To our lurkers and new arrivals

Did I mention this industrial strength toilet abducted me onto His space ship and threatened to launch a rocket from his toilet bowl which would appropriately go up my back end and send me through a portal to Hell? Now. Mind you, that was on condition that I stepped off the 4x7 mattress they made up for me in the cell I was locked in.

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Ah! Ben! McFlea! Also my uncle, somehow (we’re a little inbred in our family. Preserves the royal blood line). Dooooo say “hello” please. And he likes a little bit of old fort Cheddar.

People on the river are happy to share! Rolling (a duub) rolling (a duub) rolling (a duub) on the River!

Yeah they do. It’s an omnipotent industrial strength toilet with rockets he shoots up your butt into the hell portal if you step off the mattress in the cell in the spaceship where they abducted you.

Doesn’t get much plainer than that.

Sherlock - this is my anecdotal evidence. Is it evidence for God? I am being 100 % honest here. Should anyone “take my word for it”?

Theism
noun
belief in the existence of a god or gods, specifically of a creator who intervenes in the universe.

Religion
noun
the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.

So your profile itself makes a claim for adherence to a religious belief, and of course you also presented claims for the efficacy of the gospels, so you did in fact post claims based on religious beliefs you hold.

You don’t get to decide that, and no it’s clearly not irrelevant either, rather it strongly infers a bias in your beliefs, one you seem keen to evade questions on. The people here have heard all this and much more before, so a helpful tip for you, you won’t bully or bamboozle them with evasion and semantics, nor will you sneak flawed weak or irrational arguments passed them unchallenged. There are some well educated and intelligent people posting here, and even those of us like myself who are less so, are not quite as stupid as many of the theists who come here seem to want to believe. The claim to be a theist, the arguments for a deity, and the defence of the gospels, are all arguments and claims about religious beliefs, so pretending you haven’t mentioned religion, just because you were careful to avoid using the specific word, is asinine, not to mention rather dishonest.

Like so many apologist who come here, you seem to think you can fool us into focusing on the lack of belief, and dishonestly pretending it requires evidence or rational justification, by avoiding being specific about what beliefs you actually hold, in the mistaken notion it will justify evading or deflecting pertinent questions about the justification for holding such “religious” beliefs.

No it isn’t, as I explained it highlights that your rationale might be weak, by pointing out an obvious bias in it, as you are demanding a standard for disbelief that you yourself can’t produce for the many thousands of deities you don’t believe exist. Your evasion and avoidance of the question is not an efficacious defence, quite the opposite I’d say.

No, since the choices are neither random or based on personal whim. You asked, I answered, I even did you the courtesy of explaining why and how I arrived at that rationale, more than once, and you clipped the quote there to remove an explanation offered in good faith, this is starting to appear as more and more disingenuous on your part, please don’t abuse my courtesy, as my patience is not limitless. There is nothing arbitrary about the criteria I have set, and it is not remotely biased as I apply the same rationale to all claims and beliefs. The fact some beliefs come off worse under critical scrutiny than others is of no import, it is for those who hold such beliefs to decide if they are happy to set such a low bar, that includes obvious bias. Given many religions have been predicated for millennia on the notion of religious faith, over evidence or proof, that rather speaks for itself.

No, that’s a rather stupid lie, and your dishonesty is starting to wear a little thin now, you have not presented any objective evidence at all, and the arguments you presented for a first cause are firstly riddled with known logical fallacies, and secondly offer nothing to support a deity.

Except I already stated plainly that I apply the same criteria to all claims and beliefs, not just theistic ones or religious apologetics, so again you’re being very disingenuous, you are the one applying a standard to theistic belief you can’t demonstrate you apply to other religious beliefs, and you dismissed a question asking you to do so with handwaving, dishonestly labelling it a red herring.

They can of course, but until i have sufficient objective evidence I cannot know which, and since atheism is not a belief, but the lack of one, I am not making any contrary claims, and again I have stated this as plainly as I know how. I even went to great lengths to explain to you that I withhold belief from all unfalsifiable claims, as I cannot know whether they are true or false, and I explained my rationale for doing so, so I suggest you go back and read it carefully, rather than presenting straw man arguments like this.

If a claim has never once been objectively demonstrated even to be possible, and makes claims for the supernatural that have themselves no explanatory powers, and that contradict known scientific facts, then the extraordinary nature of such claims speaks for itself to any remotely objective observer. However you are free to pretend this is not the case if you want, but I cannot delude myself in such a way. Having failed to convince me of the validity of your beliefs you want to dishonestly pretend this is caused by bias on my part, even though I apply a uniform standard to all claims not just religious ones, and you evidently do not since you dishonestly would not answer the question asked and labelled it a red herring, so I think we are pretty much done don’t you? Unless you can demonstrate something approaching objective evidence for any deity, or that one is even possible, or have the integrity to explain on what objective basis you disbelieve in all the other deities, that does not apply to the deity or deities you do believe are real?

You cannot, it is dishonest semantics, you see by pretending that not literally using the word religion, somehow justifies such a denial, a cursory read of the dictionary demonstrates the dishonesty of such semantics. The defence of the gospels, albeit woefully incorrect and misinformed, is where that claim absolutely falls down of course. The evidence of the posts suggest a Christian of some denomination, now why would anyone I ask myself come here, and declare themselves theist, defend that religion, and then pretend they were not discussing it? To what end is such duplicity being employed, cui bono? Bear in mind that the whole discourse is attempted to reverse the burden of proof, subtly sometimes and then less so on others.

Also bear in mind he has been very careful to avoid defining the deity or deities he believes are real, the Christian deity for example has long been claimed to be both omniscient and omnipotent, if a deity exists that has limitless knowledge to create a message and limitless power to communicate, and further cares that I believe it exists, then on what rationale basis does any theist justify calling atheists biased, for being unconvinced by anecdotal and often anonymous claims from an epoch of ignorance, superstition that science has long since made redundant?

How can I as an atheist set any standard for belief that such a deity cannot sweep aside?

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Are you claiming Sheldon, that “religion” and “theism” refer to the same thing? This is an attempt at a strawman fallacy. I suspect the intent is to replace “God” or “theism” with “religion” in this discussion, that’s step one. Then once that has been achieved, step two, all of the usual attacks (many of which I’d share incidentally) on “religion” can be put forward as an attempt to discredit what was originally said.

I’m not discussing religion but theism and more to the point atheism, if you are confused about the different meanings usually attributed to these terms then take some time to address that.

You don’t get to decide that, and no it’s clearly not irrelevant either, rather it strongly infers a bias in your beliefs, one you seem keen to evade questions on.

I don’t see how any belief can be free from bias. But I do have the freedom to reject lines of questioning when they are simply an attempt to divert the discussion.

You raise many further points and objections, again I suspect this is a diversionary tactic. I asked for an atheist to systematically describe thee analytical process they use to decide if something is or is not evidence for God, if the best response you can produce is to insist we talk about a different question then I rest my case.

What lines of questioning have you answered? You’ve been asked many but it seems you find answering them objectionable.

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What three analytical process did you come up with for all of the other 2,499 deities you dismissed? I need an example so I can do the same for your god.

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I have been following the various threads and have answered your questions. THIS however is a debate FORUM in which BOTH parties participate and present their arguments and evidence.

YOUR claim to “rest your case” may be declared by YOU, and lurkers who read debates will notice that YOU do not present evidence nor address questions.

IT is up to them to decide the validity of your argument. Not you.

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I must remind you that it is I who asked the question, the one that remains unanswered.

You keep making the same logical mistake. You cannot evade my question simply by asking me another question. Clearly you cannot answer, you do not know, and rather than say so, admit “I don’t know” you instead ask me the very question I asked you! Must I tell you how to think?

I am not. I swear.

You’re right. I don’t know. You’re wanting one of atheists here to do the 3 analytical process. I figured you’d already done it with the other deities and ruled them out over your god. You don’t want to help me out?

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Well debates have a thesis usually. Mine was that the atheist cannot explain how they differentiate between evidence for God and not-God. No answer has been forthcoming, I have no reason at all to believe that atheism is anything more than the automatic rejection of proffered evidence.

That is, my thesis has been demonstrated, no atheist has said “I don’t know” no atheist has articulated the steps used to classify evidence as “for God” or “not for God” and rather a lot of atheists have attacked me repeatedly for pointing this out.

Oh, does each poster here need to provide an independent answer for you to find is sufficiently replied to?
This is a cute response and all, but it just doesn’t sate my curiosity about why you won’t answer questions posed to you. Can questions not be asked of you? Is it not avoidance if you consider yours not answered?

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Well start a thread on some theme and ask the question! But this thread, my entry into it anyway, is about me asking the atheists a question, attacking me for not answering diversionary questions is not an answer, it is evasion plain and simple and rather obvious evasion too. It suggest that the atheists here do nothing more than say “Nah, that’s not evidence for God” no matter what one might present to them.

Let me try asking it another way, if the process an atheist (be it in general or you personally) uses to categorize evidence as either “for god” or “not for god” is NOT simply to reject all evidence presented, then how does the actual process differ from that blanket rejection of everything?

Because if the process is indistinguishable from “Nah, that’s not evidence for God” for all evidence, then I can only conclude that is the process, nothing more than a belief that nothing is or can be evidence for a god, so once again that more or less proves my thesis.

Do you think sandals and boots are the same thing, are you suggesting they are not both footwear? Do you know and understand what synonymous means?

They’re synonymous, and yes you are and have been discussing religion, don’t be absurd. Oh unless you arrived at an atheist forum by sheer coincidence, you are getting funnier at least.

Then why did you waste time making dishonest accusations of bias when you admit your own beliefs are biased? NB atheism is not a belief.

I don’t care what biased privileges you think you can afford yourself in a debate here, you lied that the question was a red herring, and evaded it because you knew a candid answer might demonstrate your superstitious beliefs are inherently biased.

Hahahahhahahahhahaha, uh, oh, irony overload! :open_mouth:

Can you systematically describe thee analytical process they use to decide if something is or is not evidence for a Weepadock?

Straw man

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That is a lie.

A bold faced lie.

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My answer to your burning question: I don’t differentiate. I’ve never, ever claimed there is/are no god/s

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My answer exactly. What I have done, which defines me as an atheist is: “I have yet to find sufficient evidence to justify the belief in the claims of theists as to the existence of their particular gods or gods.”

The OP is designed to have a “gotcha” for the writer. his agenda is as transparent as his jocks.

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Oh, you poor child. Apparently, your reading comprehension is worse than your elementary debate tactics. And your woeful sense of self-entitlement is even worse. Please, allow me to correct your misguided delusion…

THIS thread is MY thread, and I started it for the primary purpose of allowing those hesitant “lurker” members a space to introduce themselves and get accustomed to interacting with us. Having finally caught up on reading all of (well, most of) your bullshit duck/dodge/evade posts, it is glaringly obvious you do not fit the criteria that I intended for this thread.

Now, if you recall, I was polite and sincerely welcomed you in here upon your arrival. However, in light of your behavior within this thread, I will now respectfully request you get the fuck out of here and carry your childish evasive games to a different thread. Thank you. This has been a public service announcement.

(Edit for trash removal services.)

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Hey! Damn, Old Man! Are your eyes really getting that bad? There is no “gotchya” intention in my OP. And my jocks are NOT transparent, thank-you-very-much. They are titanium. :triumph: (Wait… Why have you been peeking? :astonished:)