Orwellian Atheism

Now that we understand that the hate group has evolved from mere hate group to Orwellian nightmare we can analyze it more effectively. So far here are the indications:

Use of terms:these are all found in past posts on this blog so you can just go down the page and find them.

Imaginary: indicating the status of belief in God

Delusion: Also used of alleged fictional status of God belief.

Cult: used as synonym for all religious groups even the most popular

Description of the making of God arguments:

Trying to usurp science and reality to stick in your deity is dangerous.

superstition: used defined as Christianity and other religious belief.

Definition of Superstition

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature ...
www.brainyquote.com/words/su/superstition226408.html - 14k - Cached - Similar pages -

The same kind of recursive and circular statement I just got through exposing. What makes it superstitious? Because it's religion. What makes religion superstition? Because it' superstition.

Defining "Fre Thinkers" As those who agree with atheist ideology:

True free thinkers are those that can speak and think with accuracy and honesty. As a scientist, I pride myself on being able to read and understand the natural world and everything it has to offer. Not all of it is 100% right, but I consider the 95% to be good enough.

Defining opposition to Atheist control as "anti-free thinking."


Freedom becomes slavery and slavery becomes freedom. Now that we know this is the true nature of atheism, reductionism and all the other isms such as scientism that go hand in hand with the hate group, we can understand the danger is no just to Christianity, not just to religions, but to all people who want to think for themselves.

Atheism constitutes a clear and present danger.


This time from T WEb. An atheist makes the statement that God is "only imaginary." I put up a great argument that belief in God is rationally warranted and that is certainly strong enough to be thought of as more than "Imaginary." The he tries to soft peddle the insulting implications, which I find is an Orwellian use of language.\

Me: that's more than imaginary, remember the title of the thread?"

him: Only if there happens to actually be a God.

My argument is that we have strong reasons to bleieve there's a God. He wants to be able to continue the insulting connotations while denying that he means them. But when I claim that string theory is imaginary too what does he say?


Im originally posted by JimL

Neutrino's are detectable and are known to exist, there is nothing imaginary about them,

Meta:

atheists just really have a problem with understanding what is said don't you? God is real and can be detected. What the person I was responding to said about the meaning of imaginary would apply to anything that is not directly and unarguably proved. Neutrinos are not directly demonstrated. they are not directly observed. You can detect them but only by their effect upon other particles. There still remains no direct picture of one. They cannot be directly observed.

We can detect God by his effects upon people, that's what RE is. It's God's effect, the trace of God.


Jim L

and string theory is just that, a theory, based on the physics of the natural world, whereas God is merely an unscientific concept that gives to us an imaginary explanation as to the meaning of it all.

Again, Science is not the only form of knowledge. Understand? science is not the only form of knowledge. that means it doesn't have to be science to be true. That means bad mouthing God by saying "that's not scinece is not an argument! understand now? that's not a point in your favor. it's meaningless.

it does not make God imaginary. Just because something is not science doesn't mean it's imaginary. Logic is not science, logic is not imaginary. Phenomenology is not science, phenomenology is not imaginary. Understand now?

You are trying to privilege your position with words.



Meta

you are special pleading. You are trying to say that science is the only form of knowledge so therefore anything that is scientific is automatically redeemed from not having direct proof. But an idea that is not a scientific idea, if not proved directly must be imaginary. That's crap.

You do not have the right to privilege our position such that anything you say is exempt form direct proof but anything I say direct proof is automatically required.


Neutrinos and string theory cannot be proved directly no one thinks that makes them imaginary. God can be known by his effects and by one's understanding of being, so God is not imaginary.




Meta

Yes I sure and I have.(verify SN) See the threads I put down on how atheists have the wrong idea of the supernatural. The religious experience studies and the effects of navigation in the world are supernatural, a prori. they fit exactly what the original concept was about.Its' a Christian theological concept atheists do not have the right to define it!




Jim L

and so you are left with nothing but the imagination with which to construe an ultimate reality or God. Whether God exists or not you can only imagine.

you are doing it again, give me some proof that anything that is not science is imaginary? why do you think you get to pronounce that? Science doesn't say that. Show me the scientific data that proves that?

Moreover, My argument is based upon 300 scientific studies and you don't have any. I can verify the SN by science because the first argument is the supernatural. Supernatural refers to God's power to transform lives, that's exactly how the word was first. That's what it means that's what these 300 studies prove. you don't have any studies. you have no studies.

score, 300 to 0.

Theists = 300 studies proving our position

ahteist= 0 studies proving your position.






Meta

I am left with 300 empirical studies which show that the experiences that led to the creation of religion are real, they are experiences of something, they fit the criteria we use to determine reality so we have every right to think of them the effects of something real; they are about god we should assume God is that "something" that is real.


Jim L

not direct proof but more than imagination!

Meta
they don't have to be direct proof. you have offered no data or any sort of argument to prove that these are the only choices, either imaginary or totally proved directly. That's a silly idea. That's not science and it's not logical it's stupid. do you hear me its' stupid. got it? it's a dumb idea.

you are making extremely statements and you can't back them up.


I have studies showing an innate concept of God in the mind of humans. That means God had to put it there because evolution can't.

[not direct proof but more than imagination!

did you read the op? do you ever read anything? The point in the op is it doesn't have to be direct proof because it rationally warranted. do you understand that phrase?

I said in the first post that my point is not that God is directly proved but that it's rational to believe. So you come along and say "not direct proof" so what does that do to the argument? It agrees with it so it must no effect it at all do you see that?




I never defined imaginary thus. It merely means the construction of concepts in the mind with no definite reality.

So now it comes out that you don't understand what is meant by "connotations?" Atheists are indeed ignorant. It's a connotation of ignorance and stupidty and childishness if not why are you not willing to say that string theory is imaginary?

Hawkings numbers are imaginary how does that make you feel?





Jim l

You can't prove it directly because whether true or not for you, like it or not, God is only a concept in your own mind.

Meta
what did I say about proving things directly? when are you going to start addressing the arguments?

Lesson 2: how to turn their diversionary tactics

running the gauntlet



On CARM there was a discussion about a phil papers survey that shows the vast majority of professional philoshpers are atheists.


this is my post to answer theirs showing the stuffy they didn't tell us about, that the editors brought out as caveats.

I put up an answer "what they don't tell you about the phil papers study:"

My post begins here:
In the thread "what do most philosophers believe?" Tralala quotes a survey on phil papers that shows huge percentage are atheists.
http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthrea...ophers-Believe

I find that amazing because for a decade atheists on this and other boards acted like philosophy is so stupid because it's about belief in God. I told them that was amazingly ignorant and asserted that most philosophers are probably not believers in God.

I would not expect them to be.

*most philosophy students are given minimal exposure to God arguemnts.

*most philosophy anthologies are designed to make it appear that no one believes in God anymore and that the God arguments failed.

*most philosophy anthologies are light on pro God stuff and give minimal exposure to thinkers like E.L. Mascall who held down the fort in the decades before Malchom and Hartshorne revived the OA.

Philosophy is a lot different now than it was in the middle ages. It's not about answers now days. It's about asking interesting questions.


these criticisms discussed by the editors of phil papers and made by the people who took the survey.


Here:

What do most philosophers believe? Are most philosophers atheists, or theists? Do they lean toward Platonism or nominalism? Do they lean toward externalist or internalist epistemic justification?David Bourget and David Chalmers have released the results of the largest survey of professional philosophers ever conducted. There were 931 respondents from 99 leading philosophy departments around the world.1
So what are the results?


72.8% atheism
14.6% theism
12.5% other

(1) they agree it is anti-philosophical

they admit that this is sociology of philosophy and not philosophy

As for misrepresentation: We certainly agree that a philosopher's views cannot be captured in a set of survey answers. The survey answers should not be seen as any sort of definitive representation of philosophers' views. At best, they capture a few dimensions or aspects of those views. Likewise, the survey should not be taken as any sort of definitive representation of the state of the philosophical profession. Like any survey, it just captures a few limited aspects of the state of the profession.

Finally, we recognize that there is something comical about the idea of doing philosophy by multiple choice. But we think that the results are of significant interest all the same, and multiple choice is by far the most feasible way to get the relevant data.

(2) it's unfairly biased agaisnt continental traditions and for analytic.

2. The survey is biased toward certain traditions and areas. In particular, it is biased toward analytic philosophy as opposed to non-analytic traditions, including continental traditions, non-Western traditions, and others.

In response: Yes, it is. We recognized this in the survey's information page. We considered incorporating questions drawn from non-analytic traditions, but it proved difficult to find questions that would be accessible enough to a predominantly analytic audience. So we decided to explicitly orient the survey toward analytic philosophy, which is the tradition within which our own expertise lies.

A number of respondents suggested that we should have incorporated questions drawn from continental traditions, Asian traditions, the pragmatist tradition, and from the history of philosophy, among others. There were relatively few concrete questions suggested here. We appreciated the concrete suggestions that were made (e.g. "Madness: historical or ahistorical", "Hegelian dialectic or Marxist dialectic", "Early and late Wittgenstein: complementary or contradictory?"), but they tended to reinforce our initial sense that such questions would not have worked in context.

(3) limited from truth by protocols

We would have liked to have an option for a view on which the external world is somehow mind-dependent without this being idealism (e.g. social constructivism), but we couldn't find a good accessible generic term here. Of course we expected a big majority for non-skeptical realism, but we were interested to see whether there would be a good number of skeptics and idealists out there.

Read that whole page it's pretty interesting.


What percentage of philosophers read Phil papers? Are these the only surveys on these matters? they don't know. post ends here.

[one thing I didn't know but saw today is that in the field of philosophy of religion the majoirty are theists. that sort of undoes the implication].


The study was prestend as disproof of God. But the implication was made in several ways. Yet when I presented this list of caveats about the study they did not answer a single one. They began with a classic atheist ploy, which is divert attention form the issue by bringin up criticism of the person making the argument.

61 replies and not a one of them talks about the actual crititicism made above. 

 A new atheist "America" led off trying to evoke a ridiucle gautlet by using the stretegy of divert attention with persona criticism. He ceased upon my quip above about how atheists have rejected philosophy in the past and reused to accept that they do that.

Originally Posted by America

That's false. Atheists do not act "like philosophy is so stupid because it's about belief in God", and you can't find a single atheist quote to show differently.

You do this a lot, don't you? Arguing against positions people don't actually hold.

He continued to pick at it (I ignored him) several times demanding "where is your proof that any atheist ever said that. I said I've been on the board 15 years, the board has been washed 60 times no way I can get those, I do remember them. He continued to assert that I must be lying it never happened, no true atheist would ever say that. I had talked about the way philosophy was taught when I was undergraduate and the way philosophy anthologies published in the 60s where structured, all of which was calculated to give the impression that belief in God was all washed up, while ignoring important current developments like the rise of the "back to God philosophers (Hartshorne and Plantinga, Purtil). Hilly Billy immediately asserted that I had to be wrong and implied I was lying:


Originally Posted by HillyBilly

I do. Nothing Meta said about philosophy education is true. It's almost as though he never got a philosophy education.

Meta

you know that's bs. you clearly never read an anthology used in mid 20t century in under graduate school. Perhaps you are too young. That was my experience with the books we used. The would have St. Anselm talking about OA then Kant and Bertrand Russell saying why it's not good but not Hartshorne saying why it is. So they created the impression that it's not.

I can show you the book. I have about five books like that. I can list the citations if I have to, but that's a lot of busy work I see no need.

Nothing he says nothing about philosophy education is true that's such an obvious like it tells me he has not made university training.

The truth of it is I don't think Silly Billy ever got any kind of education other than little science stuff. He thinks he's a big philospher I'm betting he's only been intorduced to it through an Ayn Rand group.


At this point it's well on the way to becoming a ridicule gauntlet I would be overwhelmed by atheists making little sarcastic one liner quips. At this point I found a tipping point and turned around. How?
In the last lesson I gave the advice of calling them out individually and embarrassing them by demanding to know their credentials, their accomplishments, in other words saying "what do you know about it?" I started to use that appraoch and hit America  I struck gold. I just got him at a point where he embarrassed himself. He said that my criticisms were shallow and silly or something to that effect. I pointed out that the criticisms I presented were made by the editors who did the survey. So they were shallow and silly that the servery was done by incompetent people. I thanks America for disproving the survey for me. From that point on he began to falter.

Most of those posts have been deleted by the mods but they were hilarious. He had to start actually defendind the study agaisnt the criticisms that meant his purpose in divering attention was blown.
He wound up whinging and demanding to be taken seriously and I was laughing at him.

Unfortuatnely most of that has been taken out by the mods. i must learn to be faster in recording such things. but one exchange that's left, which much tamer but gives an idea:


 Originally Posted by America

There's no need for a response. Your OP revealed gaping holes in your "reasoning" (lol) within the first few sentences.

Meta

No it didn't. I did nothing more than repeat what the editors of the journal said. that was the thinking of the very people who did the bleeding survey!

you can't have it both ways. if that's flawed then the survey is probalby flawed.
you must demonstrate the flaw. not just assert it. more opinion.

America

Until you're willing to address them, there's no need for me to be tackling anything else you've written here. Your argument is based on a straw man - deal with it like an intellectual.

PS. still no link

Meta

wrong. it's the arguemnt of the editors. you must give a reason you can't assert that it's wrong and then stick with the burden of proof. he asserts an argument must prove it.

 Originally Posted by America

Editors of the journal said atheists think "philosophy is so stupid because it's about belief in God"?

You said that, and you were wrong.

Deal with it like an intellectual.

Meta

screw your head on straight. pull it out of the sand. now read again: the original OP says several criticism of the survey. they are clearly labeled as such. they includes the idea that it's biased toward analytical and against continental.

the unimportant statement about atheists think which was an after taught and off the cuff and matter not at all, was not one of the criticisms in the OP.

you have said nothing about those criticisms.


here they are again: (I repeated the OP at that point)

Originally Posted by America

The original OP also says atheists think "philosophy is so stupid because it's about belief in God"

If you can't bother to not say stupid things in the first few sentences, there's no need for anyone to read further. Deal with it like an intellectual, Metacrock.

 Meta:

 yes. I said it was not the major point, which you would know if you read carefully. I also said it was an after thought. I added at at the end. I just didn't put it in the end I put it up front but I thought it after everything itself.

It's not very important. the stuff at the major boy id what matters. you are hiding.

The point is to head off those situations where they are ganging up and making one liners and ridiculing making you look foolish and taking the attention away form the issues by shifting the focus to their incompetents as judges.


Most of what atheists do, on CARM at any rate is  to move the spotlight from the message to the messenger, detract form the issue. everything is personal, everything is about what you do wrong, always shift the spot light from the message to the messenger. that's their stock in trade. That is clearly a hate tacit it's all about why they hate apologists.

so it's not a hate group hu?: Atheists defend their right to hate

 What was the reaction to the information that blasphemy is hate? Rather an say "I don't hate anyone" they actually began defending their hate. They also expressed a confusion about the distinction between critical thinking and mocking. Apparently many atheists actually think that mocking and reducible are on a par with intellectual commentary and critical thinking. That tells me they don't know what those things are.

First I show that blasphemy is hate. In in the previous post I quoted Websters who defines blaspheny as showing contempt. Contempt is a form of hate. If we look for the definition of contempt we find it means "the act of despising : the state of mind of one who despises : disdain" (Websters online). Their first reaction was to deny that despise means to hate. Now of course I can well imagine there is a fine distinction between the two, but what kind of mind tries to rationalize his hate by saying "it's not really hate it's despising?"

Originally Posted by MikeWC

Why do Christians always identify themselves with God?

Someone insults God, and Christians act as if they themselves have been insulted. What's up with that?

Nobody here is spray painting pentagrams on churches or firing Christians.

Get over yourself, Meta.

In other words, silly little victim thinking this about you. I responded to this by saying:

If you met me I said "your father is an idiot and jer and he's totally dishonest and I don't beileve he exists." wouldn't you feel a bit insured? you would feel some connection with it right?

Answer (by MarkUK): "He can prove his father exists; you haven't. He can also prove that his father would take offence at your comments; you haven't." If you are talking about something they don't think exists then you feelings aren't important. You should just shouldn't feel like it defines you. If they are not willing to allow your sacred beliefs to define you, guess who is trying to define you?We don't call it "totalitarian" for nothing.

Aussieguy:

Why should religion get a free pass? Much of it is very stupid and very dangerous?

Is it hate speech for me to say that Muslims who called for the death of the author of the recent "Innocence of Islam" video stupid and barbaric? I say they are stupid and barbaric. Am I wrong to say this?

Again why should we allow the victim to decide what's important to him. We will tell you who we think you are and what's important to you. If we dont' think it's important then our hatred is fine as long as its what we want. Then he rationalizes this fascistic mentality by comparing religious victims of his hate with Muslims who did the attack in Libya. So if you are a victim of hated toward religion and yu fight back then you are on a par with the guys who blew up the world trade center.

reverrendog: 

i have no hate, i find your claims to be without merit and instead of bothering to look at why, you assume i hate you or your ideas. you take the internet waaaaaaaay too seriously and despite being on here for years, can't grasp that no one really cares enough about your ideas to hate anything about them.
lol dude i don't hate anyone on the internet, i save that for people who deserve it.

So it's just a little game. No need to take it seroiusly. All the guys who kill themselves due to cybre bullying they are just losers we need to write them off. Notice what this same guy says about it below.
In the same thread I said:  "mocking and ridicule are not fair, they are not intellectual they not based on thinking they are based on bully stuff. " This same reverendog who says he has no hate says:

when was life ever fair meta? you whining about bullying is hilarious, you bully people all the time, and mostly for no other reason than someone disagreed with your nonsense!

They put up thread after thread about how evil and mean the God of the OT is. How he's commanding the murders of whole nations and wiping out everyone in a flood. When it comes the hurt they cause the hate they fume and spew over victims of their stupidity, then it's just that they are losers. Life is unfair get used tot. He has no hate but if he did it wouldn't matter because that's just life. Then he goes eve further and reaches new heights in blaming the victim.

you don't get to cry about bullies until you fix your own problems. also we have freedom of speech in this country, and people can say what they want. i mean it shows more about you if you get so easily butthurt over words meta.

You don't get to cry until you fix your problems? In other words it's your fault. If some hateful fascist beats you up it's your fault, you are a loser you are marked out for victim hood becuase you haven't fix what's wrong with you. Why do these paragons of know-all-ness get to the the one's who do the fixing? Why do they get to be the mockers? Just becuase they are crass enough and hateful enough to ditch civilized behavior and do it. What would they say if we all (the majority who believe in god) got together and took them out and shot them. Would they say "I deserves this because I didn't' fix y problems?" Of course they are not hurting anyone, just using emotional blackmail to make them deny who they are and settle for eternal damnation in order to be victimized by bullying, so what if we just beat them up a bit will that be ok. Now of cousre I'll get a flood of angry adolescence saying 'how dare you advocate violence toward atheists." I don't I''m not he one excusing hurting people on the premise that they deserve it because they haven't fixed their problems yet.

Of cousre he can't distinguish between free speech and license to hurt people by ridicule. So for him there's no middle ground. Just as they can't distinguish bewteen critical thinking and ridicule. If freedom comes with responsibly these guys don't deserve freedom. They can't distinguish between rights to free speech and license to maim.

Then there's this billiant gem:

Leyman:  "How does one "bully" a religious belief, Meta? When we blaspheme your God beliefs we are not "bullying" you personally in any way, shape, form, or fashion." I guess no one is being ridiculed then because you can't ridicule an idea. Of course it's not about hte people holding it is it. In another exchange with Aussieguy he expressed indignation because I suggested that it would be ok to ridicule and insult Aborigines for their dream time and other "ridiculous beliefs." He immediately graps the idea that if you ridicule their beliefs you are ridiculing them. He expressed indignation at insulting dream time as stupid because you are also insulting the people, their self definition as to who they are is wrapped up in their lore. Then of course he can't grasp the idea that Christians identify with Jesus and the cross and the empty tomb. Those are stupid ideas that deserve to be mocked, hey it's just he internet. If you make fund of Aborigonies then somethings really wrong with you.

The other answers for two whole threads are the same. They to decide everything, if they mock and ridicule you it's your own fault you are just a loser for believing stupid things. They don't hate anyone but if they did it would be ok becasue there's freedom of speech and hate is just an intellectual exercise in critical thinking. Don't you think the Brown shirts made similar kinds of rationalizations every time they beat up a Jew? I'm sure they said "Its just politics it can't really hurt anyone."

struck an atheist nerve

teabag is alarmed by my cogent understanding of atheism in relation to ideology


Originally Posted by Metacrock

Being a lack of belief doesn't mean that it doesn't have an ideology and that it's not a truth regime. the lack of belief functions as a positive element. But atheists fill that gap with positive assertions, especially scientism.

Atheism as an entity is not an ideology per se but the movement of new atheism is a different matter. that is an entity and it reaches into other movements to fill the gap.

 Teabag Salad:

Are you really so determined to hate atheists that you repeatedly attempt to use this strawman of what atheism actually is?

 What makes it a straw man? Just because it's my analysis of their deal? I was part of their deal. I know how they think and what they say. I use their own words to demonstrate. How is it a straw man?


In response to my assertion that I struck a nerve he says:

Teabag:

 Nope, you've not struck a nerve at all. If anything I find it funny that you spend all the time you do running a blog ranting against atheism. I, on the other hand, am quite happy to let Christians believe and do pretty much what they want.

How many hours have you wasted writing entries ranting about how bad and evil atheists are?

Funny you should bring that up. The original post on the thread was an assertion that atheist can't have an ideology becuase it's just a lack of belief, and my comments explains why that comment doesn't answer the issue about ideology. The real issue is that look at how many athiests come to carm just mock and ridiucle? almost every one they do it every day all day long on through the night and it's on site after site. There are almost no Christian sties dedicated to mocking atheism.I was the first one to seriously put up a site trying to analyze the nature of the hate segement of New atheism and I was the first one to say it was a hate group. I was the first one to start talking about atheist ideology. Look at what we are up against? A vast array of thousands of peolpe who morning noon and night never stop talking about how deeply they hate Christians.

The Athesits Grammar Scam and The Illusion of Technique

Most people don't know what grammar is. Grammar is sentence structure. My grammar is no great shakes but it's not bad. It's as good as any average college student's grammar. The problem is people think other things that are not grammatical are part of grammar. People think punctuation is grammar, they think spelling is grammar, they think capitailzation is grammar. None of those are grammar. I've ran into a site, while not overtly atheist it seems to be ran by atheists and they use a new scam I've never seen before to ensure that no Christain apologist get's by their checkers.

They have a bad grammar catcher. You can't post without correcting the faults. It wont post it. So none of the posts that make it on there should be ungrammatical because they all pass the checker after you correct them. Then after beating some of their really stupid people in arguments, they ban me becuase of my "horrible grammar that is destroying the English language." Most of the problems it caught on  my posts (99%) were failure to capitalize the first word of a sentence. That's just laziness, not poor grammar. First of all, I know better I just get lazy from so much posting. Secondly,capitalization is not part of grammar.

web defintion of grammar:

noun

noun: grammar

1. 1.

   the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics.

   synonyms:

   syntax, sentence structure, rules of language, morphology; More linguistics "the editors of this newspaper need a refresher course in grammar"

   • a particular analysis of the system and structure of language or of a specific language.
   • a book on grammar.

     plural noun: grammars

     "my old Latin grammar"
   • a set of actual or presumed prescriptive notions about correct use of a language.

     "it was not bad grammar, just dialect"
   • the basic elements of an area of knowledge or skill.

     "the grammar of wine"
   • Computing

     a set of rules governing what strings are valid or allowable in a language or text.

Free Dicitonary (Farlex)
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/grammar

gram·mar  (grmr)

n.

1.

a. The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences.

b. The study of structural relationships in language or in a language, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history.

2.

a. The system of inflections, syntax, and word formation of a language.

b. The system of rules implicit in a language, viewed as a mechanism for generating all sentences possible in that language.

3.

a. A normative or prescriptive set of rules setting forth the current standard of usage for pedagogical or reference purposes.

b. Writing or speech judged with regard to such a set of rules.

4. A book containing the morphologic, syntactic, and semantic rules for a specific language.

5.

a. The basic principles of an area of knowledge: the grammar of music.

b. A book dealing with such principles.

Some of the posts on those boards (Philosophy forums, and  Philosophy of religion section) were quite stupid. The main sections that cover philosophy were really good (and very technical) but in the philosophy of rleigion section some of them were extremely stupid. One such example is several people who kept insisting that God need not be necessary even in Christian theology. That is just a matter of sheer ignorance.

Usually we refer to God as either necessary or impossible. My question is this: Could a created god be otherwise perfect and necessarily contingent? Suppose existential laws emerged from total chaos along with miscellaneous noise. These random laws allowed the creation of an intelligent designer or an intelligent designing universe that was responsible for the emergence of order and complexity, Now I don't really believe this happened but I'm asking it as a philosophical question. Is there any reason why this is impossible?

My answer after a few go rounds:

FrankLeeSeaux wrote:

So, you are defining God as necessary? Despite the fact that most if not all scientific evidence is to the contrary?

Meta:
There is no scientific evidence about God. God is not given in sense data. So God can't be the study of scientific scrutiny. Whatever sense of scientific understanding you are dealing with it's not necessary in the same sense. All scientific data that reflects upon the existence of God is indirect.





FrankLeeSeaux

For instance, within the Big Bang model of the universe God is entirely unnecessary to "ignite the fuse" that gets the whole thing started(so to speak).

Meta:
No, there is no such evidence. That is totally just BS. It's Hawking's wisful thinking. No evidence for that.


FrankLeeSeaux

Nor is God necessary, within that model, to intervene in any way to keeps things on track, as it were(assuming a track/plan/purpose exists in the first place). God is equally unnecessary in Evolution, as well as the Abiogenesis hypothesis.

Meta:

Yes he is. first of all you are misusing the term necessity. It doesn't mean "this can't exist without God." In the context of discussion of god's own necessity it refers to the ontological nature of God as creator. That doesn't preclude the existence of any particular aspect of creation as a result of the evolutionary process. The process itself would not exist without the creator beginning it into being.

My point is that the term necessity does not refer to the existence of things in the universe but to God's relation to begin. Setting off expansion might be something God did but it's not proved that it could happen by itself.

There is no proof of something form nothing. There is no proof of something form nothing. Even so it's missing the point about God's relationship to the whole. God is not just related at one point, but at every point.



FrankLeeSeaux

In fact, I'm hard pressed to find any circumstance under which God is necessary.

[Because he's not contingent, that's the circumstance because that's what the word means in the context of speaking about God's modal status]

Meta:
That is merely wishful thinking. There is no evidence of any kind that something comes from nothing. So the basic concept of being itself is entirely dependent upon god, becuase God is being itself.





FrankLeeSeaux

God is also distinctly unnecessary in the anthropic principle(a major theistic arguing point for the likely existence of a God. So, God isn't even necessary in the "best" arguments for God. Which would tend to disprove your selected definition.

Meta:
You have no evidence that proves that. Where are you going to get evidence form a universe known to be Godless? How are you going to compare evidence? That is nothing more than the mistake of the design argument in reverse. You are assuming that you can compare universes when you no access to evidence from any other universe; even if you did you wouldn't know factually that is a universe without God. You don't have any factual way of getting evidence from a universe with God. So you have no basis for comparison.


FrankLeeSeaux

You, on the other hand, are attempting to rationalize all the evidence away, so as to allow for your preconceived notion. Your arguments and beliefs are not beyond reason... They are contrary to facts, evidence, reason, and logic.

Meta
You are attempting to take over ontology by bullying your way in using the mystique of science as a club to beat the enemy over the head with. This is the offensive version of the fortress of facts. The atheist ides behind his house of cards telling himself it's a fortress of facts. Now you are trying to take the offensive, using it as a club.
End example


It was after that post that they banned me saying "you are destroying the English language." I had to correct problems to get by the grammar catcher so there's not much of  chance of doing any damage to the langue. Most of the corrections were about capital letters. I never saw one that said "syntax is wrong" or "you have your predicate in the place for the modifier" or anything like that. I don't never use no double negatives.

Now this site is not overtly atheist. It's billed as philosophy and I don't know the views of those who run it. It clearly is some kind of skeptical Christian hating site. Atheists are doing the grammar scam all the time just like they are with the grammar scam and the spelling. They harp on both and seldom know what they are. This usually comes after it's clear they can't answer my arguments.

In Keeping with the Illusion of Technique from matters more than content. It doesn't make any difference what your rationale is, so long as the form is suitable and the conclusion is acceptable to prevailing ideology.  This is the state of our society. We are not rational humans we are rationalizing cogs in machine.


Here are the threads where I creamed them:
is contingent God possible?

Can a God Given morality be absolute

Can Science tell us anything about God?  7-9

Orwellian Atheism

Now that we understand that the hate group has evolved from mere hate group to Orwellian nightmare we can analyze it more effectively. So far here are the indications:

Use of terms:these are all found in past posts on this blog so you can just go down the page and find them.

Imaginary: indicating the status of belief in God

Delusion: Also used of alleged fictional status of God belief.

Cult: used as synonym for all religious groups even the most popular

Description of the making of God arguments:

Trying to usurp science and reality to stick in your deity is dangerous.

superstition: used defined as Christianity and other religious belief.

Definition of Superstition

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature ...
www.brainyquote.com/words/su/superstition226408.html - 14k - Cached - Similar pages -

The same kind of recursive and circular statement I just got through exposing. What makes it superstitious? Because it's religion. What makes religion superstition? Because it' superstition.

Defining "Fre Thinkers" As those who agree with atheist ideology:

True free thinkers are those that can speak and think with accuracy and honesty. As a scientist, I pride myself on being able to read and understand the natural world and everything it has to offer. Not all of it is 100% right, but I consider the 95% to be good enough.

Defining opposition to Atheist control as "anti-free thinking."


Freedom becomes slavery and slavery becomes freedom. Now that we know this is the true nature of atheism, reductionism and all the other isms such as scientism that go hand in hand with the hate group, we can understand the danger is no just to Christianity, not just to religions, but to all people who want to think for themselves.

Atheism constitutes a clear and present danger.


This time from T WEb. An atheist makes the statement that God is "only imaginary." I put up a great argument that belief in God is rationally warranted and that is certainly strong enough to be thought of as more than "Imaginary." The he tries to soft peddle the insulting implications, which I find is an Orwellian use of language.\

Me: that's more than imaginary, remember the title of the thread?"

him: Only if there happens to actually be a God.

My argument is that we have strong reasons to bleieve there's a God. He wants to be able to continue the insulting connotations while denying that he means them. But when I claim that string theory is imaginary too what does he say?


Im originally posted by JimL

Neutrino's are detectable and are known to exist, there is nothing imaginary about them,

Meta:

atheists just really have a problem with understanding what is said don't you? God is real and can be detected. What the person I was responding to said about the meaning of imaginary would apply to anything that is not directly and unarguably proved. Neutrinos are not directly demonstrated. they are not directly observed. You can detect them but only by their effect upon other particles. There still remains no direct picture of one. They cannot be directly observed.

We can detect God by his effects upon people, that's what RE is. It's God's effect, the trace of God.


Jim L

and string theory is just that, a theory, based on the physics of the natural world, whereas God is merely an unscientific concept that gives to us an imaginary explanation as to the meaning of it all.

Again, Science is not the only form of knowledge. Understand? science is not the only form of knowledge. that means it doesn't have to be science to be true. That means bad mouthing God by saying "that's not scinece is not an argument! understand now? that's not a point in your favor. it's meaningless.

it does not make God imaginary. Just because something is not science doesn't mean it's imaginary. Logic is not science, logic is not imaginary. Phenomenology is not science, phenomenology is not imaginary. Understand now?

You are trying to privilege your position with words.



Meta

you are special pleading. You are trying to say that science is the only form of knowledge so therefore anything that is scientific is automatically redeemed from not having direct proof. But an idea that is not a scientific idea, if not proved directly must be imaginary. That's crap.

You do not have the right to privilege our position such that anything you say is exempt form direct proof but anything I say direct proof is automatically required.


Neutrinos and string theory cannot be proved directly no one thinks that makes them imaginary. God can be known by his effects and by one's understanding of being, so God is not imaginary.




Meta

Yes I sure and I have.(verify SN) See the threads I put down on how atheists have the wrong idea of the supernatural. The religious experience studies and the effects of navigation in the world are supernatural, a prori. they fit exactly what the original concept was about.Its' a Christian theological concept atheists do not have the right to define it!




Jim L

and so you are left with nothing but the imagination with which to construe an ultimate reality or God. Whether God exists or not you can only imagine.

you are doing it again, give me some proof that anything that is not science is imaginary? why do you think you get to pronounce that? Science doesn't say that. Show me the scientific data that proves that?

Moreover, My argument is based upon 300 scientific studies and you don't have any. I can verify the SN by science because the first argument is the supernatural. Supernatural refers to God's power to transform lives, that's exactly how the word was first. That's what it means that's what these 300 studies prove. you don't have any studies. you have no studies.

score, 300 to 0.

Theists = 300 studies proving our position

ahteist= 0 studies proving your position.






Meta

I am left with 300 empirical studies which show that the experiences that led to the creation of religion are real, they are experiences of something, they fit the criteria we use to determine reality so we have every right to think of them the effects of something real; they are about god we should assume God is that "something" that is real.


Jim L

not direct proof but more than imagination!

Meta
they don't have to be direct proof. you have offered no data or any sort of argument to prove that these are the only choices, either imaginary or totally proved directly. That's a silly idea. That's not science and it's not logical it's stupid. do you hear me its' stupid. got it? it's a dumb idea.

you are making extremely statements and you can't back them up.


I have studies showing an innate concept of God in the mind of humans. That means God had to put it there because evolution can't.

[not direct proof but more than imagination!

did you read the op? do you ever read anything? The point in the op is it doesn't have to be direct proof because it rationally warranted. do you understand that phrase?

I said in the first post that my point is not that God is directly proved but that it's rational to believe. So you come along and say "not direct proof" so what does that do to the argument? It agrees with it so it must no effect it at all do you see that?




I never defined imaginary thus. It merely means the construction of concepts in the mind with no definite reality.

So now it comes out that you don't understand what is meant by "connotations?" Atheists are indeed ignorant. It's a connotation of ignorance and stupidty and childishness if not why are you not willing to say that string theory is imaginary?

Hawkings numbers are imaginary how does that make you feel?





Jim l

You can't prove it directly because whether true or not for you, like it or not, God is only a concept in your own mind.

Meta
what did I say about proving things directly? when are you going to start addressing the arguments?

The Mob Rule Factor

An illiterate atheist, in fact one of the idiots who was involved in the plot to make it seem that I don't anything about Tillich, put up a post about the Paul study trying t make it seem that there's this vast correlation between good countries like Sweden where they take care of people and being an atheist. I put up a bunch of my stuff about the problems of the Paul study.

One thing led to another and the original poster, Sylar, began name calling and riduicling me: He follows a strategy he and his friends started during the Tillich thing when I really showed tehm up and they had nothing left to argue:

Saylar: Meta, the grownups are talking. Go back to the kiddie table.

They have been saying that any time I post something that has any intelligence to it. I put up the link to my stuff on Zuckerman and talked bout what's wrong with his data and he said that. I was P.Oed so I said:

Meta:

 sorry Buckwheat that line wont work, now that a real professorially trained social scientist (me) is here. you armatures are going to have to shut up. someone who has been trained at the Ph.D. level is telling you are atheist ideology and propaganda is a bunch of BS.

You understand BS? giviing it too much credit I should say chicken ****.

 typical school boy, school yard bully stuff.
 antoher litlte solider of Dawkins comes into it:

Frikki:

 You are not a trained social scientist. You have a masters in theology and you could not even complete a PHD, that qualifies you to ask three big questions 1) Why are we here? 2) Who made us? 3) Would I like my latte to go?

Social scientist do actual research.

 Meta:

 boy are you ignorant. Not completing a Ph.D. doesn't mean you are not trained. The training doesn't just hover over your head until you get hte paper, ti's in there. I did everything required to get the Ph.D. except the last thing. All the course work, conferences, papers, publications it's all training and got all of it.

My Ph.D. was in history of ideas which is a social scinece, my BA was in sociology.

hey what did you do Ph.D. work in?

Fiiikki

It does not show, I actually thought that you were a theologian, you know the spelling, the disjointed ideas, your disability and the RED CAPS!

 Brilliant hu? Goes right for the Dyslexia becuase he knows he can't take me on on equal terms and talk about social scineces. They always do that. Then I'm feeding the troll by now because I'm pissed.

Meta:

trying to imply that spelling is part of intelligence shows that you don't know what intelligence is. spelling is not an intelligence issue. MY IQ 42 what the hell is yours is it higher than your shoe size?

I notice that you don't use social science parameters as the basis of your ridicule that would becasue YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT DO YOU?


 Frikki

 Oh I see that you have a masters in theology. It really shows.

 Meta:

 shows what?If you had any really understanding you would know that theological training takes great intelligence and theolgoians are brilliant and it takes brains to be one. you can't read any of the threads we've done on Tillich and tell me you undersatnd anything that's being said.k

go back to your little troll board where other middle school kids are waiting to talk about who is dating whom in eight grad. we don't need little kids wandering in here who couldn't hold up their end of an intellectual conversational with a ninth greyer.

Dawkins realized that Christianity spread among the slaves and lower classes. so he theorized that what made it work was the more zeal than brains factor. then he raised up an argument of illiterate know nothing scum bags to invade the net and mock and ridicule Christan and conduct virtual lynchings of people much more intelligent then they are.

the new standard of course has it that if you know theology you are stupid. theology is stupid to know about makes you stupid, regardless how much brains it takes to undersatnd it.

you can't undersatnd it. you don't have what it takes and you never will. Your job as a solider for Dawkins to ridicule people who are smarter than you and help crate the mode rule factor.

Theology is really stupid. if you know theology you are really an idiot. I think anyone who read the theological stuff I post a few days abot about Tillich can see that it takes it take a fine education to be a theologian. you don''t  get a fine education by being an dumb ass most of these atheists don't have educations so they have no way of knowing. We all know Theology is an academic discipline that means its an intellectual subject and one must be an intellectual to excel at it. Only idiots don't know this.

 no these are not brilliant answers on my part this is not a significant exchange it's a third grade school boys waste of time. That's what the atheist movement thieves on. I think I have it right that Dawkins helped set this in motion becasue he feels Christianity made it by capitalizing upon the slave class ignronatce. that's probably true in the early histoyr. We also know form the martyerologies that they had a  lot upper class people too.

What's relevant is that these guys are still doing their tricks. Message boards are just the dumping ground for ingornace and stupidity. Many of the behaviors these people exhibit show the same totalitarian propaganda I've spotted all along. Vilifying the other side to the point that knowing theology proficiently is a sign of stupidity and a liability so that the atheist never has to be faced with the fact that he's full of it and his objections the faith are based upon ignorance.

so it's not a hate group hu?: Atheists defend their right to hate

 What was the reaction to the information that blasphemy is hate? Rather an say "I don't hate anyone" they actually began defending their hate. They also expressed a confusion about the distinction between critical thinking and mocking. Apparently many atheists actually think that mocking and reducible are on a par with intellectual commentary and critical thinking. That tells me they don't know what those things are.

First I show that blasphemy is hate. In in the previous post I quoted Websters who defines blaspheny as showing contempt. Contempt is a form of hate. If we look for the definition of contempt we find it means "the act of despising : the state of mind of one who despises : disdain" (Websters online). Their first reaction was to deny that despise means to hate. Now of course I can well imagine there is a fine distinction between the two, but what kind of mind tries to rationalize his hate by saying "it's not really hate it's despising?"

Originally Posted by MikeWC

Why do Christians always identify themselves with God?

Someone insults God, and Christians act as if they themselves have been insulted. What's up with that?

Nobody here is spray painting pentagrams on churches or firing Christians.

Get over yourself, Meta.

In other words, silly little victim thinking this about you. I responded to this by saying:

If you met me I said "your father is an idiot and jer and he's totally dishonest and I don't beileve he exists." wouldn't you feel a bit insured? you would feel some connection with it right?

Answer (by MarkUK): "He can prove his father exists; you haven't. He can also prove that his father would take offence at your comments; you haven't." If you are talking about something they don't think exists then you feelings aren't important. You should just shouldn't feel like it defines you. If they are not willing to allow your sacred beliefs to define you, guess who is trying to define you?We don't call it "totalitarian" for nothing.

Aussieguy:

Why should religion get a free pass? Much of it is very stupid and very dangerous?

Is it hate speech for me to say that Muslims who called for the death of the author of the recent "Innocence of Islam" video stupid and barbaric? I say they are stupid and barbaric. Am I wrong to say this?

Again why should we allow the victim to decide what's important to him. We will tell you who we think you are and what's important to you. If we dont' think it's important then our hatred is fine as long as its what we want. Then he rationalizes this fascistic mentality by comparing religious victims of his hate with Muslims who did the attack in Libya. So if you are a victim of hated toward religion and yu fight back then you are on a par with the guys who blew up the world trade center.

reverrendog: 

i have no hate, i find your claims to be without merit and instead of bothering to look at why, you assume i hate you or your ideas. you take the internet waaaaaaaay too seriously and despite being on here for years, can't grasp that no one really cares enough about your ideas to hate anything about them.
lol dude i don't hate anyone on the internet, i save that for people who deserve it.

So it's just a little game. No need to take it seroiusly. All the guys who kill themselves due to cybre bullying they are just losers we need to write them off. Notice what this same guy says about it below.
In the same thread I said:  "mocking and ridicule are not fair, they are not intellectual they not based on thinking they are based on bully stuff. " This same reverendog who says he has no hate says:

when was life ever fair meta? you whining about bullying is hilarious, you bully people all the time, and mostly for no other reason than someone disagreed with your nonsense!

They put up thread after thread about how evil and mean the God of the OT is. How he's commanding the murders of whole nations and wiping out everyone in a flood. When it comes the hurt they cause the hate they fume and spew over victims of their stupidity, then it's just that they are losers. Life is unfair get used tot. He has no hate but if he did it wouldn't matter because that's just life. Then he goes eve further and reaches new heights in blaming the victim.

you don't get to cry about bullies until you fix your own problems. also we have freedom of speech in this country, and people can say what they want. i mean it shows more about you if you get so easily butthurt over words meta.

You don't get to cry until you fix your problems? In other words it's your fault. If some hateful fascist beats you up it's your fault, you are a loser you are marked out for victim hood becuase you haven't fix what's wrong with you. Why do these paragons of know-all-ness get to the the one's who do the fixing? Why do they get to be the mockers? Just becuase they are crass enough and hateful enough to ditch civilized behavior and do it. What would they say if we all (the majority who believe in god) got together and took them out and shot them. Would they say "I deserves this because I didn't' fix y problems?" Of course they are not hurting anyone, just using emotional blackmail to make them deny who they are and settle for eternal damnation in order to be victimized by bullying, so what if we just beat them up a bit will that be ok. Now of cousre I'll get a flood of angry adolescence saying 'how dare you advocate violence toward atheists." I don't I''m not he one excusing hurting people on the premise that they deserve it because they haven't fixed their problems yet.

Of cousre he can't distinguish between free speech and license to hurt people by ridicule. So for him there's no middle ground. Just as they can't distinguish bewteen critical thinking and ridicule. If freedom comes with responsibly these guys don't deserve freedom. They can't distinguish between rights to free speech and license to maim.

Then there's this billiant gem:

Leyman:  "How does one "bully" a religious belief, Meta? When we blaspheme your God beliefs we are not "bullying" you personally in any way, shape, form, or fashion." I guess no one is being ridiculed then because you can't ridicule an idea. Of course it's not about hte people holding it is it. In another exchange with Aussieguy he expressed indignation because I suggested that it would be ok to ridicule and insult Aborigines for their dream time and other "ridiculous beliefs." He immediately graps the idea that if you ridicule their beliefs you are ridiculing them. He expressed indignation at insulting dream time as stupid because you are also insulting the people, their self definition as to who they are is wrapped up in their lore. Then of course he can't grasp the idea that Christians identify with Jesus and the cross and the empty tomb. Those are stupid ideas that deserve to be mocked, hey it's just he internet. If you make fund of Aborigonies then somethings really wrong with you.

The other answers for two whole threads are the same. They to decide everything, if they mock and ridicule you it's your own fault you are just a loser for believing stupid things. They don't hate anyone but if they did it would be ok becasue there's freedom of speech and hate is just an intellectual exercise in critical thinking. Don't you think the Brown shirts made similar kinds of rationalizations every time they beat up a Jew? I'm sure they said "Its just politics it can't really hurt anyone."

The Couriter's Reply and the Fool's Gambit.

I was off line for a week due to loss of A/C . Too hot to get on. Coming back I found a bit of hate mail in the comment box. It was an atheist atheist idiot who can't understand the problem with moronic gimmick known as the "courtier's reply." This is otherwise known as "bully and brow beating." It's a fools gambit, the attempt to force the other person into acquiesce by merely demanding something must be the case and any anyone who doesn't agree is an idiot. This allows the Dawkametnalists who say anything they wish to say about theology, and dodge the bullet of ignorance because they have not read any. So evoking the gimmick know as the courtier's replay is about the stupidest thing one can do.

this little hate monger was loaded with insult. I'm so stupid. i am the "stupidest" person ever, why? becasue his little ideology says anyone who disagrees with the ideology must be "stupid." They way they sling epithets about and refuse to learn anything is proof in and of itself that their "movement" which they can't even admit is a movement is about the stupidest thing no earth.

Atheists are always coming up with little gimmicks. Anytime you trump them with real knowledge they get up set and find a gimmick. The Jesus myth theory was such a gimmick. Jesus was such a compelling figure and there is some decent evidence he rose from the dead, so to counter that they just pretend he never existed, and give it a little name and make up some pseudo intelligent sounding crap pertaining to it. The "default" and the "extraordinary evidence credo" these are all gimmicks atheists made up and they are passed off as pseudo official sounding quasi logical tactics that in actuality mean nothing.


The latest is the Courtier's reply. This is it:

I recently referred to the "Courtier's Reply", a term invented by PZ Myers to rebut the claims of believers who insist that their superstitious beliefs are ever so much more sophisticated than the simple version that Dawkins attacks.


PZ's response deserves much more publicity because it goes to the heart of the debate between rationalism and supersition. I'm going to post his original Courtier's Reply below (without permission, but I'm sure he'll understand) but before doing so I need to remind everyone about the original fairy tale [The Emperor's New Clothes].

This is a statement by a reductionist scientism king Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. He's on a blog called Sand Walk.

So what this courtier's reply is saying is that if the skeptic says stupid things about theology and demonstrates that he knows nothing about it and the theist says "O your criticism is invalid because you don't understand what you are criticizing" then all the atheist has to do is say "that's the courtiers reply" and the theist is supposed to go "O my God, I've violated a law of logic!" and give up and stop believing in God. But in realty it's not a log of logic, I never heard it in a logic class.It's not in a lgoic text book, and the meaning of it is silly. It's just saying 'You can't point out my ignorance of theology because I will not allow theology to have any kind of validity or importance and religious people may not not any sort of human dignity." That's all it's saying. It's nothing more than anti-intellectual stupidity.


Here is Myers statement about it:


The Courtier's Reply
by PZ Myers

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.


Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.


Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.


Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

In other words, knowledge of theological subjects is just plain bull shit and it doesn't matter if Dawkins doesn't understand it because it's not worth understanding. So it's not valid criticism of him to say that. Except the problem is, if he understood theology he would see that his criticisms are wrong. The criticisms he makes are almost always about fundamentalists views. Since he refuses to accept that there are other non fundamentalist types of theology, when you point it out he just says O that's ridiculous because all theology is crap so it doesn't matter--but if he knew that he might not make the criticisms becasue they don't apply. But it's not worth knowing that. he's just reasoning in a circle.

Here's his logic:

Him: religion is evil superstition because fundies believe X

Liberal: we don't believe x

him: that doesn't matter becasue religion is all crap no matter what. so even if you don't believe the thing I say is crap you still your own crap that must be stupid because you are religious. I know it's stupid because religion is stupid. Of course that's based on the stuff that you don't believe but that doesn't matter.

Narrow minded anti-intellectual brinkmanship in a most unsophisticated manner.

A very emotionally immature atheist tried this on me recently. Here's how it went.

Brent: All religious people believe in big man in the sky.

Me: process theology doesn't believe in big man in the sky

Brent: that's nonsense all religious people do so they must.

Me; you clearly don't know enough about theology to say that

Brent: Courtiers reply! Courtiers' replay!

Like some magic king's X that's supposed to mean something. Clearly it's stupid because they are only trying to dodge the fact that their criticisms are based upon things they don't understand and that don't apply. Its' an attempt to hide their ignorance. They are committing an informal fallacy with the use of this gimmick. It's called "ipsie dixit." It means "truth by stipulation." They are saying in effect "I simply stipulate that I will not allow you to have knowledge. AT this point on your knowledge is now void becasue I declare to be so, since it's religion and religion is stupid."

Again their reasoning is quite circular since the reasons they would give for reducing religion to superstition don't' apply to modern sophisticated theology, but the fact that it can be labeled "theology" and they don't even know what that means, they stipulate that it must be stupid. So even though their reasons don't apply they just demand that they must do so any way.

Again they are merely stipulating truth and insisting they are right without any just reasons. It's idiotic to try and criticize a whole field you know nothing about. To make up for appalling ignorance they imply a third rate gimmick that is actually made up of two informal fallacies: ipsie dixit and circular reasoning.

Mocking ridicling hate site is still around

The Hidden Atheist

No analysis. just one little aphoristic hate statement after another. One that shows someone saying something he doesn't like on a video and a slogan "more stupid Christians." A priest and it says "Father knows best how to doge questions." really heavy duty intellectual stuff. Science V Religion it's really simple, and they show pictures of faith healers and crippled people. no analysis.

We know this sort of thing is the atheist template at work. The guy tells us up front why he's filled with hatred and why he needs to feel supiror:

This blog is about being a Atheist who sometimes has to be hidden. I was raised as a lutheran, attended private schools most of my life. One day I came to my senses and realized everything I had been taught was a lie. I came to realize the stress believing in some imaginary god was hurting me. Myths are myths if the greek gods, the egyptian gods etc etc are all myths, then why must the christian god be real? Its not it too is a myth.

We know from what we have uncovered on Atheist watch that people become atheists due to poor self esteem and negative God images. This guy felt inadvertent in his religious schools and was probably punished or rejected by people who he felt were Christians. The can't face the emiotional aspect of their rejection of God so they need to stoke their self image by comparing themselves tot hose they hate.

Orwellian Atheism

Now that we understand that the hate group has evolved from mere hate group to Orwellian nightmare we can analyze it more effectively. So far here are the indications:

Use of terms:these are all found in past posts on this blog so you can just go down the page and find them.

Imaginary: indicating the status of belief in God

Delusion: Also used of alleged fictional status of God belief.

Cult: used as synonym for all religious groups even the most popular

Description of the making of God arguments:

Trying to usurp science and reality to stick in your deity is dangerous.

superstition: used defined as Christianity and other religious belief.

Definition of Superstition

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature ...
www.brainyquote.com/words/su/superstition226408.html - 14k - Cached - Similar pages -

The same kind of recursive and circular statement I just got through exposing. What makes it superstitious? Because it's religion. What makes religion superstition? Because it' superstition.

Defining "Fre Thinkers" As those who agree with atheist ideology:

True free thinkers are those that can speak and think with accuracy and honesty. As a scientist, I pride myself on being able to read and understand the natural world and everything it has to offer. Not all of it is 100% right, but I consider the 95% to be good enough.

Defining opposition to Atheist control as "anti-free thinking."


Freedom becomes slavery and slavery becomes freedom. Now that we know this is the true nature of atheism, reductionism and all the other isms such as scientism that go hand in hand with the hate group, we can understand the danger is no just to Christianity, not just to religions, but to all people who want to think for themselves.

Atheism constitutes a clear and present danger.


This time from T WEb. An atheist makes the statement that God is "only imaginary." I put up a great argument that belief in God is rationally warranted and that is certainly strong enough to be thought of as more than "Imaginary." The he tries to soft peddle the insulting implications, which I find is an Orwellian use of language.\

Me: that's more than imaginary, remember the title of the thread?"

him: Only if there happens to actually be a God.

My argument is that we have strong reasons to bleieve there's a God. He wants to be able to continue the insulting connotations while denying that he means them. But when I claim that string theory is imaginary too what does he say?


Im originally posted by JimL

Neutrino's are detectable and are known to exist, there is nothing imaginary about them,

Meta:

atheists just really have a problem with understanding what is said don't you? God is real and can be detected. What the person I was responding to said about the meaning of imaginary would apply to anything that is not directly and unarguably proved. Neutrinos are not directly demonstrated. they are not directly observed. You can detect them but only by their effect upon other particles. There still remains no direct picture of one. They cannot be directly observed.

We can detect God by his effects upon people, that's what RE is. It's God's effect, the trace of God.


Jim L

and string theory is just that, a theory, based on the physics of the natural world, whereas God is merely an unscientific concept that gives to us an imaginary explanation as to the meaning of it all.

Again, Science is not the only form of knowledge. Understand? science is not the only form of knowledge. that means it doesn't have to be science to be true. That means bad mouthing God by saying "that's not scinece is not an argument! understand now? that's not a point in your favor. it's meaningless.

it does not make God imaginary. Just because something is not science doesn't mean it's imaginary. Logic is not science, logic is not imaginary. Phenomenology is not science, phenomenology is not imaginary. Understand now?

You are trying to privilege your position with words.



Meta

you are special pleading. You are trying to say that science is the only form of knowledge so therefore anything that is scientific is automatically redeemed from not having direct proof. But an idea that is not a scientific idea, if not proved directly must be imaginary. That's crap.

You do not have the right to privilege our position such that anything you say is exempt form direct proof but anything I say direct proof is automatically required.


Neutrinos and string theory cannot be proved directly no one thinks that makes them imaginary. God can be known by his effects and by one's understanding of being, so God is not imaginary.




Meta

Yes I sure and I have.(verify SN) See the threads I put down on how atheists have the wrong idea of the supernatural. The religious experience studies and the effects of navigation in the world are supernatural, a prori. they fit exactly what the original concept was about.Its' a Christian theological concept atheists do not have the right to define it!




Jim L

and so you are left with nothing but the imagination with which to construe an ultimate reality or God. Whether God exists or not you can only imagine.

you are doing it again, give me some proof that anything that is not science is imaginary? why do you think you get to pronounce that? Science doesn't say that. Show me the scientific data that proves that?

Moreover, My argument is based upon 300 scientific studies and you don't have any. I can verify the SN by science because the first argument is the supernatural. Supernatural refers to God's power to transform lives, that's exactly how the word was first. That's what it means that's what these 300 studies prove. you don't have any studies. you have no studies.

score, 300 to 0.

Theists = 300 studies proving our position

ahteist= 0 studies proving your position.






Meta

I am left with 300 empirical studies which show that the experiences that led to the creation of religion are real, they are experiences of something, they fit the criteria we use to determine reality so we have every right to think of them the effects of something real; they are about god we should assume God is that "something" that is real.


Jim L

not direct proof but more than imagination!

Meta
they don't have to be direct proof. you have offered no data or any sort of argument to prove that these are the only choices, either imaginary or totally proved directly. That's a silly idea. That's not science and it's not logical it's stupid. do you hear me its' stupid. got it? it's a dumb idea.

you are making extremely statements and you can't back them up.


I have studies showing an innate concept of God in the mind of humans. That means God had to put it there because evolution can't.

[not direct proof but more than imagination!

did you read the op? do you ever read anything? The point in the op is it doesn't have to be direct proof because it rationally warranted. do you understand that phrase?

I said in the first post that my point is not that God is directly proved but that it's rational to believe. So you come along and say "not direct proof" so what does that do to the argument? It agrees with it so it must no effect it at all do you see that?




I never defined imaginary thus. It merely means the construction of concepts in the mind with no definite reality.

So now it comes out that you don't understand what is meant by "connotations?" Atheists are indeed ignorant. It's a connotation of ignorance and stupidty and childishness if not why are you not willing to say that string theory is imaginary?

Hawkings numbers are imaginary how does that make you feel?





Jim l

You can't prove it directly because whether true or not for you, like it or not, God is only a concept in your own mind.

Meta
what did I say about proving things directly? when are you going to start addressing the arguments?