WHAT makes a person saved in Christ Jesus?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

but fairies are both fairy and magic (of a sort that I don't like).

O.

Haven't you been to Disneyland? Who doesn't like fairy magic?.......

It all just goes to show how far from reality you antitheist ''thinkers'' are.

That sort of response just shows how far from a 'thinker' you are - address the point or concede it, but this puerile attempt at a misdirection isn't fooling anyone.

O.
[/quote]
which point are we on though? You conceded that arguments do not work for fairies by moving onto magic. To be honest I can't sort out the convoluted mess you are in trying to save the God=leprechaun/fairy equation.

Let's try and unravel your efforts by establishing whether fairy magic is a ridiculous thing. Is ridicule your starting point?

Is magic falsifiable? As a whole probably not.

Is fairy magic bad? Only in the sense that fairies themselves are falsifiable.

[Andy]

Jesus is both human and divine.

If divinity is unfalsifiable, then what you say about Jesus here can be said about anyone.

Pantheism caters for that. The alternative argument though would start with the idea that just because things are unfalsifiable it doesn't mean they are the same. Just like you are falsifiable and so are rubberducks.

I cannot fault your assertion. A Christian would use other arguments to say why Christ is unique.

It's not my assertion, it's a conclusion drawn from yours.
Are any two people the same? Aren't we all unique? If you're to state that Jesus' divinity is an attribute that makes him unique (which I thought the whole son of God schtick was about), then you have no way of making that determination.

[bluehillside Retd.]

IfIthrowenoughVludatthewallsomeofitmuststickmustn’tit?,

Jesus is both human and divine

Fairies are fairy and er, fairy....................

No, fairies are both material and immaterial as they please. Just like your god.

Are you beginning to realise now how hopeless are the endless convolutions you end up with when you start with a nonsense and then have to defend it with further and further irrationalities as each one throws up a fresh problem?

Anything at all?

You start with the remarkable assertion that your “intuition” about a god means that this god is thereby a factual truth for me too.

When asked how you would propose to distinguish your intuited "fact" from mistake, confusion, delusion etc you just disappeared over the nearest hill.

OK, that was up to you I guess provided you accept that your intuition about a god should no more or less be taken seriously by me than my intuition about fairies should be taken seriously by you.
 
You then decide that you can get out of this difficulty by claiming your god to be unfalsifiable, apparently oblivious to the burden of proof problem it leaves you given that many other conjectures are unfalsifiable too.

When I point this out to you – ie, that fairies are also unfalsifiable so are on the same footing as your god – you then make the further remarkable claim that your god is wholly immaterial, despite apparently being able to cause material effects – curing little Timmy of his rickets for example.

And when I asked you how you came by this ever-more remarkable knowledge given the number of people who think they have physically experienced your god you just ignored the question and decided arbitrarily that fairies are only material, and so are in a different category to your god.

Yet my intuition (remember that?) tells me otherwise. I know – really know mark you – that fairies are immaterial but able to flit in and out of the material as they please. While occasionally they’ve let their guards down and some folks think they really have seen then, until now at least they’ve managed to avoid being capture by recording equipment.

Now naturally you wouldn’t be daft enough to try the special pleading for your god that only “He” can occupy the set called “immaterial somethings that some people intuit to be real and that can nip in and out of the material from time-to-time their various deeds to perform” would you, so we’re back to even-stevens again.

That is, why on earth then should I think your claim about an intuited god is even one jot less ridiculous than my intuited claim about fairies?     

Don't you think you have scraped the barrel enough Hillside?

Not while you’re still hiding under it, no.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

IfIthrowenoughVludatthewallsomeofitmuststickmustn’tit?,

Jesus is both human and divine

Fairies are fairy and er, fairy....................

No, fairies are both material and immaterial as they please. Just like your god.
.

just like all of us Hillside. We are body, mind and spirit.

Now can anyone tell me why an argument for leprechauns which also fits anything else is necessarily ''a bad thing''?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vluddinganddivinglikeagood'un,

just like all of us Hillside. We are body, mind and spirit.

No, we are "body".

If you think "mind" to be separate from body then make an argument for it - I'll alert the medical press.

If you think there to be something called "spirit" then make an argument for it - I'll alert the philosophical press.

Now can anyone tell me why an argument for leprechauns which also fits anything else is necessarily ''a bad thing''?

It's only a "bad thing" for your intuited god schtick - if any other unfalsifiable conjecture that pops into anyone's head is equally a factual truth for the rest of us you have both the nihilism of absolute relativism and the logical impossibility of some truths that deny the possibility of some other truths.

Now, can you tell me whether you just intend to ignore my last dismantling of your position? 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vluddinganddivinglikeagood'un,

just like all of us Hillside. We are body, mind and spirit.

No, we are "body".

If you think "mind" to be separate from body then make an argument for it - I'll alert the medical press.

If you think there to be something called "spirit" then make an argument for it - I'll alert the philosophical press.

Now can anyone tell me why an argument for leprechauns which also fits anything else is necessarily ''a bad thing''?

It's only a "bad thing" for your intuited god schtick - if any other unfalsifiable conjecture that pops into anyone's head is equally a factual truth for the rest of us you have both the nihilism of absolute relativism and the logical impossibility of some truths that deny the possibility of some other truths.

Now, can you tell me whether you just intend to ignore my last dismantling of your position?

I have to give argument for my positive assertions and you have to give argument for the assertion that there is only body(material).

Mind I will probably concede but what is consciousness? How much does it weigh? Is it measurable etc. what are it's SI units?

You assert it's ''made of matter'', It's ''body''.........jump to it and measure it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlunningawayagain,

I have to give argument for my positive assertions and you have to give argument for the assertion that there is only body(material).

Mind I will probably concede but what is consciousness? How much does it weigh? Is it measurable etc. what are it's SI units?

You assert it's ''made of matter'', It's ''body''.........jump to it and measure it.

Possibly you missed my question? I'll ask it again then:

Now, can you tell me whether you just intend to ignore my last dismantling of your position?

Bit rich don't you think telling someone else to "jump to it" given your unrelenting record of ducking and diving every question thats put to you?

Oh, and given your confusion about consciousness you might want to start by looking up "emergent properties".

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlunningawayagain,

I have to give argument for my positive assertions and you have to give argument for the assertion that there is only body(material).

Mind I will probably concede but what is consciousness? How much does it weigh? Is it measurable etc. what are it's SI units?

You assert it's ''made of matter'', It's ''body''.........jump to it and measure it.

Possibly you missed my question? I'll ask it again then:

Now, can you tell me whether you just intend to ignore my last dismantling of your position?

What dismantling was that?

[Outrider]

Jesus is both human and divine.

If divinity is unfalsifiable, then what you say about Jesus here can be said about anyone.

Pantheism caters for that. The alternative argument though would start with the idea that just because things are unfalsifiable it doesn't mean they are the same. Just like you are falsifiable and so are rubberducks.

I cannot fault your assertion. A Christian would use other arguments to say why Christ is unique.

Ah, those mysterious 'other arguments'...

O.

[Outrider]

which point are we on though?

In your instance, we're still waiting for the first one...

You conceded that arguments do not work for fairies by moving onto magic.

I didn't 'move' fairies into magic, they've always been reported as magical, just as your deity has.

To be honest I can't sort out the convoluted mess you are in trying to save the God=leprechaun/fairy equation.

That's not really my problem, it's simple enough. You can make any assertions you like about supernatural claims, because they're untestable; in that sense, any claims put down to fairies' innate magic is as useless as any claims put down to God's innate magic.

Let's try and unravel your efforts by establishing whether fairy magic is a ridiculous thing. Is ridicule your starting point?

It's exactly as ridiculous as Jesus' magic.

Is magic falsifiable? As a whole probably not.

Not that I'm aware of - I think someone has suggested they have a methodology for verifying supernatural claims, but I've not actually seen it spelt out.

Is fairy magic bad? Only in the sense that fairies themselves are falsifiable.

How is the 'goodness' or 'badness' of it relevant, given that you can't establish an absolute 'good' or 'bad' in the first place.

O.

[torridon]

I have to give argument for my positive assertions and you have to give argument for the assertion that there is only body(material)....

I don't think that is right. We don't have to justify why we don't believe in things for which there is no evidence. Rather, we start with the evidence, and argue about that.

[Outrider]

I have to give argument for my positive assertions and you have to give argument for the assertion that there is only body(material).

Yes, and no. You have to give evidence for your claims, or they are merely assertions.

We have to give evidence, if it's called for, that we have 'body'. In the absence of any evidence for an independent entity 'mind' or 'spirit', we don't have to accept those claims, we can just say 'that's an assertion' and carry on.

Mind I will probably concede but what is consciousness? How much does it weigh? Is it measurable etc. what are it's SI units?

Why would consciousness have an SI unit? Humour doesn't, justice doesn't, love doesn't - these are all abstract concepts.

You assert it's ''made of matter'', It's ''body''.........jump to it and measure it.

I did, it's six feet long (roughly) and all the activity it reports has measurable physical correlates - what reason do I have to suppose the hypothesise 'human existence is essentially physical' isn't right?

O.