The apologetics game!

Originally posted by Agerg
As asked of Suzianne ... explain the insult

The blasphemy of it, it was pointed out to you immediately.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
The blasphemy of it, it was pointed out to you immediately.
Kelly

Last time I checked Biff, blaspheming against invisible sky fairies (assuming, only for argument sake, that I am) is not insulting people

Originally posted by Agerg
Last time I checked Biff, blaspheming against invisible sky fairies (assuming, only for argument sake, that I am) is not insulting [b]people[/b]

If we were talking about invisible sky fairies I'd agree with you; however,
you are insulting someone who myself and others hold quite dear to our
hearts. You know this to be true too, even this response is meant to be
insulting degrading to me and others here.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
If we were talking about invisible sky fairies I'd agree with you; however,
you are insulting someone who myself and others hold quite dear to our
hearts. You know this to be true too, even this response is meant to be
insulting degrading to me and others here.
Kelly

You are conflating two different notions:
1) Insulting a magical entity you believe to exist (which doesn't actually exist)
2) Insulting you or other humans.

We are talking about invisible sky fairies Biff, and I have no more need to be respectful to this magical entity you hold so dear to your heart (who, supposing it did exist would be the most morally depraved and cruel entity that has ever existed) than I have need to respect the voices in a crazy man's head he listens to so intently (voices telling him to kill people).

The point of this thread is to put you theists in "our shoes" when it comes to explaining and defending "difficult" passages from the Bible, it is to ask you see how tenable these apologetics really sound when the bias is removed. This approach wouldn't work with those passages you have already had practice with, or can readily associate with the Bible (since without actually thinking about them, you would find them agreeable by rote).

Originally posted by Agerg
You are conflating two different notions:
1) Insulting a magical entity you believe to exist (which [b]doesn't actually exist)
2) Insulting you or other humans.

We are talking about invisible sky fairies Biff, and I have no more need to be respectful to this magical entity you hold so dear to your heart (who, supposing it did exist would be the ...[text shortened]... h the Bible (since without actually thinking about them, you would find them agreeable by rote).[/b]

Yes, insulting to me and other believers who hold God as close to us as
life itself.

Your views on if God is morally depraved or cruel are your views, but they
are not shared with others like myself. So with intent, you have and still are
continuing to be insulting. The whole point of your OP is to be just that as
well.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Yes, insulting to me and other believers who hold God as close to us as
life itself.

Your views on if God is morally depraved or cruel are your views, but they
are not shared with others like myself. So with intent, you have and still are
continuing to be insulting. The whole point of your OP is to be just that as
well.
Kelly

As for you taking offence at me at the ways I might challenge theist arguments in favour of your god, that is not a case of me insulting you ... it is a case of you possibly feeling threatened by the implications of those challenges, and of you needing to grow a thicker skin and acknowledge that *we* do not respect your god - we have no need to pussy-foot around when discussing it.

And no, the point of this thread is in the last paragraph of the post you responded to, not the reason you have invented for the sole purpose of justifying your forum bullying here - Biff.

Originally posted by Agerg
As for you taking offence at me at the ways I might challenge theist arguments in favour of your god, that is not a case of me insulting you ... it is a case of you possibly feeling threatened by the implications of those challenges, and of you needing to grow a thicker skin and acknowledge that *we* do not respect your god - we have no need to pussy-foot arou ...[text shortened]... the reason you have invented for the sole purpose of justifying your forum bullying here - Biff.

If you'd brought up a point that you felt needed discussed that would be
one thing, but you went out of your way to be insulting. I can have thin
or thick skin it wouldn't matter, that only improves my ability to take the
insults. As you are only being insulting, then just acknowledge it you've no
point to be made you only wanted to get a rise out of people.

Discussions or debates all things are on the table, but being mean just to
be mean, that is just you.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
If you'd brought up a point that you felt needed discussed that would be
one thing, but you went out of your way to be insulting. I can have thin
or thick skin it wouldn't matter, that only improves my ability to take the
insults. As you are only being insulting, then just acknowledge it you've no
point to be made you only wanted to get a rise out of pe ...[text shortened]... r debates all things are on the table, but being mean just to
be mean, that is just you.
Kelly

For the third time now Biff, my reason for starting this thread was:

The point of this thread is to put you theists in "our shoes" when it comes to explaining and defending "difficult" passages from the Bible, it is to ask you see how tenable these apologetics really sound when the bias is removed. This approach wouldn't work with those passages you have already had practice with, or can readily associate with the Bible (since without actually thinking about them, you would find them agreeable by rote).

You folks also think we are insulting you when we discuss the FSM on the same terms as your beloved "God", this is because an uncomfortable symmetry is formed between the thing you "hold so dear" and a thing you find so laughably ridiculous. There is a reason why we pursue such a discussion and it is not to insult people, it is to give people the same perspective we have when it is your god under the spotlight - a chance to see how all their arguments, all their apologetics with respect to their own god, amount to zero when they can be equally well applied to an entity we both agree does not exist.

Originally posted by Agerg
For the [b]third time now Biff, my reason for starting this thread was:

[quote]The point of this thread is to put you theists in "our shoes" when it comes to explaining and defending "difficult" passages from the Bible, it is to ask you see how tenable these apologetics really sound when the bias is removed. This approach wouldn't work with those passag ...[text shortened]... amount to zero when they can be equally well applied to an entity we both agree does not exist.[/b]

For you God isn't real, period. That is not the case with me, He is very real.
One of the issues I have with your *game* is that as soon as we start using
the word "god" it can be applied to God by those who read it. I'm not at
all good with that.
Kelly

Originally posted by Agerg
You are conflating two different notions:
1) Insulting a magical entity you believe to exist (which [b]doesn't actually exist)
2) Insulting you or other humans.

We are talking about invisible sky fairies Biff, and I have no more need to be respectful to this magical entity you hold so dear to your heart (who, supposing it did exist would be the ...[text shortened]... h the Bible (since without actually thinking about them, you would find them agreeable by rote).[/b]

I'm sorry I can't agree with this. Whether you meant to or not the OP is going to annoy the God fearing here. You've insisted on attempting to paint their god in a bad light. It is a blatant provocation.

Also you've failed to understand something basic about Christianity. Their god is not an abstract entity, like the kind of god Plato envisioned, but a personal god. This means a person. So, believing as they do, they would regard an insult against him as being an insult against a person.

Questions of existence are secondary to this. Consider the sentence: "This was an insult to the memory of Arthur Wellesley" since it is possible to insult a dead person, one who no longer exists in your world view, then changing their complaint from being "an insult to a person" to "an insult to the belief in a person" does not alter the moral force of the complaint.

Besides, as an agnostic I'm forced to point out that on the off chance they are right and God does exist you could find yourself in real trouble.

Originally posted by KellyJay
For you God isn't real, period. That is not the case with me, He is very real.
One of the issues I have with your *game* is that as soon as we start using
the word "god" it can be applied to God by those who read it. I'm not at
all good with that.
Kelly

There shouldn't be much danger of that happening since in my OP, that such verses don't actually apply to the Bible god is quite explicit. Indeed I said:

For those with a creative streak ...

Here's how it goes ... try to create an authentic looking Bible passage which paints "God" in a bad light. Then, show how to defend it and make "God" come out smelling of roses! ...

Now why do I choose your god, as opposed to some other fictitious entity like Gandalf the wizard!? Certainly picking on an entity we all know doesn't exist would certainly have avoided the backlash I received here.

Well to put it simply, I had 2 reasons for specifying such "passages" refer to your notion of "God".

1) Firstly, had I have chosen some other deity, then any objective sought by this thread (see the quoted bit in my last post) would be rendered moot by the simple fact that no one would actually give a $hit what some made up verse says about some made up entity - and readership dropping to zero before the first page is filled would have been more than possible, it would have been guaranteed.
2) Such fake verses/defence-of-verses are similar in structure to those of real verses/defence-of-verses and in order to make the point I intended it was important to preserve this correspondence.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I'm sorry I can't agree with this. Whether you meant to or not the OP is going to annoy the God fearing here. You've insisted on attempting to paint their god in a bad light. It is a blatant provocation.

Also you've failed to understand something basic about Christianity. Their god is not an abstract entity, like the kind of god Plato envisioned, ...[text shortened]... hat on the off chance they are right and God does exist you could find yourself in real trouble.

Well taking verses that paint "God" in a bad light, and then attempting to make the same "God" come out smelling of roses is a popular past time for a number of the theists on these boards. Unfortunately, they just don't do it very well, not very well at all.
Telling them this directly is pointless of course - they seriously believe that what they say about such verses is somehow complete and coherent (see the real verse I provided on the second page and look at Suzianne's defence). The only real chance to demonstrate how bad they are is to go ahead and *show* how bad they are. To my mind (as with all satire) this necessarily involves some reverse engineering and reconstruction; but as I said to KellyJay, to keep it anyway relevant to anyone I am sort of forced into referencing "God"

As for my failure to understand something basic about Christianity, firstly, to paraphrase what someone else said somewhere at some time, all theists insult every other theist who does not subscribe to their own particular belief set by the insinuation that they somehow their own god is not real (and each of these theists are just as entitled to say that this god someone else is stating doesn't exist is a personal god). But secondly, and more importantly, their view that this god is not an abstract entity is as woefully misplaced as the view held by a psychopath that the voice inside his head commanding him to go and kill someone is real.

As for this Arthur Willesley feller: hypothetically speaking, even if he no longer exists [now - in an alive state] in my world view, there was a time when he *did* exist, and more importantly for this hypothetical this can be demonstrated so. If it can then be shown that he has enriched my life somehow when he was alive, then there is some mileage in the claim that what I said is an "insult to the memory of Arthur Wellesley". As for "God" on the other hand if "he" doesn't exist (and "he" really doesn't) then the amount of guilt I should feel for insulting "him" is no more than the amount of guilt I should feel for insulting "Sephiroth", the insult is entirely vacuous!

Finally, as a strong atheist wrt all human defined gods (and I hold that this view is quite defensible), I don't worry about any such trouble you suggest - and moreover, hypothetically speaking, even if I were somehow wrong (I am not) I can hardly be held to blame for a way of thinking that is beyond my control - belief (or lack of it) isn't a choice - it will take something external to me to change it.

Originally posted by Agerg
Well taking verses that paint "God" in a bad light, and then attempting to make the same "God" come out smelling of roses is a popular past time for a number of the theists on these boards. Unfortunately, they just don't do it very well, not very well at all.
Telling them this directly is pointless of course - they seriously believe that what they say about ...[text shortened]... ol - belief (or lack of it) isn't a choice - it will take something external to me to change it.

I don't think they want to play games of defend the indefensible unless it actually is a part of the Bible. It is fairly natural for them to want to try to square some of the God's more brutal moves in the Bible with their conception of God as good. I agree that Suzianne's defence didn't work, the problem being that the Pharaoh is continually "having his heart hardened" and therefore not acting as a free agent. The obvious way out is that God, who is not bound by time, can arrange for all the first-born to be philosophical zombies.

I should have used impersonal rather than abstract. Whether a God exists or not is irrelevant to whether the God is personal or not. In the language of logic "personal" and "abstract" are predicates not existential quantifiers.

Psychopaths don't usually have voices, they just don't empathise properly with other people or connect with the consequences of their actions. The voice in the head of some one with paranoid schizophrenia would count as a personal "god", and that voice is certainly real, it is just not an external god but part of their brain chattering.

I needed a name of someone who is dead. Arthur Wellesley is better known as the first Duke of Wellington.

The problem with your last paragraph is that your construction "human defined god" begs the question on existence. It's fairly easy to argue that something that's been made up doesn't exist.

Originally posted by Agerg
For those with a creative streak ...

Here's how it goes ... try to create an authentic looking Bible passage which paints "God" in a bad light. Then, show how to defend it and make "God" come out smelling of roses! (not necessarily the same poster - and extra kudos to those who can fulfil a prophecy or two with them, or start a fight over how their interpre ...[text shortened]... ere made helpless to organise a resistance - and these slaves were spared from God's Holy wrath.

It looks like to me that you have created a thread, so you can be the primary troller.