Peanut Gallery

Hi Rahvin,

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It also doesn't help that half of their posts could each fill a small novel.

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That's one of my problems writing here; I often get carried away and write an off-puttingly long essay. One of the things I admire about your own writing style is your knack of keeping your posts concise and to-the-point.I don't think I'm alone here. There are quite a few here who could benefit from a bit of brevity. Long posts are just not going to be read by as many people. The content may be great, but if it isn't reaching as big an audience, it isn't doing its best.

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Neither Straggler or RAZD strike me as immobile zealots for their respective causes - both are among the best posters we have on this board.

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Absolutely.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Today we would say "wisdom" rather than "wit," the meanings have evolved.--Percy

I'm very impressed by the standard of debate on the abortion thread - good discussion, honest opinions, openness, no grandstanding.

I love RAZDs use of 'curiously...,','fascinatingly....' as a way of deflating creationist posts - though I'd hate to be on the end of it, and sometimes I think RAZD overuses the technique. Edited by Richard Townsend, : No reason given.

I agree completely.And opposing RAZD in a debate is challenging, to say the least. And not in the head-meets-brick-wall manner that Creationists can be challenging.

Hi Onifre, I'm curious how you define liar. To me it is someone who misrepresents the facts, especially after they have been told that their misrepresentation is false because that shows intent to maintain a misrepresentation rather than determine that they in fact are wrong (the honest approach, one provided in simple manner to Straggler, an opportunity that has not been undertaken).

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li⋅ar —noun
a person who tells lies.

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Synonyms:
falsifier, perjurer, prevaricator.

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lie —noun
1. a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
2. something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture: His flashy car was a lie that deceived no one.
3. an inaccurate or false statement.
4. the charge or accusation of lying: He flung the lie back at his accusers.

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Intentionally repeating something you have been told is false is lying.You could go through the whole thread and delete all of straggler's comments (his posts and replies to his posts) and you would find not one iota of ant frass of support for what he claims is my position.This dishonesty has been exposed several times.There is a simple method that anyone can take to prove my claims that he has misrepresented my position - show where I say what he claims. One also has to ask where the first scientific empirical evidence for a concept comes from ...Concession is easy: there are classes of evidence where all you can say is that it is evidence, what kind of evidence cannot be determined. All Straggler need to is drop the needless attempts at qualification of unknown evidences.Such evidence is still valid as a starting point for investigating possibilities of reality, because it may be valid evidence of reality and you won't know until you have tested it. THEN you find out.People have accused me of being ambiguous about this, however it is the nature of evidence itself to be ambiguous at times, I just observe it for what it is.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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*raises hand Agreed. Especially once I join a discussion, I have a hard time reading other people's posts who I'm not directly replying to. If those "other" posts get longer as well, I almost always skip them.

Hi RAZD, Really? And when the person you're debating feels the same about your position, then you both are misrepresenting each others argument. But neither is a liar, IMO.I think you fail to see that Straggler has the same feelings about your argument that you do for his, and many feel he is right in doing so. I'm not saying one is right and the other is wrong, but lets see it for what it is; two people who feel the other is misrepresenting their individual positions. Perhaps you needed to do a better job in explaining how it was false. *Curiously* this may be why many feel you are being ambiguous. In your eyes perhaps, but to many of us watching the debate it has not been clear how you exposed it. And if the evidence cannot be tested, and therefore is unfalsifiable, what then? The original premise, that it was evidence to begin with, doesn't it fall apart at that point?If it does, if the premise falls apart, could we then take that example and use it for all claims that are un-testable?Or for things that have already been established as false?You have stated that if it contradicts known facts then it's rejected.Example: Say I had an "experience" from which I claimed that the earth was flat. As you say, this is a starting point to investigating, however, after investigating we find out that it is not flat and is in fact spherical (this happened already in history).Could we then reject any and all "experiences" that claim something other than the earth is spherical, right of the bat? And not treat the claim that it's a square, or a rectangle, as any form of evidence just because someone experienced it?I think you can agree that we can.But what about claims in which no evidence to the contrary exists? Well, that depends on what we consider evidence against certain claims. Here's where faith plays a role in leading people to think that their beliefs may not as of yet been proven false, and that is where I feel that misunderstandings begin to play a role.Certain things are false and yet people believe they exist, like god(s). Every single known testimony for god(s) has been proven false, supernatural accounts are false, and yet it seems as though you're saying that if someone has an *experience* that they attribute to god(s) it should be considered evidence until it is, yet again, proven false.But how many times do supernatural claims have to be shown to be false before we can start rejecting all experiences that claim something supernatural exists?I agree that most claims should be held as tenetive until they are shown to be false, but how many times does a particular premise have to be exposed as false before we can start rejecting similar premises right from the beginning? Fair enough, and I agree.- OniEdited by onifre, : Clarified a bit.

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If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

Hi RAZDThe only thing I need to know about this non-empirical evidence is if you've ever used it as an excuse to beat rats with sticks.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

Smooth Operator,, an id advocate, is clearly an intelligent and knowledgeable person, but I find him /her so frustrating to deal with because of his / her unwillingness to concede he / she is wrong on any point.* sigh * ... I suppose I should be used to this by now.Edited by Richard Townsend, : No reason given.

I was thinking this one is going to be fun. I know nothing about the subject and I haven't a clue as to whether you or he is unwilling to concede when wrong. I lean in your favor because of SO's insistence that new information can't be produced by mutations clearly wrong but I may be wrong. I encourage you to keep going for the sake of the lurkers. Well, me.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

I want to get my front row seat for SO v cavediver in Misconceptions of Relativity. I understands more physics than SO.Edited by lyx2no, : Typo.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

I think that you should concede that it is impossible for any one immaterial god concept to be any more evidenced than any other by means of "experience". Subjective or otherwise. Message 392You should also concede that the IPU is therefore a valid argument.You can apologise for calling me a liar while you are at it. I know how much you enjoy your dictionary definitions so here are some.Surely even you cannot claim that immaterial entities can be detected by the five material senses? Or are those "scientifically unknowable" gods you have been talking about actually materially detectable now?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

lolYou still haven't even attempted to prove your version of my position is represented in a single post of mine.Edited by RAZD, : apologize for what?

So there is evidence that is not able to be empirically sensed by means of our 5 material senses after all......The lengths I have had to go to just to get your real position out of you huh?So all that talk of aliens, Nessie, Bigfoot, men in woods, cats crossing roads etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. ALL very material concepts. ALL very very irrelevant to the sort of evidence required to evidence immaterial gods. ALL a giant red herring in terms of the IPU or any other immaterial concept. Why RAZ? Why so evasive? Chess games with words RAZ. All, I would suggest, because you have no faith in your actual argument so you resort to attempting to win the debate by means of evasion and ambiguity instead. It's dishonest.See you back in the hypothesis thread where you can attempt to justify this "immaterial evidence". If you think you can?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.