Lukvance and Defiance commentary thread

[screwtape]

This thread is for non participants to post their commentary on the debate.

[Jag]

A suggestion, given luk's tendency to use goofy analogies in place of actual responses - once an analogy has been refuted (in whole or in part), the analogy must be entirely discarded. Otherwise you risk allowing him to adjust them endlessly, and avoid actually debating the topic under discussion.

[Nam]

I clicked the link in the debate thread and it took me to the debate thread.

-Nam

[screwtape]

^ thanks.  Fixed

[Disciple of Sagan]

A suggestion, given luk's tendency to use goofy analogies in place of actual responses - once an analogy has been refuted (in whole or in part), the analogy must be entirely discarded. Otherwise you risk allowing him to adjust them endlessly, and avoid actually debating the topic under discussion.

Seconded. Another suggestion would be no answering a question with a question, unless it is to ask for clarification. That drove me frickin' nuts when I tried to get him to answer mine.

[One Above All]

BM.

[ParkingPlaces]

Well, so far all we have is luk on another ego trip, albeit one that is structured a tiny bit differently. He doesn't see the difference though. For him, it is just another thread in which he can pontificate. And doing that is his job/hobby/very reason for existing, so he takes is a bit more seriously than he he needs to.

[screwtape]

This conversation reminds me of the one between the King of Swamp Castle and his guards.

King of Swamp Castle: Guards, make sure the prince doesn't leave this room until I come and get him.

Guard #1: Not to leave the room... even if you come and get him.

Guard #2: [hiccups]

King of Swamp Castle: No, no. *Until* I come and get him.

Guard #1: Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room.

King of Swamp Castle: No, no, no. You *stay* in the room, and make sure *he* doesn't leave.

Guard #1: And you'll come and get him.

Guard #2: [hiccups]

King of Swamp Castle: Right.

Guard #1: We don't need to do anything, apart from just stop him entering the room.

King of Swamp Castle: No, no. *Leaving* the room.

Guard #1: Leaving the room, yes.

...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes

[lotanddaughters]

100 post! (or 77 to make it "perfect")
I think that even after 15 posts you will still have some questions left. Since it's my first time, I don't know how many post it will take. I know that since I started not so long ago, I posted already close to 300 times. All of them defending my faith

I'm sorry.

Is this a real Christian? I honestly don't know. WTF?

If all you atheists reading this have already concluded that our subject's Christianity is in question, then I apologize and admit that I am late to the game.


Like I have said before, my Christianity dwindled gradually into deism(technically atheism), and the deistic god, that I wished to cling to, gradually slipped from my fingertips.

I will never know what it is like to actually be a Christian, come across this website, and post shit like, "I have over 300 posts on WWGHA, and I have also read all of the brilliant responses to my posts. Instead of pausing to really rethink my worldview, I think I'll engage in a one-on-one debate here at WWGHA, because I am still convinced of my Christianity, and I am confident that I can actually win a debate that will convince some of the readers that what I spew is true."

[junebug72]

Defiance I do not believe god/gods exist outside of time and space. 

I'm not quite sure what lukvance believes.  That pain and god are proven the same way?

Lukvance's last post is a misrepresentation of the truth.  Defiance plainly said he was not comfortable with the term "before the big bang".

this is the first time "before" the big bang was mentioned...

On the top or my head. The big bang. Or right "before"
The center of a black hole too.

This was Defiance's response.

Never make the mistake of saying "before the Big Bang".

There is no before. No one is sure of the "before" and I admit to not knowing. Because of that, I will refrain from making positive claims about the Big Bang. You should too.

Other than that.

Space itself was created in the Big Bang, as explained by various respected theories (google). Does not answer the question. If there is no such thing as outside of Space, then where is something outside of space? We're back at square one.

Inside of black holes are excluded from space? If they were, we would be seeing missing mass that has "left" the black hole. We do not observe that. Even though it is uncertain what truly happens at the point of a singularity, there is no reason to say centres of black holes somehow suddenly exist somewhere else. It is unproven.

Tell me, without using the Internet, how much do you understand physics? I want to know so I can try and explain the essentials before trying to correct your mistakes.

[median]

It is quite a funny way for a theist to argue when he pulls the old "Gotcha!" trick after admitting that his/her deity merely exists in the brain. It is as if Luk wants to maintain that any-thing that anyone can conjure up in their imaginations must be real or actual just because it can be imagined (like Santa Claus, unicorns, or fire breathing dragons). Talk about silly and dishonest. Furthermore, his definition of "exist" is absurd since we have had lots of things in nature which had no name and no, yet, definition (and still existed) at the time of discovery. Whether or not something currently has a name or a definition bears no relation whatsoever to whether or not is actually exists.

It is so true what they say, "If you could reason with religious people there would be no religious people."

[Disciple of Sagan]

100 post! (or 77 to make it "perfect")
I think that even after 15 posts you will still have some questions left. Since it's my first time, I don't know how many post it will take. I know that since I started not so long ago, I posted already close to 300 times. All of them defending my faith

I'm sorry.

Is this a real Christian? I honestly don't know. WTF?

If all you atheists reading this have already concluded that our subject's Christianity is in question, then I apologize and admit that I am late to the game.

He has already stated that he somewhat bases his faith on some form of Catholic-ish belief system with the opinion that the Bible (with the exception of the Gospels) is comprised of stories that are not to be taken as historical fact. He has also mentioned that he does not adhere to anything in the OT.

[median]

100 post! (or 77 to make it "perfect")
I think that even after 15 posts you will still have some questions left. Since it's my first time, I don't know how many post it will take. I know that since I started not so long ago, I posted already close to 300 times. All of them defending my faith

I'm sorry.

Is this a real Christian? I honestly don't know. WTF?

If all you atheists reading this have already concluded that our subject's Christianity is in question, then I apologize and admit that I am late to the game.

He has already stated that he somewhat bases his faith on some form of Catholic-ish belief system with the opinion that the Bible (with the exception of the Gospels) is comprised of stories that are not to be taken as historical fact. He has also mentioned that he does not adhere to anything in the OT.

That's a bit queer b/c the writers of the NT seemed to heed the commands of the OT (10 commandments etc) and seemed to quote many passages from the OT quite a lot.

[Disciple of Sagan]

100 post! (or 77 to make it "perfect")
I think that even after 15 posts you will still have some questions left. Since it's my first time, I don't know how many post it will take. I know that since I started not so long ago, I posted already close to 300 times. All of them defending my faith

I'm sorry.

Is this a real Christian? I honestly don't know. WTF?

If all you atheists reading this have already concluded that our subject's Christianity is in question, then I apologize and admit that I am late to the game.

He has already stated that he somewhat bases his faith on some form of Catholic-ish belief system with the opinion that the Bible (with the exception of the Gospels) is comprised of stories that are not to be taken as historical fact. He has also mentioned that he does not adhere to anything in the OT.

That's a bit queer b/c the writers of the NT seemed to heed the commands of the OT (10 commandments etc) and seemed to quote many passages from the OT quite a lot.

I know. It does seem quite an odd belief system. But I'm learning more and more about it in my conversation with him. We'll see where it ends up.

[Astreja]

Lukvance's reply #88 sounds like stonewalling.  How can someone lose track of a debate so badly that he doesn't know what the other side is asking?

[Nam]

Lukvance's reply #88 sounds like stonewalling.  How can someone lose track of a debate so badly that he doesn't know what the other side is asking?

He doesn't read anything.

-Nam

[nogodsforme]

As you all already know, it drives me nuts when religious people retreat into the abstract hinterlands of theoretical physics. Their god is supposed to be everywhere, watching our every move, stopping planes from crashing, curing cancer, making dropped babies hit awnings instead of sidewalks. But when we try to pin down where this active god really is, we get, "god floats somewhere between the magical dragon dimensions and the golden compass across the stratosphere."

[Lukvance]

Lukvance's reply #88 sounds like stonewalling.  How can someone lose track of a debate so badly that he doesn't know what the other side is asking?

Oh! You know what he is asking. Please help me! I can't find what he's talking about. What did I forget to address?

[Astreja]

Lukvance's reply #88 sounds like stonewalling.  How can someone lose track of a debate so badly that he doesn't know what the other side is asking?

Oh! You know what he is asking. Please help me! I can't find what he's talking about. What did I forget to address?

Defiance is looking for actual empirical evidence of the existence of your alleged god, not thought experiments  or word games or Kalam-esque philosophical warbling about "Well, someone (as opposed to something) must have created it."

[jaimehlers]

Is it just me, or is Lukvance's argument just the same refuted arguments that theists like him insist must be true without the slightest basis for saying so?

Why must something have "always existed"?  Who is to say that something which existed before the universe must have continued to exist once the universe was going?  Why is reason 'impossible' without something which always existed and continues to exist?

Lukvance either needs to show actual evidence of his god - and not pretend that his opponent is this 'evidence' - or admit that he cannot.  No more of this shell game of his where he uses sophistry to conceal the fact that he never had a pebble under any of the shells to begin with.

[jdawg70]

As you all already know, it drives me nuts when religious people retreat into the abstract hinterlands of theoretical physics. Their god is supposed to be everywhere, watching our every move, stopping planes from crashing, curing cancer, making dropped babies hit awnings instead of sidewalks. But when we try to pin down where this active god really is, we get, "god floats somewhere between the magical dragon dimensions and the golden compass across the stratosphere."

It's part and parcel of the liberal theist schtick.

For some of them, the question of "does god exist" boils down to a singular exercise - make the following sentence not false:
God does stuff.

And it becomes an exercise in making the definitions of the words 'god', 'does', and 'stuff' vague enough that the statement 'god does stuff' cannot be falsified.  So they'll do thing like put 'god' in an inaccessible part of theoretical nature.  Or they'll have it so that god 'does' only via human action, except for things in the past, so you can't make any sort of prediction that could potentially falsify the claim that god does stuff.  Or they'll define 'stuff' into the inaccessible spiritual realm, that has a vast, important, significant, but more importantly principally undetectable effect on things in the non-spiritual realm.

[nogodsforme]

^^^Yes-- so that they have to backslide away from "god is everywhere, all the time, and when you call him, he'll be right there like Superman, yada yada yada" to "well, actually, god is nowhere anybody can detect, and does nothing anyone can demonstrate in any concrete way".

Only it takes forever and a day to get them to say it.

That's the problem with basing a religion on stuff from before the age of science. Anyone making up a new religion has to be more circumspect about what their god will actually do. People nowadays expect video.

Using faux science in the religion itself to bamboozle the faithful?

Priceless.

Just ask L. Ron Hubbard.