This is rich, isn’t it? Since when do you engage the questions I give?
Your reluctance, of course, to engage the questions posited is understandable and wise.
Yes, it seems that Mr. Satyr has some general idea of a Christian argument in mind, and is demanding that I utilize it as an argument in this particular thread.
In that regard, Mr. Satyr reminds me of Blinkin’ in “Men in Tights” who attacks the tree, (thinking it was an enemy) and ends up whittling it down to a post!
Mr. Satyr, you seem to be under the impression that this article of mine was some form of polemic for the Christian God.
It would be an implicit conclusion of this blog, that the Christian philosophical view answers the questions that I posit here, however, this has been merely asserted by me in this particular article.
If you would like to try and answer the arguments I raise in the article, then, please do so. If not, make your posts in some other thread, and perhaps I’ll discuss your irrationality there.
THIS thread is about some form of systematic philosophy which will allow you to consistently adhere to, and utilize your experiences or sense perceptions to make conclusions about this world.
I was hoping that someone would critique my article, and show me its flaws (if any) so that I could perhaps shore those weaker areas up some.
I suppose disappointment is not uncommon at “i love philosophy” however.
from
Shot
Who, knows that pessimism is never kosher, because it probably wouldn’t work anyway…
and, given that… will hold out hope for a true critique of his position.
Because beating around the bush is not my style I challenge you to present your case.
Simply casting aspersions against a general group, you call atheists, who are varied in their inabiltiy to accept childish philosophies as absolute certainties, avoids the fact that you, also, are an atheist and only ascribe to theism selectively.
Again an assertion with no content.
Just calling me irrational does not make me so, it just exposes your own.
If you call me a thief, it would not mean that I have taken anything.
This air of insight is not succesful. Your insinuations already paint you as childish. What remains to be seen is if you have the courage to state your case and show us this childishness or if you will just find excuses to remain certain that you are not.
Therefore I assume that you have a different method of knowing; an alternate epistemology.
Where is it?
I’m listening…
I’ll play along, sense perceptions are not valid or partially so. Present this alternative source of experience and knowledge and then show us how you came to it without sensual perceptions.
Even reading a Book requires eyes and listening to your preacher requires ears.
Although listening to your God may just require hallucinations and an impressionable mind.
Your article is based on a flawed perspective and a stunted psychology.
I aim to expose it in public.
What is dissapointing is you not being able to present a case.
I will play along…sensual perceptions are not the only source of knowledge, present the alternatives.
I’m all ears.
Sir, you have no position. You only believe you do.
You claim, if I’m not mistaken, that ahteists cannot be trusted because they only use sensual perceptions to build knowledge and opinions on reality.
A bold claim since you yourself are an atheist and you’ve come to this conclusion by using sensual perceptions.
Do you believe in Zeus and the Dodecatheon?
Do you believe in Allah?
Do you believe in the Sphaghetti God, lord and master of the universe?
If not then why do you not and are you to be trusted?
I’m going to kindly ask you once more… to please actually read my article before you try to critique it.
From
Shotgun…
who seriously doubts that his request will be adhered to
Your fear is natural.
I read it.
A bunch of accusations and declaratinos with no substance.
“God Haters”?!!! That was precious.
How can you hate what isn’t there.
Some atheists hate Christians but that’s because of their simplicity and how they try to spread their virus and because in the name of their God they’ve conducted attrocities.
Now state your case.
You imply, in your essay, that there’s another source of experience and knowledge.
And it is…?
Too many exclamation points. Other than that, I think you’re basically correct, but you may have covered a little too much ground. This would be a great read for a Christian that was just beginning to encounter skeptical argument, to give them several threads of inquiry to pursue. I wouldn’t bother responding to criticisms from the God-hating-atheists, since they really aren’t a part of your audience, and are unlikely to have anything worthwhile to contribute.
Yes. Just ignore dissent. Especially if it makes a good point.
I would assume a representative of the one and true faith would have thought all of these concepts through beforehand.
Too much benefit of the doubt.
They usually run at this point. All but the extreme delusional. I was hoping he were one of them.
Dissent from what? He’s not running fom office as far as I can tell. Yes, if he wants to write a polemic directed at Christians explaining how best to talk to aggressive, God-hating atheists, he should probably ignore said atheists when they appear to rag on him. Like I said, depends on your audience. I’d say the same thing otherwise, too. God knows there’s plenty of “LOL Christianity sux amirite” BS around here, that isn’t exactly courting the opposite view.
You don’t have to be a Christian to see that he has given no reasons why the problems with logic and empiricism are a problem for one group of people and not another. If a Christian wants to say that experience is no basis for truth, and logic is inherently flawed, then fine, whatever. But if the Christian says this, and then goes on to say that this is a problem specifically for me, the atheist, and not for him, then I’d want to hear why…after which I’d consider responding to the critique. I mean, for fucks sake, you can take his whole argument and just replace ‘believer’ with atheist and atheist with believer, and the article would not say any less. I’ve never meet people so obtuse in my life. You guys are just sad…just utterly feeble and pathetic. I can imagine a christian being taught to just scream out rape whenever they enter a conversation with atheists. I bet ucci would say that’s some good advice for theists too…
Ya just can’t trust anyone!
Not a Christian, not an atheist, not anyone!
Erlir,
His essay could use a section explaining why the perceptual problems aren’t there for theists like they are atheists, sure. The rest of your post is exactly the kind of “I can barely contain my hatred and contempt for theists” type of bullshit that lead me to advise him against responding to your kind in the first place.
By the way, you’ve got good responses in your sensory experience thread waiting for you if you have the stones. Funny how the “Theists are so pathetic” types are the same ones that mysteriously vanish just when the conversation is getting good.
Uccisore,
You are pathetic precisely because you think it was a good essay. It’s a terrible essay. And you just pointed out why. You know it’s a bad essay, and yet you say it’s alright. There is no part of his essay that is by any measure correct. His description of deductive and inductive logic is just flat out ignorant. His claim that Darwinists run into the liars paradox is pathetic. His descriptions of the problems surrounding empiricism are just sad. It’s a terrible fucking essay. It’s clealry aimed at morons with no more than a 4th grade education. It reminds me of the new movie Expelled, with Ben Stein in it. It’s marketed to borderline retarded people.
Had Shotgun advised his target audience to simply scream out “rape” whenever they encounter an atheist I would respect him more if for nothing else but the honesty in his motives.
I don’t think Christians are pathetic. I don’t hate theists. I think the makers of Expelled are pathetic. I think the people who liked that movie are pathetic. I think Shotgun and his essay are pathetic. I think you are pathetic for thinking that he’s “basically correct,” apart from all the exclamation points, off course… :-&
Shotgun wants the young idiotic feeble minded Christians to stay so. You, off course recognize his motives, which is why you applaud him…not his essay, because his essay is clearly shit. It’s his motives that you applaud. And this is why I think you’re pathetic.
I’ve seen who I’m dealing with and where the discussion will lead, and I’m just not interested. What’s this got to do with anything? How is this not a terrible essay, and shotgun and yourself not pathetic? Why even bring it up?
That’s not the problem I have with this essay, even though this is a problem in the essay. The problem is the motives behind the essay. The problem is this motivation as a phenomenon in the religious world. The problem is the priest who recognizes what shit the arguments are, but applauds and endorses anyway because it will keep idiotic feeble minded theists idiotic, feeble, and most importantly, theistic.
[/rant]
Dissent from the thesis!
He isn’t writing about how to deal with ‘god-haters’, he’s writing about how they’re liars. His essay is, in a nutshell: “Atheists are liars, and I’ll give a few reasons for why I think so. To any atheists who disagree with me: refer to the thesis.” There’s a problem here.
Don’t court the opposite view indeed. You know it was reading the bible which made me denounce christianity, right?
This is truly a bad “argument” - this essay is. The problems are so fundamental that it is difficult to critique.
But, for one thing, someone has a very poor understanding of the theory of evolution. I not even sure who it is - shotgun, or whoever it is that he has been talking to.
"The strongest, smartest, and most cunning creatures survive, right? Suppose the cheetah, camouflages herself in the surrounding environment, so that she can more easily attack the nearby Gazelle? What is this, but a deception on the part of the Cheetah? “It’s ok over here Gazelle; it is safe; there is no danger!”
Utilizing deception as a means to get ahead is nothing new to this world, especially if you believe in Evolution. (3)"
Firstly, it is the best adapted that survive, and not as individuals, but as a species. I’m not sure how you are measuring strength, but an elephant is stronger than a peacock, yet both have survived as species, and this is accounted for in any coherent rendering of evolution.
But, more disturbingly, you seem, shotgun, to have some sort of moral problem with the means by which cheetahs earn a living. To somehow equate human dishonesty with the “deception” that most carnivorous animals utilise is, well, comical and bizarre. Are you saying that carnivores are dishonest? Or that atheists are predatory? Or what?
As for greed among churches, there are many well-documented cases of fraud by so-called religious groups. No one needs to provide an example to anyone with access to Google. I will agree with a point that you did not make - that it is ludicrous to indict all religious groups for the unethical actions of a few. But it remains a point that you did not make.
“Christianity was the bloodiest religion ever. More people died from Christianity, than any other religion! Look at the Crusades or the Witch Trials!”
No Christian would deny the reality of the Crusades or the witch trials. The unbeliever in this case, is appealing to experiences that none of us have ever experienced, but all present (generally) accept as actually having taken place."
This is a specious argument, one that I am surprised you didn’t give a more obvious and effective answer to, shotgun. That the Christian religion is responsible for death of sinners and infidels is obvious, but also defensible for those who have read the OT. Death as punishment for sins against God is common and is prescribed all over Exodus. It’s just foundational to the religion. Christianity is not alone in this.
Moreover, atheists would do better to compare the violence of the Church to secular violence. That would be the most apt comparison, unless that atheist were also a Buddhist, for instance.
“The unbeliever has no way of providing a valid criteria for his or her own experiences, without begging the question, or being completely arbitrary. Because of this, no Christian should grant to them, the validity of their own sense perceptions! If the unbeliever cannot tell which of his experiences are true, and which are false, then the Christian should not grant them this right.”
But what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Without some Cartesian “God-wouldn’t-deceive-me” clause, you have forfeited your right to say stuff like:
“Suppose the cheetah, camouflages herself in the surrounding environment, so that she can more easily attack the nearby Gazelle?” -
For how would you know this if not through observation? In fact, I typed “But what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Without some Cartesian ‘God-wouldn’t-deceive-me’ clause, you have forfeited your right to say stuff like:” before I looked for an example - such an example is necessarily present in any essay that actually attempts to say anything. Doubtless there is a better example in your essay - but I don’t need one to make my point.
“Let’s say that we grant them, that they really are seeing a piece of white chalk.”
Indeed you would do well to grant them this, if you expect that we should grant that you have actually read what you claim to have.
"The classic deductive example would be:
Socrates is a man
All men are mortal.
Socrates is mortal!
But you see, here, in order for this to be valid, we have to know that ALL men are mortal! Unless the God-hater has personally experienced that ALL men are mortal, then he or she cannot make this argument! They can never know that all men are mortal, until they themselves die! (But then, they wouldn’t be around to argue anymore! Lol)"
Indeed, we do not have to know anything about truth of the premises of this argument to know that the deduction is valid. It is just plain incorrect to say otherwise. You would do well to know the first thing about logic before you critique it. Perhaps more to the point, my understanding is that Christians actually do know that all men are mortal, whereas the atheist does not. Either way, I cannot see how dying brings this knowledge. Perhaps I am missing something.
"Suppose they try using inductive inferences instead?
Every crow I have seen so far, was black, therefore, the next crow I see, will very probably be black.
Unfortunately the unbeliever cannot show that the required assumption here is certain, or even probably true! (6)"
You seem to know as much about induction as about deduction - the unbeliever, as well as the believer, knows just that - that this is probably true.
“I have shown 1. that it is unlikely they are telling the truth; 2. That they cannot know the difference between true perceptions and false ones without begging the question; 3. Even if they could, they could not make valid assumptions based on these experiences (even if they were true!)”
You have shown nothing of the kind. You have no way of knowing if a given atheist is telling the truth about their views - more to the point, you haven’t shown how this could be determined. Also, you have not shown how a theist can know true from false perceptions - at this point, your claim remains a straw man. I will admit that I do not understand point 3.
Shotgun,
I read your entire OP. I would like to say you wrote this in intellectual dishonesty but I can’t. There is nothing intellectual about it. Don’t ever submit this sort of thing in any college course for which you expect credit. It would be torn apart by atheist and theist alike. It isn’t that your answers are wrong (most of them are), it is that you don’t even have a grasp of the questions.
Either address what others have asked of you or go play stick ball. 
" I would like to say you wrote this in intellectual dishonesty but I can’t. There is nothing intellectual about it."
Ouch!
That’s gonna leave a mark.
Ooch.
(Wish I had thought of that.)
Oucher!
Yes, we have come to the conclusion Christians are hypocrites that don’t want to live in the real world…
However, what makes Atheists think they are beyond that…?
I think athiests are just as unintelligent and ignorant as Christians and other so called “religions”.
At the end of the day, we’re all the same. Just because we have different physical features, we all act in the same manner. We only care about ourselves. We suffer, and because we suffer we are blinded by it.