Brother Mario

[WarriorPoet]

No, I don't believe that god exists.  Here's the deal though, I DID believe it, until I was 28 years old.  I believed it with every bit of certainty that you believe it now.

 

I didn't just read about god, as you so flippantly dismissed.  My K-12 education happened in a christian school, classes about the bible and other sources of christian theology every single day, along with classes that dealt with other religions, admittedly those tended to be a bit biased.

 

You accused me of not having an original thought, well you may be right.  That f---ing book has been around for nearly 2000 years.  How many original thoughts can be left?  I've yet to meet a preacher or apologist with an original thought either.

 

I never claimed to be an expert, what part of "my two cents" didn't you understand?

 

Now, after I got that off my chest, I must say that I think I managed to touch a nerve or two.  I see a whole lot of anger, but not a single bit of refutation for any of the points I made, or I guess simply repeated. 

 

And those ad hominems you were accusing other members of employing, you may want to invest in a mirror.

[Brothermario]

Weezer, I knew who you guys were right from the start, and all you’ve done is prove it.

 

You did good things for others for 24 years as a Christian, but now you think you are living a better life as a old curmudgeon doing intellectual masturbations with ex-Christians?

 

Well that doesn’t really make a lot of sense, now does it?

 

I counseled tough kids in a residential program for 12 years, and took a big hit financially doing it. But I’ve gotten calls years later from grown men with families thanking me for helping them. (I gave every kid my business card and told them to call me anytime.)

 

When I would arrive at the program to start my shift, the kids would sometimes run out of the house and greet me in the driveway. The directors would yell at them to get back in the house, but they would wait for me and say, “Mello’s here!” When I got married and had to quit to support a family, my heart got ripped out as I drove down that driveway for the last time and thought about those kids watching me leave.

 

So, I have no idea what you’re trying to prove sarcastically mentioning your time as a Christian doing good things for others.

[Brothermario]

Warrior, I always provide “refutation”, and scholastic refutation, and refutation based upon experience.

 

And I gave to you plenty of it. Don’t read my responses to you hastily and then tell me that I didn’t do this or that. Be more honest about your lack of desire to comprehend what others are saying, and your great desire to hear yourself talk.

 

And the nerve you touched was my having to endure incredibly ridiculous ideas about such incredibly important realities.

 

This ain’t a game, brother.

 

If you don’t really know anything, or are anyone, making other people better for knowing you, just keep to yourself.

[Wertbag]

5 hours ago, Braggadocio said:

I literally wrote that I had hopes that some of the skeptics here were different than their ridiculous counterparts.

If you came here expecting a fight and insults then I would hope the polite discussion early on is a clear sign not all atheists are angry people (barring the sudden unexpected outburst from Freed, definitely some anger there).  Certainly as the discussions have gone on and the frustration has grown, the answers have become terse and more people are giving up on what could have been a productive conversation.

 

I have one last question for you; what exactly were you hoping to gain from your visit here?  Are you hoping to teach?  To learn?  Just wanting a fight?  Looking to make friends?  Looking to confirm a preconceived idea of what atheists are?  Are you hoping to convert?

What is your goal here? 

[Brothermario]

Wertbag, I’ve been telling skeptics on forums for over a decade the same true story about God I’ve told here.

 

What could be a better goal than to simply tell the truth?

 

I never think about a skeptic hearing the truth and telling me they’ve heard it.

 

What I think about, when I do occasionally think about it, is how the Truth can get inside us and do its work on its own.

 

When skeptics tell me that I’m just a chew toy for them, a troll, or I’m just telling them fantasies, I don’t stop and ponder it because I’m not telling them simply about myself, but also about God.

There was a man who experienced God firsthand through a single great experience he could not deny. From that day forward he spent every waking moment telling people about the living God he personally met, the God he had only previously read about. This man came to write much of the New Testament, and suffered from his zeal to tell others what he now knew and understood about God, and them.

 

This man one day wrote:

 

“Surely if I was trying to please human beings, I wouldn’t be pleasing God.”

 

 

[WarriorPoet]

1 hour ago, Braggadocio said:

 

God so loved the world that he sent his only son into the world. And his only son gave everything he could because he so loved his father. And in return he became the greatest person who ever lived, a person who became a suffering and dying humanity’s greatest hope for two thousand years, and a person who is STILL ALIVE and a KING!

This?  This is your refutation?  Because I actually took your advice and reread what you wrote less hastily, and everything else in your post is simply an attempt at mocking me, so this must be what you meant by refutation.  

Are you seriously unable to see that the quoted paragraph is simply a sugarcoated restatement of what I said about a human sacrifice.  That the supposed sacrifice was willing does not change what it was.
 

And you think slapped me around.  Excuse me while I laugh myself to sleep.

[Brothermario]

Yes, Warrior, that’s the refutation.

 

Jesus becoming the greatest person who ever lived because he’s our greatest hope, and Jesus still being alive, and Jesus being a King is just a “sugarcoating” over your deep thoughts on suffering and death?

 

You’re simply a moron.

[WalterP]

7 hours ago, Braggadocio said:

Walter, people who have similar experiences of God know they have had them because they talk about God in similar ways.

 

My experiences of God gave to me knowledge of God.

 

As I came to know God better, and the Truth better, I came to love God.

 

To love God is to know the Truth about God, and ourselves.

 

When a skeptic argues against the existence of God, that skeptic is also arguing against the love of God.

 

Love and Truth are always joined together.

 

I don’t know what you’re experiences of God have been.

 

Why should I?

 

Brothermario,

 

Once again you have failed to deal with the issue at hand between us.

 

Nowhere in our dialogue, have I argued against the existence of god or mentioned his nature or qualities.

 

You see how I am strictly confining myself to the subject of experiences, just as I said I would?

 

Now, will you please do the same.

 

 

The issue between us is your claim to have had a true experience of god.

 

The act of informing us about your experience is a claim on your part.

 

The onus is always upon the claim maker (you) to support their claim (personal experience of god) with evidence.

 

It does not fall to me or anyone else to do anything to support, validate, verify or investigate your claim.

 

If you cannot or will not support your claim then please say so.

 

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

[LogicalFallacy]

On 1/4/2021 at 7:25 AM, Braggadocio said:

There is only one God. The highest philosophical reasoning and theological traditions attest to it being so.

 

Wonderful, we have finally found someone who I suppose from his post is able to demonstrate his particular God's existence. 

 

I'll continue reading with bated breath.

[LogicalFallacy]

1 hour ago, Braggadocio said:

You’re simply a moron.

 

You just might be the most delightful person I've ever met. Full of of the spirit, bestowing the love of God. 

 

I ask you - if you are going to heaven, why would any of us want to be there with you?

[LogicalFallacy]

On 1/4/2021 at 10:48 AM, Braggadocio said:

Joining molecules together to create the first ancient living bacteria is to create a greater thing, for to be alive is greater for a thing than to be not alive.

 

Upon what do you base that being alive is "greater" than not being alive? What criteria are you using for "greater"? Or is this just a presupposition? 

[LogicalFallacy]

On 1/4/2021 at 5:24 PM, Braggadocio said:

if you are sincerely eager to know God, he won’t disappoint you.

 

I can tell you from person experience that this assertion is not true.

[LogicalFallacy]

9 hours ago, Braggadocio said:

Weezer, remember how President Truman decided that to save American soldiers’ lives it was a good thing to instantly kill 100,000 Japanese, twice?

 

It is questionable whether is was "good" or the right thing to do.

 

Certainly wiping out the earth because you're an incompetent creator who apparently is omniscient and yet regrets is not a good thing.

[LogicalFallacy]

Well I read pretty much the whole thread. That has go to be the most painful wading though of seven pages ever.

 

I don't recall seeing one solid argument for the Op's assertion of the one true God.

 

At this point I'm wondering what he is doing here, what he hopes to achieve? There is a blanket refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue. Anytime someone says something he disagrees with he respond with brow beating from his self proclaimed high perch.

 

If God sent you here to convince us of his existence he has utterly failed, and should have known better than to send you. I don't know what would convince me of God's existence, but I do know it wouldn't be someone like you @Brothermario . I've read the new testament. You don't seem to possess any of the virtues it extols.

 

What's more, you appear to be a Catholic? If so my ex pastor says you are going to hell. Refute that! No not literally - I'm just pointing out how you as a God believer says one thing, but some other God believer says another. Both of you claim divine revelation and yet your positions are mutually exclusive. How can we tell the difference?

 

 

[Brothermario]

I see you’ve sent in a brilliant undergraduate who has studied every talking point of today’s skeptics for extra credit.

 

And he read all seven pages!

 

His arguments were very powerful. One even made me blink an eye.

 

He was so confident, too, despite admitting that “I don’t know what would ...”.

 

Where does confidence in one’s ignorance as one’s knowledge come from?

 

It seems logically fallacious to me.

[Brothermario]

Walter, you’re either a skeptic plant attempting to aggravate me by a continuous “You didn’t answer the question, so please answer the question” ploy, or a dumb old guy from England who has spent his life thinking he’s brilliant.

 

Either way, you haven’t shown yourself to be honestly inquiring about the existence of God.

 

 I answered your question by giving you MY answer not YOURS.

 

Don’t ask it again.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

@Brothermario,  rein it in.  Now.  I won't tell you again.

[florduh]

35 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

@Brothermario,  rein it in.  Now.  I won't tell you again.

You still need to see more? FTR, I'm done with it.

[WalterP]

47 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

Walter, you’re either a skeptic plant attempting to aggravate me by a continuous “You didn’t answer the question, so please answer the question” ploy, or a dumb old guy from England who has spent his life thinking he’s brilliant.

 

Either way, you haven’t shown yourself to be honestly inquiring about the existence of God.

 

 I answered your question by giving you MY answer not YOURS.

 

Don’t ask it again.

 

Brothermario,

 

Of course I'm not YET inquiring about the existence of god.

 

Before that happens you have to make good on your claim.

 

You claimed to have had a true experience of god.

 

The onus is upon you to substantiate that claim, here in this forum, with evidence.

 

So far you haven't done so.

 

 

What's happening between us here is described here.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)

 

The burden of proof (Latin: onus probandi, shortened from Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat) is the obligation on a party in a dispute to provide sufficient warrant for their position.

 

You and I are currently trapped here...

 

Philosophical debate can devolve into arguing about who has the burden of proof about a particular claim. This has been described as "burden tennis" or the "onus game".

 

Since you first declared that you have had a true experience of god, the onus has been on you to provide sufficient warrant for your position.

 

I'm still waiting for you to do what is philosophically proper and to make good on your claim.

 

Please do so.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

Quoting Star Trek Borg, "Resistance is fu tile."

[TheRedneckProfessor]

30 minutes ago, florduh said:

You still need to see more? FTR, I'm done with it.

Plenty of rope makes the best noose.  It's not that I need more.  I'm just willing to allow Braggadocio to continue demonstrating his christian love and humility a while longer.

[Brothermario]

Redneck, change my name back to Brothermario. Now.

 

No moderator in the history of Internet forums makes the names for their patrons.

 

 I can’t help you that I’m destroying your delusional judgment of your intellectual talents. It was bound to happen once someone other than a born again Christian showed up.

 

I’m your most popular patron because skeptics repeat themselves and each other.

 

I’ve been called every name a dull skeptic mind can come up with, and attacked relentlessly.

 

But you’re conveniently only seeing me returning fire.

 

Now you’re threatening me because I’m not your idea of a Christian.

 

Read the Gospel of John. Jesus didn’t give to the world an example of a cookie cutout Christian who talks nice to people who deserve something different.

 

You and your friends are dying inside from being blindsided.

 

You’ve changed my name, deleted my posts, and haven’t for a single instant admitted that I’ve written so much about God you’ve never heard or considered before.

 

No matter what happens next, you’ll still be an untrained intellect thinking superficial stupid things about God and people who have a trained intellect.

 

Change my name back.

[midniterider]

12 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

Redneck, change my name back to Brothermario. Now.

 

No moderator in the history of Internet forums makes the names for their patrons.

 

 I can’t help you that I’m destroying your delusional judgment of your intellectual talents. It was bound to happen once someone other than a born again Christian showed up.

 

I’m your most popular patron because skeptics repeat themselves and each other.

 

I’ve been called every name a dull skeptic mind can come up with, and attacked relentlessly.

 

But you’re conveniently only seeing me returning fire.

 

Now you’re threatening me because I’m not your idea of a Christian.

 

Read the Gospel of John. Jesus didn’t give to the world an example of a cookie cutout Christian who talks nice to people who deserve something different.

 

You and your friends are dying inside from being blindsided.

 

You’ve changed my name, deleted my posts, and haven’t for a single instant admitted that I’ve written so much about God you’ve never heard or considered before.

 

No matter what happens next, you’ll still be an untrained intellect thinking superficial stupid things about God and people who have a trained intellect.

 

Change my name back.

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

10 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

 

I’ve been called every name a dull skeptic mind can come up with, and attacked relentlessly.

 

No one here has called you a fucking idiot.  But it is okay for you to do so???

[Brothermario]

Weezer, calling you a fucking idiot after I replied to you amicably and you called me mentally ill and a danger to my family was completely appropriate.

 

Only a fucking idiot would read my posts and see mental illness and a dangerous personality.

 

And you flopping back and forth between phony sincerity towards me and self-serving ridicule of me is far more a sign of mental problems than my consistent persona here.

 

But, hey, you’ve got the respect of a whole bunch of people here who think and act just like you.

 

You’re part of a group. Congratulations.