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

The summary so far:

It's simple. Cofty and I actually agree that this whole discussion hinges on probability and not certainty. You only have to read the past few pages to verify that. For a more in depth discussion of why it matters you will have to read back quite a bit further.

Cofty and others do not like the uncertainty, even though they acknowledge that it exists, and therefore feel the need to not only reach a certain conclusion whilst lacking information, but to compel anyone taking part in the conversation to do so also.

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

Flamegrilled - I refuse to talk about it and I don't like your tone

That is all you have done throughout this discussion. With each non-statement you make your god looks less credible.

With believers like you - who need enemies?

Now I'm being "quoted" from a dialogue made up by Cofty. Awesome job TG. Cofty paraphrases me from nothing that's ever been written, or even thought about, and then you quote it. That's a great example of what I'm talking about. Many people will jump in on this page and would otherwise fall for this kind of nonsense.

So many responses are just a waste of a comment. But if people didn't post stuff like this example then no wasted response would be required to put the record straight.

P.S. In case the reader didn't gather it by now, that is not a quote of anything I've ever written. But I do encourage the reader to read what I have actually written in order to understand why Cofty and his supporters feel the need to misrepresent my position.

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 have lost patience with you FG. Cofty

It's not a big concern to me Cofty. Your misrepresentations of my position have been numerous, but I have patiently continued the conversation. If you have lost patience I cannot help that.

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

Flamegrilled is there anything inaccurate about this summary of your position?

Atheist - The enormity of natural evil argues powerfully against christian theism.

Flamegrilled - Natural evil does not make my loving god logically impossible.

Atheist - In what way?

Flamegrilled - There may be facts you are not aware of.

Atheist - What facts could reconcile a tsunami with a loving, knowing, omnipotent god?

Flamegrilled - That is a mystery, I am just saying it's not logically impossible.

Atheist - It is very compelling evidence against theism. What evidence to the contrary could possibly be so strong?

Flamegrilled - I refuse to talk about it and I don't like your tone

Yes

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 am concerned that lurkers may be begining to wonder if Flamegrilled is an atheist plant, trying to prove that theists have no answer to natural evil.

Nobody could have done a better job. Cofty

You probably don't need to be overly concerned. I know I'm not. Intelligent lurkers will decide for themselves despite your desparate need to masquerade some sort of contrived victory.

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.