why your prayers often, if not always fail

[Minimalist]

Poor Dripshit.  When faced with an insurmountable problem he smacks his head.

No wonder you are the way you are.

[Drich]

Poor Dripshit.  When faced with an insurmountable problem he smacks his head.

No wonder you are the way you are.

ah. no..

the head smack is because some of you dullards are slower than the others. Those slowmoes who still think falsifiability is the end all kryptonite argument against God it was 10 years ago when most Christians knew less that you morons who still use the argument do.

This argument has been answered but some of you are not smart enough to let it go unless told directly by bart erdman himself.

[Cheerful Charlie]

A hypothesis that cannot be proven, nor disproven, even in principle, has no force. We could just as usefully being discussing Russellian teapots, Invisible Pink Unicorns, or Elron Hubbard's ancient alien thetans.

In the end, falsifibility, which was a concept that grew out of the problems of discussing metaphysics. science is about investigatings things for which there can be evidence for or against a hypothesis.

Again, as I have demonstrated repeatedly, the claims made about God by Christian theologians have a lot of problems with self consistency. Libraries worth of theologians trying to puzzle all of this out without any sort of success, strongly suggests the inherent incoherency of the more expansive God concepts, has falsified the God of Bible and Quran and similar works. One might perhaps cut through some of this by dropping claims that God is good for example, and some theologians edge close to that. god is not a moral agent, and does not owe u any moral obligations. But trying to square that with the Biblical claims of God's goodness in the end, are just so much nonsense.

This situation definitely shifts the burden of proof, or evidence to theology's shoulders. And claims that God in principle cannot be proven or disproven don't work.

And the theologians dance their little dances and struggle with writing vast tomes that fail to satisfy those of us who will not abandon reason, rationality or demands for evidence. Back to you.

[Bucky Ball]

Poor Dripshit.  When faced with an insurmountable problem he smacks his head.

No wonder you are the way you are.

ah. no..

the head smack is because some of you dullards are slower than the others. Those slowmoes who still think falsifiability is the end all kryptonite argument against God it was 10 years ago when most Christians knew less that you morons who still use the argument do.

This argument has been answered but some of you are not smart enough to let it go unless told directly by bart erdman himself.

It's Bart Ehrman.
Now, speaking of "dullards" .... LOL
This one is dumber than dog shit.

[Minimalist]

Poor Dripshit.  When faced with an insurmountable problem he smacks his head.

No wonder you are the way you are.

ah. no..

the head smack is because some of you dullards are slower than the others. Those slowmoes who still think falsifiability is the end all kryptonite argument against God it was 10 years ago when most Christians knew less that you morons who still use the argument do.

This argument has been answered but some of you are not smart enough to let it go unless told directly by bart erdman himself.

Only you are stupid enough to think your "answers" are "answers."  Fuck off and take jesus with you.

[Cavebear]

Poor Dripshit.  When faced with an insurmountable problem he smacks his head.

No wonder you are the way you are.

ah. no..

the head smack is because some of you dullards are slower than the others. Those slowmoes who still think falsifiability is the end all kryptonite argument against God it was 10 years ago when most Christians knew less that you morons who still use the argument do.

This argument has been answered but some of you are not smart enough to let it go unless told directly by bart erdman himself.

It's Bart Ehrman.
Now, speaking of "dullards" .... LOL
This one is dumber than dog shit.

Bart Ehrman? I'm not even gong to look that one up.

[SYZ]

the head smack is because some of you dullards are slower than the others. Those slowmoes who still think falsifiability is the end all kryptonite argument against God it was 10 years ago when most Christians knew less that you morons who still use the argument do.

This argument has been answered but some of you are not smart enough to let it go unless told directly by bart erdman himself.

"dullards", "slowmoes", "morons" etc.

Do we really need this sort of shit from an arsehole like Drich?       

[Dancefortwo]

A hypothesis that cannot be proven, nor disproven, even in principle, has no force.  We could just as usefully being discussing Russellian teapots, Invisible Pink Unicorns, or Elron Hubbard's ancient alien thetans.

In the end, falsifibility, which was a concept that grew out of the problems of discussing metaphysics.  science is about investigatings things for which there can be evidence for or against a hypothesis.

Again, as I have demonstrated repeatedly, the claims made about God by Christian theologians have a lot of problems with self consistency.   Libraries worth of theologians trying to puzzle all of this out without any sort of success, strongly suggests the inherent incoherency of the more expansive God concepts, has falsified the God of Bible and Quran and similar works.  One might perhaps cut through some of this by dropping claims that God is good for example, and some theologians edge close to that.  god is not a moral agent, and does not owe u any moral obligations.  But trying to square that with the Biblical claims of God's goodness in the end, are just so much nonsense.

This situation definitely shifts the burden of proof, or evidence to theology's shoulders.  And claims that God in principle cannot be proven or disproven don't work.

And the theologians dance their little dances and struggle with writing vast tomes that fail to satisfy those of us who will not abandon reason, rationality or demands for evidence.  Back to you.

You said it much better than I did, Charlie.  Hat's off to you.  

[Reltzik]

Okay, Drich, I'm forgoing the quotes because they're getting too convoluted.  (We can't even keep them in a single post any more.).  I'll keep things simple to a pair of points.

First, your map metaphor's wearing thin.  You're obviously talking about step-by-step instructions rather than a map, because every time I bring up things you can do with a map you claim I've never used a map.  In point of fact, I have used Google maps, including for driving directions, and it lets me do all sorts of things you're insisting can't be done.  If I take a wrong turn, it will recalculate my route, and often choose a completely new route rather than telling me to turn around and get back on the path I turned off of.  I can tell it that I want to go by way of 3rd street rather than 8th street, and it will change the route accordingly.  If I want to do a cross-country road trip from Portland to Boston, I can specifically tell it I want to go through Chicago.  I am not a slave to its instructions, and I am more than free to customize it.  YES, it allows shortcuts, though that's not what I'm looking for.  Just the opposite.  And you're the one who called it a street map in the first place, so don't then go on blaming me for thinking it's a map with streets and roads.  So rather than stick with the map metaphor, which is increasingly being shown to be a poor analogy, I'm abandoning it entirely in favor of plain language.  What you've got is a series of instructions to be followed step by step.  A program.

Moving on to the next point:  It seems to me that it is you, not I, who is taking shortcuts.  Here's why.  In initially surveying the field of religion, one forms a list of religions whose supernatural beliefs MIGHT be true, prior to careful examination.  This list includes:

1) Judaism
2) Christianity
3) Islam
4) Hinduism
5) Buddhism
6) Shinto
7) Taoism
8) Scientology
9) Prince Phillip Movement
10) Wicca
11)  Hellenism
12)  Norse mythology
13)  Celtic mythology
14)  Egyptian mythology
.....

... and so on.  Again, this is just a starting list of contenders, before any examination of their merits is made.  And to the end of the list, for completeness, one must add:

n+1) Some religion that my survey missed because there's no way I can count all the religions in the world
n+2) Some religion that has been lost to time
n+3) Some religion that will be formulated in the future, but no one has heard of yet
n+4) Some religion that humans could theoretically conceive of, but won't actually come into existence as a religion.
n+5) Some religion that is beyond the ability of human intellect to conceive.
n+6)  None of the above, ie, none of the above religions' supernatural claims are correct.

So, how does one sort through this list and identify which option or options are true?  Again, several methods spring to mind.

A)  Pick one at random.
B)  Pick the one with the most adherents.
C)  Pick the one with the most adherents where I live.
D)  Pick the one my parents raised me up in.
E)  Examine as many of them as possible, finding ways to pare the list down to something manageable by eliminating absurdities, and then focus on the remaining ones more closely for any clues or evidence of which options might be true or false.
F)  Go with the one I like the best.
G)  Something else?

All of these options have problems.  Blind selection is probably a dumb idea.  So are the appeals to popularity.  Since there are a bunch of parents trying to teach Islam to their kids and a bunch of others trying to teach Christianity, it's obvious that parents aren't particularly reliable.  And as I said before, the search for truth sometimes goes places we don't like.  So method E seems the best approach, at least of the ones I've been able to brainstorm here.

But how to do this?  There are only have so many hours in a week, and that's a long, long, long list, even before adding the infinite range of options from"religions humans might make in the future" and "things humans can't possibly conceive".  There's no possible way anyone can handle more than an infinitesimal fraction of that.  But hey, I'm willing to give it a go in my spare time, even if I won't get through any significant number of them.  Search for truth and all that.  People need hobbies.

To this end, I prioritize.  Which ones do I examine first?  How deeply do I examine each before moving on to the next?  Some, like the Prince Phillip Movement, can get dismissed quickly, so it makes sense to do a wide examination of a large number to begin with as a way of separating the chafe from the wheat.  Then I must also generate a list of pros and cons for whether to look at each surviving religion in more depth, or whether to first go looking at some others I haven't even glanced at before and getting some quick eliminations.  So for Christianity I might initially have:

Pros:  Has a lot of influence, so studying it will help me understand the society I live in better. I hear it has some nice poetry in its scriptures.  Important to understanding a lot of literature.
Cons:   I'm SO BORED of this one.  It feels like all I ever hear about from the media and people around me.  I need a change of pace and it's not like I can't come back to it later.

These pros and cons don't consider any aspect of whether the religion is true or false, or even the strength of the arguments for it, because they can't.  They are how one decides to even examine those arguments in the first place.  Cart before the horse.

So I take a quick look at Christianity.  Then go look at others, then come back to Christianity, then go look at others again.  The fact that the belief (regardless of whether it's true) causes a major impact in the world through its believers keeps suggesting to me that there's merit in studying it further, and so I keep coming back to it.

This time?  Apparently it has a set of instructions to follow for interpreting its scripture, called hermeneutics.  (Not the first time I've run into it, though.)  Sounds time-consuming, and it requires me to accept the Bible as a source of great truth rather than just another religious text, and I don't see any basis for that.  Add that to the Cons column.  Oh, wait, it has MULTIPLE COMPETING sets of hermeneutics?  Yeah, it does.  For example, Eastern Orthodoxy's hermeneutics say that interpretation can only happen within their church, but this guy thinks it can be done outside of an Orthodox church.  And I'm guessing, just from my experience so far with Christianity, that if there are two competing versions, then there are a lot more than just two.  I don't even KNOW how to sort through this.  I'm taking this too seriously to take the shortcut of just picking one at random to believe, and I have no way of telling whether either of them is false because they've been formulated in such a way that it's impossible.  Maybe I'll move on to looking at a different religion and come back to this one later.  Perhaps some way of sorting it out will occur to me after it's spent some time rattling around in the back of my head.

Christianity now has additional cons in its "is this the religion I want to spend my time taking a close look at right now?" list.

Cons:  Tens of thousands of denominations, very time-consuming to sort through them all. Has a long history of inspiring large numbers of its followers (maybe a majority, maybe not) to abuse others and leading them into disastrous mistakes.  Apparently, no method for checking to see if it's false.  Only proof to be offered (other than a bunch of fallacious arguments and dubious traditions) is offered only after I believe, and that would require dismissing the other options.  Competing and contradictory sets of instruction for confirming it, many of which would be time-consuming and/or expensive and/or prematurely require me to forswear any other entry on my big list of possible religions as a possibility. Oh, and if confirmation isn't coming, I'm supposed to chalk it up to "I didn't have enough faith" or "You're doing it wrong", rather than taking that as any basis for telling if this religion is true or false.  It feels like EVERYTHING about this religion, epistemologically, is a way of maintaining belief in the absence of any evidence it's true and in the face of all evidence that it's false, and that feels like one huge trap for getting stuck in a false belief.

In contrast to me, you've selected Christianity over all other candidates, though you seem to be offering them lip service.  You've selected a particular set of hermeneutics for Biblical interpretation (one that rejects a hierarchy between worshiper and God) over all others.  You've used that to select a particular set of life instructions over all others.  And now you're telling me I need to do steps 10, 11, and 12 next when I'm currently on Step 1 and Step 1, 2, and 3 are what will even tell me if your steps 10, 11, and 12 are the real steps 10, 11, and 12, or if I should be ignoring those to focus on a different religion's steps 10, 11, and 12.  And every time I've pressed you on those earlier steps, you have mocked me for even asking those questions.  You ridicule me for using a hammer for the wrong task, and then insist I should be using a different tool (following your set of instructions) for a job that it obviously can't be used for (determining which set of instructions to follow).  What you haven't done, at any point in this conversation, is explain how you got past Step 1.

And I'm getting a pretty strong sense that you took a shortcut there.

Even if I continue on looking at whether Christianity has merit, there is another choice to be made: How do I go about it?  Do I read a book on the subject or dialogue with Christians?  Do I attend a sermon or experiment with prayer?  Which way of exploring Christianity do I go with at this particular moment?

Right now, I'm dialoguing with a Christian online.  Whether I should continue in this method or abandon it for another has its own set of pros and cons.

Cons:  He's abrasive and insulting, makes false assumptions about me and then excoriates me on their basis, draws poor analogies and then ridicules me for stumbling over the parts that are not analogous, insists on me taking a shortcut past Step 1 and then accuses me of wanting to take shortcuts past later steps when I refuse, all while lecturing me on needing more humility when the points inspiring that lecture come from the humility of recognizing how easily I too can make mistakes and taking what limited precautions I can against that.  Oh, and if I remember right this is the same guy from AF who got hostile at me and started name-calling for using a Bible translation he didn't like.
Pros:  ....?

[mordant]

This time?  Apparently it has a set of instructions to follow for interpreting its scripture, called hermeneutics.  (Not the first time I've run into it, though.)  Sounds time-consuming, and it requires me to accept the Bible as a source of great truth rather than just another religious text, and I don't see any basis for that.  Add that to the Cons column.  Oh, wait, it has MULTIPLE COMPETING sets of hermeneutics?  Yeah, it does.  For example, Eastern Orthodoxy's hermeneutics say that interpretation can only happen within their church, but this guy thinks it can be done outside of an Orthodox church.  And I'm guessing, just from my experience so far with Christianity, that if there are two competing versions, then there are a lot more than just two.  I don't even KNOW how to sort through this.  I'm taking this too seriously to take the shortcut of just picking one at random to believe, and I have no way of telling whether either of them is false because they've been formulated in such a way that it's impossible.  Maybe I'll move on to looking at a different religion and come back to this one later.  Perhaps some way of sorting it out will occur to me after it's spent some time rattling around in the back of my head.

There indeed are many, many hermeneutics in Christianity. The particular one I grew up in was promulgated mostly by Dallas Theological Seminary, and the prototype is the Schofield Reference Bible, an annotated Bible with copious footnotes. You could pay good money to go to graduate school to learn this stuff, and devote your life to preaching it. But ultimately it is just a modified version of Calvinism with something called Dispensationalism bolted onto it and pretty standard inerrantist / literalist dogma tossed in. Similar to the proliferation of Christian denominations, there are thousands of hermeneutics, even if enough commonality between them that you can rationalize it down to a dull roar that's roughly defined by how many different denominations would accept you as a pastor even though trained in a somewhat different tradition.

Serious challenges await anyone who has the arrogance to claim that this one hermeneutic out of all of them, is the "right" one that leads you to the "right" understanding of "right"eousness. For example we taught there were seven dispensations of god's grace, which are sort of contracts during different eras of time where god has different requirements and expectations of his followers. In an attempt to get even more weasel room to navigate around the logical contradictions in scripture, there was a group called hyper-dispensationalists and yet another called ultra-dispensationalists. In the extreme some of these groups elevate the writings of Paul to the extent that they are considered specially (or even uniquely) inspired, with a few rejecting all non-Pauline books as uninspired.

And that's just the protestants oriented to Darbyism, who have evolved in just the past couple hundred years. Nevermind the mainline protestants, or the Catholics, or the Eastern Orthodox traditions, or other offshoots from those like the Church of England / Episcopalians, or the wannabe fringers like Mormons or JWs and various other groups who fancy they are restoring some long-lost understanding and truth to the religion, even adding new holy books at times when the original just doesn't cut it.

It's a mind-boggling stew that's impossible to unify into some grand theory. It's what happens when for two thousand years, theologians have pulled quasi-rational propaganda straight out of their ass, jockying for position and influence and followers.

I said "no thanks" to all this a generation ago, and it's the best life decision I ever made ...

[Astreja]

12)  Norse mythology

Pros:

• A decent set of ethics (the Nine Noble Virtues) that can actually be used in the real world.
  
• Judged on behaviour, not faith.
  
• Bad-ass gods that don't have to be real to be inspiring.
  

Cons:

• Some sects infiltrated by racists who believe that only people of Northern European heritage have a right to belong.
  
• Very fragmented tradition, mostly a modern reconstruction.
  

[Alan V]

People have been trying to fix religion for centuries, with one reform sect after another. They've already shown it can't be done.

[Cheerful Charlie]

On Christian hermeneutics. First we must discuss which Bible we shall be examining. The King James Version as championed by the King James Only fanatics? The latest New American Bible as authorized by the Vatican for use by American Catholics? English Standard version? Since no 2 early Bible manuscripts were the same, there are many issues to consider in trying to create an scholarly best translation of OT and NT. And Apocrypha besides. And possibly non-Canonical books that have bearing on the issue of what is in the traditional canon.

If we want to go down this hermaneutics rabbit hole, first of all the Christian debater has to have a very good grasp of this problem if they wish to debate knowledgeable atheists.

I have actually seen 'debates' which dissolved into pawing through various Bible versions to find translations to fit a desired reading to support claims about the Bible. In such debates, we have to ask, what Bible version are you using if you want to discuss hermaneutics, and why that particular version. Or do you even know the answer to that question. KJV is actually a lousy translation.

What scholarly translations and commentaries meant to give us the best translations and scholarly knowledge, apart from sectarian translations is one familiar with when debating these issues?

[Minimalist]

Bart Ehrman? I'm not even gong to look that one up.

You should.  Ehrman is a former fundie who, unlike Dripshit and the other holy horseshitters, studied that shit and has written a series of books on what a load of crap it is.  He is now an agnostic.

There are loads of assumptions and a few leaps of logic in this and even some wishful thinking.... but it is the kind of thing that drives shithead fundies up a wall.

[Dānu]

On Christian hermeneutics.  First we must discuss which Bible we shall be examining.  The King James Version as championed by the King James Only fanatics?  The latest New American Bible as authorized by the Vatican for use by American Catholics?  English Standard version?  Since no 2 early Bible manuscripts were the same, there are many issues to consider in trying to create an scholarly best  translation of OT and NT.  And Apocrypha besides.  And possibly non-Canonical books that have bearing on the issue of what is in the traditional canon.

If we want to go down this hermaneutics rabbit hole, first of all the Christian debater has to have a very good grasp of this problem if they wish to debate knowledgeable atheists.

I have actually seen 'debates' which dissolved into pawing through various Bible versions to find translations to fit a desired reading to support claims about the Bible.  In such debates, we have to ask, what Bible version are you using if you want to discuss hermaneutics, and why that particular version.  Or do you even know the answer to that question.  KJV is actually a lousy translation.

What scholarly translations and commentaries meant to give us the best translations and scholarly knowledge, apart from sectarian translations is one familiar with when debating these issues?

It's somewhat of a moot point as neither Steve nor Drich know their ass from a hole in the ground with respect to hermeneutics.

[Gwaithmir]

On Christian hermeneutics.  First we must discuss which Bible we shall be examining.  The King James Version as championed by the King James Only fanatics?  The latest New American Bible as authorized by the Vatican for use by American Catholics?  English Standard version?  Since no 2 early Bible manuscripts were the same, there are many issues to consider in trying to create an scholarly best  translation of OT and NT.  And Apocrypha besides.  And possibly non-Canonical books that have bearing on the issue of what is in the traditional canon.

If we want to go down this hermaneutics rabbit hole, first of all the Christian debater has to have a very good grasp of this problem if they wish to debate knowledgeable atheists.

I have actually seen 'debates' which dissolved into pawing through various Bible versions to find translations to fit a desired reading to support claims about the Bible.  In such debates, we have to ask, what Bible version are you using if you want to discuss hermaneutics, and why that particular version.  Or do you even know the answer to that question.  KJV is actually a lousy translation.

What scholarly translations and commentaries meant to give us the best translations and scholarly knowledge, apart from sectarian translations is one familiar with when debating these issues?

Interestingly. I once got into an argument over biblical ethics with a Christian fundamentalist on YouTube. When I asked her which version she was quoting from, she kept replying, "I am using THE Bible!" She was completely unaware of the different versions available. I had to assume, finally, that she was using the King James version, although she wouldn't or couldn't confirm this. 

[Chas]

necessary to what?

Necessary means it can't be otherwise. For example, mathematical axioms if proven are always necessary truths. They apply to all possible worlds not just this one.

Set theory is one I think proven to apply to all possible worlds as well.

But those are abstract necessities.  What happens with God, is that if you reflect over his oneness, you see his existence is necessary. The highest level of existence is necessary. The Absolute life is necessary.

Oneness of God is impossible to prove without seeing Necessity of God. They are part of the same coin.

Neither is proved.  The hand-waving involved in these arguments is so flimsy, that only someone who wants to believe can't see its emptiness.  Do you even logic?

[Dancefortwo]

Bart Ehrman? I'm not even gong to look that one up.

You should.  Ehrman is a former fundie who, unlike Dripshit and the other holy horseshitters, studied that shit and has written a series of books on what a load of crap it is.  He is now an agnostic.

There are loads of assumptions and a few leaps of logic in this and even some wishful thinking.... but it is the kind of thing that drives shithead fundies up a wall.

I've read three of his books. I have them on my Kindle.  They're well written and he makes his points clear.  I have to say he's never condescending towards those who still believe. He quietly ignores them even in his blog.

[skyking]

Why bother? You and I were raised away from that miasma of brain death.

[Minimalist]

On Christian hermeneutics.

Once you decide which bible then you have to deal with the concept of exegesis wherein these morons try to convince themselves and others that this stupid shit means exactly what they want it to mean!