Peanut Gallery for Hierophant vs PittsburghJoe

[florduh]

When all this Joe bullshit is over, could someone please explain the attraction to engaging him, not to mention all this convoluted forum hopping and multiple topics. He's getting more attention than any dozen other Christians combined and he's offering less than any one of them. Several people seem seriously invested in this clown and I'm really curious if I'm just too old and befuddled to understand.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

1 hour ago, florduh said:

When all this Joe bullshit is over, could someone please explain the attraction to engaging him, not to mention all this convoluted forum hopping and multiple topics. He's getting more attention than any dozen other Christians combined and he's offering less than any one of them. Several people seem seriously invested in this clown and I'm really curious if I'm just too old and befuddled to understand.

I think its the angle he is coming at. It is still complete BS but it has been interesting seeing his perspective and how he has completely made up a whole new form of apologetics in his mind in two weeks. 

[WalterP]

1 hour ago, florduh said:

When all this Joe bullshit is over, could someone please explain the attraction to engaging him, not to mention all this convoluted forum hopping and multiple topics. He's getting more attention than any dozen other Christians combined and he's offering less than any one of them. Several people seem seriously invested in this clown and I'm really curious if I'm just too old and befuddled to understand.

 

How can this Joe bs ever be over, florduh?

 

Unless he does something worthy of the banhammer he's got the right to spout his bs in the Den as long as he likes.

 

 

 

 

 

[disillusioned]

This guy is not worth the time I spent typing this.

[WalterP]

1 minute ago, disillusioned said:

This guy is not worth the time I spent typing this.

 

Agreed. 

 

But getting the all the other members NOT to engage with him is like herding cats.

 

[sdelsolray]

1 hour ago, DarkBishop said:

I think its the angle he is coming at. It is still complete BS but it has been interesting seeing his perspective and how he has completely made up a whole new form of apologetics in his mind in two weeks. 

Joe's apologetics are not a whole new form of apologetics, they are simply quite poor apologetics.  Granted, they may be the poorest apologetics ever written, but they are only poor - devoid of reason, replete with inconsistencies, and laced with ad hoc emotionalism and cowardice.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

2 hours ago, florduh said:

When all this Joe bullshit is over, could someone please explain the attraction to engaging him, not to mention all this convoluted forum hopping and multiple topics. He's getting more attention than any dozen other Christians combined and he's offering less than any one of them. Several people seem seriously invested in this clown and I'm really curious if I'm just too old and befuddled to understand.

From a practical standpoint, it became necessary to corral joe into specific threads after several threads slipped into unbridled chaos.  Some very good counter-apologetics were getting lost in the silent cacophony of multiple people all typing at once.  Those who would like a piece of joe can have it, while the rest of us look on or look away, as we wish.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

26 minutes ago, sdelsolray said:

Joe's apologetics are not a whole new form of apologetics, they are simply quite poor apologetics.  Granted, they may be the poorest apologetics ever written, but they remain poor, devoid of reason, replete with inconsistencies, and laced with ad hoc emotionalism and cowardice.

I see your point Del but he does have a different angle. And while right now that angle is a very poor one. I can see where it can be developed into another scientology or latter day saints. Joseph Smith prophecied that people were on the surface of the moon and the surface of the sun. Completely ridiculous BS but look at it now. 

 

I think it was good for us to get a better understanding of what he is thinking so that if it comes up again later, we have more information on it. And if he spouts this stuff to someone else and they end up here we can say, "yeah he was here. He's an idiot, this is how it began and give them a link to see just how uninspiring he was here at ExC 2 weeks after his big revelation. 

 

Right now you have to admit (in my best Jedi voice) "The force is weak with this one"

 

DB

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

@Hierophant,

 

The last thing Joe said was: "Satan is a bigger deal to our reality than anyone wants to admit. Do you want to chance your soul to this beast?".

 

Joe seems to give more power to Satan than even Christians do. From Joe's world view Satan is in charge in this..... "fallen world". Maybe you could narrow all this down to the existence of Satan. That should be something Joe could argue. I stress the word "should". 

 

I have a feeling, for Joe to have that much of a negative view of this world, that he has had it rough. 

 

DB

[Astreja]

1 hour ago, DarkBishop said:

I have a feeling, for Joe to have that much of a negative view of this world, that he has had it rough. 

 

He certainly seems to be obsessed with order.  Doesn't seem to have any tolerance whatsoever for ambiguity or imperfection.  Maybe his upbringing involved parental units who criticized him for getting mere A's and B+'s instead of across-the-board A+'s.

[webmdave]

16 hours ago, Hierophant said:

What is a POE? I

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3fterm=Poe&amp=true

 

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

8 hours ago, Astreja said:

 

He certainly seems to be obsessed with order.  Doesn't seem to have any tolerance whatsoever for ambiguity or imperfection.  Maybe his upbringing involved parental units who criticized him for getting mere A's and B+'s instead of across-the-board A+'s.

I get a sense he's a recluse that is starving for the validation of people listening to him. I can totally see it as a trauma response to impossible-to-please parents who insisted he isolate himself in study for still-not-good-enough-marks. 

 

I say this with sympathy, because when I was younger I also struggled with an urge to "prove myself". I wasted a lot of energy trying to persuade people of esoteric personal beliefs rather than realize it was ultimately about my feelings of inadequacy.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

26 minutes ago, DestinyTurtle said:

I say this with sympathy, because when I was younger I also struggled with an urge to "prove myself". I wasted a lot of energy trying to persuade people of esoteric personal beliefs rather than realize it was ultimately about my feelings of inadequacy.

Please quit reading my mail.

[florduh]

14 hours ago, DarkBishop said:

I think its the angle he is coming at. It is still complete BS but it has been interesting seeing his perspective and how he has completely made up a whole new form of apologetics in his mind in two weeks. 

I said, "When it's over." Only then can everyone meaningfully reflect on their motivation to engage and then even continue to engage after his pseudo scientific/philosophical word salads served up with a side of psycho dressing. I'm just curious as to why some people are fascinated by it and it is a total waste of time/space/order/vector/quantum to me.

[Hierophant]

I am of the mindset that I do want to hear what Christians are saying. Normally I simply get exposed to the same line of thinking or the typical apologetics that have been recycled over and over. When it comes to the stuff I am familiar with, I am not interested in rehashing old arguments unless the person is genuinely open to viewing it from a different angle. If there is a new argument, or a new way of viewing an old argument, I am interested. It keeps me up to date on Christian thought, sects, beliefs, arguments, and I want to know opposed to being in an echo chamber.

 

If others are not interested, I get it, not your cup of tea.

[midniterider]

Alert, alert: Joe has deployed The Golden Ratio.

[alreadyGone]

Having myself wasted so many minutes of my remaining time on the earth engaging in these discussions, I am at a loss of words as to why, really.

 

And that may be telling me that I need to find much greater restraint and reluctance in the future. I probably have too many conflicting emotions invested in several directions at once to be injecting them into the bandwidth here.

 

Having made this admission though, I'll repeat..

For whatever reason the discussion with Joe focused my awareness of the centrality of "original sin" within the NT gospel story.

 

I can't say I had not given it thought before, but something here awakened a greater notice of the essential fundamental centrality of "original sin" and the preposterous proposition of the Genesis tale.

 

I honestly can't explain how I never looked at it with greater focus and scrutiny.

I can only see that as indoctrination, and the reality that human beings see what they believe. And seeing what I believe has caused me a great deal of grief in this life. I want to be better than that.

 

For me this matters in all aspects.

The "political" realm for example, and day-today life in general..

It's part of what I'm trying to understand about people that I never have been able to understand.  I feel that for my own well-being I need to be even more cognizant of humans willing and eager to subsume truth in preference to attitudes and emotion.

 

Nothing new under the sun is there?

 

To the discussion around the desirability of such debates, or the intended or desired purpose of this website, I've not been here long enough to feel I should have an opinion.  I'm mindful always that as pointed out recently this site is the personal property of an owner, someone who isn't me.

 

To my intent the purpose of this site is what the owner decides it to be, with whatever degree to which he/she desires to incorporate into that the wishes or intent of members. If my opinion is wanted in this regard I'm sure someone will ask.  Free as I may be with my opinions, I'm not so vain that I believe those opinions to be 100% evident truth.  (I just tend unfortunately to come across that way)

 

[alreadyGone]

11 minutes ago, midniterider said:

Alert, alert: Joe has deployed The Golden Ratio.

 

And additional full-color graphics.

That counts.

 

 

[alreadyGone]

I believe I recall the first time I heard anyone use the term "a hand-waver".

I dismissed it with assumption that it meant someone attempting to draw attention to himself.

 

More recently learned that the original meaning refers to gestures you might make as an amateur magician or a side-show "mentalist", or standing on the rear of a medicine-show wagon.

 

Quantum waves?

Yeah, I know a little physics. Not a lot, not a little.

I just can't buy in on a tale from the very beginning of time when even cuneiform was high-tech.

 

Without regard to the absence of anyone other than the principals in the tale being present to document it or to shepherd that documentation through the passage of years.

 

I've seen too much of what happens when humans begin recounting and reporting facts across multiple iterations over time. Any span of time... from moments ago to back any distance.

 

 

 

[Hierophant]

It appears the discussion is over, and if I understand Joe correctly, he is here merely to proselytize. I am tracking that proselytizing, just for the sake of proselytizing is not allowed on Ex-C., is that correct?

[midniterider]

25 minutes ago, Hierophant said:

It appears the discussion is over, and if I understand Joe correctly, he is here merely to proselytize. I am tracking that proselytizing, just for the sake of proselytizing is not allowed on Ex-C., is that correct?

 

In the Den, sure. Pretty sure, anyway.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

1 hour ago, midniterider said:

Alert, alert: Joe has deployed The Golden Ratio.

Lol First thing I thought when I saw that was "oh hell, here's his "golden tablet " from the arch angel." 

[TABA]

50 minutes ago, Hierophant said:

It appears the discussion is over, and if I understand Joe correctly, he is here merely to proselytize. I am tracking that proselytizing, just for the sake of proselytizing is not allowed on Ex-C., is that correct?

From the Lion’s Den rules:

 

”Aggressive evangelism is permitted in this section, but aggressive evangelists should be ready to be met by equally aggressive resistance.”

 

 

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

1 hour ago, alreadyGone said:

 

Quantum waves?

Yeah, I know a little physics. Not a lot, not a little.

I just can't buy in on a tale from the very beginning of time when even cuneiform was high-tech.

I really know nothing about quantum mechanics. I dont think Joe really does either. 

 

 

But one of the things that gets me about Joe's specific theory is that Adam's sin in the garden made humans physical. If Christ came to take away the sins of the world and one receives the forgiveness from those sins, then according to Joe's own words, that person should be turned back into coherent waves right? If sin is what caused this state of life, then the removal of those sins should immediately reverse the effect. His rationale is off in that regard. He says God entangles with humans after salvation. But God cannot dwell in the same place as sin, and if the persons sins have been removed then the decoherence should have been turned back to coherent. 

 

Every time a new believer came down to the altar and accepted Jesus they should instantly disappear from this realm of existence. Now if I saw some shit like that. Damn I might actually believe again LMAO!! 

[WalterP]

1 hour ago, TABA said:

From the Lion’s Den rules:

 

”Aggressive evangelism is permitted in this section, but aggressive evangelists should be ready to be met by equally aggressive resistance.”

 

 

 

This raises an interesting possibility TABA, perhaps one without precedent in Ex-C.

 

Let's say that no other members ever engage with Joe in the Den, which is where he's confined.

 

Yet, he seems to have no problem aggressively evangelizing to nobody in particular. 

 

Just posting and posting and posting, ad nauseum.

 

If left alone he'd probably accumulate pages and pages of his incoherent ramblings.

 

Personally, I have no problem with this.

 

However, his rantings do present a possible snare for new members, who could be dragged back into religion if they take an interest in his preaching.

 

They also present the same snare for people with doubts about their faith, who are lurking and working up the courage to register here.

 

Their path down the difficult road of deconversion and deprogramming could be halted in its tracks.

 

If you think I'm being paranoid about this, just look at the amount of interest in his quantum theology from our members.

 

If we Ex-Christians and sceptics have paid him attention, what will happen if vulnerable and gullible lurkers do the same?

 

Now, I don't know how a balance can be struck between Joe's freedom of speech and his potential to damage others.

 

That's for the Moderators to decide.

 

I'm just calling attention to something I see as potentially dangerous and certainly contrary to the aims and purpose of this forum.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.