Posts by King Solomon

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

So let me get this straight..

I`m in a plane,I`m in the air..But..

The plane might be parked at the moment..And..

It`s the earth thats moving..

Something like that: pilots are aware of the problem of experiencing a loss of situational awareness under IFR conditions (eg cloudy/night, etc), when they experience a disconnect between what their their proprioreceptors (inner ear) are telling them vs what their instruments say (can occur with groundspeed, orientation). Many pilots have died as a result of the disconnect between what their instruments are telling them and what their eyes/ears are telling them (and it's usually IFR illusion that kills them, not bad instruments).

39

Epimenides paradox: "Epimenides The Cretan Says, "All Cretans are Liars"

by frankiespeakin in

jw
friends

thomas fowler (1869) states the paradox as follows: "epimenides the cretan says, 'that all the cretans are liars,' but epimenides is himself a cretan; therefore he is himself a liar.

but if he be a liar, what he says is untrue, and consequently the cretans are veracious; but epimenides is a cretan, and therefore what he says is true; saying the cretans are liars, epimenides is himself a liar, and what he says is untrue.

thus we may go on alternately proving that epimenides and the cretans are truthful and untruthful."[1].

King Solomon

Being able to deliver a good paradox was taken as wisdom in ancient times, eg “So the last shall be first, and the first last” (Matt 20:16). “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14b). “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35b). The meek share inherit the Earth, the rich man and Lazarus parable, etc.

Lotta that topsy-turvy, turn-about logic in the ancient world; conditions may change, but people are people....

80

RE: What did God accomplish with the flood?

by bioflex in

was just going through a few topics and this caught my attention, and since that thread looks pretty much dead i thought i would create a new one to add my thoughts .. so i would start by replying to as much criticisms as i can okay.

@jam: .

the purpose of the flood, because man grieved him to.

King Solomon

Uh, biolflex, why not resurrect the old thread? I cannot remember what anyone said in the old thread, so cannot intelligently respond to your response....

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

Also, with the speed that you responded, you didn't do all this. The time between when I posted the article about the book and the time you responded was about 12 mins. Able to research all of his studies, claims, and reviews in 12 mins and make an absolute 100% judgement of the entire book, all without reading a single page. AMAZING!

Uh, his assertions are found (condensed) on wikipedia, and in the NYTimes article (three paragraphs, at most), and the review. All the flowery poetic writing in the book is simply filler for people like you, or provides background for laypeople, but doesn't go towards proving his assertions. Fact is, some studies can be reviewed in minutes, since they have abstracts/conclusions; in fact, that's a critical SKILL to develop, as you don't read EVERY LAST WORD of any study, but rely on abstracts. In fact, there are pubs that contain ONLY abstracts, and the read can scan for topics of interest, or look up the full-text version of the article, if desired. You apparently don't know that kind of thing, I see, but that doesn't change the fact it is the case....

Like I said, the title itself raised a HUGE red flag: there are no "BORN BELIEVERS". He admits in the text that children start to develop beliefs in supernatural forces as their parents, but that's hardly "born". FAIL.

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

OUTLAW SAID:

An air speed indicator is a solid object you can see and touch..

You can prove it exists..

An air speed indicator shows you what speed you are going..

You simply have to look to the ground to prove your actually moving..

So there is proof involved ..

Well, now you're just being silly and not even trying (that's tiresome; you're not serious). You've not heard of IFR, I guess?

When someone uses the word "indicate" with no proof to back it up..

Well, that's PROOF you're not serious: I provided you with a definition (which is easy enough to google), but you ignore it.

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

Funny, KS, that you didn't read the book or research this subject, yet you have given your grand write off "Next".

The thing is, when you have a background to evaulate claims, you don't have to read EVERY LAST detail in order to call BS or realize it's a come-on, promising what it fails to deliver. It looks like elements of evolutionary psychology but written from the perspective of a believer, with scriptures from the Bible used throughout.

I looked at his claims, his wikipedia, googled, read a NY Times interview, found the claims of the book (which are nothing new, but if you've not seen it, it's NEW TO YOU!), read a review, checked for peer reviews or if these werew published in respected journals (nope!), and concluded he's selling a book with a eye-grabbing title.

That approach to book sales is hardly news to anyone: there's a LONG HISTORY of tabloid or paperback science books being sold for $$$ (and need I mention the WT/Awake?). Pretty conclusive to me....

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

NC said:

Because the scientific method did exactly what it is in place to do----it weeded through the information, old and new, and brought us every closer to the full picture.

In business circles, it is called continuous process improvement: keeping the good to build upon it, and throwing out the unneccessary or useless.

Of course, the approach used by religion is the EXACT OPPOSITE, the antithesis: ultra-orthodox conservative, based on "even if it's broke, why throw it out" thinking. The appeal is to tradition ("That's the way my Church has done it for thousands of years!") which is used to justify resistance to ALL changes (including the elimination of slavery, genocide, woman's rights, etc).

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

From a review on his book, Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Beliefs

http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/03/08/review-justin-l-barrett-born-believers-the-science-of-childrens-religious-beliefs/

Belief in God is childish. So reports Justin L. Barrett, an Oxford University professor who studies the cognitive science of religion, in his new book Born Believers. To be more specific, Barrett argues that belief in gods appears to be a naturally occurring human phenomenon (21). He points to new research about systems of the human mind which develop very early, and which make belief in some sort of god almost inevitable for children: “They have strong propensities to believe in gods because gods occupy a sweet-spot in their natural way of thinking: gods are readily and easily accommodated by children’s minds and fill some naturally-occurring conceptual gaps rather nicely” (25-6).

LOL! So Justin L Barrett figured out that children are prone to believe in fantasies, and hence might enjoy fairy tales, cartoon figures, playing dress-up or war, cops and robbers, and possess active imaginations, etc? WOW: cutting edge research, there!

The title is even a lie: in the book, he alleges that they DEVELOP such beliefs very early, but that a far cry from being BORN BELIEVERS. The only thing a newborn "believes" in is finding his mothers breast on which to suckle. If the infant imagines that instinctive drive as his "God" is even questionable: how does ANYONE KNOW what an infant "thinks" or "believes"? Unless he's clairvoyant, or able to do vulcan mind welds, it's a FAIL. He failed with his hyperbolic, designed-to-sell-more-books title.

Barrett is selling a book to those believers who WANT to point to pseudo-science that "spins" it their way: that's not credible science (which would be if his "studies" were published in refereed professional journal, which are peer-reviewed). That's "science" for lay-people, designed to sell books to the faithful flock who are primed to be fleeced.

We saw the same thing recently with a neurosurgeon selling his book on NDE: same target market, different theme. Selling pseudo-science, telling the naive believers what they want to hear: it is a big business, making lots of $$$ for some....

Next?

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

Outlaw said:

I would need Faith to take a side..And.. Use words like "indicate"..LOL!!..

Uh, just what exactly do you think "indicate" means? Have you not heard of say, an "air-speed indicator"? Aside from the ordinary faith required that it is operating properly (eg as the brake example I gave earlier), do you see any need for faith when using those?

Definition of indicate:

Point out; show: "dotted lines indicate the margins".

697

Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

jw
friends

long time lurker, first time poster.. .

i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

King Solomon

Try to understand what i said, first. Then we can talk.

I'm just saying that atheism ISN'T the default.

REALLY? And have you performed a vulcan mind weld on a newborn to confirm that they are born believing in a God?

BUZZ!!!! Wrong! We were talking about a PROOF that there is no God. Even intelligent atheists don't believe that there is PROOF that there is no God. They just say that there is no proof that there IS, God. Who was talking about the Judeo/Christian God here?

Bud, my claim was this:

YHWH loses any rights to claim to be the Intelligent Designer

HOWEVER, if God likely WAS scripted by ancient Hebrews as a character, based on older Egyptian ideas, and reflects basic ignorance on human anatomy (supposedly the pinnacle of his creation), then the very existence of God, as depicted in the Bible, is highly questionable. That was the FIRST example: I could provide TONS more.

I assumed you could make that mental connection on your own, but guess not. Sorry for giving you credit for being able to connect the dots (the post was a bit long, as it was....).