another example of atheist privilging their position.

I'm arguing about the 8 levels of verification for historicity of the Gospels. This ans theist comes and starts talking about the existence of God. He says this can't prove the existence of God. As though that's the issue.

he says this:
Originally Posted by troxel

That's great if you trying to discover a person of historical interest or a human event... but a God? Inconceivable that God would leave a trail equivalent to a mere human.

Looking for human historical evidence reveals a human historical god.

Meta:
now you doing a bait and switch. you admit it's ok for historical research on the actual group that started believing in Jesus but can't be used to prove God. That's a bait and switch because I didn't say it was proving God.

atheists like yourself use a childish silly and straw man understanding of what believe means and how to defend it. Big proofs are just accumulations of a lot of little proofs. No one thing by itself proves anything. Enough little things together prove bigger things, enough bigger things together prove still greater things. It all fits together in a scholarly life.

you are treating belief in God as though ti's just a matter of a single fact, you are just adding a fact to the universe. It's much more than that.It 's a value system a way of life it's an approach to learning, and much more all at once. You can't just slap it on with one fact or beat it up with one fact.

Troxel:

Asking the binary existence of nonexistence of a god to be anything other than a single statement is special pleading, no matter how 'special' you say your god is. You can add traits to this god, but there's no magical point at which it becomes a way of life and is no longer subject to logic.

In other words he's begging the question. He expects the privileged nature of his position (he wises) to be so strong that the non existence of God is a fact. He can thus assert that fact to beat any Christian argument automatically.

Begging the question is a form of circular reasoning and still a fallacy.


Asking the binary existence of nonexistence of a god to be anything other than a single statement is special pleading,

what? What is this load of cobblers? binary existence of non existence? This is worthy of the Derrida award.

Atheists need offical permission of authority figures to believe the obvious

Originally Posted by Tyrrho

...then either it has always existed, or it hasn't.

If it has always existed, then it might have existed for an infinite amount of time, or a finite amount of time.

If it has existed for a finite amount of time, it might have had a beginning, or it might not have had a beginning.


Lots of possibilities...

then I said:

Meta:

Universe existing for an infinite amount of time does not negate the existence of God. God can be just real a possibility doing it that way. Here the analogy of the eternal flutist illustrates.

As long as the eternal flute player plays the music is eternal and yet contingent. Flutist is God and the music is universe.

Westvelteren said:

Got any science to back up your horse manure?

why would you need a guy in a white lab coat to tell you that you can believe something that is logically necessary to bleieve?

you are saying that you need an authority to tell you it's ok to believe the obvious?

music played eternal is obviously eternal contingency. why not? can you give me a logical reason why it wouldn't be? no o closure you want an authority to give you permission.

I am an official of the science gods who says You may now believe this. Yes it's true I am a historian of scinece and I was an atheist so I am official representative of the scinece god world and I say You may believe the obvious.

Atheism is not for intellectuals.

Westvelern

Originally Posted by Metacrock

ahahaha that' crap! that's not research that's the bogus play "study" by Zuerman.

don't' be a sucker man!

http://www.doxa.ws/social/Zuckerman.html

and

http://www.doxa.ws/social/Sweden.html

I have reference to over 400 studies that disprove it (not the religious experience studies)

http://www.doxa.ws/experience/empirical_studies.html

Westvleteren

Again nobody cares about books Meta so either you have peer reviewed research or it is irrelevant. And I have never heard of Zuerman so no that is not what I was talking about.

so fater saying he eosn't care bbout books, he links to books then talks about books in his signature.



http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies

A First Look

Gregory S. Paul
Baltimore, Maryland

Introduction
[1] Two centuries ago there was relatively little dispute over the existence of God, or the societally beneficial effect of popular belief in a creator. In the twentieth century extensive secularization occurred in western nations, the United States being the only significant exception (Bishop; Bruce; Gill et al.; Sommerville). If religion has receded in some western nations, what is the impact of this unprecedented transformation upon their populations? Theists often assert that popular belief in a creator is instrumental towards providing the moral, ethical and other foundations necessary for a healthy, cohesive society. Many also contend that widespread acceptance of evolution, and/or denial of a creator, is contrary to these goals. But a cross-national study verifying these claims has yet to be published. That radically differing worldviews can have measurable impact upon societal conditions is plausible according to a number of mainstream researchers (Bainbridge; Barro; Barro and McCleary; Beeghley; Groeneman and Tobin; Huntington; Inglehart and Baker; Putman; Stark and Bainbridge). Agreement with the hypothesis that belief in a creator is beneficial to societies is largely based on assumption, anecdotal accounts, and on studies of limited scope and quality restricted to one population (Benson et al.; Hummer et al.; Idler and Kasl; Stark and Bainbridge). A partial exception is given by Barro and McCleary, who correlated economic growth with rates of belief in the afterlife and church attendance in numerous nations (while Kasman and Reid [2004] commented that Europe does not appear to be suffering unduly from its secularization). It is surprising that a more systematic examination of the question has not been previously executed since the factors required to do so are in place. The twentieth century acted, for the first time in human history, as a vast Darwinian global societal experiment in which a wide variety of dramatically differing social-religious-political-economic systems competed with one another, with varying degrees of success. A quantitative cross-national analysis is feasible because a large body of survey and census data on rates of religiosity, secularization, and societal indicators has become available in the prosperous developed democracies including the United States.
[2] This study is a first, brief look at an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by social scientists. The primary intent is to present basic correlations of the elemental data. Some conclusions that can be gleaned from the plots are outlined. This is not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health. It is hoped that these original correlations and results will spark future research and debate on the issue.

this guy claims to have a ph.D.! he doesn't' care about books. Intellectuals believe that books are gate way to understanding. According to this guy they are not anything. Then he says:

BTW that statement is form teh bogus study by the artist who pretends to do social scienence research, Gregory S.Paul. For a critique of the pretend study go here.


Westveleteren

Debates are worthless Meta. either you have the evidence or you don't debates don't change that fact and validity is not determined by debate.

So he's not interested in books, debate is worthless, he refuses to deal with specifics of argument, he assumes that all my schoalrs are televangelists (meaning he's never heard of Crosson) he asserts they are all in un-peer-reviewed sources, as though Crosson has never been published in a journal. He does the whole the thread like this, noting in the post except little quips and remarks the way they always do.


West:

Oh BS, there is nothing at all scientific about the way anyone looks at the Bible. If they do the Bible has to be thrown out immediately from a literal standpoint because it conflicts with reality.

He's never heard of textual criticism.


There have been many other atheist who say "your education is useless it was for nothing." Atheists don't respect learning,t hey don't respect books, as they did when I was an atheist. It was for intellectuals in that day but is no more. They still need to think they are smarter so they have all kinds of little tricks for that like the lies about the IQ studies. But what they don't have is respect for learning.

What Atheists say When they are Outgunned

Last week on CARM I was challenged by atheists to show "any evidence at all" that mind is not reducible to brain. I put up a huge post. It was originally a page I researched adn wrote but taken over (with my permission) by God and Science.org. Rather than discussing the matrail a certain atheists responded by trying to make me feel guilty about having too much evidence!


Originally Posted by Samscram

I don't go out on fools errands.

It is fascinating to see that your faith is apparently so shaky that the words of the bible aren't sufficient and to maintain it, you must look to the academy to find the Holy Grail as it were.

I must admit that's a new one! What does it mean? Atheist harp and harp "there's no evidence for your God." When you give them some, then it's too much. I am an intellectual. My faith si a combination of emotional trust and intellectual reasoning. My life journey has been about putting the two together and over the years I have devoted that to a high level. I have the best evdience I'm going to resort to scholarship because my life is about scholarship I AM A SCHOLAR! My faith is integrally a part of my intellectual journey and vice versa.


He goes on:

The fact that you have to cite "authority" after "authority" after "authority" without providing even a synopsis of their content proves to me if to no one else that you don't know the content and/or haven't the ability to utilize it in a rational rhetorical venue.

The fact that you have to site authority after authority, in other words, "don't confuse me with the facts." That is one of the silliest and most unfair things I've ever heard anyone say. do you realy expect me to post a whole book on this baord? You do have a responisiblty to find things out for yourself. All I can do si point in a direction. if you are too lazy to follow up that's your problem. I don't have time or space to type whole books into this text box it's totally unfair of you to deamnd thtat.

Of cousre his comment I don't know the content, what an arrogant little wind bag! He doesn't even mention a single point its I who don't know the content! BTW what rational rhetorical venue? Isn't that what the message board is supposed to be? At least before CARM it was.

you guys are constantly making the refrain "there's no proof for X" Your God, or whatever. you always say Christians can't have any evidence and can't prove anything. then when I do show that I have moutian of evidence and there's something wrong with that. now I'm not good because I have too much evidence. Before I was stupid and feeble minded because I believe stuff without evidence, now I have too much.

that's absurd its silly its transparent. you can't out evidence me. so you have to say something s you just reach for the old anti-intellectual "scholars is egg heads" bit.

that's just silly as it can be. You have to just suck it up and admit that you are out evidenced. period.

Then he pulls out the big gun (you gut "there's no evidence for your God"):

Despite the fact that you have blustered, ranted, insulted, raved, even condemned posters to hell; cited hundreds of "academic" studies, a bunch of Ph.Ds as well as your personal blarney page, [COLOR=#ff0000]you have yet to produce a single piece of empirical evidence which necessarily establishes the existence of god.

Now, if I did (which I do) have even any evidence at all wouldn't that be too much? Wouldn't he then say "you have to turn to experts to save your faith."

That's exactly right, I don't prove God, I don't try to prove God. I don't have to do that. In fact I don't want to. I've explained many times why. That would contradict my mystical theology. I've explained this over and over again. God is beyond the empirical.

You can't provide a single empirical fact that proves science is true or that there are laws of phsyics. Somethings are too basic to prove in one little empirical fact.

the rock solid foundational things can't be proved easily.


Originally Posted by Samscram

To my knowledge, Jesus nor any of his diciples had a Ph.D.

what does that have to do with anything?

Paul probably had the equivalent.

Is that the reason that you apparently need to resort to modern day academia to prove his existence?

"resort to..." what kind evidence do they expect anyway? The rule out philosophy because it's not science. Science is academic and scientists have Ph.D.'s (the dread Ph.D. something not right about them egg head Ph.D. guys). The nix philospical proof, they nix loigcal proof, they nix Ph.D.'s which includes scinece, what else would one use?


you have just undermined your whole artiest position. you can't on the one hand demand evidence then when you get it deny that it's important and try to turn it into some kind liability to have.

you have to stick to the facts. academics are the experts they decide what's true and what is not they are the experts who study the issues decide what is scientifically proved and what is not. all scientists are academics. you can't be a scientist without being an academic.

As to your complaint that I'm slandering you by ridiculing your reliance on Ph.Ds to prove the existence of god I confess that your posts gave no hint that their author was one.

I never said I was proving the existence of God. when you are going to start reading posts? you think you can waltz in here just assume all Christians are alike you don't have to read what they say. you go study my position and find out what I believer before you waste my time.


This is symptomatic of America's anti-intellectualism. When I was an athiest atheism was about thinking, it was done by intellectuals. So the modern scinece or arrogance atheist have they are smarter than Chrsitians comes from a hold over of that time when atheists were intellectuals. Now they are getting all of these anti-intellectual non academics involved in it who don't value learning and don't reverse thinking's so they don't' value degrees. That whole sense of arrogance at being smarter becomes less justified and is more and more boiled down to arrogance based upon "we are us and we don't like them."

But atheism is rational. Yes yes, the free thinkers, they are ratinoal. they hate thought, they hate degrees, they hate intellecutlas but they SOOOOO very smart!

More Stupid Atheist Tricks

Saturday, July 09, 2011

More Stupid Atheist Tricks

fortress of facts

my diatribe on the fortress of facts:

This is a means I have adopted of bringing to attention to the fact that atheists use a ploy implying that their world view is backed up by facts and ours is not. One can see this ploy at work all the time but they never fess up to it. Observe how many times you have heard atheists say "there's not one single fact to support belief in God." That's extension of their assertion about their fortress of facts.

Atheists on CARM always dney that they use the stratagem of the fortress of facts. But look at any argument they make and for most of them in most of the arguments they advance (the few times actually make any aside form incredulity) They argue form the fortress.

The pathetic arguments about consciousness advanced by atheists on this board are a prime example. Think by the number, we can only bleieve stuff if we have a mountain of numbers backing it up, that means we have all the facts on our side they stack up to a totally proved giant world view.

Yet the fortress is bad up of selected, purposely chosen "facts" (mostly propaganda and assumptions) chosen becasue they back the ideological template.

counter evidence is mocked and ridiculed out of the way.

They were gimmicky enough to steal the new clothes metaphor before we got to it, but it's much more apt as a description of the atheist fortress of facts.

there is no fortress. there are no "facts" that support your view.


check it out"

you want to say that the fact that none of my studies include an official finding that God exits, so I can't make God arguments using their data.

None of the studies you use on brain or anything else have as official findings "there is no God." so therefore you have no fortress of facts.


social construct


the fortress of facts is a true social construct. Its' based upon cultural ideas and assumptions rather than facts. There are NO official scientific findings that say "there is a fortress of facts that supports atheism"

what'shisface:

So, are you saying that when it comes to forming a view on something, its best to ignore any facts on the subject?

how in the hell do you conclude that? so you think if you just select a bunch of stuff that helped your view and ignore the stuff against it, and assume a bunch of stuff to fit the material that backs you, and pretend there's no counter, then you have actually proved something?

Originally Posted by Whatsisface

Ok, so are you saying then that when one is trying to form an opinion on something it is best to take any facts into account?

listen up: The assertion that atheism is backed by a huge pile of established facts is garbage.

(1) the only "facts" are selective and thing that oppose atheism are excluded.

(2) most of the so called "facts" are merely assumptions.

The idea that theis has no basis in fact to support it while everything atheists claim is supported by science, is crap.

It's just an ideology.

atheist (saying darnedest thing)

Is this not a straw man? The reason I, and I think most atheists, are atheists is because of a lack of facts to support theism.

Isn't that just a version of what I'm arguing against?

Donald

I'm deviating from the topic of your thread, to challenge one particular aspect of the OP. I have no interest in discussing your "fortress of facts" rant. If you don't want to pursue the discussion that I've initiated, feel free to not respond.

Now, on to my point. I have not read your studies. Your studies do not provide you with rational warrant to believe in God. Go.

Duh really.

Originally Posted by Donald

Don't claim to. Not interested in discussing the topic. If you feel that the topic that I am pursuing is derailing your thread, feel free to not respond.

I have not read your studies. Your studies do not provide you with rational warrant to believe in God.

then pershaps you shouldn't be in my thread. HU?

that really does seem kind of red herrinish don't you think?




Issue two: The hard problem on conscoiusness.

I argue that consciousness is not brain function it can't be reduced to brain function. The hard problem is one way of proving it. This the approach by David Chalmers. He uses an analogy to show that the content of consciousness can't be expalined by facts about the way the brain works.

one example is a woman who has never seen the color red but who studies color and knows every fact about how the brain works when it observes red. Yet known these fact doesn't enable her to know what red looks like. One atheist atheist argued that it does. When I pressed to show how that could be he didn't.

Then I argue that I could look like you and do all the things you do but I still would not know what it's like be you. The same atheist actually argued that he could know what it's like to be me, or I could know what it's like to be him just by nkowing all the facts about me, or me knowing all the facts about him. This is just sheer stupidity and I think it comes from not knowing or understanding the basis of the argument. To know what it's like to be another person would have to get outside your own perceptions and view things through the perception of that other person. Of course we can never do that. All those facts about the other person are being filtered though my own perception so it's still me being me, I'm not understanding this point of view. The assumption they are making is just that we can't think, that thought has no contentment and consciousness is just a matter of behavior. they are just denying what we all know we expedience all the time.

The issue of access came up, that means when they argue that manipulating the brain changes consciousness, I say it's just a matter of how consciousness is accessed. It's not that brain causes mind but that brain accesses mind so effecting the brain effects access. To illustrate I use the analogy about smashing a computer monitor mean you can't access the soft ware but that doesn't mean that hardware is causing software.


Cowabunga:

You can too access it, you just need another method. If you hook up a logic analyzer you can see the 1s and 0s just fine. I'm not sure what you're getting at with "revoke the software." I get that without a monitor the software is essentially useless, and I don't recall anyone even remotely suggesting that the monitor is the cause of the software.

Originally Posted by Metacrock

that's not the issue. no one denies that neurons are invoked in mind. no one! that' snot it! no!

talking about neurons is just brain function that's not consciousness. no amount of knowledge about neurons will ever produce the content of actual consciousness. That's the issue!

Cowabunga

Not true.

IBM's new supercomputer Watson just kicked butt on Jeopardy. It's software was able to distinguish subtle language mechanics that computers up til now could not. We know both the hardware and the software that brought about this ability. Watson even told a joke to the audience that they thought was funny.

I'm not claiming that Watson is conscious but it is intelligent and the gap is closing rapidly. I believe within my lifetime I will see a conscious computer.

That's still not consciousness. It doesn't mean that the constant has any real meaning for Watson. Giving it a human name doesn't mean it's conscious.

then he says:

Cowabunga

Brain chemistry is paramount for understanding thought, and thoughts can and are effected by drugs and even electric stimulus. For example if you stimulate a brain in the right spot that person will start laughing, touch another and they will have a religious experience. These things show strong support for thoughts and feelings being physical. What do you have from the spiritual realm that is even remotely as convincing? Anything?

Those are still just issues of access. No one denies that there's a close relationship between the mind and brain. The brain accesses consciousness and produces it in the way that a capacitor produce electricity, but the thing itself is part of nature it's not just a side effect of having brain chemistry. Stimulating brain and seeing effects doesn't' prove that mind reduces to brain.


I will deal with this topic in greater detail in the coming week. It's pretty apparent they don't know what's going on.

Brainwashing and Socilization

When I stated that atheist ideology was brain washing an atheist asked "when was I taken in a back room and worked over with a rubber hose while having bright lights shined in my face?" This is a crude understanding of a crude concept "brain washing." There's really no such thing, one of my sociology professors way back in undergrad school identified it as a socialization process. We can see that socialization process working all the time on any message board where atheists congregate. It consist mocking and ridicule against anyone who disagrees with their view. Hasn't it occurred to anyone to ask why atheists do all this mocking and ridicule? I chalked up to their fragile self esteem and their need to feel big by making other small. I think that's part of it it but it's only half the story.

The other half is that mocking an ridicule serve the function of destabilizing the personality and making the target vulnerable to socialization. I've pointed this out before as well. The Encyclopedia of sociology has some instructive things to say on this score.

Encyclopedia of Sociology Volume 1,

Macmillan Publishing Company, New York
By Richard J. Ofshe, Ph.D.

Coercive persuasion and thought reform are alternate names for programs of social influence capable of producing substantial behavior and attitude change through the use of coercive tactics, persuasion, and/or interpersonal and group-based influence manipulations (Schein 1961; Lifton 1961). Such programs have also been labeled "brainwashing" (Hunter 1951), a term more often used in the media than in scientific literature. However identified, these programs are distinguishable from other elaborate attempts to influence behavior and attitudes, to socialize, and to accomplish social control. Their distinguishing features are their totalistic qualities (Lifton 1961), the types of influence procedures they employ, and the organization of these procedures into three distinctive subphases of the overall process (Schein 1961; Ofshe and Singer 1986). The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:

1. The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance
   
   
2. The use of an organized peer group
   
   
3. Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity
   
   
4. The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified

Thought-reform programs have been employed in attempts to control and indoctrinate individuals, societal groups (e.g., intellectuals), and even entire populations. Systems intended to accomplish these goals can vary considerably in their construction. Even the first systems studied under the label "thought reform" ranged from those in which confinement and physical assault were employed (Schein 1956; Lifton 1954; Lifton 1961 pp. 19-85) to applications that were carried out under nonconfined conditions, in which nonphysical coercion substituted for assault (Lifton 1961, pp. 242-273; Schein 1961, pp. 290-298). The individuals to whom these influence programs were applied were in some cases unwilling subjects (prisoner populations) and in other cases volunteers who sought to participate in what they believed might be a career-beneficial, educational experience (Lifton 1981, p. 248).

We see these same aspects at work among atheists on message boards. Intense interpersonal attack to destabilize sense of self, that's the mocking and ridiculing. That's the use that's made of it, it's brain washing. Organized peer group, of cousre the atheists band together and form a united front, they never break ranks. Interpersonal pressure to promote conformity.

Statements supportive of the proffered ideology that indicate adaptive attitude change during the period of the target's involvement in the reform environment and immediately following separation should not be taken as mere playacting in reaction to necessity. Targets tend to become genuinely involved in the interaction. The reform experience focuses on genuine vulnerabilities as the method for undermining self-concept: manipulating genuine feelings of guilt about past conduct; inducing the target to make public denunciations of his or her prior life as being unworthy; and carrying this forward through interaction with peers for whom the target develops strong bonds. Involvement developed in these ways prevents the target from maintaining both psychological distance or emotional independence from the experience. (Ibid)

I've seen this on boards many times. Someone who seems like a normal Christian will be mocked and ridicule. Suddenly they start consider the atheist might have a good point, next thing you know they way they are an atheist. This is always followed by a denunciation of of their former belief system and big confessions about how narrow minded they were and how wrong and bad they were to be Christians.

They create a sense of dependency upon the group, threaten the stragglers with ridicule if they say unacceptable things, and destabilize others weak targets to so they can take them over. First the destroy self esteem then promise new self esteem based upon self acceptance. When one announces that he's come over, o man do they make a big deal. Out comes the welcome wagon they all start patting him on the back. I remember a girl on CARM a few years ago. She seems fairly strong as a Christian and at least convinced. She began voices a few doubts. They began calling her names telling her how stupid she is. always saying little snide things to indicate "your are not good enough." She kept growing in doubts. Finally she announced he was an atheist and they began saying "I knew you were intelligent all along." The same little pigs who told her how stupid she was began making over her Einstein-like mind.

When you see atheists just sort of idling just saying one banal stupid thing after another all oriented around mocking Chrsitians and mocking beliefs, that's the brain washing in progress. Its' a socialization process that offers the lonely outcast a social support net work as long as they illustrate that they can spout the ideology. When they are repeating the slogans of atheism they are showing that they belong in the group. When others join them they are recognizing their membership.