Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
That is demonstrably false, consider the following example:
---------------------------------------------------------
Initial post: "sdfjhf;fkjlfkjewfhwef"
1st reply: "I don't comprehend what you have written."
---------------------------------------------------------
So here we have a coherent response from someone who didn't comprehend the initial post, which is something you just told us isn't possible.
I'll gladly make that the exception to the rule. Though I would point out a "coherent response" must be taken together. You seem to ignore the relationship between the two words.
More word games without a coherent answer to Sheldon's question.
You seem to to be confirming my last post to you in detail.
If you will not respond to a basic, sensible, comprehensible question from Sheldon regarding your chosen deity, why should anyone respond to you?
I do think you're flipping things around. From my perspective Sheldon isn't responding to my OP's question, therefore I will not respond to his. Also note the word games aren't coming from me. I make a statement, and other's try to find semantic exceptions, which I attempt to correct.
Nyar took my phrase "coherent response" (which initially meant an answer which makes sense given the question), and split it. In his scenario he shows a "response" in the sense of a reply, not an answer. We also shows it is coherent in the sense that it is grammatically and syntactically correct. Therefore we have a coherent response. So whose playing word games here?
*rolls eyes*. Most of us grew out of these responses in our late teens. Then again, that was about the time rationality set in.
"Sheldon started it" is not a mature response. Stand in the corner until you can stop being clever. No supper until you answer the question.
If its not mature why did you bring it up: "If you will not respond to a basic... question from Sheldon... why should anyone respond to you?" I also don't respond to those who don't respond to me.
I actually find Sheldon to be more arrogant than intelligent. My conversations with him feel like the ones I have with my nephew. So its understandable if my interactions with him do stain me, and give me a childish appearance.
I try to limit my interactions with him as much as possible. My advice is not to read our conversations unless the rest of the thread gets boring.
Not playing your games child.
"Prevarication is when someone tells a lie, especially in a sneaky way. ... While the noun prevarication is mostly just a fancy way to say "lie," it can also mean skirting around the truth, being vague about the truth, or even delaying giving someone an answer, especially to avoid telling them the whole truth." also "walk crookedly," in Church L., "to transgress," from prae "before" + varicare "to straddle," from varicus "straddling," from varus "bowlegged, knock-kneed." Meaning "evasion, quibbling"..
It is a shame that someone with your apparent talent resorts to an ultimate self defeating strategy. It will not end well for you.
Well, I care more about what I express than how I'm perceived. I personally see no use in being sneaky, but I am guilty as charged when it comes to Sheldon. Pay close attention to the people I have constructive conversations with and emulate them.
I think you have proven by your conduct and conversations you are not interested in constructive conversation or even exchange of knowledge or ideas. Rather your interest is in a childish 'pissing' contest where you duck and weave, avoid answering questions, act in an immature manner and generally, when pressed resort to a patronising and overweeningly superior manner.
I have no wish to engage with anyone on those terms.
Shame. I'll hold you to it.
I'm not playing your game because you NEVER give evidence for your beliefs, whilst constantly trying to insist the burden of proof lies with those who don't believe something you can demonstrate no evidence for. T Your "question" is just another of your attempts to revers the burden of proof, including your tedious tactic of narrowing all debate to suit your own bias.
If I were alone in thinking this I might re-examine my conclusion even with multiple exampled over weeks of posting, but that is not the case. Accusing atheists of bias is ironic as well, as you are the one who has chosen one deity to believe in, unlike atheists who apply the same burden of proof to all claims that deities are real.
A response is not incoherent just because you don't like it, or think it doesn't take the debate where you want it to go, and you have throughout failed to acknowledge multiple posters pointing out that your question is irrational. You doubt claims, it's absurd to doubt your doubts about claims, you simply weigh any evidence for those claims and either can believe the claim or not.
Now what objective evidence can you demonstrate that any deity exists? Otherwise why would anyone change their position on your claim a deity is real?
I've told you many times that I think the burden of proof is a silly concept. Not to mention that asking about your doubts, is the opposite of asking about your proofs. So what exactly am I shifting?
"I've told you many times that I think the burden of proof is a silly concept."
I don't care what you think about the burden of proof, the epistemological validity of the principle is sound.
"Not to mention that asking about your doubts, is the opposite of asking about your proofs."
I need no evidence for the non-existence of something you can demonstrate no objective evidence for, so my doubts are for claims and ideas people can offer no evidence for, it's as absurd now as it was 4 pages ago to ask someone if they doubt their doubts, and for the same reasons you keep ignoring.
"So what exactly am I shifting?"
The burden of proof, as I said, and you have admitted you think the concept is "silly". If that's the case why exactly do you bother with the pretence of debate, without a burden of proof you can believe literally anything.
You should care what I think. Since my intentions are foundational to your accusations.
Your last two commentaries are great examples of an incoherent response. Have you heard of Wernicke's aphasia? A therapist might ask a patient How was your day? The patient might respond No, but the snake was there.
You insert a quote from me, making me thing you're going to address it. But then you talk about something completely unrelated, vaguely touching upon the subject matter. You're clearly not comprehending anything I write, but instead of asking for clarification, you make accusations and demands.
"You're clearly not comprehending anything I write, but instead of asking for clarification, you make accusations and demands."
Wrong again. I'm comprehending it, it is just irrational to phrase a question as you have in your op, and I've explained why enough times now.
"Your last two commentaries are great examples of an incoherent response. Have you heard of Wernicke's aphasia? A therapist might ask a patient How was your day? The patient might respond No, but the snake was there."
At least I'm not completely ignoring what you have said as you do with questions you can't answer, so that's something of an irony overload. Though why you keep needing to be told that I'll write what I think is salient, and not what you want hear, isn't clear
You believe in a deity, then demonstrate some evidence for it if you can, and what I do or do not believe is irrelevant to that failure on your part. So until you show some integrity and address that you're just using coloured bubbles to try and hide the fact that all you're doing is trying to reverse the burden of proof. Odd really since you claimed you thought it was a silly concept, I could just ignore what you asked completely as you do all the time.
As others have said this sententious stance of intellectual superiority isn't as impressive as you seem to think. Either you can demonstrate some objective evidence for your belief or you can't.
I'm perfectly content with many of the responses others have given. I personally just don't think you can add anything of value here. If impressing other's gained me anything I would do it; but I much rather entertain myself.
I see in you a subtle embodiment of Shakespeare's words: Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I don't particularly care what you think, indeed I've seen little evidence in this thread you are thinking at all. It's pretty simple, one has doubts about claims, those doubts are overcome with evidence, can you demonstrate any?
To word your op as a question asking if someone doubts their doubts is silly enough to begin with, but is an obviously transparent way of trying to imply atheists are intransigent or dogmatic if they answer no, and not really atheists if they answer yes. Doubt is too vague a term anyway, since absolute certainty is epistemologically impossible.
"I see in you a subtle embodiment of Shakespeare's words: Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
I view your contributions in the same way, but without the sound and fury.
Well you do seem to care what I think, otherwise why ask me questions and respond to my comments.
I was of course referring specifically to your post telling me what you thought of my contributions, otherwise I'd have said I NEVER care what you think.
Can we assume your game is done then, as you seem content to descend more and more into ad hominem, whilst ironically lecturing me about substance. You asked (I'll rephrase it correctly for you) in your op "what would cause atheists to cast aside their doubts about the existence of a deity or deities? Evidence commensurate to the claim would do that, but as we can see you haven't even tried to demonstrate any. So it's hard not to see your bluster as a smokescreen.
"what would cause atheists to cast aside their doubts about the existence of a deity or deities?"
No.
Too cryptic for me sorry. I removed your double negative in the op, and asked you if you can demonstrate any evidence for a deity that would remove the doubts of atheists.
Is "no" all you have to say? I suppose it's progress of a sort.
If you removed anything from the OP then you are no longer paraphrasing it, you're altering it.
If you removed anything from the OP then you are no longer paraphrasing it, you're altering it.
Paraphrasing
verb
express the meaning of (something written or spoken) using ***different words, especially to achieve greater clarity.
Sigh....
Now how about that evidence, even you must see you've exhausted your duplicitous semantics here? It's your question as to whether atheists doubt their doubts that a deity exists, in order for me to set aside my doubts in the existence of a deity proper evidence needs to be demonstrated, how many different ways can you avoid this obvious fact?
Paraphrasing doesn't alter it's meaning. You altered it.
John 6IX Breezy,
If Yeshua walked on water why didn't he leave any footprints?
"If Yeshua walked on water why didn't he leave any footprints?"
Surely a more salient question is why he chose to do it in front of people from an epoch where ignorance and superstition were ubiquitous? If he wants to convince them then why not everyone? What about their "free will" being affected by such demonstrations? That's what they always say is at stake when I ask why in age of scientific scrutiny miracles have diminished at almost the same rate our knowledge is increased?
Don't test god, god won't be tested, but he'll do miracles for a select few who have no knowledge of the natural world to enable critical examination of "miracles".
Sheldon,
The purpose of the biblical miracles is to illustrate the prelude to the Ten Commandments in action.
Exodus 34:10 (NOG) = "10 Yahweh said, “I’m making my promise again. In front of all your people I will perform miracles that have never been done in any other nation in all the world. All the people around you will see how awesome these miracles are that I will perform for you."
@John 61X Breezy: "Doubts do seem to be experience or time-sensitive; they come with an expiration date."
That's the problem with the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" maxim. There is an expiration date. You can never prove a negative conclusively, but at some point absence of evidence DOES become evidence of absence, if millions of people have been searching for something for millennia and never found it, or if all that searching results in hundreds of mutually exclusive answers.
That's especially true if the evidence sought is about something that defies common sense and experience, such as a disembodied sky fairy who nukes cities, causes global floods, makes virgins pregnant, and has himself crucified to save us from himself.
"That's especially true if the evidence sought is about something that defies common sense and experience, such as a disembodied sky fairy who nukes cities, causes global floods, makes virgins pregnant, and has himself crucified to save us from himself."
Amen to that, I mean who could doubt the veracity of such claims given the complete inability of anyone to offer any objective evidence in the last few thousand years for any of it.
@ Breezy,
strikes me that your hitherto overweening confidence in your intellectual superiority has had a bit of a shock on these forums. You seem to be getting testier and testier as your premises are challenged and your carefully constructed arguments shredded until, in this particular forum, you are left naked admitting having no evidence for the existence of your faith in your particular god except your childhood conditioning.
You have always, I venture to suggest , won the kudos of your fellow sycophants with the faux intellectualism and word play you evidently enjoy, then resorting to a superior "understand the question" "comprehension before" type of comment designed to intimidate.
As you have gathered, this gathering of atheists tend to be an inquisitive lot of diverse folks, well accustomed to independent thought and debate, logical extrapolation and all seem very worldly wise.
Religion/faith hamstrings independent thought and cripples debate as adherents always end up having to us the same tired and increasingly discredited arguments. However "clever" the dialectics that individuals utilise in between, that remains as the biggest failing for the faithful.
And to the OP, however cleverly you have tried to twist the words and the meanings, however overwhelmingly patronising you appear it is obvious to any unbiased reader ( aka my wife) that your doubts about your intellectual superiority and, indeed your own faith in your particular version of a god are severely challenged.
I can see you taking a walk "where the wild creatures are" soon enough
Pages