TS,
Yes you are wrong.
Specifically or just in general?
You make various claims and assertions.
Everything everyone says here regarding theism is opinion. You say I'm wrong. I say you are wrong. That's the game. Don't think I don't know who you are.
Sometimes you don’t bother with arguments to justify them, so there’s no reason to take them seriously.
Again, specifically or are you operating on the assumption that whatever I say about the Bible and God and gods is false? According to you whatever I have to say about the aforementioned subjects is wrong. My lengthy posts on historicity and Genesis chapter one, for example. I don't recall a well informed rebuttal of any of that. I just recall people like you, in some sense, saying I was wrong. I don't recall an argument, really. Do we need to revisit those?
I don't think so because, well, I'm just wrong, correct?
On other occasions you have attempted arguments to justify them, and when you’ve done that I’ve explained why those arguments are wrong.
You may have to refresh my memory. I don't recall that. I'm not familiar with everyone here yet, but all I recall is people saying things like I'm wrong. No explanation. Just wrong.
That’s not to say that you haven’t got other arguments in the locker that you haven’t tried yet, and nor is it to say that any such arguments will necessarily be wrong too. So far though, throwing pejorative terms at the person who's undone you rather than attempting to rebut the falsifications you’ve been given points only to your insecurities.
[Laughs] Okay. Well, I'll have to try to remember that.
When faith meets reason there is no game: it's over before it starts.
Now I think you are telling the truth as you see it. No argument from you. I'm just wrong. Not much point in it, is there? Except for perhaps that I see and am willing to acknowledge the possibility that I'm wrong and you are right. That's why I call you (fundamentalist militant atheists as a collective) ideologues. Now, in my nearly 30 years of debating these atheists I've actually come across a few that were well informed outside of tradition and capable of making good points. Arguments. I'm not saying it isn't here, I'm just saying I haven't seen it. But I'm still interested in hearing your argument. So . . . anytime. [looks at watch]
We could, but to do that we’d have to sort out your abuse of language first.
No, I have to correct your ignorance of language, which is why that is what I first attempted to do, announcing at that time that it was a futile excursion.
Essentially you take terms used in religious contexts that have been borrowed for colloquial purposes (“god”, divine” etc) and then seek to claim them to be epistemically equivalent. It’s a bizarre approach – presumably if I called my dog “faithful” that would make her religious too in your ontology – and you can’t just get away with it as a Trojan horse for the terms you actually intend in a religious discussion.
[Sigh] Colloquial and metaphoric applications of the word God doesn't negate the meaning of the word. Examples of various Gods, gods, and goddesses are not meanings of the word. All you have to tell me is what does it take to be a god. If you say religious, supernatural, colloquial, metaphoric or give only examples of the word God (or god) you are not giving it's meaning. It's meaning is implicit in the application as well as the example but not given in it's use. To do so would be the same as saying that the meaning of the word man, prince, king, lord et cetera used in a similar way would be definitive of those words or negate their meaning.
The definition of atheism doesn't specify which God or gods are in question. The term disbelief or lack of belief isn't exclusively a religious connotation. The disbelief or lack of belief isn't a trust as in, for example, the Latin word credit, it's a question of existence. The only way an atheist can adhere to the term atheist by definition is to limit the use of the word God and gods thereby excluding most applications and negating the meaning of the word itself. The result is an ignorance, not only of the use of God and gods in a Biblical and theological structure but also the possibility that the concept of God and gods in their intended meaning in any language, primitive or otherwise, of any religious or secular application is erroneous. In other words, an atheist may have many gods in their lives which they don't even know are gods. This can be a problem if the atheist should become theist. So for Jehovah God of the Bible to say you shall have no other gods before me isn't a command to abstain from metaphoric or colloquial applications as can be seen in those very uses in context to the command itself. It begs the question what is or who are those gods?
So the theists try to explain this away by dividing all other gods in comparison to the One True God as being false as opposed to the true, but that doesn't make sense because some were true (Moses, Jesus, the Judges of Israel) and some weren't. Satan, Molech, Ashtoreth, Dagon et cetera. The tactic of the atheist is to say no literal god ever existed, (by extension excluding any colloquial or metaphoric application) which doesn't make sense because, at least to them, Moses, Jesus and the Judges of Israel existed in a literal sense.
And that doesn't even begin to address the complications of such an argument presents to Shintoism and Hinduism. The latter which was addressed briefly by Sriram in our discussions of gods and the former which I myself brought up. I think. If I didn't then I am now.
It can certainly be argued that ultimately, at least given the very common misconception, pedantic and as far as I'm concerned we've given it more than enough time.
I don’t need to say anything about “it”. All I have to do is to reason that the arguments you try to justify your JW beliefs are wrong – so far, a trivially simple thing to do.
Yeah, sure. You just keep repeating that you are right and I'm wrong. No reason to give any reason. No real argument. Who's going to disagree with you? Pat yourself on the back for being obstinately obtuse with just the right smug self righteous ideological dispossession. Typical atheist tactic.
I have a “faithful” dog. Which denomination does that make her a member of would you say?
Why would you make such an ignorant statement? You suggest that to be faithful exclusively applies to the theistic or religious?
How about my “divine” piece of cheesecake?
Venerated colloquially or metaphorically speaking? What about your "devil's food" cake? Implicit in the Devil's existence? Angel food cake? What does devil mean? Slanderer. Angel? Messenger. What's that got to do with cake? Dark. Light. It's nonsensical.
Damn these words!
Or maybe the “mystery” of the way my wife always knows what I will think before I think it?
I dare say it's not such a mystery.
Fun as it is just pretending that colloquial uses of terms somehow makes them equivalent to their theistic usages, it’s a still non-starter for reasons that really should be dawning on you by now.
If I were mentally challenged the equivalent would be lost upon me but it isn't, you see. It's lost upon you. That's okay, though, because we can carry on as if the specific God in question regarding atheism and theism, for that matter, is as limited as you suggest. I told you you wouldn't get it. I know that when you say God you mean one specific God or application of God's most commonly known in Western culture.
Given your abuse of language I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that you claim your reason free ranting to be “excellent”.
HEY! Don't knock my ability to rant in a most excellent fashion! Nor underestimate the, uh, the . . . whatsit? Jovial
operation of error. Try to Google that, my illusive argumentative, and I'll show you a green dog, see if I don't!
It matters hugely. If you can’t produce coherent and logically sound arguments to justify your beliefs (and, so far at least, you can’t) then you give me no reason to take them seriously. Worse, you give yourself no reason to take them seriously either.
Does that not give you pause? It should you know – really it should.
Man! (colloquially speaking) I thought I was arrogant!
