The day I see a limb spontaneously grow back on a amputee after a mob of sheeple have prayed for him/her, I'll be the first person to proclaim a miracle. I won't be holding my breath.

hmmmm. Claude Shannon should have warned me that you might break the channel before you retransmit enough to get your message across.

While in time-out I had a chance to reconsider the matter using the ideas and mutation of ideas which I was exposed to here. I decided it best to bundle my message. The bundle may be found here: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... 42686.html

At times like these I'm inspired to quote from scripture.

"From Wikipedia:
The core of Poe's law is that a parody of something extreme by nature becomes impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism. A corollary of Poe's law is the reverse phenomenon: sincere fundamentalist beliefs can be mistaken for a parody of those beliefs.

And like it or not, that right there, is funny!

John Platko wrote:At times like these I'm inspired to quote from scripture.

"From Wikipedia:

Wikipedia isn't scripture.
Neither Shannon nor Feynman are saints.

Is there any bullshit that you DON'T make up?

MrFungus420 wrote:

John Platko wrote:At times like these I'm inspired to quote from scripture.

"From Wikipedia:

Wikipedia isn't scripture.
Neither Shannon nor Feynman are saints.

Is there any bullshit that you DON'T make up?

I checked the definition of scripture before I posted my comment.

. from free Meriam Webster
a (1) capitalized : the books of the Bible —often used in plural (2) often capitalized : a passage from the Bible
b : a body of writings considered sacred or authoritative

And Shannon and Feynman are saints to me.

How do you, personally not a dictionary one, define "a saint?"

The_Metatron wrote:Nope. So long as you don't expect that reason to convince others of the veracity of your belief.

I won't. But then this thread is not about convincing. Just answering the question.

Agrippina wrote:How do you, personally not a dictionary one, define "a saint?"

A person who is a model of excellence of some kind. I have of course been a bit tongue in cheek labeling
Shannon, etc. as saints but I do see them as models of excellence worthy of the title. People who
sincerely search for truth are "holy" as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to do it with a Bible in your hand.

John Platko wrote:

Agrippina wrote:How do you, personally not a dictionary one, define "a saint?"

A person who is a model of excellence of some kind. I have of course been a bit tongue in cheek labeling
Shannon, etc. as saints but I do see them as models of excellence worthy of the title. People who
sincerely search for truth are "holy" as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to do it with a Bible in your hand.

If I can relate this post to my comments in your second thread, about your use of private language, I think this is a good example of what I mean. Clearly, you want to make up your own definition for the concept of 'sainthood'.

Now, I don't think there's anything much the matter with that, unless you're embarking on a quest to teach your personal language to the whole world, and in that case, it would be kind of narcissistic to think that you had the language that could fix the world. That may, of course, not be your intent at all. Maybe you're just a voice, crying in the wilderness.

In many comments I have made in this forum, John, I have made fun of atheistic-humanistic tropes that sometimes edge too close to doing exactly the same thing. I want you to be free to believe whatever incredible shit you want, but I also want you to understand that your nose ends where mine begins.

John Platko wrote:

MrFungus420 wrote:

John Platko wrote:At times like these I'm inspired to quote from scripture.

"From Wikipedia:

Wikipedia isn't scripture.
Neither Shannon nor Feynman are saints.

Is there any bullshit that you DON'T make up?

I checked the definition of scripture before I posted my comment.

. from free Meriam Webster
a (1) capitalized : the books of the Bible —often used in plural (2) often capitalized : a passage from the Bible
b : a body of writings considered sacred or authoritative

Wikipedia is not part of the Bible, not sacred and not authoritative.

It is not scripture.

John Platko wrote:And Shannon and Feynman are saints to me.

In other words, making up your own definitions again.

John Platko wrote:

Agrippina wrote:How do you, personally not a dictionary one, define "a saint?"

A person who is a model of excellence of some kind. I have of course been a bit tongue in cheek labeling
Shannon, etc. as saints but I do see them as models of excellence worthy of the title. People who
sincerely search for truth are "holy" as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to do it with a Bible in your hand.

In that case, every person who has ever done something nice for someone else is a saint. In that case every scientist (because that is what science does, i.e. search for truth, is a saint. And the world is therefore full of saints. It's actually the sinners who are in the minority. Not the saints.

Thank God, I'm not a saint.

Imagine being in Mother Theresa's company. No thanks I don't want sainthood. I want to go down boogying with a drink in one hand and a joint in the other.

I am a theist because I had to read Gerard Manley Hopkins at school for English Lit....

Never heard of him, which is why I'm not a theist.

Cito di Pense wrote:

John Platko wrote:

Agrippina wrote:How do you, personally not a dictionary one, define "a saint?"

A person who is a model of excellence of some kind. I have of course been a bit tongue in cheek labeling
Shannon, etc. as saints but I do see them as models of excellence worthy of the title. People who
sincerely search for truth are "holy" as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to do it with a Bible in your hand.

If I can relate this post to my comments in your second thread, about your use of private language, I think this is a good example of what I mean. Clearly, you want to make up your own definition for the concept of 'sainthood'.

I didn't make up this definition any more than I invented words in the other thread, I found it in a dictionary. I just specified which of the many varieties of the definition of saint I was using in this thread. And that's what I do in my paper also. That's how you avoid conflation. I'm getting the idea that atheists don't like avoiding conflation.

Now, I don't think there's anything much the matter with that, unless you're embarking on a quest to teach your personal language to the whole world, and in that case, it would be kind of narcissistic to think that you had the language that could fix the world. That may, of course, not be your intent at all. Maybe you're just a voice, crying in the wilderness.

In many comments I have made in this forum, John, I have made fun of atheistic-humanistic tropes that sometimes edge too close to doing exactly the same thing. I want you to be free to believe whatever incredible shit you want, but I also want you to understand that your nose ends where mine begins.

I don't want to invent a language. Usually when people communicate with each other they figure out the exact version of the meaning of the word a person is using from the context, when that's not clear they simply ask, "what do you mean?" Obviously, that protocol is not in effect here, at least for theists. Fine, I'll just define which meaning of a word I'm using up front and then they'll be no need for misunderstanding.

MrFungus420 wrote:

John Platko wrote:

MrFungus420 wrote:

John Platko wrote:At times like these I'm inspired to quote from scripture.

Wikipedia isn't scripture.
Neither Shannon nor Feynman are saints.

Is there any bullshit that you DON'T make up?

I checked the definition of scripture before I posted my comment.

. from free Meriam Webster
a (1) capitalized : the books of the Bible —often used in plural (2) often capitalized : a passage from the Bible
b : a body of writings considered sacred or authoritative

Wikipedia is not part of the Bible, not sacred and not authoritative.

It is not scripture.

John Platko wrote:And Shannon and Feynman are saints to me.

In other words, making up your own definitions again.

Policing words is a distributed function. There is no word czar.

Agrippina wrote:

John Platko wrote:

Agrippina wrote:How do you, personally not a dictionary one, define "a saint?"

A person who is a model of excellence of some kind. I have of course been a bit tongue in cheek labeling
Shannon, etc. as saints but I do see them as models of excellence worthy of the title. People who
sincerely search for truth are "holy" as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to do it with a Bible in your hand.

In that case, every person who has ever done something nice for someone else is a saint. In that case every scientist (because that is what science does, i.e. search for truth, is a saint. And the world is therefore full of saints. It's actually the sinners who are in the minority. Not the saints.

Now you're getting my idea.

...which makes it a useless idea.

Why is anyone still bothering?