July 2008 Screwballs

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Mormons visiting Rayado and I for their last visit were getting pounded on the translation of Genesis 1:1 by Joseph Smith. (Rayado did great there.) Now we always serve them drinks when they come in and one of them had some blue gatorade and said this:

"Well let me put it this way. If the prophet told me this blue gatorade was red, I'd believe it."

[Kelp]

Guess you'd have to give the Jesuits a screwbie then too, "We should be prepared to believe that that which appears to us to be white is actually black if the Church says it is."

[Mountain Man]

A goldmine of stupidity found;


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkYaC5Mg48A

YouTube? Yeah, that whole website is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to stupidity.

[Mountain Man]

Can someone tell me what the heck this is? Please?

I was trying to figure that out myself.

[Mountain Man]

Apparently Earl is too cheap to buy it himself.

Nah, he's probably setting himself up so he can say, "Holding refused to send me a copy of his book knowing that I'd rip it to shreds."

[jpholding]

Guess you'd have to give the Jesuits a screwbie then too, "We should be prepared to believe that that which appears to us to be white is actually black if the Church says it is."

Ignatius of Loyola wasn't saying that as an epistemic guideline for belief, however.



And, Dumplin' Dumbash on why he responds to me, and why he therefore has Dunning Syndrome:

The "good" reason is that my goal is to target Christianity at a level that matches where the bulk of Christian thought resides, and the vast majority of Christians (regardless of their personal intellectual development) engage Christianity at the level of child-like faith, as in "suffer the little children to come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Holding is actually a pretty good instance of this type of Christian experience; for all his self-styled scholarship, when it comes time to apply what he has learned, it's back to the grade school playground.

The selfish reasons are a bit easier to describe: my Tekton posts get a lot of readers, and whenever Holding posts some new screed against me on his own web sites, I start seeing the phrase "evangelical realism" showing up in the search engine queries in my blog stats. Holding avoids linking to me directly, so people have to do the search, which drives up my Google rating-another benefit.

Also, I like to kick back a little on the weekends, and the Tekton posts are kinda low-hanging fruit, if you know what I mean. The name calling and bluster only make it easier to reply, since they're irrelevant noises. And it's interesting to work with what Holding thinks are the important points. I already know why I think the trilemma is rubbish, but if I want to address the way Christians think about it, it helps to have a Christian who will not only give me the original material to critique, but who will keep responding to my posts. In his replies Holding is either going to give me more material I can use for my blog, or he's going to give up and just make faces at me. He might even teach me something I didn't already know.

Either way, it's a fun and easy post for me, especially since Holding has already committed himself to the position that I'm "stupid." If it sucks to have someone point out the flaws in your apologetic, it's got to really suck to have an apologetic that even an idiot can find flaws in.

[jpholding]

Reader sends:

http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/20...aniel-dennetts
.html

[Truth be Told]

Reader sends:

http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/20...aniel-dennetts
.html

What really gets to me is the repetetitive redudancy the blog authors delve into with the majority of their posts. The complete ignorance of evolution and peddling of Intelligent Design is also incredibly disturbing. I'd be curious if anyone of that blog actually has credentials in evolutionary biology and knows and practices the scientific method. Otherwise, who cares if Intelligent Design is different or completely alike to Creationism? They're both unfalsifiable, untestable, unmeasurable, and in general inconceiveable. They don't help provide explanations for nature, so much as they provide excuses for the supernatural.

[Kabane52]

What really gets to me is the repetetitive redudancy the blog authors delve into with the majority of their posts. The complete ignorance of evolution and peddling of Intelligent Design is also incredibly disturbing. I'd be curious if anyone of that blog actually has credentials in evolutionary biology and knows and practices the scientific method. Otherwise, who cares if Intelligent Design is different or completely alike to Creationism? They're both unfalsifiable, untestable, unmeasurable, and in general inconceiveable. They don't help provide explanations for nature, so much as they provide excuses for the supernatural.

Atheism Sucks was a lot better. As soon as AID took its place half the blogs were about ID. Also, are we nominating Dennett or AID?

[fritleyfrisp]

OK, over on another forum a user called Charles27 is criticising another user for ad homming Richard Dawkins because he wouldn't debate William Lane Craig. So, he tries out an ad hom of Craig. You've got to read it in full, it's a classic.

Two can play that game. Unlike Dawkins, I had heard of Craig, but I looked up his track record. Craig has never had what many of us would call a proper job. After taking five (yes, 5) degrees, he never seems to have worked anywhere but in a theological college. I’m inclined to agree with RD that a public discussion would do more for WLC’s CV than for his own.

When the other user mentions that Craig is an authority on the resurrection he responds with

Anyway, to suggest Craig is an authority of the resurrection of Jesus is one of the most farcical statements ever made by a religionist – and there is a lot of competition for that award!

You just can't make it up.

[mig_killer2]

OK, over on another forum a user called Charles27 is criticising another user for ad homming Richard Dawkins because he wouldn't debate William Lane Craig. So, he tries out an ad hom of Craig. You've got to read it in full, it's a classic.





When the other user mentions that Craig is an authority on the resurrection he responds with



You just can't make it up.

Can someone inform me as to why theological colleges don't count as "proper employers"? do they not file with the IRS or something?

[TolkienFan]

Here's one from ENeGMA in the Honor and Shame Culture thread:

Why should I believe the inerrant word of God, the living salvation of the whole of humanity, would be transmitted through a culture that I can't even begin to understand?

The notion an honor or shame culture seems, quite frankly, totally stupid to me, biased as I am by our modern culture. Their moral judgments don't align with my own, at all.

And yet I'm expected to take this work, the Bible, at face value, even though I'm told repeatedly that I can't understand it because I don't understand the cultural context.

This doesn't begin to make sense to me. I'm not really that interested in learning the history of the ANE, or about Judaic culture around the time of Jesus. It's probably several hundred places back on the list of topics on which I'd want to read a book on. That's not to say I'm totally uninterested in it, merely that I'm not going to dispense the effort necessary to fully understand the culture of the Bible and, aside from Biblical scholars, who does?

Even the armchair apologist, who references the difference in culture, can't honestly tell me he or she really knows what it was like to have been alive in that time period, I suspect.

But the tacit admission of these apologists is that the Bible can only be understood in terms of that context, and that my attempts to shoehorn it into some modern understanding are just misguided.

Well that may be so, but all it insures is that the Bible will be one of a vast number which I will never understand, which doesn't say much at all for its supposed power.

[Truth be Told]

Atheism Sucks was a lot better. As soon as AID took its place half the blogs were about ID. Also, are we nominating Dennett or AID?

I don't even know if I would say it was "better". Whenever I had the chance to point out Frank Walton's ignorance of evolution, I always found myself blocked or censored. That's not a good way to start a campaign especially if it's one set up against a group like the Retard Responders.

[fritleyfrisp]

Can someone inform me as to why theological colleges don't count as "proper employers"? do they not file with the IRS or something?

I was amused by that but more amused at him deliberately trying to make an ad hom attack on him by saying he has 5 degrees. I can see it now

Craig: The Kalam Cosmological argument is strong evidence for the existence of a creator

Charles27: What would you know, you've only got 5 degrees, you've never worked in Wal Mart and Richard Dawkins refused to debate you. Naaaaaaar.


Oh how I would love to see the look on Craig's face the day someone insults him for having 5 degrees.

[Kabane52]

Nomination to Desertphile for responding to a debate challenge on the resurrection with a link to Kersey Graves.