Really Rational?[moved to AvT]
Offline I'd like to paint the big picture here. This site is called 'rational,' in response to God and theism. The fact is that belief in God is in fact irrational, but wouldn't the One who created us and is larger and more powerful than anything we could imagine transcend all 'rational' thought?
This, of course, is a hard concept to swallow, and why not? The problem with most disbelief is that we often try to make God 'believable' and put Him in a box. He is often judged by man's laws and restrictions, which reduce him to an unbelievably lower level than what He actually is.
Another major cause of disbelief is the fact that it liberates people of guilt and judgement. If there's no God, that's an amazing convenience because there's no reason for behavior modification or following any kinds of guidelines. Though most people will willingly follow the laws of an institution or state, the laws required of those who faithfully follow God and His Word are much harder to believe and follow.
This is by no means a judgement on those who don't believe in God. It's only our own selfishness and sinful nature that causes us to refuse God's existence. God can show us the Truth, but we have to be open to It.
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We get this a lot for some reason.
If you do return, I'd like to learn more about the phrase "my doctrine is strictly from the Bible." Where do the specifics of your ceremonies come from? For example, is there a direct prescription for how to conduct a wedding or a Christimas service?
I don't about how it fits into the pantheon, but the best word I've ever been introduced to on this board is "twatwaffle."
I think you're on to something here Conor. Now we need an artistically inclined RRSer to draw us the official RRS Super Friends Pantheon Poster.
I did not particularly, at this point, expect our foolish interlocutor to respond with much, but this is amazing.
-Notice how he does not "respond" to anyone's arguments. That's "respond" in the sense that I write replies to your arguments based on reasoned discourse, pointing out the errors and such.
-Notice how, in this technique, he does not actually respond to my argument, rather, he simply repeats the proposition that I refuted in my previous post.
-Notice how damningly typical he is of the theistic mindset: He comes in, announces his intention to proselytize, whilst simultaneously claiming special knowledge whose gleaning requires one to suspend their intellectual faculties!
-Notice how he makes multiple special pleading fallacies:
(a) He claims special knowledge of very specific metaphysical truth claims, or rather Truth Claims,
-Notice how, when I demonstrated that his argument contained an internal contradiction, he simply retreated into the statement that he "couldn't articulate it". My response should have been rather obvious from the start: Of course you cannot articulate it, you idiot! I had just demonstrated to you that it contained an internal contradiction
-Notice he commits a third special pleading fallacy, he claims to have special knowledge of these metaphysical Truth Claims, while forgetting that precisely the same ridiculous claims (again apparently requiring one to suspend one's reasoning faculties) can be employed to cover virtually any religious dogma or simply any vapid proposition via which incoherent words like "supernatural" can be worked into the equation. He hasn't provided any justification for what precisely makes his claim different from all the other competing absurdities (which he rejects) such that his claim is valid. Ironically, such attempt at justification would be inherently self-refuting, as it would affirm the necessity of reasoned argument to demonstrate a proposition. Yet I had just demonstrated this and he could not respond.
-He simply repeats an argument that I refuted in the previous statement. Firstly, he made an immediate conflation between reason and logic, whereas the former simply represents critical thinking, the latter is the anteceding structure which is not a way of knowing unto itself (that would be experience), but rather, antecedes knowledge! It is surely completely meaningless to speak of some sort of entity or concept being outside such structure. Such a claim is inherently self-refuting. Notice that when I call him out on such a statement being meaningless, he simply repeats that he cannot articulate it, hence refuting his own argument.
Honestly, it's not even funny anymore.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Okay...just to summarize...the Official RRS Super Friends Pantheon:
Part 1: Assorted Creators
1. The Invisible Pink Unicorn (...happy, triften?)
2. Russel's Teapot
3. The Flying Spaghetti Monster
4. Rufus, the Lactose Intolerant Teddy Bear
5. The Almighty Purple Snarfwidget who can fart a full-sized Lamborgini out his ass (Question: is the Snarfwidget at all related to Giant Purple Spotted Snorkelwackers? Just asking.)
6. He/She/It/They-Who-May-Or-May-Not-Be-Kelhain who claims either to be or not to be the Supreme Being
Part 2: Creatures of unutterable evil
1. Elsie, the Borden Milk Cow
And we'll keep the word "twatwaffle" around until we can figure out what to do with it. Deal?
Conor
________________________________________________________________________________________
"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII
"But it should!"--Me
Todd, The Temperamental Twatwaffle
Alphonso, The Asymetrical Asshat
No. We are capable of imagining a multitude of real things which defy everyday experience, such as hypercubes (a moving, growing, or shrinking cube seen as if the time period had occured within an instant), hyperspaces (space with more than 3 dimensions, known as manifolds), etc.
Not only that, but there are the Godel transfinite set theorems which prove that for any uncountable set there is a set whose members cannot be enumerated by that set. In lay terms, for every infinity there is a still larger infinity. So, using logic, we are perfectly capable of dealing with infinities.
Furthermore, you have just admitted that you cannot imagine the properties of your god. Thus, you cannot imagine your god. So what exactly are you believing in? To me, it seems you believe in a name.
Logic is not created by us. It is derived from observations about the way reality itself works. However, lets say God created logic:
Logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true. Since God created logic, logic is dependent on God. Since logic was created by God it is not necessary, but rather, contingent on God. Since principles of logic are contingent on God, God could arrange things so that a square circle could come into existance. This is a contradiction by definition.
The definition of a square is a shape with 4 sides. A circle has a transfinite number of sides. Since these definitions counteract eachother, whatever God created would then be called something else. Therefore God would not have created a square circle.
Thus, logic cannot be dependent on God. God must therefore be logical in nature. Since the assumed definition of God is irrational and therefore illogical, we can safely say that this God is only an idea.
Since we have only one life, we are accountable to those who would have us destroyed. We feel guilty for ill treatment of our peers, who also only have one life whether they realize it or not, as we do not wish any harm to befall us and our one and only life.
Indeed, they are not only harder but unreasonable. Just because something is hard doesn't mean we should do it. I think it would be hard to kill myself and then win a million dollars playing the lotto. Should I try to do that?
I say these rules are unreasonable because they are merely commands with no rational given behind them. Why shouldn't people masturbate? It's medically proven to be beneficial to health. It lowers blood pressure, improves mental stability, etc. What's wrong with gay marriage? God doesn't like it isn't a good enough reason. In order to have a good reason for something, it must be shown that it is detrimental to oneself or others in a scientifically provable way. Hoo-doo doesn't count, such as "the bible says." You may was well say "because we say it is, so there. Nanny nanny poo poo."
We are open to it, but if there is a God he hasn't come through for us. We're waiting.
We should get a new thread for these. I smell action figures.
Done.jesusFREAK41 wrote:
Think you can suspend your delusion for just long enough to apply your clever "shelf life/translation" argument to that plagiarized messiah story you folks seem to love ?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell