Rex getting too slothful to even cut and paste anymore, not even the most important points. Well, maybe there weren't any. At least some of the atheists are able to do that for him.
S
Chew on this one, my athe...oops, agnostic friends!
by Shining One 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Farkel
Just as I suspected: the author is an erudite idiot with no real arguments. He starts every new section by stating his "proof" about the existence of God, when he has offered none. His anecdotes are NOT proof!
His first paragraph is barfo city and illustrates what is to be the rest of his rambling garbage:
: You have noticed, haven't you, that in recent times certain scientists like Dr. James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington, as well as some outstanding philosophers like Dr. C.E.M. Joad, have had a good deal to say about religion and God? Scientists Jeans and Eddington are ready to admit that there may be something to the claims of men who say they have had an experience of God, while Philosopher Joad says that the "obtrusiveness of evil" has virtually compelled him to look into the argument for God's existence afresh.
Well, here we have "Dr." Jeans and "Sir" Arthru Eddington and the "outstanding" (who says he is "outstanding?") Joad who says there "may" be "something" to the "claims" of men who "say" they have had an "experience" of God and that they will "look into" those claims. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
: Much like modernist theologian Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr who talks about original sin, Philosopher Joad speaks about evil as being ineradicable from the human mind.
Just because "Dr." Niebuhr "talks" about original sin, doesn't make it so. Just because "Philosopher" Joad "speaks" about evil being ineradicable from the human mind doesn't prove anything about the existence of God or not.
If God made everything then God made evil. If God made "good" then God also made evil. Good is meaningless without its counterpart: evil. In fact, the concept of "good" could not exist without the concept of "evil" because there would be no frame of reference to define "good."
Your doctors and professors and other intellectual idiots cited in that piece of trash neglect those simple and pesky facts as well as simple common sense.
I do believe in a Creator or Creators, by the way, but I am by no means theistic, preferring deism as it makes more sense to me. But don't ask me to prove my belief. It's not possible, any more so than it is possible to prove that fifty million invisible purple unicorns are telling me about the Tao. Only fools would attempt to prove such things and your vaunted article was written by a fool and an intellectual idiot.
Farkel
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AlmostAtheist
Unfortunately I was only able to read the first four or five paragraphs, so all I've had proven so far is that the author wanted very much to sleep in a barn at one point in his life. But I'm hanging in there, I'm sure the good stuff is just around the corner.
Dave
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AlmostAtheist
So far I've read half and all the the author has proven has that he has spent his entire life fully submerged in an indoctrinating environment. He presses this point hard in order to say that the hypothetical atheist he is talking to was similarly indoctrinated against belief in god. That is a ridiculous argument, akin to saying that because one person was raised in a JW environment, anyone that was not was raised in an anti-JW environment. The truth is, anyone not raised as a JW was likely brought up in a jw-neutral environment, which is a completely different thing.
But this is a fine example of the black/white view that some Christians (no offense, this is not talking about the BillyGoat-type Christians) take of the world. He even goes so far as to say anyone that is not FOR the god of the Bible is AGAINST him. One wonders if in his vast theological history that he's so proud of, he's ever stumbled across Mark 9:40 where Jesus says, "He that is not against us is for us".
I'm gonna get through this thing. I'll post more when I'm done.
Dave
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Utopian Reformist
The article reminded me of WTBS publications and their infantile, circular and trivial rationale. Here's a marvelous example of the sheer brilliance conatined in this "opus magnae excrementum":
"So true is this, that I propose to argue that unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything. I cannot even argue for belief in Him, without already having taken Him for granted. And similarly I contend that you cannot argue against belief in Him unless you also first take Him for granted. Arguing about God's existence, I hold, is like arguing about air. You may affirm that air exists, and I that it does not. But as we debate the point, we are both breathing air all the time. Or to use another illustration, God is like the emplacement on which must stand the very guns that are supposed to shoot Him out of existence. However if, after hearing my story briefly, you still think it is all a matter of heredity and environment, I shall not disagree too violently. My whole point will be that there is perfect harmony between my belief as a child and my belief as a man, simply because God is Himself the environment by which my early life was directed and my later life made intelligible to myself."
This mental-midget wants us to believe we cannot debate the existence of a god without taking that existence for granted? What kind of slop is he trying to feed us? Then, as a special one-time introductory bonus, he shows us how one can affirm that air exists, and another can deny it, however both are breathing air, and this is proof of a god?
So, he says a god exists and I say he doesn't but because HE believes in a god, that means that during the entire time of our debate, a god may be watching or may be present? Obviously, all science, medicine, religion and everything in between realize that air exists and we are even able to contain it, distribute it, modify its properties and alter its composition. We are not able to do anything at all with any god.
This man should get help. -
kid-A
VAN TIL
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Cygnus
Rex, I think it's cool to have faith, but admit it man, faith is all you got. Jesus, Allah, whoever isn't going to save anybody and we're all going to die and be reassimilated into the building blocks of the universe. The sooner you realize that the better, my friend.
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AlmostAtheist
Wow. Ok, I got through it. I kept waiting for the punch line, but by the end I found the author was laughing and I wasn't. I guess it must've gone over my head.
It's funny. The author is walking around naked, admits he's naked, and his only defense is that your clothing is a sort of nakedness, too.
But I have pricked your bubble, so perhaps you will not come back. And yet perhaps you will. That depends upon the Father's pleasure. Deep down in your heart you know very well that what I have said about you is true. You know there is no unity in your life.
Does anyone NOT see this as absurd arrogance? He's welcome to say whatever he likes, but he's arrogant by any definition I know.
I shall not convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound.
I'm entirely open to conversion, but I never saw an argument. In this entire 8,500 word monologue, I didn't see a single argument. Did I miss it?
my meanderings have, to be sure, been circular; they have made everything turn on God.
In the end, we at least part in agreement.
Sheesh, Rex. Surely this isn't the best you've got to offer on the topic?
Dave
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Shining One
Hmmmm, the comments that I expected of course. Not too much of substance, though a couple of you seem to have read it through. To the rest who just skimmed and missed the writer's points: Van Til's arguments have given some of the most intelligent of the skeptics fits. I guess my raft of fellow-ex'dubs are just of a higher level than the rest......
Rex -
Shining One
Gumby, how many times do I have to point out the link to my answer? Go back and find it yourself.
Rex