died in a town more than twenty miles away it would take them at least two days to hear about it through their fastest source of information. We could find out today in a matter of seconds, they would take at least two days.

(3) Romans didn't care about what happened in Palestine. It was the Romans who had most of the writing, most of the literate people, most of the people who wanted to read the writing. They did not give a rat's you know what about what happened in Palestine. So they have no motive and no mechinism for knowing about Jesus.

tat means we are dependent upon source sin Palestine, a backwater with few literate people to even know about his existence.

(4) Jesus was imortant and famous aruond the area we know as "Isreal" or what used to be "Palestine." But if you go outside the radius of a three day journey (big undertaking in the middle east then) you beyond the radius of Jesus' fame. They would have been very limited to what we would think of as a very small area. His total fame would have limited in his life time to an area the size of Dallas Texas today.

(5) to top all that off you are making an argument from silence. you are just saying 'we don't have sources that show x,y,z therefore those things never existed. argument form silence is a fallacy. It's known as illogical. The whole Jesus myth theory is based upon illogical fallacy.

(6) The sources that prove Jesus did exist are almost good enuough to be called "certain." They are fine sources and they prove it well enough to dispel any reasonable doubt. One can always doubt. you could stand before God on Judgment day and say "prove you are the God of the bible." But for a reasonable person the evidence is clear.

(a) Celsus was a skeptic. He hated Christianity and he wished to destory it. So he went to the Jews in Palestine (second century) and said "what's the scoup on this Jesus guy?" They did not say "o he never existed." They said "we know all about him.

In fact Jewish sources do prove he existed:

*The Talmud spoke of him a lot but they censored themselves and we know they did. They did this to prevent being persecuted by Christians for defaming Jesus. We have them talking about how they did it. We have the little circles they made to replace his name and they can be seen in copies of that era. We have passages they took out (Lightfoot the great Bible scholars presents a passage that was form a pre censored Talmud that talks about Jesus of Nazareth and the claims he was Messiah).

*a famous book on the history of the Talmud by a Jewish historian speaks of the late first century debates between Jesus' followers and other Jews. So they were believing in Jesus as historical guy in the late first century and he already had followers. In the Mishna which was first century material.

* A Talmudic passage says that they found Jesus' genealogy and can trace his family and it agrees with Luke's genealogy.

Celsus tells us that the Jews told him about Jesus "true" history and the material that he mentions is exactly like the things said about Jesus in the Mishna. So we know that he did see those sources, which are first century. This proves that the Jews know of him in the first century and accepted that he was a real guy. This is especially truer of the genealogy thing, he had a family.

Some of what they asy about him is obviously propaganda but they did not say "he never existed." They accepted him and claimed they know about his family.


(b) Pauline-Peterian-Clement of Rome connection.

(1) Paul knew people who knew Jesus.

*Andronicus and Junia

*Met philiip
*met James
*met Peter
*met Andrew

*Knew people following Jesus from the earliest period (Pricilla and Aquilla had been with John the Baptist).

* Paul met the four daughters of Philip of Hyropolis (Philip above was the Apostle but not this guy). These daughters are said by early chruch fathers to have acted as the first historians keeping track of their materiel and the formation of the early chruch. Luke met them and probably used them as his major source for his Gospel. Luke includes the meeting with Paul in Acts.

* The author known as "Clement of Rome" (whether really Clement or not is unimportant) claimed to know people who saw Paul die and saw Peter die and knew them and met them in Rome. It's pretty obvious he actually claiming to be one of them but is too humble to brag about it. Read between the lines.

So the whole nexus of Peter and Paul and people they knew are tied together in that epistle of Clement and the four Daughters who independent sources document.

c Johanine community

the John community is very complex and too much so to go into here. But thumb nail is this: The Beloved Disciple of the fourth Gospels was probably Lazarus. He founded the community. It may have been that the Apostle John also had a hand in it, or they mereged with John's bunch from Samaria. But be that as it may, the final redactor was probably the elder John of whom Papias speaks. There is good evidence of first hand knowledge in John.

*the only glimpse we get into Jesus social life, his inner circle of friends that he know outside of his ministry. that include Lazarus.

*The only portrate of Jesus' emotions

(7) Church Fathers

(a) Papius tells us he knew two people who saw Jesus:

*Elder John

of whom he quotes many sayings and testimony some of which exist in independent fragment.

*Aristion

(b) Polycarp

Irenaeus tells us that Polycarp told him personally about his days learning from John (It is thought he meant the Apostle but he may have meant the Elder--but he was also an eye witness, the Elder was).



(8) secular sources



existed in the first century CE, or they mention Christ.

* Thallus (c. 50-75AD)

*Phlegon (First century)

* Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, c.93)

* Tacitus (Annals, c.115-120)

* Suetonius (Lives of the Caesars, c. 125)

* Galen (various writings, c.150)

* Celsus (True Discourse, c.170).


* Mara Bar Serapion (pre-200?)

* Talmudic References( written after 300 CE, but some refs probably go back to eyewitnesses)

*Lucian (Second century)

*Numenius (Second cent.)

*Galerius (Second Cent.)
__________________
Metacrock

Zaveric: "To be sure, things that make real things pop into existence require an explanation beyond "They don't require explanation".."

that's 5

-------------

no you don't. I call you on that. As a youn atheist that was one f the first things I noticed the unique nature of Jesus.

(1) No other world religion has the concept grace. It's the only one in the whole world that wanst to save you as a free gift of God's love. All the others want you to earn ti or do somethnig to merit it.

(2) Jesus is the first one who ever claimed to be the incarnation fo the ground of being. some have imitated him since then but none did it before him.

Alexander the great doesn't count because he did not believe he was the incorporate creator. He only believed he was the the spawn of a contingent god, small case "g."

(3) only Jesus rose from the dead with a phsyical empty tomb.

the bs about dying rising savior gods is jsut that,. it's al ie. when study real mythology you see aren't any. it's all made up by Jesus myth liars.

(4) the only ethical teacher in history who anticipated Kant's categorical imperative.
__________________

that's 6

--------------

yes fine, read this link. I have tons of evidence read it. I have many arguments all backed with evidence:

seven
------------

I hae stunning proof. I have tons of arguements and lots of evidence.
read this link:

eight
-----------

that's all. those are the only eight posts I put on the thread before he started his crap. where's the insult?

more stupid atheist tricks

a poster called HS Friend (probably a high school kid)
carm 15 august 2009

Science tells us that death is the end of existence for a human being, based upon the decomposition of the body after life functions cease.No life after death. If you accept the underlying assumption, you must accept the conclusion of science. You are trapped in a logical construct of your own making and cannot get out!

this person is claiming that science not only proves there's no life after death but actually "claims it" "tells us" as a scientific fact.

Need i say more?

Are We All Atheists? Answering an Atheist (Bill Walker)

On Metacrock's blog I got this comment from Bill Walker:

I do not understand this insistence that Atheists are a 'hate group'.We are the same as christians & they are like us. We're both agreed on the non-existence of a huge number of gods created by our primitive, tribal ancestors. We atheists simply disbelieve in one or a few more than Christians. Period ! Try to wrap your mind around this.

First of all, the argument of this blog is not that all atheists are members of a hate group. I say that a segment of the atheist community is heading down the road toward formation of a hate group if they don't stop and examine their attitudes, some of them already constitute a hate group. In analyzing the FBI profile of hate groups I have determined that this segment of atheism is in stage four now, that's one step away from violence, but I think there are seven stages so still have some to go. Most atheists are not violent, or at least not the stage of committing violence against religious people. Although there have been a couple of cases there plots of small groups to burn churches were discovered and stopped in time. But the supposition that anesthetist are responsible for the wave of chruch burnings is not verified. For this reason I say this segment is "approaching" the level of a hate group.

For the many the attitude is there now. I've seen people on message boards say that religious people should be put in jail. I've seen them contend that religious people are mentally ill, they are all brainwashed, that they are victims of hypnotism. These are extremeists and these attitudes are not things you hear everyday. I have seen many websites where atheists use the phrase "burning churches" as metaphors, symbols, screen names, ideals expressed, expressed as wishes, and one one Googles this phrase there are hundreds of websites where it is used in that way.

There hundreds of atheist message boards and every single one of them reflect a tone of arrogance, anger, hatred, people group up as a feeding frenzy to mock, deride and ridicule any Christian who goes on. This is standard. This not an extreme it's very single one! for years now I have been challenging atheists to go on atheist boards and pretend to be Christians to see how they are treated. Not one has ever taken me up on it in years! They don't need to see, they know they will be treated like shit.

As for the idea that we are all atheists, that is a total misunderstanding of what belief in God is. God is not a big man in the sky. Atheists think of all concepts of God as just a collection of personalities and that is not the case. The real difference the God of the Bible and Zeus or Thor is not that they have personalities. God of the Bible is not a contingent being, he' snot a man in the sky he's not just limited localized being with his own little personality; he is the basis of all reality. There can only be one and all the gods of different mythologies are merely pointing to that one reality behind all religions.

Belief in God is not just adding a fact ot the universe; there's also this guy named God. God is not just another opinion to argued with God is the basis of all reality. The world of the theist and that of the atheists are totally different worlds. They are not just one world has one guy extra in it. They are totally different. One world is based upon a purpose it has a meaning and it has a moral nature that part of it's very fabric. The other is meaningless, it exists by accident and has no propose and no reason for being. That means in the one world all the individual creatures and people have reasons for their lives, they can accomplish something, they have theological significance, it matters and each and every person lived. In the atheist world it doesn't' matter that you lived. you are nothing but worm food, all you ever could be.

It a vast difference that one believes in God or not. To say "you just believe one fewer God" is groundless and absurd because the different is vast. That one God is the only one there could be and all those little personalities are just place holders that point to the one god.

why are atheists so very stupid?

On a post at carm the op asked for historical evidence of Jesus' existence:

I'd like to see the hard historical evidence for Jesus Christ. I'm not interested in what your Bible has to say about him. Aside from your holy texts, how do we KNOW that Jesus Christ was a real person?

first I tried summarizing my historical Jesus pages but he didn't want that. He wanted a briefer summary.

I'm not interested in your religious beliefs. I'm interested in it's historical accuracy. Can you provide some evidence for Jesus' life without invoking your holy texts?

very stuipd demand because it assumes that the Gospels are not artifacts of people's beliefs and knowledge which of course they must be, simply because people wrote them.
He wont read my links so I begin to summarize.

After quite a bit of listing of evidence with quotes to prove my points,one of them argues from analogy and basically says in effect, "Joseph Smith was an idiot and his stuff was obviously bs so therefore the Bible is also Bs." I tell him argument from analogy is illogical and he tries to sneak it in as a non argument by saying that it's not argument from analogy it's just "unmistakeably parallels." What the hell do you call an analogy? that's exactly what it is and anyone with half a brain knows that.

Then his buddy comes along and denies that the historical has any place in the thread (the title of the thread is "did Jesus exist?" So historical evidence has no place in a thread called "did Jesus exist?"

By science i mean natural science, i thought you could infer that since i have told you that i am a biochemist but obviously you are more interested in rambling than in intellectual discourse.

Because that is what you are doing, we have a discussion and a fairly good one, we've had that in many threads, then you leave and when you come back it's like talking to a completely different person. You're just rambling now and there is no use continuing this, i will give you one more chance for reasoned debate, after that i'll put you on my ignore list.

so hes saying my historical arguments are rambling. then argument from analogy guy comes on and goes:

Maybe he keeps coming off his medication. I'm not a scientist by training.

they high jack the thread and take it away from the historical arguments so it's about me and my personality and how bad I am.

Atheists are resorting to cheating to win God arguments

Their new tactic is more and more to deny the basis upon which making arguments is valid. But arguments for God is a mainstay of the believer's reasons for understanding belief as rational.

the atheists have various grounds from dismissing God augments but they are all invalid.

(1) We have beaten them all show me a new one.

That's too bad, we (Christians) have to cope with hearing the same old crap form atheists all the time now many times we answer it. So their assertion that they beat all our arguments a million years ago and we don't have news ones is not a valid way to argue.

(2) God arguments are philosophy but only scientific fact is a valid from of knowledge.

this is just another stupid excuse. All they are saying is "anything that does not tally with my world is false a priori. I don't like philosophy so I ignore it. But that' snot more than dishonest. It would be ok if they said "I just can't really see believing something based upon philosophy." But to say "philosophy isn't valid" is idiotic, especially science came to exist as evolution form a form of philosophy.

They are tacitly admitting that they can't beat God arguments by logic or by arguing so they have to rule them out a prori.

I don't mind the idea that arguments don't prove anything. But atheists don't just stop and say "arguments don't prove anything so why argue?" They want to go on and insist that they have the only valid means of understanding the world. They then try to hijack science and turn into some kind of enforcement mechanism for atheist ideology.

they can't have it both ways. They can't insist that all forms of knowledge but the one they think backs them, are invalid and then demand that we still come up with "proof" or else our views are irrational. What they are really saying at that point is, 'agree with me or you are irrational.' Their insistence that only science is a valid form of knowledge is just a means of poisoning the well.

So more and more atheists are resorting to dishonesty in an attempt to bully believers out of their faith upon invalid and illogical grounds.

Ipertrich: Atheist Persecute free thinkers: Exampel of Atheist hate group taticsIpterrtich:

I am being persecuted by atheists for having a mind and trying to think. Here is the persecution of a little atheist bully boy who is totally stupid and have the reading or the education background to understand anthing. He should not be talking about God with people he should being learning, but he's too stupid to know that. This is nothing more than pure hate.

Metacrock
Posted 19 Apr 08 at 07:16:38 AM by lpetrich
I have completed reading his blog, to get a better picture of his ideas and interests.

Perhaps the first thing one notices about Metacrock's writing is his repeated, persistent misspellings. He simply cannot stop himself, and he once complained that he does not have the time to proofread what he writes. Yet he has plenty of time to compose those writings. And one of his admirers once posted in one of his forums
Quote:
Meta, please don't start any more threads with subject lines like "supid atheit tricks" -- it's like you're doing a self-parody.
He is dyslexic, and he has been that way since childhood, when his parents were relieved to discover that his difficulties with reading and writing were something other than laziness. Yet he seems reluctant to use spell checkers, despite their being readily available.

Isn't this what the FBI mode said hate groups do in stage four? This is ridicule, bad mouthing, mocking the target, the hate group gathers to mock the target, that's what happens in stage four.

They always say "he doesn't seem to ever use a spell check." What unobservant little know nothing bigots ridiculing people having handy caps. I use a spell check every single every one every little time. But what do I always say? I can't see the words the y way you do! what do you think that means? Can't you figure it out stupid?

Someone I know online found him very annoying for this reason, calling him someone "speshul", someone who wants to be given extra leeway for no better reason than his whining about wanting it. And although some people have complained about carping at his misspellings, there is a more serious problem with them. Many of them occur in some of the more obscure words that he uses and names that he mentions, words and names that may be difficult to guess from context. That can make it VERY hard to understand what he is writing about.

someone I know found him annoying. O did they? someone I know found Ipertrich to be a fucking piece of shit shit hold mother fuck.

Now for his ideas.

O yea! Now we are gonna talk about his ideas! yea,as though you could! First we bad mouth him and rak his personality over the coals, we mock and criticize him for his handicap then lie about him, they we talk about his ideas. As though really could really understand anything I have to say.

BTW do you know now many people have told me that they can understand what I'm saying? huge number. like maybe 80% of those who read my stuff profess to understand it. In fact that little turd will claim that he understands it. How can he claim that if he can't read it?

Although he claims not to be a fundamentalist, he spends MUCH more time criticizing atheism than criticizing fundamentalism, even though the latter features a lot of beliefs that he considers contrary to True Christianity. He complains about supposed atheist caricatures like God being "a big man in the sky" and the Bible being "a memo from the boss", but he is VERY reluctant to challenge any fellow Xian for believing in such things. But considering Xians' long history of fighting over even the smallest points of doctrine, such silence seems strange. However, Metacrock is far from alone there; many other "liberal" Xians much prefer denying that they are fundies to criticizing or challenging them.

The little monkey has learned some of my phrases. But does he really understand what they are talking about. Notice the internal contradiction here. He starts out arguing that I must really be a fundie because I criticize atheist only a fundie would criticize atheists. He cherishes this stupid illusion because he is obsessed with hating fundies and also because the only thing he knows about Christianity is some slogans of fundies. He doesn't really understand what a fundie is obviously. Look at the slogans by me that he talks about. These are indicative of things a liberal would say against the fundies. But he's clearly too stupid and too ignorant to understand that.

Notice the uses the atheist equivocate of hte N word "xian." If he was a KKK guy he would have just aid the N word. He's not full of hate is he? He's just having fun ridiculoing something he can't understand and he just uses this hateful insult name for the enemy group just for the hell of it right? His reasoning is of course idiotic. He argued I am laoth to criticize fundies therefore I'm a fundie. brilliant.

Of course the analysis that real fundies don't calling themselves fundie is of course stupid because that's I got teh term. It was a fundamentalist bible teacher in a class at UT Arlington (Bible chair) who first used that term. That's where I heard it first. I am the one who introduced the term on the net. No one called them "Fudnies" until I came to CARM back in 98.

According to Metacrock's Virtual Office,
Quote:
All religions seek to do three things:
a) to identify the human problematic,
b) to identify an ultimate transformative experience (UTE) which resolves the problematic,
c) to mediate between the two.
"Problematic" as a noun makes me rather suspicious. Why use that word when the word "problem" already exists?

Another illiterate atheist who had never heard the term "problematic." He's too stupid to go read some comparative religion stuff and see where I go tth term or why ti's used that way. He would rather be "suspeicious" but of course he would say about Paul Tillich, Issac Newton, Lock, Spinoza anyone. He would not respect any thinker he's stupid to know a great thinkers when he sees one.

I know this is hard for little highschool students and freshman to comprehend but in the intellectual world people often color outside the lines with words. They streach meanings and say that stuff sound different to make points. Derrida spells "difference" with an "a" as "differance" to make a point. I know this is hard for this little to face. He's never read any books and thinking is foreign to him.

Also, he seems to be claiming that all religion is Metacrockianity in drag, something that does not fit very well. Although in fairness, I've seen all too many discussions of religion that show basic ignorance of the nature of many religions.

that's what he makes of the common core thesis of William James. Because he's so fucking stupid he doesn't know about it and he's so hateful that he can't think to himself "well mabye I should go learn something maybe someone talks about this." He's an idiot so he can't learn. He just assumes I made it up because he's an idiot.

He talks about God quite a lot; the Metacrockian God is apparently "being itself" or a "ground of being", the sort of god that some other highbrow theologians, like Paul Tillich, have believed in. How something can be pure being he does not quite explain, but something that's pure being would apparently have no properties, and thus would be a VERY unsatisfactory kind of god.

Really when you think about it, what's going on here is I am being persectuted for having ideas and knowing things. I'm being called names, and ridiculed and called a lair and told that I don't know anything because I know stuff this imbecile doesn't know and will never hear of because he's too stupid to get an educated. So I am being hounded and bad mouthed for being smart.

Why are they doing it? To intimidate people who might consider learning about God. They want to sacred, ferigten cajole ridicule and bully anyone they can into not seeking God. So they are hounding and persecuting the people who know things. This is nothing more than the lynch mob driving the teacher away through aggression.

He makes lots of arguments for the existence of God, though he makes the two-step of how they are not "proofs" but "warrants for belief". That seems to me to be an evasion; those arguments have the form of proofs. His favorite arguments are cosmological arguments and arguments from religious experience; he does not find the argument from design very impressive.


His favorite cosmological arguments are the first-cause argument and related ones, like the necessary-being argument and the argument from temporal beginning. He denies that an infinite causal regress is possible, though it is difficult to follow his argument; he seems to think that the mathematics of infinity somehow does not follow.

The necessary vs. contingent being argument was stated by the Catholic Church's official philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. "Contingent" being means being dependent on something else for an entity's existence, while "necessary" being means being independent. However "necessary" implies something that ought to exist, thus making it a very misleading term. Something can be independent of the existence of anything else, yet not have any necessity of existing.

In any case, the argument is that if you track back entities' dependencies, you will find entities with independent existence.

This argument has the problem of how one tells what is independent and what is dependent, and also whether an independent entity would necessarily have the properties that a theologian might want out of a god.

His argument from temporal beginning led him to discuss quantum cosmology a lot; he seems out of his element there.


He loves the argument from religious experience; he uses words and phrases like "co-determinate" and "transcendental signifier" a lot. He seems to be arguing that we perceive the Metacrockian God in such experiences, though it can be hard to tell from his mass of verbiage. He also claims that we have a "God pod" in our brains that acts as a "God antenna", enabling us to perceive God.

He also objects rather indignantly to the view that atheism is somehow humanity's default state, claiming that it is religion that's humanity's default state. He makes arguments about mystical and "peak" experiences, even though many of those who have them have belief systems rather far removed from Metacrockianity.

He also claims that devotion to religion makes one happier and healthier, even though it has not cured the "Venus ulcer disease" (venous ulcer disease) of his legs. In fact, he got rather indignant at a site that points out that God never cures amputees, despite allegedly being responsible for numerous other cures.

Perhaps related to this, he once moaned that atheist deconversion testimonies seem like pale imitations of the "real thing", but did he expect some sort of Great Mystical Experience?


He likes postmodernism, which he considers a devastating argument against atheism, but the proper postmodernist position is dogmatic agnosticism,

"I don't know, and neither do you!"

which is hardly an improvement.


About Jesus Christ, he admires how the sixties counterculture treated him as a great hippie, and he gets annoyed at how present-day atheists don't seem to like JC very much and how they seemingly want to argue away his existence. He gets very annoyed by Jesus mythers; while he regards the early Old Testament as mythology, he nevertheless considers the Gospels reliable history, miracles and JC's resurrection and all.

I remember arguing with him about Lord Raglan's Mythic-Hero profile on IIDB, and he claimed that it was invented to discredit JC's historicity. However, Lord Raglan himself avoided that question, because of the obvious potential for controversy; Alan Dundes later took it up, finding that he scored very high, about 19 out of 22.

that was so stupid. this cow turd thinks that's some kind of big scholarly thing he got hold of. My friend who is a real scholar at Cambridge laughed his head off about that.

His home page: DOXA, "Christian Thought in the 21th Century"
Some others' opinions on him: Debunking Christianity: Metacrock's Blog - including some very unflattering ones

I don't find enough substance there in any of this trash to actually bother answering. but what it really proves is the deep deep level of hate that atheist hold toward people who think and who have different ideas and don't cow tow to the atheist dunder head ideology of know nothingism. It also shows how well they conform to the FBI profile of hate groups. they are donig exactly what stage four says they will do. This is a perfect exampel of satage four.

Basically they are ridiculing me because I know stuff and I want to talk about it. That's so obviously hate group stuff. I can't see what thinking person with any kind of brain would associate with those people. They are pariahs.

Hermit,Do atheists have to start lynching Christians before you admit what they are?