posted
Like I mentioned on another post, he's just baiting at this point, now that he's been proved wrong. Ignore him.
Posts: 468 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Again, this is a popular misunderstanding. I have to get back to you on my source (don't have it handy, alas) but yes, Bush would have won the recount ... but only if every possible judgement call were made in his favor: whether to count absentee ballots, discount dimples, etc. That is, the margin of ambiguity within the guidelines permitted a Bush victory, but you'd have to be dead set for him to win in the first place to make all those judgement calls in those ways.
You mean the absentee ballots that were postmarked late? The ones that Gore, Champion of Liberal-rules Recounts, wanted to discount? And dimples? DIMPLES?
You blatantly ignore the opposite of your statement, that for Gore to have won, one would've had to have been set on him winning.
Your boy lost to a moron or a Machiavelli, depending on what day it is. Get over it.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Wow, did this get derailed. Not that I wasn't asking for it with a political thread topic, but...oh well.
JG, you were wrong about the Florida Supreme Court. Please acknowledge this. I'll still love you.
Rakeesh, glad to see you. You seem to be saying that for Bush to win, everything would have to be counted his way, but adding that the same is true for Gore. So if the votes were counted fairly, by someone not "set on" either candidate winning, who would win? Buchanan? Nader?
For that matter, you say
quote:Your boy lost to a moron or a Machiavelli, depending on what day it is.
It really can be both at the same time, if a moron and a Machiavelli teamed up. Like Bush and Rove.
The last time you posted in a thread I started, you said it was obnoxious to assert or deny the existence of Jehovah. And then refused to be labeled an agnostic.
Posts: 535 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:So if the votes were counted fairly, by someone not "set on" either candidate winning, who would win?
Actually, the most compelling study I've seen on this is that either would. The difference between the two is smaller than the probable error in counting the ballots.
Elections are imprecise: the ballots are marked by humans, collected by humans, and counted by humans. Mistakes are made in all 3 stages.
It's like trying to measure two stretches of road. If the difference between their actual lengths is 1 inch, then tape measures marked in feet will not reliably be able to determine which is longer. Any judgement (such as, this one is farther past the 100 foot mark, so it's longer) is using some other measuring device.
posted
I dont think quoting the 'babes against bush' website lends credibility to any argument. I mean, dont get me wrong, i often get my financial planning advice from the strip club, but still, i dont go admitting that in public.
quote:The last time you posted in a thread I started, you said it was obnoxious to assert or deny the existence of Jehovah. And then refused to be labeled an agnostic.
Huh? When did I say that? I don't recall ever saying such a thing. What was the context? And I'm not an agnostic.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Equating belief in God to belief in the existence of a small china teacup in "far solar orbit" is offensive, not to mention puerile (and I'm not even sure what I believe)
quote:There are infinite reasons to believe in Jesus Christ as God, just as there are infinite reasons otherwise, I suspect on both counts. You believe one thing, they believe another. I believe neither.
I'm not an agnostic, I'm a theist. That is, I more or less believe something is upstairs, but I'm not sure what. I have no doubts within my mind that there is something upstaiers, though. When I said I wasn't sure what I believe, I did not mean that I wasn't sure if I believed in God or not. I meant that I wasn't sure what kind of God is upstairs, but I can understand why you misunderstood. That part was a lack of clarity by yours truly.
quote:The last time you posted in a thread I started, you said it was obnoxious to assert or deny the existence of Jehovah. And then refused to be labeled an agnostic.
This is actually incorrect, and I think you know it. The thread's title was, "A troll speaks: a religion/philosophy question," and it was appropriately titled.
First you equated believe in Jesus with belief in Zeus, which was deliberately offensive and frankly stupid, and I'm being blunt because you're rehashing what you admitted was a troll topic. At the very least, Jesus Christ did exist. Historical record. People have been on top of all the mountains in Greece, and no Zeus. We know where lightning comes from, and it ain't Zeus. Zeus has been proven debunked. The things attributed to Zeus have been proven to be due to natural causes. No real proof-the closest you came to addressing this was Homer's Illiad-has been given that Zeus ever even existed. The big JC certainly did, no matter what you believe about his stature or life after death.
Then there was the china cup in far solar orbit. This is offensive because no one alive has any reason to even hypothesize that this is true. This is not true for believers in CHrist, or any religion. Whatever you say, they've at least got some experience or thought process or something that leads them to believe in their particular religion. Yes, their evidence is all subjective, so far as you and I and courts of law are concerned. Yes, it can't be proven. But there aren't billions of people worldwide who pray to a teacup in a far solar orbit and think they're answered back, either.
That's something, and it's much more than any evidence or even hope for the existence of a tea cup in far solar orbit.
You knew the comparison was offensive when you made it, so if you're expecting an apology for getting what you gave, it's gonna be a long wait. After all, you did ask for it .
THen there was this nugget
quote:While I certainly don’t want to be offensive, I feel that the more important your beliefs are to you, the more right I have to critique them.
"Right"? What you've got is a feeling that, through oratory or logical analysis or whatever, you have the duty to show the faithful the error of their largely stupid, inconsistent, and tragic ways.
quote:Incidentally, I think the Iliad’s track record is fairly extraordinary, in that it predicted the existence of Troy ages before it was discovered by scholars who thought it a myth.
This is interesting. You're suggesting that the Illiad "predicted" the existence of Troy? Nonsense. It was written thousands of years ago, when there really was a city of Troy. Just because so much mythology was thrown into it that later scholars thought it was all myth (and they didn't, people were searching for it for a long time before it was found) doesn't mean that the core of the story-a war occuring in and around an ancient fortress-city called Troy-never happened.
You could just as well make the argument in a few thousand years that there were no such thing as samurai and bushido because the film The Last Samurai contained many embellishments and mistellings of literal history, therefore the core of the story must be myth as well. Then, a few hundred years after that, people would say the Last Samurai "predicted" the existence of friction between conservative and Westernizing Japanese elite in the mid-to late 19th century, because historians of the time discovered it to be true.
quote:There’s no reason to suppose there’s specifically a teacup there, and there’s no reason to suppose specifically Jesus is Lord.
There are many reasons for followers of any religion to believe in their own faiths. Just because you think they're stupid or...
quote:But its still important to me that many people live their lives by the precepts of religions that appear to me to be wrong. Tragically and transparently wrong, in most cases.
doesn't mean there's no reason to suppose Jesus is Lord to some people.
But as usual, dkw stated it more succintly and more politely than me.
quote:No Honore, you did not ask about the foundations of anyone’s belief system. You asked, “Why don’t you believe in Zeus if you believe in Jesus,” and then made assumptions about what and why people believe. To me your “rhetorical” question makes about as much sense as if you’d asked, “why can’t you read German, since you read Latin?” Two things that are similar, but one doesn’t imply the other.
If you want to know why people believe something, you ought to try asking them.
That explanation enough?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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There's the definition for the word agnostic. I do not fit that definition in any way shape or form. I am not "an agnostic regarding Jesus", because that would be impossible. The correct thing to say would be "Rakeesh is uncertain whether or not Jesus Christ is any form of God at all".
Those are two different things, which is obvious from the definition. You just chose to create a new definition for the word and then say he's agnostic.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Agnostic. N. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
Your link.
You are doubtful and noncommittal about the divinity of Jesus. This is not incompatible with theism. For the purposes of my discussion, you were an agnostic because you were undecided.
When I refer to "believing in Jesus," of course I mean "believing in the divinity of Jesus," just as when I write "believing in Sun Myung Moon" I don't mean affirming his existence.
I think this clears up some of your problem with me talking about Zeus. Zeus's existence and Jesus's divinity, and continued existence after A.D. 33, are parallel concepts.
On behalf of some the greatest thinkers of the human race, I am scandalized by your disdain for belief in Zeus. You clearly think everyone who believes or believed in Zeus is or was stupid, and all you have to back that up is your so-called "scientific reasoning" and insufferable arrogance.
I bet you have similarly arrogant reasons for saying that Mohammed Atta was "wrong" in his actions. There are an infinite number of ways one could justify mass murder. I suppose you think he did it out of stupidity, or weak will? I suppose you have "objections" to his logic and faith?
Rakeesh, in that thread asked people why they believed in Jesus. I specified that I didn't want general theistic arguments that could apply equally well to Zeus (although you're welcome to email them to me if you want), or to any unfalsifiable fact. Everybody who understood that responded, with historical or personal evidence and arguments.
Maybe I should have made it more clear that that wasn't a rhetorical question. But if you read the thread, some people got it.
What really annoyed you, though, was this line of mine.
quote:I feel that the more important your beliefs are to you, the more right I have to critique them.
I acknowledge I'm in the minority in this belief. However, it is a sincere article of faith on my part that open, civil, aggressive proselytizing, on issues of faith and on other issues, will eventually improve the lot of the human race.
Posts: 535 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Anyway, proof of my post's original assertion: threat level raised to code orange. We're right back where we started.
Posts: 535 | Registered: Sep 2000
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