Atheists Debate Tactics

Originally posted by FMF
But by your own admission, if you did become an atheist, you would then rather talk to other atheists. The point about your inability or unwillingness to engage people who are different from you in their beliefs is well made, by you yourself, albeit perhaps unwittingly.

Yes; I'd be motivated to become a serious student in order to learn all about atheism and become a mature atheist.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Yes; I'd be motivated to become a serious student in order to learn all about atheism and become a mature atheist.

You wouldn't get very far given that atheism isn't a religion and has nothing whatsoever that you can learn about it - apart from its definition which you clearly haven't yet learned despite being told over and over and over.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Yes; I'd be motivated to become a serious student in order to learn all about atheism and become a mature atheist.

For a poster who has started countless threads on atheism and atheists, you wear your utter inability to engage it and them in a genuine way right there on your sleeve. Your peculiarly clueless talk of someone being "a serious student" of atheism and of becoming "a mature atheist" only serves to reveal how undeniably your brand of religionist "spirituality" is about little more than internalizing and regurgitating dogma.

Originally posted by FMF
Well we agree on 'Suum cuique' at least. 🙂

Phrase was (still is) on the wall behind the bar at fabled Jacob Wirth's (unpretentious seating and décor with sawdust on the floors) in Boston which attracted Harvard Students including John F. Kennedy. Went there for lunch a few times years later.

Edit Note: Since 1868... "Close to downtown, in the heart of Boston's Theater District, Jacob Wirth's is a historic landmark, a classic European restaurant and a “Best of Boston” winner..." http://www.jacobwirth.com/

Originally posted by FMF
For a poster who has started countless threads on atheism and atheists, you wear your utter inability to engage it and them in a genuine way right there on your sleeve. Your peculiarly clueless talk of someone being "a serious student" of atheism and of becoming "a mature atheist" only serves to reveal how undeniably your brand of religionist "spirituality" is about little more than internalizing and regurgitating dogma.

Thank you.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Phrase was (still is) on the wall behind the bar at fabled Jake Wirth's (unpretentious seating and décor with sawdust on the floors) in Boston which attracted Harvard Students including John F. Kennedy. Went there for lunch a few times years later.

Edit Note: Since 1868 and still a mecca in the theatre district. http://www.jacobwirth.com/

It's revealing that you used the phrase, and now this waffly, irrelevant follow up, to simply sidestep the content of my direct and germane response to your post alluding to the 'definition' of the Spirituality Forum and why people who believe different things from you post here. There may be no other poster here who goes to such lengths as you do to avoid engaging fellow posters in meaningful discussion. It is quite interesting to witness.

Originally posted by FMF
It's revealing that you used the phrase, and now this waffly, irrelevant follow up, to simply sidestep the content of my direct and germane response to your post alluding to the 'definition' of the Spirituality Forum and why people who believe different things from you post here. There may be no other poster here who goes to such lengths as you do to avoid engaging fellow posters in meaningful discussion. It is quite interesting to witness.

I miss Boston.

Originally posted by twhitehead
You wouldn't get very far given that atheism isn't a religion and has nothing whatsoever that you can learn about it - apart from its definition which you clearly haven't yet learned despite being told over and over and over.

Originally posted by twhitehead
You wouldn't get very far given that atheism isn't a religion and has nothing whatsoever that you can learn about it - apart from its definition which you clearly haven't yet learned despite being told over and over and over.
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"What Is Atheism? Atheism can be defined in different ways, but for purposes of this piece, I will be using the term “atheism” to refer to standard western atheism—that is, to the view that rejects the existence of God or the gods, that there is no afterlife, and that the material universe is all that is real.

There can be and are other understandings of atheism, but this is the paradigmatic version of atheism in the west, and it’s what we will be considering here.

Also, for purposes of this post, we won’t be going into the difference between the “God positively does not exist” version of atheism and the “I can’t positively rule out the existence of God, but I don’t have convincing evidence, so I don’t believe in him” version of atheism.

For purposes of simplicity, we’ll treat them both as a rejection of the existence of God/the gods.

Same thing goes for “the afterlife positively does not exist” atheism and “I don’t have good evidence, so I don’t believe in the afterlife” atheism...." http://www.strangenotions.com/is-atheism-a-religion/
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As a believer in Christ I'm motivated to learn all that the Word of God reveals about Him; were I an atheist I'd be motivated to learn all that scientific and philosophical literature teaches about "the material universe" since that "is all that is real".

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
As a believer in Christ I'm motivated to learn all that the Word of God reveals about Him; were I an atheist I'd be motivated to learn all that scientific and philosophical literature teaches about "the material universe" since that "is all that is real".

I would have thought you ~ as a believer in Christ ~ would be motivated to learn all that scientific and philosophical literature teaches about "the material universe" since not only is that "all that is real" but it is also ~ presumably, according to your beliefs ~ all God's creation too. The self-imposed dichotomy you express here is further evidence that religionist dogma curtails and suffocates genuine spiritual curiosity and narrows the concept of the God figure it erects. 🙂

Originally posted by FMF
I would have thought you ~ as a believer in Christ ~ would be motivated to learn all that scientific and philosophical literature teaches about "the material universe" since not only is that "all that is real" but it is also ~ presumably, according to your beliefs ~ all God's creation too. The self-imposed dichotomy you express here is further evidence that re ...[text shortened]... d suffocates genuine spiritual curiosity and narrows the concept of the God figure it erects. 🙂

While I realize you're trying to contribute in a helpful way, please realize that my comments were in direct answer to twhitehead's claim that "You wouldn't get very far given that atheism isn't a religion and has nothing whatsoever that you can learn about it - apart from its definition..." What you "would have thought" is inconsequential.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
While I realize you're trying to contribute in a helpful way, please realize that my comments were in direct answer to twhitehead's claim that "You wouldn't get very far given that atheism isn't a religion and has nothing whatsoever that you can learn about it - apart from its definition..." What you "would have thought" is inconsequential.

What I "would have thought" is no more or less inconsequential than the post of yours that I was responding to ~ this is just a forum for the exchange of ideas after all, and has no much consequence beyond that. And so we see, yet again, with this deflecting comment of yours, your inability and/or unwillingness to engage the actual content of posts responding to you.

You claim it is God who has given you all the faculties and capacities that empower you in metaphysical enquiry, but then you appear to rule out the full and sincere exercise of them for enquiry into what you claim is God's creation and settle instead for Iron Age mythology and an off-the-shelf reductio-ad-absurdum beliefs package.

In your case ~ as well as some others here ~ this ideology you immure yourself in seems to make you incapable of genuine engagement or discussion of ideas that are different from yours. 🙂

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
my comments were in direct answer to twhitehead's claim that "You wouldn't get very far given that atheism isn't a religion and has nothing whatsoever that you can learn about it - apart from its definition..."

Well it isn't a religion and you copy pasting something from somewhere or other on the internet does not make it so. Your sophism does not constitute genuine 'engagement' of twhitehead.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
As a believer in Christ I'm motivated to learn all that the Word of God reveals about Him; were I an atheist I'd be motivated to learn all that scientific and philosophical literature teaches about "the material universe" since that "is all that is real".

Why, as a theist, are you not motivated to learn about what is real?
Why would your lack of theism suddenly give you interest in what is real that you did not have before?

Edit: and do you agree with me that this scientific study is not correctly described as 'atheism'?

Originally posted by RJHinds
If this is supposed to be in the form of a computer program, then the atheist will never get to #3, #4, or #5, because there is a loop formed at the end of #2 that keeps going back to #1 to start all over with ridicule, belittle, and insult their intelligence.

But I do agree that those are the tactics of atheists and even so-called non-atheists, like sonh ...[text shortened]... course, I guess he doesn't consider himself an atheist because he has made himself his own god.

Thereby fulfilling condition #1.How many times have you used the term 'Numbnuts'?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Suum cuique.

Actually, it is not 'to each his own', here is the original:

Suum cuique pulchrum est

Which means, 'to each, it is beautiful' which is a bit different.