And just to show you how awful this is…
I’d rather write up a direct reply rather than having to write in the gist of the original statement to which I was replying. At least that way you can’t think I was taking anything you said out of context.
The trouble with writing like this is that it inherently stifles the creative process by forcing you to respond to only what I’ve said without adding any true ideas of your own. “Taking things out of context” happens every time you quote something simply because you cannot quote everything. If you simply paraphrase or respond in a way that clearly puts across everything someone said, not only does it help the cohesiveness of your writing, it also forces you to provide a synopsis of the writing itself, so you can’t quote out of context. The first quote you provided is only a small part of a paragraph on the subject, and it is intellectually disingenuous to pick and choose which parts of an argument you’re going to refute and ignore the rest.
Besides, the quotes are in bold, stand out pretty easily, and if they’re so annoying just overlook them.
Just so you know, you’re misquoting from a stylistic perspective as well as the creatively stifling perspective. Since the quotes are in bold, there is absolutely no need to put quotes around them.
Here you have Dawkins saying that he’d search for a naturalistic means in light of a miracle, odds are a lot of other atheists (and religious people for that matter) would probably do the same thing, and you flat out declared that what I surmised from his statement wasn’t true at all. If you’d only spoken for yourself it would’ve been a different matter, but you seemed to imply that atheists are thinking in lockstep, and moreover that they all think in your personal brand of lockstep. That’s where I began to wonder about some sort of possible delusion of grandeur on your behalf.
As to Dawkins and Atheists as a group, I wrote,
Good for Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers, it’s fun to read their stuff, but I don’t think many atheists would call these people the leaders of all atheists. We don’t have an establishment.
You’ve ignored the what I said in favor of what you wanted me to say. I know and have stressed repeatedly that atheists are not in any way a collective outside of a label. There are atheists of all different flavors, but all of us have a few things in common. We have no religion, if we have heard about religion we are either skeptical/apathetic or both, and none of us have a collective nor do we recognize a collective for all atheists. In many parts of the world, Atheists suffer for expressing even innocent skepticism. Atheists often have other terms for themselves apart from atheist, and I think they should be allowed those terms. If it makes things more comfortable for you, I’ll start branding myself with an alternative label instead of an atheist. Since Mariano already has stolen, “True Freethinker” I’m going to start calling myself An MechaChristian. As the official spokesperson for the An MechaChristians, we really don’t give a shit about what other atheists write, and can generalize about them because we’re absolutely sure most other An MechaChristians don’t give a shit either and they’re the only ones we An MechaChristians can trust. Everyone else is a servant of the Anticrutch.
A huge portion of the Bible takes place within a 2000 year span? Uh, okay…well, for the sake of argument, let’s just assume that you’re right (I was always under the impression that there was about a 3000-4000 year time span in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, but I could be mistaken) and then count up the number of miracles to the number of years. You’ll see that even with your figures miracles are few and far between.
2000 years is two-thirds or one-half of 3000 or 4000 years, or at least last time I checked. Here I’ll check again just to make sure things haven’t changed. Yep, here, I’ll just quote myself to make sure I’m not taking things out of context.
2000 years is two-thirds or one-half of 3000 or 4000 years.
I talked to my lawyer, and he said that is roughly (give or take here) equal to either sixty-six-point-six-six-six (repeating of course, HAHAHA) or half of the number you gave. Here, I’m checking to see if that’s a large part of something by eating from two ice-cream cakes I picked up from the grocery store. I’ll have two-thirds from one and half of the other.
Oh god. Fuck me.
That’s a lot of fucking cake.
Since you brought it up, hold on, I’ll quote so I’m not taking you out of context,
Genesis to Revelation
and
count up the number of miracles to the number of years.
and
you don’t take seriously what the Bible has to say, but since we’re on the subject at least take it into some account.
Please explain how anything in either of those books is not a miracle. All of this shit defies fucking logic, what we know about the universe, and are examples of shitty story telling. Also, since we’re on the topic of Genesis, why do the first two chapters contradict each other? If these books are supposed to be the literal word of god, why do they contradict? Did god get confused?
Right off the bat in Genesis I have one other big lingering question. Who created God? If God created God, then how could something that didn’t exist will itself into existence. If there is no beginning or end to god, not only does that fuck up the alpha and omega thing, it also introduces a state incongruity between the existence of god and the existence of the universe. Between Genesis and Revelation a clear beginning and ending to the universe is implied. What number universe are we? Does god occasionally get bored, say fuck it, and start from scratch? What a quitter.
Also God’s powers seem to be at least not what they’re made out to be, or he is the most fucked up and dumbest omniscient being ever described. He creates the tree of knowledge, blah blah blah don’t eat you’ll die, and then he leaves. The snake shows up, the talking snake no less, and coerces Eve by… telling her the truth. The fruit of knowledge won’t kill you. She eats it. It doesn’t kill her. Adam eats it. The fruit doesn’t kill him either. Then they manage to hide from the all-knowing, all-powerful god. Wait, what? Then he manages to find them, when they reveal themselves to him, and then he punishes them. He makes the snake crawl on the ground. Yeah, great going pal, it’s a fucking snake. Also, what about snakes in trees or sidewinders? Did god miss some snakes? Hey, if god is supposed to know the future or have a master plan, shouldn’t he have known about Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge? And if so, why put it in there? Or get pissed off when they eat from it like you knew they would?
Furthermore, when is all that Revelation shit supposed to happen? Like with the star crashing into the Earth and the planet not being completely destroyed, but only one-third destroyed even though it just was hit by a star, the smallest of which are thirteen-times the size of Jupiter? Sounds kind of far-fetched to me, but I wasn’t sold on the whole virgin birth thing either. My mom was at least grown up enough to just tell me it was a broken condom.
And then, about what Jesus said, hold on, I’ll quote you here so
At least that way you can’t think I was taking anything you said out of context.
Oh yeah, the Jesus thing.
what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 16, verse 4:
“A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.”
Sounds like a half-ass excuse to me. I wonder how long people have been throwing that shit around to quiet down questions about the lack of miracles. Since we’re gonna start quoting our favorite works of fiction, I’d like to share with you something Lord BattleJesus said from the An MechaChristian bible. It’s from the book of weed, chapter 4, verse 20:
“And the Lord BattleJesus did say, when I am not present, it is your fault, and when I do not hear your prayers or seem to not exist, I am away on vacation and have unplugged my answering machine to save on my electricity bill.”
I know you don’t take seriously what theAn MechaChristian Bible has to say, but since we’re on the subject at least take it into some account.
Moving on,
Make them all you like, just don’t sit around dumbfounded when nobody takes what you have to say very seriously.
You took me seriously enough to write a response.
Surely even an internet tough talker like yourself can’t be so socially backward as to think that insulting people is a good way to make them sit up and listen to you.
Seemed to work with you. You listened enough to try to respond.
I’ve debated and had discussions with some very nice and highly intelligent atheists, and even know and am friends with at least two in real life…they have brought interesting ideas and perspectives to the table even if I wound up not agreeing with them.
I like how you count your atheist friends. I don’t count my friends of any religion, An MechaChristian or not. I’m glad for your atheist friends, but you haven’t managed to bring any original ideas to the table at all and seem to be only responding to things I’ve said, hence your need to quote at all times. Do you have anything original to add or are you going to continue to quote either me or the bible?
You just smack of an angry little man that resorts to building himself up by trash talking (safely over the internet no less) rather than having anything of any real substance to add to the discussion. Maybe I’m wrong, but all I have are your posts to go on, and so far all I’ve seen is a lot of anger.
I have laughed myself silly over reading and writing the bullshit here. Also, the anything of real substance bit is hard to justify. Obviously my argument is worth enough substance to get you into this little comment war.
Prove me wrong…show me, Mariano, and every other religious person on this forum that you have something of merit to add without all of the mockery and bigotry. Dissent is good when it’s fruitful…but you can find flame wars anywhere. How seriously do flaming trolls get taken? But then, if you don’t mind being comic relief then please continue posting how you’ve been posting.
A couple of things: Give me something that is worthy of more than just mockery, sounds like me being here is making you uncomfortable again, and you take me seriously enough to post a reply. Also, I could never ever be funnier than Mariano, even after all of the brain damage from doing whip-its in high school.
You wrote: Do you wish to retract or backpedal on your original statement? Once more you’ve contradicted yourself, and furthermore proved me right in saying that some people still wouldn’t believe in God in light of a miracle. And still you wonder why miracles aren’t flung out once a week or so?
In response to when I wrote:
A lot of things we used to think were miracles or magic we now know are completely natural in origin and have predictable cause and effect relationships. When I find something that defies all cause and effect, and genuinely seems to be magic, then I will accept that miracles exist (although this in and of itself is not proof for the existence of god, it is just proof for the existence of magic or miracles).
Oh wait, you cut out one of the most important parts of that paragraph and then ignored it entirely. Oh wait, here it is:
Miracles by nature have to defy cause and effect relationships, at least as far as we understand them to exist, and the other word for something that defies these cause and effect relationships is magic.
Basically, in the original paragraph, I operationally defined miracle for the sake of our argument. You misquoted me and then ignored what I said completely under the guise of me having made my mind up already. I didn’t say that miracles were impossible, I only said what I would consider to be a miracle. You ignored the entire magic parallel, and tried to misconstrue what I said as something it wasn’t. This is called intellectual dishonesty.
As for, oh wait, don’t want to take your quote out of context…
you wonder why miracles aren’t flung out once a week or so?
As an An MechaChristian, I don’t have to make up excuses for why my god doesn’t perform miracles like he used to in the bible. The An MechaChristian god retired a couple of years ago. He’s in Florida, living it up now.
I’ve often found that instead of waiting for miracles, it works best if I just get off my ass and get busy.
No argument here, and apparently Mariano agrees too or you’d be getting your comments deleted. I think I covered this thoroughly enough already, but again, if you want to get taken seriously tone down the anger and propaganda, and turn up the substance.
I’m pleased to find out that you find censorship so palatable. Again with the anger and propaganda and the call for substance. Look, I’m the only one who has written anything of substance here, you’re responding to my ideas at this point, not yours.
And if you want to talk about the ad hominem attacks, I’d like to quote you just a few more times, if I may:
I truly pity you
If you don’t lose any sleep in being a walking contradiction
dime-a-dozen internet tough talkers on forums not geared for them in the first place…but then, I’m a fan of really bad B-movies too, so go figure.
Contradictions out of you shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point, but I couldn’t help but be a little curious.
That’s where I began to wonder about some sort of possible delusion of grandeur on your behalf.
Surely even an internet tough talker like yourself can’t be so socially backward
You just smack of an angry little man that resorts to building himself up by trash talking
f you don’t mind being comic relief then please continue posting how you’ve been posting
And what did the Crow call the Raven?
and Lastly,
If we were having this conversation in the real world, face to face, then ambiguity could be excused because of facial expression, body language, tone of voice, etc. But since we’re dealing with cold print text, then you have to work on keeping your statements and train of thought straight. You can’t type up two opposing views and expect people to give you a free pass.
Once again, you’ve more or less ignored what I’ve said and then you tried to argue something totally unfounded.
Point by point, there’s less ambiguity in a real world conversation because of body language. It’s called the 60-30-10 rule. Generally, communication between people is sixty percent body language, thirty percent tone and only ten percent substance. Obviously, on the internet this is somewhat impossible, but on this point you really couldn’t be more wrong.
My statements and train of thought were straight. You’ve chosen to deliberately misconstrue them as being opposing when they’re not. I don’t expect a free pass, but I do expect some basic reading comprehension.
Ambiguity is in most good writing. It’s called depth.
Furthermore, it doesn’t really matter what my motives are for debating you, as that doesn’t enter into the nature of the argument.
Well, this has been fun, I’ve gotten a big kick out of your retarded fucking quote thing, and I hope you’ve learned exactly how stupid and annoying it is, but then again…
Besides, the quotes are in bold, stand out pretty easily, and if they’re so annoying just overlook them.
Do you wish to retract or backpedal on your original statement?