of course! 
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Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. Do not ask Why? Be cautious with How? Why? leads inexorably to paradox. How? traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite. — Frank Herbert
I’m impressed by how obtuse @Get_off_my_lawn and @Nyarlathotep are here… The fact that they think these are counter examples to what I said is baffling to me. Learn to read.
I don’t want to trade insults with you; this conversation is over. If you do in fact want to have a respectful conversation with me; your next post is your last chance to reverse course. If you want to trade insults, you can find plenty here who will oblige you; you don’t need me.
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@Nyarlathotep I’m willing to admit that the tone of my previous message is unhelpful and that you could feel insulted. I’m genuinely sorry about that — not my goal here.
But please read it with a favorable, charitable eye as an expression of frustration. I am expressing genuine and I think on some level legitimate frustration that what I’m saying is so frequently misrepresented and distorted. I was especially stunned by how you and @Get_off_my_lawn did this in the last few posts.
On a positive, constructive note, here is a very recent example of something you said that I found a helpful consideration:
I think the answer might not be so tricky, but I would need to give this a little more careful thought… there is one thing I’m fairly confident about, the decay is at least caused in some way by the decaying atom, and that’s the point I was trying to make. If I have more insight on this soon, I’ll try to share it with you.
I hope to continue seeing you in the topic “Sophie’s Room.”
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The fact that you don’t understand exactly how they are counterexamples is fucking amazing. LOL I will trade insults with you. Ha ha ha ha … I can hear the piloerection of the hairs on Cyber’s neck. I’m convinced White has her puppies watching me and they just started barking and dancing in circles. Oh hell, I’m fucked.
This was your (-insert insult here-) claim. It has clearly and succinctly been demonstrated, that your (-insert insult here-) claim is incorrect. Scientists observe the world around us. (STEP ONE) and then build models based on (Facts and Evidence) to explain what they think is going on. They know all sorts of stuff about the proposed existence and properties of something before they go looking for it. Without the perceived properties, there would be no reason to look for anything. No one is looking for Eric the rainbow-farting unicorn because his properties occur on the spiritual plain and without years of education meditation, and comprehension of matters of existence beyond time and space, your (-insert insult here-) brain will not be able to understand.
Do you have any idea at all how (-insert overgeneralized steel-manning expression with obvious tongue-in-cheek insinuation here-) your brain looks by not being able to comprehend these simple facts?
You’re baffled, and so you think they’re obtuse?
This is not how debate works at all? All claims are subjected to the maximum critical scrutiny, as indeed they should be.
Since you never answered me, why did you open with such an obvious straw man fallacy?
Your claim that this is an erroneous opinion has been refuted, and you have failed to respond to the evidence offered, now why is that?
Straw man fallacy, again demonstrate a deity is even possible, who cares what attributes you arbitrarily imagine the deity you imagine to be real has?
This is another straw man, since atheism is not a claim, but by all means rigorously demonstrate a deity, it really is that simple.
Again this is an absurd straw man, as no atheist by definition can or need make any assertion about the deity or deities theists imagine to be real.
I’m too thinned skinned to shrug off pot shots at my integrity. While any such pot shot remains on this website from you, we can’t be friends. And if we can’t be friends, I have no use for you. Sorry.
Why don’t you have an issue with the concept of, “Beginning?” An arbitrary line is being drawn in the sand at the point of our current understanding: “Planck” time. For all intent and purpose, we sorta, kinda, looking at it cross-eyed, haveta consider this as the beginning of space and time as we know it. Regarding it as such, does not actually confirm or deny that there is something, or was not something, before.
LOOK: Imagine you are a young lady named Sophi, locked in a dark room, and the darkened room could be or could not be everything there is. Why postulate an outside? On what grounds would you be able to assume that there is an outside? On what grounds would you assume that magic brought the room into existence? A magical being waggled his fingers and ‘poofed’ a room’s existence. On what grounds would you assume the room was an eternal presence in some form or another? Because this girl named Sophi made the chairs and tables in the room, can she also assert that something outside, of the room must have made the room? Why would Sophi think that the laws of physics inside the room were the same as those outside? If there was an outside, how could she say anything about it? LOL!!!
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As I said before, I’m too thin skinned for that. When you shit on me in one thread, I’m not going to just forget about it in the next thread. I’m way too petty for that. But it isn’t personal, it is a me problem:
Nemo me impune lacessit!
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What you originally said (and which I responded to) was this:
Not (after you moved the goalposts) this:
Notice the difference between the highlighted parts? Your original claim (which you now seem to try to run away from and disguise) was that existence must be proven before MAKING CLAIMS. Your new and revised claim is that existence must be proven before PROVING CLAIMS. Those are two very different statements. The former is obviously false (and which I disproved by giving counterexamples), the latter is not obviously false.
I advise you to go back and read (+ understand) what you wrote yourself before lecturing others on reading comprehension.
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That’s post 40…
That one is post 64…
Hmm, that one is post 44…using his own words obviously, anyone is justified in disbelieving the claim because he has failed to “prove the existence of something before making relevant claims about it.”
We any closer to @TheMetrologist even attempting this?
Or he could of course simply give the most compelling reason he has for believing a deity exists outside of the human imagination, this would seem to be the most reasonable starting point for any claim tbh.
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Anyone else find it amusing that he claimed he had objectively verifiable evidence for a deity, then when asked to demonstrate it, he suddenly needs its meaning explained?
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I’d call it backtracking.
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That’s quite generous!
Very generous, after 100 posts has anyone seen one word of explanation that accurately defines which deity he is claiming to believe exists, or why? This seems to typify apologists who come here lately as well, which is bizarre, just give the best reason you think you have, and if no one accepts it so be it.
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After engaging with (and watching from the sidelines when others engage with) an array of different apologists, both here, on other web forums, and live on the street, there are a few patterns that strike me as common:
- The bible bashers: Those who use the Goatherder’s Guide to the Galaxy (a.k.a. the bible or any other so-called holy scriptures) as proof for the existence of their goatherder’s supernatural overlord (“God”). They liberally quote the scriptures, and eventually end up with circular argumentation.
- The selective/opportunistic fact deniers: Those who liberally deny scientific results and methods that go against their beliefs, but opportunistically use any results that don’t immediately and directly oppose their mythology as support for their view.
- The pseudo-intellectuals: Those who wrap their message in a philosophical word salad. They tend to use lots of unecessary words, formulations and superfluous pleonasms, drowning their message in verbose verbosity. This makes it hard to get to the core of what they actually say, or are trying to say. Any clarification requests are met with more verbosity and faff.
- …plus probably a few more that I haven’t caught yet, or forgot about.
Each of them are associated with several formal or informal fallacies. Also, more commonly than not, these patterns are mixed and matched. In general, these patterns are not specific to god botherers, but should also apply to any and all pseudo scientific field, like flat earth, alternative “medicine” (like homeopathy, acupuncture, etc.), holocaust denialism, and so on.
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The sententious pseudo intellectuals, who after delivering their cryptic and nonsensical neoplasm then deride those who respond for not understanding, or even insult them for it:
So engaging was it, that it merited not one single word in response apparently, so he managed to insult one, and evade the other simultaneously.
This next one is interesting, as the quote (out of context) replied to his OP claim for what he described as a commonly held erroneous opinion:
The long lecture on what the word opinion may or may not mean, is not only irrelevant to my assertion, since I very specifically said not merely an opinion in response to his claim it was an erroneous opinion, it does not address his original claim it is a “commonly held erroneous opinion” at all, despite him now galloping away with the goal posts by asserting he used opinion as if it meant well evidenced fact. Do I even need to mention that when I pointed this out I got not one word in response, and he even started a new thread claiming the useful responses in this one had been exhausted, blimey.
Here is my response verbatim:
This was was the reply he gave:
Sigh…do people really imagine they can bluff their way past irrational arguments they make like this? And with an ad hominem fallacy at that, since it is clearly not attempting to specifically address anything I said, but is aimed at me, the attempt to disguise it as a comment on “my game” is fooling no one I hope.
Harsh? All he’d been at this point was dishonest, evasive, and as we see here again painfully and ironically condescending.
Well let’s see if we can un-perplex him then, post 11 and post 40 both make claims about the existence of a deity:
Not at all perplexing to me I must say…
Or at all it seems, since we are now 100 posts in, and have had absolutely nothing beyond bare assertions, erroneous claims, and irrational arguments.
Like accepting claims for supernatural magic without any objective evidence at all?
Logic? Really? He opened with a raft of logical fallacies, and I offered expansive responses highlighting them, the only thing I noticed was his absolute reticence, as he refused to address them at all, beyond insulting me for pointing them out?
Then try a lot less condescension and evasion, and a lot more integrity would be my advise, and get to the point a lot quicker, as the idea that only those who don’t believe in a deity need a paradigm shift in how they view the world, is just an irrational no true Scotsman fallacy at this point.
Well then I shall ask plainly, have I misunderstood his claim in post 40 in response to @CyberLN here:
Or here in post 10, in his response to @SodaAnt:
Dear oh dear, how many posters has he lectured for not reading carefully enough at this point?
Yes you did, more then once, and it’s in your profile of course. Yet you even persist with this falsehood again here:
I have no idea, since it’s your belief a deity exists, not mine, (see your claim in post 40),and you were the one who told @SodaAnt you could demonstrate objectively verifiable evidence for a deity or that it is even possible, here:
Anyway that’s enough for now…
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Let’s just call a spade a spade: it’s semantic wankery.
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I wholeheartedly agree, though I’d add the word dishonest to semantic wankery.