Posted: Sep 20, 2010 11:16 pm
Well, it worked on me. I believe Jerome exists and I believe he's an Anglican.
Maybe its just me but I've never seen Jerome engage in a real debate about whether or not Christianity is literally true. Obviously, he believes it is. But I don't know that I've ever seen him argue about that.
What he does is discuss things like theological points or historical points that one can appeal to evidence for such as what really happened at such and such an Ecclesiastical council or whether there was or was not a historical Jesus. I don't think he's a literalist about every detail but certainly he is about some key New Testamant stuff.
But, for the most part, I would say he only debates or discusses things that the majority of the board would agree there is any debate about. For instance, we all know there was a Council of Nicea. That's a fact. People debate what happened there. Jerome slams down hard evidence of what happened. Likewise with the historical Jesus argument. This is a lively and often angry debate even amongst atheists.
My advice would be to follow Jerome's example (to the best of my recollection). Don't start useless (except for the entertainment value) threads where you make claims for which there is no supporting evidence or for which you may think there is supporting evidence by your definitions but clearly its been done before and its not going to fly by accepted standards of falsifiable evidence. Instead, discuss things that would be of interest to some of us atheists and that a significant number of people here would admit there is evidence enough for that its debatable.
Oh also, stay far, far away from philosophy threads if the real intent is just to use mental gymnastics to support a religious belief.