tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17204546957841328592024-03-08T00:38:23.259-08:00Truth in fightingA unique look at issues through the eyes of an MMA fighter, featuring Theological Discourse.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-32122787623283631922014-08-19T11:32:00.001-07:002014-08-19T11:34:25.277-07:00Mike Brown<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Got this from the internet:<br />
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Before I begin, I'd like to say that the Mike Brown situation is tragic. Regardless of how it all turns out, regardless of whether or not the shooting was justified, the death of a human being is nothing to take lightly, saying nothing of the families and friends that are affected by the tragedy. The issue I have, is the response of the urban community to this situation. Rather than show patience and wait for the facts to unravel before making a move, the urban community made a very hasty emotional response to the situation. Before ya'll start hating and saying stupid sh*t, just no I ain't no cop lover, and I ain't white, I'm black and I'm from Stockton Ca, one of the realest cities out there. I'm here stating facts:<br />
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc3mgKLntNs<br />
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I find this video interesting because the first half of it clearly depicts the issues I have with the urban communities response to the Mike Brown situation. As soon as the video starts, JP (the man on the left) starts talking about Eric Garner and mentions that how It's not ok to choke someone selling single cigarettes and Sho Baraka (the man on the right, henceforth Sho) chimes in and explains that cops should've talked to Garner to get him to stop and choking someone out should be the last resort. Both of these statements and opinions are correct, but both JP and Sho don't seem to be aware of what really happened with the Gardner situation. Lets watch the video.<br />
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJf8GNTBUA4<br />
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Disclaimer: I have a bit of an issue with the video because it appears to be edited. At 1:18 seconds, the video cuts from a side view of the white officer standing next to a woman, to a back view of the same officer minus the woman. How much time passed? How long were they talking to him? The video cuts again at 1:45. At about 2:19 seconds, the white officer is standing there calmly and suddenly, at 2:20 seconds, the video cuts to Garner getting arrested. This raises a question. Why was the video edited? What did they leave out? <br />
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JP says the officers should talk to him. Well, according to the video above and the videos around the internet, we see just that. The officers are calmly talking to Garner from 1:22 to 2:19, and, in actuality, it looks like Garner is doing the majority of the talking, so the officers are simply listening. Either way, it depicts something entirely different than JP and Sho's insinuation that the cops did not talk to Garner and choked him to death. Judging from Garners own words, he has been talked to MULTIPLE TIMES (he was also arrested previously for a similar offense). Why else would Garner say "I told you the last time, please just leave me alone?" If they weren't constantly talking to him, why would Garner accuse the police of constantly harassing him. So the facts clearly show that Garner was talked to before.<br />
The white cop goes up to Garner and they initially start trying to arrest him with no violence. All Garner had to do was put his hands behind his back, turn around, and let them place the cuffs on him and if there was a misunderstanding or an issue, clear it up in court. Instead, he resisted arrest and the cop applies a choke hold. Now, let's put our thinking caps on. Did the cop know Garner had asthma? No, how could he? So we can safely assume (unless there is something that indicates otherwise) that the cop did not know Garner had asthma, and as a result, we can also safely assume that the cop applied the choke hold because Garner was resisting arrest, not because he knew Garner had asthma and was trying to kill him. As they all went to the ground Garner said "I can't breathe I cant breathe." If you listen carefully, around 2:37, you hear Garner say in a strangled voice, "I can't breathe," at which point it looks like the cop releases the choke hold, and places his hand on Garners head. It seems like, if someone looks at the video and watches it with a critical eye, the cops are doing everything that JP and Sho suggests a cop should do. They talk to Garner, they listen to Garner, they try to arrest Garner without violence, Garner resists, so the cops apply a choke hold, Garner says I can't breathe, and the cop releases the choke hold. Unfortunately, Garner died. Tragic indeed, but were the cops fault? No. Additionally, from a law enforcement perspective, should cops stop arresting everyone that says they can't breathe? People getting arrested usually, for the most part, will say or do anything they can to avoid being arrested, so as cops, what should be done? Take the handcuffs off? Stop attempting to subdue the individual? and allow them to gain an advantage, potentially retrieve a weapon. It's not an easy situation, but generally, to be effective at law enforcement, someone simply saying "I can't breathe" should not be a 'get out of handcuffs or stop arresting' card. JP brings up a point about not breathing in the video, but bringing up the point is not the same thing as addressing the point or refuting it. <br />
Conclusion: JP and Sho are wrong about what happened to Garner. Not just a little bit wrong either, but spectacularly wrong. The cops spent a good amount of time talking and listening to Garner, (Ya know, because we should be faster to listen than speak) despite JP and Sho's insinuation (joking or otherwise) that the cops didn't try and talk to Garner before arresting him. The cops didn't "Choke slam the dude" either, they applied a choke hold after Garner resisted arrest and released it once he said he couldn't breathe. I'm just assuming here, but I am going to guess that JP and Sho are wrong because they didn't do the research before jumping on the black man victimization outrage bandwagon. It's really sad that amongst black people there is no discussion about how Garner himself could've prevented this situation by either not committing a crime in the first place, or simply cooperating with the cops. IMO, this is why our community is a mess, because we do not hold each other accountable for our actions, and its perpetuated by everyone, from the top to the bottom. It's always everyone else's fault. No different than Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the snake. This type of finger pointing combined with the lack of intelligent research and conversation is why our community is at the state it's in. Whether JP or Sho were joking or adding entertainment value to their points is irrelevant, because neither did the proper research before giving their opinions and it's this type of disregard for wisdom (wisdom would be doing adequate research, then giving your opinion) that's hurting our community. Furthermore, they don't seem to be able to look at any situation from a law enforcement perspective.<br />
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At 1:47, JP says the police treat black neighborhoods different than other neighborhoods. Does JP not realize that black neighborhoods have more crime than white neighborhoods? Does JP not realize that the majority of the people in black neighborhoods have different (aggressive) attitudes towards cops than people in white neighborhoods? Or does JP think the multiple statistics, the anecdotal and observable evidence, that show black people commit the most crimes and are very aggressive when to comes to cops is somehow racist evidence? Or those stats don't matter? A fact is a fact. The most common response to that is 'Black communities are hostile to cops because cops have a history of being brutal to black communities.' This is true, but its irrelevant. Does that fact somehow negate the fact that black communities commit a lot of crime and are hostile to cops? No it does not. The existence of one fact does not negate the existence of the other. Both facts can be in existence at the same time. So it is true that the cops have a history of brutality when it comes to black communities, it is also true that black communities commit the most violent crime and are hostile to cops. In regards to the statistics, the exact number may not be accurate, but the basic premise is true. Black people commit violent crimes at a much higher rate than white people, which is why cops will treat black people differently than white people. In the suburbs, you don't really have to worry about the person you're talking to has a gun or a squad of people ready to fire on you if something goes wrong. Keep in mind, the exception does not disprove the rule. Just because you can find a report or two of a crime or gun violence in the suburbs doesn't disprove the fact, the reality, that in predominately white neighborhoods (aka the suburbs), there is a very low amount of violent crime, and in black communities, there is a very high amount of violent crime. <br />
At 2:12 Sho talks about how antagonizing it is because he didn't hear anything about the shooting of an unarmed teen, instead he just heard that there were mobs gathering in STL. First of all, I heard about the shooting of an unarmed teen before I heard about the "mobs." If it's antagonizing because Sho heard about the mobs before he heard about the shooting, does that make it not antagonizing when I heard about the shooting before I heard about the mobs? Furthermore, Sho went on to say the media did not describe people protesting the world bank as a mob (I'm assuming he was talking about operation wall street), or how people turning over and burning cars aren't described as mobs. First off, the difference between OWS and Ferguson was OWS wasn't looting, destroying buildings, destroying cars etc. etc. Sho said, "even when they turn over cars and burn them up, they're not mobs." This is wrong. A quick google search showed different media outlets describing the Lakers fans as mobs after the 2010 Victory. <br />
https://www.google.com/search?q=laker+fans+mob+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb<br />
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An additional speedy google search showed media outlets describing the people that participated in the 08 Philadelphia riot as a mob. <br />
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https://www.google.com/search?q=laker+fans+mob+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb#channel=sb&q=08+philadelphia+riots+mob&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&spell=1<br />
If a quick google search shows that Sho is wrong, imagine what a thorough one would reveal.<br />
At around 3:10, Sho says there are reports of police taunting the crowd. Are these reports accurate? <br />
At around 4:07, Sho calls this stuff an epidemic. This hardly qualifies as an epidemic. No matter how strongly you or anyone else may feel (key word feel), it is far from an epidemic.<br />
Dictionary.com describes epidemic as follows:<br />
1.Also, epidemical. (of a disease) affecting many persons at the same time, and spreading from person to person in a locality where the disease is not permanently prevalent.<br />
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2.extremely prevalent; widespread.<br />
3.a temporary prevalence of a disease.<br />
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4.a rapid spread or increase in the occurrence of something:<br />
"an epidemic of riots."<br />
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If three instances of 'police killing unarmed black men' in a month is an epidemic, then what else is considered an epidemic because it happens three times a month? Why only apply it to cops killing unarmed black men? why not anything else? why the double starndard? This is bad logic.<br />
At around 4:20 Sho talks about Viper threat management. Sho is horribly horribly misinformed about the Viper Threat Management group (henceforth VTMG). Sho seems to think that VTMG 'approach with love rhetoric' should be applied to all police everywhere, and all police need to do is 'talk it out' and if you approach someone with love then everything would be so happy with rainbows and kittens (that was exaggeration to illustrate a point). What Sho doesn't seem to understand (most likely because the depth of his research was that one youtube video and the VTMG website) is VTMG is a protective services company that does protective service work. They only do one aspect of law enforcement. They have no arrest record because their job isn't to arrest people. They can't! They're a private company; they have no real authority to arrest. They don't have to use guns because they aren't running operations to raid people distributing drugs from their house. VTMG will have an easier time deescalating problems and lowering violent encounters because the main thing that makes criminals violent in the first place (in the context of encounters with the police) is the threat of going to jail. Since VTMG cannot take anyone to jail, criminals don't feel the need to be violent when they interact with them. VTMG's job is protection. How many drug dealers did they get off the street? How many in progress robberies have they stopped with their 'approach with love rhetoric.' Sho seems to be very uninformed when it very simple concepts of law enforcement. <br />
Around 5:47, JP and Sho are talking about all police aren't bad and Sho hasn't had any good contact with the police. That's the personal opinion of JP and Sho, so theres no way one can verify if he's being accurate, but based upon how badly misinformed they both seem to be, one wonders if Sho's problems with police aren't the result of his own attitude. Perhaps he should sit down with one of his friends in the force and really get educated about the role of law enforcement, what types of jobs they preform, and how they go about doing their duties and make sure the cop doesn't blow you off as 'just another black man that doesn't understand cops.' Make sure he really explains to you how things work from his perspective.<br />
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Around 6:13, JP brings up conspiracy theories about cops allowing crime to exist because if it didn't, they would be out of a job. This is simply more finger pointing and blaming. What evidence does JP have, real evidence, not conspiracy theories, but real evidence? Most importantly, not a single hint of accountability within the black community. JP says nothing about people in black communities not committing crimes in the first place. Sho says something about how cops don't have a passion for people and they don't to serve and protect. Sho is demonstrating classic tunnel vision here. He's too focused on the black community and he refuses to look outside of it. Getting rid of the drug dealer protects people. Getting rid of bad guys protects citizens, so cops protect and serve. Killing innocent people, neither protects or serves anyone, but JP and Sho have yet to give a legitimate example of cops killing an innocent person (not saying it hasn't happened, because it has, but in the context of this video they have not). Sho's attempts to blanket an entire race of people as 'the least of us' doesn't make them all innocent.<br />
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Sho brings up how every time an authority figure kills an innocent black person, people point out that black people kill each other every day. Sho calls it misdirection and depending on the context, he may be right, but it depends on the context. I find it interesting that one "innocent" black male is killed and the city of STL starts rioting and solidarity is shown everywhere, but when an innocent little girl dies from gang violence, the solidarity and riots are nowhere to be found, and while that doesn't deal with the issue of authorities killing innocents, it does point out the black community's lack of accountability and responsibility. Rioting and solidarity is only shown when a white cop does it. When it comes to the issue of authorities killing innocents, there's no excuse for that, but again, in regards to this video, JP and Sho have not shown any innocents being killed by the police. They're just assuming the cops killed another innocent black male because, for some reason, everything the black community says is true and should be taken at face value.<br />
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At around 7:27 Sho blames the government. More finger pointing. Brown was in this predicament because he robbed a convenience store and thought he was going to go to jail when the cop car rolled up on him. He probably fought the cop, reached for his gun, the cop shoved him off, brown charged, and the cop shot him. The whole mike brown incident, to include JP and Shos response, shows exactly what is wrong with our community and culture. Brown is shot by the cops and Browns friend, says Brown had his hands up in surrender and the cop shot him execution style. That seems to be all JP, Sho and the black community need to jump on the injustice bandwagon. No need to do any research, no need to be wise and wait for further info, no question on the veracity of the witness, nothing. Then, later it comes out that brown was involved in a robbery (which Browns friend neglected to mention). Finally, the autopsy came out and it completely contradicts Browns friends statement. No shots in the back, a shot in the top of the head and in the arm. Is there a single mention of any of this? No. Is there a single mention that Brown friend lied? No. The black community continues on as if none of this matters, because they're past the point of no return. They're fully invested and for anyone to admit they're wrong and they rushed into it to fast would be too humbling, because when it comes to the injustice band wagon, there's no room for be humble, there's no room for wisdom, there's no room for accountability. If that cop shot an innocent mike brown, then he should be held accountable, but wait until you have all of the facts before opening your mouth.<br />
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Sho makes a great point about not expecting the government to care about the inner city and how black people need to come in, own business, and make relationships. I completely agree. This is a great point and we won't see a change until this happens, but his whole 'develop a relationship' rhetoric is really naïve. Sho seems to think that all you have to do is 'develop a relationship' and people won't commit crimes. At some point, someone is going to have to go to jail, and that is where the potential for violence comes from and no amount of talking and relationships is going to make that any easier.<br />
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From 9 minutes on, Sho finally makes a lot of sense and starts talking about communities coming together and helping themselves and not relying on government. The only issue I have is the people in black neighborhoods don't want anything to do with educated black people. We are called white washed, uncle toms, etc. etc. and usually shunned, but I do agree, that we need to find a better way to help our people, but the sort of poor logic based off of bad information and poor research displayed in the initial part of the video only perpetuates the problem.</blockquote>
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Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-27254953674807468902012-05-26T07:16:00.001-07:002012-05-26T07:16:42.626-07:00Wait...it's racist?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Check out this 7 minute excerpt between <a href="http://www.smileyandwest.com/hot-stuff/hot-stuff-rev-wright-wronged-again/">Tavis Smiley and Cornell West</a>. I find it absolutely hilarious and hypocritical when they claim that the 'conservatives' that are 'attacking' black liberation theology (which in itself is racist) are racist. What's even more funny is the fact that it's another black man that's attacking black liberation theology, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it doesn't matter the quality of the argument or who is presenting the argument. All that matters is the fact that SOMEONE, ANYONE, is making an argument in the first place. That's all it takes to be considered a racist! just making an argument! You've got objective facts that support your argument? TOO BAD! DOESN'T MATTER! YOU'RE AUTOMATICALLY RACIST FOR MAKING THE ARGUMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE! and let's not forget how its ok for Obama to talk about poverty, but if Romney does it, then suddenly its like a 'musician that wants to make music but hates the notes.' It's no wonder that black people are in the sad state they're in these days when we have these two marxist idiots that supposed to be our 'intellectual leaders.' </div>Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-47273823749942248432012-01-27T17:17:00.000-08:002012-01-27T17:45:26.757-08:00Atheism isn't a religion?<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/atheists-temple_n_1231848.html?ref=religion">If it wasn't obvious before, it should be now.</a><br /><br /><blockquote>Author Alain de Botton announced plans to build an Atheist temple in the U.K., reports DeZeen magazine.<br /><br />A collaboration with Tom Greenall Architects, the structure will be built in the City of London.<br /><br />Dedicated to the idea of perspective, the black tower will scale 46 meters (150 ft), with each centimeter honoring earth's age of 4.6 billion years, notes Wired. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif</blockquote><br /><br />This reinforces two points I've been making about atheists and atheism. First off, in order to be an atheist, one must engage in a certain form of special pleading. This form of special pleading, which I'll dub "atheist pleading" (the name is a placeholder) is when they arrive at a conclusion after applying what seems like sound "reasoning" or "logic," but if the same "reasoning" or "logic" were applied to a relevant analogy, the conclusion reached would be considered ridiculous, absurd and/or illogical. <a href="http://taooftruthinfighting.blogspot.com/2011/12/intellectual-lightweights-vacula.html">Vacula produced an amazing example of this when he said the following:</a><br /><blockquote><br />Shifting responsibility here doesn't solve the problem because the 'ball is in God's court.' The issue at hand is "Why doesn't God reveal himself," not "Why should it be up to God, humans should find God." Shifting responsibility might solve problems in other cases, for sure, but it's not going to here.</blockquote><br /><br />As you can see here, Vacula applied what seems like sound reasoning or logic. He claimed that shifting responsibility doesn't solve the problem because the 'ball is in Gods court.' The reasoning seems to be sound, until you take that same reasoning and logic and apply it to a relevant analogy, like a husband cheating on his wife. If you were to say the ball is in the victims court, and the wife has the responsibility to operate on the unfaithful husbands terms, your logic and reasoning would rightly be considered absurd. <br /><br />The second point is simply the fact that atheists are attempting to become the thing they hate the most. Atheists hate religion, God, etc. etc. and yet it seems they're doing everything in their power to be completely similar to it. Instead of "man of faith" they say "man of science." They claim they can be moral and good people, just like, or even better than, religious people. They claim to have their "moral codes" just like religious people. They claim an "origin of life," just like religious people. Now, they're building temples....just like religious people.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-24877289392665541842011-12-03T05:52:00.000-08:002011-12-03T06:04:17.854-08:00Intellectual Lightweights: VaculaI really enjoyed Vaculas response. Not only were his logical errors more humorous the 2nd time around, but it seems he read my post about <a href="http://taooftruthinfighting.blogspot.com/2011/11/typical-skeptic-responses.html">typical skeptic responses</a> and decided (unintentionally I'm sure) to provide us with some nice examples, which I will will be its own post in the future. At the present moment we'll deal with his response to me, which can be found <a href="http://www.justinvacula.com/2011/11/responding-to-comments-regarding-my.html?m=1">here</a>.<br /><br /><blockquote><br /><br />As I noted, I didn't argue that divine hiddenness serves as a defeater for belief in the Christian god, but rather responded to the defenses theists give to answer the problem. "Truth in Fighting," though, assumes this throughout the post - which is obviously problematic<br /></blockquote><br />Laughable and ironic since I never once said nor assumed that your argument is a defeater for God. I was simply pointing out the holes on your argument. Looks like the misunderstanding was on your part.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><br />I would wager that engaging in more than fifteen personal attacks in one post while responding to someone's comments makes a person look really bad and would lead readers to not to even take the person seriously - and for good reason<br /></blockquote><br />Really just had to point this one out. Another sensitive skeptic whining about how personal attacks is silly since these personal attacks backed by evidence. Calling you ignorant and clueless is about as much as a personal attack as calling a tall man tall. Both assertions are nothing more than statements made after observing the availae evidence. I see a man who is 7 ft I call him tall. I see a skeptic say ignorant things, I call him ignorant. It's that simple.<br /><br /><blockquote><br />I agree that the Bible doesn't describe God as all-loving. This is not, though, a problem for me, but rather the theists. The 'god concept' typically described to me is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing - and this is how many academic theists and Christian philosophers believe God to be. Some, like William Lane Craig, for example, profess that God is all-loving even in the face of slaughter. Others, particularly in problem of evil discussions, will try to argue that evil is needed for 'soul-building' and that we can know what good is. Some even argue that God has sufficient reasons, of course, for permitting evil and he still remains all-good. If the all-loving attribute were removed from God, the problem of evil wouldn't even be a problem; all-loving then, it seems means all-loving in the sense that most persons understand it.<br /></blockquote><br />You need to work on your reading comprehension Vacula. I said the bible does not describe God as all loving if the definition of love is defined as "some sort of fuzzy, feel good, warm emotion." since the bible does not describe Gods love in said way and you have yet to provide a definition of the word love in a sense that most persons understand it, I'm going to just mark this as another failure for you.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><br />This analogy fails; persons have good reason to believe that CEOs and military leaders exist. the belief that these persons exist is overwhelmingly reasonable while the belief in God, as theists would even admit, is not on par with belief that Wal-Mart has a CEO. The person applying to be a Wal-Mart worker or a solider additionally has no good reason to meet the CEO or military leaders before enlisting. I would wager, though, that persons should want to have good reasons to believe God exists before 'enlisting' in the Christian faith. I would get a job or enlist in the military not because I have sufficient warrant to believe that CEOs or military leaders exist, but rather because I want to make money, serve the country, etc.<br /></blockquote><br /> <br />This is about existence now? it's not about God hiding? is this more skeptic double standards? Vacula had absolutely no problems skipping the question of whether or not God exists and assuming His existence in order to ask why He is hidden from us. It's pretty clear at this point that this whole 'divine hiddenness argument' assumes the existence of God. Rather than questioning if God exists in the first place, Vacula already assumes His existence, then moves on to asserting that God ought to be morally compelled to reveal Himself. We see the hypocrisy of Vacula in full swing here. When he is criticizing God, its ok for him to assume His existence, but as soon as he is forced to defend his argument, he immediately decides that the assumed belief in God is inconvient to his argument and thus declares that the existence of God is now in question as there are no good reasons to believe He exists.<br />Secondly, the confirmed existence of the CEO/military leader is beside the point, since people enlist in the military and apply for jobs completely unaware that the CEO/military leader even exist. Only when applied to religion will you state the leader/CEO i.e. God, should make himself known before you decide to sign up. <br /><br /><blockquote><br />The thrust of the "Why doesn't God reveal himself to me" reasoning is that God ought to be morally compelled -- and for good reasons -- to reveal himself. A god who wants persons to believe he exists and knows that many people are killing each other because of religious differences should feel morally compelled to do so.<br /><br />An all-powerful and all-knowing being, I would wager, should have a tremendous amount of moral responsibility - and much more so than humans do. If I were all-knowing and all-powerful and, at the same time, I wanted persons to believe I existed and knew that persons were killing each other because of me and I could prevent much of this by revealing myself, I would feel obliged to do so. Persons would be horrified to see me sitting at my computer, for example, doing nothing about this situation. If I should be compelled to reveal myself in this hypothetical scenario, why shouldn't God? After all, he should have much more moral responsibility.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />Wait what? Vaculas argument is entirely based on 'what he would do' if he were God. Basically God is wrong for not acting how Vaculas would act if vacula himself were in that situation. Sorry but 'what vacula would do' is simply more bad logic and special pleading, since basing an argument off of 'what vacula would do' is no more logical than basing an argument off of 'what I would do,' or what 'billy graham would do'.<br /><br /><blockquote><br /> Again, I'm not making this argument, but rather am posing a hypothetical. Perhaps, though, in the future, I might craft a divine hiddenness argument. If I were to do so, though, I'd spend a great deal of time supporting the premises of the argument mainly arguing why we should expect God to reveal himself if he existed. As many know, though, absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence, so the atheist ought to be careful when crafting a divine hiddenness argument.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />Yes, you are. Whether you're not making an 'official divine hiddennes argument' is another story, but you are making an argument. A very very bad argument, but you are making an argument nontheless.<br /><blockquote> <br />The terms 'belief' and 'faith' are very 'open' terms that can have many different definitions. I would, though, generally define 'belief' as 'assenting to the truth value of a proposition' and 'faith' as 'belief in a proposition that is not backed by reason, argument, and evidence.' Depending on the context, I may define these terms differently and many others may disagree with my definitions. Regardless, those are the definitions I would generally give. My "elementary" or "non existent knowledge" of Christianity has nothing to do with this.<br /> <br />Just to note: this idea of "lack of knowledge about Christianity" is quite peculiar because all sorts of Christians disagree about certain matters...and then claim that atheists lack knowledge. <br /><br />Yes they do, i never said they dont, but most Christians usually tend to agree on the basics, like God wants faith, not just belief, the type of stuff you've shown to possess no clue of.<br /><br />The Bible, even, defines faith quite differently throughout. Is faith "belief in things not seen?" Is faith "hope and trust in God?" <br /></blockquote><br /><br />Yes, your ignorance and non existent knowledge of Christianity has a lot to do with it. The definitions of words must be used in the proper context. If using the word 'vessel' when talking about an airplane, you do not use the definition "a tubular structure that transports such body fluids as blood and lymph," because we are talking about airplanes, not anatomy. Similarly, when talking about the type of faith God wants, faith is not defined as "a belief in a proposition that is not backed by reason, argument and evidence." Not only is that definition false, that definition isn't found in a single credible dictionary. Neither is belief. If you possessed a shred of knowldge of Christianity you would know that in the proper context, faith is defined more akin (not exactly) as "trust in God and His actions and promises." Again, anyone with a brain knows that people aren't going to agree on the exact definition, but they usually agree on the context of a definition. Most people (that aren't atheists) might not agree on the exact definition of vessel when discussing an airplane, but all of them agree that the anatomy definition doesn't apply.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><br />I use the term unequivocally throughout the post to generally mean " relatively undoubtable." A charitable reading of my post should lead the reader to this conclusion when they especially take care to think about my ideas regarding God "compelling" persons to believe if he revealed himself.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />Hilarious. Now the Vacula is simply making up definitions. Sorry but 'unequivocally' does not mean that. Furthermore, even if it did you would still be wrong no matter how you define it since it is very clear you intended from the begining that God revealing Himself 'unequivocally' is a greater revelation than God revealing Himself through nature and prayer. God revealed himself in nature, your definition of equivically is obviously taken to mean revealing Himself in a better way than He is percirved to be now. Basically Christoans say God revealed Himself in nature and you say God should reveal Himself in a better way than that. A simple equation is as follows. Christians say God revealed himself in way X and you say God should reveal Himself in a way greater than X. Whatever way you define 'unequivocally,' it still means greater than X. So you still fail since unequivocal does not = revealed in nature, prayer etc. so you cannot argue that Christians will continue to sin If God reveals Himself unequivocally because they do so when Hes revealed Himself in nature, prayer etc. You've early committed yet another logical error, incorrectly assuming that an unequivocal revelation of God is somehow the same thing as God revealing Himself through nature, it clearly is not. You're assuming that because we sin even though God hasn't revealed Himself unequivocally(and christian really believe and know!)that we will continue to do so even If He reveals Himself unequiviolly. The two revelations are not the same, therefore you cannot reasonable state we will act the same. Its like saying that because people arent getting hurt when they jump off the curb, therefore when they jump off the empire state building they wont get hurt. <br /><br />The creative liberties you take when making up these definitions reminds me of humpty dumpty from Alice in wonderland. <br /> <blockquote><br /> “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.<br /> Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”<br /> “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.<br /> “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”<br /> “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”<br /> </blockquote><br /><br />Vaculas 'definitions' aren't too much different than humpty Dumpty. They both seem to think its ok to make a word mean whatever you want it to mean.<br /><br /><blockquote><br />This is an example of circular reasoning of the form; it is true because the Bible says so because the Bible says it is true. </blockquote><br /><br />Hey look, another example of your double standards. It's ok to use the bible to attack Christianity, but when a Christian uses it to defend it, suddenly its circular reasoning.<br /><blockquote><br />Let's assume, though, that "Truth" can provide an argument as to why persons should believe this statement regardless of it being in the Bible to be charitable. The verses "Truth" links are concerned with seeing God's face. God is not limited when revealing himself is concerned; showing his face is not the only way he can do so. The 1 Timothy verse admits of a problem with God's omnipotence; if God is all-powerful, he would be able to reveal himself so that persons can see him.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />The 2nd verse says nothing about a face. I put the first one up there to show how you once again fail to be consistent. Since the word unequivicol (the real definition, not the made up one that Vacula created to convieniently fit his argument) states the following:<br /> <br /> <br />1. not equivocal; unambiguous; clear; having only one possible meaning or interpretation: an unequivocal indication of assent; unequivocal proof.<br />2. absolute; unqualified; not subject to conditions or exceptions:<br /> <br />If no one can see Gods face and live, then human beings seing God unequivocally would be deadly. one hand you assume that lack of a source won't compel you to believe, and yet on this hand, you have no problems believing despite lack of a source.<br />Nothing to do with Gods omnipotence. It says man can't see God, nothing in there about God not being able to do anything.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><br />While we're on the topic of the Bible, several verses actually seem to admit that persons can see God including Genesis 12:7, Genesis 17:1, Genesis 18:1, Genesis 26:2, Genesis 26:24, Genesis 32:30, Genesis 35:9, Genesis 48:3, Exodus 3:16, Exodus 4:5, Exodus 6:3, Exodus 24:9-11, Exodus 33:11, Exodus 33:23, Numbers 14:14, Deut. 5:4, Deut. 34:10, Judges 13:22, 1 Kings 22:19, Job 42:5, Psalm 63:2, Isaiah 6:1, Isaiah 6:5, Ezekiel 1:27, Ezekiel 20:35, Amos 7:7, Amos 9:1, Habakkuk 3:3-5, and Matthew 18:9.<br /></blockquote><br />These are completley beside the point, as neither of these sightings show an unequivocal revelation of God. Hilarious how it says appeared and vacula has no problem assuming that ALL of God appeared and yet in other statements he just assumes only part of God was revealed.<br /><br /><blockquote><br />Dare I say it...but my concern is not with demons, but rather humans. Demons obviously play by different rules and are quite unlike humans. I don't, though, find any compelling reason to believe in demons or Satan, so perhaps my previous comment was a silly one.<br /></blockquote><br />Try as much as you like to make your cluelessness go away, you aren't fooling anyone, or are you really that idiotic to think I put that scripture there to show you about demons? <br /><br /><blockquote><br />Perhaps, to be charitable, "Truth's" point is to argue that belief alone is not sufficient, but rather something else is needed. What, then, is this something else? "Truth" says that it is impossible to please God without faith. The problem, though, while we are on the topic of the Bible (and this is more testament to why I think arguing about the Bible is often useless), is that the Bible, in Matthew 12:37 says that you can be justified by words.<br /><br />2 Corinthians 5:10 says that persons are judged according to works. Additionally, faith without works is dead (James 2:17). 2 Corin. 11:15 says that minister's salvation is dependent on works and it is "no great thing" that they are righteous [in faith]. Ezekiel 18:27 says that turning away from wickedness and doing what is lawful and right will save persons...and there's so much more.'</blockquote><br /><br />Let's forget your poor attempt at a red herring (since works and words go hand in hand with faith, one is useless without the other and your attempts to seperate them just does more to highlight your ignorance of basic Christian theology) and just focus on the fact that the bible clearly says belief isn't soley what God wants, which shows your original statement to be ignorant. Again, you are pretty much clueless when it comes to basic theology.<br /><blockquote><br />Shifting responsibility here doesn't solve the problem because the 'ball is in God's court.' The issue at hand is "Why doesn't God reveal himself," not "Why should it be up to God, humans should find God." Shifting responsibility might solve problems in other cases, for sure, but it's not going to here.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />Yes it does. We are the ones that messed up and sinned not God. Just like in any relationship, it is the offending party, not the victims, responsibility to make amends. Who on earth would tell the victim of a rape or the victem of an affair, that she must operate on the terms, conditions, and demands of the person that raped her or the person that cheated on her? again yet another example of how the logic a skeptic applies to religion would be considered ridiculous if it was applied elsewhere.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-59465660312439923172011-11-30T10:13:00.001-08:002011-11-30T11:10:02.799-08:00Typical Skeptic Responses.It's so obvious when a skeptic doesn't have a clue about how to respond to a complete and utter destruction of their argument. While the order my differ, their rebuttal almost always contains the following responses.<br /><br />1. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Highlight the insult. </span><br />This skeptic cries AD HOMINEM! YOU'VE INSULTED ME! clinging to the false belief that anyone that uses insults must be automatically losing the argument. The skeptic is too ignorant to grasp the fact that you can insult someone and make a good argument at the same time. The two aren't mutually exclusive. It's like looking at the end of the Ali vs Terrell fight, saying the winner of the fight was not Ali because Ali insulted Terrell during the match, even though Ali doesn't have a scratch on him, Terrell has both eyes swollen shut, a broken nose and a couple teeth missing, and the judges and the crowd scored Ali the winner. It's also a red herring logical fallacy since you're concentrating on the insults contained in the argument instead of the argument itself.<br /><br />It also shows the skeptic can't tell the difference between an ad hominem and an ad hominem fallacy. An ad hominem is just an insult, and ad hominem fallacy is saying an argument is wrong because of a quality the person presenting the argument possess. Example:<br /><br />Ad hominem: Your feet stink.<br />Ad hominmen fallacy. Your argument is wrong because your feet stink.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2. Miss the Point.</span><br /><br />There are so many variants of this. Skeptics usually don't possess a lot of knowledge regarding Christianity, logic or history so when they're confronted with something they don't understand, an argument or rebuttal that can't be found on google, a popular skeptic website, and isn't a regular talking point or argument, they usually pick out a couple words or concepts from your argument and begin to think you're talking about *insert popular atheist christian argument here* and make an argument to that. It's a strawman fallacy, since the skeptic is responding to an argument that was never made.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">3. Ignore it.</span><br /><br />They simply ignore the point or argument and continue on as if it was never said.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">4. Appeal to authority</span><br /><br />The skeptic parrots an argument given by some authoritative figure that holds some sort of credentials that are supposed to be impressive. A bad argument is a bad argument, no matter who says it. 2+2=5 is wrong no matter whos mouth it comes from.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">5. Run Away and Come Back.</span><br /><br />This almost always happens in conjunction with #3. The skeptic will simply leave, then come back at a later time. (usually giving the same bad argument that was refuted).<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />6. Baseless Assertions.</span><br /><br />The skeptic simply asserts and provides absolutely no evidence to back up what he says. These baseless assertions can be found in many forms, ranging from "The logic in your argument is wrong." to "Your argument is easily refutable." Skeptics usually engage in #5 when pressed to provide evidence for their assertions.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7. Sarcastic snide remarks</span><br /><br />These are the sarcastic, snide rude insults. We've all seen them, no need to go through them. The same skeptics that whine about ad hominems from Christians are conveniently silent when their peers do it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">8. Emotional arguments</span><br /><br />When reason and logic and science no longer work, the skeptic resorts to arguments filled with emotion designed to tug at your heartstrings. "What about all the babies that died in the flood." "Your God is a cruel mean God that doesn't care." <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">9. Hypocrisy and Double Standards</span><br /><br />The skeptic starts off by criticizing God with a poor argument along the lines of the following: "God is all loving, all powerful, and all knowing and sending people to hell for their sin is wrong." The Christian responds with bible verses showing the skeptic how ignorant he is in regards to Christianity and the characteristics of God. The skeptic then replies with something along the lines of, "How do you know what the bible says about God is true?" or "You haven't demonstrated the bible is true or God exists." <br />So it's ok for the skeptic to use the bible to criticize God and Christianity, but when the Christian uses it to defend God and Christianity, it's not ok to use the bible? Last time I checked, this is Christianity, and the religion of Christianity is found within the bible. The characteristics of the Christian God are found in the bible.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-35596215486415587282011-11-30T08:23:00.000-08:002011-11-30T10:11:51.150-08:00The Hiddenness of God?I found it rather ironic that Justin Vacula decided to open his <a href="http://www.justinvacula.com/2011/11/divine-hiddenness-and-free-will.html">argument</a> with a excerpt from Calvin and Hobbes, since his argument contains all of the illogical and emotional reasoning one would expect from a child the age of Calvin. Enter the argument from Divine Hiddenness:<br /><br /><blockquote>Atheists (and theists) wonder why -- since it is the case that theists profess God wants everyone to believe he exists – God simply doesn't unequivocally reveal himself so that persons can 'enter into a relationship' with God, no longer doubt, stop fighting one another because of religious differences, and go to Heaven. An all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing god should have no problem revealing himself to persons and should want to do so considering he is all-loving [he wants persons to avoid Hell and enter into Heaven]. Why, then, doesn't God just stop playing hide-and-seek and reveal himself?</blockquote><br /><br />This argument is already a non starter due to the fact that Justin, like so many other ignorant skeptics and theists, think that the "the all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing god" somehow accurately describes the Christian God. It doesn't. The problem here how people inaccurately define the 'all-loving' part as some sort of fuzzy, feel good, warm emotion. It's more synonymous with 'happy' or 'wants to make people happy' than it is with the word love. One look the bible will see that God does things that do not match up with the warm, fuzzy, feel good definition of the word love. <br /><br />Not only is his inaccurate description of God a major problem, his argument typically displays the same ol' double standard of logic and reasoning that skeptics only apply to religion and not to anything else. When people want to work for walmart, they neither demand nor expect the CEO of walmart to meet with them before they apply. When people enlist in the military, they neither expect nor demand the leaders of the specific branch to personally meet with them before they enlist. If the CEO of walmart or the leader of a military branch doesn't meet with the average joe before they enlist in the military or send in an application for walmart, why would anyone expect God, who is the creator of the universe, expect such a thing? <br /><br />Rebuttals I predict from skeptics: <br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Rebuttal A: "Difference between the CEO, military leaders and God is God loves us!"</span></blockquote><br /><br />This is an emotional argument. Since when does love logically entail person X must personally meet with person Y before person Y joins in a cause. Furthermore, it reveals the ignorance of basic Christian theology. God loves us, and yet God has done some things that would seem very unloving according to the feel good fuzzy warm definition of 'love' that is presented in rebuttal A. Love, especially the feel good fuzzy definition of love that would be used in rebuttal A, does not logically entail God would meet with people personally before they want to become a Christian.<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Rebuttal B: <br />"The CEO and the military leaders can't meet with everyone at once, but God is omnipotent, He can do anything! He has the power to meet with everyone at once."</span></blockquote><br /><br />Just because someone has the power to do X does not mean they are required to do X. I certainly have the power to track down Vacula (with my knowledge of programming and computers) and beat the snot out of him (being trained in fighting) and yet I am not required to do that. Secondly, while the CEOs and military leaders cannot meet with everyone, they can meet with some, and yet they do not.<br /><br />That's about the gist of it. This 'why doesn't God reveal Himself to me' line of logic not only fails, but it never had any start to begin with. Like most 'arguments' skeptics give, their logic applies SOLELY to religion and if one were to apply the same type of logic to anything else, they would rightly be considered an idiot.<br /><br />His argument isn't the only thing sorely lacking in this department. He also can't seem to tell the difference between belief and faith, which I believe stems from his elementary or non existent knowledge of Christianity. This guy has created 7 rebuttals to 7 'defenses' he claims theists bring up in response to his argument. A lot of these defenses I would never use, so I will only go over the ones I myself would use.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Defense (1): Humans would not have free will if God unequivocally revealed himself.</span><br /><br />Is it really the case that persons would lose free will if God unequivocally revealed himself? I'm quite skeptical. Many persons today will profess that God does exist and really do believe. Some, for whatever reason, will attest that their belief in God is warranted, profess belief in Heaven and Hell, and believe that their sins could result in eternal torment. Despite all of this, theists who profess very strong beliefs continue to sin. While God hasn't unequivocally revealed himself to everyone, these people will believe that God has revealed himself through the 'design' of the universe, an answered prayer, or something else...and they still sin. Additionally, these people, theists will allege, still have free will. It seems that defense (1), then, fails.</span><br /><br />First off, God revealing Himself <span style="font-style:italic;">unequivocally</span> is not the same thing as revealing Himself through nature or a prayer. That failure of logic is enough to destroy his 'rebuttal of defense (1), since an unequivocal revelation of God is not the same thing as revealing Himself through design and prayer, but it would be wrong not to continue on. His second error is asserting that Defense 1 fails because Christians continue to sin. Again, this bad reasoning all boils down to complete and utter lack of even the most basic knowledge of Christianity. First off, Christians continue to sin and will continue to sin, because we are imperfect and we live in an imperfect world. Belief in God, faith in God, doesn't stop all sin. It should severely<span style="font-style:italic;"> limits</span> it, but it will not stop all sin. God revealing Himself to man unequivocally will kill us since it clearly says in the bible "None who see my face sha'll live." (exodus 33:20.) and that "God dwells in a light unapproachable that no man has seen or can't see." (I Tim. 6:16).<br /><br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Defense (3): Faith is important and is only possible if God doesn't unequivocally reveal himself.</span><br /><br />Defense (3) assumes that faith is important and seems to assume that without faith, belief in God is worthless. Why is this the case? Is not belief the important thing regardless of faith? Are those who currently believe and do not profess faith (but rather profess that arguments alone are good enough reason to believe) somehow 'doing it wrong?' Will these people not enter into a proper union with God? </blockquote><br /><br />Vacula is severely lacking in basic Christian theology. These are easily answered with common scripture.<br /><b><br />"Defense (3) assumes that faith is important and seems to assume that without faith, belief in God is worthless. Why is this the case?"<br /></b><br /><br />How he thinks he is qualified to refute a single thing regarding Christianity when he doesn't even know Hebrews 11:6 is beyond me.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God.</span><br /><br />Also, he wonders why without faith belief in God is worthless. Again, a very common scripture in James 2:19 answers his question.<br /><br />James 2:19<br />You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.<br /><br />To answer his question, yes they are doing it wrong. The demons obviously believe in the existence of God. Satan, obviously believes in the existence of God and yes, they are doing it wrong.<br /><br /><blockquote>Defense <span style="font-style:italic;">(5): God can't intervene often because there would be no stable natural regularities. (Swinburne argue this although this is probably more relevant to natural and moral evil theodicies).</span><br /><br />Defense (5) is very suspect and ignores the fact that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Why should we assume that there would be no natural regularities if God intervened in human affairs? Suppose that God were to strike down Hitler in order to prevent World War II (and such an action would indeed stop World War II). Would we then believe that this would suddenly entail that there would be no natural regularities? I don't see any good reasons to believe so.<br /><br />The idea of God's intervention removing natural regularities (or, perhaps, to be more charitable, causing us to believe that some natural regularities might not be constant) seems quite funny [and leading to special pleading] considering that theists believe God has intervened in human affairs including but not limited to God raising Jesus from the dead. Some theists also believe that God answers prayers that would interfere with the free will of other persons. If theists maintain that Jesus raising from the dead and God's answering of prayer doesn't take away free will or natural regularities, how can they possibly maintain that God's intervention in there here and now, the future, or even in the past (minus the miracles, of course) would take away free will or natural regularities? The theist, it seems, would be forced to argue -- if he/she were to maintain that God's intervention would not take away free will or natural regularities – that free will 'works differently' from time to time, God's intervention in times past somehow did not take away free will, the free will of people in times past was not cherished like it is for people today, or something else.</blockquote><br />Vacula is right, this is more along the lines of problems of evil than it is about God hiding. In anycase, the key word here Vacula is the word OFTEN. If God <span style="font-style:italic;">often</span> intervened than there would be no natural constant. If God <span style="font-style:italic;">often</span> raised people from the dead, instead of doing it for specific number of people some 2,000 years ago, this planet would be vastly overpopulated. If God <span style="font-style:italic;">often</span> answered prayers that messed with the free will of people (I'm not even going to argue that He does that, I will just assume HE does for the sake of argument) then there would be little to no free will. The key word here is, <span style="font-style:italic;">often</span>. <br /><br />Yes, I will maintain that God raising Jesus and a specific amount of people from the dead some 2,000 years ago does not disrupt the natural regularities as much if God raised everyone from the dead all the time. Yes, I will maintain that God affecting the free will of others through the answering of the prayers of a specific number of people does not disrupt the natural regularities as much as if God did that for everyone. It has nothing to do with whether free will is cherished as much back than as it is today and everything to do with how much can prayers like that be answered before there is no longer any natural regularities.<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Defense (7): Why expect God to reveal himself? It is the responsibility of humans to find God, not God's responsibility to reveal himself to humans.</span><br /><br />This objection largely misses the point of the problem of divine hiddenness to being with: if God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, why shouldn't he reveal himself to humans? If the theist contests that it is the responsibility of humans to find God, this doesn't address the problem, but only shifts the responsibility. Further, if humans are to find God, doesn't this mean that God should have devised a more effective way of aiding humans to this goal? The 'ball' is back in 'God's court.'<br /><br />Framing this in terms of responsibility might also be unhelpful. The problem really isn't about responsibility, but rather is that God -- since he is all-loving and all-powerful -- has no good reason to remain hidden and has every reason to make himself known. </blockquote><br /><br />Who says shifting responsibility doesn't solve the problem? that is just a baseless assertion with absolutely no evidence to support it. Here's an example of how shifting responsibility solves a problem. Problem, my iphone broke because of a hardware issue. If I shift the responsibility from my dog, who has absolutely nothing to do with my phone being broken, to the apple company, who sold me a busted phone, the problem is solved because I get a new phone. God didn't design an effective way? that's yet another baseless assertion. You don't think its effective? go ahead and give me something other than your bare opinion to back that up. A free gift that gets you out of eternal torment is pretty effective to me.<br /><br />As you can see, Vacula is neither competent in logic or Christian theology. Just another lightweight intellectually shallow skeptic that thinks his arguments are something new under the sun. Laughable.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-89838353211854962272011-04-24T03:10:00.001-07:002011-04-24T03:11:02.870-07:00Praise be to God!!Thank you God for the gift of your Son, so that I might be redeemed.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-83949716115894349872011-03-20T00:06:00.001-07:002011-03-28T00:37:59.633-07:00Psalm 144: Christian FightersI am excited to see what God is doing and is going to do with these extremely gifted Christian fighters.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" >Andre "S.O.G" Ward</span><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.warriorsworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/andre-ward.jpg"></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.warriorsworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/andre-ward.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 397px;" src="http://www.warriorsworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/andre-ward.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">His nick name is the Son of God. He won the gold medal in the 2004 Olympic Games. He is currently the WBA Super Middle Weight Champ and the number one fighter in the Super Six tournament.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><br />Jon "Bones" Jones</span></span><br /></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.mmabay.co.uk/img/Jon%20Jones.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 404px; height: 604px;" src="http://www.mmabay.co.uk/img/Jon%20Jones.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />With Philippians 4:13 tattooed across his chest he has broken the record and become the youngest UFC champion. I pray He continues and more importantly grows in the Lord and doesn't let his new found fame go to his head.<br /><br /><br />Up next; Rampage and Rich Franklin.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Psalm 144:1<br />" Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. "</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-76228139286055441412011-01-20T02:42:00.000-08:002011-01-20T02:44:27.172-08:00Go ahead and say she can't do it.Go ahead and say Anne can't <a href="http://movies.ign.com/articles/114/1144798p1.html">do it.</a><br /><blockquote><br />After much speculation, Warner Bros. confirmed today that Selina Kyle, AKA Catwoman, will be in Chris Nolan's new Batman movie. And she will be played by...wait for it... Anne Hathaway. </blockquote><br />They said the same thing about Heath Ledger.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-583503367509497302010-12-23T11:53:00.000-08:002010-12-24T12:29:09.273-08:00ECREE.Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence or ECREE is nothing but an illogical catch phrase used by skeptics devoid of logic to judge religious claims. What constitutes an extraordinary claim is entirely subjective and relative to the person, for example; a man living his entire life in the amazon jungle might find the entire concept of an airplane to be an extraordinary claim, whereas you or I will find the concept of an airplane to be a mundane claim. Which leads me to my next point, there is no such thing as extraordinary evidence. <br /><br />Evidence is either personal experience/anecdotal, historical, documentary or scientific. How would you go about providing extraordinary evidence of an airplane to the man living in the amazon? you could provide a picture right? but is a picture extraordinary evidence? yes or no? if yes than you've conceded that pictures are extraordinary evidence and thus you must accept pictures of the supernatural as extraordinary evidence! if not than a picture is documentary evidence and thus does not suffice as extraordinary evidence to back your extraordinary claim that airplanes exist. If you accept them as extraordinary evidence in one case and not the other you're simply picking and choosing based upon your own subjective reasons. What about a video? same thing applies, its either extraordinary evidence or it isn't. How does this relate to supernatural claims?<br /><br />You might think certain claims from a Christian are extraordinary claims, but to the Christian they might not be, just like how an the guy living in the amazon might find the existence of airplanes an extraordinary planes, but to you they might not be. If it is an extraordinary claim, what constitutes extraordinary evidence? pictures? how many pictures? videos? how many videos? scientific evidence? and does that suffice as extraordinary evidence for an airplane? The point is, an extraordinary claim is entirely dependent upon ones own experience and thus differs in regards to each individual. The second point is, 'extraordinary claims' do not require any more proof than ordinary ones.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-10850536469897067472010-12-13T04:43:00.000-08:002010-12-13T05:13:04.330-08:00GSP, who can beat him?The funny thing about it is he is SO BASIC. His entire fighting repertoire consists of a jab, an inside leg kick, superman punches and take downs, which makes his performances that much more impressive. His post fight interview is something of interest as well. GSP states that Koscheks punches were wild loopy while his punches were straight. That is a basic fundamental of boxing, the straight punches will always beat loopy(wild) punches because they arrive at their target faster(assuming both punches were thrown at the same speed of course). Joe Rogan spoke about how people were going to start using the jab more often, which shouldn't come to a surprise since the majority of MMA fighers cannot throw a punch correctly. Its no coincidence that GSPs boxing application and knowledge dramatically improved after training with Freddie Roach, I'd almost call GSPS victory of Koschek a tribute to Freddie Roach and more importantly how sound knowledge and application of boxing can impact the constantly evolving MMA sport.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-49503396628364638482010-12-11T06:54:00.000-08:002010-12-13T05:24:26.944-08:00A demonstration is in order....It's always fun and informative (more fun!) when I can demonstrate the concepts I talk about first hand. We'll start with what Nameless Cynic said in the Hidden Conversations post.<br /><blockquote><br />1. "There's no proof God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word proof means."<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Or maybe you don't. Show me your proof. (And please, don't hold up the Bible. I mean, I could hold up a Harry Potter book - does that mean Hogwarts exists?)</span><br /></blockquote><br />Red Herring. Does proof for God exist yes or no?<br /><blockquote><br />2. "There's no evidence God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word evidence means."<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Same answer</span>. </blockquote><br />Red Herring. Does evidence exist for God yes or no?<br /><blockquote><br />3. "There's no good evidence God exists," translates to "My definition of good yadda yadda yadda"<br /><br />Hey, wait! You used the word "supersedes"!! And you used it right! I'm so proud! Was that on your Word of the Day toilet paper?</blockquote><br />This is simply a sarcastic insult and sarcastic insults donot = a refutation of my point. Try again.<br /><br /><blockquote>4. "There's contradictions in the Bible," translates to "I don't know what a contradiction is."<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">* yawn *<br /><br />OK, let's see. (All KJV, btw)</span><br /></blockquote><br />Before I begin I'll refer this ignorant atheist to an earlier post I made on what constitutes a contradiction <a href="http://taooftruthinfighting.blogspot.com/2009/04/brief-instruction-of-what-word.html">here.</a> Another good site regarding a contradiction is <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contradiction/">here.</a><br /><br /><blockquote>It is impossible that the same thing can at the same time both belong and not belong to the same object and in the same respect, and all other specifications that might be made, let them be added to meet local objections (1005b19–23).<br /><br />-Aristotle.</blockquote><br /><br />To dumb it down for anyone that might be confused.<br /><blockquote>“a is F” and “a is not F” cannot both hold in the same sense, at the same time, and in the same respect. </blockquote><br /><br />Lets begin sha'll we?<br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name." (Exodus 15:3)<br />"Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen" (Romans 15:33</span>)</blockquote><br /><br />WRONG.<br /><br />“a is F” and “a is not F” cannot both hold in the same sense, <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">at the same time</span></span>, and in the same respect.<br /><br />Looks like the Lord was a man of war during the events described in the book of Exodus and a God of peace during the events described in the book of Romans, which means God was not a 'man of war' and a 'God of peace' <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">at the same place or the same time</span></span>. I don't even need to point out how Nameless Cynic is taking the scripture out of context because these scriptures don't even remotely qualify as a contradiction. <br />Is it a contradiction if I say Bob was alive 20 years ago and is dead now? no, because I am not saying Bob is alive and dead at the same place at the same time, so why on earth would it be a contradiction to say God is a man of war at one time and then say He is a God of peace thousands of years later? Nameless Cynic has flawlessly demonstrated that he possess no clue what constitutes a contradiction when he claims the bible contains contradictions. 0/1<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-style:italic;">Not good enough? How about using the same book of the Bible? Ever compared Genesis 1 and Genesis 2? God created the earth TWICE, once with the men first, once with the beasts first</span>.</span></blockquote><br />Again, he displays complete ignorance regarding what constitutes a contradiction. If we ignore biblical exegesis, logic, and throw out the basic reading comprehension we learned in 1st grade and pretend that Nameless Cynic is correct in saying that God created the earth twice, how is that a contradiction? doing something twice is a contradiction now? so If I create a world virtual world with virtual men on it and later create another world with no virtual men on it(or erase the first virtual world), that is a contradiction? once again he demonstrates he possess no clue in what constitutes a contradiction. 0/2<br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Sorry. Was that too much reading? OK, let's try this. Does God like people to be wise?<br /><br />"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." (Proverbs 4:7)<br /><br />"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow" (Ecclesiastes 1:18)<br /><br />"For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." (1 Corinthians 1:19)</span><br /></blockquote><br />Again! If we completely ignore the fact that hes taking the verses out of context (Corinthians and Ecclesiastes are talking about the wisdom of the world while Proverbs is talking about the wisdom of God), nameless Cynic cannot seem to grasp the concept of "same place and same time." If we assume of the sake of argument and pretend that all the verses are talking about the same type of wisdom there is STILL NO contradiction. Provers says get wisdom. Ecclesiastes talks about the consequences of said wisdom and then THOUSANDS OF YEARS LATER Corinthians talks about destroying the wisdom of the wise, so this does not qualify as a contradiction because they do not take place at the same time. 0/3<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">Sorry again. I know how you feel about smart people, so that's probably not the best example. Let's go to basic facts. What happened with Judas? I mean, having sold out the Savior (or assisted Him in fulfilling His destiny, depending on who you ask), Judas either threw his thirty pieces of silver down on the temple floor and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5), or kept the money, bought a field, tripped on a stump, and burst open like a well-fed tick (Acts 1:18).</span></blockquote><br /><br />Here are the scriptures:<br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Matthew: So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.<br /><br />Acts: Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out</span>.<br /></blockquote><br />Looks like he finally grasped the "same time" concept. Too bad he forgot an important verse.<br /><br />Matthew 27:<br /><blockquote><br />6And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.<br /><br />7And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.<br /><br />8Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.<br /><br />9Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; </blockquote><br /><br />Judas gave the priests the money, they refused to take it therefore it still belonged to Judas, they used Judas money to purchase the field i.e. Judas bought the field. Judas hung himself, no one touched his body, it grew bloated and decayed, and he fell from where he hung. Logic 101. 0/4.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">This stuff is easy to find. Really. All you have to do is actually read the Bible... oh, wait... "reading"...</span></blockquote><br />Speaking of easy to find and reading.....<br /><br />http://www.google.com/search?q=judas+death+contradiction&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a<br /><br />The first three results (out of 100 different ones out there) refute your 'contradiction.' All you have to do is actually research.....oh, wait....."research"....<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">Yeah, I'm sorry, man. That was mean, wasn't it?</span></blockquote><br />No, it was actually very informative and hilarious. You demonstrated what I was talking about regarding contradictions almost PERFECTLY. I couldn't have asked for a better first hand example of the typical ignorant atheist spouting his drivel about contradictions. The only thing that remains to see if you're too much of a coward to answer my 2 direct questions.<br /><br />Now I'll deal with Quasar.<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">[cheerful grin] Fun fact: re-interpreting what people actually say to fit your preconcieved notions and thus failing to deal with their precice words is not actually the same thing as reading their body language. Especially when the words come over the internet, so there is no body language. [mildly amused smile, single raised eyebrow]</span><br /></blockquote><br />Fun fact, it isn't a reinterpretation, its an accurate description of what takes place during conversations, just look Nameless Cynic, he proved my point PERFECTLY. Another fun fact, I never said "hidden conversations" were reading body language, rather body language that is something I COMPARED IT TO. Not only that, I listed things OTHER than body language as well, so for you to single that out of everything else I listed is extremely "offputting."<br /><blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">[head tilts forward slightly] It's also arrogant and extremely offputting. [smile vanishes, eyes narrow] I know what I believe, I know which words I understand the definitions to, and when I say I have seen no evidence supporting the existance of your deity, guess what? [cheerfully insolent, lopsided smile, eyes still narrowed] No matter how much you would like to believe otherwise, to twist my words in order to demonise me and my beliefs, what I said is exactly what I meant."</span></blockquote><br />Well I guess you've never seen....well....anything then, much less what the word 'evidence,' means.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-22618494244213414332010-12-08T01:42:00.000-08:002010-12-08T01:47:54.821-08:00UFC 124Honestly, with the exception of the GSP, Alves and Stevenson fights, this isn't an event I particularly care about.<br /><br />St Pierre vs Koscheck: ST Pierre by UD (LAY AND PRAY BABY!)<br />Alves vs Howard: Alves by UD.<br />Stevenson Danzig: Undecided, tough fight to call.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-84989348885530960042010-12-04T00:41:00.000-08:002010-12-04T00:54:31.763-08:00Hidden Conversation: Atheists.My coach always told me that people have are having 2 conversations. The first conversation is the immediate conversation and the second conversation is the hidden conversation. The latter is made up of subtle things, body language, tone of voice, etc.. In a fight, if your opponents mouth is hanging open the hidden conversation is "I'm tired." If he is closing his eyes everything you exchange, the hidden conversation is "I'm scared." The following is a guideline of hidden conversations atheists have.<br /><br />1. "There's no proof God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word proof means."<br /><br />2. "There's no evidence God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word evidence means."<br /><br />3. "There's no good evidence God exists," translates to "My definition of good(or the definitions I agree with) supersedes all other definitions of good," or "I don't know that good evidence is relative to the person viewing the evidence."<br /><br />4. "There's contradictions in the Bible," translates to "I don't know what a contradiction is."<br /><br />It's funny how accurately you can discern what an atheist doesn't know from the things they claim to know.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-24886205545684839792010-11-23T07:51:00.000-08:002010-11-23T08:44:41.530-08:00God doesn't heal amputees?Like you, I find myself rolling my eyes and sighing in exhaustion whenever I hear one of the many bad arguments constantly regurgitated by skeptics. Why won't God heal amputees is one of these tired, recycled, terrible arguments skeptics love to throw out there. Well, today I am going to put this tired argument to rest once and for all. The argument allegedly originates from <a href="http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/">this site</a> which contains 32 "chapters." Most of these "chapters" contain all of the bad arguments we've all heard and have little to do with amputees or Gods supposed refusal to heal them. For example: In <a href="http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god12.htm">Chapter 12</a> it talks about who wrote the bible and <a href="http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god16.htm">Chapter 16 </a> asks why does God massacre children. I will tackle the rest of the driveling ignorance found in those chapters at a later date, for now I want to concentrate specifically on the assumption that <a href=" http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god5.htm">God does not heal amputees, <br /></a> which can be found in chapter 5.<br /><br /><blockquote>No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing will happen. The legs will not regenerate. Prayer does not restore the severed limbs of amputees. You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously. And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us. If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day. <br /><br />Isn't that odd? The situation becomes even more peculiar when you look at who God is. According to the Standard Model of God:<br /><br /> * God is all-powerful. Therefore, God can do anything, and regenerating a leg is trivial.<br /><br /> * God is perfect, and he created the Bible, which is his perfect book. In the Bible, Jesus makes very specific statements about the power of prayer. Since Jesus is God, and God and the Bible are perfect, those statements should be true and accurate.<br /><br /> * God is all-knowing and all-loving. He certainly knows about the plight of the amputee, and he loves this amputee very much.<br /><br /> * God is ready and willing to answer your prayers no matter how big or small. All that you have to do is believe. He says it in multiple places in the Bible. Surely, with millions of people in the prayer circle, at least one of them will believe and the prayer will be answered.<br /><br /> * God has no reason to discriminate against amputees. If he is answering millions of other prayers like Jeanna's every day, God should be answering the prayers of amputees too. <br /><br />Nonetheless, the amputated legs are not going to regenerate.<br /><br />What are we seeing here? It is not that God sometimes answers the prayers of amputees, and sometimes does not. Instead, in this situation there is a very clear line. God <span style="font-style:italic;">never</span> answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them. </blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda">The Miracle of Calanda</a> is enough to show just about every assertion made by the author of chapter 5 to be false.<br /><br /><blockquote>According to Messori, at about ten o'clock in the evening of 29 March 1640, Pellicer laid himself to rest. Because his bed was occupied by a soldier of a garrison that stayed at Calanda over night, he went to sleep on a provisional bed in his parents' room. Between half past ten and eleven o'clock, his mother entered the room and saw two feet appearing from below the cloak that covered her son. Thinking that Miguel Juan and the soldier must have changed places, she called her husband to resolve the misunderstanding. But while removing the cloak, husband and wife, were dumbstruck, as they realized that this was indeed their own son. They shook him and shouted at him to wake him up. Some minutes passed until Miguel Juan woke up from a deep sleep. He told them that he had dreamt of being within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Pillar and rubbing his leg with the holy oil, as he had done so often. Soon all three agreed that the restoration of the leg was due to the intercession of the Virgin of the Pillar.</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">False Claim #1:</span><br /><br /><blockquote>You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously.</blockquote><br /><br />A Doctor who knew him when he had one leg and also knew him when he had two.<br /><br /><blockquote>Another book, published by a German doctor in 1642. The Jesuit father who gave the imprimatur added a declaration in which he affirmed that he personally knew Pellicer, first with one leg and then with two.</blockquote><br /><br />An experienced surgeon reviewed every single testimony and matched them up to make sure it aligned with the medical knowledge at the time.<br /><br /><blockquote>In the appendix of his book, Vittorio Messori also reports the opinion of Landino Cugola, primary surgeon of the hospital of the University of Verona, a specialist in limb replantation. Cugola has carefully studied the testimonies given in the recordings of the proceedings at Zaragoza, which reveal that the leg, after it had only just been restored, was cold and hard with contracted toes and blue in colour. Hence, Pellicer was not yet able to put his weight on it and still had to move around on crutches. After a few days the leg regained in strength and the toes were stretched out again. Also, the leg was initially a few centimetres shorter due to the loss of bone tissue that was caused by the fracture, but within about three months it regained its original length. According to Cugola, all this is in perfect accordance with the normal development following the replantation of a leg, although the growth of tissue is usually supported by exerting a pull onto the limb. In Pellicer’s case this was not necessary</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">False Claim #2</span><br /><blockquote><br />And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us</blockquote><br /><br />The document shows that God does not ignore the prayer of amputees.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">False Claim #3</span><br /><br /><blockquote>It is not that God sometimes answers the prayers of amputees, and sometimes does not. Instead, in this situation there is a very clear line. God <span style="font-style:italic;">never</span> answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.</blockquote><br /><br />The emphasis on the word "never" is the original authors. God has answered the prayers of an amputee and is not singling them out. <br /><br />More Facts, just to drive the point home.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">24 Witnesses spoke out.</span><br /><br /><blockquote>Twenty-four witnesses spoke out, selected as the most trustworthy from among the great number of people that knew Pellicer, both from Calanda and from Zaragoza.</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">King Philip Kissed the leg.</span><br /><br /><blockquote>the end of the year Pellicer was also invited to the royal court at Madrid, where King Philip IV knelt down before him and kissed the leg.</blockquote><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">More documentary evidence.</span><br /><blockquote><br />A number of other documents which confirm the existence of other persons involved in the event.</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Predictable responses:</span><br /><br />"BUT THEO!! ONLY ONE! WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER MILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF AMPUTEES?"<br /><br />What about them? We've shown that God does heal amputees, so now you're moving the goal posts from "Why doesn't God heal amputees," to "Why doesn't God heal as many amputees as I think He should." <br /><br />"BUT THEO!! THAT WAS BACK IN THE 1700'S!! NOW WE HAVE VIDEO CAMERAS!!! WHAT ABOUT THAT!!"<br /><br />Again, this is moving the goalposts from, "God <span style="font-style:italic;">never</span>(emphasis wwgha author)heals amputees," to "God never heals amputees in the time period I think He should."<br /><br />All of this is nothing more than moving the goalposts it doesn't matter if God heals 1 or 50 or 200. Are they really going to reduce themselves from "why won't God heal amputees?" to "why won't God heal more than 1 amputee?" how would they know he hasn't healed more than 1? God healed 1 and they didn't know about it.... so how do they know God hasn't healed anymore? but that is for another day. I'll conclude this post with a quote from the Messori himself.<br /><br /><blockquote>“By far the majority of past events (including the more important ones) is attested with less documentary proof and official warrantee. This is an objective statement of fact, not apologetic reassurance.”[1]</blockquote>Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-28288277572685127542010-11-20T01:06:00.001-08:002010-11-20T01:23:25.164-08:00Vatican flexing it's muscles.I've always been on the fence about Catholicism. It's not perfect (like everything man does) but the one thing I've always felt was the strong point in Catholicism is their church hierarchy, it makes for a more efficient means of accountability.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/catholic-politicians-who-support-abortio"><br />Vatican's Chief Justice: Catholic Politicians Who Support Abortion or Gay Marriage Must Publicly Repent</a><br /><br /><blockquote>“We find self-professed Catholics, for example, who sustain and support the right of a woman to procure the death of the infant in her womb, or the right of two persons of the same sex to the recognition which the State gives to a man and a woman who have entered into marriage,” said the archbishop. “It is not possible to be a practicing Catholic and to conduct oneself publicly in this manner.”</blockquote><br /><br />The Vatican, with only one announcement, put every single gay marriage/abortion supporter who claims to be catholic on blast. The Protestant Churches, IMO can never match that type of public accountability that the Catholic Church has.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-8418418446521629312010-11-11T01:16:00.000-08:002010-11-11T01:22:19.114-08:00Back from deployment!Back from deployment and I'm celebrating my return to both the blogging world and home by purchasing something I've waiting a long time for.<br /><br /><a style="" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AZChbPp1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AZChbPp1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />That's right! Season 3 is finally here.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-39784125629183381382010-03-08T22:19:00.000-08:002010-03-08T22:21:32.049-08:00Jin the MC sees the light.<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MmncKOadBgk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MmncKOadBgk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-2019712092710998352010-03-03T01:41:00.000-08:002010-03-03T02:29:05.249-08:00Twebs double standards on accusations of lying.An unspecified number of moderators at Tweb have shown their double standards in what constitutes adequate support of the accusation that someone lied. You can view it all right <a href="http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?p=2924897#post2924897">here</a> It is hilarious. Seriously. It almost seemed like the moderators looked at <a href="http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showpost.php?p=1973122&postcount=1">this post</a> and decided to go the compete opposite direction. Where do I start? I guess I'll start with the first Exhibit:<br /><br />Exhibit A: dizzle told me that my accusation of lying was not supported because of " a plethora of numerous honest explanations were available and reasonable." Does that go for the JPH in the other thread? obviously not, they went in the complete opposite direction with that one since there were a "plethora of numerous honest explanations available and reasonable as well." <br /><br />Exhibit B: Pixie came into a thread and posted a recycled explanation for his lie. Dizzle stated that pixies bogus, bunk, ignorant, stupid explanation was a reasonable one, thus my accusation of pixie lying was not substantiated. Does that go for JPH in the other thread? NO! because lofts came into that thread and offered a "reasonable" explanation as well, and yet they persisted in calling him a liar. Again, they went in the opposite direction.<br /><br />Exhibit C: Jack Bauer told me that I cannot substantiate that a person is lying "without even asking them things like "how do you know I said that? Surely you must have read it to know that?"" (I.e. being circumspect). Does that go for JPH in the other thread? of course not! JPH did not ask Loftus any questions before he accused him of lying, nor were questions required before his lie was substantiated. For the third time, they saw what JPH did and went in the complete opposite direction.<br /><br />Now don't get it twisted. Loftus and pixie both told lies and both myself and JPH substantiated our claims, that is what I think and that is what the evidence clearly shows. The problem here is that according to dizzle and jack bauer, both loftus and pixie either lied or did not lie, there is no one or the other, there is no distinction. To be fair, dizzle did try to defend herself, if you call this pathetic hand wave a defense.<br /><br /><blockquote><br />I already told him that he is not going to get anywhere by trying to parse through years of forum history and finger-pointing.<br /><br />...<br /><br />TD, this is private property. The staff are volunteers. We allow ranting against our policies in the interest of free speech, but ultimately this is our hobby and not to be a source of constant irritation and complaints against the good faith efforts to fairly administrate. You disagree. Time to move on.</blockquote><br /><br />Really? years of forum history and finger pointing? are your dreadlocks on too tight? did you get blue hair dye in your eye? it doesn't matter how many years of forum history I went through. Either the rules apply to everyone at all times or they do not, it is that simple, finger pointing? ya, to show your double standards I must "point the finger" at the person who the rules don't apply too in order to expose your double standards. The private property bit is just too sad. The fact that it is private properly no more shows my claim is unsubstantiated than the fact that a murder that takes place on private property shows it was not illegal to kill that person. She offers no logical argument, no evidence, she basically dismisses all of her double standards by engaging in the childish reasoning of "My toys My rules." Pathetic really. You would think that a forum that has the headline "we debate theology...seriously" their administrator of all people would be smarter than your average 12 year old.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-75384868555518032832010-02-01T14:27:00.001-08:002010-02-01T14:27:35.081-08:00Straw men, just another way to exploit a disaster.Some people exploit disasters for money, sex slaves, fame, votes and sympathy, but Richard Dawkins and Loftus have decided to exploit the Haiti disaster to build <a href="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/01/richard-dawkins-on-haitian-disaster-pat.html">a man of straw:</a><br /><blockquote><br /><br />Where was God in Noah's flood? He was systematically drowning the entire world, animal as well as human, as punishment for 'sin'. Where was God when Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed with fire and brimstone? He was deliberately barbecuing the citizenry, lock stock and barrel, as punishment for 'sin'. Dear modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated Christian, your entire religion is founded on an obsession with 'sin', with punishment and with atonement. Where do you find the effrontery to condemn Pat Robertson, you who have signed up to the obnoxious doctrine that the central purpose of Jesus' incarnation was to have himself tortured as a scapegoat for the 'sins' of all mankind, past, present and future, beginning with the 'sin' of Adam, who (as any modern theologian well knows) never even existed? To quote the President of one theological seminary, writing in these very pages:<br /><br />"The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster, reminds us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God. This is true for every cell in our bodies, even as it is for the crust of the earth at every point on the globe."<br /><br />You nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen, be-frocked and bleating in your pulpits, you disclaim Pat Robertson's suggestion that the Haitians are paying for a pact with the devil. But you worship a god-man who - as you tell your congregations even if you don't believe it yourself - 'cast out devils'. You even believe (or you don't disabuse your flock when they believe) that Jesus cured a madman by causing the 'devils' in him to fly into a herd of pigs and stampede them over a cliff. Charming story, well calculated to uplift and inspire the Sunday School and the Infant Bible Class. Pat Robertson may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own Bible. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?<br /><br />Educated apologist, how dare you weep Christian tears, when your entire theology is one long celebration of suffering: suffering as payback for 'sin' - or suffering as 'atonement' for it? You may weep for Haiti where Pat Robertson does not, but at least, in his hick, sub-Palinesque ignorance, he holds up an honest mirror to the ugliness of Christian theology. You are nothing but a whited sepulchre.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />Riding on the coat tails of more popular atheists, Loftus, being the blind follower he is, follows suit as well.<br /><br /><blockquote><br />I was thinking of doing my own post on this topic. I have heard Christians say Pat Robertson is a moron for suggesting the Haitian disaster was a divine judgment for too long now. No, they are the morons. Pat Robertson represents Christian tradition, not them, as Dawkins said in a Washington Post column<br /><br />Listen Christian, ever exegete Isaiah 45:7 (NIV):<br /><br /> I form the light and create darkness,<br /> I bring prosperity and create disaster;<br /> I, the LORD, do all these things.<br /><br />Does your God do this or is Isaiah mistaken?</blockquote><br /><br /><br />Claiming "modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated Christians" are not true to the bible or are morons for disagreeing with Pat Robertson on whether or not the Haiti Disaster was divine judgement is Dawkins and Loftus at their best. They menacingly circle around their opponent and attack. They land punches, elbows and knees, until the man of straw they're assaulting is nothing more than a pile of scattered straw. The "modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated Christians" are just as biblicaly justified for disagreeing with Pat Roberston than Roberston is for saying what he said. God creates disaster yes, the bible clearly says that in Isaiah. Does that mean God caused <span style="font-style:italic;">every single</span> disaster? does that mean God caused the earth quake in Haiti? no it does not. Does God causing the flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah mean that God caused <span style="font-style:italic;">every single</span> disaster? or caused the earth quake in Haiti? no it does not. <br /><br />God saying "I create disaster" is no more conclusive He caused the specific disaster in Haiti(or every disaster for that matter) than it is conclusive that Roberto Succo causes every murder or a specific murder in South America because he said 'I Kill People.'<br /><br />Saying or insinuating that God caused the disaster in Haiti because He caused disasters in the past is logically fallacious.<br /><br /><br />At this point it has become plainly obvious that neither Dawkins nor Loftus knows what they're talking about, and Loftus's case it is <span style="font-style:italic;">extremely</span> ironic since his challenge to exegete Isaiah 45:7 was nothing but a false dichotomy. Truth is, that unless God told Pat Roberston to directly say that, then neither he or the "modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated Christians" know exactly Who or what caused the earthquake and since both views are biblical neither can be accused of being not true to the bible. The fact that Pat Robertson is an elder is grounds for respect, not infallibility.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-42287432844644357432010-02-01T05:54:00.000-08:002010-02-01T06:01:42.714-08:00How can you deny him the title of the illist?Canibus is by far <span style="font-style:italic;">the best</span> emcee. PERIOD.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8iUWGhnqBxM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8iUWGhnqBxM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Not only is that one of the greatest examples of skill on the mic , but this line, taken from that song, has to be one of, if not the best set of bars in a rap song.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The personified dry humor of cum-laude alumni<br />A wise man sees failure as progress<br />a fool divorces his knowledge and misses the logic<br />And loses his soul in the process<br />obsessed with nonsense with a caricature that has no content</span><br /><br />Completely mind blowing.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-5694898830257005092010-01-29T16:16:00.000-08:002010-01-29T18:19:13.276-08:00Calling it.With the release of BioShock 2 coming up I can't help but make a prediction based upon it's story.<br /><blockquote><br />Fast forward 10 years after BioShock ended, and there's a new lunatic running the battered city. Her name is Sophia Lamb, and unlike Ryan, she's dismissed all notions of the power of individualism. She preaches about collective effort and the effects of the many working in unison can have, bringing about a kind of religious revolution within Rapture. <br /></blockquote><br />This will no doubt bring forth a slew of psuedointellectual, historically incompetent gamers and non-gamers ready to give their 'zomg, religion is so evil' arguments, all while ignoring the previous game that was centered around rapture being completely secular.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-53569230395441759832009-12-12T05:57:00.000-08:002009-12-12T06:42:03.211-08:00Ninteodo fans showing their age.Matt sums up Nintendos laziness in <a href="http://wii.ign.com/articles/105/1054621p2.html">a great article.</a><br /><br /><blockquote>...Nintendo has been cutting costs and taking shortcuts ever since it launched Wii. Not unanimously, of course -- it still goes all out now and again and delivers unequaled traditional experiences like Super Mario Galaxy, one of my favorite games of all time. It has the artistic quality and the technical knowhow to push Wii harder than any other company. But often, either to save time or money, to keep smaller teams or simply because it just couldn't care less, it doesn't bother.</blockquote><br /><br />I wonder if maybe Matt isn't showing his age a bit. I mean, if you think about it, people around my age (24-28) grew up on Nintendo, SNES, N64 etc. etc. and those systems had a bunch of great games out, but these great games came out <span style="font-style:italic;">when we were 8-15.</span> Nintendo isn't being lazy, Nintendo is doing what <span style="font-style:italic;">they've always done</span>, make games for people ages 8-15. At that age, just about <span style="font-style:italic;">any</span> game is fun. The thing to take into consideration here is the age group. A lot of the games that the 24-28 year olds today find terrible and average are a blast to 8-15 year olds today, just like it was 10 years ago, the fundamental difference being that the 24-28 year olds back in our day were not 'experienced' as the 24-28 year olds are today, video games were just beginning to peak back then and we peaked with it, we grew up on video games. Now we've switched positions. Now <span style="font-style:italic;">we're</span> the 24 year olds, and since we 'grew up' with Nintendo and Nintendo 'grew up' with us, we're expected Nintendo to follow us, but that isn't going to happen. Nintendo is going to continue to do what its known for, making great games for the younger age group, with the occasional hit for our age group, and how can we blame them? if it weren't for their games that captured our interest in our youth, then our age group might be left with little to no foundation today. Speaking from personal experience, Nintendo games of the past play a huge part in the xbox and playstation games of today, and it would be selfish of me to deprive someone else of that foundation because I want Nintendo to continue to exclusively market to my age group today. It isn't lazy, it isn't cutting corners, its simply marketing to a certain age group that we are no longer a part of, and its what Nintendo does best.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-50399803459012983262009-12-05T18:07:00.001-08:002009-12-12T05:57:51.791-08:00Picks for ultimate fighter!Kimbo vs Housten Alexander: Housten Alexander. Judging from his most recent fight with Roy Nelson, Kimbo is still too tentative to be in the ufc. Yes, Housten has been knocked out twice, but so has Kimbo(3 times if you include his fight against gannon). Not to mention Kimbo he has had a history of difficulties with the concept of MMA, he has never looked good against <span style="font-style:italic;">any</span> seasoned, valid, MMA fighter, PERIOD. Although I do have to point out, this is a good match up for Kimbo, as his record indicates he wins these types of fights, but I think Housten Alexander is too "MMA" oriented for Kimbo, oppossed to people like Tank Abbot who were basically street fighters in the MMA sport, as it is no surprise at all Kimbo would be people like that.<br /><br />Jon Jones will beat Hamil. Jones has every conceivable advantage. Speed, strength, reflex. Jon Jones is just a beast plain and simple. <br /><br />Roy Nelson wins based off of experience alone.<br /><br /><br />Marcus Williams and Matt Matriol....who cares. I say Marcus wins based upon Matt being demonstratively scared to death when Marcus got into his face in the show.<br /><br />Sorry for the long absence, been busy.<br /><br />Update: My prediction for Marcus Williams and Matt Matriol was wrong. Marcus lost because...well...he's terrible. His stand up was just atrocious, his take down attempts were laughable, and when he was actually on the ground, he was a little less than average. As far as the prediction goes, this would be my fault for basing the outcome of a fight on a smack talking altercation, rather than on fighting skills.<br /><br />Update: My prediction for Kimbo vs Housten Alexander was wrong. First off I want to say WHAT KIND OF DECISION WAS THAT?!!! I thought it was pretty clear that Alexander won that fight! He won the first round, lost the second, and won the third based upon the leg kick and the final elbow at the end. It really sucks to accurately predict everything <span style="font-style:italic;">except</span> the decision. I was completely correct, Kimbo <span style="font-style:italic;">was</span> tentative in that fight. He waited the entire fight. He didn't even cut off the octagon for crying out loud, he didn't even check those leg kicks until the very end of the fight. His 'ground game' was nonexistent, all he did was capitalize on Alexander slipping, it's not like he took him down or swept him or transitioned from guard to mount or anything, he just kinda did a ghetto slam and like rolled into mount. I don't see a future for Kimbo in the sport, especially as he keeps squeaking by on these decisions.<br /><br />Update: Finally(I wrote 'fianlly' because I was going to write 'finally I made an accurate prediction' and I started writing this update before the the disqualification was announced). OMG!!! LOSS BY DISQUALIFICATION? MAN! TALK ABOUT UNACCOUNTED FOR VARIABLES! SERIOUSLY? yet another accurate prediction of everything <span style="font-style:italic;">except</span> the decision. My prediction for Jones vs Hamill was wrong, yes it was wrong based on a technicality, but wrong nonetheless. Still, my description of the fight was accurate and Jones just has too much skill for Hamill. Although I need to point out that I see Jones falling victim to the same fate as roy jones jr.<br /><br />Update: I got one right. Roy won.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1720454695784132859.post-84194101078886417362009-11-07T18:46:00.000-08:002010-02-26T17:46:31.441-08:00Come one come all.Come see what has to be the most dishonest, stupid, idiotic, hypocritical atheist on the internet.<br /><br />http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=133943<br /><br />Keep it locked. Whenever his entertainment value wears thin I'll be sure to make a post that contains all of his idiocy.Theological Discoursehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11215794691420472061noreply@blogger.com0