Truth in fighting

Atheism isn't a religion?

2012-01-27T17:17:00.000-08:00

If it wasn't obvious before, it should be now.

Author Alain de Botton announced plans to build an Atheist temple in the U.K., reports DeZeen magazine.

A collaboration with Tom Greenall Architects, the structure will be built in the City of London.

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

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. Vacula produced an amazing example of this when he said the following:

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.

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.

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.

Intellectual Lightweights: Vacula

2011-12-03T05:52:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed Vaculas response. Not only were his logical errors more humorous the 2nd time around, but it seems he read my post about typical skeptic responses 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 here.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Bible, even, defines faith quite differently throughout. Is faith "belief in things not seen?" Is faith "hope and trust in God?"

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.

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.

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.

The creative liberties you take when making up these definitions reminds me of humpty dumpty from Alice in wonderland.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“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.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

1. not equivocal; unambiguous; clear; having only one possible meaning or interpretation: an unequivocal indication of assent; unequivocal proof.
2. absolute; unqualified; not subject to conditions or exceptions:

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.
Nothing to do with Gods omnipotence. It says man can't see God, nothing in there about God not being able to do anything.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

Typical Skeptic Responses.

2011-11-30T10:13:00.001-08:00

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.

1. Highlight the insult.
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.

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:

Ad hominem: Your feet stink.
Ad hominmen fallacy. Your argument is wrong because your feet stink.

2. Miss the Point.

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.

3. Ignore it.

They simply ignore the point or argument and continue on as if it was never said.

4. Appeal to authority

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.

5. Run Away and Come Back.

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).

6. Baseless Assertions.

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.

7. Sarcastic snide remarks

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.

8. Emotional arguments

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."

9. Hypocrisy and Double Standards

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."
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.

The Hiddenness of God?

2011-11-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

I found it rather ironic that Justin Vacula decided to open his argument 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:

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?

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.

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?

Rebuttals I predict from skeptics:

Rebuttal A: "Difference between the CEO, military leaders and God is God loves us!"

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.

Rebuttal B:
"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."

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.

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.

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.

Defense (1): Humans would not have free will if God unequivocally revealed himself.

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.

First off, God revealing Himself unequivocally 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 limits 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).

Defense (3): Faith is important and is only possible if God doesn't unequivocally reveal himself.

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?

Vacula is severely lacking in basic Christian theology. These are easily answered with common scripture.

"Defense (3) assumes that faith is important and seems to assume that without faith, belief in God is worthless. Why is this the case?"

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.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God.

Also, he wonders why without faith belief in God is worthless. Again, a very common scripture in James 2:19 answers his question.

James 2:19
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.

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.

Defense (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).

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.

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.

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 often intervened than there would be no natural constant. If God often 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 often 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, often.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

Praise be to God!!

2011-04-24T03:10:00.001-07:00

Thank you God for the gift of your Son, so that I might be redeemed.

Psalm 144: Christian Fighters

2011-03-20T00:06:00.001-07:00

I am excited to see what God is doing and is going to do with these extremely gifted Christian fighters.

Andre "S.O.G" Ward

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.

Jon "Bones" Jones

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.

Up next; Rampage and Rich Franklin.

Psalm 144:1
" Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. "

Go ahead and say she can't do it.

2011-01-20T02:42:00.000-08:00

Go ahead and say Anne can't do it.

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.

They said the same thing about Heath Ledger.

ECREE.

2010-12-23T11:53:00.000-08:00

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.

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?

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.

GSP, who can beat him?

2010-12-13T04:43:00.000-08:00

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.

A demonstration is in order....

2010-12-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

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.

1. "There's no proof God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word proof means."

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?)

Red Herring. Does proof for God exist yes or no?

2. "There's no evidence God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word evidence means."

Same answer.

Red Herring. Does evidence exist for God yes or no?

3. "There's no good evidence God exists," translates to "My definition of good yadda yadda yadda"

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?

This is simply a sarcastic insult and sarcastic insults donot = a refutation of my point. Try again.

4. "There's contradictions in the Bible," translates to "I don't know what a contradiction is."

* yawn *

OK, let's see. (All KJV, btw)

Before I begin I'll refer this ignorant atheist to an earlier post I made on what constitutes a contradiction here. Another good site regarding a contradiction is here.

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).

-Aristotle.

To dumb it down for anyone that might be confused.

“a is F” and “a is not F” cannot both hold in the same sense, at the same time, and in the same respect.

Lets begin sha'll we?

"The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name." (Exodus 15:3)
"Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen" (Romans 15:33)

WRONG.

“a is F” and “a is not F” cannot both hold in the same sense, at the same time, and in the same respect.

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' at the same place or the same time. 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.
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

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.

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

Sorry. Was that too much reading? OK, let's try this. Does God like people to be wise?

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." (Proverbs 4:7)

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow" (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

"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)

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

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).

Here are the scriptures:

Matthew: So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

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.

Looks like he finally grasped the "same time" concept. Too bad he forgot an important verse.

Matthew 27:

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.

7And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

8Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

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;

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.

This stuff is easy to find. Really. All you have to do is actually read the Bible... oh, wait... "reading"...

Speaking of easy to find and reading.....

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

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"....

Yeah, I'm sorry, man. That was mean, wasn't it?

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.

Now I'll deal with Quasar.

[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]

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."

[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."

Well I guess you've never seen....well....anything then, much less what the word 'evidence,' means.

UFC 124

2010-12-08T01:42:00.000-08:00

Honestly, with the exception of the GSP, Alves and Stevenson fights, this isn't an event I particularly care about.

St Pierre vs Koscheck: ST Pierre by UD (LAY AND PRAY BABY!)
Alves vs Howard: Alves by UD.
Stevenson Danzig: Undecided, tough fight to call.

Hidden Conversation: Atheists.

2010-12-04T00:41:00.000-08:00

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.

1. "There's no proof God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word proof means."

2. "There's no evidence God exists," translates to "I don't know what the word evidence means."

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."

4. "There's contradictions in the Bible," translates to "I don't know what a contradiction is."

It's funny how accurately you can discern what an atheist doesn't know from the things they claim to know.

God doesn't heal amputees?

2010-11-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

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 this site 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 Chapter 12 it talks about who wrote the bible and Chapter 16 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 God does not heal amputees,
which can be found in chapter 5.

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.

Isn't that odd? The situation becomes even more peculiar when you look at who God is. According to the Standard Model of God:

* God is all-powerful. Therefore, God can do anything, and regenerating a leg is trivial.

* 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.

* God is all-knowing and all-loving. He certainly knows about the plight of the amputee, and he loves this amputee very much.

* 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.

* 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.

Nonetheless, the amputated legs are not going to regenerate.

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 never answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.

The Miracle of Calanda is enough to show just about every assertion made by the author of chapter 5 to be false.

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.

False Claim #1:

You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously.

A Doctor who knew him when he had one leg and also knew him when he had two.

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.

An experienced surgeon reviewed every single testimony and matched them up to make sure it aligned with the medical knowledge at the time.

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

False Claim #2

And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us

The document shows that God does not ignore the prayer of amputees.

False Claim #3

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 never answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.

The emphasis on the word "never" is the original authors. God has answered the prayers of an amputee and is not singling them out.

More Facts, just to drive the point home.

24 Witnesses spoke out.

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.

King Philip Kissed the leg.

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.

Vatican flexing it's muscles.

2010-11-20T01:06:00.001-08:00

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.

Vatican's Chief Justice: Catholic Politicians Who Support Abortion or Gay Marriage Must Publicly Repent

“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.”

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.

Back from deployment!

2010-11-11T01:16:00.000-08:00

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.

That's right! Season 3 is finally here.

Jin the MC sees the light.

2010-03-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

Twebs double standards on accusations of lying.

2010-03-03T01:41:00.000-08:00

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 here It is hilarious. Seriously. It almost seemed like the moderators looked at this post and decided to go the compete opposite direction. Where do I start? I guess I'll start with the first Exhibit:

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."

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.

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.

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.

I already told him that he is not going to get anywhere by trying to parse through years of forum history and finger-pointing.

...

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.

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.

Straw men, just another way to exploit a disaster.

2010-02-01T14:27:00.001-08:00

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 man of straw:

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:

"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."

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?

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.

Riding on the coat tails of more popular atheists, Loftus, being the blind follower he is, follows suit as well.

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

Listen Christian, ever exegete Isaiah 45:7 (NIV):

I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.

Does your God do this or is Isaiah mistaken?

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 every single 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 every single disaster? or caused the earth quake in Haiti? no it does not.

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.'

Saying or insinuating that God caused the disaster in Haiti because He caused disasters in the past is logically fallacious.

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 extremely 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.

How can you deny him the title of the illist?

2010-02-01T05:54:00.000-08:00

Canibus is by far the best emcee. PERIOD.

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.

The personified dry humor of cum-laude alumni
A wise man sees failure as progress
a fool divorces his knowledge and misses the logic
And loses his soul in the process
obsessed with nonsense with a caricature that has no content

Completely mind blowing.

Calling it.

2010-01-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

With the release of BioShock 2 coming up I can't help but make a prediction based upon it's story.

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.

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.

Ninteodo fans showing their age.

2009-12-12T05:57:00.000-08:00

Matt sums up Nintendos laziness in a great article.

...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.

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 when we were 8-15. Nintendo isn't being lazy, Nintendo is doing what they've always done, make games for people ages 8-15. At that age, just about any 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 we're 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.

Picks for ultimate fighter!

2009-12-05T18:07:00.001-08:00

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 any 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.

Jon Jones will beat Hamil. Jones has every conceivable advantage. Speed, strength, reflex. Jon Jones is just a beast plain and simple.

Roy Nelson wins based off of experience alone.

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.

Sorry for the long absence, been busy.

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.

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 except the decision. I was completely correct, Kimbo was 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.

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 except 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.

Update: I got one right. Roy won.

Come one come all.

2009-11-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

Come see what has to be the most dishonest, stupid, idiotic, hypocritical atheist on the internet.

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=133943

Keep it locked. Whenever his entertainment value wears thin I'll be sure to make a post that contains all of his idiocy.

For the last time, it's not racist!

2009-11-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

The NY Times makes the comment about transformers and star wars.

There’s a serious disconnect in the movie between the image of power that those GM brands are meant to convey and the bankrupt car industry they now signify. That disconnect only deepens with the introduction of two new Autobot characters, the illiterate, bickering twins Skids (Tom Kenny) and Mudflap (Reno Wilson), both of which take the shape of Chevrolet concept cars. The characters have been given conspicuously cartoonish, so-called black voices that indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas.

Neither transformers nor Star wars are racist. Bays and Lucas' portrayal of black people is simply not racist. The 2 robots in transformers along with Jar Jar in the star wars movie accurately depict plenty of black people today and if they were the only portrayal of black people in those movies I would most definitely agree they were racist. However, in the Transformers movie, Tyerese plays an articulate, competent, literate, intelligent black person who attained the highest enlisted rank (E-9 Chief Master Sargent) in the USAF, and in star wars Samuel L Jackson played a wise JEDI MASTER. If you're going to accuse the movies as being racist based upon the negative portrayals of blacks in the movie, then are they at the same time not racist based upon the positive portrayals of blacks in the movie? the truth is there are black people that act like that and blacks that are not, just like they're ignorant whites, asians and mexicans, plain and simple, but those movies cannot reasonably accused of engaging in minstrelsy or racism since they are neither saying nor insinuating that all blacks act like mudflap and jar jar binks. One is engaging in a huge logical error by hurling accusations of racism based upon the movies negative portrayals of black people while at the same time ignoring positive portrayals of black people in the very same movies.

Selective Supernaturalism another argument that doesn't apply to Christianity.

2009-11-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

Another gem of ignorance from Loftus which can also be found in his book.

Today's Christians operate by what Harvard-trained biblical scholar Hector Avalos describes as "selective supernaturalism."[11] They believe the biblical miracles because they accept the Christian faith, but they are skeptical of the miracles of other religions. Why the double standard? At least general skepticism of all miracle claims lacking compelling evidence is consistent, and I have yet to see any evidence that requires a supernatural explanation for any such reports.

First off, I'd like to know on what basis are Loftus and Hector asserting that Christians are skeptical of miracles of other religions? because I have never seen nor read nor even heard of any Christian stating that a miracle or supernatural event from another religion never happened. The reason I ask this is because the bible acknowledges the existence of miracles or supernatural events from other religions, whether it being the pharaohs magicians battling Moses and Aaron matching Gods supernatural events with their own or the anti-christ own signs and wonders calling fire down from the sky and leading people astray with his own supernatural events. There should be no reason why Christians are skeptical of the existence of miracles and supernatural events from other religions since the bible directly acknowledges the existence of them. If we assume for the sake of argument that there are Christians that are skeptical of the existence of such miracles and supernatural events, then they are clearly as clueless about Christian theology as Loftus and Hector and reveals the logical error they are both engaging in by arguing against what Christians are doing instead of providing evidence against Christianity, which is as good as arguing against atheism by focusing on what atheists do.

Just how can anyone take this guy seriously?

2009-11-05T05:34:00.000-08:00

This was taken from an exchange between him and a Christian scholar.

You asked me how sure I am right. There is no good positive evidence for Chrstianity, of that I'm sure (historical evidence is poor evidence and your God should have known this). There is only negative evidence, known as the god of the gaps. I am so sure I'm willing to risk Pascal's Wager on it. I'm sure in what I deny, that's for sure. I'm not all that sure about what I affirm.

His first error is ignoring, either deliberately or implicitly(evidence suggest deliberate since he said there is only negative evidence), both the quantity and quality of personal experience(anecdotal) and documentary evidence for Christianity, both of those types of evidence along with historical evidence qualify as good positive evidence for Christianity, since both personal experience and documentary evidence are both good enough in court. His second error is the following assertion:

(historical evidence is poor evidence and your God should have known this). There is only negative evidence, known as the god of the gaps. I am so sure I'm willing to risk Pascal's Wager on it. I'm sure in what I deny, that's for sure.

This is obtuse on many levels. Exactly how is historical evidence poor? especially in the face of the fact that virtually every military weapon and vehicle got its origins from some point in ancient history, moreover the intelligent and applicable quotes by people like Santayana "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," and several excellent reasons why we should and why we do study history in the first place.
Perhaps Loftus meant historical evidence is poor in comparison to scientific/empirical evidence, in which I agree, but of course, when we lack scientific/empirical evidence then the other forms of evidence become our only forms of evidence. So in both cases Loftus is being obtuse. Historical evidence is definitely not poor evidence and the comparison of historical evidence to scientific/empirical evidence cannot even be reasonably applied to the subject of God because of the perfectly plausible and expected absence of the latter.
This shows that his self proclaimed 'certainty' of what he denies is (in this particular case but there are many others) based upon ignorance in the concept of evidence(only God of the gaps? seriously?) and Christian theology.

Right again, but I really don't want to be.

2009-10-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

First off let's state the obvious. My prediction for UFC 104 turned out to be correct, Loyoto won by UD. Now, let's focus on the less obvious, or, to the more observant, which would be the human beings with 2 eyes in their heads, the most obvious thing about the whole fight was Machida did not win the fight, much less win by a unanimous decision?! WHAT?! Rua won rounds 1,2,4 and 5 conclusively and convincingly with round 3 being up in the air and going either way. What fight were the judges watching? ROUND 5 Machida was EXHAUSTED, hands down, limping around on the legs shogun amply destroyed with Muay Thai 101. Aside from the terrible decision, the fight itself was very interesting in regards to the style match up, as it shows, contrary to a lot of peoples assertions, machids 'karate style' doesn't seem to be very effective against basic leg kicks 101 (oversimplification yes I know, but bear with me, I am frustrated at the bad decision) and accurately summed up why I had such trouble judging who would exactly win. Hopefully there is a rematch.

Movie quotes

2009-10-19T22:49:00.000-07:00

I never put much stock into movie quotes. To me they always seem like pseudo intellectual catch phrases designed to make the common critical thinking lacking human being say 'whoa, that's deep.' Well, from time to time I tend to eat my words and this happens to be one of those times. I've heard these words hundreds of times, but this short phrase, uttered by an even shorter character, is actually quite sound.

"Do, or do not. There is no try."

A simple statement, but it is true, there is no try. You're either doing it or you are not doing it, trying to do something is by definition to have not done it yet, thus putting you in the category of 'do not.' A surprisingly insightful quote, one which demands further elaboration in the future and one which has made me think to pay attention a little bit more to movie quotes, as I am now wondering what other nuggets I might've missed.

Real life spidey sense

2009-10-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Anderson Silva VS Forrest Griffin UFC 101
Uploaded by IZOPN. - Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.

I don't blame Griffin for getting up and running out of the octagon like he did. After getting knocked out like that, I would've too. Talk about a mismatch. It just goes to show that Griffins 70% heart/toughness 30% skill style can only take him so far.

Logic vs emotion

2009-10-04T16:25:00.001-07:00

My prediction for Ufc 104 Mauricio vs Lyoto is a tough one. The logical part of me says Machida will win, but the emotional experienced fighter side of me says Shogun will win. I think I'll go with Lyoto, since not only is he undefeated, Mauricio has is not bringing anything to the table Lyoto has not seen before.

Prediction: Lyoto UD.

Fun with theodicys

2009-09-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

First off, before I begin, I am not conceding the gratuitous POE is a problem. Despite the incompetent atheists assertion to the contrary, not only do I know what the gratuitous POE is, I know how to effectively deal with it as well. The best and most logical response to the gratuitous evil POE is they are begging the question the evil is gratuitous, since our ignorance does not = lack of reasons for God. It basically amounts to someone thinking of an evil scenario and saying it is gratuitous. In any case, it is often fun to play around with theodicys.

The theodicy of constant principles in response to the gratuitous problem of evil.

God created the universe with constant principles and laws. Water always boils at temperature X it freezes at temperature Y etc. etc. blah blah blah you get the point, anthropic principle ad nauseam. At this point and in this respect specifically, God stepped back and let his machine do what it is designed to do. Now this machine will undoubtedly kill people and cause suffering in its operation, but the death and suffering of some people and animals is insignificant to the amount of good caused by things like constant gravity laws and freezing temperatures for organ transplants. The suffering of a deer burning to death in the woods from a forest fire caused by a lightning strike pales in comparison when those very things that created that scenario helps get nitrogen to the grown to aid plant growth(lightning) the temperature that wood ignites has helped people cook their food and keep warm during winters. No one calls the inventor of the pencil evil because someone died as the result of being stabbed with a pencil. The question that follows would be "God has the power to stop all of the evil that his machine would be responsible for, unlike the inventor of the pencil, so why doesn't he?," and the obvious answer would be because then the laws wouldn't be constant. Science would be nonexistent since it depends upon the laws being the same every single time, our ability to predict, plan, or do anything for ourselves would be non existent as well. I might want to light a fire to cook, but find I cannot because someone around me might get burned to death or the stove might blow up. I might want to go for a swim in the beach but cannot for the suns light has been extinguished because it has caused wild fires in california, etc. etc. I am sure you get the point.

The wii has officially won the console wars.

2009-09-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

Apparently it takes priority over drug raids.

You know how every holiday season the stores all sell out of Nintendo Wiis? Well, that's because they're so awesome -- just ask the cops in Polk County, Fla.

In the midst of a drug raid on a house that apparently took nine full hours and cost $4,000, cops apparently were distracted by Wii bowling. Reports say they started the game up within 20 minutes of entering the house and spent hours playing it.

Perpahs they are gladiators then.

2009-09-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

Fik Meijer author of 'History's most deadly sport the Gladiators' makes a very interesting observation about the motivations of some Roman citizens to become gladiators.

"Many were motivated by the prospect of escaping poverty. When they were unemployed or underemployed and struggling for their own basic needs, life as a gladiator offered security."

As anyone remotely familiar with the history of boxing which is often referred to as the poor mans sport, it describes almost the exact same reasons people became boxers in the past(great depression) and today. Another interesting tidbit mentioned in the book describes how the concept of promoters was found in those days as well.

"Because gladiator shows attracted such huge crowds at the time of the Roman Empire, the sponsors had to lay down large sums of money to get the most renowned fighters into the arena at all."

Aaron the incompetent atheist pt. 5

2009-09-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

More nonsense from the incompetent atheist.

Theo, this is what you need to understand. God is perfectly moral, therefor God can only do moral things. God is also all powerful, thus he does things the best possible way and in the most effective way.

That is why God is obligated to the GPG. The fact that that wasn't obvious to you just shows that you are not trying to do anything here but prove your right, and do this with out considering what I am even saying.

I knew you had nothing. We'll deal with this nonsense one by one. First, I should post the points he's ignored.

1. Aaron is ASSUMING that lowering the GPG is going against the will of God.
2. Aaron is Assuming that Gods existence and 'all goodness' is dependent upon God choosing the GPG.
3. Aaron is assuming that God is obligated in some way shape or form to choose the GPG.

1. God is perfectly moral, therefore God can only do moral things.
This is just more ignorance of basic Christian theology. God is not judged by our moral standards, anymore than Roy Jones Jr is judged by amateur boxing standards. So God is perfectly moral, but the fact our moral system is inferior to His means we cannot judge His actions by our moral system. So Aaron is defining GPG in moral standards that God does not adhere too, assuming that God defines evil in the same way we do as well. Now, if this is supposed to address my points I don't see how it does. If we define evil as suffering and assume that God defines it that way too, then it is not against Gods will to lower the GPG since God has inflicted suffering in the forms of judgments and warnings many times. For ignorant people like Aaron, it goes like this:

1. Suffering lowers the GPG.
2. God has caused suffering through judgments and/or warnings.
3. Therefore lowering the GPG is not against Gods will.

So Aaron is once again incorrect. If we define evil as suffering, then lowering the GPG is not against Gods will nor is His existence dependent upon the GPG nor is He obligated in anyway shape or form to choose the GPG, thus, in addition to #3 being false, his entire argument collapses based upon the unproven and incorrect assumption that Gods existence is dependent upon maintaining the GPG, despite clear evidence it is not the case.

God is also all powerful, thus he does things the best possible way and in the most effective way.

This is just stupid. Aaron, like every other ignorant skeptic that asserts these things forgets the fact that just because one is all powerful does not mean one needs to use that power 100% of the time. For instance, the most effective way to eliminate evil would've been to wipe out the entire human race, including Noah, but because God is merciful, God choose not to kill Noah. This is why assertions like Aarons are both ridiculous and completley ignorant of basic behavior. God most certainly is all powrful but He can certainly choose exactly how He utilizes that power. God choosing to not do something in the most effective way and best possible way is no more unreasonable or unlikely than Roy Jones jr choosing not to fight well below his full potential either. The skeptic might respond, well you're conceding that God is not all powerful, but I am doing no such thing. If you're saying that God is not all powerful because He chooses not to do things in the most effective and best way 100% of the time all the time, then you're conceding that Roy jones jr is not a good fighter because he chooses to not fight the best he can 100% of the time, or conceding that you're not a smart/fast/good artist etc. If you ever choose to not utilize your talents to their full potential all the time 100% of the time.

It really amounts to the following. God by Himself is 100% good. God created the universe to be 100% good. Status quo of goodness is maintained. God allowed evil to come about resulting in something other than GPG, but since Gods existence is not dependent upon maintaining the GPG nor is it against His will to allow or even personally lower the GPG Aarons ridiculous argument falls apart. The skeptic might inquire 'so why did God create' to which one can easily answer, 'because God wanted to create,' to which the skeptic might respond, 'well if God is all powerful then he does things in the best possible way and in the most effective way, but God - creation is the best possible way and in the most effective way. We have God + creation, which is not the best possible way nor the most effective way, so God must not be all powerful,' to which the theist responds. 'Gods choice to do something other than the best possible way and in the most effective way has noting at all to do with his capacity of His power. The capacity of Gods power is not dependent upon its use, because sometimes He might choose not utilize all of that power 100% all of the time.'
One might as well concede that michael phelps is not a fast swimmer because sometimes he treads water or plays in a swimming pool. One might as well concede Usain Bolt is not a fast runner because he jogs sometimes. One might as well concede Floyd Mayweather is not a good boxer because he play fights with his children or spars.

Were did you talk about supralapsarianism? Are you serious that that has nothing to do with what we are talking about? Actually it has everything to do with what we are talking about, you're just too stupid to see it.

No, it does not. You might think it does, due to your ignorance, but it does not. #3 is already false and not only that, you're begging the question assuming God is obligated to choose the GPG and assuming Gods existence and all goodness is dependent upon Him choosing the GPG. It clearly isn't, supralapsaianism has nothing at all to do with those refutations to your argument, try again.

No you're being the idiot here. I used the qualifier, "with the exception of size and scope." You didn't understand the analogy. How can you use your free will to get rid of aids or the flu or cancer? How can you use your free will to get your head out of the mouth of a lion? The world is like one giant room filled with shit like this. Some of us are lucky enough to never encounter it, others are not so lucky and free will has jack shit to do with it Theo. Seriously, go to a cancer ward and tell the patients there to cure themselves with their magical "free" will.

Tell a poor kid in Africa with malaria it's his fault for living in Africa. This is how you chose to answer the fucking question? No wonder I am the only person who actually reads your blog.

Where on earth did I ever say that you can use your free will to get rid of aids or the flue or cancer? where? Like I said, state your point clearly, if you have an argument MAKE IT, other wise shut up. Your stupid assertions and appeals to emotion are laughable.

Btw I love how you really racked up youtube subscribers and ratings after that amazing video to mine? Your at what, 0 subs now? Each video has a 1.5 star rating? Funny thing was that the other Christians who responded, and to whom I responded to, all have 4-5 star ratings, and all gained subs from the experience. Just saying...

Equating the validity of my video with the # of subscribers and ratings? testament to your illogical reasoning right there.

All this goes back to your laptop analogy. Answer me one last question, what's a more perfect laptop, one that can get viruses, or one that cannot?

Stupid question that ignores just about everything I've said. Obviously a more perfect laptop is one that cannot get viruses, but you're under the very ignorant assumption that Gods existence or attributes is dependent upon making the most perfect laptop.

To say with absolute certainty that the earth will always revolve around the sun, would be beyond ignorant. One day the earth with be consumed by the sun and no longer do this. The earth could also be dislodged from orbit, or any other variety of possible things.

Quote mine much. I never once said the earth will always revolve around the sun. Try again. I notice you ignored my 2+2=4 example as well.

You also don't know with absolute certainty that the earth in fact exists, nor for that matter do you know that the sun exists.

Well then you've called just about every single scientist, astrophysicist and astronomer ignorant, close minded, and self deceptive.

Aaron the incompetent atheist pt. 4

2009-09-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

Theo, were did I say God created the world evil? Please show me quote. This is the straw man. I never said "created the world evil" I said created a world with evil in it. Please for the sake of Christ show me were I said "God created the world evil." I said god created natural evils in the world, but that's not the same thing.

Now you're trying to change the word 'the' with the word 'a' as if that changes anything. It doesn't. We're talking about one world and one world only, which is THIS WORLD. So in this sense, the word 'the' and the word 'a' are synonomous since they both refer to the same thing. With that being said, the following quote should suffice.

Creating a world with evil is not "the good".

In this quote he even says evil was instantly present.

God created the world. The world has evil in it. God created the world with evil in it, even it was instantly present,

You say I have changed my stance 7 times, but you if you read the 7 quotes it's obvious that they all say the same thing... So what are you on about?

This is just funny!

This quote:

1. No no no. God is morally obligated to do the good. Creating a world with evil is not "the good". Even a 2 year old can see that, right?
Is obviously not the same as this quote:

2. All fine and good, and not really addressing my point. The question is this: Why is there evil in the world and were did it come from?Why is there evil in the world and were did it come from?
Which is obviously not the same as this quote:

3. if god created a world with the potential for evil, a created a world with evil in it.

Another stupid assertion from Aaron.

God created a world with evil in it. That's a tautology, it's absolutely true. An argument from a bible verses is not a logical argument, specially if the evidence of existence proves the opposite.

God did not create a world with evil in it, God created a world with no evil in it and allowed evil to come into existence. Back to your old assertions again I see. An argument from a bible verse is a logical argument, especially in this case since you're arguing against my God whose characteristics and actions are found within those bible verses. The evidence of existence does not prove the opposite, in fact, the evidence of existence proves that God allows a world with evil, He did not create it. God creating the world all good at 10:00 knowing that evil will come into existence at 11:00 still means the world was good at 10:00. God did not create the world at 11:00, since it was already created at 10:00.

Why don't you address supralapsarianism? Are you scared?

I did address it, I said it was largely irrelevant to the argument at hand and it is.

Premise 3 admits my argument, and is my point. Right now, it is not the GPG. Lowering the GPG is going against the will of God as far as I can see. When all is said and done, billions of creations will be in hell, and trillions more will have suffered through life. How is that the GPG?

Then you are being logically inconsistent. What part of that do you not understand? You say God created a world that has evil in it because of #3. Going by that logic, God created the world with the GPG because of #1 and #2 and #4. You cannot have it both ways. Either God created the world with evil in it based upon #3 or God created the world with the GPG based upon 1,2 and 4.
Secondly, you are once again ASSUMING that lowering the GPG is going against the will of God, just like you ASSUME that Gods existence and 'all goodness' is dependent upon God choosing the GPG, just like you ASSUME that God is obligated in some way shape or form to choose the GPG. You are begging the question. You need to either provide evidence for these ridiculous assumptions or shut up about it.

BTW if that is supposed to be a syllogism it is neither sound nor valid. The conclusion doesn't follow logically from the premises. I am not sure what you are trying to assert with those 4 points.

it wasn't supposed to be a syllogism you ignorant moron.

Theo, you don't express yourself in a way that I can clearly understand. If you spent less time telling me I was illogical, and spent more time demonstrating it, perhaps I would understand what you are trying to say. But you don't, and I can't.

The irony of the first statement is hilarious, since Aaron is the one that is constantly changing what his point is.

Try this, remove the personal insults and just tell me what you actually mean. It will be much better for both of us.

No, the insults will remain as long as you continue to constantly change your points, ignore my questions and points, and refuse to concede your mistakes. You've read the rules you half wit, around here you get treated how you treat others.

What? God didn't place us in the world then?

Let me give you an example. I lock you in a room with a lion, a tiger and a bear. I also put parasites in the water and infectious disease in the air. Would I morally culpable for your death? Certainly from a legal stand point I would.

How is this analogy any different from God placing us in a world with natural evil, with the exception of size and scope?

You're an idiot. That is one of the stupidest comparisons I've seen in my life. First off, there are multiple rooms, thousands of rooms, rooms without lions, tigers or bears, diseases or parasites. Secondly, no one is locking people in there, as you have the option to go to whatever room you want to go to. Third God has not only provided ample ways to both get out of the room and avoid any dangers one might find themselves in if they were in the wrong room but your fellow man has as well. So people have the means and will to both leave the room or survive and even make life good in the rooms they might not initially like. It is the equivalent to blaming a 4 star general for the death of a soldier despite the soldier had both the tools to survive and used his own free will to get him into the situation in the first place, knowing full well the dangers of the situation. Exactly the kind of stupidity I've come to expect from you. Finally, in regards to your stupid comment about legal stand points, you once again show ignorance in basic Christian theology. God is not subject to our morals or our legal system. Try again. What moral system or code that God is subject to did God break?

If one of your family members dies of cancer and you going to say it's their fault for being alive? Are you going to say that the millions of people who suffered from leprosy deserved it for contracting it? Will you say that the millions who died of the black plague deserved it for living were they did died?

I don't even know what on earth these questions have to do with anything? seriously. What is the point of these questions, where on earth have I said people who suffered from leprosy deserved it for contracting it? what are you saying? Why don't you make your point in a clear manner instead of asking vague questions?

Will you ever address my claims in a fair way with out distorting my arguments?

Pot, kettle, black. Not only that but I have been addressing them in a fair way without distorting them, you either need to be more clear or admit that you've got nothing and you're only changing up your points because you don't want to admit you're wrong.

How can you be absolutely sure of any knowledge? Absolute sureness of knowledge is the greatest sign of ignorance, self deception and close mindedness. You are a paragon of this Theo, which is why I get such a laugh out of you.

Get your stupid, ignorant, poor attempts at proverbs outta here, not only are you once again assuming that I am absolutely sure of any knowledge but if one were to concede your stupid assertion makes sense, I anyone asserting 2+2=4 or the earth revolves around the sun is ignorant, self deceptive and close minded.

Aaron, the incompetent atheist pt. 3

2009-09-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

He said -"The world right now is not 100% good, but it is not the world God created. "

Wait what? God didn't create this world? What the fuck does that mean Theo? This world was created by Allah? Something else created this world? It was brought about by natural selection and random processes? Give me a fucking break, you just keep making it more and more entertaining to troll you, I can never expect what sort of ridicules things you will say next.

Aaron cannot seem to understand the difference between creation and post creation. The only thing God created was a 100% good world. God simply allowed this world to come about. Allowing something to come about does not = God creating something, thus, to assert as many times as you did that God created the world with evil in it is false. I see you've admitted to trolling me. Like I said, you're a joke, glad you've admitted it, by your own admission you're not here for honest discussion.

You don't understand the premise. God would still exist, but the state of moral Good would be lessened by the presence of evil. The ironic thing is, that you who constantly calls me illogical are making a logic error by denying that premise. The greatest possible good defined - Greatest possible state of moral goodness. God would still be the same, but the state of possible goodness would be lessened.

Once again Aaron has resorted to telling me I don't understand something. A quick re cap on this often and very tiring tactic.

1. No no no. God is morally obligated to do the good. Creating a world with evil is not "the good". Even a 2 year old can see that, right?

2. All fine and good, and not really addressing my point. The question is this: Why is there evil in the world and were did it come from?Why is there evil in the world and were did it come from?

3. if god created a world with the potential for evil, a created a world with evil in it.

4. Theo says that a world with the possibility of evil is not the same as a world with the actuality of evil. While this statement may be true if the creator of such a world was not the greatest possible being, the creator he argues for is the greatest possible being.

5. Theo, that's my whole point. I don't care what it was like at the exact moment of creation. I am saying, THE WORLD GOD CREATED HAS EVIL IN IT, BECAUSE OF HOW HE MADE IT.

6. I was never arguing that God created the world evil. If I said such a thing, and I am almost certain I have not, that wasn't my point.

You've changed your point 6 different times. Now, onto the NEW POINT, which will undoubtedly be changed after it is shown to be wanting as well.

God would still exist, but the state of moral Good would be lessened by the presence of evil.

How on earth does Gods existence depend upon the presence of evil or the overall state of possible goodness being lessened?

If you accept premise one, you have to accept premise three. The only premise you can really argue against here is premise one, but your a little too hot in the collar to see that. You attempt to reject the premise was a strawman.

3 is not about whether god creates anything, if god created only a perfect world, still the GPG, but when he creates a world, like ours, WITH EVIL IN IT, not the GPG.

My point is that God created a world that has evil in it, and that it is the way it is by design. There is a flaw in the way the world was created that allows evil. This flaw is here because the world is the way god created it.

So now, we have the 7th installment of the point, which is just as absurd as the other 6. God did not design the world that has evil in it, God designed a world that did not have evil in it.

1. At the beginning when God was alone it was GPG
2. When God created everything it was still GPG
3. When God allowed evil to come into existence it was not GPG
4. When all is said and done, it will be the GPG (God reigns on earth, end of satan, GPG for all time etc. etc.)

So, if you're asserting God creating the world that has evil in it because of #3 then that logic states that God created the world with the GPG because of #1 and #2 and #4. You cannot have it both ways. Either God created the world with evil in it based upon #3 or God created the world with the GPG based upon 1,2 and 4. You're taking one specific point in time and saying God created the world with evil in it, despite other specific points in time that state God did not create the world with evil in it and instead created it with the GPG. You're being logically inconsistent.
Not only that, but if we assume for the sake of argument that the inclusion of the 'flaw' of free will led to something other than the GPG, that assumes that Gods existence and 'all goodness' is dependent upon God choosing the GPG. So you're assuming that God is obligated in some way shape or form to choose the GPG, you're also assuming that God didn't choose the GPG for His creation, in knowing that God is only the GPG and thus choose the GPG for His creation. Oh and before you even assert that God needed to create something, that is also an assumption. God can create just because He wants to or create things for His pleasure, which does not = need.

I was never arguing that God created the world evil. If I said such a thing, and I am almost certain I have not, that wasn't my point. I did say God created the world with natural evils, something you have only responded to by invoking creationism, and btw ID doesn't give an accounting for natural evil sorry.

Natural evil? what on earth are you even talking about? you just sat there and said 'moral good' in your previous statement, now you're talking about natural evil. Natural evil is not moral evil. You're equivocating. Either evil means morally wrong or bad or it means characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering. Natural evil cannot be morally evil, since animals, gravity, and elements do not have morals nor do animals operating on natural instincts violate any type of moral code. So you're equivocating. Looking forward to you screaming 'that's not what I meant again.' Despite you clearly talking about natural evil.

Lastly the Augustinian Theodicy, is the free will defense you moron. Who feed you that bad information. If that's what you are arguing for, you have not expressed that in a clear way.

I believe you're once again taking what I said out of context. A quick recap.

You said: Again, I cannot stress this enough, no respectable Christian philosopher would say that God created a world that doesn't contain evil in it.

Augustine said God created a world that doesn't contain evil in it, therefore your ridiculous claim is false. You're now, once again, taking what I said out of context, since I brought up Augustine to simply refute your ignorant claim.

Aaron, the incompetant atheist Pt. 2

2009-09-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

Finishing up my little back and for with Theo and the Truth In Fighting Blog, I figure I have little left to say at this point. Theo has constantly accused me of all sorts of intellectual foolishness, yet he's not done a great deal to prove his point.

This is demonstratively false. I have proven his ridiculous assertions that God created the world evil to be false, along with his assertion that a world with free will, is a world that contains evil to be false, and his very ignorant assertion that the potential of evil is synonymous with creating evil during the actual creation. It's about that simple.

Theo has however, expressed that he is a creationist. Something, that while I could of guessed it, should of guessed, I was not willing to sling that mud with out first having the knowledge that I was correct. Well I was correct. Creationism, in any form - I.D. - young earth creationism, is an intellectually dishonest tactic

I have expressed no such thing, so who knows where he got that from. Not to mention the very stupid assertion that any form of creationism is an intellectually dishonest tactic. He then goes on to write 3 paragraphs about creationism, equating the validity of creationism with the people that believe in it. Hilarious and a testament to his irrational illogical reasoning, since the validity of something is completely independent of the people or lack of people that bLelieve in it.

If Theo had bothered to study what contemporary Christian philosophy had to say about the problem of evil, he may be able to formulate some interesting arguments; but he hasn't and so he cannot.

I know exactly what contemporary Christian philosophy says about the POE and so what? what on earth does that have to do with my assertions? what on earth does that have to do with anything that I have said? Aaron in his ignorance seems to think that there is only 1 way to refute an argument or something.

Theo says that a world with the possibility of evil is not the same as a world with the actuality of evil. While this statement may be true if the creator of such a world was not the greatest possible being, the creator he argues for is the greatest possible being. Theo seems to be arguing for some bumbling idoit of a God, one who simply could not foresee the possible consequences of his creations. But this being has maximal possible knowledge, so even if he didn't know exactly what the future would be like, something theisticly add odds with dozens of bible versus, he would still be able to know what the probabilistic future of the world would be. He would know that placing a tree of good and evil, and a talking snake, in his so called paradise would lead to the fall with absolute certainty, most specially if the creatures he placed there had no knowledge of good and evil, and thus could not possibly know they had sinned. If God creates a world with the possiblity of evil, God has created a world knowing that evil exist in this world.

He still cannot grasp the difference between actual and possible. Throwing Gods attributes in there doesn't change anything. The words are still antonyms, they still are not synonomous. God creating the world all good at 10:00 knowing that evil will come into existence at 11:00 still means the world was good at 10:00. It is really that simple. There was no evil that God created, PERIOD. God simply allowed the evil to come to pass, which is a lot different than creating it. So Aaron is basically reiterating what I've already refuted and decided to throw Gods attributes in there thinking it would change something, it didn't. In fact, arguing that evil will at some point come into the future is once again tacitly conceding the argument! since the evil comes IN THE FUTURE, not in the present act of creation. Placing a tree was not evil neither was placing a snake or human beings with free will. The evil didn't happen until after the creation. God knowing evil will come about does not = God creating evil, since the evil did not come about until after the creation. This is evident in both the bible and the fact that Aaron himself used the word 'forsee.'

–verb (used with object)
1. to have prescience of; to know in advance; foreknow.
2. to see beforehand.
–verb (used without object)
3. to exercise foresight.

By stating that God would know the future, Aaron is once again conceding the argument. God knew in the future that evil was going to be present, but the key word is IN THE FUTURE, not in the present. So at the PRESENT TIME OF CREATION, there was no evil because God saw it was going to be there IN THE FUTURE. Once again, Aaron has conceded the argument but is too ignorant to understand that he did.

This is why, as I have said in previous blog posts addressed to the much more intellectually challenging and thoughtful Steven, that if Christianity is true, than supralapsarianism is most likely true. I doubt that Theo even knows what this word means, or for that matter what it entails. But the fact remains that this is by far the most honest interpretation, at least in my own opinion, of Christian theology.

Not only do I know what that means, it is largely irrelevant to the argument at hand. I don't care what you think of someone else, the very fact that you are both unable to effectively argue your claims and unable to refute mine shows it doesn't take much for you to consider something 'intellectually challenging and thoughtful.'

God created the world. The world has evil in it. God created the world with evil in it, even it was instantly present, it was inherit and absolute in accordance with the creation of the system. Had god made a world that evil wasn't possible, we wouldn't be having this discussion

Lets see. Everything was good all the way up until the 3rd sentence. God did not create the world with evil in it. You just CONSTANTLY REPEAT THIS NONSENSE OVER AND OVER. I mean, its like you're saying 'forget providing evidence for that assertion, repeating it over and over will do!' Seriously. You're a joke. There was no evil present at creation, your baseless assertions are just that, empty baseless assertions without a shred of evidence to support them, in direct contradiction to my arguments which show quite clearly that God did not create a world with evil in it. In fact, Aarons own words state that as well. He uses words like "forsee" and "potential" which directly state that at the time of creation, there was on evil. So Aaron is even ignoring his own words at this point.

Theo makes the silly claim that we have free will in heaven and there is no sin there. Theo, why then did Lucifer conduct himself in the most sinful of ways in heaven, thus resulting in his explusion? This is a non-sense explanation that you cannot further elaborate on, because you know reading this that you misspoke.

Mistake on your part. Not only was I talking about heaven POST Satans imprisonment, which describes not only a good world but humans using free will within that good world. I also said that Adam and Eve had free will and the world was good, so you completely ignored that assertion. Finally, even if I was talking about heaven before Satan was kicked out, you seem to forget why he was he was expelled in the first place. Because there is no evil in heaven, when satan did evil he was expelled. Do you not know what the word expelled means? Do I have to show you that definition too?

Theo accuses me of "quote mining" though he is misusing the fallacy here. I think he means that I am making a straw man of his argument, which while basically the same thing, is not in the way that he is using it. You cannot quote mine some one you are debating if the quote you use is in context and about the topic you are debating, and from the same debate. When I used Theo's example, I used it with the near exact wording and in the exact same context that he did. I didn't change the meaning of put it out of context. He claims that all analogies break down, what does this mean? He admits the failure of this analogy, yet he continues to use it for the rest of the post? The analogy was a poor one, a good analogy won't break down. Your failure to defend your analogy, your admission that it does work, it only an admission that your own viewpoint doesn't work.

I explained the purpose of my analogy was to simply show the difference between creation and post creation and THAT IS IT. You took my analogy out of context by not arguing what it was intended for, so that would be your quote mine. Finally, ALL ANALOGIES FAIL AT SOME POINT, ALL ANLOGIES BREAK DOWN, if they didn't they wouldn't be analogies, they would be IDENTICAL. What part of this do you not understand? oh wait, let's open up the dictionary again.

1. a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a pump.
Here is an even better one:

Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.

Now lets look at identical.

similar or alike in every way: The two cars are identical except for their license plates.

Well gee, would you look at that. An analogy cannot be similar in every single way, otherwise it would be IDENTICAL.

1. God is the greatest possible good.
2. If God is the greatest possible good and he does not create, then there will only be the greatest possible good.
3. If God creates, then there would not be the greatest possible good.
4. Either God creates or God does not create.
5. Therefore, either there is the greatest possible good or there is not the greatest possible good.
6. If God exists, then he would choose the greatest possible good.
7. There is not the greatest possible good.
8. Therefore, God does not exist.

#3 is wrong, we've been through this before and I've proved it false 3 times over in this exchange. You are assuming that if God creates, then there would not be the greatest possible good, that is not only an assumption but an incorrect assumption at that, as I have proved in these exchanges. I said this in the video and also said it in a thread over on Tweb.

Let's say for example when God was alone without the universe the status quo of goodness was 100%. God initially created the universe and everything in it and it was good (Genesis 1) the status quo was still 100%. So your syllogism ignores Gods initial creation of the universe and is also assumes the act of creating things was not good. According to the bible, this is not the case, the initial act of creation was good, the status quo of goodness was maintained, so #1, in addition to the things I mentioned earlier, assumes that God cannot create things and still have the status quo remain 100% good. So in a sense I reject #1 becuase of the assumptions, not because it is not factual. Yes God is the greatest possible good, but God and what God creates(that are not molested and keep their initial state, stuff that is not 'corrupted by sin or sinners') would still maintain the original status quo of goodness.

Like I said, we've been through this before, this is just you ignoring the evidence your assertions are wrong and just continuing to assert it over and over. Not only that, but #3 being false isn't the only thing incorrect about your argument, but for now it will due to refute it.

The Catholic church makes up the majority of Christians, about 1.1 billion+, and both the Pope and the Catholic church accept the theory of evolution. So the accounts for more than half right there, even you though you might be likely to say that Catholics are not Christians, simply google the fallacy "No true Scots man".

You're confusing the Catholic Churches position on evolution with people actually believing in it. Even then, you are not even accurately representing the Churches position.

Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.

So you can't even accurately present data to support your assertions.

But furthermore Catholics are not the only group that believes in evolution, pretty much every denomination of non-fundamentalist Christians accept evolution. Several leading evolutionary biologists are Christians, such as Francis Collins. Google theistic evolution to understand their position better.

There you go again, confusing positions the churches take with the number of people that actually believe in it. You see, Churches support both positions, creationism and evolution. Not only that, but your assertions go against the available evidence as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/31/national/31religion.html

In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released yesterday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools

http://www.hcdi.net/polls/J5776/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4648598.stm

Creationism is unique to fundamentalist religiosity, and it is also absent from respectable Christian philosophy and teachings of philosophers like Dr. Craig and Alvan Plantinga; both accept the theory of evolution.

There you go again equating the validity of something with who doesn't believe in it. It is a testament to your irrational illogical reasoning. Not only that but both Craig and Plantinga support ID. So you're once again caught not being accurate with data.

Whether you are a OEC or YEC makes no real difference, you're still holding to an absurd intellectually dishonest position.

How ironic. You state OEC and YEC is an absurd intellectually dishonest position, but in stating that, you are being intellectually dishonest, since there are many intellectuals that support and adhere to ID.

Again, I cannot stress this enough, no respectable Christian philosopher would say that God created a world that doesn't contain evil in it. Not one. This is why there are theodicy's and defenses against the problem of evil.

Really? because you say so? how on earth do you even know that? it is also hilarious how you state I am ignorant in the POE yet here you are showing ignorance in the POE. St Augustine said the same thing I am saying, that God created everything good. In fact, it is called Augustinian Theodicy, so you're once again, Incorrect. It is becoming an entertaining trend with you.

I bring up you're education because of you're misuse of terms like "logic", "assertion" and "fallacy". If you did receive a formal education in philosophy your teachers served you very poorly.

Show me a single time I've misused either of those words.

Aaron, the incompetant atheist.

2009-09-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

Aarons ignorance extends beyond basic Christian theology. He makes the following ridiculous assertions:

if god created a world with the potential for evil, a created a world with evil in it.

Aaron is confusing potential with actual, trying to make antonyms synonymous. A quick look at the dictionary reveals his ignorance.

1. possible, as opposed to actual: the potential uses of nuclear energy.
2. capable of being or becoming: a potential danger to safety.
3. Grammar. expressing possibility: the potential subjunctive in Latin; the potential use of can in I can go.
4. Archaic. potent 1 .
–noun
5. possibility; potentiality: an investment that has little growth potential.
6. a latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed.

Aaron seems to think that creating something with the possibility of it being evil some time in the future is actually creating evil in the present tense of creation. It isn't. Why? well aside from the fact that the word Potential is opposed to the word ACTUAL and thus the 2 cannot be synonymous, in fact, they are antonyms.

Not only do the very definition of the words refute Aarons ridiculous assertion, simple logic does as well. God created everything good on the 6th day with the potential of it being evil some time in the future, by definition of the world potential, the evil is nonexistent at the time of creation. It must be, since at the time of creation, the evil was only a POSSIBILITY, or there was only POTENTIAL for evil, so it wasn't even in existence yet. Possible evil cannot happen in during the actual act of creation, by definition it must happen after the actual creation taking place, thus during creation, potential evil is just that, a potential, it is not existent during the actual creation, since it is a potential evil in the future, not an actual evil. Aaron is not only ignoring the fact that the first evil act didn't happen until Adam and Eve disobeyed God, but is also ignoring the fact that the 2 words hes using are antonyms. He simply cannot find an example of evil during the creation process, which is why he has retreated to POTENTIAL evil or POSSIBLE EVIL, but even that doesn't get him anywhere, by retreating to potential and possible evil, he has tacitly conceded that there was no actual evil present during the creation process, so he's already conceded this argument. He's just too ignorant to realize it.

He goes on to assert more nonsense:

No you are changing the goalposts. A world with free will, at least according to christians, is a world that contains evil. I am not saying god made the evil, I am saying he made a flawed world with the capacity and actuality of evil.

Incorrect on all 3 counts. First, I never changed the goalposts, in fact how on earth could I? I've been responding to his ridiculous assertions the entire time so how could I be moving the goal posts this is just another baseless assertion from Aaron, however, we have proof that Aaron is moving the goalposts(see end of post). Second, a world with free will is not a world that contains evil. Adam and Eve both had free will before they ate the fruit and God described it as good, in fact, various Christians assert that heaven not only has free will but it is a world that contains no evil(heaven duh), even the heavily fundamental Christians of rapture ready recognizes this. Third, God did not make a flawed world with the capacity or actuality of evil. Aaron simply does not realize that free will is not a flaw in that it is designed to do what God wanted it to do and it was perfect in that sense. God wanted people with free will, so God gave them free will, thus free will is not a flaw, since it was and still is, functioning as it is designed to do. The fact that it allows the possibility of evil is irrelevant, since upon creation, there was no evil present, since the word possibility is not synonymous with actual. Even if one were to concede that free will is a flaw, so what? the word flaw does not = evil, it is not even synonymous with evil, thus God created something with a flaw does not mean God has created anything evil. Nowhere in any dictionary, merrium webster, oxford, dictionary.com, wiki, does it state evil is synonymous with flawed. Not only that, but how on earth are you even using the word 'capacity'

Another stupid assertion:

So man, with "his" freewill brings about parasites, disease and natural disasters? Your saying god didn't create all these things? God did not create lions with sharp claws, crocodiles with teeth meant to maim, and snakes with poisonous blood?

This is entirely dependent upon what the Christian believes about the origins of life. YEC's obviously don't believe in death before the fall, so lions and alligators and parasites, etc. etc. were either non existent or eating plants. Depending upon what type of OEC one is, they either believe the original animal was created without 'sharp claws' etc. etc. and developed them later after sin was introduced into the world, thus it is not a problem for them, or that animals eating each other is no more evil than people eating plants, all part of the design of the food chain and animal kingdom. As far as natural disasters go, that is simply nonsense. There can't be a natural disaster if no one or noting is around to die from it, and disease came about because man brought sin into the world. So this is just more ignorance of Christian theology on Aarons part.

His last refuge is right here:

God makes the world, it is perfect and with out sin or evil, and only God and his creations exist were then does evil come from? If Theo wants to say that man brought evil to the world from their free will, then he has to admit that God made a world were evil was possible, thus the world was not "all good" when created, it had a flaw that allowed for evil.

This is him once again trying to make antonyms synonymous. The potential or possibility for/of future evil is not evil at the present, since potential is nonexistent at the actual point of creation. Pre fall Adam and Eve with their free will were good, since they had not committed any evil acts yet, the potential and possibility for evil was there, but the evil itself was non existent until it they actually did evil, thus, at the time of creation, no evil existed at all, it couldn't since it was only a potential and it didn't happen until post creation.

Finally, we will reveal all of his general errors.

Now it is kind of fun to notice how Theo interacts with those who disagree with him, asking if they are either illiterate or deaf, he is no stranger to the ad hominem, and I think it's cute in a very simple minded way. But I digress.

Completely incorrect. There are people here and elsewhere that disagree with me and I do not call them illiterate or deaf, examples of this can be found throughout the blog. Also, I have engaged in no ad hominem. Aaron is ignorant of what an ad hominem is, for one to engage in a fallacy one must make an argument. An insult(which is what I've been doing to him) is not an arguement, thus it cannot be a fallacy, thus it cannot be an ad hominem.

What does Theo mean when he says this? A while back Theo used the example of building a laptop. His example went like this "6 months ago I built a laptop, when I finished building it, it was perfect. Now the laptop has viruses on it. I (the laptop creator) didn't put the viruses on it."

He is quote mining me, taking my analogy I gave completely out of context. I explained this on YT and in the thread I gave the analogy. The analogy was used because of he constantly kept repeating the same assertion God created the world evil, over and over and over like he is still doing. The analogy was created to simply show him the difference between creation and POST CREATION, and that is it. He is simply taking the analogy completely out of context into something the analogy was never created for. Look at the following example:
"The camera is like an eye, they both have lenses." That analogy was for the purposes of illustrating the fact that both camera and the eye has a lens. Now if someone were to say the following "WELL THE CAMERA IS MADE OF METAL AND PLASTIC AND THE EYE IS NOT!!" this is true, but that is not what the analogy was meant to convey, thus it is a quote mine, since the analogy was designed for a single purpose and that is it. The fact is, ALL ANALOGIES BREAK DOWN AT SOME POINT! if they didn't then they would be identical and not analogies.

I suspect Theo will assume I am trying to argue that God created evil; I am not. I am simply saying that this world was flawed from the beginning and any attempt to say otherwise is foolish and bullheadedly ignorant.

Gee, why would I suspect that? Let's take a look at this assertions:

1. Creating a world with evil is not "the good".
2. 1:10-1:14
3.god must necessarily create a world with evil

Not only that, but the world was not flawed from the beginning. Potential/possible future evil does not exist during the actual moment of creation and I have yet to figure out how you're using the world 'capacity'.

Oh ya, can't forget about him moving the goal posts:

No no no. God is morally obligated to do the good. Creating a world with evil is not "the good".

I refute that assertion and he then states:

All fine and good, and not really addressing my point.

The question is this: Why is there evil in the world and were did it come from?

So he moved the goalposts. The 'goal' was set to his initial assertion that God created a world without evil. I met that 'goal' and refuted it and now he has moved the new goal to a completely different question that was never asked before. Classic example of moving the goalposts.

Conclusion: looking forward to him once again claiming 'I've missed the point' despite him clearly defining what that point and/or return to baseless assertions to cover up his inability to refute a single thing I've said and/or whine about the length of this post. Either way, he will not honestly or logically refute a single significant point I've made.

Update: Aaron seems to think that me explaining a YEC position means I am a YEC. This is a testament to his logical ignorance and inability to read past the first sentence of what I write, since I also layed out an OEC position. So he's either being logically inconsistent or he didn't read past the first sentence. I am not a YEC. I have said this in this blog in my video and other places as well.

Aaron strugges with basic Christian theology.

2009-09-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

Aaron states the following:

No no no. God is morally obligated to do the good. Creating a world with evil is not "the good". Even a 2 year old can see that, right?

Aaron is insistent upon constantly repeating the assertion that God created a world with evil. This is simply incorrect. The following scripture shows what God saw after He created everything:

Genesis 1:31
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Well gee, would you look at that? God saw ALL that he had made and it was VERY GOOD. So, let's break this down so Aaron and people like him who show startling ignorance in logic and basic Christian theology found in the first chapter of the bible. The creation of the world is described in Genesis 1. Not only did God call ALL that He created good after He created it(Gen 1:31), but even during the creation process itself, He called it good. So, it can easily be summed up as the following.

God saw All that He created was very good.
God created the earth.
Therefore the earth was very good when God created it.

So it looks like I've proved Aarons statement to be demonstratively false, along with all of his other statements found in his video. How will Aaron respond? no doubt how hes been responding, with baseless assertions and inaccurate accusations trying to hide his inability to refute the any of the points I've brought up.

A whole lot of nothing.

2009-09-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is definitely the case in Aarons situation. He makes 2 rather ignorant claims on his blog and on this blog.

Theological Discourse is a fellow blogger who I initially encountered after making a youtube video on the logical problem of evil, he posted two (comical) videos in response to mine, both of which demonstrated that he clearly wasn't attempting to comprehend the argument. He further posted a blog in August on the problem of evil, in some sort of alleged rebuttal to infidals.org. You can find that post here.

I already responded to these stupid baseless assertion on YT. He just asserts with no evidence whatsoever that I was not attempting to comprehend the argument. These are nothing but baseless assertions.

As you will see Theo's response leaves to little to respond to, mainly because he doesn't actually say much of anything about the problem of evil, save a few meaningless assertions and some bible verses that do not really address the problem of evil.

Now he once again asserts with no evidence that I didn't say anything about the POE, which is clearly incorrect. He then declares that the assertions I made are 'meaningless' and states that some bible verses do not really address the problem, really? why might that be? because Aaron says so? comical ignorance right here, more baseless assertions from a frustrated atheist who can't refute a word I said. Not only that, but those assertions are simply incorrect since the bible verses directly refute his stupid claim that God did not create everything 100% good which can be found from 2:14-5:00 in this video here. Every single stupid assertion he made was refuted.

The main problem lies in that Theo doesn't realize that the problem of evil is not asking if an all powerful, all knowing, all loving and wholly moral being can tolerate evil; it's asking why such a being would create a world with evil if it has the powers (all-omnis) and the moral obligation (wholly good) to do otherwise.

This is Aaron taking my rebuttal to a SPECIFIC ARTICLE and applying it to ALL POE ARGUMENTS. This is also Aaron completely inable to refute a single thing I've said on the video. All he does is give baseless assertions without a shred of evidence to support them.

Theo do your homework a little better next time please.

No, YOU need to do your homework in logic and stop assuming stupid things. My response to a specific argument should not be applied to anything other than that specific article.

Now onto another ignorant statement he made.

If go to that video you will see that 3 other people posted responses and all of them got a response, I actually posted my 5th response video on that subject last night. Maybe if you watch those you will have some of your questions answered.

In other words, he responded to everyone except me. I wonder why that might be? He does not want to respond to my arguments despite me giving a rebuttal to EVERY SINGLE POINT HE MADE.

Your video didn't say anything, sorry but you didn't bother to actually say a single thing about my argument.

This is hilarious. Notice that my video responds to EVERY SINGLE POINT HE MAKES and he simply dismisses those responses with baseless assertions that they are 'meaningless' and 'don't say anything about the POE,' yet provides NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support those stupid assertions. Honestly, who do you think you are fooling? Don't come at me with these ridiculous baseless assertions in a disingenuous attempts to hide your inability to refute a single argument or point I've made with actual logic and evidence. It's that simple. Get your weight up, you're still in the amateurs. It is entirely ironic and hypocritical that Aaron would state my blog has lacks content, when his responses to me have no content WHATSOEVER. Nothing but baseless assertions and thinking my rebuttal to a SPECIFIC argument is a rebuttal to every single POE argument. Not only that be he COMPLETELY IGNORES the greater portion of my post, concentrating on only one part. The irony and hypocrisy of Aarons 'content lacking' statement is hilarious.

Mayweather wins.

2009-09-19T09:36:00.001-07:00

From now on I will be doing predictions for every big upcoming ufc and boxing fight. I figure I'll start off with an easy one regarding the upcoming boxing fight Floyd Mayweather Jr vs Juan Manuel Márquez. I predict Mayweather winning by unanimous decision. Why? because of Mayweathers fighting history. Since he's been active in the lower weight classes where Mexican fighters usually dominate, and having fought big named Mexican fighters from Diego Corrales(R.I.P), Carlos "Famoso" Hernández, Genaro Hernandez, and José Luis Castillo (twice!) Mayweather should have no problems and no surprises with Marquez.

Update: looks like my prediction was correct, mayweather wins by UD. The post fight interview was also very entertaining as well.

Paul and women.

2009-09-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of misconceptions regarding following scripture.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35

34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church

The interesting thing about it, is most people read it completely void of historical context. A couple of things to keep in mind when reading this verse.

1. Paul was writing to the Church in Corinth.
2. The early Christians were responsible for elevating the status of women back in that day. Evidence for this can be found here and here
3. This status included women being being able to attend and even participate in church services, which is a far cry from the OT in which the religious services were mostly male.

So if the status of women was elevated and women can attend and participate in church services, then it seems, like all new people eager to learn, were asking tons of questions, after all, they were new correct? this is a first time thing for all of them, so it is only natural if they ask questions, but the men, they've been doing this for centuries, so they have a handle on the whole thing. I think this is a viable option in regards to the meaning of the passage. I don't think Paul condemning all women to speak in church, obviously they could pray and prophesy according to 1 Corinthians 11:5, he recognized Junias as an apostle in Romans 16:7, and recognized Priscilla teaching Apollos the way of God in Acts 18:24-26. So Paul obviously recognized womens ministry, I think the historical data shows that Paul was addressing specific instances happening in the respective places of who and where he was writing.

Brutally honest, if not a little crazy.

2009-08-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

I just got finished watching the documentary on former Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson and I have to say it really provided a lot of insight. Mike Tyson is one of, if not the most honest fighter I've ever seen. The fight game is honest, it not only requires honesty, it demands honesty. If you're fighting someone who has more power than you, you must be honest and recognize he has more power than you and plan accordingly. Mike is honest, he spoke about his fears, saying 'when I was in the locker room I was scared, but as I got closer and closer to the ring I got less and less scared,' he spoke about his relationship with Cus D'Amato, stating that it was like a father son relationship. I think his combination of honesty and dedication, not only to the sport, but to his trainer, was a huge factor for success. He said Cus D'Amato's word was like the bible when it came to boxing.

The documentary also gave some insight into the training techniques of Cus D'Amato. Mike said that he wasn't even allowed to box for the first two weeks because Cus D'Amato would talk to him about strategies and the psychology of boxing, training him in the art of psychological warefare. In the documentary it showed him getting into the ring and working a technique. He said he would stare at his opponent with a scowl on his face and the opponent would stare back at them. It showed the opponents eyes adverting for a split second and Mike said 'once he looks away I know I've got him, that is the chink in his armor, he lost the fight before it began, some people loose the fight in the locker room but this guy lost the fight right when he looked away'. It's also interesting to note that Mike said he was on the decline when he started losing his 'mental' and 'spiritual' edge. It had nothing to do with power! Boxing is spiritual! Cus D'Amato would tell Mike.

The dvd also confirmed a lot of the reasons why I thought Mike started to decline. The first blow was the death of his trainer, Cus D'Amato, the 2nd blow was both his marriage and divorce to Robin Givens, the 3rd blow was his rape charge, all the while engaging in sexual promiscuity and allowing people to leach off of him. Mike described his sexual promiscuity as 'they would take from me and I would never receive anything back' and he described his leeching as 'I hung around a lot of leeches, but in a way I liked it, I liked having them suck my blood, then I would go out and buy my blood back with my money.' In the end, the most remarkable thing about Mike is his ironic conclusion in the sport of Boxing, as he fell victim to a tragedy described by none other than Cus D'Amato himself.

"To see a man beaten not by a better opponent but by himself is a tragedy."
- Cus D'Amato.

I've changed my mind!

2009-08-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's correct, I've changed my mind. Over the past week my favorite superhero has officially become Batman and I have Batman Arkham Asylum to thank for that, along with the DVD of anime shorts entitled Batman: Gotham Knight. That game made me appreciate Batman for the gritty, down to earth, superpower lacking human he really is. Everything he does is done through pure humanity, there is nothing super about it, he has no flight, no super strength, no super speed,and because he doesn't have any powers, in my opinion, this makes him a better superhero because he does just as good as the other superheros all while lacking their powers. If you don't have an Xbox or PS3 I suggest watching the anime.

I do love a good prediction....espcially when I make them.

2009-08-13T22:54:00.001-07:00

If you remember I said G.I. Joe was going to suck.
Looks like the critics agreed.

40% rating from Rotten Tomatoes

Consensus: While fans of the Hasbro toy franchise may revel in a bit of nostalgia, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is largely a cartoonish, over-the-top action fest propelled by silly writing, inconsistent visual effects, and merely passable performances.

C- for Yahoo movies:

Critics Reviews Average Grade: C-

Boston Globe, Ty Burr
"...a loud but proficient slab of explode-o-rama summer blockbuster nonsense, perfectly entertaining if you like that sort of thing, extremely skippable if you don’t." more... B-

Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
"There is never any clear sense in the action of where anything is in relation to anything else." more... D+

Chicago Tribune, Geoff Berkshire
"That G.I. Joe is completely ridiculous should come as a surprise to no one. That it's not an outright disaster might be a different story." more... B-

E! Online, Luke Y. Thompson
"...Frequently laugh-out-loud cheesy, and the digital effects are highly dubious." more... C+

I also said Roy Jones Jr and Anderson Silva were destined to fight.

Now for my next prediction. G.I. Joe will be out on dvd no later than October, and Anderson Silva will destroy Roy if they fight in the UFC, but Roy will not destroy, but retain a convincing win over Anderson Silva if they just box.

Problem? of evil?

2009-08-04T10:16:00.001-07:00

I imagine skeptics wouldn't assert such things like this if they had a coherent grasp of logic in the first place. the following:

The UPD faces the obvious objection that if you have no idea what reason God has for allowing evil, then for all you know there is no justifiable reason at all for an all-good God to permit it. And even if the FWD and SMT were successful, they would still leave much apparently gratuitious evil unexplained. As William Rowe points out, when a fawn burns to death in a forest fire and no human being ever knows about it, this apparently unnecessary evil neither preserves human free will nor builds the character of human beings.

I mean really?

The UPD faces the obvious objection that if you have no idea what reason God has for allowing evil, then for all you know there is no justifiable reason at all for an all-good God to permit it

For all you know there is no justifiable reason at all? is that really a logical rebuttal? I mean really? the same logic can apply in reverse. If you have no idea what reason God has for allowing evil, then for all you know there is a justifiable reason for an all good God to permit it. Logically there is no difference between one or the other, what can be applied to one can be applied to the other, just because one has no idea, it does not follow that there is not a justifiable reason. I am sure a 2 year old cannot comprehend a justifiable reason why his mother puts him down for a nap everyday, I guess it follows there is no justifiable reason for the father to permit it? just because someone at the lower level has no idea why someone at a level higher permits X, it does not prove nor suggest that the person at the higher level has no justifiable reason to permit X anymore than it proves or suggests that person has justifiable reasons to permit X, why is this? the atheist answers his own question, because no one has any idea, round and round we go.

And even if the FWD and SMT were successful, they would still leave much apparently gratuitious evil unexplained.

How much evil does it take for it to be gratuitous? and how does the skeptic even know? where is the line between gratuitous and un gratuitous evil?

As William Rowe points out, when a fawn burns to death in a forest fire and no human being ever knows about it, this apparently unnecessary evil neither preserves human free will nor builds the character of human beings.

This is based upon pure assumption. How on earth would someone know when a fawn burns to death in a forest fire and no human being ever knows about it? that sentence alone is silly. How do they know it is apparently unnecessary, perhaps the fawn was going to run out in front of a car? perhaps the fawn burned to death in order to occupy a predator that might've otherwise killed a hunter or camper, and even if it was unnecessary, how do they know it disproves God? as the bible is rife with examples of not only God existing alongside evil, but tolerating certain levels of it as well.

Genesis 6:5-6

5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain

God did not destroy humanity until their wickedness became a certain level.

Genesis 15:16

16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

Here it talks about a full measure of sin. These 2 verses not only prove that God exists along side evil, but He tolerates a certain level of evil, so even if one were to concede that there is 'unnecessary evil'(I am not conceding this however) it still does not create a problem.

IGN confirms my suspicions, other review sites however....

2009-08-04T08:45:00.001-07:00

They seem to think G.I. Joe was a good movie.

If any film this year has suffered the one-two punch of bad buzz and worse marketing, it's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Those who've spent even a small amount of time reading online sites and movie mags have likely caught wind of problems in the editing room, problems with the script, problems with the director, Stephen Sommers, and, most importantly, problems with the movie itself – rumors which were hardly dispelled by the film's downright unimpressive trailers. That, coupled with the hesitancy of the die-hard Joe fans to support any adaptation – as well as the fact that today's kids simply weren't raised on the classic toys and cartoons – virtually paved the way for a film that appeared as if it'd make Transformers 2 look like Twelfth Night in comparison.

Count us surprised then that G.I. Joe doesn't disappoint. In fact, taken in the proper spirit, it delivers a relatively action-packed and – dare we say – fun bit of mindless entertainment in a fashion that's been missing from movie screens this summer. In these days of more serious-minded (and wildly successful) adaptations, it is unexpectedly refreshing for a film to be so wildly "popcorn" without falling into the realm of the unengaging and inane. Let's make no mistake here, however. This is a B-level action movie with relatively well-drawn characters, a few minor subplots and smartly staged, near-constant action. Shakespeare, it ain't. For better or worse, it feels very much like Sommers' The Mummy, chock-a-block with massive set pieces and broad, dramatic beats without ever taking itself too seriously.

The first paragraph seems to confirm my suspicions of why I thought the movie was going to suck. The next paragraph however is an odd one, as they states it doesn't disappoint, but then turn right around and call it a B-level action movie with relatively well-drawn characters. Other review sites however state the movie is going to be good. I still maintain that the movie will suck, but I must admit, the hype is getting to me, as I am looking forward to see if it is going to suck or not.

God works through people too.

2009-08-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

This man chose to pray instead of taking his daughter to the doctor.

WAUSAU, Wis. (Aug. 1) - A Wisconsin man accused of killing his 11-year-old daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care was found guilty Saturday of second-degree reckless homicide.
Dale Neumann, 47, was convicted in the March 23, 2008, death of his daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed diabetes. Prosecutors contended he should have rushed the girl to a hospital because she couldn't walk, talk, eat or speak. Instead, Madeline died on the floor of the family's rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called 911 when she stopped breathing.

I think these people forget that God works through people and also forget that God can heal in a multitude of ways, chiefly by working through people. A healing is a healing, if you pray for her to be healed and a doctor fixes her, is the prayer not answered? was she not healed?

Neumann, who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister, testified Thursday that he believed God would heal his daughter and he never expected her to die. God promises in the Bible to heal, he said.
"If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God," Neumann testified. "I am not believing what he said he would do."

Taking the girl to the doctor is not putting the doctor before God, since nowhere in the bible does it state or show that God will heal a certain way. By that logic the people that lived in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago that took their sick to the Disciples were putting the 'doctor before God.'

Matthew 10:8

8Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,[a]drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.

The disciples were given the ability to heal and people took their sick to them, so there is nothing wrong with taking the sick to the doctor, and doing so is not putting the doctor before God. This brings to mind a very relevant scripture.

Hosea 4:6
6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.

We are indeed destroyed by lack of knowledge, this being a prime example. I pray God forgive the parents for their ignorance.

'Re-vamp' to logical POE refuted

2009-07-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

In response to the supposed 're-vamp' of the logical POE found here.

Atheist special pleading.

2009-07-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

I always hear the following argument.

A.)The atheist states that he does not believe in God because there is no scientific evidence for God, which is fine, as God is absent from scientific literature.

B.)However, there is no scientific evidence for a slew of other things the atheist believes as well, there is certainly no scientific evidence that the atheist himself exists, or his mother exists, or that his parents love him/spouse love him, or his friends like him, yet the atheist believes that.

The atheist might state that A is more reasonable, but that is beside the point as it no longer becomes about scientific evidence now, but 'what is reasonable' and 'what is reasonable' is entirely subjective. To the atheist it might be 'more reasonable' to believe B rather than A, but to a theist it is equally reasonable to believe in A and B.

It is quite fine to say that you have not experienced evidence for God, it is also fine to say that there is no scientific evidence for God, but that doesn't even matter, as you most likely have not seen evidence for quantum mechanics nor have you seen evidence for evolution. The atheist engages in special pleading and hilarious irony when they declare personal experience is not good enough when it comes to God because they believe in something else that somebody elses personal experience. It simply boils down to what the completely subjective notion of who are what is 'more reasonable' to follow.

One would think that someone who had studied Christianity and has the equivalent of a P.H.D would have better arguments than this! Round 3.

2009-07-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

In the summary of chapters 14-15 in his book, Loftus said the following about Genesis and science:

Astronomy has established that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old and arose out of a cosmic singularity. No account of the development of our universe can be harmonized with the creation accounts in Genesis, as the latter are pure folklore. Archaeology has found no evidence of 400 years of Israelite slavery in Egypt, Israelites who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, or an Israelite conquest of Canaan. Geological evidence in the sedimentary rock layers of a roughly 4.5 billion year old planet confirms the slow evolutionary development of life, just as astronomical evidence confirms the slow evolutionary development of galaxies, stars, and planets. Geology also falsifies that at any point in human history there was a universal flood which covered the Earth.

In the actual book, Loftus went into greater detail discussing various theories that Christians use in attempts to harmonize Genesis with science, and in typical Loftus fashion, his attacks are leveled against the uneducated, ignorant, logically, factually and historically inept Christian. Loftus spends 24 pages attack the Gap theory, concordist interpretation, local creation, YEC and various other theories created in the 1970's, but I am not here to defend either of those theories, I am simply here to prove to Loftus that Genesis can in fact be harmonized with science.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The word here for create is the word BARA which means to create something new.

1) to create, shape, form

a) (Qal) to shape, fashion, create (always with God as subject)

1) of heaven and earth

2) of individual man

3) of new conditions and circumstances

4) of transformations

b) (Niphal) to be created

1) of heaven and earth

2) of birth

3) of something new

4) of miracles

c) (Piel)

1) to cut down

2) to cut out

2) to be fat

a) (Hiphil) to make yourselves fat

Interpretation: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth brand new

Now we go down to the 'fourth day' and we see a different word, it is the word MADE.

Genesis 1:14-17

14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,

15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.

16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Look at the word made, it is the word ASAH, and asah means to fashion from pre existing material or an action completed in the past.

1) to do, fashion, accomplish, make

a) (Qal)

1) to do, work, make, produce

a) to do

b) to work

c) to deal (with)

d) to act, act with effect, effect

2) to make

a) to make

b) to produce

c) to prepare

d) to make (an offering)

e) to attend to, put in order

f) to observe, celebrate

g) to acquire (property)

h) to appoint, ordain, institute

i) to bring about

j) to use

k) to spend, pass

b) (Niphal)

1) to be done

2) to be made

3) to be produced

4) to be offered

5) to be observed

6) to be used

c) (Pual) to be made

2) (Piel) to press, squeeze

Interpretation: 16 God had made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also had made the stars.

17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

"God HAD made 2 great lights, he also HAD made the stars in verse 1 already, the heavens were already created, it said it in verse 1, so God took what he HAD made already and put them there, as you can see it is not the word BARA that is in Genesis 1:16 which means to create as new, it is the word ASAH.

http://www.biblestudytools.net/Lexic...54&version=kjv

2. (Niphal) to be created
1. of heaven and earth
2. of birth
3. of something new
4. of miracles

http://www.biblestudytools.net/Lexic...13&version=kjv

17. (Niphal)
1. to be done
2. to be made
3. to be produced
4. to be offered
5. to be observed
6. to be used
18. (Pual) to be made

These are legitimate uses for the words, it states that the stars, sun, the whole heavens(which indicates the universe) is older than the earth. Regarding six literal days? Psa 90:4 states:

For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

The word day in Genesis is also the word Yowm. A valid interpretation means a general time period.

1) day, time, year

a) day (as opposed to night)

b) day (24 hour period)

1) as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1

2) as a division of time

a) a working day, a day's journey

c) days, lifetime (pl.)

d) time, period (general)

e) year

f) temporal references

1) today

2) yesterday

3) tomorrow

An old earth and old universe can be interpreted in Genesis 1 just as 'literally' as a young earth can. The above explanation is compatible with the age of the earth, the creation of the universe, stars, sun, earth etc, and since an exact age of things is not presented in the Bible, it can be changed when the available evidence comes into play, and while this post discusses only the astrology aspects of the Genesis, I cannot, in the same confidence I do astrology, present an interpretation for the origins of life since I am presently ignorant, uninterested, and apathetic in evolutionary biology(BORING!). However, I will note that some people ascribe to 'theistic evolution,' so my guess(a guess from an ignorant, uninterested apathetic person that finds the whole concept a huge bore) is it is compatible with Genesis.

Verbal Knockout.

2009-07-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

Even the untrainted can score knockouts, it is just a matter of opportunity.

At the height of his fame, Muhammad Ali was settling into his plane seat when an air hostess came and gently reminded him to put on his seatbelt.

"Superman don't need no seatbelt", Ali snorted.

"Superman don't need no airplane", the hostess retorted, a winner by knockout.

This man needs a separate casket for his heart and chin.

2009-07-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

The boxing world will definitely miss one of its most exciting, heart felt, passionate, gutsy fighters, Arturo Gatti.

SAO PAULO (AP)—Brazilian authorities detained the wife of former boxing champion Arturo Gatti and formally accused her Sunday of killing him at a posh seaside tourist resort in Brazil.

Police said 23-year-old Amanda Rodrigues was taken into custody after contradictions in her interrogation and presented a formal accusation against her. Prosecutors will later decide whether she will be charged.

Rodrigues, who denies any involvement in her husband’s death, was the first to find the slain boxer’s body early Saturday inside the vacation apartment they were renting at the Porto de Galinhas resort in northeastern Brazil, police said.

The former junior welterweight champion was apparently strangled with the strap of a purse, which was found at the scene with blood stains, said Milena Saraiva, a spokeswoman for the Pernambuco state civil police. She told The Associated Press that the Canadian also sustained a head injury.

Police said Rodrigues, a Brazilian, could not explain how she spent nearly 10 hours inside the residence without noticing that Gatti was already dead.

It is also extremely ironic that the fighter who gave us classic tough guy fights like Gatti Ward 1 and 2 in which he gave and received punch after punch, blow after punishing blow and still came back for me, met his end by being strangled with a purse.

Athiest integrity.

2009-07-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

So Froggie said the following:

TD,
You can take your stupid rules and stick them up your holy spirit's ass while jacking off on a picture of your effiminate Jesus.
You are a fucking retard.

Which is in direct violation of rule #8. Froggie then responded with the following:

TD,
This is your house and I respect that.
I don't want to ruin the open dicussions so I give you my word that I will not comment here.

If I decide to make any comments on your posts, I will do so at SMRT.

At least turn off the moderation and give it a try. I will not comment.

I am also posting this comment at SMRT.

Now, in this thread He has gone against his word by saying.

Hi TD!

Which not only shows that Froggies concept of respect and his word is about as low as his intelligence is. Doubtless some people will maintain it is trivial, as he just said hi, and while the comment itself might be trivial, him going back on his word is not. So, until I find a more effective way to prevent ignorant people like froggie from posting when they clearly violated the rules, comment moderation will be turned on. It is really amusing how the tactics of an frustrated, ignorant, intellectually inferior atheists mirror that of a frustrated, ignorant, inferior fighter. When they can't beat you legitimately, they resort to dishonest, shady, back handed tactics.

Genealogies in the bible.

2009-07-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

ExPatMatt brings up some good questions about genealogies in the bible. The purpose of the genealogies was not chronologically. The quickest, fastest summary I have found that proves this point can be found here.

1. Abridgement and omission of unimportant names is the pattern in the genealogies of the Bible. There are numerous examples of this observation. One prime example is the omissions in the genealogies of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 1:8 Ahaziah (2 Kings 8:25), Joash (2 Kings 7:1), and Amaziah (2 Kings 23:34; 1 Chronicles 3:16) are dropped between Joram and Ozias (or Uzziah). In Matthew 1:1 the entire genealogy of Jesus is summed up in two steps, "Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham."

The genealogies seem to be more concerned with only the names of important people and NOT relaying a strict chronological timeline.

The genealogy in Exodus 6:16-25 makes Moses the great-grandson of Levi though 430 years intervened (Exodus 12:40). It is, therefore, evident that many names have been omitted from Moses' genealogy.

If one were to take the genealogies 'literal' then Moses would be a 430 year old great grandson.

3. "Father," "Son," and "begot" were used in a broad sense. Several Biblical passages contain ancestral titles used in a broad sense. We know from earlier discussion that several names have been omitted in Matthew 1:8 after Joram. Therefore, Joram was actually the great-great grandfather of Uzziah. It is obvious that the "father" used in verse 8 between Joram and Uzziah means "ancestor" instead of its conventional meaning. In 1 Chronicles 1:36 the Hebrew text includes seven names after "the sons of Eliphaz," making it appear that all the seven named are sons. Actually one of the names, Timna, was that of a concubine, not a son. Only the New International Version translates clearly that Timna was Eliphaz's concubine, as recorded also in Genesis 36:11-12, and the other six are sons.

Matthew 1:1 reads, "Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham." "Son" here obviously means descendant. Therefore, the biblical writers and translators seem to use the words "father" and "son" freely to mean "ancestor" or "descendant", and sometimes the persons are not closely related.

The regular formula in the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 10 is "A lived _ years and begat B, and A lived after he begat B _ years and begat sons and daughters. And B lived _ years and begat C...." (KJV). The Hebrew word "begat" is sometimes used for succeeding generations. Zilpah is said to have "born to" Jacob her great-grandchildren (Genesis 46:18 NIV) and Bilhah her grandchildren (Genesis 46:25). Canaan is recorded to have begotten whole nations (Genesis 10: 15-18).

Furthermore, if the dates are true, Adam was contemporary with every generation until the Flood, except Noah. Methuselah died in the year of the Flood. Shem survived Abraham for 35 years; Salah 3 years; and Eber, 64 years. For 58 years Noah was the contemporary of Abraham, and Shem actually survived Abraham for 35 years. Such conclusions are contrary to the spirit of the record that presupposed a much longer gap between Noah and Abraham.

Here we have the source of what usually causes confusion in reading the bible, the language difference. In Gen 5 and 11 they both use the word begat to link one generation to the next. In Ex 6:20 and Num 26:59, this same word links Amram and his wife Jochebed to Moses even though there are many generations in between them. These verses quite clearly show that the word beget can be validly used in the way that is shown above, the word for beget is the hebrew word "yalad." The translations for yalad are as follows:

1) to bear, bring forth, beget, gender, travail

a) (Qal)

1) to bear, bring forth

a) of child birth

b) of distress (simile)

c) of wicked (behaviour)

2) to beget

b) (Niphal) to be born

c) (Piel)

1) to cause or help to bring forth

2) to assist or tend as a midwife

3) midwife (participle)

d) (Pual) to be born

e) (Hiphil)

1) to beget (a child)

2) to bear (fig. - of wicked bringing forth iniquity)

f) (Hophal) day of birth, birthday (infinitive)

g) (Hithpael) to declare one's birth (pedigree)

It is also very important to note that flutes assertion found here:

So you don't need to interpret the earth's age YEC-style. You just need to count the years in the chronologies backwards, then BINGO!

is an ignorant one, since the genealogies only go up to Adam, but according to the old earth view, the earth was created billions of years before Adam was created, thus using the genealogies to interpret the earths age is a YEC interpretation.

I would also like to note that I am not in anyway shape or form trying to assert that one view is more correct than the other view, but that both views are adequately supported by biblical evidence and instead of arguing which one is right and which one is wrong, Christians need to understand that doing so is pointless. In retrospect I see that this post is extremely relevant here.

1 Timothy 1:3-7

3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. 5 Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm

Pauls words seem extremely relevant in this situation, as old earth/young earth interpretations of these genealogies are causing disputers rather than Godly edification.

Update: Flute makes an irrelevant point.

You were the one who brought up YEC. I was saying you don't need that to calculate the date of the flood.
I want to make this clear; I was not talking about the age of the Earth. I was talking about the date of the mythical flood.

I was certainly incorrect saying that flute was talking about the age of the earth, however he still has no point since the genealogies cannot be used for chronological purposes so it can't even be used to date the flood!

Christianity and insults and mocking.

2009-07-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

It is quite ironic how Christians maintain that insulting people and mocking them is not Christian at all, when Jesus our Lord and Savior engaged in both insults and mocking people.

Matthew 19:4

4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made[a]them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,

Jesus asks the Pharisees a seemingly innocent question "Have you not read?," but a deeper look into the historical context shows this to be quite a sarcastic mocking question. For someone to become a Pharisee they had to memorize the first 5 books of the bible! so it was obvious that they had read it, they had studied it, memorized it, they had read it tons of times. Jesus was sarcastically mocking the Pharisees here.

Matthew 23:33

33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?

Jesus is calling them Serpents and brood of vipers!

There is a difference of course, between the type of mocking and insults Christ is using and the type of mocking and insults that are commonly used today, an article I found on Tektonics sums up Christianity insults and mocking quite nicely.

Many ancient societies (and we shall see below, certain modern social groups) engage in a process known as challenge-riposte. The scene of such processes is public venues in which two persons or groups have competing honor claims: "...the game of challenge-riposte is a central phenomenon, and one that must be played out in public." [42] The purpose is for each party to try to undermine the honor, or social status, of the other in an exchange that "answers in equal measures or ups the ante (and thereby challenges in return)."

In the Gospels, Jesus "evidences considerable skill at riposte and thereby reveals himself to be an honorable and authoritative prophet." Many of these challenges are clear, but some are so hidden to us that they need exposition.

There is a difference between the type of satire and mocking used in challenge-riposte and simply insulting people for the sake of pride or to get back at someone who insulted you first. I particularly like the following parts (which I broke up into separate sections) of the article as it is quite analogous to fighting.

There are certain people who has no desire whatever to discuss the truth-claims of the Christian faith. His sole goal, so it seems to me, is quite simply to ridicule Christianity and Christians .... There is no kindness in his approach, and he seems to show none of the 'caution' standard in careful inquiry and exposition.

Everyone now and then (more often than not it seems) in a gym you will encounter someone that is 'outwardly' seeking to join the gym and learn to fight, but inwardly they are just seeking to prove to themselves or their crew (they usually try to bring their friends along) that they're tougher and stronger and better than these 'wussy trained fighters.' They have no intent to learn, they have no intent of bettering themselves as a person or a fighter, their only intent is to appease their own ego and pride.

What to do with such a one? If you play the nice guy, you're likely to get swarmed, not by any irrefutable arguments, but rather, by a veritable skyscraper of excess and inflammatory verbiage. And unfortunately, there are those, on both sides of the argument, who are persuaded by such things. We are humans, not computers, and a show of confidence or arrogance does, to some, seem to equate with being the victor.

Continuing from the example above, that person(henceforth named "the bum") goes through the same process that everyone else goes through, they have to spar with one of the top 3 fighters in the gym. Now what is the fighter to do against the bum? quite analogous to the above article, if the fighter plays nice with the bum, he will get swarmed, not by any actually effective fighting technique but simply because the fighter is playing nice, coddling the bum, not trying to hurt the bum, but this runs the risk of undermining the gym, the fighters own skill, and even worse promotes the bums own fighting style, ego and pride as superior to the gym and one of the 3 top fighters.

So what does the Christian apologist, in dealing with such as these, do? He fights a spark with a blow torch. Just as, when climbing a mountain, even though the goal is to reach the top as quickly as possible, and therefore, so it would seem, only moving upward in a straight line is the most conducive activity for achieving this end, we often find that it is actually more expedient to, at certain moments, to go to the left or right (for instance, when there is a boulder or stream immediately in front of us); so too, the Christian apologist, out of the love for Love, is at certain times warranted in using sarcasm and satire.

What should the fighter do in dealing with these bums? he must beat them, soundly, not to appease and lift his own ego and pride, but to simply show that his fighting style, his way, his tao, is superior while bums fighting style is the inferior one, his fighting style is closet to the truth, the bums fighting style is not. Just as the article states the Christian uses sarcasm and satire out of love for Love, rather than loving his own ego and pride, the fighter delivers each punishing blow to the face, not to selfishly justify his selfish desires, but out of love for his gym, his coach, and the tried and true effectiveness of the fighting style.

That is why when someone genuinely wants to learn about Christianity(or anything for that matter) I do not insult or sarcastically mock them, I do not treat them like the people that "simply seek to ridicule Christianity and Christians," I try(my best) to do what I can to help them learn. Similarly when it comes to the gym, when someone genuinely wants to learn how to fight, the top 3 boxers do hit them with 100% strength, they do not go all out on them, they do not treat them like a bum, but rather gently(yes, in fighting there is a gentleness) test their current level of fighting while helping them learn.

It will be stupid.

2009-07-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

I am calling it, the GI Joe movie will be stupid, the CGI will be corny, the plot and story will follow suit. I am predicting it will be along the lines of Wolverine or Resident evil 2. Marlyn Waynes? Joseph Gordon-Levitt as COBRA COMMANDER? give me a break.

The music not the person.

2009-06-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

I never liked Michael Jackson as a person, but his music is a whole different story. This man made classic after classic, from Beat it, to Bad, to Billy Jean and many more, the following of which will always be my favorite.

God the Father.

2009-06-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

Vagon, in his latest failed attempt to prove this argument falls victim to reductio ad absurdem brings up a very common misconception about Allah and God. I stated in the conclusion of my argument the following;

The demand for scientific evidence of God is a self defeating one, the lack of scientific evidence for God is actually evidence of His existence.

Vagon, asserts my argument is a victim to reductio ad absurdum by asserting the following;

"The demand for scientific evidence of Allah, praise be to him, is a self defeating one, the lack of scientific evidence for Allah, praise be to him, is actually evidence of his existence."

In actuality, my argument does not fall victim to reductio ad absurdum, but rather Vagon falls victim to a common misconception about Allah, which leads me to my initial point.

Abraham had 2 children, Issac and Ishmael. Issac is considered the ancestor of the Jewish people.

Sarah bore Abraham a son, Isaac (in Hebrew, Yitzchak), a name derived from the word "laughter," expressing Abraham's joy at having a son in his old age. (Gen 17-18). Isaac was the ancestor of the Jewish people.

While Ishmael is considered the ancestor of the Arabs.

Both Jewish and Islamic traditions consider Ishmael as the ancestor of northern Arab people

This ancestry is significant because both Jews and Arabs beleive and worship the same God as their father Abraham.

Arabs:

According to Francis Edwards Peters, "The Qur'an insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews [see Qur'an 29:46]. The Quran's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites.[9] According to Encyclopedia Britannica (see also the following section for comparison between God's love in Islam and Christianity)

While the Jews and Christians obviously maintain that they worship the same God as their Abraham, due to their entire religion being based upon the Torah while the Christians entire religion is based upon the bible. Thus while there are differences and disagreements between the 3 groups, there is no doubt that each group worships the same God, the biggest difference and disagreement among the three religions is Jesus is. It is quite a common misconception(made by Christians and skeptics alike) that Allah is not the same God as Jehovah or God the Father. The main point being that when skeptics appeal to Allah in ways similar to Vagon, they are falling victim to a common misconception.

Counter punches: BUT TD!!! IF MUSLIMS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD YOU DO THEN THEY GET TO GO TO HEAVEN WITHOUT JESUS RIGHT?!???!!!
Not only is this beside the point, it is outstandingly incorrect, Jews worship the same God we do as well, but they like Muslims must accept Jesus as their Savior as well.

BUT TD!!! HOW DO YOU KNOW WHICH VERSION IS RIGHT??!!!! THREE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME GOD?! LOL!! YOU HAVE A ONE AND THREE CHANCE OF GETTING IT RIGHT LOL!!! HOW CAN YOU BE SO SURE?!?!!!!
Also beside the point of this thread, but it is a great question and is one that is too complex to cover here and must be saved for a later post. As it stands, this argument has been going on for centuries, and as I said, the main difference and disagreement between the three is who Jesus is(which, in a very poetic sense, suggests what the truth is).

New rule.

2009-06-24T10:39:00.000-07:00

11. Comments are limited to the topic and scope of the thread. Any digression will follow with a warning, and continuing with the digression will result in having all posts that digress from the original topic and scope of the thread deleted.

2 days to comply.

Update of rule #3 and rule #5

2009-06-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

3. You will be addressed how you addressed others. Expect the typical smug atheist I know it all attitude to be met with a smug Christian/agnostic/etc. I know it all type attitude, reverse applies as well. An apology will 'reset' someones status and give him a clean slate. If poster X starts name calling and having a smug I know it all attitude, as per the rules he will be treated as he treats others, if he apologizes he will be given a clean slate and treated as if he never name called or had a smug I know it all attitude at all.

5. Link arguing or plagiarizing is not permitted here. Link arguing is when someone asks you to back up your assertion and you simply give them a link or a title of a book and that's it. Plagiarizing is simply copying something from a source without citing the source. Violation of this rule will result in having all subsequent posts deleted until you comply with this rule.

2 days to comply.

The caliber of a fighter can sometimes be judged by the people who challenge him.

2009-06-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

It can be argued that Roy Jones Jr is the best boxers to even lace em up, and one of the ways to argue that is to look at 2 fighters from completely different sports that are challenging him. One of them I already mentioned in a previous post, but the other one is new.

After reports surfaced that Dana White had nixed the idea of a fight between Roy Jones Jr and Anderson Silva occuring in the UFC, Strikeforce founder, Scott Coker, agreed to make the fight happen in Strikeforce. Nick Diaz would be fighting Roy Jones Jr.under MMA rules.

“We would absolutely set this fight up. Of course we would have to run it by Showtime for final approval, but I don’t see why we wouldn’t have this fight” -Scott Coker

It now seems that the only hope of seeing one of the legends of boxing stepping into a cage will be through Strikeforce.

Nick Diaz, 20-7-1 wants to fight him. While he does not have the near flawless record of Silva, he is still a top tier fighter in his weight class. One wonders what these fighters see in Roy that makes them want to challenge him? the passionate fighter in me says they want to challenge him because he presents the best challenge boxing wise, but the business fighter in me says they want to challenge him because they know hes getting old and not only will it be an easy victory, but having a win over Roy is surely going to garner publicity and get your name out there.

With Silva, the former is apparent as his attitude is more like Roy, he wants a challenge from a superior opponent, someone that will test his skills, someone that won't leave him bored in the ring. Nick however, is a bit more tricky, I don't think he is all about the money, and his recent actions in the ring (putting his hands down daring opponents to hit him) suggests that he is looking to prove himself. He could go either way, but I lean toward the former based upon the fact that he left the UFC to sign with Gracie championships, if Nick was looking for money and fame, he sure wouldn't have done that.

Update of rule #6

2009-06-23T22:57:00.001-07:00

6. There is a 10 error limit and refutation attempt on the blog, if it extends beyond 10 errors or 10 attempts to refute a point you will no longer be allowed to comment on that specific thread, HOWEVER the conversation can continue at my forums. Violation of this rule will result in having all subsequent posts deleted.

The new stuff is in bold. Two days to comply.

Rules of the blog

2009-06-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Just like in the UFC and boxing there are rules, these rules are designed among other things to keep the fight from continuing to necessary lengths, (12 round limit) ensure fair play, keep the fight entertaining, and to ensure there is a clear winner. These rules are designed in the same way, to keep the discussions entertaining, ensure fair play, prevent the discussion from continuing to unnecessary lengths..

1. When asked to support your assertion with evidence you will do so or you will admit you either have no evidence or you do not know. Violation of this rule will result in having all subsequent posts deleted until you comply with this rule.

2. When asked to answer a question you will do so or you will admit you do not know or you cannot answer the question. Violation of this rule will result in having all subsequent posts deleted until you comply with this rule.

3. You will be addressed how you addressed others. Expect the typical smug atheist I know it all attitude to be met with a smug Christian/agnostic/etc. I know it all type attitude, reverse applies as well. An apology will 'reset' someones status and give him a clean slate. If poster X starts name calling and having a smug I know it all attitude, as per the rules he will be treated as he treats others, if he apologizes he will be given a clean slate and treated as if he never name called or had a smug I know it all attitude at all.

4. You will concede any errors or points. This is in regard to overall points, not spelling errors/typos/ or other insignificant errors. Violation of this rule will result in having all subsequent posts deleted until you comply with this rule.

5. Link arguing or plagiarizing is not permitted here. Link arguing is when someone asks you to back up your assertion and you simply give them a link or a title of a book and that's it. Plagiarizing is simply copying something from a source without citing the source. Violation of this rule will result in having all subsequent posts deleted until you comply with this rule.

6. There is a 10 error limit and refutation attempt on the blog, if it extends beyond 10 errors or 10 attempts to refute a point you will no longer be allowed to comment on that specific thread, HOWEVER the conversation can continue at my forums. Violation of this rule will result in having all subsequent posts deleted.

7. These rules are subject to change, each change will be announced and you have 2 days to comply with the new change.

8. You will NOT blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Violation of this rule results in a permanent ban.

9. Don't even try to twist and interpret these rules to suit your needs, I made them I know the original meaning and intent of each word rule and the original context of each word and rule.

10. These rules apply to everyone, even me.

11. Comments are limited to the topic and scope of the thread. Any digression will follow with a warning, and continuing with the digression will result in having all posts that digress from the original topic and scope of the thread deleted.

There's no scientific evidence for God, a very common self defeating argument.

2009-06-22T05:47:00.001-07:00

Regarding evidence there is historical, testimonial, and eye witness evidence for God. The only thing missing(and to the skeptics, the most important) is scientific evidence.
Demanding scientific evidence only and placing such a high priority on it leaves the skeptic in a little mess.
For instance, there is no scientific evidence for God, not because God doesn't exist, but because He is simply absent from scientific literature, this is the little mess the skeptic finds himself in, as he believes in things that have no scientific evidence at all. They believe their brother/mother/spouse loves them, or their friends like them but there is no scientific evidence for that. Which leads me to my next point.

God wants peoples faith, He wants people to have faith in Him and if we go by various quotes from skeptics.

http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/...s/dawkins.html

Well, science is not religion and it doesn't just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion's virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.

One reason I receive the comment about science being a religion is because I believe in the fact of evolution. I even believe in it with passionate conviction. To some, this may superficially look like faith. But the evidence that makes me believe in evolution is not only overwhelmingly strong; it is freely available to anyone who takes the trouble to read up on it. Anyone can study the same evidence that I have and presumably come to the same conclusion. But if you have a belief that is based solely on faith, I can't examine your reasons. You can retreat behind the private wall of faith where I can't reach you.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...e-faith-based/

This is completely wrong. It shows (unsurprisingly) an utter misunderstanding of how science works. Science is not faith-based, and here’s why.

"Equal rights", Atheism and Marriage.

2009-06-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

Atheists that support same sex marriages have nothing but their own personal opinion as to why they shouldn't also be supporting man-animal marriage and incest marriage. The same logic applied to supporting same sex marriage can also be used to support man-animal marriage and incest marriage, which is as follows:

1. Same sex marriage advocates (henceforth called SSMA) seek to change the status quo(which include but not limited to everything from laws, tradition,policies etc.) that marriage recognized by the government is between a man and a women.

2. SSMA's can legally attempt and/or successfully change the status quo from(example only) "marriage recognized by the government is between a man and a women" to "marriage recognized by the government is between 2 consenting adults regardless sexual orientation."

2a. Why can't animal man marriages and incest marriages also attempt to change the status quo from "marriage recognized by the government is between a man and a women" to "marriage recognized by the government is between 2 consenting adults and/or 1 adult and an animal?"

3. The status quo that restrict incest and man animal marriages can be changed to suit their needs and wants no differently than how SSMA's are trying to change the current status quo to suit their needs and wants.

4. Any law the atheist appeals to is irrelevant because of #3.

5. The atheist asserts that marriage is a right.

6. Why shouldn't this right extend to people that want to marry their brothers, fathers, grandmothers etc?

6a. Why shouldn't this right extends to the one adult that wants to marry an animal.

7. Regarding #6, the atheist asserts the right does not extend to them because Incest marriages cause children to have birth defects.

8. #7 is erroneous and irrelevant because this issue is about marriage and not sex. Incest occurs outside of marriage as does homosexuality, sex is not the issue, the issue is marriage. Furthermore, incest does not always lead to birth defects, if both parents do not possess a bad gene the offspring will not have birth defects.

9. Regarding #6a, the atheist asserts the right does not extend to them because, laws and legal reasons(animals do not have rights, animals cannot give consent, animals cannot act as executor of estate etc. etc.)

10. #9 is irrelevant, see #3 for reason.

11. If the atheist appeals to society, (society does not accept incest, man animal marriage etc. etc.)then anyone else can appeal to society too, since society does not accept same sex marriage either.

Conclusion: The atheist has nothing but their own personal opinions, feelings, or the personal opinions and feelings of others as to why they are not fighting for #2a, #6 and #6a the same way they are fighting for same sex marriages. If the atheists personal opinion is good enough to deem same sex marriage acceptable and as a result worth fighting to change the status quo to suit the needs of same sex couples and deem incest marriage and man-animal marriage unacceptable and as a result do not fight to change the status quo to suit the needs of incest marriage and man-animal marriage then anyone elses personal opinion is good enough to deem heterosexual marriage acceptable and as a result worth fighting to keep the status quo and is also good enough to deem same sex marriage, incest marriage, man animal marriage (and all other marriage except heterosexual marriage) unacceptable.

What atheists cannot do is assert that Christians or anyone else for that matter do not have sufficient or good enough reasons to be against same sex marriages, because by their own standard they do not have sufficient or good enough reasons(personal opinions, feelings etc.) to be FOR same sex marriage or sufficient or good enough reasons to be fighting for incest marriage and man animal marriage or if the atheist chooses to assert that marriage is a right, by their own standard they do not have sufficient or good enough reasons as to why that right can't be extended(or enjoyed) to incest and man animal marriages or why incest and man animal marriages can't lobby to extend(or enjoy) that right or why they won't fight for their 'rights' the same why they fight for same sex marriage. If they do assert that they have sufficient or good enough reasons to be FOR same sex marriages then Christians and anyone else have sufficient and good enough reasons to be against it.

Note: I am not promoting incest marriage or man animal marriage, just showing how logically inconsistent atheists are.

Counter punch: BUT TD, WHY DOES THIS APPLY TO ONLY ATHEISTS?!

Because in this particular situation the atheist only has their own personal opinion to rely on. They can't appeal to society because society does not accept same sex marriages(also that constitutes as an appeal to authority) they can't appeal to the law since the law states the government only recognizes marriage between a man and a women, they can't appeal to equal rights because they have nothing but their own personal opinion as to why that right can't be extended(or enjoyed) to incest and man animal marriages or why incest and man animal marriages can't lobby to extend(or enjoy) that right or why they won't fight for their 'rights' the same why they fight for same sex marriage. They have nothing but their own personal opinion, especially on specifics like who should be married and who should not be married. As a Christian, we have something outside of our personal opinion which states quite clearly that incest, man-animal, and same sex are all sins.

An atheists failure to criticize pt 2.

2009-06-15T08:24:00.001-07:00

Another ignorant atheist decides to engage in an intellectual battle. When asked to prove my errors, flute provides the following:

You said:
"The patriarch you refer to never married his half sister, she was never his sister, he told her to call herself his sister so they wouldn't kill him."
Then later:
...means biological sister, sister in law or adopted sister. Each is a VALID interpretation...

From wiki:
A half sibling (half brother or half sister) is a sibling with one shared biological or adoptive parent.

The issue was incest of course, so Abraham never married his biological sister.

Genesis 20:12

But indeed [she is] truly my sister. She [is] the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.

The word for daughter there is 'bath,' and an acceptable translation for the word bath is adoptive daughter.

daughter

a) daughter, girl, adopted daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, granddaughters, female child, cousin

1) as polite address

So the wiki article becomes irrelevant since I am not maintaining that Sarah was Abraham's half sister, at least in the biological sense, Sarah was an adopted daughter of Abraham's father which was customary back then.

However, the kinship pattern of the Semitic chiefs listed in Genesis followed an established protocol that involved betrothal to half-sisters, so Abram may not have lied when he said that Sarai was his sister. On the other hand, there have been ancient tablets recently recovered from the ancient city of Mari that may suggest otherwise. These ancient Semite legal records show that when a woman is married to a man, she is then formally adopted by his father as a full daughter as well[6].

Flute 0/1.

Td:
"Marriage is not a right PERIOD. It isn't even a legal right, it definitely isn't an civil right "
"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally biding so Jill has no point at all."

Flute: Countries in the UN recognize this declaration.

Flute engages in quote mining by completely ignoring the context in which that quote was discussed. I was discussing same sex marriage in the United States and marriage is NOT a right, that UN document is not legally biding in the U.S. No mistake, just another ignorant atheist.

Flute 0/2

Flute: In response to "a cat is not capable of acting as executor of an estate." you said "People leave their stuff to the pets when they die all the time."
Maybe, but a cat is still not capable of acting as an executor of an estate.

Where is the mistake or error here? did I say a cat is capable of acting as an executor of an estate? no I did not, I said it is irrelevant that cats cannot act as an executor of an estate because people leave stuff to their pets when they die all the time.

Flute 0/3

Flute: The arguments "supporting gay marriage can be used to support incest and people marrying animals,"
When proven wrong, you just said it over and over.

Flute begs the questions, assuming I was proven wrong. Flute also engages in quote mining. I said "The logic that is used to support gay marriage can also be used to support incest and people marrying animals, and atheists have nothing but their own personal opinion as to why they shouldn't be fighting for man-animal marriages and incest marriages as well as same sex marriages." When I said "supporting gay marriage can be used to support incest and people marrying animals" it was simply a variant of that. Also there was no mistake here, flute simply asserted I was proven wrong, he did not show a shred of evidence.

Flute 0/4

TD: Consent is not required to engage in sexual acts with the pets or own the pets in the first place, so your consent point is irrelevant.

Flute: I hope you are kidding.

Saying "I hope you're kidding" is not providing evidence of me making a mistake.

Flute 0/5

Td: Bestial marriage will soon enough be federally recognized, and the issue will naturally go away.

Flute: I hope you are kidding.

Another quote mine, this was me mocking another atheist, using his own logic to prove that it supports animal man mariages.

Flute 0/6

Conclusion, flute has not provided the necessary evidence to prove a mistake on my part, thus making himself look completely ignorant, basically no change in the status quo.

Flute beats the 10 count

TD said: "Example: the word 'bath' (sic) means biological sister, sister in law or adopted sister. Each is a VALID interpretation."

Here's the bit you wrote that you have to read again: "Each is a VALID interpretation." If each of a valid interpretation, why is choose adopted sister? (which is still a half-sibling!)

Flute is simply too ignorant to tell the difference between valid interpretations and valid interpretations supported by written context and evidence. For example, Genesis 1 states:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The word earth is 'erets,' which can be translated as the following:
a) earth

1) whole earth (as opposed to a part)

2) earth (as opposed to heaven)

3) earth (inhabitants

b) land

1) country, territory

2) district, region

3) tribal territory

4) piece of ground

5) land of Canaan, Israel

6) inhabitants of land

These are all valid interpretations of the word, but why do we choose a1 (whole earth) instead of b3?(tribal territory) because of the written and historical context states that 'erets' is talking about the whole earth not a tribal territory. Flute, being the ignorant atheist that he is, sees only valid interpretations and that is it, he is completely oblivious(due to his extreme, deep, unwavering ignorance and inability to think in a logically coherent manner) of context and historical evidence, which is the reason I choose adopted sister rather than half sister.

Besides as Chris Mackey points out, there's a perfectly good word for "sister in law" in Hebrew. (Strong's Number: 02994) Why not use it if that's what it meant?

Atheist logic strikes again, the fact that you and another ignorant atheist think it is a perfectly good word for "sister in law" is not evidence that it is. Just because they are not using what you and another ignorant atheist think they should be using is nothing but an argument from personal opinion. 'Bath' is the word that is used and adopted daughter is an acceptable translation.

Not to mention I said 'adopted daughter,' which has little to nothing to do with Sarah being a sister in law, since she can be an adopted daughter but still be a sister in law.

Flute 0/7

"While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states."

Hilarious. Exactly what I come to expect from an ignorant Christian.
Is the US a member state of the UN? Yes. Is it binding? Yes.

Atheist ignorance strikes again. Look how completely ignorant flute is as he doesn't even realize he proved himself wrong. First off here is the source of the paragraph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

Here is the paragraph right above it.

Even though not formally legally binding, the Declaration has been adopted in or influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It also serves as the foundation for a growing number of international treaties and national laws and international, regional, national and sub-national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.

See the bold, it is not formally legally binding, now let's look at Flutes paragraph.

While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states.

It says it is not a treaty. What is a treaty?

A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as: (international) agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, exchange of letters, etc.

Looks like that marriage 'right,' is not an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. So flute proves his ignorance again, as his own source specifically states the declaration has real power. Let's see what else it says.

"the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights"

So it was adopted only for the purposes of DEFINING the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights."

That UN document of human rights is to the courts what the bible is to the courts. Both are not legally binding. Those rules do not apply to the U.S. anymore than the bible does, both are just moral guidelines. If someone happened to go against the rules in the UN Document they cannot be legally punished, just like if someone happened to go against the rules of the bible they cannot be legally punished. So saying marriage is a right because of an legally unbinding document says it is is like saying Muslims have the right to kill infidels because a legally unbinding document says it does. Here are 2 judges that agree.

Justice kennedy

(c) The overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty is not controlling
here, but provides respected and significant confirmation for the Court's determination that the penalty is
disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18. See, e.g., Thompson, supra, at 830-831, and n. 31. The
United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile penalty.
It does not lessen fidelity to the Constitution or pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express
affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples underscores the centrality of those
same rights within our own heritage of freedom. Pp. 21-25

Justice Scalia

Worse still, the Court says in so many
words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: "[I]n the end our
own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the
Eighth Amendment." Ante, at 9 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court thus proclaims itself sole
arbiter of our Nation's moral standards--and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports
to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures.

Flute 0/8

Conclusion, flute has not provided the necessary evidence to prove a mistake on my part, thus making himself look completely ignorant, basically no change in the status quo. Eight unanswered punches usually indicates the opponent is in trouble. Will flute throw in the towel or continue to flail about?

Looks like Flute choose to continue to flail about.

When I quoted you saying "Bestial marriage will soon enough be federally recognized, and the issue will naturally go away." That was a quote mine and not in context.

Flute is just outstandingly incorrect here.

Stan said the following:
Whatever. Same-sex marriage will soon enough be federally recognized, and the issue will naturally go away. Let these peasants have cake.
I responded to that with the following:
Whatever. Bestial marriage will soon enough be federally recognized, and the issue will naturally go away. Let these peasents have cake.

Thanks for proving my point stan.

0/9

And still;
Baker's Evangelical Dictionary
of Biblical Theology and Nave's Topical Bible both have Genesis 20:12 as an example of incest. Baker and Nave spent their entire lives translating the Bible into English. Do you honestly think you know better than them?

Bakers evangelical Dictionary and Nave's topical bible are not the end all authorities of translation. Your appeals to authority are irrelevant, just because 2 authorities state it is incest does not in any prove that it is nor does it take away from the FACT that adopted daughter is a valid translation of the word. Due to your utter ignorance you're confusing disagreement with a mistake. Me and 2 authorities disagree, that in no way proves I was wrong or made a mistake.

0/10

TD: "So it was adopted only for the purposes of DEFINING the meaning... "
The conversation was on the definition of marriage. So congratulations on actually reading the link I supplied.
TD: "Those rules do not apply to the U.S. anymore than the bible does,"
They are not rules. But definitions that are binding for all UN member states.
You've mixed up description with prescription, which is understandable, many people don't understand the difference.

Flute due to his complete and utter ignorance simply omits where it states quite clearly that the document is not LEGALLY BINDING, so that definition of marriage is not legally binding. Congratulations on your quote mine and blatant omission of what you can't handle.

Even though not formally legally binding, the Declaration has been adopted in or influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It also serves as the foundation for a growing number of international treaties and national laws and international, regional, national and sub-national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.

There is nothing legally binding about the document, not even the definition. It is nothing but moral guidelines, that is the way in which the U.S. is bound. This unbinding legal documents definition of marriage is no more applicable to the U.S. than the Biblical definition of marriage. Both are not legally binding, both serve as nothing but moral guidelines. Americas has only signed the ICCPR.

The United States has signed and ratified the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" (but not the Covenant’s Optional Protocol, which would allow Americans to seek remedy through the UN for alleged rights violations by the US government). And President Carter has signed the "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" for the U.S., but the U.S. government and the people of the United States have not yet generated the political will necessary to ratify this Covenant. While Americans generally recognize civil and political rights as human rights, they have not always shared the same understanding with regard to economic, social and cultural rights (such as the rights to food, clothing, housing and health care).

The 5 provisions of the ICCPR

Five categories

1. Protection on individual's physical integrity (against things such as execution, torture, and arbitrary arrest).
2. Procedural fairness in law (rule of law, rights upon arrest, trial, basic conditions must be met when imprisoned, rights to a lawyer, impartial process in trial).
3. Protection based on gender, religious, racial or other forms of discrimination.
4. Individual freedom of belief, speech, association, freedom of press, right to hold assembly.
5. Right to political participation (organise a political party, vote, voice contempt for current political authority).

Two optional protocols

1. Mechanism by which individuals can launch complaints against member states.
2. Abolition of the death penalty.

So flute once again exposes his ignorance.

0/11

TD: "Here are 2 judges that agree, from Roper v Simmons." Non sequitur.

This is nothing but a baseless assertion, Flute simply assertions with no evidence that what I did was a non sequitur, and on that note, what I did was NOT a non sequitur. There, I can assert as baselessly as you can.

0/12

"Many international lawyers, in addition, believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law... The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates and constitutional courts and individual human beings who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights."

Atheist ignorance strikes again. It doesn't matter what international lawyers believe, it is still NOT a legally binding document. Christians believe the bible is the authority on everything, does that prove that it is? belief does not = proof. Furthermore it states quite clearly that the declaration only forms PART of customary international law, neither of which applies to America btw, so you've made NO POINT. That is nice that the declaration is cited by governments etc. who appeal to its principles for protection of their recognized human rights. Governments etc. etc. also appeal to the teachings of Jesus and things found in the bible as well, they also appeal to society too, which quite clearly stated that same sex marriage is not accepted. Furthermore, where on earth does this prove a mistake I made? marriage is still not a right since the declaration is not legally binding, you have yet to prove a mistake I made.

0/13

Td:The United States has signed and ratified the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights"
Flute:I wonder where the ICCPR got their definitions from? Oh, the UDHR! Exactly! You're getting closer to admitting you were wrong. There's no shame in it.

Flute shows his ignorance by omitting things. The ICCPR guidelines are as follows.

The 5 provisions of the ICCPR

Five categories

1. Protection on individual's physical integrity (against things such as execution, torture, and arbitrary arrest).
2. Procedural fairness in law (rule of law, rights upon arrest, trial, basic conditions must be met when imprisoned, rights to a lawyer, impartial process in trial).
3. Protection based on gender, religious, racial or other forms of discrimination.
4. Individual freedom of belief, speech, association, freedom of press, right to hold assembly.
5. Right to political participation (organise a political party, vote, voice contempt for current political authority).

Two optional protocols

1. Mechanism by which individuals can launch complaints against member states.
2. Abolition of the death penalty.

Nothing in there about marriage you ignorant atheist.

0/14

It was an obvious non sequitur. The judges are talking about another topic.

Its relevant to the subject you ignorant atheist.

Justice kennedy

(c) The overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty is not controlling
here, but provides respected and significant confirmation for the Court's determination that the penalty is
disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18. See, e.g., Thompson, supra, at 830-831, and n. 31. The
United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile penalty.
It does not lessen fidelity to the Constitution or pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express
affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples underscores the centrality of those
same rights within our own heritage of freedom. Pp. 21-25

It quite clearly says that expressing certain fundamental rights by OTHER NATIONS and people underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom.

Justice Scalia

Worse still, the Court says in so many
words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: "[I]n the end our
own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the
Eighth Amendment." Ante, at 9 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court thus proclaims itself sole
arbiter of our Nation's moral standards--and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports
to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures.

This was a DISSENTING OPINION which quite clearly states that taking guidance from the views of FOREIGN COURTS AND LEGISLATURES discharges the awesome responsibility of the court that proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nations moral standards. No non sequitur, just your complete and utter ignorance of the fallacy and reading comprehension.

0/15

TD>international lawyers!

TD>Biblical scholars! (That probably worked on the translation of his bible!)

Appeal to ridicule. I never said nor insinuated me > lawyers or biblical scholars, I simply said that what many lawyers believe does not = proof of anything an more than what many Christians believe = proof of anything. Furthermore I said that me disagreeing with scholars is not evidence or proof I made a mistake, since adopted daughter is still an acceptable translation of the word 'bath.' You are appealing to ridicule, take the above argument and twisting it to TD>biblical scholars and TD>internation lawyers.

Appeal to ridicule, also called the Horse Laugh[1], is a logical fallacy which presents the opponent's argument in a way that appears ridiculous, often to the extent of creating a straw man of the actual argument.

Furthermore, a closer look at your 'lawyer argument,' there is a fundamental flaw. Here is the link in which it was taken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

Many[citation needed] international lawyers, in addition, believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law

In the bold it says CITATION NEEDED. Look what wiki has to say about the citation needed flag.

The "citation needed" link you just followed was placed there because somebody feels that the preceding statement needs an inline citation. If you cannot find a source for the statement, exercise extra caution when using the flagged information.

So flutes argument has no back up. How many is many you ignorant atheist? it can range from 5 lawyers to 500!!! Flutes ignorance is once again exposed here.

0/16

Td:Flute shows his ignorance by omitting things. The ICCPR guidelines are as follows.

Flute:Just so you don't look silly, I'll print the next part of capital letters.
READ THE ICCPR! A23. READ THE ICCPR!

Atheist ignorance strikes again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights

The United States Senate ratified the ICCPR in 1992, with 5 reservations, 5 understandings, and 4 declarations.[3] Some, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, have noted that with so many reservations, its implementation has little domestic effect.[4] Included in the Senate's ratification was the declaration that "the provisions of Article 1 through 27 of the Covenant are not self-executing",[5] and in a Senate Executive Report stated that the declaration was meant to "clarify that the Covenant will not create a private cause of action in U.S. Courts."[6]

[edit] Effect on domestic law

Where a treaty or covenant is not self-executing, and where Congress has not acted to implement the agreement with legislation, no private right of action is created by ratification. Sei Fujii v. State 38 Cal.2d 718, 242 P.2d 617 (1952); also see Buell v. Mitchell 274 F.3d 337 (6th Cir., 2001) (discussing ICCPR's relationship to death penalty cases, citing to other ICCPR cases). Thus while the ICCPR is ostensibly binding upon the United States as a matter of international law, it does not form part of the domestic law of the nation.

So Articles 1 - 27 of the covenant are NOT self executing, which includes article 23. No right to marriage you ignorant atheist, of course I knew this, I was just waiting for you to throw your haymaker before I accurately countered it. Here is more evidence to bury this ignorant atheist.

Have you ever heard someone say, "That's unconstitutional!" or "That's my constitutional right!" and wondered if they were right? You might be surprised how often people get it wrong. You might also be surprised how often people get it right. Your best defense against misconception is reading and knowing your Constitution.

Gee, I wonder what is missing from the constitution?

MARRIAGE!

In the absence of any such amendment, however, marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution at any point...

The Constitutional Topics pages at the USConstitution.net site are presented to delve deeper into topics than can be provided on the Glossary Page or in the FAQ pages. This Topic Page concerns Marriage. Though not mentioned in the Constitution, marriage has become a constitutional hot-button topic in recent years.

Marriage isn't even mentioned in the US constitution, which is more evidence it is not a right, but theres MORE!! Marriage is not talked about or listed in THE BILL OF RIGHTS EITHER!

0/17

I can't find any scholars that agree with you about Abraham's sister/wife

Your inability to find scholars does not take away from the fact that adopted sister is a valid translation of the word bath, your inability to research properly does not in anyway prove me wrong or prove I made a mistake.

0/18

How did you get the idea that adopted daughter was a valid translation of bth? From Strong. :-) Who's appealing to authority? Why leap on that translation of bth and ignore the achowth ?

This isn't even a rebuttal. The ignorant atheist flute cited 2 authorities about Genesis 20:12 being about incest. That does not in any prove that it is, it merely proves that 2 authorities think it is about incest. What the ignorant atheists forgets is that the burden of proof is ON HIM to prove I made a mistake. I asserted that the adopted daughter is a VALID interpretation of the word BATH. So this makes me in disagreement with 2 authorities, which does not prove I made a mistake.

Flute brought up me appealing to authority, this is irrelevant since I am not doing it in a fallacious way so why even bring it up? I think it is because the ignorant atheist doesn't know the difference between a fallacious appeal to authority and an fallacious appeal to authority. The word achowth is irrelevant since she can easily be an adopted half sister. No mistake, just another ignorant atheist.

0/19

No, it just says you hold your opinion higher than scholars, the people who actually translate the Bible.

Irrelevant and also incorrect. My opinion is based on strongs, which are scholars who actually translate the bible, and even if I did hold my opinion higher than scholars(I don't but I am merely proving a point)so what? that does not change the fact that adopted daughter is still a valid interpretation of the word bath and me disagreeing with 2 scholars does not prove I made a mistake.

0/20

Then please show how and why a country, a member state of the UN, does not have to follow international law.

Ignorant atheist flute displays his inability to read. It was explained quite clearly in your 17th failure to prove I made a mistake. They do not have to follow this international law because.

1. "the provisions of Article 1 through 27 of the Covenant are not self-executing"
2. "the declaration was meant to "clarify that the Covenant will not create a private cause of action in U.S. Courts."
3. "Congress has not acted to implement the agreement with legislation"
4. "the ICCPR is only ostensibly binding upon the United States as a matter of international law."
5. "it does not form part of the domestic law of the nation."
6. It is not found in the constitution
7. It is not found in the bill or fights.

So you've been proven ignorant AGAIN.

0/20

Appeal to ridicule? No. Just ridicule actually.

I explained why it was an appeal to ridicule in response to your 16th attempt to prove I made a mistake. You took my argument and twisted it in a way that appeared ridiculous and created a starw man (since I never once said nor insinuated td>lawyers or td>biblical scholars)this was explained the response to your 16th attempt to prove I made a mistake and now, in response to that, all you did was simply baselessly assert No. That is not a logical coherent rebuttal, it is just a baseless assertion and just more evidence that flute is a logically inept ignorant atheist.

0/21

In the other thread, you said "Example: the word 'bath' (sic) means biological sister, sister in law or adopted sister. Each is a VALID interpretation."
On Debunking Atheists you once said bath=sister,sister in law, or adopted sister. Not daughter. You made a small mistake.

Yes, this is a mistake as I meant adopted daughter, but it must be noted that this has nothing to do with my overall points, it was a simple mistake.

.5/22

Secondly, you have not stated WHY your valid interpretation is more correct than the scholar's valid interpretation. You stated "Each is a VALID interpretation." EACH. VALID.

Flute exposes his ignorance again. The original person that wrote Genesis 20:12 had only one meaning to the word bath. We don't know what that original meaning is, but biological sister and adopted sisters are EACH VALID INTERPRETATIONS of the word. THere is no such thing as 'more correct' either something is correct or not correct, but due to the fact that at the time we DON'T KNOW the authors original meaning of the word we can only speculate as to WHICH interpretation is the correct interpretation. I explained why my speculation should be taken over the others in my response to flutes first attempt to prove I made a mistake.

http://www.worldreligionday.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=104

However, the kinship pattern of the Semitic chiefs listed in Genesis followed an established protocol that involved betrothal to half-sisters, so Abram may not have lied when he said that Sarai was his sister. On the other hand, there have been ancient tablets recently recovered from the ancient city of Mari that may suggest otherwise. These ancient Semite legal records show that when a woman is married to a man, she is then formally adopted by his father as a full daughter as well[6].

Not only that, but flute due to his ignorance forgets that the burden of proof is ON HIM to prove that I made a mistake, me disagreeing with 2 other authorities on this issue does not prove I made a mistake. Flute needs to prove that 'biological daughter' is the CORRECT AND TRUE meaning of the word bath, and that is practically impossible since the original person that wrote it is dead. Two authorities that state it means 'biological daughter' does not prove the original author meant that, it merely proves that 2 authorities favor one valid interpretation over the other.

.5/23

You might want to read your link again. "the ICCPR is ostensibly binding upon the United States as a matter of international law"

Flute not only ignores and omits the evidence that was provided in the response to his 17th and 20th attempt to prove I made a mistake, he also has shown complete and utter ignorance of the word ostensibly.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ostensible

1 : intended for display : open to view 2 : being such in appearance : plausible rather than demonstrably true or real

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ostensible

1. outwardly appearing as such; professed; pretended: an ostensible cheerfulness concealing sadness.
2. apparent, evident, or conspicuous: the ostensible truth of their theories.

.5/24

Strong doesn't agree with you:
1; Marriages between persons thus related, in various degrees, which previous usage, in different conditions of society, had allowed, were forbidden by the law of Moses. These degrees are enumerated in Lev. xviii, 7 sq. The examples before the law are those of Cain and Abel, who, as the necessity of the case required, married their own sisters. Abraham married Sarah, the daughter of his father by another wife; and Jacob married the two sisters Leah and Rachel.
In the first instance, and even in the second, there was an obvious consanguinity, and only the last offered a previous relationship of affinity merely. So also, in the prohibition of the law, a consanguinity can be traced in what are usually set down as degrees of affinity merely.

Flute once again proves his ignorance as he is simply incorrect, Strong DOES agree with me.

1) daughter

a) daughter, girl, adopted daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, granddaughters, female child, cousin

1) as polite address

As you can see, strong agrees that adopted daughter is a VALID INTERPRETATION of 'bath.' Furthermore, Scholar Victor P. Hamilton agrees with me

This is a half-truth, as 20:12 indicates (although "daughter of my father" could mean adopted daughter).

Once again flute is simply too ignorant to understand the following, the burden of proof is on HIM to PROVE I made a mistake and disagreement simply does NOT = a mistake, especially on the interpretations of the ancient words, since nobody knows the original meaning there is simply no way for flute to prove I made a mistake.

.5/25

"os·ten·sible (ä sten′sə bəl)
adjective
1. apparent; seeming; professed
2. clearly evident
3. ....
Etymology: Fr < ML ostensibilis < L ostendere, to show"
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

"the ICCPR is -clearly evidently- binding upon the United States as a matter of international law"

Valid interpretation of the word.

Flue is simply too ignorant to understand that it might be a valid interpretation of the word, that valid interpretation does not describe the ICCPRs relationship to the united states. The ICCPR is not clearly evidently binding upon the United states as a matter of international because of the EVIDENCE I listed in his 20th failed attempt to prove I made a mistake.

1. "the provisions of Article 1 through 27 of the Covenant are not self-executing"
2. "the declaration was meant to "clarify that the Covenant will not create a private cause of action in U.S. Courts."
3. "Congress has not acted to implement the agreement with legislation"
4. "the ICCPR is only ostensibly binding upon the United States as a matter of international law."
5. "it does not form part of the domestic law of the nation."
6. It is not found in the constitution
7. It is not found in the bill or fights.

If it was clearly or evidently binding then a1-27 would be self executing, the declaration would be able to create a private cause of action, congress would've implemented the agreement with legislation, it would form part of the domestic law of the nation, marriage would be found in the Constitution and bill of rights. Due to flutes inability to think coherently combined with his ignorance he simply cannot see that his valid interpretation of the word does not apply to the United Staets.

.5/26

Strong's Concordance is not a translation of the Bible nor is it intended as a translation tool... Since Strong's Concordance identifies the original words in Hebrew and Greek, Strong's Numbers are sometimes misinterpreted by those without adequate training...

This is from the introduction to the revised edition of Strong's.

Strong wrote: "there was an obvious consanguinity" You ignored this.
Strong disagrees with you. "[T]here was an obvious consanguinity" between Abraham and Sarah

Flute pointed out another insignificant error, but an error non the less. Strongs is NOT a translation of the bible and Strongs does NOT agree with me, of course this means nothing. Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, Samuel P. Tregelle and the scholar listed above all agree that adopted daughter is a valid translation of the word 'bath'.

1/27

TD said: "especially on the interpretations of the ancient words, since nobody knows the original meaning there is simply no way for flute to prove I made a mistake."

It's good that you are willing to admit that. Thank you.

Just another frustrated atheist upset because he is too ignorant to prove his point. He proved 2 insignificant mistakes that had nothing at all to do with my overall points, yet I have 28 counts of lack of logical coherent thought and ignorance.

Conclusion, flute has not provided the necessary evidence to prove a mistake on my part, thus making himself look completely ignorant, basically no change in the status quo. Flute managed to land 2 insignificant glancing blow but the fight has not changed, TD is still completely dominating flute. Flute will no doubt continue to try and swing his arms hoping to land a lucky punch.

Fighting with words

2009-06-07T21:43:00.001-07:00

There are many ways you know you got the better of your opponent. I can remember a boxing match, my opponent was an infighter, very busy and very aggressive, constantly swarming me with pressure. I'd try to fight in the inside but that was his domain, so I had to step back to create some space, not only to get him off me, but also to be able to mount an effective offense. After an inside exchange I stepped back looking for a counter, he stepped toward me and I lashed out with a cross, I hit him flush in the face. I thought to myself, 'I should keep an eye out for that opening' and sure enough the next time I stepped back the opening was there. After about 3 or 4 times he stopped rushing in, the pressure subsided, the punches decreased in volume, my opponent had fallen 'silent'.

Luke 20:1-26

Luke 20
Jesus’ Authority Questioned
1 Now it happened on one of those days, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him 2 and spoke to Him, saying, “Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things? Or who is he who gave You this authority?”
3 But He answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one thing, and answer Me: 4 The baptism of John—was it from heaven or from men?”
5 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why then[a] did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know where it was from.
8 And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers

9 Then He began to tell the people this parable: “A certain man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went into a far country for a long time. 10 Now at vintage-time he sent a servant to the vinedressers, that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the vinedressers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 Again he sent another servant; and they beat him also, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And again he sent a third; and they wounded him also and cast him out.
13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.’ 14 But when the vinedressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ 15 So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy those vinedressers and give the vineyard to others.”
And when they heard it they said, “Certainly not!”
17 Then He looked at them and said, “What then is this that is written:

‘ The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone’?[b]

18 Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
19 And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people[c]—for they knew He had spoken this parable against them.
The Pharisees: Is It Lawful to Pay Taxes to Caesar?

20 So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.
21 Then they asked Him, saying, “Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth: 22 Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
23 But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them, “Why do you test Me?[d] 24 Show Me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have?”
They answered and said, “Caesar’s.”
25 And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
26 But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the people. And they marveled at His answer and kept silent.

Jesus seemed to employ that here, countering the chief priests and elders words with His own. After hitting them with so many counters they simply had nothing left, they could no longer apply pressure, their words decreased in volume, Christs superior intellect and grasp of the scriptures allowed Him to counter effectively each time, until they could no longer press the fight.

Getting the opponent in a rage is another indication you've gotten the better of him. I remember being at the gym sparring with new guys and teaching them the ropes, I would go light, not hit too hard, just hit them every time they dropped their hands or made a mistake. After about a round or two they would eventually start swinging for the fences, same thing happened in actual fights, after getting hit with POT shots round after round the opponent goes into a frenzy, throwing hay makers, trying to take your head off with each punch. It takes the opponent out of the game mentally and emotionally. An experienced fighter knows if the only thing they're doing is thinking about killing you, about hurting you, then they're not thinking about defending themselves, usually the fight is over quickly.

John 8:48-59

Before Abraham Was, I AM

48 Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
49 Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. 50 And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges. 51 Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”
52 Then the Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.’ 53 Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be?”
54 Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your[a] God. 55 Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
57 Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
59 Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple,[b] going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

The opponents are taken out of the game mentally and emotionally as they picked up stones to try and kill Him. They're so many instances in Christianity that are analogous to fighting I have no doubt in my mind, had Bruce Lee not died so early, he would've become a Christian.

My way or the highway

2009-06-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is a very common argument amongst the low tier atheists these days. While the argument itself varies, it basically boils down to this.

1. God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevelant.
2. The bible is Gods message of salvation
3. The bible had been misinterpreted various times.
3a. The bible is not clear on some things.
4. God could've taken the time to make it more clear and interpreted better.
5. Therefore God does not exist, or Christianity is less valid, etc. etc.

The problem with this argument is displays a lack of knowledge regarding salvation in general, the second problem is it it stems from nothing but personal opinion and subjectivity which actually defeats the entire argument, but that is putting the cart before the horse, so let's back up.

1. God is omniscienct, omnipotenet, omnibenevelant.

While I don't subscribe to God being omniscience(at least not in the traditional sense), I do enjoy taking up the position, so I have no problems with #1. It should be noted that possession of the quality is not synonymous with its use, especially using it all the time. God has blessed me with the ability to fight quite well, this does not mean I have to use this ability every time I get into a fight, nor does it mean I have to use this ability all of the time. having omniscience synonymous with using it how the skeptic THINKS it should be used. If someone were to argue "Well God could've done it way X instead of the current way, it would've made more sense," one needs to prove that assertion, Loftus writes on the issue of miscommunication:

If God had condemned slavery from the very beginning there would be nothing to reform, no beatings, no killings, no institutional slavery justified from the Bible. If God had repeatedly said, "Thou shalt not buy beat or own slaves," and never sent any vibes the other way, then Christians could never justify it as an institution.

This is entirely subjective, dependent upon personal opinion, and I daresay a little historically ignorant as well. Loftus seems to think that if God had condemned slavery from the very beginning, there would be nothing to reform, but there are multiple problems with this. Loftus seems to think that all slavery = chattel slavery, which is incorrect, as there are different forms of slavery. The United States military is a form of "slavery" not very different from the Hebrew on Hebrew form of slavery, neither of which resembles chattel slavery.
"So why didn't God condemn Chattel slavery?" He actually did. While this is an entirely different subject that must be brought up at a different time, the following included with the entire NT message about treating others as you yourself would like to be treated, should suffice.

Exodus 21:16

16 “He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death.

Leviticus 19:34

34 The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God

Deuteronomy 10:19

19 Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Chattel slavery is not based upon loving the stranger as you love yourself or treating their slaves as one born among them, since chattel slavery was based primarily off whites being superior and blacks being inferior. Were the masters beat? did the masters suffer horrible conditions? were the masters oppressed? these 2 verses also remind Israel about Egypt. What is interesting is in Egypt, when the Hebrews were slaves, they were treated under the same type of chattel slavery system as the one found in the U.S. and God seems to be using the Hebrews experiences in Egypt as a reminder how NOT to treat their own slaves. So it is quite clear to me and various other Christians that God did condemn chattel slavery, and Loftus is being historically ignorant by not looking at the historical context in which slavery is being presented in the bible, and completely ignores the entire NT message about treating others as you would want yourself to be treated. The bible CLEARLY condemns that type of slavery. Loftus is simply grounding his argument on his personal opinion. He states "If God said "Thou shalt not buy beat or own slaves," and never sent any vibes the other way, then Christians could never justify it as an institution,." but it was clearly condemned, just not in the way Loftus personally thinks it should've been.

2. The bible is Gods message of salvation

No problems here.

3. The bible had been misinterpreted various times.

No problems here.

3a. The bible is not clear on some things.

This is where the problem lies. What exactly is not clear? and to whom is it not clear too? this is entirely subjective, as what might not be clear to one person might be clear to another person. 3a is nothing but a subjective personal opinion. The skeptic might argue "well it should be clear to everyone, everyone should get a clear message" but not everyone is the same, so God must make it clear to some people in one way and make it clear to others in another way, but the problem with this is we wind up back where we started, one message makes sense to one person, but that same message doesn't make sense to the next person, we will still have conflicting messages. This argument is self defeating. One personal only needs to mention 'his' message to somebody else, and the confusion starts.

Furthermore, this argument also shows a complete lack of knowledge in basic communication that happens every single day. Companies and workplaces don't pass out individual messages tailored to each persons 'personal needs and understanding(unless of course they're handicap which is an entirely different subject).' They send out the same message to everyone, "Company Picnic at 5:00". If someone has a problem with the message, it is up to them to seek clarification by either asking someone else or researching for themselves. The skeptic might argue "Well companies do that because they don't have enough resources and energy to tailor to each persons personal needs, God has unlimited energy and resources, so He actually CAN do it," but that simply misses the point, since different messages tailored to different needs would still create confusion, God having the unlimited power is irrelevant since He chooses not to use that unlimited power to affect peoples free will.

The skeptic maintains, "consider the following example, one persons message might say 'go to room 5 on the second floor for salvation,' while another persons message might say 'go up the stairs and go into the third room on the right for salvation,' and the message also includes 'don't tell anyone else about your message.' The people end up going to the same room, in a way that makes sense to them, with the confusion part being taken care of." This assumes that people will not be exercising their free will to disobey Gods message and go ahead and tell people anyway.
"BUT TD WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? the message makes sense to them, so they would know not to tell anyone." There are multiple problems with this.

1. People can reject God even though they have a clear message of His salvation. Perhaps they lose a loved one, or someone runs over their puppy, or their prayer wasn't answered in time or the way they thought it should be answered, all reasons people would reject God that is independent of a clear message of salvation.

2. Satan and his fallen angels main job is to manipulate, distort, deceive, and get people to go against God, and if satan isn't doing it, our own human nature is tempting us to do what we know is wrong. One only needs to look at Loftus himself who claims to have been a very devout Christian, having a clear understanding that 'certain things are incorrect, and clearly wrong,' yet He went ahead and did it anyway. While I am certain Loftus would deny satan had anything to do with it, I am sure he would agree that the temptation was quite strong. So a clear message of 'do not tell anyone about your own message' is not any type of fail safe plan that prevents people from telling others about their own message and causing confusion. Even with a clear message of what is right and wrong, people will still be tempted to do wrong, either by their own human nature or by satan trying to manipulate people into doing wrong.

The skeptic continues to argue, "Why didn't God just make the same message then?" At this point the skeptic is confusing "different opinions" with "the same message." Different denominations have different opinions on what the message is, but that has nothing to do with the message not being the same or not. When the dead sea scrolls were found, they proved the old testament to accurately passed down through the centuries(there were a few spelling mistakes, but nothing that took away from the context). Thousands of years later millions of people have a different opinion on the OT, that doesn't take away from the fact that it was the same message being passed down. The skeptic argues "Well why didn't God stop people from having different opinions?" this would be a violation of peoples free will.
The skeptic continues to argue "Well it's not clear to me," To which I say, perhaps you should abandon your ridiculous assumptions/worldview then?

Variants of the argument

1. The bible is not good at getting Gods messages to everyone equally and unequivocally.
2. Therefore this renders God's p;an and God Himself incompetent.

#1 assumes a few things. Where is the requirement that God must get the message out to everyone equally and unequivocally? If there was a requirement, how might God go about doing this? as sending a message tailored to everyone's individual needs will still cause confusion, God can have one message, but due to Him choosing not to interfere with free will, that message would be subject to misinterpretation(kinda like what we have now)and still cause confusion. Update(I don't know why this wasn't included) finally this also assumes that the skeptic has some sort of knowledge about everybody in existence. How on earth would the skeptic know that people are not receiving the message clearly? perhaps everyone is receiving the message clearly but some are simply rejecting it? how does the skeptic know this? where is his evidence?

The skeptic is also confusing Gods plan. Going by the bible, Gods plan was to provide a WAY OUT of hell, which was the sacrifice of Christ, this plan succeeded when Christ conquered death.
God certainly desires everyone to be saved, but that was not part of His plan since there are numerous passages in the bible where God acknowledges that some people don't end up getting saved.

Revelation 14:11

11 And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”

If it were part of Gods plan for everyone to be saved, there would not be people in hell.

God being omniscient should have known his message of salvation couldn't get to the masses for these reasons:
1. land barriers
2. water barriers
3. culture barriers
4. language barriers
5. time barriers
6. technological barriers
7. Misunderstandings due to philosophical/intellectual short comings.

This person is right, God DID foresee problems 1-6, which is why He created a system called progressive revelation. First it must be noted that God DID reach people from every nation and every language.

Revelation 5:8-10

8 Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying:

“ You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
10 And have made us[a] kings[b] and priests to our God;
And we[c] shall reign on the earth.”

There were A LOT of these people from every nation and every tongue, so many that no one could number them.

Revelation 7:9

9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

So that takes care of 1-4. What about time barriers? well this is where progressive revelation comes into play. Before the gospel was written, before Christ was sacrificed, how did people go to heaven? the answer to this is simply having faith in what God said at the time.

Hebrews 11:1-12

By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”;[a] for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child[b] when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

The skeptic then asks "So what about the people that never even HEARD of God? how would they know to put their faith in Him?"

One does not need to know Gods name to put faith in Him.

Acts 17:22-24

22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

As you can see, these people were actually worshiping God without knowing who He was! Remember, this is to be taken in context of progressive revelation only in places where people have either not heard the gospel, before the gospel was written and outside of Israel, or before the gospel had been distributed so widely. How is it that they were able to worship God without knowing?

Romans 1:20

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

According to Romans, it seems that some information about God can be gathered from creation itself. How God responds depends on how the people respond with that information. If the people respond positively then God will see their open heart and send them more of the revelation, if someone responds negatively to that however, God will leave them to their delusions.

Luke 8:18

18 Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”

So that takes care of time barriers. Technological barriers is a moot point, since God can reach people regardless of what technology they do or do not possess. This leaves #7.

Misunderstandings due to philosophical/intellectual short comings.

Philosophical/intellectual shortcomings are the fault of the person, not God. It is not Gods fault one chooses to believe illogical, irrational nonsense like atheism, nor is it Gods fault that people go to a different religion. Intellectually handicapped people are of course an exception and go under the same category as children.

I read that God might take people through atheism and extreme skepticism to shed and get rid of false concepts about Jesus and God(kind've like starting from scratch, or clearing the board) in order to start people on a path of a genuine relationship with God, and I agree 100% with that, however this does not mean that being an atheist/agnostic will get you to heaven, nor does it mean that atheism/agnosticism is a valid, rational, logical philosophical worldview. It is simply a tool that God uses for His purposes and like every other tool used, you are still held responsible and accountable for your actions and your knowledge of the truth.
"But I haven't shed my false concepts about Jesus yet! how do I know your explanation/religion/interpretation isn't false?"
If you're doing research with an honest and open mind then you'll find the truth. If you ask a question of a Christian and he answers it(validly) and you simply ignore the answer, that is your fault, if you're researching Christianity and find something that runs contrary to your atheism and ignore it or reject it based upon illogical irrational means, its your fault.

Why no scientific evidence of God? Why no hard proof?

This question is asked a lot and also falls under #7 since skeptics love to maintain that the lack of scientific proof or 'hard proof' is a philosophical or intellectual shortcoming in accepting God. Not only is it hypocritical, it is actually another self defeating argument. Regarding evidence there is historical, testimonial, and eye witness evidence for God. The only thing missing(and to the skeptics, the most important) is scientific evidence.
Demanding scientific evidence only and placing such a high priority on it leaves the skeptic in a little mess.
For instance, there is no scientific evidence for God, not because God doesn't exist, but because He is simply absent from scientific literature, this is the little mess the skeptic finds himself in, as he believes in things that have no scientific evidence at all. They believe their brother/mother/spouse loves them, or their friends like them but there is no scientific evidence for that. Which leads me to my next point.

God wants peoples faith, He wants people to have faith in Him and if we go by various quotes from skeptics.

http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/...s/dawkins.html

Well, science is not religion and it doesn't just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion's virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.

One reason I receive the comment about science being a religion is because I believe in the fact of evolution. I even believe in it with passionate conviction. To some, this may superficially look like faith. But the evidence that makes me believe in evolution is not only overwhelmingly strong; it is freely available to anyone who takes the trouble to read up on it. Anyone can study the same evidence that I have and presumably come to the same conclusion. But if you have a belief that is based solely on faith, I can't examine your reasons. You can retreat behind the private wall of faith where I can't reach you.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...e-faith-based/

This is completely wrong. It shows (unsurprisingly) an utter misunderstanding of how science works. Science is not faith-based, and here’s why.

Scientific evidence is not faith. Science is not faith based. Why doesn't God show Himself or give scientific evidence for His existence? because according to the skeptics, it would be pointless for God to do so, since scientific evidence is not faith, and that is what God wants us to have, faith. The demand for scientific evidence of God is a self defeating one. It also shows the hypocrisy of atheists and agnostics, who demand scientific evidence prior to believing, but believe in things with no scientific evidence all of the time. You certainly believe I exist without requiring evidence prior to that belief, as you certainly believe that your mother/brother/spouse loves you prior to seeing scientific evidence(or ignoring the fact there isn't any).

Accomplishing the impossible

2009-06-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

In my 24 years on this earth I have yet to beat that level. I maintain that the jet bike level is the hardest level in a video game, ever, period. This man deserves some sort of medal, certificate, or an award for this accomplishment. Many a controller was broken, many a wall was smashed, for something that this man did so easily, so effortlessly.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the death of Sony!!

2009-06-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

One of the only Sony exclusives left has officially come to Xbox.

Kojima took the stage at Microsoft's press conference and dropped a major announcement:

Remember all those teasers we saw over the past month? It wasn't the new PSP game. It was, in fact, a completely new series in the Metal Gear franchise.

Titled Metal Gear Solid: Rising, the game appears to mainly focus on the character Raiden, as there were no shots of Solid Snake at all in the extremely vague announcement teaser shown.

Like Devil may cry and Tekken, the reason MSG must be ported over is because as Play station only exclusives they just aren't making enough money. I have no sympathy at all for Sony as they brought it on themselves pricing their Play Station so ridiculously high, it's no wonder the gaming developers are jumping ship.

Please leave Matt

2009-05-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

There is no style in MMA I cannot stand more than wrestling. While it might be an effective fighting style when combined with other aspects of fighting, by itself it is nothing more than a way bring your opponent to the mat while laying on them until the ref counts to three and....oh wait, wrong sport. Wrestling by itself is useless in MMA as it is nothing more than a way to PIN your opponenent to the ground, but this is not WWF, and pinning does not win fights, submissions, TKO's or KO's win fights.
One must know either how to SUBMIT your opponent on the ground, or how to effectivly strike while on the ground, which brings me to Matt Hughes. His win over Matt Serra was contraversial at best, which I believe comes from his pure wrestling style. After his loss to GSP(twice) and BJ Penn(yes I know he beat him in a rematch, but Penn was dominating him in the first 2 rounds, he most liekly lost because he gassed in the third) it wasn't difficult to beat him. All one must do is defend his take down attempts (GSP) or if one happens to get taken down to the ground, have a good ground game(BJ).
While easier said than done, it is a remarkably simple strategy to defeat wrestlers which is why Serra beat hughs the first time and why it is so up in the air whether or not he beat him the second time. It is definitly time for Matt and other wrestlers(looking at you Brock) to either adapt or retire.

An atheists failure to criticize.

2009-05-27T08:59:00.001-07:00

The pixie brings up some ridiculous criticisms.

1. You quote Loftus: David Ramsay Steele reminds us that according to quantum mechanics "Things begin to exist without any cause all the time." So if some things can begin to exist without a cause, the universe could be one of them, which does not require a creator at all

The point Loftus is making is that this is one possibility. QM gives us a precedent for thinking that this is possible, but that is not the same as proving it did. Loftus claims no more than that (in this quite anyway).

Pixie is being ignorant and has displayed his inability to read.
I never said Loftus claims it proves the universe does not have a cause, nor did I insinuate it, I was merely showing Loftus error.

"Things begin to exist without any cause all the time." So if some things can begin to exist without a cause, the universe could be one of them, which does not require a creator at all"
What he is talking about is Quantum fluctuations and he is wrong, they do have a cause for their existence. Not only that but it can't even be used as support for the possibility since, they exist WITH a cause, and Loftus quite clearly states "Things begin to exist without any cause all the time."

You say: ... these things happen when there is ALREADY something in existence, principles, fields, physics, etc.

Correct me if I am wrong, but do we know that these things did not exist before the Big Bang? As far as I know, physicists have no idea what there was before the Big Bang. We just do not know. Therefore it remains a possibility that the Big Bang had no cause (that does leave the question of where the principles came from, but the only reasonable answer is "we do not know").

If you're going to maintain that the big bang had no cause, then you cannot use quantum fluctuations as support. Not even for the POSSIBILITY, since quantum fluctuations have a cause. Not only that, but even if we were to accept your assertion that the universe came into existence via quantum fluctuation that does nothing but bring us back to square one, 'what caused the QF?'

You say: On page 90 he brings up the multiverse which is a nonscientific concept, if we accept Dawkins’s naked assertion that a universal designer is more complex than the one known universe, a designer is probably less complex than any two universes and infinitely less complex than an infinity of them.

Does complexity add up in that way? Would you say that an infinite number of pens must be more complex than God? Sounds wrong to me.

Pixie completely misunderstands the point here. The point is that God is MORE PROBABLE than a multiverse, which renders his question 'Does complexity add up in that way? Would you say that an infinite number of pens must be more complex than God? Sounds wrong to me.' would've been answered if he had understood the point, since it is about what is MORE PROBABLE, not about what is more complex.

if we concede, for the sake of argument, that a universal designer must be 1,000 times more complex than the universe in order to create it, and therefore 1,000 times more improbable, a universal designer is still more mathematically likely than the squared improbability of there being two universes of similar complexity. For example, if the probability of one universe is one in one million, then the probability of the universal designer would be one in one billion, but the probability of there being two universes of similarly complex natures would be a much more improbable one in one trillion.

You say: Since the multiverse cannot be observed, verified, and is untestable and as unfalsifiable the God hypothesis, and was created specifically to get around the telological argument, one wonders why Loftus would be appealing to it.

Multiverse is a possibility, not an accepted scientific theory. The point of appealing to it is to show that there are ways to get around the teleological argument. We do not know if the multiverse is right, but we do know that the teleological argument is unsound.

Applying Pixies logic he should accept the following:

YEC is a possibility, not an accepted scientific theory. The point of appealing to it is to show that there are ways to get around the theory of evolution. We do not know if YEC is right, but we do know that the theory of evolution is unsound.

Pixie also says the teleological argument is unsound? now this depends on what he means, as there is the teleological argument as proof of God, which is NOT WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT HERE. What I was talking about was the anthropic principle. So not only is pixies logic equally applied to things like YEC, his criticism is nothing but a straw man, since I was talking about the anthropic principle and not the teleological argument. Furthermore he engages in the hilarious irony of appealing to an unscientific, unfalsifiable multiverse to get around an unfalsifiable, unscientific(atheist logic here) God.

One would think that someone who had studied Christianity and has the equivalent of a P.H.D would have better arguments than this! Round 2.

2009-05-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

Round 2 is a little long but bear with me, Loftus made a lot of errors in this chapter.
Hypocrisy

On pg 35. Loftus states "I'm going to begin with what many Christians assume about their faith. They assume a certain kind of rational and/or moral superiority over any other system of belief and though, especially atheism." After reading this one must ask him self, how many is many? Loftus states that many Christians assume we have a rational and/or moral superiority over any other system of belief, but how many Christians do this? how many is many? 2? 5? 5,000? is there a poll? where is Loftus getting his information from?
He says it again on pg 37. "Many Christians maintain they have a superior foundation for knowing and for choosing to do what is good." but how many is many? what is even more interesting is on pg. 190-191. On page 190 there is an objection written stating "Jesus said that some people wouldn't believe even if God raised a man from the dead." to which Loftus replies

"The word some here needs to be unpacked when it is said, "some people today would not believe." How many does the word some mean? Who knows?"

but wait? didn't Loftus just use the same logic on page 37? so how can he criticize the objection for using the word 'some' when he uses the word 'most' in the same logic. Loftus criticizes the objection on pg. 191 for doing the same thing he does on pg. 35 and 37, this of course is hypocrisy.

Bait and switch, deceptively playing with facts:

On pg 37. Loftus states the following:

Many Christians maintain they have a superior foundation for knowing and for choosing to do what is good. They claim to have objective ethical standards for being good, based in a morally good creator God, along with the best motivation for being good, which is an eternal reward in the presence of a loving God. These Christians also claim that the atheist has no ultimate justification for being moral, much less a motivation for acting on those morals, especially when they conflict with her own personal self-interest. They claim that atheists do not have a good reason to condemn murder, brutality, and torture, nor do they have an ultimate reason to refrain from murdering, raping, and torturing other people themselves.
Dr. William Lane Craig quotes with approval Fyodor Dostoyevsky's characater Ivan Karamazov, who said, "If God doesn't exist, everything is permissible." Craig summed up the moral case against atheism using these words:

then Loftus quotes Craig. Now after the quote is the deceptive part, he states, further down on pg. 37 and onto page 38.

Before we move on to the philosophical arguments for this claim, let's pause and ask first why there is no evidence for what Craig claims. If he is correct, we should see billions of non-Christians acting consistently according to this logic. There should be great mayhem in this word, the likes of which should send the rest of us into the asylum. In other words, why don't non Christians act consistently? No one says to herself, "This is the reasonable or logical thing to do but I refuse to do it," unless she is mentally challenged. Do theists like Craig want to claim that nearly all non-Christians are mentally challenged...that the overwhelming majority of us don't live consistent lives with what we believe?

Notice some things. If you look at how Loftus started his argument you will see a pattern.

1. They assume a certain kind of rational and/or moral superiority over any other system of belief and though, especially atheism."
2. They claim that atheists
3. These Christians also claim that the atheist has no ultimate justification for being moral,
4. Craig summed up the moral case against atheism

as you can see, Loftus starts out by talking about strictly atheism. Now notice a pattern after he quotes Craig.

1. If he is correct, we should see billions of non-Christians acting consistently according to this logic.
2. In other words, why don't non Christians act consistently?
3. Do theists like Craig want to claim that nearly all non-Christians

A close look at the paragraph reveals Loftus deception. He starts out talking about atheism, then ends his argument talking about non-Christians! but as facts and empirical evidence tells us, non-Christains are not exclusively atheists. Muslims are non Christians, as are Buddhists, Hindus etc. etc. Loftus uses a bait and switch. he starts off talking about atheism, then substitutes atheism for non-Christian, but why did he do that? perhaps when he said non-Christian he meant atheist. This of course is also incorrect, the reason Loftus needed to switch from atheism to non-Christians is because if he hadn't even to the uneducated his entire argument would've fallen apart, only with deception can he even attempt such a ridiculous argument.

If he is correct, we should see billions of non-Christians acting consistently according to this logic. There should be great mayhem in this world, the likes of which should send the rest of us into the asylum.

As you can see, if it were just strictly atheists Loftus's billions number would be laughed at.(more evidence here)

Secular/irreligious/agnostic/atheist/antitheistic/antireligious: 1.1 billion

That number includes deism as well, and desists are not atheists. Even if you would lump deists in with atheists the number barely reaches over 1 billion, it is certainly not enough to support Loftus ridiculous assertions of 'billions' of people acting according to Craigs logic causing great mayhem in this world.

General arguments

Loftus tries to use the Euthyphro dilemma to refute the divine command theory to which he states:

God could've commanded us to do something horribly evil by simply declaring it good. If God is the creator of morality like he's purportedly the creator of the universe, then he could've declared any act good, and there would be no reason above God to distinguish Him from the devil. He then brings up God calling to slaughter the Caananites as an example of this. This of course is the premiere tactic of the atheist, bring up a seemingly horrible act found in the OT and hopefully the Christian won't be educated enough to refute it, I'll keep it short and if anyone wants to further press the issue I would be more than happy to do so. God ordering the destruction of the Canaanites was a good and moral act because of the following reasons.

1. The annihilations are judgments.
2 These judgments are for publicly-recognized (indeed, international and cross-cultural in scope!) cruelty and violence of an EXTREME and WIDESPREAD nature.
3 These judgments are preceded by LONG PERIODS of warning/exposure to truth (and therefore, opportunity to "change outcomes").
4 Innocent adults are given a 'way out'
5 Household members share in the fortunes of the parents (for good or ill).
6 Somebody ALWAYS escapes (Lot, Noah, Kenites)
7 These are exceptional cases--there are VERY, VERY few of these.

Like I said, if anyone wants to challenge me on the issue I will be more than happy to go further in depth about it, but this is about pointing out Loftus's infantile arguments and exposing them as such. On pg. 39 Loftus states:

"The divine command theory is in such disrepute in today's philosophical circles that only modified divine command theories are being discussed. Christian apologist J.P. Moreland actually claims, "I'm not a divine command theorist...[T]his view implies that morality is merely grounded in God's will as opposed to his nature. That's not my view. I think God's will is ultimately expressed in keeping with his nature. Morality is ultimately grounded in the nature of God, not independently of God."

Loftus criticizes this view with the following:

"But this difference Adams speaks about makes no difference. It does no good to step back behind the commands of God to his purported nature, for we still want to know whether or not God's nature is good. God's nature cannot be known to be good without a standard of goodness showing that it is. Unless there is a moral standard that shows God is good beyond the mere fact that God declares that his nature is good, we still don't know whether God is good. Again, God is, well, just God.

This of course is incorrect, it does a lot of good to step back to Gods nature. We can know Gods nature is good by looking at his actions and applying His own views of what is right and wrong. If Gods nature is good, and God gave us morals through the bible, then He should act consistently with His own views of what is right and wrong, then we can know whether or not Gods nature is good. Loftus is correct stating that there is a moral standard that shows God is good beyond the mere fact that God declares that his nature is good, and that moral standard is of course the morals found within Gods word.

He quotes Louis P. Pojman:

"the modified divine command theory becomes equivalent to: God commands the good because it is good, and the good is not good simply because God commands it." Therefore "we can discover our ethical duties through reason, independent of Gods command. For what is good for his creatures is so objectively. We do not need God to tell us that it is bed to cause unnecessary suffering; reason can do that."

This of course is just Loftus relying on his academic appeals to authority. I quote him saying:

How would you know whether my arguments are infantile? In order to say that you would have to have some kind of credentials to say so, especially when professors are using my book in their college classes. Do you really think these professors would bring into their classes something infantile and ridiculous? I think not.

I cannot criticize his arguments (or anyone elses for that matter) unless I have credentials. This is nothing but fallacious reasoning and also a silly assumption since I have never even said what type of credentials I have or do not have. That is the reason why my credentials(or lack of them) will always remain hidden, it forces people to actually deal with the arguments, not on the credentials of whose making them.

In any case Pojman is wrong, God commands what is good because it is His nature to command what is good, not because it is good already. Keep in mind I am not arguing that we cannot find out what is good based upon reason, what I am arguing is that using reason to find out what is good and is not good is not as effective as listening to God in the first place. Pojman makes a very common error, he says "We do not need God to tell us that it is bad to cause unnecessary suffering; reason can do that." Sure, reason can most definitely tell you it is bad to cause unnecessary suffering but unnecessary suffering is an easy one, what about sexual promiscuity? God says sexual promiscuity is wrong, the atheist says it isn't(if there is an atheist that says sexual promiscuity is wrong I will gladly concede this). According to Pojman and Loftus we don't need God to tell us if it is right or wrong, reason alone should suffice. Well the evidence shows that homosexuals are the most sexually active and also enjoy the shortest life span. This is just one example that shows reason alone does not suffice.

On pg. 43 Loftus states

"let's first consider the motivation that a Christian has for acting good and not bad. Christains claim that if we disbelieve and disobey God, we'll "fry in hell," as Nielsen describes it. Yet obeying for this reason "Is pure prudence masquerading as morality....[T]hat is hardly a good moral reason for doing anything."

This is of course a complete and utter misunderstanding of Christianity, Christians are not to obey God because of fear of hell fire, we're to obey God because He simply knows what is best. He created the universe it's laws, He is more smart and wise than any human being, that is why we should obey God, fear of hell fire of course is one of the reasons, but it is not the only reason.

on pg. 42 J.P. Moreland asks the question "what is the point of an atheist doing good and moral deeds? why should I do these things if they are not satisfying me or if they are not in my interests?" Loftus responds with the following:

"It doesn't follow from the lack of an "Ultimate motivation" to be a good person that the atheist doesn't have a sufficient motivational grounding for a being a good person. There are plenty of motives here on earth to be a good person, and it starts with an overall life plan.

This does nothing but beg the question. What is the point of a life plan for the atheist? why have one? why have a life plan other than self satisfaction and selfish pleasure? He quotes Pojmam, "To have the benefits of the moral life-friendship, mutual love, inner peace, moral pride or satisfaction, and the freedom from moral guilt-one has to have a certain kind of reliable character. All in all the benefits are eminently worth having. Indeed life without them may not be worth living." This sounds nice, but it doesn't answer the question, it simply asks a new one! what is the point? what is the point of inner peace, mutual love, moral pride or satisfaction? that question was never answered. Lofus just declares life without them may not be worth living, that of course is Pojmans personal opinion, it does not answer what the point is.

on pg 41 Lotus states:

"Even if Christians did have objective moral standards, they cannot be objectively certain that they know them or that they know how to apply to specific real life cases. Just look at Christianity's past and you'll see what I mean. Believers will still disagree with each other on a multifaceted number of ethical issues, whether they start with the bible as God's revelation or the morality gleaned from a natural law theory. Then he quotes Sam Harris, "We decide what is good in the Good Book"

This is also wrong, you cannot look at people to determine that, for all Loftus knows the objective moral standard exists but the Christians simply are not following it. Are you seriously going to say that because judges and lawyers argue over laws that they aren't certain that they know them or that they know how to apply to specific real life cases? so why on earth are you going to say that because Christians argue over certain things that can't be objectively certain that they know the moral standards.

Finally he quotes Kai Nelson:

"The religious moralist...doesn't have any better or any worse objectivity. Because, suppose he says, 'We should love God...Why obey His commandments? He basically would have to say, 'Because God is perfect good, and God with his perfect goodness reveals to us the great value of self respect for people. He shows that people are of infinite precious worth.' But even if you accept this, you could go on to ask 'Why should you care? What difference does it make anyway whether people are of infinite precious worth?' Faced with such questioning, you will finally be pushed into a corner, where you say 'It is important to me that people be regarded as being of infinite worth because I just happen to care about people."

This of course is Loftus trying to pressure the theist into relying on his considered convictions. The question why should I care? can easily be answered, 'Because I am loyal to God and trust that He knows what is best for me, after all trusting in a being that is practically infinitely smarter than the smartest human being is more logical that trusting in something else.'
The real point of course is Loftus question found on pg 37. Why don't atheists(now that his deception has been exposed I am using the proper term) act consistently with Craigs logic? The answer can be found in a quote from W. Somerset Maugham’s, which states

“do what thou wilt, with due regard for the policeman around the corner.” The fundamental irrationality of the atheist can primarily be seen in his actions, and it is here that his general lack of intellectual conviction is also exposed. Whereas Christians and the faithful of other religions have rational reasons for attempting to live by their various moral systems, the atheist does not. Both ethics and morals based on religion are nothing more than man-made myth to the atheist, he is therefore required to reject them on rational materialist grounds. He can, of course, make a perfectly rational decision to abide by ethics and morals to which he does not personally subscribe because it would be dangerous to do otherwise in a society where he is outnumbered. This is W. Somerset Maugham’s semi-rational atheism, which states “do what thou wilt, with due regard for the policeman around the corner.”
So the atheist seeks to live by the dominant morality whenever it is convenient for him, and there are even those who, despite their faithlessness, do a better job of living by the tenets of religion than those who actually subscribe to them. But even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior.
One need only ask an atheist what his morality is, and inquire as to how he developed it and why it should happen to so closely coincide with the dominant societal morality to discover that there is nothing rational about most atheists’ beliefs.

-Vox day the irrational atheist.
There are more errors, suffice to say there were too many to list. These are the main errors, I might post the other ones at a later date, but in any case stay tuned for rd 3.

Hatton didn't surprise me.

2009-05-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

I really don't know how anyone expected Hatton to win. He was Knocked out by a Mayweather left hook to his un protected jaw as he was diving in. Hatton simply cannot deal with any sort of speed, his style just doesn't allow for it, there isn't much to say about the Pacquiao Hatton fight that wasn't already blatantly obvious. Hatton cannot deal with speed and while the fight itself was predictable the after math is a bit more puzzling. Where does Pacquiao go from here? I would love him to fight Floyd and this would be a good fight for Floyd as well since he is missing one of those career defining fights that all of the greats had. I think Pacquiao has the potential to make it a really challenging drawn out war for Mayweather, but it seems we must wait a couple fights. Mayweather is apparently wanting to fight Marquez.

"I am not wasting any time with a tune-up fight," said Mayweather. "I'm going straight to the top. Marquez called me out immediately after his victory over Juan Diaz in February and now he gets his wish. What he is going to find out is that you should be very careful what you wish for."

Mayweather continued, "the rest of those fighters who called me out can get in line too because they are going to get their chance...one at a time and slowly but surely. It's going to be a great return and a wonderful 'experience.' Don't blink - I'M BACK!"

I don't blame Mayweather for going straight to the top, but I will start accusing him of ducking the better competition if he does not fight some of them after the Marquez fight.

If you really look at it, it is really quite pointless.

2009-04-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Paul says it best.

1 Timothy 1:3-7

3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. 5 Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 6 from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.

Christians arguing with each other over evolution and creationism is pointless, it does nothing but bring division in the body of Christ. The bible can be read and interpreted in various ways, valid ways mind you, as there is a difference between a valid interpretation that is grounded in scripture, historical context and evidence, and an invalid interpretation that quote mines scripture, ignoring historical context and in many cases empirical evidence. Both parties whether they adhere to theistic evolution or young earth creationism, agree that life begins with God. Between believers anything more than that is simply as Paul said, Idle talk.

The biblical case for fighting.

2009-04-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make this my first post but I just couldn't resist baiting some of the common assumptions that would go along with the theme of my blog. As many of you might already know, or will soon figure out, I approach discourse like I fight. I know that fighting and Christianity are viewed as incompatible and I know that setting up a blog combining the two would garner a lot of criticism from Christian and non Christian alike, unfortunately(due to my blog be unknown at the moment) I only got one.

Chuck O'Connor said...

How can you rest on your Christian theology and also enjoy fighting? Didn't Jesus say, "turn the other cheek." Sheeesh.

Well Chuck, I can rest my Christian theology and also enjoy fighting because fighting is completely biblical based, in fact, God Himself engaged in what looks like a BJJ match against Jacob.

Genesis 32:22-32

22 And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. 23 He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. 24 Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. 25 Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. 26 And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”
But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”
27 So He said to him, “What is your name?”
He said, “Jacob.”
28 And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel;[a] for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
29 Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.”
And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel:[b] “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” 31 Just as he crossed over Penuel[c] the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank.

Interesting, I wonder what kind of hold God put on Jacob to hurt his hip. In anycase, calling it a BJJ match might be a little far fetched, but the point is quite clear, God and Jacob fought. Another interesting Law regarding fighting.

Exodus 21:18-19 (New King James Version)

18 “If men contend with each other, and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die but is confined to his bed, 19 if he rises again and walks about outside with his staff, then he who struck him shall be acquitted. He shall only pay for the loss of his time, and shall provide for him to be thoroughly healed.

It says that if men fight there are no legal ramifications as long as no one dies and the victor pays for the loser for the loss of time and his medical bills.

So what about the "turning the other cheek" objection that was brought up by Conner?

Matthew 5:38-42

38"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

There is also a parallel of this saying in Luke.

Luke 6:27-31

27"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.

When Christ gave this parable the main premise and purpose is about loving your enemies, resisting the natural fleshly urge to hit someone back when they hit you, it is about overcoming our own personal sense of justice, the world says hit someone that hits you back, God says to turn the other cheek and leave room for His vengeance(Romans 12:19). He says 'pray for those who mistreat you,' the context seems to be in regards to enemies and those that seek to mistreat us, and how we should not respond to them the same way they respond to us, which is a far cry from sport fighting. The Apostle Paul also has words on the subject.

1 Corinthians 9:25-27 (New American Standard Bible)

25Everyone who (A)competes in the games exercises self-control in all things They then do it to receive a perishable (B)wreath, but we an imperishable.

26Therefore I (C)run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not (D)beating the air;

27but I discipline (E)my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

While other translations use the word fight, the NASB uses the word box!, that about sums it up, I look at sport fighting the same way Paul does, as a way to exercise self control in all things, as an inspiration for Christ. A clarification must be made however, watching or participating in sport fighting for the sake of seeing knockouts, blood, broken bones etc. falls under "love of violence" which God does not like.

Psalm 11:5

5 The LORD tests the righteous,
But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.

A brief instruction of what the word contradiction.

2009-04-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

A very common criticism often hurled at the bible is it contains contradictions, but 9 times outta 10 the person making this assertion is ignorant as to what a contradiction really is.

What does the word contradiction mean?

Oxford dictionary definition of contradiction

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/contradiction?view=uk

contradiction

• noun 1 a combination of statements, ideas, or features which are opposed to one another. 2 the statement of a position opposite to one already made.

— PHRASES contradiction in terms a statement or group of words associating incompatible objects or ideas.

Second

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contradiction

1: act or an instance of contradicting
2 a: a proposition, statement, or phrase that asserts or implies both the truth and falsity of something b: a statement or phrase whose parts contradict each other
3 a: logical incongruity b: a situation in which inherent factors, actions, or propositions are inconsistent or contrary to one another

Contrary

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrary

1: a fact or condition incompatible with another : opposite —usually used with the
2: one of a pair of opposites
3 a: a proposition so related to another that though both may be false they cannot both be true — compare subcontrary b: either of two terms (as good and evil) that cannot both be affirmed of the same subject

Contrary 2

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/contrary?view=uk

• adjective 1 opposite in nature, direction, or meaning. 2 (of two or more statements, beliefs, etc.) opposed to one another. 3 /kntrairi/ perversely inclined to do the opposite of what is expected or desired.

• noun (the contrary) the opposite.

— PHRASES to the contrary with the opposite meaning or implication.

— DERIVATIVES contrarily adverb contrariness noun.

— ORIGIN Latin contrarius, from contra ‘against’.

Lets look at the root words.

Two words, contra diction.

Contra defined

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/contra?view=uk

We have the word Contra defined.

contra-

• prefix 1 against; opposite: contraception. 2 (of musical instruments or organ stops) pitched an octave below: contrabass.

— ORIGIN Latin contra ‘against’

Diction defined
http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&freesearch=diction&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact

diction

• noun 1 the choice and use of words in speech or writing. 2 the style of enunciation in speaking or singing.

— ORIGIN Latin, from dicere ‘to say’.

Inconsistent defined.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/inconsistent?view=uk

inconsistent

• adjective not consistent.

— DERIVATIVES inconsistency noun inconsistently adverb.

Inconsistent

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inconsistent

: lacking consistency: as a: not compatible with another fact or claim
b: containing incompatible elements
c: incoherent or illogical in thought or actions : changeable
d: not satisfiable by the same set of values for the unknowns
— in·con·sis·tent·ly adverb

an inconsistency is not a contradiction. Take a look at the following statement.

The victim was killed with a knife.
The victim was killed with a gun.

Taken at face value this looks like a contradiction. However if I added the following.

The victims body was found with knife wounds and gun wounds.
A contradiction more specifically is defined would resemble the following

In logic, the Principle of contradiction (principium contradictionis in Latin) is the second of the so-called three classic laws of thought. The oldest statement of the law is that contradictory statements cannot both at the same time be true, e.g. the two propositions A is B and A is not B are mutually exclusive. A may be B at one time, and not at another; A may be partly B and partly not B at the same time; but it is impossible to predicate of the same thing, at the same time, and in the same sense, the absence and the presence of the same quality. This is the statement of the law given by Aristotle. It takes no account of the truth of either proposition; if one is true, the other is not; one of the two must be true.

So I cannot be dead and alive at the same place at the same time. I can however, be alive at one moment and dead the next, or I can be alive in one place and dead in another place, the most important part of the definition are the following words "at the same place and at the same time."
Let us take a bible 'contradiction' from here and apply the real definition of the word.

EXO 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.

ROM 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

It says in Exodus that God is a man of war, and in Romans, which was written thousands of years later that God is a man of peace, for it to be a contradiction it would God would have to be a man of war and a God of peace at the same time or in the same place.