Jedah Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 Ive noticed a trend in alot of apologetics , and that is the inconsistancy of what their beliefs are . To get a good idea of what I am talking about , here is an example taken from real life : About a month ago , a debate was started on whether or not the bible was a good way for god to get his message out to other people . I made the point that text documents can be easily warped to fit many differant viewpoints ( almost anyone with an english major can confirm this BTW ) and thus written word was a pathetic choice . I was asked what I would do differantly and I said that if I was god I would have made my word an auditory/interactive holigram that anyone of any language could listen to it by mumbling a simple magic word . The proof would be obvious since it would be a supernatural phenomena that is testable and repeatable as many times as possible . An apologist ( whom we shall name him "fred" ) said that that would be too easy and that god wanted people to have to take his word on pure faith . I took the suttle admission that their was no proof as a victory and after a few more posts the thread died out . Fast forward a week . Fred and I get into a debate on hell , and as luck would have it fred pulls out the absurdly overused "free will" argument . I dismiss it by pointing out that people would have to actually have significant undeniable proof of what they are denying in order for the free will argument to even begin to hold water . Guess what Fred does ? He posts that God has provided more then enough evidence of biblegod and that anyone who denies *insert a bunch of PRATT creation science claims here* is a fool deserving of hell . So whats the problem here ? Simple . Fred is redefining his position as it fits his current purpose . In one subject ( Reliability of a text source ) God cant give us undeniable proof because he wants us to have faith and in another subject ( hells injustice ) Fred flips his beliefs around completely and says God has already provided us with undeniable proof and everyone who doesnt accept it is a dilluded fool who is lying to himself . So what did I do ? Simple , I had both threads saved away and called him out for his flip flop . Too bad I didnt save it away , the results were as pathetic as they were humorous . I highly suggest we start archiving christian apologetics and pointing out when they jump doctrines in order to support their cause . Such crap is always called out in the scientific community and if apologists want their religion to be treated as even mildly credible they need to start acting the part and getting the same level of criticism . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedah Posted January 20, 2006 Author Share Posted January 20, 2006 Sorry , but I realised that one part of what I said might confuse some people . Since I cant edit my own posts yet , a double post will have to do . I had both threads saved away and called him out for his flip flop . Too bad I didnt save it away , One instance of "saved away" is refering to the thread and the next is referring to the PM . I was kind enough to not publically embaress him . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 You touch on one of the biggest things that is most maddening for me in dealing with the fundamentalist mindset. I've always called it intellectual dishonesty, and lately I've be referring to their brand of "faith" as the God of the Gaps system. Something that is difficult to explain is proof of God to them. Once there’s a credible explanation to it, they conveniently forget all their brilliant arguments for evidence of God, and then they move Him to the next gap in knowledge. And so on and so forth. They don't practice faith. They practice arrogance and self-delusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 They don't practice faith. They practice arrogance and self-delusion. Great quote! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderbolt Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 Well said Mushroom_man Take for instance the debate with spumoni on external evidence to prove Jesus. S/he rushes like mad to present us with Josephus as “evidence” but when data from another Gospel that didn’t make the canon is presented, then all of a sudden it's “spurious.” In other words, the disputed text of Josephus will do just fine, but the Gnostic gospels are discounted to letting us in on the mind of all the early ChristianitIES. That's what's so frustrating about debating people using such circular reasoning. They remind me of when I was six years old playing with my buddies. We changed the rules as we went along, and the minute someone outsmarted your rules, you run home to your mamma like a crying baby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
white_raven23 Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 Total agreement. I also really stinking hate it when these people condescend to using direct bible quotes and demand that we take them literally.... But when WE use direct bible quotes pointing out an atrocity, or a direct contradiction to the verse THEY chose....all of a sudden the bible is not longer to be taken literally according to the christian, but to be taken figuratively, retranscribed with a 1984 Captain Crunch decoder, multiplied by the square root of Pat Robertson's inseam, and then reverted back into letters using a WWII code breaker. The bible suddenly becomes very mysterious.....requiring a lifetime of in depth study, and the blessing of the last surviving knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkepticOfBible Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 One thing you will notice on these christian site which debunk Islam, Catholism, Mormonism and other cults, is that they will use every use skeptical methodology to ddbunk these belief, yet when it comes to applying it to their belief, they will cry out "faith". Talk about double standards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedah Posted January 22, 2006 Author Share Posted January 22, 2006 I also really stinking hate it when these people condescend to using direct bible quotes and demand that we take them literally.... But when WE use direct bible quotes pointing out an atrocity, or a direct contradiction to the verse THEY chose....all of a sudden the bible is not longer to be taken literally according to the christian, but to be taken figuratively, retranscribed with a 1984 Captain Crunch decoder, multiplied by the square root of Pat Robertson's inseam, and then reverted back into letters using a WWII code breaker. The bible suddenly becomes very mysterious.....requiring a lifetime of in depth study, and the blessing of the last surviving knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Exactly . They dont actually know what the scirpture says , they just try to find whatever reason they can to make it even slightly possible that the book doesnt contradict itself . Even if after translating it into hebrew and getting at least one hebrew historian to state something about culture at the time the verse is still 99% likely to be an error , the xians will celebrate victory over it being 99% because then they can use faith to push themselves into the 1% . As long as there is a straw to grasp , they will cling to it for all its worth . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vixentrox Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 It's such a shame that so many were and are still being brainwashed into this bullshit. They have to activly learn to NOT use thier brains to keep thier invisible man alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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