For every AMD, there's a Vatican. Just because you subscribe to one method of proof and not the other, doesn't mean the other doesn't exist.
Given that the Vatican has not one single proof of any of their fairy tales you're proving yourself to be a fool or a liar. My knowledge of what proof or evidence consists of has nothing to do with the fact that faith is not a method of proof. It's the opposite. So, you are 100% absolutely wrong. No faith based method of proof exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist. It's an impossibility. Nice try, but blind acceptance of lies and nonsense does not constitute proof in any way shape or form.
You've already lost, because you didn't reach agreement with the "religious nuts" on what constitutes hard evidence. Meanwhile, they have their own system of self-supporting evidence.
I don't have to and I still win. Fools believing that a book of fairy tales constitutes hard evidence are *wrong*. They are not possessed of a different but equally valid viewpoint. They are *wrong*. They have no evidence of any kind at all self-supporting or otherwise. That is a fact and it is part of the definition of faith. If they had any sane reasons at all to believe the idiotic crap they do than it wouldn't be a religion, now would it?
The OP wasn't even making an argument to incredulity. He's merely stating that such an argument exists.
It only exists as an example of a fallacious argument. If that's the only argument you have, then you don't have an argument. It is that simple.
The Renaissance wasn't just about Viva La Method Scientific, y'know. It sounds from your post as if you just write off all that stuff as dross, so that your vitriol can flow all the bitterer.
Hardly. All of those great accomplishments were only possible due to science. Religion did nothing to make them possible, just restricted the expression. Mostly they were done to glorify the church though rather than god. Heck the god most Christians claim to believe in would be pretty fucking pissed off at all the money pissed away on churches and cathedrals.
You're even wrong about my ability to grasp different meanings in different contexts, so caught up as you are in your own prose. Sure, yes, I admit the notion of "belief" in something behaving as I expect it to, with the calm sense of the routine, only to see it either live up to my expectations and warrant no further thought, or defy them, and incur wonderment from me until I uncover what was true that I did not know before.
Fine, if you recognize that then you'll admit that your argument was shit since it relied completely on the idea that those 2 meanings of belief were the same?
I also admit the existence of stubborn "belief" that something must be true, even as evidence mounts to the contrary, for to change it would shake too much that is fundamental. For example, your apparent belief that I fail basic logic.,/i>
When you argue based on fallacies, that isn't a belief, it's a fact. Sorry, but that's your fault, not mine.
No, because there is zero evidence of treason, mass murder, theft, and massive assaults on the Constitution. An objective, critical eye would recognize that.
Other than demonstrating that you're an ignorant fool who hasn't paid any attention was there any point in posting that trash? Death camps in third world shitholes where innocent people are taken to be tortured in direct and knowing violation of the constitution handles most of those. The 2 trillion dollars that just fucking vanished covers theft. The Iraq war based on lies in order to further a harebrained scheme for world domination is mass murder.
Those are objective facts. Your failure to pay any attention is exactly that. Your failure.
Those with a political axe to grind, however, will see what they want to see.
That would be you. You're part of a very small minority of people who are stupid enough to believe the lies of politicians. I have no political axe to grind. I hate traitors, thieves and mass murderers, but those are issues of integrity not politics. Your failure to deal with reality and your attitude of extremist moral relativism are your deep problems. All positions are not equal, and right and wrong do exist. The actions of this administration have been entirely wrong at every turn. That's what happens when your goals are entirely negative.
The hallmark of such individuals being an outright dismissal of anyone who disagrees with them...
Hardly. It has nothing to do with agreeing with me. It's a simple question of violation of the constitution, violation of the laws of the land, and an assinine scheme for world domination that had massive obvious flaws from the start whose effects we're living through right now.
So, sorry, since we know the administration lied about damn near everything they've said, dismissing fools who repeat tired old lies is merely common sense and sanity in action. Your position that all viewpoints are equal and should be treated as worthwhile just because some idiots keep repeating them has no value and can only lead to more negative effects.
Look around. Is that really a surprise. Your comment is especially idiotic given that fact that most people buy into religions for one of 2 reasons: 1) threat of torture and murder 2) Their parents brainwashed them before their brains were developed enough for reason.
So, idiot or victim. The results are the same.
And you say Christians are closed minded.
The facts say that.
You say I'm an idiot, a fool. Well I say you're an asshole.
Speaking the truth often causes one to be considered an asshole. I'm really not all that concerned. The threat to decent people posed by ignorant faith far outweighs any benefit I'd get from your approval.
How about that? I don't need an all-knowing deity to claim that. It's right there in your words.
As is honesty. It's completely absent from yours though. What do you expect from somebody who still believes silly fairy tales designed to control the weak and pushes them in spite of the millennia of torture and oppression they have been responsible for. Sorry, but I'll take being a decent person over being an ignorant fool aiding evil, like yourself.
So essentially anyone who disagrees with you is a priori an idiot or insane. How very enlightened of you!
Because treason, mass murder, theft and massive assaults on the constitution are all completely grey areas which good people can have honest disagreements about. Take your assinine extremist moral relativism and stuff it.
And you define what is in the best interests of the nation?
Name three actions that Bush has taken that have furthered the interests of the nation during his entire reign.
nothing that has happened by the Bush administration qualifies as treason
Providing aid and comfort to the enemies of this nation is treason. The Bush administration lied us into a war that never had any possibility of any positive outcome. They did it order to further their harebrained scheme with the stated goal of helping "ensure continued US economic world domination in the coming century" Rebuilding America's Defenses PNAC.
This has had the widely precicted and obvious effect of leading to increased radicalism amongst muslims for very sound reasons if you can look at it from their perspective. In addition to serving as the chief terrorist recruiting agency, the Bush administration has gone on a massive brand awareness promotion campaign for al Queda who was just a loose confederation with few ties to other terrorist organizations. Of course, that last part was really started back when they were prosecuting the WTC van bombers back under Clinton's administration. Due to the wording of the law they needed to buff up al Queda a bit from reality to make them qualify as a "terrorist organization".
So anyhow, I believe that actively aiding, supporting, and promoting the enemies of our nation qualifies as treason.
These folks mostly made their nut during the cold war and so know how profitable never ending wars are in a broken window fallacy sort of way.
But I guess this isn't a nation of laws? If you don't feel it's right, it's not right?
No, it's a nation of a constitution that has been so badly shredded over the centuries as to be worse than worthless because people read it and think that's what we're living under while Congress and most especially this President despise it as something they even have to pay lip service to.
Given how deeply wrong it all is at this point, defending any of these bastards is either deeply naive or sociopathic.
Our troops exist for the defense of this nation. We have been attacked, and we do have a moral imperative to strike against fanatical Islam wherever we may find it, but without the moral courage to state that such acts are necessary and *right* for our defense, we lose.
Except they are neither necessary nor right for our defense. You totally contradict yourself and demonstrate a deep confusion about the world in your comment. Contrary to one of Bush's favorite lies, they do not "hate us for our freedom". Nothing is that simplistic.
They hate us for a number of reasons, primary among them is our habit of murdering their democratically elected leaders and installing mass murdering thugs who are friendly to US business interests and actively murderous toward their own people.
That is the reality of our foreign policy. It doesn't always go that way, but it's our standard MO.
So stopping the silly "spreading democracy" bullshit, apart from eliminating the Orwellian idiocy of it, would do a lot to bolster our defenses. Amazing that. When you stop murdering people for profit they are less likely to hate you.
This idiotic invasion of Iraq and war on Islam you're so fond of are doing nothing to help out our defenses. In fact, that idiotic course supported only by fools from the start, is the single biggest promoter of radical islam. It, in fact, makes the radical clerics *legitimate*. We have declared ourselves the enemy of freedom, so anybody who doesn't want a boot on their face for the rest of their lives *has* to work against us by any means necessary. That is our decision. We made that true.
Cowardly fools like yourself is what allowed this to happen.
Perhaps if you weren't so busy pissing your panties over a largely overblown threat you might have had a few minutes to actually learn something about the situation instead of merely repeating the lies of cowards and traitors.
Encouraging people to leave the military, ignore orders, or interfere with the operation of the military (such as what Speaker Pelosi and Representative Murtha put forth many times in speeches about their approach to funding of the war) is treason.
Not really.
When the military is being used against this nation and it's best interests then those actions are patriotism. Of course, that isn't even what Pelosi has done, so your comment is pretty much just an extremist nutter hatchet job with no basis and a goal of damaging this country even more, but that's par for the course.
I very seriously doubt you'll ever be capable of understanding that fact. Your comment marks you as a subject rather than a citizen
That said, I really do not think that Libby was treated like a "normal person" throughout the investigation or the trial. I think he served as a proxy for the entire Bush administration in general, and the Iraq war in particular.
Which is an idiotic statement demonstrating your complete lack of attachment to the real world. The crimes of this administration are so massive and sickening that 30 months is nothing. Your utter failure to have any sense of perspective at all keeps making you say things like thsat which are completely and totally insane.
Libby would have been sentenced to death is he was standing up for a tenth of the crimes of this administration.
Think it through, Sparky. Get some perspective, and try to deal with the reality you're given not the delusional fantasy world you'd clearly prefer to live in.
So when you continue to excuse Libby from punishment for the crimes he willingly chose to commit by claiming that his punishment, which is perfectly within normal guidelines for the crimes he actually committed, is somehow due to him being blamed for a rash of other crimes you make no sense at all. Your viewpoint isn't even within the bounds of rationality.
Even though the jail time was removed, the punishment is NOT a slap on the wrist. If Bush pardons him in 2009, then I agree that will be a bail out, and a truly offensive act.
How is a fine he won't have to pay himself and *no other consequences* NOT a slap on the wrist? Seriously, your insane rantings go pretty far, but this little piece of insanity really takes the cake.
First, it is a slap on the wrist *at most*. He'll pay nothing and get very high paying jobs since he's already demonstrated that he's well connected. He will be pardoned by Bush as he's leaving office. That is a fact, which you would know if you weren't an insane delusional fool.
No matter how often you keep repeating the same idiotic lies they get no truer.
I can see your point, but the actual root issue here (Plame's outing, and whether or not it was actually a crime, "high" or otherwise) seems to have been completely lost in the shuffle.
Bullshit. That isn't even remotely sane. Libby worked to *prevent* the addressing of the root issue. That is what he was rightfully convicted of and what his slap on the wrist punishment was for. You keep failing to get that simple point. You feel that preventing dealing with the root issue is a good thing and deserves no punishment, so your statement that the root issue was lost in the shuffle is proven to be a bald faced lie. This is all about Libby's actions in interfering with dealing with the root issue.
I sincerely hope not. FWIW, had THAT happened today, I'd be screaming as loudly as anyone else.
Oh, the fuck you would. You're sitting here claiming that he shouldn't even be punished for the actual crimes which we know he committed willfully and with malice aforethought. We also know that Bush will give him a full pardon when he leaves office. This is just to keep him from taking any personal responsibility for his actions in the meantime. If you don't know that's what will happen, then your ignorance and naivety are legendary. All the "hope not"ting in the world isn't going to do a thing as long as people *like you* are willing to defend traitors defending criminals to protect themselves from paying for their crimes.
I also believe that a man should be tried for his own crimes, not the crimes of others. I am not convinced that happened here, therefore I agree with what Bush did today.
Scooter was convicted of his own crimes which he freely chose to commit. Had he been tried and convicted of Bush's crimes, then it would have been an execution that Bush commuted, not a slap on the wrist prison sentence.
So, it's quite clear and obvious that Libby was prosecuted for his own crimes, not those of Bush. The fact that you agree with Bush commuting the sentence of a criminal whose crimes were committed for the sole purpose of interfering with the investigation and prosecution of high treason demonstrates only your hatred for this country and for the rule of law.
You are, in fact, acting to aid and abet treason by your defense of this entirely disgusting action by the worst enemy this country has ever faced.
So what do you say to the scientists that happen to be Christians also? Are they only half-fools?
Depends. When it gets hard do they throw up their hands and declare "god did it"? If so, they're all fool. If not, they're not.
But how can you claim to hold the open-mind of science when you can't handle the ideas of others as possibilities?
I have no problem handling the possibility, but have some perspective. The likelyhood of any particular detailed account of any particular god being true is vanishingly small. It's a possibility in the same sense that a broken glass spontaneously leaping off the floor and reassembling itself on the table is. In fact, the latter is *more* likely because we have evidence that it could happen, just not likely at all. For the whole god thing, you don't even have that.
But if you have scientific proof of there not being a God/Creator then I'm all ears.
It doesn't work that way. Is there any evidence for one or any reason to think that there is one? Of course not. If there were, then it wouldn't require "faith". Given that all you have is a silly fairy tale, choosing to believe it's magically true *is* idiotic.
We most certainly can have faith and still remain a force in the world of knowledge and science, without being foolish in anyway.
Didn't say you couldn't. I'll bet that you don't do it by throwing up your hands and claiming god did it or murdering people who get results you don't like. In other words you've learned to keep your religion out of your work.
Ask the devout what God did, and he will point to rivers, horses, birds, ants, you, me, and the stars.
Ask them for evidence. They have not a scrap. Ask me who built the CPU in this machine?
AMD corporation. They have a website here. They maintain offices here:
One AMD Place P.O. Box 3453 Sunnyvale, California 94088-3453
Now, this could all be an elaborate hoax, but the more hard evidence I pile up, the sillier you look trying to twist it around to the "religious belief" point of view.
This is Seraphim_72's [author of this post's grandparent] point. Where is YOUR evidence?
The evidence is in the result. We have computers. While I couldn't build one myself at any level beyond inserting tab A in slot A, that doesn't mean I haven't been in a chip fab and seen them being made. It doesn't mean that just because I couldn't assemble my own space shuttle starting from digging up rocks in my yard that it is equally likely that it was man made or assembled by elves in the night while the "rocket scientists" were sleeping, or created by a magical invisible fairy.
That is the fundamental difference between those 2 views. The OPs argument was crap because it's just a variation of argument to incredulity. It's a fallacious argument from the get go.
If you were, you wouldn't resort to insults to attempt to make your point.
I didn't resort to insults to make my point. I made my point and then concluded, based on how blatant of a fallacy his argument is, that the insults were appropriate. In other words, they were part of the conclusion, not the argument. You fail basic logic just like the OP.
And for much of it, I'll never prove it, and yet believe it for the rest of my life.
"Believing" in Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation is nothing like "believing" that a magical invisible fairy made the universe and us so he could fuck with us.
For the first, there was a massive amount of evidence and, much more importantly, it led to new conclusions which led to inventions and changed the world far more and far more positively than any ignorant beliefs about the probably unknowable. Further, it turns out that Newton was wrong. Now people mostly "believe" in Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The progress made using Newton's equations didn't crumble to dust, but expanded.
The second adds nothing. It answers no questions. Any it claims to are just pushed back by, not answers, but by the same questions in different clothes. Further there does not exist a single scrap of evidence for *any* of the mystical nonsense and even quite a bit of the non mystical is either false or has nothing backing it up.
So, no, there is nothing in common between the two things. All you've done is shown that you don't get the idea that one word can have different meanings depending on the context.
"Belief" in a religious sense is, by necessity, belief in the extraordinary with no evidence. "Belief" in the sense you used it regarding technology you couldn't build by yourself is belief informed. I know an airplane is flying overhead. I also know that it does that in accordance with Bernoulli's law. I believe that it won't magically stop and drop straight down out of the sky, and what do you know? It's still flying.
Ah yes, Christianity - the catch all for ignorant sweeping statements about "fools" who have the nerve to believe that man might not know it all.
Bullshit argument typical of the fools who buy into specific religious bullshit.
It's not "that man might not know it all". It's that "some nonsense made up by bronze age nomads which contradicts itself left and right probably ain't the answer whatever that answer may be".
There is a vast world of difference between those positions. The typical scientific position is that we don't know the answers but we'd like to so let's try and discover them. The typical Christian position is that the answers were written by a bunch of unknown people and we will fucking murder you if you don't accept them as absolute truth with no evidence at all.
Continue with your broad generalizations, they serve humanity well.
Bullshit. You were making ridiculous, insane generalizations which you knew damn well to be lies when you did it.
At the same time though science asks for as much if not more faith. Not of itself you are correct, but of the unwashed masses.
Twaddle. We have things like clean water, roads, cars, planes, cities, computers, and fricking *space ships* all due to science. What exactly can you point to that god did? Oh, the universe. Any proof of that? Any evidence?
No, huh?
So apart from making yourself look very silly by telling lies so stupid a child could easily call you out on them, was there any point in making that entirely false and completely ridiculous statement?
Writing about someone who didn't exist doesn't sound like Josephus' usual method.
Wow, the militant death grip you're keeping on your ignorance is truly amazing.
Of course it wasn't the type of thing he'd write because he didn't write it! The one small paragraph that makes a *passing* mention of the single most important person ever (in your opinion) with no mention of all the events he was involved in and plenty of mentions of plenty of other far less important events doesn't even fit in with the passage before or after. The most common explanation is that it was a marginal note made later and then even later put into the main body of the text through a poor copying job.
So, you even know how ridiculous your position is but because you're long since begged the question, you fail to even realize what you've noticed.
So are you arguing that Jesus didn't actually exist, or that He wasn't who He said He was? The latter we can debate. The former is beyond dispute, and unnecessary.
I'm stating the fact that there is not one single credible contemporary historical account of Jesus. Given how dense the historical record from the day is and how fucking amazing the events you so desperately want to believe would have been, it's pretty insane to keep demanding that they must have happened anyhow just that nobody gave enough of a shit to write them down. I mean we're talking about unpredicted eclipses, earthquakes etc. You know, things that you just don't fucking miss, let alone *everyone* missed it?
So, sorry, there's the dispute which you lied that your nonsense was beyond. Why is it that you can't provide one single credible historical account? Perhaps you don't have the first fucking clue what evidence is? Given that you begged the question on this whole thing long ago, it's kind of pointless to even attempt to reason with you. You can't be reasoned out of a position reason could not have gotten you into.
But I'm falling into a trap here. You consistently and vociferously claim that my arguments are specious and without either merit or evidence. Yet as far as I can recall, you've made accusations without much, if any, evidence or reference.
Yours are. How do I know that? There is no fucking evidence whatsoever for any of the nonsense you've spouted. Provide some, or be honest and just admit that you're scared of reality and are desperate to believe an idiotic fairy tale. It's called integrity: look it up.
I suspect you tend to reject things unseen. And we're back to the same argument at the beginning - Do you know of any scientists that have 'seen' an atom? I don't refute the overwhelming evidence that they exist, don't get me wrong. But when we try to get to seeing things even more elemental than atoms, we are usually relying on theory and observations that tend to prove or disprove theories. We don't have the ability to 'see' any sort of quark. We just agree, mostly, that they do exist, given the evidence and the presumptions that make sense and are consistent with the evidence.
But your point has nothing at all to do with the subject. Most subatomic particles were *predicted* and then found using those predictions. Your idiotic fairy tale predicts nothing. It adds nothing. It answers no questions, and has added nothing positive to the human experience and created massive suffering, torture, murder, poverty and elitism and continues to promote those things to this day.
So provide some fucking evidence for your imaginary invisible superfriend or shut up about it.
Our argument goes nowhere, since we have both mead up our minds.
Well, you had your mind made up for you by your parents most likely. My mind isn't "made up" it's wide open. The problem is that there is no reason whatsoever to believe that your fairy tale is any more real than the thousands of others people have come up with over the years, now is there?
Personally, I go with the third assumption. It makes the most sense.
No, it really doesn't. The first choice you listed takes no real assumptions at all. We *know* that that is *exactly* what MS does in these situations, hence not only is it perfectly reasonable to assume they'd keep doing what they always do, it is the default assumption when dealing with them about anything.
Now, it's perfectly possible that the third choice is actually correct, but you will never get there using the information available plus Occam's razor because Occam's razor will give you choice one every time because it requires the fewest assumptions.
Adding in more information, like the other response to my post (assuming it's true) could push you in another direction, but assuming people will continue to act in the manner they've always acted is very basic simple common sense.
I just realized, perhaps the most offensive component of your arguments is your obscenity.
So you lie, make up fairy tales and promote one of the most evil organizations there's ever been but a few naughty words makes me the bad guy. Typical of the disgusting lack of any sort of integrity endemic to Christians.
Josephus, in particular, is an interesting source of information. He documents Jesus as a real person, and relates the story of the Resurrection.
No he doesn't. All but the most extremist nutters now know that Josephus's mention of Jesus was added far later by somebody else. Your failure to know something so major just demonstrates you ignorance of the subject. 'm going to quibble over one - Herod's killing of infants, and the census.
You say you're going to, yet you still fail to provide any evidence of a mass murdering of babies.
Several members and leaders of churches in the 2nd and 3rd century make allusions to passages from the New Testament. Among others, three hundred and thirty allusions have been documented from Justin Martyr; 1,819 from Irenaeus; 2,406 from Clement of Alexandria; 7,258 from Tertullian; 1,378 from Hippolytus and 17,922 from Origen.
So? You've merely demonstrated that you don't have a clue as to what constitutes evidence. Wow, later people referenced older fairy tales. Wow, that's totally amazing!
I don't take the Bible blindly on faith. I've read the criticisms.
Given that you're still trying to trot out that old Josephus chestnut, it's obvious that you haven't read much and that you are taking things very blindly.
Both sides make sweeping assumptions.
False! Saying, well.... there's a lot of hearsay about it... just like any other fairy tale morons believe...therefore it must be true is a sweeping generalization.
Saying there is no evidence at all for events that could not have gone unnoticed and not one contemporary account maens there's no reason to lend the ideas any credibility is just very simple basic common sense.
Your biggest failure is your inability to distinguish between those two entirely different things.
What takes fewer assumptions: To assume that MS or some other bigwhig of the TPA crowd sent them some Ahnulds with an "...or else" message, or to assume that they found out that either their presentation is flawed or that their findings aren't so new at all?
You're going to slit your throat holding your razor backwards like that.
The first obviously takes fewer assumptions. MS and various other companies have demonstrated repeatedly that that is *exactly* how they do business on a regular basis. So the only assumption needed to consider that choice reasonable is that they'll continue to do exactly what they've always done in the way they've always done it.
For the second, you're assuming that the people in question are shady characters (any evidence of that?), who are willing to risk destroying any credibility they might have over a half ass attempt to drum up publicity?
Seriously, if you're trying to apply Occam's razor you need to pay a little bit of attention to facts otherwise you'll completely screw it up like you just did.
Who you vote for is far more important than which checkbox you marked when you registered to vote.
True enough. I was just surprised that they'd be upset about something that happened before they were even paying attention. It's not like they were the ones betrayed. The Republican party had rejected their stated values right around the time they were born, so they never once in their life had any reason to look to them for anything positive.
Well, don't take my word for it. I recommended a book I found credible. Have a look. And at some other sources. I'm assuming, however, that you have already decided the matter for yourself, and won't. I understand that better than you know.What? I'm lost on that one.
Your argument was that for someone to continue telling a lie for their whole life was an amazing, incredible thing which was so unlikely as to make your beliefs reasonable. I proved that that is not only false, but patently ridiculous by demonstrating the extent to which people even today will take their lies.
Well, if you don't want to accept the Bible as authoritative, then there is little about Christianity to discuss with you.
Hardly. You clearly are not a believer and have no real faith in any of the fairy tales you are claiming if you can't even be bothered to look into what your god actually said to you. Blindly accepting the bible as authoritative only shows that you have faith in the various mass of people who wrote, compiled, edited, etc. a bunch of disparate documents. If you really believed that there was a god and that he had some involvement with people and had any interest in communicating with us then I have a hard time imagining you would completely piss away that opportunity in order to believe some book people wrote for their own purposes.
There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the bible, hence it's not authoritative for anything.
Well, the Pauline Epistles are generally accepted to have been written by Paul, the one who persecuted the early Church, and was converted by an angelic confrontation.
Some of it is accepted as having him for an author and a lot that is commonly attributed to him isn't. Of course, he never even met Jesus or believed that he had ever been to earth, so again, like the rest of the gospels is nothing but hearsay. Hell, where's Jesus's own gospel, where are his writings? What's that?!? There aren't any?!?! Do you start to get why snae people worry about your mental faculties?
Bearing in mind that I pay special attention to quotations from Jesus. The other stuff, indeed, always merits careful study.
There are no quotations from Jesus. Mark was the earliest written gospel and Matthew and Luke used that as their source for the stories they told, hence they have no value as far as learning about any actual Jesus. Their stories based on stories based on stories which weren't even pretending to be first hand in the first place. Mark is not an eye witness account, the unknown author never met Jesus (obviously) and so it's nothing but hearsay.
There is a substantial amount of good evidence that the New Testament is trustworthy
You keep saying that, but you haven't provided any. The reason for that is that there isn't any evidence. I'm not asking for absolute proof. I'm asking for a single scrap of evidence to back up you assertions. Not hearsay, not falsified documents. I mean *real* legitimate historical evidence. There does not exist one single scrap.
Other historians and scholars from the time do not offer anything that contradicts most events, and even some Roman historians corroborate some events.
Bullshit. This is what is so sickening about you types. You will lie constantly about bleeding fucking obvious things like that.
Contemporary contradictions: Jesus wasn't born in Nazareth because there was no fucking Nazareth. There is no mention of the city *anywhere* until over a hundred years after Jesus's supposed death. There is no mention of Herod murdering all the male children, no census etc etc etc.
As far as historical corroboration, again, there is none whatsoever. Provide some so I can demonstrate that if you cared enough about your god to spend 5 fucking minutes doing some due diligence you'd know you're spouting bullshit.
Actually, I was born in Bangor, Maine, in 1954. I served in the Air Force, but otherwise have lived all my l
I'm not imagining it. You're calling me, and the people I worship with, liars.
Yes, you are imagining it. If you were not imagining it, then it would be all over the front page of every paper in the world. That would be a really really big deal. Whether you're a liar or a deluded fool isn't really the issue here though.
But more to the point, you won't accept anything I post. You'll want both the reporter in person, and those healed, to give you first-person reports.
Of course I'm not going to take some random persons word that far and away the single most momentous event in the history of the world happened. I should just blindly take it on faith, right?
Consider something else, though. Many of the Apostles, Paul in particular, preached the word of Christ to their deaths. that's a long ways to go for a lie, isn't it?
Not really. Hell, look at Shrub's lies about Iraq. He's done far more for and with those lies than wandering around the desert telling stories you made up. On top of that, the disciples you're talking about were characters in a fairy tale and the "Paul" who did all the preaching wasn't a disciple of Jesus, never met him in the flesh and didn't even think he'd been to earth yet. If you can't even keep your fantasy story straight, why would you expect anybody to act like you have credibility.
Finally, how do you call me a hypocrite? What have I written that proves that?
You said that god magically healed people. That is a lie, lying is a sin therefore you're a hypocrite.
I believe, and have professed to, that Christ is who He says He is. That's all.
When did he say that? Did you hear him? If not where did you hear about it? how many levels removed is the story you heard? If you're talking about the gospels, then who wrote them? Given that the answer to that is "nobody has a clue", I have far more credibility than the author since you know who I am at least by psuedonym. Provide one single scrap of evidence that there ever was such a man as Jesus let alone a god. Explain why the early Christians who obviously knew a hell of a lot more about it than you do didn't believe he was divine?
The things you believe are delusional. The majority of your faith was invented far after the supposed events in question and even directly contradict the original beliefs. There's no reason to believe that your stories of magical healing are anything different so that will have to remain the default assumption of sane people. Given that you're from Mexico/South America, the fact that you're defending the faith that was used to justify the rape murder and enslavement your people is beyond sad and delusional, it's just pathetic.
Why are you so threatened, to attack me so?
Because ignorance and religious extremism are still the greatest threats the world has ever faced.
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For every AMD, there's a Vatican. Just because you subscribe to one method of proof and not the other, doesn't mean the other doesn't exist.
Given that the Vatican has not one single proof of any of their fairy tales you're proving yourself to be a fool or a liar.
My knowledge of what proof or evidence consists of has nothing to do with the fact that faith is not a method of proof. It's the opposite. So, you are 100% absolutely wrong. No faith based method of proof exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist. It's an impossibility. Nice try, but blind acceptance of lies and nonsense does not constitute proof in any way shape or form.
You've already lost, because you didn't reach agreement with the "religious nuts" on what constitutes hard evidence. Meanwhile, they have their own system of self-supporting evidence.
I don't have to and I still win. Fools believing that a book of fairy tales constitutes hard evidence are *wrong*. They are not possessed of a different but equally valid viewpoint. They are *wrong*. They have no evidence of any kind at all self-supporting or otherwise. That is a fact and it is part of the definition of faith. If they had any sane reasons at all to believe the idiotic crap they do than it wouldn't be a religion, now would it?
The OP wasn't even making an argument to incredulity. He's merely stating that such an argument exists.
It only exists as an example of a fallacious argument. If that's the only argument you have, then you don't have an argument. It is that simple.
The Renaissance wasn't just about Viva La Method Scientific, y'know. It sounds from your post as if you just write off all that stuff as dross, so that your vitriol can flow all the bitterer.
Hardly. All of those great accomplishments were only possible due to science. Religion did nothing to make them possible, just restricted the expression. Mostly they were done to glorify the church though rather than god. Heck the god most Christians claim to believe in would be pretty fucking pissed off at all the money pissed away on churches and cathedrals.
You're even wrong about my ability to grasp different meanings in different contexts, so caught up as you are in your own prose. Sure, yes, I admit the notion of "belief" in something behaving as I expect it to, with the calm sense of the routine, only to see it either live up to my expectations and warrant no further thought, or defy them, and incur wonderment from me until I uncover what was true that I did not know before.
Fine, if you recognize that then you'll admit that your argument was shit since it relied completely on the idea that those 2 meanings of belief were the same?
I also admit the existence of stubborn "belief" that something must be true, even as evidence mounts to the contrary, for to change it would shake too much that is fundamental. For example, your apparent belief that I fail basic logic.,/i>
When you argue based on fallacies, that isn't a belief, it's a fact. Sorry, but that's your fault, not mine.
No, because there is zero evidence of treason, mass murder, theft, and massive assaults on the Constitution. An objective, critical eye would recognize that.
Other than demonstrating that you're an ignorant fool who hasn't paid any attention was there any point in posting that trash?
Death camps in third world shitholes where innocent people are taken to be tortured in direct and knowing violation of the constitution handles most of those. The 2 trillion dollars that just fucking vanished covers theft. The Iraq war based on lies in order to further a harebrained scheme for world domination is mass murder.
Those are objective facts. Your failure to pay any attention is exactly that. Your failure.
Those with a political axe to grind, however, will see what they want to see.
That would be you. You're part of a very small minority of people who are stupid enough to believe the lies of politicians. I have no political axe to grind. I hate traitors, thieves and mass murderers, but those are issues of integrity not politics.
Your failure to deal with reality and your attitude of extremist moral relativism are your deep problems.
All positions are not equal, and right and wrong do exist. The actions of this administration have been entirely wrong at every turn. That's what happens when your goals are entirely negative.
The hallmark of such individuals being an outright dismissal of anyone who disagrees with them...
Hardly. It has nothing to do with agreeing with me. It's a simple question of violation of the constitution, violation of the laws of the land, and an assinine scheme for world domination that had massive obvious flaws from the start whose effects we're living through right now.
So, sorry, since we know the administration lied about damn near everything they've said, dismissing fools who repeat tired old lies is merely common sense and sanity in action. Your position that all viewpoints are equal and should be treated as worthwhile just because some idiots keep repeating them has no value and can only lead to more negative effects.
So the majority of people on Earth are idiots?
Look around. Is that really a surprise.
Your comment is especially idiotic given that fact that most people buy into religions for one of 2 reasons:
1) threat of torture and murder
2) Their parents brainwashed them before their brains were developed enough for reason.
So, idiot or victim. The results are the same.
And you say Christians are closed minded.
The facts say that.
You say I'm an idiot, a fool. Well I say you're an asshole.
Speaking the truth often causes one to be considered an asshole. I'm really not all that concerned. The threat to decent people posed by ignorant faith far outweighs any benefit I'd get from your approval.
How about that? I don't need an all-knowing deity to claim that. It's right there in your words.
As is honesty. It's completely absent from yours though. What do you expect from somebody who still believes silly fairy tales designed to control the weak and pushes them in spite of the millennia of torture and oppression they have been responsible for.
Sorry, but I'll take being a decent person over being an ignorant fool aiding evil, like yourself.
So essentially anyone who disagrees with you is a priori an idiot or insane. How very enlightened of you!
Because treason, mass murder, theft and massive assaults on the constitution are all completely grey areas which good people can have honest disagreements about. Take your assinine extremist moral relativism and stuff it.
And you define what is in the best interests of the nation?
Name three actions that Bush has taken that have furthered the interests of the nation during his entire reign.
nothing that has happened by the Bush administration qualifies as treason
Providing aid and comfort to the enemies of this nation is treason. The Bush administration lied us into a war that never had any possibility of any positive outcome. They did it order to further their harebrained scheme with the stated goal of helping "ensure continued US economic world domination in the coming century" Rebuilding America's Defenses PNAC.
This has had the widely precicted and obvious effect of leading to increased radicalism amongst muslims for very sound reasons if you can look at it from their perspective.
In addition to serving as the chief terrorist recruiting agency, the Bush administration has gone on a massive brand awareness promotion campaign for al Queda who was just a loose confederation with few ties to other terrorist organizations. Of course, that last part was really started back when they were prosecuting the WTC van bombers back under Clinton's administration. Due to the wording of the law they needed to buff up al Queda a bit from reality to make them qualify as a "terrorist organization".
So anyhow, I believe that actively aiding, supporting, and promoting the enemies of our nation qualifies as treason.
These folks mostly made their nut during the cold war and so know how profitable never ending wars are in a broken window fallacy sort of way.
But I guess this isn't a nation of laws? If you don't feel it's right, it's not right?
No, it's a nation of a constitution that has been so badly shredded over the centuries as to be worse than worthless because people read it and think that's what we're living under while Congress and most especially this President despise it as something they even have to pay lip service to.
Given how deeply wrong it all is at this point, defending any of these bastards is either deeply naive or sociopathic.
Our troops exist for the defense of this nation. We have been attacked, and we do have a moral imperative to strike against fanatical Islam wherever we may find it, but without the moral courage to state that such acts are necessary and *right* for our defense, we lose.
Except they are neither necessary nor right for our defense.
You totally contradict yourself and demonstrate a deep confusion about the world in your comment. Contrary to one of Bush's favorite lies, they do not "hate us for our freedom". Nothing is that simplistic.
They hate us for a number of reasons, primary among them is our habit of murdering their democratically elected leaders and installing mass murdering thugs who are friendly to US business interests and actively murderous toward their own people.
That is the reality of our foreign policy. It doesn't always go that way, but it's our standard MO.
So stopping the silly "spreading democracy" bullshit, apart from eliminating the Orwellian idiocy of it, would do a lot to bolster our defenses.
Amazing that. When you stop murdering people for profit they are less likely to hate you.
This idiotic invasion of Iraq and war on Islam you're so fond of are doing nothing to help out our defenses. In fact, that idiotic course supported only by fools from the start, is the single biggest promoter of radical islam. It, in fact, makes the radical clerics *legitimate*. We have declared ourselves the enemy of freedom, so anybody who doesn't want a boot on their face for the rest of their lives *has* to work against us by any means necessary. That is our decision. We made that true.
Cowardly fools like yourself is what allowed this to happen.
Perhaps if you weren't so busy pissing your panties over a largely overblown threat you might have had a few minutes to actually learn something about the situation instead of merely repeating the lies of cowards and traitors.
Encouraging people to leave the military, ignore orders, or interfere with the operation of the military (such as what Speaker Pelosi and Representative Murtha put forth many times in speeches about their approach to funding of the war) is treason.
Not really.
When the military is being used against this nation and it's best interests then those actions are patriotism. Of course, that isn't even what Pelosi has done, so your comment is pretty much just an extremist nutter hatchet job with no basis and a goal of damaging this country even more, but that's par for the course.
I very seriously doubt you'll ever be capable of understanding that fact.
Your comment marks you as a subject rather than a citizen
That said, I really do not think that Libby was treated like a "normal person" throughout the investigation or the trial. I think he served as a proxy for the entire Bush administration in general, and the Iraq war in particular.
Which is an idiotic statement demonstrating your complete lack of attachment to the real world.
The crimes of this administration are so massive and sickening that 30 months is nothing. Your utter failure to have any sense of perspective at all keeps making you say things like thsat which are completely and totally insane.
Libby would have been sentenced to death is he was standing up for a tenth of the crimes of this administration.
Think it through, Sparky. Get some perspective, and try to deal with the reality you're given not the delusional fantasy world you'd clearly prefer to live in.
So when you continue to excuse Libby from punishment for the crimes he willingly chose to commit by claiming that his punishment, which is perfectly within normal guidelines for the crimes he actually committed, is somehow due to him being blamed for a rash of other crimes you make no sense at all. Your viewpoint isn't even within the bounds of rationality.
Even though the jail time was removed, the punishment is NOT a slap on the wrist. If Bush pardons him in 2009, then I agree that will be a bail out, and a truly offensive act.
How is a fine he won't have to pay himself and *no other consequences* NOT a slap on the wrist? Seriously, your insane rantings go pretty far, but this little piece of insanity really takes the cake.
First, it is a slap on the wrist *at most*. He'll pay nothing and get very high paying jobs since he's already demonstrated that he's well connected.
He will be pardoned by Bush as he's leaving office. That is a fact, which you would know if you weren't an insane delusional fool.
No matter how often you keep repeating the same idiotic lies they get no truer.
I can see your point, but the actual root issue here (Plame's outing, and whether or not it was actually a crime, "high" or otherwise) seems to have been completely lost in the shuffle.
Bullshit. That isn't even remotely sane.
Libby worked to *prevent* the addressing of the root issue. That is what he was rightfully convicted of and what his slap on the wrist punishment was for. You keep failing to get that simple point. You feel that preventing dealing with the root issue is a good thing and deserves no punishment, so your statement that the root issue was lost in the shuffle is proven to be a bald faced lie. This is all about Libby's actions in interfering with dealing with the root issue.
I sincerely hope not. FWIW, had THAT happened today, I'd be screaming as loudly as anyone else.
Oh, the fuck you would. You're sitting here claiming that he shouldn't even be punished for the actual crimes which we know he committed willfully and with malice aforethought. We also know that Bush will give him a full pardon when he leaves office. This is just to keep him from taking any personal responsibility for his actions in the meantime.
If you don't know that's what will happen, then your ignorance and naivety are legendary. All the "hope not"ting in the world isn't going to do a thing as long as people *like you* are willing to defend traitors defending criminals to protect themselves from paying for their crimes.
I also believe that a man should be tried for his own crimes, not the crimes of others. I am not convinced that happened here, therefore I agree with what Bush did today.
Scooter was convicted of his own crimes which he freely chose to commit. Had he been tried and convicted of Bush's crimes, then it would have been an execution that Bush commuted, not a slap on the wrist prison sentence.
So, it's quite clear and obvious that Libby was prosecuted for his own crimes, not those of Bush. The fact that you agree with Bush commuting the sentence of a criminal whose crimes were committed for the sole purpose of interfering with the investigation and prosecution of high treason demonstrates only your hatred for this country and for the rule of law.
You are, in fact, acting to aid and abet treason by your defense of this entirely disgusting action by the worst enemy this country has ever faced.
Grow some balls and some integrity why don't you?
the fact that you've got the highest number of inmates in the world next to china
Chinsa has nothing on us in that respect. We've had a much higher prison population than even them for a long ass time.
So what do you say to the scientists that happen to be Christians also? Are they only half-fools?
Depends. When it gets hard do they throw up their hands and declare "god did it"?
If so, they're all fool. If not, they're not.
But how can you claim to hold the open-mind of science when you can't handle the ideas of others as possibilities?
I have no problem handling the possibility, but have some perspective. The likelyhood of any particular detailed account of any particular god being true is vanishingly small.
It's a possibility in the same sense that a broken glass spontaneously leaping off the floor and reassembling itself on the table is. In fact, the latter is *more* likely because we have evidence that it could happen, just not likely at all.
For the whole god thing, you don't even have that.
But if you have scientific proof of there not being a God/Creator then I'm all ears.
It doesn't work that way. Is there any evidence for one or any reason to think that there is one? Of course not. If there were, then it wouldn't require "faith".
Given that all you have is a silly fairy tale, choosing to believe it's magically true *is* idiotic.
We most certainly can have faith and still remain a force in the world of knowledge and science, without being foolish in anyway.
Didn't say you couldn't. I'll bet that you don't do it by throwing up your hands and claiming god did it or murdering people who get results you don't like. In other words you've learned to keep your religion out of your work.
Ask them for evidence. They have not a scrap.
Ask me who built the CPU in this machine?
AMD corporation.
They have a website here.
They maintain offices here:
Now, this could all be an elaborate hoax, but the more hard evidence I pile up, the sillier you look trying to twist it around to the "religious belief" point of view.
This is Seraphim_72's [author of this post's grandparent] point. Where is YOUR evidence?
The evidence is in the result. We have computers. While I couldn't build one myself at any level beyond inserting tab A in slot A, that doesn't mean I haven't been in a chip fab and seen them being made. It doesn't mean that just because I couldn't assemble my own space shuttle starting from digging up rocks in my yard that it is equally likely that it was man made or assembled by elves in the night while the "rocket scientists" were sleeping, or created by a magical invisible fairy.
That is the fundamental difference between those 2 views. The OPs argument was crap because it's just a variation of argument to incredulity. It's a fallacious argument from the get go.
If you were, you wouldn't resort to insults to attempt to make your point.
I didn't resort to insults to make my point. I made my point and then concluded, based on how blatant of a fallacy his argument is, that the insults were appropriate. In other words, they were part of the conclusion, not the argument. You fail basic logic just like the OP.
And for much of it, I'll never prove it, and yet believe it for the rest of my life.
"Believing" in Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation is nothing like "believing" that a magical invisible fairy made the universe and us so he could fuck with us.
For the first, there was a massive amount of evidence and, much more importantly, it led to new conclusions which led to inventions and changed the world far more and far more positively than any ignorant beliefs about the probably unknowable. Further, it turns out that Newton was wrong. Now people mostly "believe" in Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The progress made using Newton's equations didn't crumble to dust, but expanded.
The second adds nothing. It answers no questions. Any it claims to are just pushed back by, not answers, but by the same questions in different clothes.
Further there does not exist a single scrap of evidence for *any* of the mystical nonsense and even quite a bit of the non mystical is either false or has nothing backing it up.
So, no, there is nothing in common between the two things. All you've done is shown that you don't get the idea that one word can have different meanings depending on the context.
"Belief" in a religious sense is, by necessity, belief in the extraordinary with no evidence.
"Belief" in the sense you used it regarding technology you couldn't build by yourself is belief informed. I know an airplane is flying overhead. I also know that it does that in accordance with Bernoulli's law. I believe that it won't magically stop and drop straight down out of the sky, and what do you know? It's still flying.
Ah yes, Christianity - the catch all for ignorant sweeping statements about "fools" who have the nerve to believe that man might not know it all.
Bullshit argument typical of the fools who buy into specific religious bullshit.
It's not "that man might not know it all". It's that "some nonsense made up by bronze age nomads which contradicts itself left and right probably ain't the answer whatever that answer may be".
There is a vast world of difference between those positions.
The typical scientific position is that we don't know the answers but we'd like to so let's try and discover them.
The typical Christian position is that the answers were written by a bunch of unknown people and we will fucking murder you if you don't accept them as absolute truth with no evidence at all.
Continue with your broad generalizations, they serve humanity well.
Bullshit. You were making ridiculous, insane generalizations which you knew damn well to be lies when you did it.
At the same time though science asks for as much if not more faith. Not of itself you are correct, but of the unwashed masses.
Twaddle.
We have things like clean water, roads, cars, planes, cities, computers, and fricking *space ships* all due to science.
What exactly can you point to that god did?
Oh, the universe. Any proof of that? Any evidence?
No, huh?
So apart from making yourself look very silly by telling lies so stupid a child could easily call you out on them, was there any point in making that entirely false and completely ridiculous statement?
Considering God had yet to create humans, this was a particularly difficult paper to write.
Back then it was called "Theoretical Humanities".
Writing about someone who didn't exist doesn't sound like Josephus' usual method.
Wow, the militant death grip you're keeping on your ignorance is truly amazing.
Of course it wasn't the type of thing he'd write because he didn't write it!
The one small paragraph that makes a *passing* mention of the single most important person ever (in your opinion) with no mention of all the events he was involved in and plenty of mentions of plenty of other far less important events doesn't even fit in with the passage before or after.
The most common explanation is that it was a marginal note made later and then even later put into the main body of the text through a poor copying job.
So, you even know how ridiculous your position is but because you're long since begged the question, you fail to even realize what you've noticed.
So are you arguing that Jesus didn't actually exist, or that He wasn't who He said He was? The latter we can debate. The former is beyond dispute, and unnecessary.
I'm stating the fact that there is not one single credible contemporary historical account of Jesus. Given how dense the historical record from the day is and how fucking amazing the events you so desperately want to believe would have been, it's pretty insane to keep demanding that they must have happened anyhow just that nobody gave enough of a shit to write them down. I mean we're talking about unpredicted eclipses, earthquakes etc. You know, things that you just don't fucking miss, let alone *everyone* missed it?
So, sorry, there's the dispute which you lied that your nonsense was beyond. Why is it that you can't provide one single credible historical account?
Perhaps you don't have the first fucking clue what evidence is? Given that you begged the question on this whole thing long ago, it's kind of pointless to even attempt to reason with you. You can't be reasoned out of a position reason could not have gotten you into.
But I'm falling into a trap here. You consistently and vociferously claim that my arguments are specious and without either merit or evidence. Yet as far as I can recall, you've made accusations without much, if any, evidence or reference.
Yours are. How do I know that? There is no fucking evidence whatsoever for any of the nonsense you've spouted. Provide some, or be honest and just admit that you're scared of reality and are desperate to believe an idiotic fairy tale. It's called integrity: look it up.
I suspect you tend to reject things unseen. And we're back to the same argument at the beginning - Do you know of any scientists that have 'seen' an atom? I don't refute the overwhelming evidence that they exist, don't get me wrong. But when we try to get to seeing things even more elemental than atoms, we are usually relying on theory and observations that tend to prove or disprove theories. We don't have the ability to 'see' any sort of quark. We just agree, mostly, that they do exist, given the evidence and the presumptions that make sense and are consistent with the evidence.
But your point has nothing at all to do with the subject.
Most subatomic particles were *predicted* and then found using those predictions.
Your idiotic fairy tale predicts nothing. It adds nothing. It answers no questions, and has added nothing positive to the human experience and created massive suffering, torture, murder, poverty and elitism and continues to promote those things to this day.
So provide some fucking evidence for your imaginary invisible superfriend or shut up about it.
Our argument goes nowhere, since we have both mead up our minds.
Well, you had your mind made up for you by your parents most likely.
My mind isn't "made up" it's wide open. The problem is that there is no reason whatsoever to believe that your fairy tale is any more real than the thousands of others people have come up with over the years, now is there?
It's called basic common sense.
Personally, I go with the third assumption. It makes the most sense.
No, it really doesn't.
The first choice you listed takes no real assumptions at all. We *know* that that is *exactly* what MS does in these situations, hence not only is it perfectly reasonable to assume they'd keep doing what they always do, it is the default assumption when dealing with them about anything.
Now, it's perfectly possible that the third choice is actually correct, but you will never get there using the information available plus Occam's razor because Occam's razor will give you choice one every time because it requires the fewest assumptions.
Adding in more information, like the other response to my post (assuming it's true) could push you in another direction, but assuming people will continue to act in the manner they've always acted is very basic simple common sense.
Um, "Egg-shaped" + "Saucer" ? Does anyone else have a problem with that description ?
Well...... my mom has a gravy boat which is oval and has a saucer, so it's an egg shaped saucer.
Granted, I don't think it flies well.
I just realized, perhaps the most offensive component of your arguments is your obscenity.
So you lie, make up fairy tales and promote one of the most evil organizations there's ever been but a few naughty words makes me the bad guy. Typical of the disgusting lack of any sort of integrity endemic to Christians.
Josephus, in particular, is an interesting source of information. He documents Jesus as a real person, and relates the story of the Resurrection.
No he doesn't. All but the most extremist nutters now know that Josephus's mention of Jesus was added far later by somebody else. Your failure to know something so major just demonstrates you ignorance of the subject.
'm going to quibble over one - Herod's killing of infants, and the census.
You say you're going to, yet you still fail to provide any evidence of a mass murdering of babies.
Several members and leaders of churches in the 2nd and 3rd century make allusions to passages from the New Testament. Among others, three hundred and thirty allusions have been documented from Justin Martyr; 1,819 from Irenaeus; 2,406 from Clement of Alexandria; 7,258 from Tertullian; 1,378 from Hippolytus and 17,922 from Origen.
So? You've merely demonstrated that you don't have a clue as to what constitutes evidence. Wow, later people referenced older fairy tales.
Wow, that's totally amazing!
I don't take the Bible blindly on faith. I've read the criticisms.
Given that you're still trying to trot out that old Josephus chestnut, it's obvious that you haven't read much and that you are taking things very blindly.
Both sides make sweeping assumptions.
False!
Saying, well.... there's a lot of hearsay about it... just like any other fairy tale morons believe...therefore it must be true is a sweeping generalization.
Saying there is no evidence at all for events that could not have gone unnoticed and not one contemporary account maens there's no reason to lend the ideas any credibility is just very simple basic common sense.
Your biggest failure is your inability to distinguish between those two entirely different things.
What takes fewer assumptions: To assume that MS or some other bigwhig of the TPA crowd sent them some Ahnulds with an "...or else" message, or to assume that they found out that either their presentation is flawed or that their findings aren't so new at all?
You're going to slit your throat holding your razor backwards like that.
The first obviously takes fewer assumptions. MS and various other companies have demonstrated repeatedly that that is *exactly* how they do business on a regular basis. So the only assumption needed to consider that choice reasonable is that they'll continue to do exactly what they've always done in the way they've always done it.
For the second, you're assuming that the people in question are shady characters (any evidence of that?), who are willing to risk destroying any credibility they might have over a half ass attempt to drum up publicity?
Seriously, if you're trying to apply Occam's razor you need to pay a little bit of attention to facts otherwise you'll completely screw it up like you just did.
Who you vote for is far more important than which checkbox you marked when you registered to vote.
True enough. I was just surprised that they'd be upset about something that happened before they were even paying attention. It's not like they were the ones betrayed. The Republican party had rejected their stated values right around the time they were born, so they never once in their life had any reason to look to them for anything positive.
Well, don't take my word for it. I recommended a book I found credible. Have a look. And at some other sources. I'm assuming, however, that you have already decided the matter for yourself, and won't. I understand that better than you know.What? I'm lost on that one.
Your argument was that for someone to continue telling a lie for their whole life was an amazing, incredible thing which was so unlikely as to make your beliefs reasonable. I proved that that is not only false, but patently ridiculous by demonstrating the extent to which people even today will take their lies.
Well, if you don't want to accept the Bible as authoritative, then there is little about Christianity to discuss with you.
Hardly. You clearly are not a believer and have no real faith in any of the fairy tales you are claiming if you can't even be bothered to look into what your god actually said to you.
Blindly accepting the bible as authoritative only shows that you have faith in the various mass of people who wrote, compiled, edited, etc. a bunch of disparate documents.
If you really believed that there was a god and that he had some involvement with people and had any interest in communicating with us then I have a hard time imagining you would completely piss away that opportunity in order to believe some book people wrote for their own purposes.
There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the bible, hence it's not authoritative for anything.
Well, the Pauline Epistles are generally accepted to have been written by Paul, the one who persecuted the early Church, and was converted by an angelic confrontation.
Some of it is accepted as having him for an author and a lot that is commonly attributed to him isn't.
Of course, he never even met Jesus or believed that he had ever been to earth, so again, like the rest of the gospels is nothing but hearsay.
Hell, where's Jesus's own gospel, where are his writings? What's that?!? There aren't any?!?! Do you start to get why snae people worry about your mental faculties?
Bearing in mind that I pay special attention to quotations from Jesus. The other stuff, indeed, always merits careful study.
There are no quotations from Jesus. Mark was the earliest written gospel and Matthew and Luke used that as their source for the stories they told, hence they have no value as far as learning about any actual Jesus. Their stories based on stories based on stories which weren't even pretending to be first hand in the first place. Mark is not an eye witness account, the unknown author never met Jesus (obviously) and so it's nothing but hearsay.
There is a substantial amount of good evidence that the New Testament is trustworthy
You keep saying that, but you haven't provided any. The reason for that is that there isn't any evidence. I'm not asking for absolute proof. I'm asking for a single scrap of evidence to back up you assertions. Not hearsay, not falsified documents. I mean *real* legitimate historical evidence.
There does not exist one single scrap.
Other historians and scholars from the time do not offer anything that contradicts most events, and even some Roman historians corroborate some events.
Bullshit. This is what is so sickening about you types. You will lie constantly about bleeding fucking obvious things like that.
Contemporary contradictions:
Jesus wasn't born in Nazareth because there was no fucking Nazareth. There is no mention of the city *anywhere* until over a hundred years after Jesus's supposed death.
There is no mention of Herod murdering all the male children, no census etc etc etc.
As far as historical corroboration, again, there is none whatsoever. Provide some so I can demonstrate that if you cared enough about your god to spend 5 fucking minutes doing some due diligence you'd know you're spouting bullshit.
Actually, I was born in Bangor, Maine, in 1954. I served in the Air Force, but otherwise have lived all my l
DAMN! Do
Like an electric fence?
I'm not imagining it. You're calling me, and the people I worship with, liars.
Yes, you are imagining it. If you were not imagining it, then it would be all over the front page of every paper in the world.
That would be a really really big deal.
Whether you're a liar or a deluded fool isn't really the issue here though.
But more to the point, you won't accept anything I post. You'll want both the reporter in person, and those healed, to give you first-person reports.
Of course I'm not going to take some random persons word that far and away the single most momentous event in the history of the world happened.
I should just blindly take it on faith, right?
Consider something else, though. Many of the Apostles, Paul in particular, preached the word of Christ to their deaths. that's a long ways to go for a lie, isn't it?
Not really. Hell, look at Shrub's lies about Iraq. He's done far more for and with those lies than wandering around the desert telling stories you made up.
On top of that, the disciples you're talking about were characters in a fairy tale and the "Paul" who did all the preaching wasn't a disciple of Jesus, never met him in the flesh and didn't even think he'd been to earth yet. If you can't even keep your fantasy story straight, why would you expect anybody to act like you have credibility.
Finally, how do you call me a hypocrite? What have I written that proves that?
You said that god magically healed people. That is a lie, lying is a sin therefore you're a hypocrite.
I believe, and have professed to, that Christ is who He says He is. That's all.
When did he say that? Did you hear him? If not where did you hear about it? how many levels removed is the story you heard? If you're talking about the gospels, then who wrote them? Given that the answer to that is "nobody has a clue", I have far more credibility than the author since you know who I am at least by psuedonym.
Provide one single scrap of evidence that there ever was such a man as Jesus let alone a god.
Explain why the early Christians who obviously knew a hell of a lot more about it than you do didn't believe he was divine?
The things you believe are delusional. The majority of your faith was invented far after the supposed events in question and even directly contradict the original beliefs. There's no reason to believe that your stories of magical healing are anything different so that will have to remain the default assumption of sane people.
Given that you're from Mexico/South America, the fact that you're defending the faith that was used to justify the rape murder and enslavement your people is beyond sad and delusional, it's just pathetic.
Why are you so threatened, to attack me so?
Because ignorance and religious extremism are still the greatest threats the world has ever faced.