ARCHIVE: I believe religion to be obsolete

[Hilston]

Prodigal,

Thanks for your reply. I've attempted to clarify my questions below. Let me know if anything isn't clear. I'm hoping to find out the reason why you trust your 5 senses.

Prodigal writes:
Are you trying to discredit my five senses, or are you trying to plant seeds of doubt?

Neither. I just want to know how you can rationally say, "I can account for my five senses because I can demonstrate them." That's like saying I know the ruler is right because everytime I measure my pen with it, I get the same measure. I don't doubt your senses, I just want to know if you have a logically sound reason for why you trust them.

Prodigal writes:
If you're not trying to do either, what are you trying to do? I guess my senses are functioning properly, why wouldn't they be?

That's not the question. Why do you trust that they're functioning properly? Do you know that they are? If not, do you just assume they are?

Prodigal writes:
I still feel pain and pleasure, I can still taste bitter and sweet, and so on and so forth, so everything is working just tip top, if that is in fact the answer you're looking for.

Why do you trust that everything is working correctly? What if your tactile functions are giving you inaccurate information? How would you find out? What if your sensory function of taste has been neurologically hamstrung from birth and all your life you've been tasting things incorrectly? I'm not saying that's the case, but how would know?

Prodigal writes:
My worldview is this: If I can sense it, it's there. If it can be proven to me with tangible, physical evidence, it's there.

Would you say then that you rely upon the scientific method to ascertain truth and existence?

Prodigal writes:
I know the wind is there because I feel it and I can see what it does.

How do you know that your tactile faculties are feeling the effects of the wind and not something else that is invisible? How do you know that your eyes or your visual cortex are not malfunctioning when you claim to see the effect of the wind upon the external world?

 

[prodigal]

Hilston,

(I just want to know how you can rationally say, "I can account for my five senses because I can demonstrate them.")

Well, the fact that I can use my five senses is a pretty good indication that they're there I think.

(Why do you trust that they're functioning properly? Do you know that they are? If not, do you just assume they are?)

Perhaps I just assume that when I open my eyes and see that the sky is blue that my eyes are seeing correctly. I can determine if what I'm smelling is roast beef if I ask my mother and father what they smell too, and if they say turkey than I guess my nose needs a bit of a tune up. I suppose they could be wrong too and smell roast beef when it's actually turkey, or suddenly everyone could say that the sky is in fact green, but it hasn't happened yet. If I ever have doubts I can go to someone else, multiple someones if I like, and get a standard by which to judge my own perceptions. Like I said though, everyone I guess could be wrong, but as long as we agree that we see the sky is blue, there's really no reason for me to doubt my eyes.

(What if your tactile functions are giving you inaccurate information? How would you find out? What if your sensory function of taste has been neurologically hamstrung from birth and all your life you've been tasting things incorrectly? I'm not saying that's the case, but how would know?)

Not sure how I would know. I suppose we could hypothesize all day long about it, but coffee tastes like coffee, roses smell like roses, and so on. I know because I've heard other people describes smells and tastes, so there's a general consensus out there for me to measure my own perceptions against.

(Would you say then that you rely upon the scientific method to ascertain truth and existence?)

Perhaps.... mostly just common sense though.

(How do you know that your tactile faculties are feeling the effects of the wind and not something else that is invisible? How do you know that your eyes or your visual cortex are not malfunctioning when you claim to see the effect of the wind upon the external world?)

Like I said, when the wind chills me to the bone, it's rather unmistakable, and frankly, what else could it be? That and I can see other people dressing for the weather, and I can tell that they're being effected by the exact same condition as I. I can use the vast majority of humanity and their similar experiences and perceptions to help me determine if mine are functioning properly. I can go to the doctor too. I can watch the news. If the weather man says a hurricane is tearing my home town apart, and I look out the window to see it for myself, I would know something were wrong if it were sunny out, and I'd probably be pretty confused. I have the weather man, Clete has an old book. I have the doctor, Clete has an old book. I have millions of other people who can look at the sky and say it's blue, Clete has millions of other people with millions of copies of the same book.

 

[wickwoman]

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer

I never said otherwise.
I am not stupid. You on the other hand cannot even understadn the form of the argument and are a waste of time.

Yes you did. You said we couldn't explain anything without resorting to your "Biblical worldview" and I just did, God. He/she existed BEFORE the Bible, therefore, OUTSIDE YOUR BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW, whatever that is.

Cute, Clete, I'm a waste of time in your opinion. And, apparently, lots of things are a waste of your time, for instance, using a spell checker before you post. Or, reading a book besides the Bible every now and then. So, I feel like I'm in good company. Maybe all the people/things that challenge your "in the box" thinking are a waste of your time. Well, guess what? You won't ever learn anything that way. Does your God think I'm a waste of time too?

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
See what I mean? (Probably not!)
"Scientific explanation"? Can you account for the existence of science? I bet you can't without borrowing from a Biblical worldview.

What for God's sake are you talking about? Can I account for the existence of science as a discipline? Did I have a science class in school or is there a mag lab about 20 miles from here? Or, did Galileo have his head removed from his body because his theories that happened to be true disagreed with your "Biblical worldview?"

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
Irrelevent. I don't care what it means. The fact remains that it (dispossessationalism) is and will always be logically incoherent; unable to account for the very presuppositions upon which it is based and thereby begging the question.

Well, apparently sarcasm and a sense of humor are also a waste of your time. . . . Figures.

 

[Granite]

Clete's dense, humorless, self-satisified brand of Christianity is what most ex's have a real problem with.

Them and a few other people...

 

[Hilston]

Prodigal writes:
Well, the fact that I can use my five senses is a pretty good indication that they're there I think.

Prodigal, I'm not talking about their existence. I'm talking about their reliability. Crazy people think their brains works just fine. No one is denying their brain doesn't exist. Why do you trust your senses?

Prodigal writes:
Perhaps I just assume that when I open my eyes and see that the sky is blue that my eyes are seeing correctly.

Is that your answer? You don't know; you just assume that your eyes are trustworthy?

Prodigal writes:
I can determine if what I'm smelling is roast beef if I ask my mother and father what they smell too, and if they say turkey than I guess my nose needs a bit of a tune up. I suppose they could be wrong too and smell roast beef when it's actually turkey, or suddenly everyone could say that the sky is in fact green, but it hasn't happened yet. If I ever have doubts I can go to someone else, multiple someones if I like, and get a standard by which to judge my own perceptions. Like I said though, everyone I guess could be wrong, but as long as we agree that we see the sky is blue, there's really no reason for me to doubt my eyes.

That's a logical fallacy, Prodigal; an ad populum argument. If concensus determined what is true, we would all still espouse a geocentric universe.

Hilston wrote:
What if your tactile functions are giving you inaccurate information? How would you find out? What if your sensory function of taste has been neurologically hamstrung from birth and all your life you've been tasting things incorrectly? I'm not saying that's the case, but how would know?

Prodigal writes:
Not sure how I would know. I suppose we could hypothesize all day long about it, but coffee tastes like coffee, roses smell like roses, and so on.

And the inaccurate ruler will keep giving you inaccurate measurements no matter how many times you use it, no matter how many things you measure. How do you know coffee doesn't actually taste different, but since you've never tasted with someone else's taste buds and processed that data through someone else's brain, you have no way of knowing what you're missing. All you know is coffee doesn't taste the same as ice cream. If you could plug into someone else's brain and body, you might find out that some food you thought you hated is something you actually like, given a more accurate tasting ability. However, barring such a fanciful hypothetical scenario, you couldn't know this, could you?

Prodigal writes:
I know because I've heard other people describes smells and tastes, so there's a general consensus out there for me to measure my own perceptions against.

It's the ad populum fallacy again. See above.

Hilston asked:
Would you say then that you rely upon the scientific method to ascertain truth and existence?

Prodigal writes:
Perhaps.... mostly just common sense though.

Why do you trust your "common sense."

Hilston wrote:
How do you know that your tactile faculties are feeling the effects of the wind and not something else that is invisible? How do you know that your eyes or your visual cortex are not malfunctioning when you claim to see the effect of the wind upon the external world?

Prodigal writes:
Like I said, when the wind chills me to the bone, it's rather unmistakable, and frankly, what else could it be?

Since you're merely assuming the verity of your senses, and since you fallaciously base your assessment of truth on consensus and "common sense," whatver that is, it seems to me that process of elimination isn't going to help you either. What else could it be? Maybe you're experiencing a blark.

Prodigal writes:
That and I can see other people dressing for the weather, and I can tell that they're being effected by the exact same condition as I. I can use the vast majority of humanity and their similar experiences and perceptions to help me determine if mine are functioning properly.

So, just like the theory of geocentricity, you only have a guess about reality and the verity of your senses so far, right? Since you have nothing solid on which to base your judgments about reality, and since you merely assume that your senses are giving you accurate data concerning reality, it seems to me that you operate on blind faith and that you really can't know anything for sure. Can you deny that?

 

[Lighthouse]

Originally posted by granite1010

People change.

And God never does. He changes people, and He changed me.

 

[Lighthouse]

Originally posted by prodigal

Lighthouse,
AS I ALREADY SAID I WAS A CHRISTIAN FOR TWENTY YEARS. I've said it half a dozen times on this thread and you're the one calling names. I do agree with you, god hasn't made me do anything, and I am responsible for where I'm at. You can't however tell me that god has proven himself to me when I know for a fact that he hasn't.

You don't know anything. You only deny, deny, deny.

I know for a fact because he hasn't spoken to me, otherwise I would have heard it, he hasn't shown himself to me because I would have seen it, and so on.

Lighthouse, my question to you now is, what does god's voice sound like? What does he look like? You're such a good friend of his, give me a description or something.

If I had seen, or heard Him, and described Him, you still wouldn't believe me. I don't know what His voice sounds like, as I do with the temporal voices of people I know. And I have enver seen Him, or I would not be here.

If it's so darn true, why don't I believe it? If it's so much better than what I believe right now, why am I not convinced? If I don't believe in satan, how does he have power over me if he does in fact exist? If the tenets of christianity are so beautiful and undeniable in their truth, why do I deny it? No doubt any answers I will receive will be insulting in nature, but Ima big boy, I can take it.

I don't know why you don't believe it. You're the one who doesn't beleive. Of course, I'm certain that what you believed before was mostly lies, anyway.

Lighthouse,
The stars aren't my friends, but I can see them at least. And yes, gravity is still a theory, but you can test it to prove it's validity. You can't do that with god.

But you still worship them?

You can test God. But if you don't know how to test Him, then you won't receive any answers. And if you do receive answers, you may not like them.

 

[Lighthouse]

I have a question. If Clete's is so humorless, why does he make me laugh?

 

[Clete]

Prodical et al,

Jim (Hilston) is making the exact same argument that I have been trying to make, only he's doing a far better job of it. Forget that I was here, I will defer to Jim. I have to do the bulk of my posting from work and I'm all the time being rushed to such a degree that my posts are too short and too quick to get to the point without laying the proper foundation for the argument. And they're full of spelling errors which drives me crazy, especially when I don't have time to do a spell check and then I invariably have to go through the agonizing process of having wichwoman calls me on every misspelled word while missing the whole point of the post. :hammer:
I'll be reading. So far it's a pretty interesting thread!

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[wickwoman]

Dear Clete:

I didn't "call you on every misspelled word." I merely responded with a small amount of irritation towards your very rude and angry post directed at me. As a matter of fact, I would be happy to ignore any of your spelling errors as I do most people who post here if you would just read your posts and apply what I would assume is your own standard WWJS (what would Jesus say).

Irritation is not caused by spelling errors, it is caused by your inability to afford others the simple dignity of believing what they believe without provoking animocity and aggressive behavior from you. It's not about you. Everyone has the right to be whatever religion they are, whether you disapprove or not.

 

[wickwoman]

Originally posted by Dave Miller

WW:

"From now on, I shall make all my arguments based on my dispossessationalist worldview and tell everyone they must prove its nonexistence, however, I will tell nobody what dispossessationalist means. "

Ouch, I think I just sprained something, in my head.

I'm not telling what it means. You'll have to prove that you can prove anything without comparing it to that standard, though. :jump: :chuckle:

 

[Granite]

Originally posted by lighthouse

I have a question. If Clete's is so humorless, why does he make me laugh?

Peas in a pod, perhaps?

 

[dotcom]

Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer

I'm tired of repeating myself. You are either to stupid to understand the form of the argument or are intentionally ignoring it.
For the last time, I do not want you to refute my Biblical worldview, I want you to defend your own nonbiblical worldview. Admit it, you cannot do it, can you? By your own admition, you are unable to do the very things that you ignorantly and hypocritically complain that Christianity is unable to do. In so doing you argue against youself and demonstrate that it isn't the truth that you are interested in at all, but rather accepting anything at all rather than the truth of the Bible.

Resting in Him,
Clete

You are wasting your time Clete. Some people like prodigal would rather tell everyone else their side of the story but are not prepared to reason up. You could not reach this stage if he had paid attention to what I asked him.

This was my question to prodigal.


You could have started by telling us what is NOT empty, what is not rote, what is not useless before you vent your anger to Christians. Would you mind? It just makes it easier to address the myriad of accusations you have made against Christians.

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by wickwoman

Dear Clete:

I didn't "call you on every misspelled word." I merely responded with a small amount of irritation towards your very rude and angry post directed at me. As a matter of fact, I would be happy to ignore any of your spelling errors as I do most people who post here if you would just read your posts and apply what I would assume is your own standard WWJS (what would Jesus say).

Jesus would say that you are condemned already and that if you don't repent He will crush you into powder.

Irritation is not caused by spelling errors,

Then why are you the only one who ever points them out?

...it is caused by your inability to afford others the simple dignity of believing what they believe without provoking animocity and aggressive behavior from you. It's not about you. Everyone has the right to be whatever religion they are, whether you disapprove or not.

I never suggested in any respect that it has anything to do with me. On the contrary, I am constantly reminding people that saying it doesn't make it so, my opinions included. And this web site isn't about debating what peoples rights are, it's about debate what the truth is. The simply fact is that you are incredibly evil, vile and disgusting. All the good deeds and acts of righteousness that you think you perform are all for naught. In the eyes of God they are but filth, excrement, dung, crap, pick whatever term you like, you are smack in the middle of one gigantic pile of it and will one day give an account for it before the only God who can save you and whom you have repeatedly insulted and rejected.
And by the way animocity is spelled with an ‘s’.


Resting in Him,
:Clete:

 

[Clete]

Originally posted by dotcom

You are wasting your time Clete.

I agree with you.

 

[prodigal]

Hilston,
There are certain things in this world that make sense, like jumping into the air and falling back onto the ground. You can explain how an airplane functions and it makes sense. I guess if you want to call into doubt the perceptions of not only myself but every other human on this planet, fine, I guess that's a valid argument. But I disagree fully with you. The idea that coffee may not actually taste like coffee simply because I haven't tasted it with the taste buds of every other person on the planet is just a way to avoid the real point of what I'm trying to do here. Either that or it's a really lazy way of claiming victory without fighting the battle. I'm simply trying to get people like Clete and Aimiel to admit that passing off the unprovable as indisputable is wrong. I've always said that people are free to believe whatever they want, just don't pass it off as truth with nothing to base the case on. Maybe coffee doesn't taste like coffee to me, but at least I can still go to the store and buy a cup and drink it. You can't demonstrate god or the supernatural like that at all, not even remotely. I can buy and drink coffee regardless of how it tastes, Clete has to take the word of an old book.

Clete,
Listen, maybe a biblical worldview explains many things, but so do millions of other worldviews. A biblical worldview, whatever it really is, is A way of explaining it all, not THE way to explain it all. And you're going to let Hilston fight your battles for you now? What's more feasible, Clete, that everyone who disagrees with you is stupid, or you're just not explaining yourself very well if at all?

Dotcom,
What isn't empty is the ability to think for yourself, to throw an apple in the air and see it come back down. What isn't empty is the progress of science (which MEN perpetuate, not god), going to work in the morning and earning your pay (god's never done that for me). I don't give god credit for anything, first of all because there's no way to prove that he/she/it actually created the world or exists in the first place. I have said that god is the least foolish answer for the origin of the universe as compared to evolution, but since we have no proof I don't rest anything too heavily on it. For right now, all I do is go to work, earn my money, eat my food, go to sleep and do it over again the next day, without giving thanks to a god who I'm not even sure exists and who hasn't helped me a day in my life. There's nothing empty or rote about going to work to build your life to the point where you can start a family and provide for them. That's what I do. If I have a religion, than it's the religion of myself, because no one else is going to help me but myself, so I might as well give thanks to no one but myself. Maybe my boss, maybe my mom and dad when they bail me out in hard times, but god has never done anything to help, so why worship him?

Hilston,
Your point is simply a way to skip around the point.

Clete,
You're not the only one with answers.

Dotcom,
I worship myself.

 

[prodigal]

Wickwoman,

Clete knows all about insults and rejection, his entire religion is based on the degradation, offense and torment of those that disagree. Call them on the carpet about it and they will inevitably shift the blame to someone else. Ask them about the inquisitions, the crusades, the witch burnings, the setbacks to science, the book burnings, the alienations, etc. and they will undoubtedly shift the blame to someone else. Avoiding responsibility for the atrocities of the system they follow while blatantly insulting those who disagree is the trademark of christianity, Clete being a perfect example.

(The simply fact is that you are incredibly evil, vile and disgusting. All the good deeds and acts of righteousness that you think you perform are all for not. In the eyes of God they are but filth, excrement, dung, crap, pick whatever term you like, you are smack in the middle of one gigantic pile of it and will one day give an account for it before the only God who can save you and whom you have repeatedly insulted and rejected.)

That was Clete. Why would anyone want to be a part of such a pompous, hateful, spiteful venomous religion anyway? Can you believe that someone would say that to you, WW, just because you want him to be objective? You're filth, excrement, nothing but dung to their god, and he will send you to hell where you deserve to go unless you drop everything you're doing and believe in him. Wickwoman, am I mad, or is this the most insane, inane and hateful form of god worship mankind has ever been able to invent?

Your brother in disbelief,

Prodigal.

 

[Lighthouse]

prodigal-
Do you have no response to what I have said?

 

[Aimiel]

Originally posted by prodigal

Clete has to take the word of an old book.

If that was all that we had, words, with no other confirmation or witness, I very seriously doubt that anyone would become Christian, much less stay that way. The Lord draws men unto Himself, and He confirms His Word. If we didn't have confirmation from Him, I believe that most of us would have given up on Him shortly after conversion, if, indeed, we had ever been converted; because without Him convicting me of my sin, I never would have desired salvation. He makes Himself known to us, and prepares a table before us, in the presence of our enemies. The fact that He can't be 'empirically' proven or dis-proven is just because He doesn't want anyone to come to Him because of His Existence, but because of His Love. We're going into battle against the toughest enemy ever, one that cannot be harmed by any weapon, except prayer. God has to be able to trust those that He lets into His Ranks. You don't do that by accepting just anyone. He chose to draw men unto Himself by The Love that He has displayed in His Son upon The Cross. We respond to His Love, and He reciprocates. :thumb:

 

[Clete]

prodigal,

If you dislike me, wait till you meet God.

Resting in Him,
:Clete: