Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
Is it theism or Theism? Or is it communism or Communism? Is it atheism or Atheism? Seriously, it makes a big difference.
|
Who cares? Seriously, it makes no difference at all. You're being seduced by Platonism and the idea that ideas are Ideas.
Dude, as long as we're throwing around how intelligent people are, I'll refrain from my usual habit of self-deprecation to assure you that I am far from stupid and I can understand any complex idea you might care to explain INTELLIGIBLY. If you can't get across what you mean without waving your hands and invoking semantics, that doesn't mean your ideas are beyond me or anyone else, it means you are terrible at explaining them, which further confirms you don't have any deep understanding of what they are and how they fit together.
You have no access to secret knowledge beyond the ken. The sooner you realize this and stop playing magician to the credulous, the better.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by peter12
What we have now is the rehashing of 200 year old ideas, mainly liberal utilitarianism, by far less intelligent and eloquent people. It's embarrassing and shrill.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
Anyway, I am making a point about philosophical or personal self-awareness which is far more important than whether you believe in God or not.
|
How does the first statement, which is the one I refuted, have any relation at all to the second statement, which is where you try to move the goalposts?
You aren't making any point about self-awareness in statement one. You are making a claim that your so-called "new atheists", in which class I'm certain you include everyone who discusses this with you here, are (poorly) reusing arguments from 200 years ago. When I specifically show you that this isn't true, you go off on a completely unrelated tangent as if I can't go back and quote what you originally said to show that you are not being intellectually honest.
Flat denial of the facts is not an argument. Putting people in a category to which you apply ad hominem attacks is not an argument. Appeal to authority is not an argument. Non sequitors are not arguments. For someone who thinks of himself as a philosopher, your egregious and continual reliance upon such obvious fallacies is both annoying and tiring.
You claim to believe in self-examination; do some of it. Ask yourself a question: is it more likely that you're the absolute intellectual superior of everyone on this board, or is it more likely you only think you are?