Godless Apostate

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

Dion you jumped in with a few drive by (very light) smears of my posts which were uncalled for, and you don't call out other people when they are doing this.

Are you only complaining about those you don't agree with? Rise above that.

Not complaining, just making observations.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Setting aside your abuse of poor old Occam, how exactly do you know this? The equivalent of only 1 / 10,000 words in the NT is accurate? There are 138,000 words in the entire NT: which are the 14 of them that you find to be historically unobjectionable?

Don't try to confuse people that I used Occam incorrectly - I used it well enough. If we know 99.9% of a story was made up, do we bother trying to resolve the last .1%? No, we don't. Yet other people are - in fact they have said in this very thread that we know most of the story is fake, but we believe some of it, so some is real. I deny that.

Jesus is claimed to have had super powers and healed many people, included a few instances of more than one person. Pretend we total this to 1,000 total miracles, not even including afterlife provided to millions. So 1 (jesus exists) divided by 1,000 (miracles) equals 1/1000. Was I close? Is that not a reasonable argument? is 99.9% of the story not made up like I suggest?

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I only ask this absurd question, because I think you have quite vividly demonstrated that you really do not know enough about the story of Jesus to even judge the facts from the fiction.

I don't know enough because I have ruled out 1,000 examples that we know are not true, and are part of the myth. I don't argue the myth, so why try to bring that back in? Why insult me? Do you feel it makes your argument stronger? Does skeptic arguments have to result in the insults?

I have no problem with people being religious, I do have a problem with religious people (or non religious) not questioning what has been given as truth. I also have a problem with people quick to insult those that disagree with them and quick to pretend not to see insults from those they agree with.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ot#post1787610

So where did I say I want everyone in the middle east slaughtered?

Do you want all the terrorists and freaks who kill kids to live? I personally wouldn't have an issue putting them in one spot and dropping a nuke on them.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by Dion

Not complaining, just making observations.

Your observation was that I did not define 'proof' to you and as such my argument was somehow invalid? It is an obvious argument, one that has gone on many many times before, and we all know that.

One side says "prove it", the other says "here is proof", and they respond with "that is not proof".

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by T@T

So where did I say I want everyone in the middle east slaughtered?

Do you want all the terrorists and freaks who kill kids to live? I personally wouldn't have an issue putting them in one spot and dropping a nuke on them.

True, in fairness you just said the men.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by T@T

So where did I say I want everyone in the middle east slaughtered?

Do you want all the terrorists and freaks who kill kids to live? I personally wouldn't have an issue putting them in one spot and dropping a nuke on them.

You said "Maybe we should just huddle all the woman and children together on some safe island". You made no mention of all the men.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by T@T

So where did I say I want everyone in the middle east slaughtered?

Do you want all the terrorists and freaks who kill kids to live? I personally wouldn't have an issue putting them in one spot and dropping a nuke on them.

So middle eastern men = terrorists?

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Dion

You said "Maybe we should just huddle all the woman and children together on some safe island". You made no mention of all the men.

Fine, I meant all innocent civilians(that thread was about marriage to 8 year olds) but fact is you and others are trying to make me out as a racist and bigot with claims I want the whole middle eastern it's people destroyed which clearly isn't the case. Funny how you guys bring up false facts on me over and over but run and hide/plug you're ears when debated over your religious God.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

Don't try to confuse people that I used Occam incorrectly - I used it well enough.

Just to be my usual pedantic self, you actually didn't. Occam's razor is about parsimony; i.e. not adding unnecessary additional mechanisms to an already functional theoretical model.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by T@T

fact is you and others are trying to make me out as a racist and bigot with claims I want the whole middle eastern it's people destroyed which clearly isn't the case.

As far as I can see, you claimed you never said you wanted the Middle East turned into glass, and yet there it is, a quote of you saying exactly that.

I don't know if you're a racist, but you're definitely an anti-religious bigot. This isn't calling you names, this is reiterating your self-proclaimed nature: "I said it many times, and nothing personal to anyone but if a person believes in a religious GOD these days they are either weak,stupid(uneducated) or both." That's bigotry - intolerance towards an identifiable group.

You obviously don't see it as hateful, but it is. I agree that there is no God, and that it is irrational to believe there is a God, but many intelligent and thoughtful people disagree. They are (probably) wrong to do so, but believing I am better than they are because I know the "truth" is just fanaticism of a different and no better sort than religious fanaticism.

If you want people to listen to your arguments and possibly change their minds, start with not calling them idiots, and attack their arguments instead of their intelligence. That method is the opposite of effective.

[sa226]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

Don't try to confuse people that I used Occam incorrectly - I used it well enough. If we know 99.9% of a story was made up, do we bother trying to resolve the last .1%? No, we don't. Yet other people are - in fact they have said in this very thread that we know most of the story is fake, but we believe some of it, so some is real. I deny that.

Jesus is claimed to have had super powers and healed many people, included a few instances of more than one person. Pretend we total this to 1,000 total miracles, not even including afterlife provided to millions. So 1 (jesus exists) divided by 1,000 (miracles) equals 1/1000. Was I close? Is that not a reasonable argument? is 99.9% of the story not made up like I suggest?



I don't know enough because I have ruled out 1,000 examples that we know are not true, and are part of the myth. I don't argue the myth, so why try to bring that back in? Why insult me? Do you feel it makes your argument stronger? Does skeptic arguments have to result in the insults?

I have no problem with people being religious, I do have a problem with religious people (or non religious) not questioning what has been given as truth. I also have a problem with people quick to insult those that disagree with them and quick to pretend not to see insults from those they agree with.

I'm not entirely sure that you know what you are arguing. It seems to go around in circles. I had a soft "drive by" because you seem to be seeking physical evidence of a historical Jesus. You're right there isn't any. But this isn't the 1980's. Record keeping, evidence preservation or anything of the sort was vastly different than it is today, perhaps non-existent. You know that.

You also seem unable to separate the discussion of the validity of a devine being and whether or not a guy named Jesus existed. They intertwine sure, but at the core of the discussions they are separate. This isn't a discussion about faith and Christianity, its a discussion about the histrocity of Jesus of Nazareth.

I don't pretend to have a fraction of a fraction of the understanding that Textcritic does of this stuff, but it seems that the basis of his argument is that it is much more likely that the rise of early Christianity originated with a physical Jesus of Nazareth than it is likely that it arose from a legend of a man that didn't exist. Miracles, legends, watercooler talk has nothing to do with the discussion, it is strictly about the probability of an actual man named Jesus.

Maybe you already know this. Maybe I just wasted my time typing out this nonsense. Then why not even entertain the possibility? Why is it so unlikely? Why is your line in the sand "Physical proof?"

[Dion]

Originally Posted by jammies

If you want people to listen to your arguments and possibly change their minds, start with not calling them idiots, and attack their arguments instead of their intelligence. That method is the opposite of effective.

T@T is who he is and I doubt he'll ever change. Besides he's entitled to his views of religious people and should expect that he'd be very lucky to find people willing to discuss religion when he makes statements like that.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Dion

T@T is who he is and I doubt he'll ever change. Besides he's entitled to his views of religious people and should expect that he'd be very lucky to find people willing to discuss religion when he makes statements like that.

As long as religion stays the course of causing the most human suffering on this planet you're absolutely right...I will not change.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I don't want to speak for sworkhard or anyone else, but I think you missed the point there.

You sound like a creationist because you completely dismiss evidence that you aren't familiar with, don't understand, and apparently refuse to admit even exists.

You dismiss the opinions of people who have dedicated years/lives/careers to studying this particular subject and seem to scoff at entire fields of study, even though you yourself have no expertise in the subject.

You have made up your mind for whatever reason and have told us that you won't even consider alternatives because you know the truth.

So yeah, just like a creationist.

Very nearly my point, but not quite. I was more referring to the logical structure and massive leap of logic from it can be doubted, to therefore it's not true. Creationists routinely make the mistake of thinking that if they can show the evolution can be doubted, despite it being probably right, then creation is in fact the correct answer. Saying the existence of Jesus can be doubted to saying he never existed is a similar leap of logic. Hence why he reminded me of a creationist. At no point did I think he was in fact a creationist.

I try avoid telling people they are misinformed, stupid, etc, as I know many YEC's (Young earth creationists) that are very well informed and very intelligent, just very inconsistent in the application of logic and extraordinarily good at coming up with excuses to continue to believe what they already believe.

I also agree with the people that pointed out that dedicating your life to something doesn't make you right. Alchemists dedicating their lives to converting things to gold didn't become more right due to their lifetime of misguided experience. However, I also agree that if large number of people dedicate their lives to something within a self-correcting framework like science is supposed to be, your far more likely to be right if you hold to the consensus of these experts than if you don't.

[Thor]

I've stopped caring and engaging in religious debates, and started in my own life focusing on doing things that help the things I believe in like being very active in Iceland in the humanist group. I've been part of euthanasia debates, skeptic in the pub meeting (bringing in speakers), even holding a discussion on "should we fear Islam" after all the fear and stupidity in Iceland against Muslims here in Iceland.

I mean I see allies in people who might be religious, hell I'm friends with TC!

I just don't want to waste my energy so much any more on debating this stuff, cause you go around and around in circles. I might from time to time if its an interesting discussion that is thoughtful but thats rare.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Thor

I've stopped caring and engaging in religious debates, and started in my own life focusing on doing things that help the things I believe in like being very active in Iceland in the humanist group. I've been part of euthanasia debates, skeptic in the pub meeting (bringing in speakers), even holding a discussion on "should we fear Islam" after all the fear and stupidity in Iceland against Muslims here in Iceland.

I mean I see allies in people who might be religious, hell I'm friends with TC!

I just don't want to waste my energy so much any more on debating this stuff, cause you go around and around in circles. I might from time to time if its an interesting discussion that is thoughtful but thats rare.

Dude! You're blowing my cover, here.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

Don't try to confuse people that I used Occam incorrectly - I used it well enough...

You have responded with a lot of nothing that I will get into later when I have time. I'm at an antiquities conference right now, but will get back to this by the weekend.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

Don't try to confuse people that I used Occam incorrectly - I used it well enough. If we know 99.9% of a story was made up, do we bother trying to resolve the last .1%? No, we don't.

That's got nothing to do with Occam so I would agree you used it incorrectly.

What you're describing is actually fallacy of division, where something true of a whole (the bible is made up) is presumed to be true of all it's parts (Jesus is made up).

Academically... if we know 99.9% of a story is made up, you would still never simply assume the 0.1% remaining is too. It's just bad logic.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

That's got nothing to do with Occam, so yeah, you used it wrong.

What you're describing is actually fallacy of division, where something true of a whole (the bible is made up) is presumed to be true of all it's parts (Jesus is made up).

Academically... if we know 99.9% of a story is made up, you would still never simply assume the 0.1% remaining is too. It's just bad logic.

Beyond that, the number that NW has produced is preposterous. How does one even quantify the hard division in ancient literature between pure fiction and non-fiction? Again, it's a good indication that he doesn't know what he is talking about in the first place.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Dude! You're blowing my cover, here.