Touchstone said...
“Jon,__Yeah, the Triabloggers are cowards.”
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/08/xavier-and-evolution-of-legendary.html?showComment=1218562260000#c1148163292996062329
I’ll have more to say about banning shortly, but for now let’s play along with T-stone’s accusation for the sake of argument. Suppose we are cowards. What then?
From the standpoint of secular ethics, what’s so bad about cowardice, anyway? Surely there are times when cowardice is a form of self-preservation. It confers a survival advantage on the individual.
It may be brave for a caveman to attack a Saber-tooth tiger, but it’s also fool-hardly. Or suppose I go hunting with one of my hunter-gatherer comrades. And we’re pursued by a Saber-tooth tiger. Suppose I cut my comrade’s Achilles’ tendon. That way, the Saber-tooth tiger will let me escape while he is busy killing and consuming my hamstrung comrade.
Is that cowardly of me? Sure, but courage is for fools. From an atheistic standpoint, why should I put valor ahead of survival?
T-stone is one of these chic yuppie unbelievers who pretends that you can disbelieve in God while keeping your conventional morality intact. But if atheism is true, then morality doesn’t matter, and heroic virtues like bravery are foolish concessions to social convention.
T-stone says he lost a daughter in childbirth. The death of a child is a parent’s worst nightmare. Yet, by becoming an atheist, he renders her life and death utterly meaningless.
From a secular standpoint, a mindless process has programmed us to value our offspring. We’re expendable vehicles to transmit our genetic information.
From a secular standpoint, the lifecycle is like the automated ghost town in The Martian Chronicles. The machinery continues to cook three squares a day for the extinct inhabitants.
Likewise, in Darwinism, you have a means without a goal. There’s no reason for human beings to exist in the first place. And, eventually, the human race will become extinct.
Yet we’re programmed to keep reproducing ourselves, just as the automated ghost town is programmed to keep cooking three squares a day.
If T-stone is serious about atheism, then he needs to drop the quaint, moralistic rhetoric. He loves his wife, but that’s nothing more than brain chemistry, by the blind chemist of natural selection. He loves his kids, but that’s nothing more than brain chemistry, by the blind chemist of natural selection.
He will live, die, and rot. His wife will live, die and rot, His kids will live, die, and rot. From nothing to nothing.
Like your average atheist, he can’t stand to stare his despairing worldview in the face, so he deadens the pain with the bubble-gummy bromide of social activism: “to build a life of virtue, making my little part of the world a better, more just, happier, and humane place for my kids, their grandkids, and all they will share their world with.”
T-stone is one of those insufferable men who combines dogmatism with instability. He heaps contempt on anyone who doesn’t rubberstamp his current position, and when he ditches that position, he pours contempt on everyone who held the very position he just vacated.
He’s gone the full spectrum from young-earth creationism to old-earth creationism to theistic evolution to deistic evolution to naturalistic evolution. A perennial dogmatist who’s perennially shifting his dogmatic opinions.
He used to attack us because we were the wrong kind of Christian. We weren’t his kind of Christian. On his previously blog he identified himself as “an evangelical Christian, and an avid student of science — a would be physicist, truth be told. As a Christian, I’m committed to the authority of the Bible as God’s special revelation to man.”
http://evangelutionist.com/blog1/about/
Now, however, we’re treated to statements like “Many Christians just don't see how or why such fantastic inventions arose from the crushing disappointment of the crucifixion of the man they supposed the Messiah (assuming here, arguendo, the historicity of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans at around the time commonly supposed)?”
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/08/xavier-and-evolution-of-legendary.html
My question to T-stone is this: how many times can you be a fool, by your own admission, and still think you have the right to lecture anyone else on the latest phase of your superior wisdom?
You grossly mischaracterize the atheist position. If you truly want to criticize it you should first try to really understand it. All you must do is to ask yourself what you would think and do if you finally concluded there was no God. I know this thought is completely foreign to you. But you would still think the same things about the moral terms you use.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you're asking Touchstone to answer you, then I think it behoves you to state below that he can comment here.
I see Paul Manata is taking pot shots at me in another thread here. If I respond he will claim I lack integrity since he banned me from doing so.
None of the T-bloggers are banned from DC.
None.
Picking up on Steve's last quotation of Touchstone, I still want to know why he keeps making comments like "assuming here, arguendo, the historicity of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans at around the time commonly supposed". He still hasn't explained why he's been making such comments. Does he deny Jesus' existence as a historical figure? Does he affirm Jesus' existence, but consider a denial of Jesus' existence reasonable? If not, then why make comments about assuming Jesus' existence for the sake of argument? People don't normally speak that way if they accept Jesus' existence as a highly probable conclusion, as the vast majority of scholars do.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons why this issue is significant is that Touchstone has often made appeals to scholarship and has referred to how harmful the unscholarly nature of young-earth creationism is to Christianity, for example. But the belief that Jesus didn't exist is radically unpopular among scholars.
JOHN W. LOFTUS SAID:
ReplyDelete"You grossly mischaracterize the atheist position. If you truly want to criticize it you should first try to really understand it. All you must do is to ask yourself what you would think and do if you finally concluded there was no God. I know this thought is completely foreign to you. But you would still think the same things about the moral terms you use."
I've frequently quoted secular philosophers who admit that secularism entails moral nihilism.
Loftus said:
ReplyDelete---
None of the T-bloggers are banned from DC.
None.
---
Yet Loftus also said:
---
Now, if that puts us at a standstill or impasse, then it does. This is where worldviews collide. Our worldviews here are incommensurable at this very point. We’re at an impasse. This is the point where we can go no further. So, unless you want to provide us with reasons for the suffering we experience or provide reasons for believing the Bible is God’s word, do not bother coming back to our humble Blog.
You are banned. Do not post there anymore about anything. And if you are a christian then you should respect my wishes.
(source)
You grossly mischaracterize the atheist position. If you truly want to criticize it you should first try to really understand it. All you must do is to ask yourself what you would think and do if you finally concluded there was no God. I know this thought is completely foreign to you. But you would still think the same things about the moral terms you use.
ReplyDeleteIn what way is the atheist position being mischaracterized, John? Steve isn't claiming that atheists will act immorally. He is arguing that they have no grounds for their moral beliefs and behavior. It's a fairly obvious distinction; it seems strange you'd have missed it.
Regards,
Bnonn
To second Dominic's comments, there's a difference between the stated beliefs of a worldview's adherents and the logical conclusions of that worldview.
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when your worldview is based on the fact that you listened to too much XTC.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCalvinDude was banned in May of 2006. He repeatedly repeated the same argument to every single one of our posts for several months; a stupid argument we had denied time after time.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the problem, Pike?
I had forgotten I had banned him. That was a few beers ago.
I do not ban people forever, either, if they repent and show forth fruits in keeping with their repentence. ;-)
I just stated above that none of the staff at T-Blog is banned.
What's there not to understand?
Steve said...I've frequently quoted secular philosophers who admit that secularism entails moral nihilism.
ReplyDeleteYou mean quotes from atheistic existentialists?
And I have to agree because...
John,
ReplyDeleteActually, it was a brilliant argument and all you could do is "deny" it since you certainly couldn't refute it.
And anyone is welcome to read the archives to see the only time I used the same argument was when you made the same repeated assertions without backing them up.
But thanks for unbanning me. I'll keep it in mind while I continue to read only that which other people point out to me from your site.
Loftus,
ReplyDelete"I see Paul Manata is taking pot shots at me in another thread here. If I respond he will claim I lack integrity since he banned me from doing so."
John, I am responding to your comments which violated my requests. I would have never said one word to you had you not violated my request to stay out of my comboxes. So don't play the victim. I don't get affected by arguments from pity. Here's a dime ... 'n all that jazz.
Not pot shots, John. You have made comments about my wife and then about my father...so I banned you. You chose to ignore my request and posted anyway. I comment on that unvirtuous behavior and you claim I am taking "pot shots"?
Tell you what, John, don't mention my name and I won't mention yours. Believe it or not, I have ZERO interest to publicly (or privately) discuss things in the vein you have chosen to frame our interactions. I have no desire to bicker and engage in meaningless banter with you. I simply desire to only discuss the objective merits of arguments.
Since you seem bent on simply talking about how obnoxious I am, how I make you puke, or how I give you the heebie jeebies, we have left the realm of meaningless discussion. I assume you have better things to spend your time on...as do I. So why don't you move on? Sound good? There is ZERO point to the type of discussion we are engaged in. I'm fine to go our separate ways. Are you? I bear you no ill will. I have no problem with you. I've just seen your stuff, interacted with it, and find you have no challenge to offer my religion. I am sure you feel the same about me. So move on to other things in your life. There is no point to discuss my wife, father, or my idiocy. None of that "Debunks" Christianity.
Paul, when have I just said anything about your wife or your dad? Why did you bring that up just now?
ReplyDeleteHere's the backstory about your past. And the only thing I said about your dad Gary is that he personally contacted me and said you were not telling the truth about him and he apologized for your behavior.
John, below are your words (I disreguard your ad hoc back tracking and face-saving maneuvers):
ReplyDeleteJohn Loftus: "Mark my words, Paul, you will beat your wife when she disagrees with you in the future. If I were her I would be scared to marry you. But I'll never know if what I predict will happen, and I hope it doesn't. But it will, even as a Christian. And when it does, remember who is was [sic] who told you (the truth) that you would do it."
John Loftus: “Berate me all you want to. [Paul’s] wife may thank me, which is more than she can say about you.”
John Lofus: “As far as I'm concerned you have already hit your wife or threatened her, and yet you have the gall to berate me for warning you about this possibility.”
John Loftus: "She (my wife) must be the silent type, the agreeable type, the humble/submissive type, and the doting wife."
If you think all of that is justified (and note that most of those claims, except the first, are missing from the link you send others to) then it is apparent you have severe issues and so it is not only prudent, but wise for me to disengage communicating with you.
Regarding my father, you can play innocent by saying "All I said was,
..." but of course since you have no clue of any of the background issues involved there, you should keep your mouth shut. Since the very thing you claim my father said I lied about is a hot button issue, and has much more involved than you know, why mention it? Why even bring anything up like that? I have been involved with this most of my life, and will still be after you forget about it and its time as a useful smack talk tool has run its course for you is over. These issues are real things, and more are involved that just me and my father (I have brother, mother, and other family too, John). So why do you even go there? My opiniuon is that this is all you have left. The strength of your arguments have been wighed and found wanting and so you're compensating. If that's not it, then is it just because you're a demented psycho?
I highly doubt you can find one person, atheist or not, who would justify and agree with the level you have chosen to move the discussion to.
Given the above, I'd ask Steve to ban you permenantly (it's simply uncalled for); but, you simply offer so much apologetic fodder for this blog that I don't have the stomach to take their punching bag away.
Again, I think this discussion is something that shouldn't be going on. It serves NO purpose for anyone. Why you continue to post in my comboxes (calling me an "idiot") is beyond me. Let's just shake hands and part ways. You refuse to offer substance, and I'm confused as why you'd want to wastge yours, mine, and everyone elses time with this pathetic, emotional, and unedifying trajectile you seem to be on.
So can we both agree to squash it? I'm sure no one is interested in this kind of discussion. I have no desire to engage in these kinds of discussions wiht you, John. I have always and everywhere simply wanted to debate the objective arguments (with some sarcasm thrown in for reader enjoyment!). You probably have a good name with some atheists and your wife and family, why sully it by stooping to this level? Again, you're not "debunking" Christianity by doing this. Surely your time could be better spent on other posts?
Hopefully you'll agree with the above. If not I'm afraid I won't be responding anymore to you. I think I've went over and above for you, considering all that has been said... Hopefully you'll agree that moving on and dropping this is the best and wisest decision to make. If not, it's not for my lack of trying.
Paul all of those quotes are in the link I provided (in context).
ReplyDeletePaul said...Regarding my father...you have no clue of any of the background issues involved there, you should keep your mouth shut. These issues are real things, and more are involved that just me and my father (I have brother, mother, and other family too, John). So why do you even go there?
I didn't bring it up. YOU did. You insinuated I had said something perverse about your father. I merely told you what he said. If you bring him up then I have a right to comment that he's embarrassed about you and your behavior...and he is. I still have the emails. Want me to share them here? Then do not insinuate I said anything negative about your dad, okay? I like him. He seems like a very nice man, unlike how you have portrayed him. And your wife must be a wondeful woman to put up with you, too.
Manata again...My opiniuon is that this is all you have left. The strength of your arguments have been wighed and found wanting and so you're compensating. If that's not it, then is it just because you're a demented psycho?
Hmmmm. Some important people disagree with you. besides, since you think all atheists are "demented psycho's" such a charge means nothing to me.
I do think you're a sick person and I wallow in the mire with you when I try to show you how blind you really are.
Manata again...I highly doubt you can find one person, atheist or not, who would justify and agree with the level you have chosen to move the discussion to.
Again, sigh, I wallow in the mire to even deal with you. Many many people have already commented how obnoxious, spiteful and hateful you are toward people who disagree with you. You just don't see this as a problem. You're still an angry man. And you provoke people like me even now when all I ever wanted was a reasonable discussion of the issues that divide us. This can be plainly seen by anyone who reads what we both write. You attack, berate, demean and belittle people who disagree with you repeatedly and without provocation. Not me. Not at all...not by a long long shot.
Manata again...Again, I think this discussion is something that shouldn't be going on. It serves NO purpose for anyone.
Then why do you repeatedly bring it up? I didn't. You did. If this is the case then drop it. Move on. Get on with your life.
Manata again...Why you continue to post in my comboxes (calling me an "idiot") is beyond me.
Because I think you are, just like you think I am, and you tell me so.
Manata again...Let's just shake hands and part ways.
Fine. Agreed.
BTW It was too bad that you and Bre had to move away from northeast Escondido. I hope you didn’t take too much of a financial loss. God be praised, right? He knows what he’s doing correct?
Paul all of those quotes are in the link I provided (in context).
ReplyDeleteNo, John, they are NOT there. I just plugged them into Firefox's search function while on that page, and all the quotes Paul named aren't there.
That said, some of those Paul listed are there. Both of you need to do your homework.
You attack, berate, demean and belittle people who disagree with you repeatedly and without provocation
Yet you fight back, and then you blame the other person for starting it as if that gives you moral license. Hmm, where have I seen this sort of behavior before...oh, I know, on the playground in First Grade.
If you really don't want to talk about this any more, then here's an idea, walk away and don't keep running it into the ground.
Ergo, one warning. Want to go for a second? I'm not as generous as Paul.
Then why do you repeatedly bring it up? I didn't. You did. If this is the case then drop it. Move on. Get on with your life.
This is funny coming from a man who committed adultery and then blamed the other person, named his own (ex)wife in a book and then called her frigid and then complained to us for bringing it up. That goes well beyond blog posts. You wrote a book for the whole world, and what's more, you plug your books every chance you get. What's more you complain that people should have treated you "compassionately."
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/10/my-life-as-former-sex-slave-why-he.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/10/everyones-to-blame-but-me.html
By the way, here's a good example of how you treat people
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/10/everyones-to-blame-but-me.html#116068599442113844
Nice use of profanity. I gather we can deduce from this that you treat people differently at DC than you do here? You're such a transparent poseur.
You react when people bring this up, and then you get sassy with Paul, and, with Steve, myself, and others, react again and again and then blame us for you reacting. That's childish. It amounts to saying, "If somebody talks trash about me, I'll talk trash about them." Grow up.
Fine. Agreed.
BTW It was too bad that you and Bre had to move away from northeast Escondido. I hope you didn’t take too much of a financial loss. God be praised, right? He knows what he’s doing correct?
Wow, John, that's really big of you to bring up Paul's family at the end of a post, right after Paul saying it's time to drop it and you agree to it.
Here's the bottom line, Loftus, Paul's family business is, per your agreement, off limits and this goes for anything in the past or present. If it comes up again, and I personally don't care if it's about what either of you were discussing 2 years ago or Paul's move now or anything else, it's a second warning, or a third if you get smart with me here. So much as a word, and it's strike two. Three is, as far as I'm concerned, the magic number for us to take a vote on banning...and, remember, you've been warned, so if sass us back, you can't claim you didn't earn it.
This is the end of this discussion - period. You don't get the luxury of having the last word. Go pout in the corner.
You're amazing John. You don't get the last word.
ReplyDeleteLoftus: " didn't bring it up. YOU did. You insinuated I had said something perverse about your father."
Pay attention:
I brought it up as evidence of your behavior and why you were banned. I brought it up because you were complaining about why I banned you from my comboxes. I justified my actions.
But,t was you who broached the issue first, Loftus. Out of the blue in one of my comboxes you cam in, unsolicited, and mentioned certain things about your conversation with my father. That's my own family matters, John. You shouldn't have gone there in the first place. Got it? It had no bearing on "Debunking Christianity" and "reasonable discussion of the issues that divide us." Thus you have been shown to be inconsistent with your stated goals. Means end irrational.
Loftus: "If you bring him up then I have a right to comment that he's embarrassed about you and your behavior"
It was you who brought him up in the first place, John. And I see you still can't manage to put together a cogent and respectful argument. You obviously are not taking into account the word of my mother. You only cite self-serving sources. Typical of your hatchet job in your books.
You also have not taken into account any other issues that could explain the relevant data. You want to believe what you hear because the story goes where you want it to. That kind of research would get laughed out of the science department, John. And, lastly, you are inconsistent with your own atheistic methodolgy. You are trusting reports from history, and you are forgetting that one side of the story has a reason to discount the reports. This is standard fair in historical research, Loftus.
Loftus: "Then do not insinuate I said anything negative about your dad, okay?"
I didn't. My point was that you would say anything at all, got it?
Loftus: "since you think all atheists are "demented psycho's" such a charge means nothing to me."
But I don't, John. I know it makes you feel better to think that, but that's not what I think.
Loftus: "Then why do you repeatedly bring it up? I didn't. You did. If this is the case then drop it. Move on. Get on with your life."
I thought someone with your intellect would have figured it out. I wouldn't have brought anything up, Loftus, had you not violated my request to not post in any of my comboxes. I then had to bring it up as evidence to counteract your lies about why I banned you from my combox. I banned you for the kinds of things I said, not because of your "atheological content." Not because of your "arguments." I think I have justified that. Therefore, you cannot claim that I banned you for your atheistic arguments.
Loftus: "BTW It was too bad that you and Bre had to move away from northeast Escondido. I hope you didn’t take too much of a financial loss. God be praised, right? He knows what he’s doing correct?"
Well, an atheist has been screwing us over, but what do you expect. ;-)
We profited over 200 k, if you must know.
And, my wife and I wanted to move away. So, it's not, "too bad."
She is also living with all of her side of her family, so it was good for that too.
See what you get for listening to your "source."
Oh, BTW, I don't hold to your old theology. I don't only praise God if good things happen. I don't, like you, turn from God when bad things happen. My family and I have suffered plenty of loss. Death of children and more. When I have done wrong, I repent, I don't flee from the faith and blame everyone else. I never expected my Christian life to be easy. And since I am not an Arminian I never thought it was "up to me." I expet to enter heaven by the extra nos faith in the work of another (and of course this is followed, if the faith is true, by fruit, so I don't mean any sort of easy believism), so I will persevere based on the promise of God. I also expect trials and troubles. I expect to sin, and expect to be wronged. I hold to a theology of the cross, not a theology of glory. My savior suffered while on earth, and so I don't expect any better treatment. Therefore I don't, by the grace of God, let evils serve as a defeater for my belief in an all good God. Jesus suffered more than I yet he believed in an all good God, a fortiori, I?