Do atheists think that debating Christian apologists is wrong?

[atrib]

Its got to be in accordance to the teachings of Jesus, by their fruits you shall now them ... And not in the vein, as like taking verses as examples, and making arguments from the OT such as below, when it should be regarding Christ:

You didn't answer my question. How do you know Christ was a true prophet? What criteria did you use to make this decision?
Do you consider Mohammed or Joseph Smith to be true prophets? If not, why not?

Originally Posted by Learner Perhaps they were rather misquoting. People leading the way, having more of a politcal and power ethic than one of Christ.

Perhaps you should go back to the source and read Exodus 21 again. There is no ambiguity about Biblegod endorsing slavery, and providing explicit instructions on how different slaves are to be treated. Hebrew slaves have special rules, while women get the short end of the stick, as is typical with the Bible. God's instructions in this matter are very difficult to misunderstand or misquote.

There's been quite a few talks on slavery (I don't think I need to go into) in which theists have highlighted the differences and varied degrees in context on other threads. But the above, you should perhaps ask that to the Jews. I'm talking of those Christians who may be misquoting Christ i.e. going against His teachings! (Christians (should) follow the example of Jesus BTW).

I am not misquoting anybody. Have you read Exodus 21? Do you agree with God's instructions on how slaves should be treated? Some Christians try to gloss over these passages by making up shit, but the message is very clear, and hard to misread. God is clearly telling us that it is ok to own other people as slaves, that it is ok to beat them as long you don't kill them, that it is ok for for a slave-owner to use his female slaves for sexual gratification and pass them on to his sons when he tires of her. These are the fruits that God bears - how should this god be judged, following your own advice?

 

[atrib]

From the looks of the properity church description, I'll take the risk and believe in the 'ulitmate prosperity' in Heaven, thank you very much.

Heaven is like a celestial North Korea, where everyone spends an eternity singing praise for the Beloved Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-Yahweh and his ill-begotten undead clone Kim Jong-Jesus. But unlike North Korea, where you are freed from the tyranny of the state when you die, you can never escape from Heaven. Think carefully about what you wish for.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I dismantled all of your arguments. Please concede that you are wrong.

Somehow I don't think you are making a joke...sigh

I'm quite serious. Ruth is wrong as I demonstrated. Her brand of Christianity like any other brand of Christianity is illogical and full of errors.

I see humility is not something you had or kept from your Xian past.

Humility is beside the point. I'm not here to be humble but to determine the facts. If a person is humble, then she's humble enough to admit she has no facts.

Anyway, your response to me is essentially the same as a response I might get from a fundamentalist Christian. Like their responses your response is bereft of any reason or supporting evidence. All it is is an ad-hominem attack on me. When people know they've lost a debate, they often resort to such tactics.

 

[WAB]

Maybe the point is Jesus was a Jew who probably 'kept kosher'.

Christianity grew to be anti Jewish but they are followers of a Jewish rabbi and preach from Jewish scripture, another one of those Christian ironies.

Could be? But I know plenty of bent "progressives* who can't stand Jews, Zionist or not. And dissing Jews is PC at this silly point in time, so idiots can get away with it, I mean idiots like communist Roger Waters, who pretends that he is only anti-Israel/anti-Zionist. He just doesn't like Jews.

I suppose it could be he just doesn't like fascists, being he's a communist (though he might not call himself that, as few communists anymore actually do - except for the wingnuts, like Rage Against the Machine's guitarist, which is a shame because he's brilliant).

I have heard Jewish slurs from blacks along with Jewish conspiracy theories. Did you know Jews control the music industry and force black artists to use crude language?

IMO progressives are acting like the communists of old in China and
Russia. Witch hunts to root out non conformist thought and speech.

Jews do not control the music biz nor force Blacks to use foul language!

Do ya think they forced Zappa to write "Dina Mo Hum"?

Or Steven Tyler to write Poontang in the Last Child lyrics?

Or Nugent to write Wang Dang Sweet Poontang?

How duped r u Steve? How deep does it go?

Lol!

 

[funinspace]

I'm quite serious. Ruth is wrong as I demonstrated. Her brand of Christianity like any other brand of Christianity is illogical and full of errors.

You are like a hare, bragging about winning a race, where not only has the gun not gone off, but that Ruth hasn't even joined any race. But yes, I gather that you are serious...stern serious face noted.

I see humility is not something you had or kept from your Xian past.

Humility is beside the point. I'm not here to be humble but to determine the facts. If a person is humble, then she's humble enough to admit she has no facts.

Anyway, your response to me is essentially the same as a response I might get from a fundamentalist Christian. Like their responses your response is bereft of any reason or supporting evidence. All it is is an ad-hominem attack on me. When people know they've lost a debate, they often resort to such tactics.

Wooooooshhhh....

 

[WAB]

I'm quite serious. Ruth is wrong as I demonstrated. Her brand of Christianity like any other brand of Christianity is illogical and full of errors.

I see humility is not something you had or kept from your Xian past.

Humility is beside the point. I'm not here to be humble but to determine the facts. If a person is humble, then she's humble enough to admit she has no facts.

Anyway, your response to me is essentially the same as a response I might get from a fundamentalist Christian. Like their responses your response is bereft of any reason or supporting evidence. All it is is an ad-hominem attack on me. When people know they've lost a debate, they often resort to such tactics.

You sound like you're getting a bit ruffled yourself.

Ruth is fine. She never gets bent.

Learner is fine. He never gets bent.

I DO get bent, quite frequently. So watch out.

I shall sweep down like a mighty dragon and torch thy house and thy cattle and thy kine and thy candles and thy chapiters and even unto thine own...er...thine own household, even if thou dost not have an household nor even an house wherein to hide thy body...etc, etc, etc&

Come, Shadowfax, show me the meaning of paste!...

 

[DBT]

It's clear that using faith is not a reliable means of sorting fact from fiction.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I see, ok, I can adapt to your way of putting things. Prosperity as according to Jesus means everyone prospers. Prosperity for those certain preachers mentioned, unfortunately means only they; the preachers get to prosper - not the poor folk who unfortunately fell for the dazzling sermon.

It's not the actual results of prosperity preaching I'm referring to but the message of prosperity preaching I'm saying is essentially the same whether you look at modern preachers or Jesus himself. Prosperity preachers make good use of the Gospel to scam people. It's being gullible to believe anybody who preaches prosperity. I can warn you about that scam, but if you insist on believing it, then it's your money to throw away.

Besides, you're wrong about Jesus' prosperity preaching. He never said as far as we know that everyone would prosper but only those who obeyed him. Those who have obeyed his commandments have often experienced terrible tragedies as a result. Those tragic consequences were far worse than getting scammed out of money, so Jesus was in that sense much worse than any modern prosperity preacher.

From the looks of the properity church description, I'll take the risk and believe in the 'ulitmate prosperity' in Heaven, thank you very much.

You can believe any lie you wish. I can only warn you.

Liberal Christians by contrast tend to retreat from any circumstances that might serve to falsify their beliefs tucking God and his promised rewards away to a time a place where we cannot check to see if they're real.

Sort of defeats the purpose trying to be a believer when you want to go and falsify things.

You can't falsify what is true. Only lies are vulnerable to falsification. So if your beliefs are true, then you need not fear attempts at falsifying them. If your beliefs are falsehoods, on the other hand, then neglecting to see them for what they are will do you little good. Ignorance may be bliss, but only for so long.

Quoting your "Then tell Jesus not to do it to other people" there is a better and clearer context to this part of the narrative, when Jesus warns believers of false doctrine and false prophets under the guise of Christianity whilst preaching in His name i.e. don't be lumped in with them..

I'm not sure how that's relevant to my pointing out that Jesus was a major-league generalizer. In Matthew 23, for example, he angrily denounced the Pharisees as fools and as murderers. He made no exceptions for any of them. And in John 8 he "tars the Jews with a broad brush" telling them they had the Devil for their father. He made no exceptions for "the Jews." So if you're going to say generalizing is wrong, then you better sit down with Jesus and have a very serious talk with him.

Hmmm, I don't know about that. Jesus was specific about the Pharisees, who followed their own traditions of men, which is quite clear. He didn't also include the Romans as fools and murderers though, did He? Coz that would be real major-league generalizing.

I never cease to be amazed at the bizarre logic that Christian apologists use to deny obvious facts. Using your logic, I could say that all Christians beat their kids, but I'm not generalizing because I'm not including Muslims!

So why believe in all that religious nonsense? Does reality bother you so much that you need to escape into a religious fantasy world?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

You are like a hare, bragging about winning a race, where not only has the gun not gone off, but that Ruth hasn't even joined any race. But yes, I gather that you are serious...stern serious face noted.

What you've posted here is a blatant ad-hominem attack. I'd recommend you learn to debate logically.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You are like a hare, bragging about winning a race, where not only has the gun not gone off, but that Ruth hasn't even joined any race. But yes, I gather that you are serious...stern serious face noted.

What you've posted here is a blatant ad-hominem attack. I'd recommend you learn to debate loogically.

For ad hominem, wouldn't they have had to say, "You're wrong because you're bragging" or something like that?
AH does not include everything offered as, or taken as, an insult.

 

[funinspace]

You are like a hare, bragging about winning a race, where not only has the gun not gone off, but that Ruth hasn't even joined any race. But yes, I gather that you are serious...stern serious face noted.

What you've posted here is a blatant ad-hominem attack. I'd recommend you learn to debate loogically.

Well, loogically speaking, you could have pointed out what argument Ruth made that you demolished if it existed...but you probably won't. I haven't attack you, so much as point out that you haven't won any debate, as there wasn't a debate...that's my position.

I'm not sure how you've determined that I don't know how to logically debate, as I haven't engaged in much of any debate with you. Not that I didn't post one countering point, but you didn't engage that post, so not much to work with there. But maybe you've taken a fancy to my postings, and have been reading other threads from my past.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

For ad hominem, wouldn't they have had to say, "You're wrong because you're bragging" or something like that?
AH does not include everything offered as, or taken as, an insult.

I think it was implied that I was wrong due to my alleged arrogance. That's illogical because any pride on my part has nothing to do with whether I'm right or wrong. Also, an ad-hominem can be simple abuse.

 

[Keith&Co.]

For ad hominem, wouldn't they have had to say, "You're wrong because you're bragging" or something like that?
AH does not include everything offered as, or taken as, an insult.

I think it was implied that I was wrong due to my alleged arrogance. That's illogical because any pride on my part has nothing to do with whether I'm right or wrong. Also, an ad-hominem can be simple abuse.

Implied? You said 'blatant ad hominem attack' AND lectured them about their debate skills.
Now 'blatant' isn't?
Meh.

 

[funinspace]

For ad hominem, wouldn't they have had to say, "You're wrong because you're bragging" or something like that?
AH does not include everything offered as, or taken as, an insult.

I think it was implied that I was wrong due to my alleged arrogance. That's illogical because any pride on my part has nothing to do with whether I'm right or wrong. Also, an ad-hominem can be simple abuse.

Implied? You said 'blatant ad hominem attack' AND lectured them about their debate skills.
Now 'blatant' isn't?
Meh.

LOL...I'll suffer thru by poor debating skills.

To Unknown Soldier: I made my 'must be joking' comment, as you made a grand claim of winning a debate with Ruth, and I never saw one. And that was and is my point.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Well, loogically speaking...

I edited my post to correct that spelling error. I hope it's a good example of correcting one's mistakes when they are made.

...you could have pointed out what argument Ruth made that you demolished if it existed...but you probably won't.

See my Post #46.

I haven't attack you, so much as point out that you haven't won any debate, as there wasn't a debate...that's my position.

There was no debate on your side of the issue. You danced around everything I argued.

I'm not sure how you've determined that I don't know how to logically debate, as I haven't engaged in much of any debate with you.

It appears that your lack of debating results from an inability to debate.

Not that I didn't post one countering point, but you didn't engage that post, so not much to work with there. But maybe you've taken a fancy to my postings, and have been reading other threads from my past.

What was that countering point? Did you insult me or call me a name?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Implied? You said 'blatant ad hominem attack' AND lectured them about their debate skills.
Now 'blatant' isn't?
Meh.

Implied ad-hominem attacks can be blatant as any fool should know.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I made my 'must be joking' comment, as you made a grand claim of winning a debate with Ruth, and I never saw one. And that was and is my point.

What's so "grand" about winning a debate with a Christian? How much does anybody need to say to let people know that attempting to telepathically communicate with an invisible man is as superstitious as hoping a rabbit's foot will grant them good luck? Personally, I'd bank on the rabbit's foot.

Anyway, did you miss my point about the telepathic communication with the invisible man? Or do you think that that point isn't valid.

 

[steve_bank]

So this conversation what 'witty repartee' means. Always wondered what that meant.

conversation or speech characterized by quick, witty comments or replies.
"he had a quick mind and a splendid gift of repartee"

Keep the repartee, it is most entertaining.

Thrust and parry, parry and thrust.

 

[funinspace]

...you could have pointed out what argument Ruth made that you demolished if it existed...but you probably won't.

See my Post #46.

Ah, that is where you think you 'dismantled Ruth's arguments'. At least, thanks for pointing that out. I guess I should have been more direct in asking for where, as my snark obviously didn't get the point across well to you. I just figured it was fine to trade a barb for a self-applause. Well, without trying to trade barbs (or ad hominems), I'll just stick with color me unimpressed in calling that particular exchange an argument(s) won. As to the rest, we'd just be trading barbs, or dancing as you seem to prefer...

TTFN

 

[Keith&Co.]

So this conversation what 'witty repartee' means. Always wondered what that meant.

Ever see Wild Wild West, the 1999 Movie? That scene where West meets Loveless at the party, and they trade 'quips'?
Loveless repeatedly pointing out West is a black man, West listing all the body parts shot or blown off of Loveless? Pause, repeat?

Not that.