Why Wear the Whole Hat?

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spdjeane: I was just saying that there seem to be a few stereotypical Christians here who want to pontificate their viewpoint on who is right or wrong. I see from your writing in this thread that you don't fit that mould because you are looking at the 'bigger picture' in reference to a lot of what is being said. Unfortunately, those that only quote the religious texts ad nauseum to try to prove their point have pulled the hat well and truly down over their eyes, and thus have become blind to everything else.

"pulled the hat down over their eyes"

I'm glad to know that you don't perceive me that way. The aggressive unchecked evangelism and the practice of "proof texting" in this forum upset me and frustrate me very much, and I would hate to feel that I was a part of it. Please, don't hesitate to let me know if you think I do ever step over the line between just talking about my perspective to pushing that perspective on other people.

OK, Let me quote you then....



Precisely what I said, you don't believe in the god of the bible.



You see?? the straw-man is on your part. I never made this argument.. you did.

Now do us all a favor and take Logic 101.

Your statement that, "(I) don't believe in the God of the Bible," is an inaccurate description of my position and, therefore, still very much a straw man argument.

I believe in the God who was described by the writers of the Bible from their fallible perspectives. Therefore, I can honestly say that I believe in the God of the Bible.

However, I do not believe that the Bible is literally God, which is what I meant when I said, "I don't believe in the Bible. I believe in God," as I already tried to explain.



You did make this argument in that it is a presupposition to:



Your argument about the Noid only works if you believe that the Bible or even the preconception of the Bible and God are synonymous.

I have a BA in Philosophy.

It's NOT the original context of this argument, and here's why intellectualy disingenuous.

Scientists have been recently discovering extra-solar planets by observing the doppler shift in the light from them. When the notice a star wobling, they can tell that it's the gravity of a planet causing it. The problem with this method is that only Jupiter and Saturn sized-planets cause this doppler shift. According to your reasoning, scientists would conclude that only large planets exist outside our solar system. This of couse is a ridiculous conclusion. All scientists have said that we merely lack a method of dicovering smaller planets for the time being.

The scientist, in the example you use, would correctly say that the net he used was only capable of catching fish over 3" an therefore, a different test method would have to be used to detect fish of a smaller size.

First of all, I never accused you of making a straw-man argument. I accused you of divorcing an idea from its origins, which is what you have done.

You left out the important "of Abraham" refrence to god. Let me make this perfectly clear, when I say god of "the bible" or "of Abraham" I mean Yahweh/Jehova.

I don't "believe" that the bible is man-made, it IS man-made. Starting with the book of genisis, whe story of the garden of eden and Noah's are both plagerisms of Summerian mythology. The Summerian texts pre-date the bible by almost 1000 years, and there is a direct descent of litterary works between the two. The stories have of course changed therfore the stories are fictional. Meaning of couse, Yahweh is fictional. To argue otherwise is to fall into my reductio-ad-absurdum argument using the noid. Do you really think it's logical to believe that 1980's pizzaria patrons were pestered by an anthropromorphic pizza stealling bunny rabit? And the 1990's Domino's pizza commercials featuring the Noid was merely a description of a pre-existing being?

If you believe that...... I have a bridge I'll sell you.

I thought you would've figured this one out yourself. First of all I was arguing why scientific principles didn't have to make it through the 100% standard of which you have accused me of making an "Either Or Fallicy".

I say that religious claims need to be proven 100% based on the claims that monotheism itsself makes. If you belive that Yahweh is the omnipotent creator of the universe and there are no other gods, that statement is either true, or it isn't. Unlike scientific claims of natural phenomenon, where we can establish degrees of certianty based on the evidence.

Your argument that god and the bible aren't synonymous only works if you AREN'T refering to Yahweh/Jehova specifically.

If you ARE refering to Yahweh/Jehova, then that god IS synonymous with the bible. The claims of Yahweh are incompatible with a human race that has existed for 200,000 years. If Yahweh was truely interested in human affars, and the Israelites were his chosen people, both would've existed 200,000 years ago, not 3,500 years ago.



I took several philosophy classes myself. It was a waste of time, for the most part and didn't require much intelligence since you never had to prove anything.

Following this logic, we can see that several of Spider Robinson's novels have featured, as a character, famed inventor Nikola Tesla. The works in which he was featured were clearly fictional.

Using the logic outlined above, obviously, Nikola Tesla was fictional.

If God/YVHV/Jehovah exists, and tales are made up about Him, His existence is not changed by the tales, any more than Nero ceased having been a Roman emperor simply because someone made up a story about him playing a fiddle while Rome burned, or any more than George Washington became fictional because of the (fictitious) cherry tree story...

No you're fogetting one major difference. There's outside evidence that both Nero and Tesla existed. The only accounts of Yahweh/Jehova are in a work of fiction. There's no independent corroborating evidence.