French religious leaders have called for more security at places of worship

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

I didn't just call it nonsense, it would be good if you didn't use such strawman in debate. I pointed out that what you and the Dear Leader think I'd right is based on non justifiable beliefs. Indeed that was in the previous post, and you have ignored the further comments on that in the last post.

I don't see the straw man, but as for the substance: what you're referring to here is ideology. And yes, ultimately all such are based on axioms and so are "non-justifiable" in that they're impervious to further examination. Two things though:

First, your original charge was of "double standards" for addressing only one axiom-based process for belief. That's wrong for the same reason that, say, if a teacher can take out one playground bully even though there are three of them, it's still right to do so because the net amount of bullying reduces regardless of the accusation of double standards for not taking out the other two as well. If this was a board about politics, I'd probably address the political example and not the religious one.

Second, essentially you're edging towards going nuclear here - that one ideology is as (in)valid as any other. Yes, I think that keeping people well and fed is a desirable outcome and that's my "ideology" for want of a better term, albeit that how I go about that is testable with empirical means (unlike trying prayer to achieve my ends). 

The larger point though is that I don't need in any case to adduce absolute or universal properties for my beliefs. I happen to think that keeping people well and fed is a politically desirable outcome, but I'm open to persuasion that I could be wrong about that.       

We have covered the ground before that you can use evidence after you have picked your axioms of what is good, but that at the time of picking these axioms it is just as much faith based as my mother, ISIS, or the boy in the funny haircut.

Yes we have - once you abandon notions of universal standards for "good" and "bad" though, the issue goes away. Most people in most places will intuit and reason their way to the same broad conclusions about what's "good" - co-operation, solidarity with neighbours etc -and about what's "bad" - murder for example. What this is about though is thinking that "faith" - in the accuracy of ancient texts for example - is a reliable epistemological method for arriving at truths, and of acting on them. You might get someone who says "murder is fine" without invoking his faith, but in most societies he'll be ignored or locked up if he tries to act on it. When though someone tells you he's a man of faith he's given special status and his views are privileged over just guessing.       

Justifying such decisions is exactly analogous to what you are using my mother or the priest who was being covered for.

No it isn't. Your Mum (why are we personalising this by the way?) subscribes to a religion that thinks that faith is a reliable guide to what's true - "gospel" true apparently. How then should the French clerics respond if a murderer says, "I did what I did because my faith is that the content of my holy book is categorically true too, and that book tells me to kill"? 

Are they "doing" faith wrong or something? How would the clerics know that or argue for it?

Why you want to cite Dawkins, I have no idea, but presumably he should on that basis want everyone he wants to say what is good morally to be excluded from the media as well.

No, I just cited him just because he happened to look askance too at the legitimising of superstition in the public domain - the thin end of the wedge argument. If you think that everything is superstition (or its equivalent) in any case so what's the difference, so be it. I don't though - for the reasons I've given.   

[Nearly Sane]

Before I turn off the computer for the day, I think I'll just ask for a clarification of who's who!! Too many (repeated) pronouns - them, us, ...

partly my typing one is went down as us. You want religious leaders to make a statement about there certainly being no God that you don't believe can be justified.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sorry folks - just off to cook dinner (Adam Gray's salmon with chorizo, cream and peas since you ask:

http://www.adamgraychef.co.uk/pdf/Organic%20Salmon%20with%20English%20Peas%20and%20Chorizo.pdf)

Back later though.

[jeremyp]

Yes, Susan thinks it cannot be justified, see her post, so from her viewpoint it is wrong.

Thinking something is unjustified is different from thinking it is wrong.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

I don't see the straw man, but as for the substance: what you're referring to here is ideology. And yes, ultimately all such are based on axioms and so are "non-justifiable" in that they're impervious to further examination. Two things though:

First, your original charge was of "double standards" for addressing only one axiom-based process for belief. That's wrong for the same reason that, say, if a teacher can take out one playground bully even though there are three of them, it's still right to do so because the net amount of bullying reduces regardless of the accusation of double standards for not taking out the other two as well. If this was a board about politics, I'd probably address the political example and not the religious one.

No, my charge of double standards is not about you not attacking other people but allowing faith to determine your values on one thing, in this case politics, and attacking others for doing it in religion.

Second, essentially you're edging towards going nuclear here - that one ideology is as (in)valid as any other. Yes, I think that keeping people well and fed is a desirable outcome and that's my "ideology" for want of a better term, albeit that how I go about that is testable with empirical means (unlike trying prayer to achieve my ends). 

Indeed I am going nuclear, that's because I am a relativist and don't mind the option. The Laws argument only properly works for those touting absolutism but appealing to relativist approaches.

The larger point though is that I don't need in any case to adduce absolute or universal properties for my beliefs. I happen to think that keeping people well and fed is a politically desirable outcome, but I'm open to persuasion that I could be wrong about that.       

Which is lovely, we're it not you ignoring that lots of those religious people you want to point at and go 'Woo, You're like ISIS, you are' are not absolutist in that way either. And if they aren't and yet are somehow justifying absolutists, then your political approach justifies political absolutist approaches

Yes we have - once you abandon notions of universal standards for "good" and "bad" though, the issue goes away. Most people in most places will intuit and reason their way to the same broad conclusions about what's "good" - co-operation, solidarity with neighbours etc -and about what's "bad" - murder for example. What this is about though is thinking that "faith" - in the accuracy of ancient texts for example - is a reliable epistemological method for arriving at truths, and of acting on them. You might get someone who says "murder is fine" without invoking his faith, but in most societies he'll be ignored or locked up if he tries to act on it. When though someone tells you he's a man of faith he's given special status and his views are privileged over just guessing.     

  argumentum ad populum to justify your faith.

No it isn't. Your Mum (why are we personalising this by the way?) subscribes to a religion that thinks that faith is a reliable guide to what's true - "gospel" true apparently. How then should the French clerics respond if a murderer says, "I did what I did because my faith is that the content of my holy book is categorically true too, and that book tells me to kill"? 

We are personalising it because your statements apply to people. Religion and politics don't exist outside them so it is automatically personalised. If you justify your politics by your belief in what should happen, how do you justify to someone who murders your family because they believe they are justified by what should hapoen?

Are they "doing" faith wrong or something? How would the clerics know that or argue for it?

is the Dear Leader doing politics wrong? How do you know that or argue for it?
(BTW I think the major flaw in your approach is as ever booking down a person to their religion and indeed representing religion as simplistically as you do - that's where the link between you and Dear Leader breaks down, but that's the same place where the link between my mother and ISIS breaks too.

No, I just cited him just because he happened to look askance too at the legitimising of superstition in the public domain - the thin end of the wedge argument. If you think that everything is superstition (or its equivalent) in any case so what's the difference, so be it. I don't though - for the reasons I've given.

I don't think everything is superstition, and that isn't implied in anything I wrote. I think that values are subjective, based on faith, held more strongly in some than others. And that they don't have a methodology to justify them

[Nearly Sane]

Thinking something is unjustified is different from thinking it is wrong.

OK, then i'll change the statement to why does she want them to say something that isn't justified.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Sorry folks - just off to cook dinner (Adam Gray's salmon with chorizo, cream and peas since you ask:

http://www.adamgraychef.co.uk/pdf/Organic%20Salmon%20with%20English%20Peas%20and%20Chorizo.pdf)

Back later though.

That's great .......you whip up a hash for us and swan off to do yourself an "Adam Gray".

[SusanDoris]

Re security for religious leaders:; Of course all citizens should be able to rely on the protection of the Law and the Police, particularly those in positions of high risk. My first post was, as JeremyP says, a plea, wishful thinking, knowing this is never going to take place during my lifetime, much as I’d like it to, since it could take us a few pigeon steps closer to non-belief.

Vlad: Unfortunately, Richard Holloway did not have a strong enough voice or prominent-enough position to make more than a small dent in religious beliefs – even though that dent was a good thing.

[Nearly Sane]

Re security for religious leaders:; Of course all citizens should be able to rely on the protection of the Law and the Police, particularly those in positions of high risk. My first post was, as JeremyP says, a plea, wishful thinking, knowing this is never going to take place during my lifetime, much as I’d like it to, since it could take us a few pigeon steps closer to non-belief.

Vlad: Unfortunately, Richard Holloway did not have a strong enough voice or prominent-enough position to make more than a small dent in religious beliefs – even though that dent was a good thing.

How does that address that you want people to make a statement that you don't think can be justified?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Re security for religious leaders:; Of course all citizens should be able to rely on the protection of the Law and the Police, particularly those in positions of high risk. My first post was, as JeremyP says, a plea, wishful thinking, knowing this is never going to take place during my lifetime, much as I’d like it to, since it could take us a few pigeon steps closer to non-belief.

Vlad: Unfortunately, Richard Holloway did not have a strong enough voice or prominent-enough position to make more than a small dent in religious beliefs – even though that dent was a good thing.

I don't think the religious leaders were worried so much about their own security but for congregations and places of worship.

Richard Holloway might be lionised by those who want people to leave the church at any cost and it seems that you yourself approve of him staying in for the purposes of sabotage. But people might wonder why he didn't leave the church when he knew he no longer believed in it but stayed in it accumulating position and status and positive cachet being one of Scotland's leading clergy.

To misquote Bluehillside Holloway is not even ''Spong''.

he did have a prominent position but only did not have a strong enough voice in the sense that any clergy do not in a predominatently secular society.

[SusanDoris]

How does that address that you want people to make a statement that you don't think can be justified?

I am quite happy to concede that it probably does not; and I cannot think of anything else to say on this at the moment, so also am quite content for you to have the last word here!

I don't think the religious leaders were worried so much about their own security but for congregations and places of worship.

Richard Holloway might be lionised by those who want people to leave the church at any cost and it seems that you yourself approve of him staying in for the purposes of sabotage. But people might wonder why he didn't leave the church when he knew he no longer believed in it but stayed in it accumulating position and status and positive cachet being one of Scotland's leading clergy.

To misquote Bluehillside Holloway is not even ''Spong''.

he did have a prominent position but only did not have a strong enough voice in the sense that any clergy do not in a predominatently secular society.

I once saw advertised (in the Times Ed Sup) a book entitled, 'Teaching as a subversive activity' and I do so wish I had bought a copy straight away, because when I decided to do so later, it was no longer traceable.
If Vicars with doubts strong enough to have made them face the fact that there is zero evidence for any god, and increasingly reliable evidence for the scientific method, then if they can do something to direct people's credulity and gullibility away from God/god beliefs and towards the testability of science, then I think that would be a good thing. Whether this could be called hypocritical or not - and it could - it would be ina good cause!


going back to the case of whether the french priest would still be alive today if he'd had a security officer by his side, I suppose he probably would, but he and the two murderers are dead. Maybe they believed that their spirits would go to (a) heaven, and (b) some paradise, but  since there is zero evidence for either, the fact remains that their lives have ended.

the sooner that religious leaders and followers accept the facts*, the sooner security forces will have more time to support all citizens going about their daily, law-abiding lives.

**Yes, I know this will take a long time to achieve. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

No, my charge of double standards is not about you not attacking other people but allowing faith to determine your values on one thing, in this case politics, and attacking others for doing it in religion.

Then you’re still wrong about that. If you take, say, my “political” view that citizens being healthy and well fed is to be preferred to the contrary, then that’s my opinion on the matter. If pressed I could probably rationalise why I intuit it - that would be to do with it being in my self-interest because on balance societies made of healthy and well fed people are more harmonious than those that are not, and that’s the kind of society that suits me best.

What I don’t do though is to claim that my opinion is factually “true” either by asserting divine instruction (clerics) or at the point of a gun (dictators).
 
That’s a qualitative difference because it’s a different type of standard (opinion vs fact) rather than a double standard about the same category of belief type.

Indeed I am going nuclear, that's because I am a relativist and don't mind the option. The Laws argument only properly works for those touting absolutism but appealing to relativist approaches.

Yes, but claiming factual truths is a kind of absolutism. And you can’t be relativist about that - or at least not practically if you want to apply those facts by, for example, jumping out of the window rather than taking the lift.   

Which is lovely, we're it not you ignoring that lots of those religious people you want to point at and go 'Woo, You're like ISIS, you are' are not absolutist in that way either. And if they aren't and yet are somehow justifying absolutists, then your political approach justifies political absolutist approaches

The political approach I’ve dealt with. And your straw man here is, 'Woo, You're like ISIS, you are' (something Vlad tries a lot too by the way). What I actually say is, “the argument on which you rely for your claims of fact – “faith” – is the same, albeit that the outputs from it vary hugely”.

That’s the point – not that the content of the beliefs is the same, but rather that the process by which they think themselves to be factually correct is the same.
 

argumentum ad populum to justify your faith.

Flat wrong. The argumentum ad populum entails claiming something to be true because lots of people think it’s true. I do no such thing – rather I merely observe that lots of people tend to cohere around common positions (co-operation good/murder bad etc), which demonstrably is the case. I also note that by and large those positions are ones I like too. What I don’t do though is to suggest that any of those positions are “true” or “factual” in any empirical sense, either because lots of people think that way or indeed for any other reason.       

We are personalising it because your statements apply to people. Religion and politics don't exist outside them so it is automatically personalised. If you justify your politics by your belief in what should happen, how do you justify to someone who murders your family because they believe they are justified by what should hapoen?

I meant “personal” as in “about one person”. And again, I don’t “justify” my politics at all. I’ll say things like, "this it the type of society in which I’d prefer to live” but I make no claim whatever to being objectively right about that – either because my “faith” tells me so or because my tanks tell you so.     

is the Dear Leader doing politics wrong? How do you know that or argue for it?
(BTW I think the major flaw in your approach is as ever booking down a person to their religion and indeed representing religion as simplistically as you do - that's where the link between you and Dear Leader breaks down, but that's the same place where the link between my mother and ISIS breaks too.

See above – the clerics/Dear Leader connection is the insistence on being factually correct, or true albeit using different methods to get there (faith and violence respectively or, if you prefer, violence in the next life and violence in this life respectively).

As I make no such claim to fact or truth though, your comparison of me with the religious believer/Dear Leader fails. 

And it’s not “simplistic” – it’s just simple: either you think that religious faith is a reliable guide to truths or you don’t. And if you do then you have no basis to deny the same approach to anyone else, regardless of what they think their truths to be.   

I don't think everything is superstition, and that isn't implied in anything I wrote. I think that values are subjective, based on faith, held more strongly in some than others. And that they don't have a methodology to justify them

This isn’t about “values” though. You may or may not find your values to be informed by your faith or indeed by anything else. What it is about is factual certainty obtained from faith – certainty that “God” is real, that homosexuality is wrong, that a woman in shorts is promiscuous and deserves to be punished for it – all these things being as factually true as nose on your face.

That’s the issue.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I am quite happy to concede that it probably does not; and I cannot think of anything else to say on this at the moment, so also am quite content for you to have the last word here!
I once saw advertised (in the Times Ed Sup) a book entitled, 'Teaching as a subversive activity' and I do so wish I had bought a copy straight away, because when I decided to do so later, it was no longer traceable.
If Vicars with doubts strong enough to have made them face the fact that there is zero evidence for any god, and increasingly reliable evidence for the scientific method, then if they can do something to direct people's credulity and gullibility away from God/god beliefs and towards the testability of science, then I think that would be a good thing. Whether this could be called hypocritical or not - and it could - it would be ina good cause!
 

You are fairly ill informed.
The scientific method yields zero evidence for what the atheist who believes in a Godfree existence basically believes. That is called philosophical naturalism.

Science does not do God and has nothing to say about what religious people talk about God.

As the great atheist Chomsky points out the scientific method appears less applicable in complex fields.

Secondly science is reductionist and thus it is easy for someone of the belief that science has done away with this, that or the other to reduce humanity to chemicals and electrical activity and then live as though they were something more than that in private.

In conclusion like Len you have such faith in science you never bothered to really find out what it is all about and assumed understanding it was a gift bestowed on atheists like some  ''Holy spirit''.

For some reason scientism and its attendant intellectual slovenliness must have had great attraction to yours and Len James generation. A social phenomena well worth study I would say.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

going back to the case of whether the french priest would still be alive today if he'd had a security officer by his side, I suppose he probably would, but he and the two murderers are dead. Maybe they believed that their spirits would go to (a) heaven, and (b) some paradise, but  since there is zero evidence for either, the fact remains that their lives have ended.

the sooner that religious leaders and followers accept the facts*, the sooner security forces will have more time to support all citizens going about their daily, law-abiding lives.

**Yes, I know this will take a long time to achieve.

I'm sorry....Is this addressed to me or the gallery?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

NS,

Then you’re still wrong about that. If you take, say, my “political” view that citizens being healthy and well fed is to be preferred to the contrary, then that’s my opinion on the matter. If pressed I could probably rationalise why I intuit it - that would be to do with it being in my self-interest because on balance societies made of healthy and well fed people are more harmonious than those that are not, and that’s the kind of society that suits me best.
 

Since this suits everybody....why has it never worked out like that?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

You are fairly ill informed.

Well, let's see shall we?

The scientific method yields zero evidence for what the atheist who believes in a Godfree existence basically believes. That is called philosophical naturalism.

And he falls at the first hurdle:

1. The scientific method deals with the material. It's indifferent to claims of the supernatural because those claims offer nothing with which it can engage (and nor for that matter can anything else, but that's another matter).   

2. Atheism does not entail a "godfree" universe. What it actually entails is a universe in which there's no evidence for "God" - a very different matter.

3. That's not what "philosophical materialism" means at all. It's just your repeated re-definition of it to suit your purposes. What philosophical materialism actually means is that - so far at least - the material is all we know of that's reliably accessible and testable.

Endlessly repeating the same lie does not by some mysterious process make it not a lie you know.   

You're not doing very well so far are you. OK, next...

Science does not do God and has nothing to say about what religious people talk about God.

Or about leprechauns for that matter. Your problem though is that these "religious people" have nothing to put in its place to distinguish their claims from just guessing about stuff.

As the great atheist Chomsky points out the scientific method appears less applicable in complex fields.

No he doesn't - stop lying. Science deals with very complex "fields". Religious belief though isn't a complex field in any case - it's just people asserting their very strong opinions - about anything - as facts with no means of validating their claims. 

Secondly...

"Secondly"? Any chance of a "firstly" first?

.. science is reductionist...

Nope. To be "reductionist" you need first to demonstrate that there's something to reduce from. And no, "I had a really strong feeling that a god paid me a visit" doesn't even come close for that purpose.

...and thus...

There is no "thus" because your premise is false.

... it is easy for someone of the belief that science has done away with this, that or the other to reduce humanity to chemicals and electrical activity and then live as though they were something more than that in private.

No-one says that science has "done away with" god - again, but because science is merely as indifferent to such claims as it is to any other un-defined, un-argued and un-evidenced claims of fact. Oh, and humans are effectively "chemicals and electrical activity" but that's all that's needed for the huge complexity of consciousness to emerge.

In conclusion like Len you have such faith in science you never bothered to really find out what it is all about and assumed understanding it was a gift bestowed on atheists like some  ''Holy spirit''.

Actually they know much more about it than you do, at least if the unholy mess of a thread you've attempted is any guide to your level of knowledge.

For some reason scientism...

Another term you've never understood.

... and its attendant intellectual slovenliness must have had great attraction people to yours and Len James generation. A social phenomena well worth study I would say.

It's phenomenon, and your misuse of the term renders the point you've attempted void in any case.

So what have we learned here? Well, while your opening salvo of "You are fairly ill informed" may or may not be true we do know now that you by contrast are exceptionally ill informed. Or dishonest. Or both.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

NS,

Then you’re still wrong about that. If you take, say, my “political” view that citizens being healthy and well fed is to be preferred to the contrary, then that’s my opinion on the matter. If pressed I could probably rationalise why I intuit it - that would be to do with it being in my self-interest because on balance societies made of healthy and well fed people are more harmonious than those that are not, and that’s the kind of society that suits me best.

What I don’t do though is to claim that my opinion is factually “true” either by asserting divine instruction (clerics) or at the point of a gun (dictators).
 
That’s a qualitative difference because it’s a different type of standard (opinion vs fact) rather than a double standard about the same category of belief type.

Yes, but claiming factual truths is a kind of absolutism. And you can’t be relativist about that - or at least not practically if you want to apply those facts by, for example, jumping out of the window rather than taking the lift.   

The political approach I’ve dealt with. And your straw man here is, 'Woo, You're like ISIS, you are' (something Vlad tries a lot too by the way). What I actually say is, “the argument on which you rely for your claims of fact – “faith” – is the same, albeit that the outputs from it vary hugely”.

That’s the point – not that the content of the beliefs is the same, but rather that the process by which they think themselves to be factually correct is the same.
 
Flat wrong. The argumentum ad populum entails claiming something to be true because lots of people think it’s true. I do no such thing – rather I merely observe that lots of people tend to cohere around common positions (co-operation good/murder bad etc), which demonstrably is the case. I also note that by and large those positions are ones I like too. What I don’t do though is to suggest that any of those positions are “true” or “factual” in any empirical sense, either because lots of people think that way or indeed for any other reason.       

I meant “personal” as in “about one person”. And again, I don’t “justify” my politics at all. I’ll say things like, "this it the type of society in which I’d prefer to live” but I make no claim whatever to being objectively right about that – either because my “faith” tells me so or because my tanks tell you so.     

See above – the clerics/Dear Leader connection is the insistence on being factually correct, or true albeit using different methods to get there (faith and violence respectively or, if you prefer, violence in the next life and violence in this life respectively).

As I make no such claim to fact or truth though, your comparison of me with the religious believer/Dear Leader fails. 

And it’s not “simplistic” – it’s just simple: either you think that religious faith is a reliable guide to truths or you don’t. And if you do then you have no basis to deny the same approach to anyone else, regardless of what they think their truths to be.   

This isn’t about “values” though. You may or may not find your values to be informed by your faith or indeed by anything else. What it is about is factual certainty obtained from faith – certainty that “God” is real, that homosexuality is wrong, that a woman in shorts is promiscuous and deserves to be punished for it – all these things being as factually true as nose on your face.

That’s the issue.

This is all very grandee Hillside but what has this got to do with religious leaders talking to the security services about security at places of worship?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Since this suits everybody....why has it never worked out like that?

For most people in most places, it has.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

This is all very grandee Hillside but what has this got to do with religious leaders talking to the security services about security at places of worship?

Read the OP.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Well, let's see shall we?

And he falls at the first hurdle:

1. The scientific method deals with the material. It's indifferent to claims of the supernatural because those claims offer nothing with which it can engage (and nor for that matter can anything else, but that's another matter).   

2. Atheism does not entail a "godfree" universe. What it actually entails is a universe in which there's no evidence for "God" - a very different matter.

3. That's not what "philosophical materialism" means at all. It's just your repeated re-definition of it to suit your purposes. What philosophical materialism actually means is that - so far at least - the material is all we know of that's reliably accessible and testable.

Endlessly repeating the same lie does not by some mysterious process make it not a lie you know.   

You're not doing very well so far are you. OK, next...

Or about leprechauns for that matter. Your problem though is that these "religious people" have nothing to put in its place to distinguish their claims from just guessing about stuff.

No he doesn't - stop lying. Science deals with very complex "fields". Religious belief though isn't a complex field in any case - it's just people asserting their very strong opinions - about anything - as facts with no means of validating their claims. 

"Secondly"? Any chance of a "firstly" first?

Nope. To be "reductionist" you need first to demonstrate that there's something to reduce from. And no, "I had a really strong feeling that a god paid me a visit" doesn't even come close for that purpose.

There is no "thus" because your premise is false.

No-one says that science has "done away with" god - again, but because science is merely as indifferent to such claims as it is to any other un-defined, un-argued and un-evidenced claims of fact. Oh, and humans are effectively "chemicals and electrical activity" but that's all that's needed for the huge complexity of consciousness to emerge.

Actually they know much more about it than you do, at least if the unholy mess of a thread you've attempted is any guide to your level of knowledge.

Another term you've never understood.

It's phenomenon, and your misuse of the term renders the point you've attempted void in any case.

So what have we learned here? Well, while your opening salvo of "You are fairly ill informed" may or may not be true we do know now that you by contrast are exceptionally ill informed. Or dishonest. Or both.

You are trying to defend the indefensible here Hillside....alright then, trying to polish a turd.
Su Do is trying to link belief in the scientific method with atheism.

Me and John Polkinghorne believe in the scientific method and we are not atheists.

What has science got to do with security at places of worship anyway?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I've just completely dismantled your last effort. As you've avoided that entirely are we to take it that you now realise how wrong/dishonest you are, or will you follow your usual tactics of ignoring it, going quiet for a bit, then returning with the same mistakes and lies?

You are trying to defend the indefensible here Hillside....alright then, trying to polish a turd.
Su Do is trying to link belief in the scientific method with atheism.

No she isn't.

Me and John Polkinghorne believe in the scientific method and we are not atheists.

It's "John Polkingholme and I", and so what?

What has science got to do with security at places of worship anyway?

You introduced it - you tell me.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Read the OP.

I've read it and took it as a straw man argument designed to score points in a barrel scraping way.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I've read it and took it as a straw man argument designed to score points in a barrel scraping way.

Then, as is almost invariably the case, you were wrong.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

I've just completely dismantled your last effort. As you've avoided that entirely are we to take it that you now realise how wrong/dishonest you are, or will you follow your usual tactics of ignoring it, going quiet for a bit, then returning with the same mistakes and lies?

No she isn't.

It's "John Polkingholme and I", and so what?

You introduced it - you tell me.

I'm sorry but she is floating a God versus the scientific method agenda which is false.
Did you read what she said?

Are you a member of some turd polishing society or something, do you have meetings, are you organised along the lines of the masons or Opus Dei?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I'm sorry but she is floating a God versus the scientific method agenda which is false.

No she isn't.

Did you read what she said?

Yes: "...the fact that there is zero evidence for any god, and increasingly reliable evidence for the scientific method, then if they can do something to direct people's credulity and gullibility away from God/god beliefs and towards the testability of science, then I think that would be a good thing."

At no point does she even imply that science disproves "God", so why are you lying about that with your response of "The scientific method yields zero evidence for what the atheist who believes in a Godfree existence basically believes"?

That's not just stupid, it's dishonest.

Are you a member of some turd polishing society or something, do you have meetings, are you organised along the lines of the masons or Opus Dei?

You flat out lie about something and then accuse someone else of "turd polishing?

Oh, and as you've just ducked my, "I've just completely dismantled your last effort. As you've avoided that entirely are we to take it that you now realise how wrong/dishonest you are, or will you follow your usual tactics of ignoring it, going quiet for a bit, then returning with the same mistakes and lies?" I'll take your silence as a "yes" then.

Why bother?