August 2008 Screwballs

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Who's his heroes? Mithra, Dionysus, himself?

The last one. There isn't anyone else after all.

[Mountain Man]

Yea, he really does mention Mithra regarding the virgin birth. (it's a quote from someone else, but it is there - and brings up Dionysus himself.)

Edit: Even better, these aren't argued, he just throws out a string of names.

And he wonders why he has no credibility around here.

[LilPunkishOfTerror]

On top of that, John argues (p332) that Jesus did not claim to be the Son of Man, and uses Mark 8:38 as an example (!)

Mark 8:38
For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.

And I'm left going "HUH?" Follow the pronouns, John. (Edit - oh, and connect it with places in the NT where Jesus says he will come with the Father's glory, etc)

[MarcusAndreas]

I nominate saynotojesus.tk once again.

[jpholding]

And he wonders why he has no credibility anywhere.

Fixed it for you.

[jpholding]

- I think 'religulous' is a portmanteau of 'religion is ridiculous'.

It is; he has said so in a couple of interviews.

[Manwë Súlimo]

It is; he has said so in a couple of interviews.

Oh, isn't he just so incredibly clever?

[Mountain Man]

On top of that, John argues (p332) that Jesus did not claim to be the Son of Man, and uses Mark 8:38 as an example (!)
And I'm left going "HUH?" Follow the pronouns, John. (Edit - oh, and connect it with places in the NT where Jesus says he will come with the Father's glory, etc)

I assume his argument is that Jesus is referring to "the Son of Man" in the third-person and therefore couldn't possibly be talking about himself. And, yes, it's a dumb argument.

[Challenger Grim]

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/28/ra...ar-hero-movie/

Ok, that's it. I'm convinced now there is no God.






Just kidding. There's plenty of time for Ratner to be struck by lightening.

[Challenger Grim]

DD should earn an entire thread topic on this clunker. (where would we start one JP?)

http://blog.evangelicalrealism.com/2...nostics-of-all

Let’s take Colson’s claim that all thought begins with faith, and compare it to the principle that the truth is consistent with itself. Is it possible to know what the truth is? If all thought begins with faith, and if reason always has to rest on faith, then the answer is “No, we can never really know the truth.” A conclusion is only as reliable as its premises, and if our premises necessarily are things we believe just because we believe them—if there’s no objective means of determining whose faith corresponds to absolute, objective truth— then there is no such thing as knowledge of the truth. There’s not even partial or approximate knowledge of the truth. The most we can do is to build up a “worldview” in which our conclusions are reasonably consistent with some arbitrary set of premises, without any assurance that any of it has anything to do with real life.

Now, contrast that with the principle that truth is consistent with itself. Is this a principle we have to take on faith alone? No, because both experience and reason teach us that this must be the case: if the truth is not consistent with itself, if truth contradicts itself and has conclusions that have no predictable relationship to the premises, then reason itself is impossible. The fact that we can reason effectively, and that correct reasoning produces reliable results in real-world experience, confirms that we have a premise that is both valid and relevant to the real world.

From this premise of self-consistency, all other conclusions can be derived. We know that “evidence” (i.e. the truth that we discover in the real world) is superior to faith alone (i.e. things we believe even though we can’t find any real-world evidence to support them) because the evidence already is part of the real-world truth, whereas the faith is defined by its failure to show up in real life, or in other words, by its failure to be consistent with the truth. If we could find that real-world connection, the true evidence that was consistent with what we believe, we wouldn’t be calling it faith, we’d call it the conclusion that was most consistent with the evidence.

He just doesn't get it...

[mig_killer2]

StutteringDave's apologetics can certainly use a little work, but I found this comment by the user "Smaugfrost" deliciously screwball worthy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEbQuLrt80k

now, Stutteringdave is comparing the likelyhood of the existence of George Washington with the apostles.

There really is no possibility that George Washington NEVER existed, considering physical evidence, many documented witnessed accounts, contemporary accounts from outside verified sources, signatures on the founding documents of the US, contemporary paintings of his likeness, battle records and documents, etc.

The evidence for the apostles:

The bible. That's it.

Written 30 to 70 years after the fact, by anonymous authors with contradictory and conflicting details.

[jpholding]

DD should earn an entire thread topic on this clunker. (where would we start one JP?)

http://blog.evangelicalrealism.com/2...nostics-of-all

He just doesn't get it...

It's particularly telling that over half of his arguments end up with him riding that tired "God doesn't show up in real life, waaaah" hobbyhorse. If he gave it up along with the emotional wrench it provides needed to dazzle his 17 readers, he'd have virtually nothing left.

Unfortunately, as a fundy atheist he still thinks his model of God as dumbwaiter reflects some sort of exgetical reality.

[jpholding]

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=251255

This thread on IIDB about the Elisha-bears story, like most threads there, is good for some yuks, but only a little Gold:

When I was a little kid and had done something wrong my father would trot out this story to show that God will kill kids, too.

I was always puzzled how 2 bears could manage to kill 42 youths. Didn't they try to run? Or were they trapped at a dead end? Paralyzed with fear? The bears must have been extremely worn out after all of this killing also.

[Challenger Grim]

It's particularly telling that over half of his arguments end up with him riding that tired "God doesn't show up in real life, waaaah" hobbyhorse. If he gave it up along with the emotional wrench it provides needed to dazzle his 17 readers, he'd have virtually nothing left.

Unfortunately, as a fundy atheist he still thinks his model of God as dumbwaiter reflects some sort of exgetical reality.

I quoted the Copenhagen Interpretation to him as proof that truth may not always be "consistent with itself" and he says:

Yes, I’m familiar with Copenhagen, but it doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. What Copenhagen means is that there are some aspects of the real world which are poorly understood and counter-intuitive, and the only way we can ever hope to understand those things is by examination of the real world. This has nothing to do with the Christian/postmodern notion that there’s no such thing as truth and that everybody believes whatever they want to just by faith. Quite the contrary in fact, since faith alone is less likely to produce the true explanation of why the evidence behaves the way we observe it to behave.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

I quoted the Copenhagen Interpretation to him as proof that truth may not always be "consistent with itself" and he says:

Please explain this further....