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Hogwash. Lottery numbers are generated with random number generator algorhthyms. They are set up to be RANDOM.
Yes, but within a specific set of numbers that guarantee they will eventually match up to a ticket someone purchased. If people are betting on 7 numbers between 1 and 40, then the generator will pick 7 numbers between 1 and 40. Thus practically guaranteeing that someone will win. If it instead picked 3 numbers between 1 and 1,000,000,000,000,000, then no one would ever win.
A single dollar in MegaMillions purchases a 1 in 175,711,536 chance of landing the jackpot. Do you honestly want to argue that these are odds designed so people can win?
Obviously, since it's happened several times. Whenever you see the jackpot going down, that means someone has won.
Yes. Because at least they are talking about real facts, real science, reality. They may have come to mistaken conclusions, or made errors in their work, but at least they are talking the talk of reality and you can sit down with such people, take them seriously, and work through their errors with them and correct them, or indeed correct your own. You can take people who are wrong seriously if they are at least intellectually honest in the attempt that led to their errors.
You seem to keep forgetting that Dawkins talked about the CASE being serious, not the one making it. If the person is serious, but the argument they're making is unreasonable, then you couldn't call it a "serious case". No matter how you want to slice it, an "unreasonable argument" cannot be a "serious case".
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Discourse is at least possible with such people in other words. They may be wrong, but they can be taken seriously.
Can their CASE be taken seriously, even if they are making an unreasonable argument?
You seem to keep forgetting that Dawkins talked about the CASE being serious, not the one making it.
Linguistically I see no difference. It is the same thing, only without naming specific people. As I keep saying, watch the debate yourself and see that what I am saying is true.
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Originally Posted by KingDavid8
Can their CASE be taken seriously, even if they are making an unreasonable argument?
Yes, I take people who are wrong seriously all the time if they at least made an intellectually honest attempt in the first place. For example I take your erroneous posts about the universe making life inevitable serious even though I think you have it almost exactly backwards. I engage with you on that point and I try to highlight not only that you are wrong but how. You are at least seriously engaged with the discussion and trying to find your way through the facts.
Contrast this to users like Squall-Lionheart on this forum for example. Not only does such a user not engage with the facts, reality or honesty... the user in fact wholesale makes up scientific "facts" that further his agenda. "Facts" that are in fact so far from reality as to be sheer comedy. I do not take people like that seriously at all and do not think they have a serious case for anything.
Linguistically I see no difference. It is the same thing, only without naming specific people.
It's very different. If a person is being serious, but their reasoning is totally flawed and backwards, then you can't say that they are making a "serious case".
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Yes, I take people who are wrong seriously all the time if they at least made an intellectually honest attempt in the first place. For example I take your erroneous posts about the universe making life inevitable serious even though I think you have it almost exactly backwards.
Okay, so since you take ME seriously, would then also say that I've made a "serious case for God"? If there's no linguistic difference, then your answer would have to be yes, correct?
The problem is that if you agree that I've made a "serious case for God", it's going to be difficult for you to argue that I haven't made a "reasonable argument for God", since the two are essentially the same thing. If anything, I'd say "serious case for God" is stronger wording than "reasonable argument for God".
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I engage with you on that point and I try to highlight not only that you are wrong but how. You are at least seriously engaged with the discussion and trying to find your way through the facts.
Once again, you're forgetting that Dawkins talked about the CASE being serious, not the one making it. You can't build a serious case on an unreasonable argument. You make take the case-maker seriously, but you wouldn't take the CASE itself seriously if it was unreasonable.
It's very different. If a person is being serious, but their reasoning is totally flawed and backwards, then you can't say that they are making a "serious case".
As I said before I HAVE been saying it. Which proves I can even if you keep saying I can not. A case may be wrong, but it can still be serious... as in not ludicrous. "serious" is not synonymous with words like accurate.
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Originally Posted by KingDavid8
difficult for you to argue that I haven't made a "reasonable argument for God"
Not difficult at all as that is what I have been arguing. Your entire argument is predicated on a false assumption that this universe was designed to produce life.
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Originally Posted by KingDavid8
Once again, you're forgetting that Dawkins talked about the CASE being serious
I forgot no such thing given I directly addressed that in my post today. If I directly addressed something how could I be forgetting it? Are you trying not to make sense now?
As I keep saying, watch the debate itself and see what he was really saying rather than what you want him to be saying. Really when a news paper quotes one line out of context and then implies something about the speaker that goes against everything you know about the speaker and everything that speaker says and writes.... it might be time to question the accuracy of the news paper report. Also I would recommend you try a dictionary sometime as none of the definitions I can find for "serious" involve accuracy.
se·ri·ous [seer-ee-uhs] adjective
1. of, showing, or characterized by deep thought.
2. of grave or somber disposition, character, or manner: a serious occasion; a serious man.
3. being in earnest; sincere; not trifling: His interest was serious.
4. requiring thought, concentration, or application: serious reading; a serious task.
5. weighty or important: a serious book; marriage is a serious matter.
Synonyms
sober, sedate, staid. momentous, grave.
Antonyms
trivial.
Last edited by Nozzferrahhtoo; 10-13-2011 at 06:16 AM..
Lead on! Explain why the Bible cannot be reasonably accepted as a basically reliable historical document.
No Adam and Eve creation.
We evolved. We were not created as per the Genesis story. Hominid fossil record, DNA, endogenous retroviruses, pseudogenes etc show that
No Flood.
The survival of Egypt's "Old Kingdom", and the total lack of all the massive geological evidence that a worldwide inundation would inevitably leave behind... massive run-off channels, massive water erosion, total disruption of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet layers, and so forth, that's without even touching the sheer lunacy of believing that two of every living creature on the planet, past, present and those yet to be discovered fitting into a small boat.
No Tower of Babel.
No sign of any pre-Babel "common language" in written records, no sign of any post-Babel "confusion of languages" towards the end of the second millennium BCE.
No Exodus.
No trace of the movement of several million people through the Sinai desert, no trace of their supposed encampment at Kadesh Barnea for many years. millions of people don't live in the desert for 40 years and leave no trace.
No Conquest of Caanan.
The Hebrews are Caananites. Their language evolved from Caananite (after the supposed Exodus), and their religion evolved from Caananite polytheism. We know this from Caananite records (notably the Ugaritic texts).
No "Golden Age" of Solomon.
This "great empire" was never mentioned in the records of other surrounding civilizations.
Failure of various Prophecies". Tyre, 40 year desolation of Egypt, Babylon etc.
Herod/Quirinius issue.
Matthew's Jesus was born in Herod's time: Luke's Jesus was born at least a decade later, when Quirinius was governor of the region (as confirmed by various historical sources).
No "Massacre of the Innocents".
There are accounts from Herod's enemies, describing his various "crimes". The Massacre is not among them. It was invented by Matthew to draw a parallel between Jesus and Moses who also supposedly survived an infant massacre, by Pharaoh.
No "zombie invasion of Jerusalem" or "supernatural darkness"
The dead supposedly rose from their graves and wandered about in Jerusalem, and there was supposedly a supernatural darkness for several hours: numerous historians in the vicinity failed to notice these, as did all the gospel authors except one: obviously invented.
Joshua's conquest and destruction of the Canaanite city of Ai.
Extensive archaeological work at the site of Ai has revealed that the city was destroyed and burned around 2400 BCE, which would have been over a thousand years before the time of Joshua. In other words, there was no Canaanite city there for Joshua to conquer.
No Adam and Eve creation.
We evolved. We were not created as per the Genesis story. Hominid fossil record, DNA, endogenous retroviruses, pseudogenes etc show that
Great. How does this falsify the Adam and Eve account?
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Originally Posted by Rafius
No Flood.The survival of Egypt's "Old Kingdom", and the total lack of all the massive geological evidence that a worldwide inundation would inevitably leave behind... massive run-off channels, massive water erosion, total disruption of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet layers, and so forth, that's without even touching the sheer lunacy of believing that two of every living creature on the planet, past, present and those yet to be discovered fitting into a small boat.
Where does the Bible state that the flood was global/worldwide?
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Originally Posted by Rafius
No Tower of Babel.
No sign of any pre-Babel "common language" in written records, no sign of any post-Babel "confusion of languages" towards the end of the second millennium BCE.
No Exodus.
No trace of the movement of several million people through the Sinai desert, no trace of their supposed encampment at Kadesh Barnea for many years. millions of people don't live in the desert for 40 years and leave no trace.
No Conquest of Caanan.
The Hebrews are Caananites. Their language evolved from Caananite (after the supposed Exodus), and their religion evolved from Caananite polytheism. We know this from Caananite records (notably the Ugaritic texts).
No "Golden Age" of Solomon.
This "great empire" was never mentioned in the records of other surrounding civilizations.
Failure of various Prophecies". Tyre, 40 year desolation of Egypt, Babylon etc.
Herod/Quirinius issue.
Matthew's Jesus was born in Herod's time: Luke's Jesus was born at least a decade later, when Quirinius was governor of the region (as confirmed by various historical sources).
No "Massacre of the Innocents".
There are accounts from Herod's enemies, describing his various "crimes". The Massacre is not among them. It was invented by Matthew to draw a parallel between Jesus and Moses who also supposedly survived an infant massacre, by Pharaoh.
No "zombie invasion of Jerusalem" or "supernatural darkness"
The dead supposedly rose from their graves and wandered about in Jerusalem, and there was supposedly a supernatural darkness for several hours: numerous historians in the vicinity failed to notice these, as did all the gospel authors except one: obviously invented.
Joshua's conquest and destruction of the Canaanite city of Ai.
Extensive archaeological work at the site of Ai has revealed that the city was destroyed and burned around 2400 BCE, which would have been over a thousand years before the time of Joshua. In other words, there was no Canaanite city there for Joshua to conquer.
Even if we can accept your assertion here that there is no archeological evidence to verify these events, what's to say that evidence will not eventually be found?
What about all the archeological evidence that apparently supports the Biblical record - should it automatically be discounted?
As I said before I HAVE been saying it. Which proves I can even if you keep saying I can not. A case may be wrong, but it can still be serious... as in not ludicrous. "serious" is not synonymous with words like accurate.
So would you say that I have made a serious case for God? Yes or no?
We both know that if you say that I have made a serious case for God, it's going to be impossible for you to say that I haven't made a reasonable argument for God. Since to any reasonable person, they're the same thing.
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Not difficult at all as that is what I have been arguing. Your entire argument is predicated on a false assumption that this universe was designed to produce life.
Again, that's not an assumption, but a conclusion.
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I forgot no such thing given I directly addressed that in my post today. If I directly addressed something how could I be forgetting it?
Your only address of the point was to say that "serious argument for God" is linguistically the same as "serious person making an argument for God", which it's clearly not. Attempting to make them the same isn't addressing the point, but trying to avoid it. By that logic, a reasonable person making an argument for God is automatically someone making a reasonable argument for God. Since you seem to agree that I'm a reasonable person, and I've made an argument for God, would you then say that this automatically means I have made a reasonable argument for God?
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Really when a news paper quotes one line out of context and then implies something about the speaker that goes against everything you know about the speaker and everything that speaker says and writes.... it might be time to question the accuracy of the news paper report.
So does taking "serious case for a deistic God" and acting as if he's saying "serious person making a case for a deistic God".
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Also I would recommend you try a dictionary sometime as none of the definitions I can find for "serious" involve accuracy.
I'm not arguing the definition of "serious", but whether it modifies "case" in what Dawkins said, or whether it modifies the one making the case.
So would you say that I have made a serious case for God? Yes or no?
In the context of how I and Dawkins mean serious, yes I do. I would not be bothering wasting my time replying to you if the answer was no.
In the context of what you appear to mean by serious.... not so much. I repeat that it is worth reading a dictionary on this matter, and I provided several examples, that calling a case "serious" says nothing of the accuracy or usefulness or credibility of the conclusions of that case... but rather how much credibility you can assign to the person making the case in the intellectual honesty behind their attempt.
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Originally Posted by KingDavid8
Again, that's not an assumption, but a conclusion.
And again simply saying that does not magically make it so. Until you can actually substantiate any of the claims in any way, they only appear to be assumptions. Caling them otherwise repeatedly does not somehow add to them, much as you appear to want it to. Thus far all I see is you declaring things and not substantiating them but instead attempting to support them by declaring other complimentary things (also unsubstantiated) and using one declaration to support the other.
So we can both sit here arguing labels, but it changes the facts not at all: Which is that your declarations are thus far entirely unsubstantiated.
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