What's the battiest thing you ever heard a believer say?

Calilasseia · **#101** by **Calilasseia** » May 10, 2010 3:13 pm

Battiest thing said to me by a believer? I nominate THIS example for a special prize.

In answer to this that I posted about the demonstrable success of naturalistic science:

Me Elsewhere wrote:Your famine-free, disease-free life surrounded by expensive electronic toys is a testament to that success. Did medical scientists rely on your magic man to eliminate smallpox? No. They relied upon naturalistic theories of disease, which enjoy massive evidential support from observational reality. Did physicists rely on your magic man in order to build the Large Hadron Collider? No. They relied upon quantum field theory and related disciplines. Did chemists rely upon your magic man to develop a vast range of substances ranging from detergents to antibiotics? No. They relied upon knowledge of testable natural processes in the form of chemical reactions.

I received this reply:

What does that have to do with the quest of the best explanation of our reality ?

Don't all wet yourselves laughing at once.

Mick · **#102** by **Mick** » May 10, 2010 5:11 pm

i think one of the funniest things i heard an atheist offer was Calilasseia's definition of 'atheism'. I took that to the skeptical thinkers among my fellow grad students and professors, and we all had a good chuckle.

MattHunX · **#103** by **MattHunX** » May 10, 2010 5:51 pm

Mick wrote:i think one of the funniest things i heard an atheist offer was Calilasseia's definition of 'atheism'. I took that to the skeptical thinkers among my fellow grad students and professors, and we all had a good chuckle.

Explain yourself! :eh:

Or perhaps Calilasseia can elaborate on that.

hackenslash · **#104** by **hackenslash** » May 10, 2010 9:59 pm

Further to Cali's citation above, I have to nominate the following which, under normal circumstances, would be a perfectly reasonable thing to say, but in this case, earned the first ever quadruple Dunsapy ever awarded, and none more deserving:

Jireh wrote:Nope. Thats not how the game works. You make the assertion. You need to present the evidence, to explain your point.

Kenaz · **#105** by **Kenaz** » May 10, 2010 10:05 pm

I was trying to show a Christian a YouTube video of Robert Anton Wilson talking about "Maybe Logic", and it wouldn't load due to technical problems. Now, I thought about him saying it.. and he did. "God must not want me to watch it." :picard:

Fuck it. Can only lead you to water..and I have to hold myself back from holding your head under it! :lol:

Gawdzilla · **#106** by **Gawdzilla** » May 10, 2010 10:12 pm

IBP wrote:
nicetomeetyou_13: my friend has seen someones leg grow b4 his eyes"

Don't get me started on that. Charlatanry of the highest order, and highly damaging to Christianity, in my opinion.

Charlatanry is part and parcel of the apologistics.

HughMcB · **#107** by **HughMcB** » May 10, 2010 10:27 pm

hackenslash wrote:Further to Cali's citation above, I have to nominate the following which, under normal circumstances, would be a perfectly reasonable thing to say, but in this case, earned the first ever quadruple Dunsapy ever awarded, and none more deserving:

Jireh wrote:Nope. Thats not how the game works. You make the assertion. You need to present the evidence, to explain your point.

What about the egg Hack! Don't forget the chicken and egg!...

Jireh wrote:what came first, the egg, or the chicken ?
that seems a trivial question, but its not. Who believes in evolution , has a hard time to answer that question.

Calilasseia · **#108** by **Calilasseia** » May 11, 2010 2:21 am

Mick wrote:i think one of the funniest things i heard an atheist offer was Calilasseia's definition of 'atheism'. I took that to the skeptical thinkers among my fellow grad students and professors, and we all had a good chuckle.

Oh really?

And what part of "YOU assert that your magic man exists, YOU support your assertions" raised a laugh?

This might put an end to the laughter. Ask your "fellow academics" if they've heard of Steve Gimbel. I think you'll find my definition is in accord with his writing.

Atheistoclast · **#109** by **Atheistoclast** » May 11, 2010 2:50 am

Calilasseia wrote:
Mick wrote:i think one of the funniest things i heard an atheist offer was Calilasseia's definition of 'atheism'. I took that to the skeptical thinkers among my fellow grad students and professors, and we all had a good chuckle.

Oh really?

And what part of "YOU assert that your magic man exists, YOU support your assertions" raised a laugh?

This might put an end to the laughter. Ask your "fellow academics" if they've heard of Steve Gimbel. I think you'll find my definition is in accord with his writing.

Why are you so fixated with magic? Read too many Harry Potter books?

Technology today is "wizardry" compared to just 200 years ago.

Maybe Theists are just too advanced for the likes of Atheists whose perception of reality is very limited.

HughMcB · **#110** by **HughMcB** » May 11, 2010 2:54 am

Atheistoclast wrote:Maybe Theists are just too advanced for the likes of Atheists whose perception of reality is very limited.

What a fitting thread to say that in... :lol:

Viraldi · **#111** by **Viraldi** » May 11, 2010 3:00 am

Atheistoclast wrote:Why are you so fixated with magic? Read too many Harry Potter books?

Failure to read the quotation properly results in your misunderstanding. He is more often than not fixated on evidential support, if any, of given assertions, in respect to the magic man many recognize in different labels such as sky-daddy.

Atheistoclast wrote:Technology today is "wizardry" compared to just 200 years ago.

I wonder how you vicariously compared that from a frame of reference in a time of two centuries ago.

Calilasseia · **#112** by **Calilasseia** » May 11, 2010 3:03 am

Atheistoclast wrote:
Calilasseia wrote:
Mick wrote:i think one of the funniest things i heard an atheist offer was Calilasseia's definition of 'atheism'. I took that to the skeptical thinkers among my fellow grad students and professors, and we all had a good chuckle.

Oh really?

And what part of "YOU assert that your magic man exists, YOU support your assertions" raised a laugh?

This might put an end to the laughter. Ask your "fellow academics" if they've heard of Steve Gimbel. I think you'll find my definition is in accord with his writing.

Why are you so fixated with magic? Read too many Harry Potter books?

Technology today is "wizardry" compared to just 200 years ago.

Maybe Theists are just too advanced for the likes of Atheists whose perception of reality is very limited.

Oh dear, look who's gatecrashed the party. And in doing so, provided us with yet more comedy.

I'm not the one fixated on magic. It's the people who think testable natural processes can't explain the universe that are fixated on magic, because that's the alternative they're offering - magic conjuring tricks, and an invisible magic man to perform them. Or is this elementary concept too difficult for you to understand?

Plus, how did we arrive at a state where we have technology today that would have seemed like "wizardry" 200 years ago? By applying past knowledge of testable natural processes to advance ourselves to the stage where new testable natural processes fell within our investigative remit. Once again, no magic, and no magic man, needed.

As for the perception of atheists being "limited", anyone who thinks that accepting the validity of a science whose best physical theories are in accord with reality to 15 decimal places constitutes "limited perception", when mythology has signally failed to achieve anything remotely close to this, is frankly not worthy of serious consideration. But then I don't consider you worthy of serious consideration, with the sole exception of the need to bring the absurdity of your canards into sharp relief.

CookieJon · **#113** by **CookieJon** » May 11, 2010 3:07 am

Atheistoclast wrote:Technology today is "wizardry" compared to just 200 years ago.

Maybe Theists are just too advanced for the likes of Atheists whose perception of reality is very limited.

That's the battiest thing I've read all week! Well done.

On that, why do theists think that basing one's world-view singularly on one 2000-year-old book is not "very limited"? Can someone explain the thinking behind this to me, please?

virphen · **#114** by **virphen** » May 11, 2010 3:14 am

CookieJon wrote:
Atheistoclast wrote:Technology today is "wizardry" compared to just 200 years ago.

Maybe Theists are just too advanced for the likes of Atheists whose perception of reality is very limited.

That's the battiest thing I've read all week! Well done.

On that, why do theists think that basing one's world-view singularly on one 2000-year-old book is not "very limited"? Can someone explain the thinking behind this to me, please?

It isn't because believers show again and again that they can make that 2000 year old book say any fucking thing they want it to.

lordshipmayhem · **#115** by **lordshipmayhem** » May 11, 2010 4:00 am

While Atheistoclast's post above is a valiant effort at issuing the battiest thing I've ever heard a believer say, it doesn't quite match my sister, a pastor. She advised my other sister that my other sister should get rid of the Dream Catchers she had dangling in her window. "That's how demons enter your life."

This self-same pastor told me about a trip she was making to California, to learn about a "Christian version" of the 12-step program, as if AA didn't have you call on a higher power.

(Dream catchers are little circles, usually about 4" or less across, made of bent branches and either rawhide or string, with beads and feathers dangling from the bottom. Part of the First Nations traditions, you're supposed to hang it above where your child is sleeping. Dreams go through the Dream Catcher, the good dreams go to comfort the sleeping kid and the bad dreams get caught. You see a lot of them dangling from rear-view mirrors of pickups in Northern Ontario, as a result pickup trucks don't get many bad dreams...)

blasphemer_number1 · **#116** by **blasphemer_number1** » May 11, 2010 4:01 am

Please continue... I love what I'm reading.

If only I could remember the best quotes of my youth. There was one quote from the early 90's that I wish I could dig up of a theologian claiming that any computer with more than 64 KB of RAM was capable of being possessed by Satan (or something like that); so TI 99/4A, Timex Sinclair, Atari 400/800, Vic 20, TRS-80/Coco, the original Apple I & II series, etc... if you used one of those, you were safe.

The baptists at the church I attended in my youth used to claim something (and again I'm missing details) that the drum beat was the evil thing in rock music; that somehow dancing or being moved by it was on a level of being possessed by the music instead of the holy spirit. They used to point out all kinds of symbols in rock music videos... it was quite an easy publicity gimmick for the likes of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osbourne, etc...

The same baptists also had claims about why porn selected "actresses" that were "pretty"; something like it attracts more people to sin that way... I wonder how and where they collected their data? Besides, with the advent of amateur porn essentially anyone regardless of appearance can be in a smut film.

virphen · **#117** by **virphen** » May 11, 2010 4:03 am

blasphemer_number1 wrote:
The same baptists also had claims about why porn selected "actresses" that were "pretty"; something like it attracts more people to sin that way... I wonder how and where they collected their data? Besides, with the advent of amateur porn essentially anyone regardless of appearance can be in a smut film.

Let's see... why would porn productions possibly want to employ performers that more people find attractive? :ask:

Nope, I'm stumped.

josephchoi · **#118** by **josephchoi** » May 11, 2010 4:10 am

Mick wrote:i think one of the funniest things i heard an atheist offer was Calilasseia's definition of 'atheism'. I took that to the skeptical thinkers among my fellow grad students and professors, and we all had a good chuckle.

Hurr hurr hurr lack of belief is belief in lack of something hurr hurr

Did it go like this?

stijndeloose · **#119** by **stijndeloose** » May 11, 2010 5:11 am

Atheistoclast wrote:Maybe Theists are just too advanced for the likes of Atheists whose perception of reality is very limited.

Kytescall · **#120** by **Kytescall** » May 11, 2010 9:09 am

I'll paraphrase...

"The T. rex didn't eat meat because its teeth were too loose. The reason why it had sharp teeth was so it could chew through tree bark."

The above was my first encounter with creationism. What a welcome.

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