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Originally Posted by thrillobyte What is your doctorate in, Mystic?
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Flimflamology.
It's a real word!!!!!!!!!
Quote:
"I think the challenge that I'll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true."—Mitt Romney, Republican Presidential Candidate and Tenured Professor of Flimflamology at Firepants University.
Actually, your NO God may actually be a God. You really don't get it. Neither view of our Reality (the source of everything including us and our consciousness) can be established. That is why the default is and must remain "We Don't Know." your atheist arrogance notwithstanding. You and I can believe one over the other but that does not change the default. This is so obvious and undeniable that I question the self-awareness of any who do not see it. You cannot dismiss the status of our Reality so cavalierly out of ignorance about ALL of its attributes when its KNOWN attributes are sufficient to rule out No God.
Uhhh ...
If the default position is "We don't know," then how can you say later that "its known attributes are sufficient to rule out no god."
It's like saying "we don't know" one line and then the next saying, "We know there is a god."
I don't get how a doctorate in Agriculture qualifies Mystic to make such sweeping assertions on Biblical beliefs--unless the doctorate in Agriculture had a special emphasis in how to grow new theology.
In truth, I don't care what degree one has when discussing religion.
It's like someone saying, "I have a degree in Mickey Mouse" or "I have a degree in Harry Potter."
All you can do is study the lore - but you can't make a truth claim based on any degree offered on planet earth.
Because you're discussing something that can't be proven - a non-falsifiable event.
It reminds me of those theologian crackpots who will say something stupid like:
"The odds of humans forming by random chance is 3 trillion to one, therefore, it's impossible!"
I never did learn how one can calculate the odds of doing the impossible ... still waiting on that one.
I always thought the odds of doing the impossible were, well, zero?
In truth, I don't care what degree one has when discussing religion.
It's like someone saying, "I have a degree in Mickey Mouse" or "I have a degree in Harry Potter."
All you can do is study the lore - but you can't make a truth claim based on any degree offered on planet earth.
Because you're discussing something that can't be proven - a non-falsifiable event.
It reminds me of those theologian crackpots who will say something stupid like:
"The odds of humans forming by random chance is 3 trillion to one, therefore, it's impossible!"
I never did learn how one can calculate the odds of doing the impossible ... still waiting on that one.
I always thought the odds of doing the impossible were, well, zero?
Just shows you where their heads are at.
I tend to agree in most cases...a person's shopping cart full of degrees is not that germane to whether or not one believes in god. I've know Phd's who were brilliant. I've also know a couple who were what Ed Wynn called himself -- the perfect foot. I've read papers by PhD that are a crock, and others that were exquisite.
Since this thread is actually entitled "Why I Lost My Christian Faith", I continue to evolve in my thinking. Where am I now?
There probably is no god.
The god of the bible (particularly the OT) is certainly not god
There could be a deistic god
No more "You just gotta have faith". Show me hard evidence, or forget it
Uhhh ...
If the default position is "We don't know," then how can you say later that "its known attributes are sufficient to rule out no god."
It's like saying "we don't know" one line and then the next saying, "We know there is a god."
How can it be both?
Uhhh ...
Color me surprised. It only rules out making "No God" the default and requiring proof of God which is the mistaken atheist demand. I know YOU have the intellect to see that if you require proof of God other than what exists, you are implicitly declaring the default as "there is No God," right?
I get that that does not work. You are defining your god as reality, which is not dependent on a god (unless you are begging the question).
I am not defining reality as no god, I am pointing out that what we see as reality is better explained as no improbable complex intelligence just existing.
If we do not know, then logically the positive claim is probably wrong. Go on, guess my birthday.
Logic an probability is atheist arrogance?
Your ignorance of probability is your problem, not mine.
So your assertion without evidence IS begging the question. Again.
I'm watching this one - yet another 'suss' of Mystic that he will deny - as he always does.
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Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
No, because we have the evidence.
Open more wide, I believe you are going to put BOTH feet in.
Like the data we have for natural processes, plus the 7.2 billion data points that complex, intelligent beings simply do not exist for no reason? See, both feet.
No doubt your inappropriate understanding and use of probabilities is causing you to not understand this.
Exactly. It is just like Vic's 'world with evil in it'. That is the empirical evidence. That is the default. Mystic persistently seems to ignore the fact that the real world and what we know about the workings of it is the 'materialist default' that he dismisses, or calls 'God' and just recently tried an ad hoc argument on me that claimed that he is making no claim that he has to validate.
If the Cosmic Mind that he undoubtedly believes in is a not a claim that he has to validate, I don't know what is.
Anyway, over to you.
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Originally Posted by ClaraC
I'm pretty sure that was a joke, meaning "BS".
I think I'm going to have to develop a little icon that posters can use when they're being sarcastic, or are joking.
There do seem to be people who don't get it hanging out on this board.
It was a 'BS' Joke. But Mystic's certificate -waving in hopes to overawe us into accepting that he must be right is not going to work when his attempts to slap the 'God' label on what everyone else calls 'nature' would not fool a child.
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
Flimflamology.
I used the term 'Bamboozlement'. But every poster who has engaged with Mystic has seen exactly the same in the end. And still he thinks (or says) that nobody has sussed or debunked him, and everyone but him is too stupid to understand him.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-07-2019 at 12:29 AM..
If the default position is "We don't know," then how can you say later that "its known attributes are sufficient to rule out no god."
It's like saying "we don't know" one line and then the next saying, "We know there is a god."
How can it be both?
It's a bit convoluted and is based on Godfaith. It's like looking at Life, the universe and Everything and saying 'God'. We ( ...sorry, but I was slapped recently for 'speaking for others' but how weak - and indeed arrogant for me to say "I" as though the corpus of information was all my own idea) look at it and say 'Nature'. We know how it works and we see no 'God'.
Mystic then does a combination of saying that we know nothing about this reality - which absurdity he tried to pass off as 'we don't know everything' (sometimes referring to '95% Unknowns - which is irrelevant to what IS known) and just now came out and said that 'God' is not claiming anything. Which is merely slapping the label 'God' on what everyone else calls 'reality' or 'nature' and thus supposing that this proves his argument.
The flaw in this is an old elephant in the room that Mystic persistently ignores - this 'nature' or 'reality' at least has to be intelligent and forward -planning to nerit the label 'God' rather than 'nature'. And an undisproven possibility will do no more than Vic's 'perhaps God has good reasons'.
Unless the reasons can be supported with some evidence just as this 'Cosmic mind', both arguments fail. They only worked in the first place because this 'Cosmic Mind' was believed in without question as a starting point for the argument. It is absolutely the reversal of burden of proof that Mystic is denying and always has, and is the illogic, and circular -argument fallacy that screws all theist -thinking from the start.
So I don't wonder that you can't follow the logic of Mystic's argument because it has none. It has only Godfaith with flimflam to try to peddle it to others.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Uhhh ...
Color me surprised. It only rules out making "No God" the default and requiring proof of God which is the mistaken atheist demand. I know YOU have the intellect to see that if you require proof of God other than what exists, you are implicitly declaring the default as "there is No God," right?
You have been told this often enough - every time you tried to force 'No God' as a claim on atheism as though we had to prove something.
We do not have to prove anything. The world and how it works has 'No God' that can be shown. Thus 'no God (that we can see) is the default and we do not have to 'prove' anything more than that.
If you want to do more than just call 'nature' "God" and suppose you have disproved atheism or materialism, then YOU have to produce the evidence. We don't have to. The burden of proof on the God claim (even if it is no more than using the label - and you and i both know the 'cosmic mind' claim is far more than that), YOU have to validate the reason why.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-07-2019 at 12:58 AM..
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