Posts by flamegrilled

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

I must have missed that. Cofty

Indeed. We are in agreement.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Adam's point was a deliberate distraction ... The thread is about the Asian tsunami. Cofty

You keep redefining the goalposts just as Adam said. I made a passing comment about the possibility of the human effect. You were the one that made an absolute AND GENERAL assertion to the contrary. Adam took no time in demonstrating that your assertion was groundless, and then you accuse him of creating a distraction.

Now you want to again narrow your point to a single specific natural disaster when it suits you to do so.

This thread is about the Asian tsunami? And that's it? Of course it isn't. You have happily entertained diversions of this thread to many other topics when the commenters shared your world view.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

You do have a tendency to drop the tough questions and pick the low-hanging fruit. jgnat

I don't see why it is a problem to pick the low hanging fruit. Cofty is the one making the OP assertion. I merely tackled its logical flaws. The burden of proof is on him in this case. If the assertions were watertight there would be no fruit hanging - low or high.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

jgnat

I am very impressed that you took the time to compile that. I mean that genuinely.

Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that by only selectively including comments from the three of us there are missing pieces in the conversation.

For example I made a passing comment about how we could not be certain whether humans had had any influence on natural disasters. Cofty immediately responded asserting categorically that humans had had zero influence on plate tectonics just as you recorded. However, Adam followed up with a great comment linking to possible evidence to the contrary.

Cofty said- Humans have had absolutely zero influence on plate tectonics.

You might want to check those "facts" before you spout off as an expert, Cofty, as you're just flat-out wrong, and you don't get to make up your own facts (you should be embarrassed):

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/worst-earthquakes-disasters-gas-extraction-mining-oil-528373

It's called 'induced seismicity', and it's a problem in the States from oil-well drilling (esp with use of fracking techniques).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_seismicity

Adam

Since Adam had made the point that Cofty was being assertive without consideration of all the evidence I didn't feel the need to comment on that further. Besides which, it wasn't my primary point.

Therefore, lovely as your table is, it doesn't therefore present a full picture of the conversation that has truly taken place. I grant you that it would be difficult to do so, and you have made a fine effort, but let the unbiased reader treat it with caution. The only way to truly see what has been discussed is to read it.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

you are simply an idiot or a deluded fool

Simon - if I said to this you know very well how you would respond. And it wouldn't be via a reply.

Now, if you don't think we can decide what is and isn't good or bad then Adam and Eve didn't sin and so why aren't we all petting Lions in the Garden of Eden? It also means that part of the bible is a lie ... so your beliefs still die, just a different way.

Like Cofty you make much of what I believe before I've ever said any such thing.

of course this also destroys the notion that god allows free will - he simply wants docile unthinking pets.

How illogical to say so specifically what a being "wants" that you have no belief in. Many Christians do not interpret the Genesis story in this way. I do not believe that Christian theism is dependent on it.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Cofty - it's logically impossibly that the deity of a Christian theist exists

Theist - on what basis?

Cofty - because we know that allowing the Asian tsunami could not in any way reflect his supposed quality of love

Theist - are you certain of what the end result will be of allowing the tsunami?

Cofty - mostly. But the most important thing is that people died at the time.

Theist - are you certain of what the end result would be if God were to intervene in natural disasters right now?

Cofty - not really. But the most important thing is that people will be saved from natural disaters.

Theist - how do you know that's the most important thing?

Cofty - ?

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

No because you totally ignored the second and mmore important part of my reply.

That is dishonest.

I have said repeatedly that you can have a deity that drowns a quarter of a million people. You cannot have the god of christian theism. That is a logical impossibility.

It's true that I ignored the second part of your post. Ignorring something I've previously addressed is not dishonest.

Dishonest is misquoting others, misapplying what they say, and claiming they said things they didn't. All of which you have done.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

I would love to believe that physical death is not the end of personal existence. However there is no evidence to support belief if continued existence after death nor in the idea of a resurrection. I am 99.9...% convinced this is nothing but wishful thinking and superstition. However if any evidence to the contrary exists then I have an open mind to examine it. Cofty

Fair enough. So we are down to probabilities not certainties. I am 96.7% convinced that abiogenesis of carbon based life is not possible.

There are a bunch of other probabilities that i could bring into the discussion but again this is not about that. You have no more certainty than I do. I completely respect your right to form strong opinions based upon your assessment of those, but your OP depends on certainty. It's not there.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

P.S. Try to respond without too much bluster to mask the answer.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

@Cofty

Those who died in the Tsunami - do you KNOW beyond any possibility of error where they (as conscious beings) are now, and/or where they may be in the future?

If so, how do you know?

Remember, we are NOT talking about probability here. We are ONLY talking about what we know for a certainty.

[I will just add that this is in no way a subtle attempt to preach. In fact I don't have a firm opinion of the answer. I just want to see how you logically respond, and whether you allow any room for error in your response. If not, then the "how do you know" portion becomes very important.]