90 comments to “Let’s Play “Spot the Logical Fallacy”!!”

1. duquesne_pdx:
   25 May 2006, on 8:34 am

   I score: LYA: 10^42 CREATIONIST: -infinity

   I had an entrophy once. I kept it on the chest of drawers next to the one I got for “Most Improved Handicap” that year I bowled.

   BTW, Lya…

   BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!

   (you intelligent thang)

2. bigdumbchimp:
   25 May 2006, on 8:40 am

   I’m crying.

   From the get go you know what type of garbage this person was going to spew but when he got to…

   Do you call that fiction, science? Real science totally disproves the possibility of evolution. Science is something you can prove and recreate.
   The second law (real science) of thermodynamics is the law of entrophy. Energy, the subject of the first law of thermodynamics and entrophy, the second law, and their relationship are fundamental to an understanding not just of physics, but to life.

   There was no doubt. 2LoT creationism arguments immediately let me knwo the person is a quack.

   Nice take down.

3. Lya Kahlo:
   25 May 2006, on 8:54 am

   *ZOMBIES*

4. Vic:
   25 May 2006, on 9:03 am

   Another comment on this note:

   Quote #1: “Because we have not personally experienced something doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

   It’s not that You, I, He, or any single given person hasn’t experienced a given thing – it’s that NOBODY has EVER experienced it and been able to prove/support such experience. And if they DO have such support/proof, I think Randi stands to lose a lot of money…

   Put up or shut up, theist quacks.

5. Chuck S.:
   25 May 2006, on 9:36 am

   Guy walks into the entropy bar.

   Bartender says:

   “Can I take your order?”

   

6. Stephanie:
   25 May 2006, on 9:36 am

   This reminds me of a brochure I saw once ages ago about debating with creationists. I always thought it was about as useful as just smacking yourself in the head with a brick. (Obligatory MP reference, heh)

   When I was younger and really just started learning about atheism, I loved having these battles with fundies because it made me feel more confident in my position and more aware of how utterly stupid religion was. Now, I’m pretty much over all that, and also I get frustrated with fundies very easily. Good thing someone else is there to make the arguments now.

7. Lya Kahlo:
   25 May 2006, on 10:11 am

   “(Obligatory MP reference, heh)”

   HA! I love that you call it an Obligatory MP reference.

   Spam! (that’s mine)

   “Now, I’m pretty much over all that, and also I get frustrated with fundies very easily. ”

   Believe me I get frustrated and annoyed easily with them too. Which is why I did this one. This idiot’s post was so arrogant and yet SO full of logical fallacies it needed a good smack down. He won’t be back to read it, of course, but I enjoyed it anyway.

8. Brandon Warmke:
   25 May 2006, on 10:21 am

   You don’t need to lambaste this guy. Pick on someone your own size.

9. RR:
   25 May 2006, on 10:22 am

   Stephanie:

   I was going to comment that the score was THEM: 0, US: -1

   The reason? Well, they haven’t gained anything, but we’ve expended valid time and energy in the refutation. It’s something that I also love to do, and it’s probably worth doing some of the time, but so often it just feels like a lost cause.

   Creationism is like a weed. If you just keep picking off leaves or even branches, it will grow back. Somehow we have to kill the roots. (And I mean metaphorical roots — this is not a threat, even if I am a godless heathen.)

10. duquesne_pdx:
    25 May 2006, on 10:23 am

    I never wanted to do this in the first place. I wanted to be…

    A CREATIONIST!

    (Or would the Upper Class Twit of the Year Competition be a more appropriate reference?)

11. duquesne_pdx:
    25 May 2006, on 10:26 am

    BTW, Chuck, that had me laughing out loud. Thank you for reinforcing the belief that I’m insane with my coworkers.

    (They may be right, but they have no proof.)

12. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 10:28 am

    “Well, they haven’t gained anything, but we’ve expended valid time and energy in the refutation. It’s something that I also love to do, and it’s probably worth doing some of the time, but so often it just feels like a lost cause.”

    I actually agree. It is a waste of time because A> this dork probably won’t be back to read it and B> more than likely nothing will change his mind. But, I did it for the enjoyment of my fellow godless heathens. Enjoy or avoid. Makes no difference to me.

13. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 10:30 am

    “You don’t need to lambaste this guy. Pick on someone your own size. ”

    Awww, does someone need a nap? So, it’s okay by you that he’s lies, and lambasts us, then? We’re not allowed to refute him?

    How do you know what size he is? He might be a seven foot five asshat. In which case, Goliath go boom.

14. Brandon Warmke:
    25 May 2006, on 11:22 am

    “How do you know what size he is? He might be a seven foot five asshat. In which case, Goliath go boom.”

    If you remember, Lya, Goliath took a very long nap.

15. stardust1954:
    25 May 2006, on 11:35 am

    Cont: “If there is no life after this life, then there is no reason to live at all and life is useless and meaningless and there is no reason not to just end it all now if I will never know the difference after I die.”

    Apparently this person doesn’t feel he is worth anything without gawd people telling him how wonderful he is. No one ever told him that life is what YOU make it. Xian or non-xian…if you don’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make things happen, they aren’t going to happen!

    As Joseph Campbell said “Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is Whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.”

16. stardust1954:
    25 May 2006, on 11:42 am

    You don’t need to lambaste this guy. Pick on someone your own size.

    Brandon Warmke –He came here and made a lengthy comment even after seeing the main page GOD IS FOR SUCKERS! and didn’t bother to read the rules, OR ignored the rules. If he is thin-skinned and needs a defender of his feelings, then he should have moved on and found a “fluffy touchy-feely” website where people can pet him and feed his delusional beliefs.

17. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 11:55 am

    “If you remember, Lya, Goliath took a very long nap.”

    *lol* Brandon, are you suggesting that he’ll come back with some amazing new post we can’t refute? You know “long nap” to symbolize that he hasn’t been vanquished. I’ll believe that when I see it. (edit: And if he DOES come back, does that make him my “own size”? Am I allowed to refute him then, or is he still untouchable?)

    Either way, lighten up. The dude broke the rules, spouted a bunch of embarrassingly stupid nonsense and got what he asked for.

    I notice you didn’t answer my question.

18. Will:
    25 May 2006, on 11:57 am

    Ha, Brandon just got Lya’d

19. stardust1954:
    25 May 2006, on 12:02 pm

    Ha, Brandon just got Lya’d,/i>

    LOL! Lya is awesome!

20. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 12:11 pm

    *aw shucks* That made me blush like a happy heathen.

21. percyprune:
    25 May 2006, on 12:13 pm

    “If there is no life after this life, then there is no reason to live at all and life is useless and meaningless and there is no reason not to just end it all now if I will never know the difference after I die.”

    If there’s no life after this life it means we must make the best of the life we have. It means we must be moral, be good to others, build a legacy through work or family that will pass down to future generations. If I can achieve that, I can die a happy man.

    “Real science totally disproves the possibility of evolution.”

    No it doesn’t. There is much literature on this. Others will direct you there.

    “The fact is all things are winding down, going from more orderly to less orderly.

    This is a gross misreading of the second law of thermodynamics. The law predicts that entropy increases over time. However, it does not predict that it does so evenly across the universe. So you can have locales where energy and order increases even while the entire universe becomes increasingly entropic. As evidence, just look at the night sky, to see stars and galaxies and nebuale–small islands of order in a vast seas of vaccuum. Understand this and you’ll understand why the pseudo-science of the creationists is incorrect.

22. Belk:
    25 May 2006, on 12:37 pm

    One has to wonder about an all powerful god who decided that the best way to spread the word on his religion was to take a bunch of ignorant fools, teach them that up is down and black is white, then send them out to try to convince the rest of us that we are doomed if we don’t believe the same way they do.

23. King Retard:
    25 May 2006, on 12:40 pm

    “Look at anything, the sun, the stars, your health until you die, all things are winding downward not getting better. With all our increasing knowledge and medicine we are not getting healthier there is sure no evolutionary process upward that has ever been seen or proven.”

    Ah, the gloominess of the theist perspective. Funny, a religion based on rebirth only allows its followers to see the negative. I guess what’s being avoided, ignored, or misunderstood by this asshat is that as stars or people are dying, there are always new ones coming into existence. After all, we’re in an expanding universe. Our population is at its highest point ever. Yet all of these people filled with the love of jizzus only see the death and failing health around them.

    And they wonder why we see their religion as one focused on doom and gloom. Gee, by comparison, being an atheist allows for a lot more hope and positive thinking. But how can that be, without gawd??? Oh, that’s right. It’s a lot easier without him.

24. percyprune:
    25 May 2006, on 12:41 pm

    “So, you see, faith is the only possibility with something to gain and nothing to loose.”

    To an atheist that makes no sense. We would lose ourselves if we turned to religion. I’ve been there and done that. I regard the church with venom precisely because of the way that it manipulated me and ground me down and tried to regiment my thinking. I am freer and have a more fulfilling life as an unbeliever than I ever had as one of the faithful. You can have that life too.

    Brother, you should see that you have much to gain by giving up your superstition, your pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die and your fairy tales of the god-father. You no longer have to live in fear or ignorance.

    “Unbelief has nothing to gain and everything to loose.”

    The day I lost my faith was one of the greatest of my life, It was as if a great weight was lifted. A weight of fear and doubt. A weight that had not been able to reconcile dogma and doctrine with the real world around me. I no longer felt controlled by priests or the peer pressure of my congregation.

    And it was, and is still, a tough life. I have to be a moral person without the safety net of some sky-god’s forgiveness. Life is harder for me than for the Christian, because I have to be moral all the time, not just on Sundays when I get my get-out-of-jail-free card by prayer.

    I cannot afford the smug complacency of the Christian who believes he has earned his ticket to the afterlife simply by kneeling and making pious noises. I have to be far more responsible and moral than that. My actions have consequences and I only get one life to make errors, to make them good, and to leave the world a better place. God cannot forgive me, only other people can. So I have to be the best I can be to them.

    This is a tougher road than the easy path of faith, where you have to think less and give yourself over to the rigid strictures of dogma and doctrine. You have to be on your toes all the time. To be an atheist you must be good through your own actions, not from bearing the label of ‘faithful’.

    Yeah, it’s a tougher life, but an infinitely more rewarding one. You’d be doing youself a favour by joining us.

25. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 12:46 pm

    “One has to wonder about an all powerful god who decided that the best way to spread the word on his religion was to take a bunch of ignorant fools,”

    Agreed!

    Like I always say, you also have to wonder about a so-called all-powerful gawd who can only transmit his wonderful knowledge through his falliable creations. Being all-knowing he had to know the message would be all messed up and that people would start killing over it. What does it say about gawd that he didn’t convey his message clearly. Either he doesn’t exist, or he wants us to go to hell.

    And really, who are we to go against that bang-up plan?

    Oy.

26. Randy!:
    25 May 2006, on 12:47 pm

    Arrggghh! Reading posts like this guy’s nonsense Creationist bullshit just drives me batty! I turn into The Hulk and sling tanks at these guys with “Randy’s Clue Stick” spray painted on to the sides. Crash! Into the FotF compound. Here comes Randy Hulk grabbing up creationist morons and shaking them saying “STOP BEING SO DAMN STUPID! ARRRGGGHHH” (toss)

    Ok.. sorry everyone. I’m better now. Hulk needs a nap.

    Of course, once I finally calm down and start reading Lya’s responses I come across this:

    It sure would, if that’s what the Theory of Evolution said. You’re grave ignorance is showing again. No surprises there.

    Arrrrgghh!! Grammar Hulk comes bursting out of your computer screen! It’s YOUR not YOU’RE! Arrgghh!! choke… gasp….. cough…

    Ok, actually, I’ve come to the same conclusion as Stephanie. I’m done debating with creationists. It’s so unproductive and frustrating. Turns me into the Hulk. I do enjoy reading Lya’s excellent responses though. Well done. Anyone else feel like we’ve seen all these arguments from Creationists before? Oh, maybe once or twice?

27. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 12:47 pm

    “Yeah, it’s a tougher life, but an infinitely more rewarding one. You’d be doing youself a favour by joining us. ”

    I see your point now about the not-immediately-mocking them thing. Using their own style back to them must be as instantly frustrating to them as it is to us when they do it.

28. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 12:51 pm

    “Arrrrgghh!! Grammar Hulk comes bursting out of your computer screen! It’s YOUR not YOU’RE! Arrgghh!! choke… gasp….. cough… ”

    You know what’s funny about that? I fixed that mistake twice and every time I hit save it’s right there.

    Oooh, must be god! He must not want my post to be grammatically correct. He hates that, you know.

29. percyprune:
    25 May 2006, on 12:57 pm

    “I see your point now about the not-immediately-mocking them thing. Using their own style back to them must be as instantly frustrating to them as it is to us when they do it.”

    I see it like this: For a very few it might key into something fundamental with them. If you’re lucky you might catch someone who can be saved from the church. As for the rest of them, it drives them completely froth-mouthed mental.

30. Randy!:
    25 May 2006, on 12:57 pm

    Only Satan would want your posts to be grammatically incorrect.

    Happens to me all the time. In fact, that’s the one thing that I’ve picked up from Theists that I have come to appreciate. Anytime something bad happens you can just say “Satan did it.” If you get caught doing something bad, just say, “Satan made me do it.”

    Or, if you’re more of a glass-half-full type person, you can say, “God works in mysterious ways” oOooOoOooOOoooOo! (Be sure to look up and raise your hands when you say that)

31. stardust1954:
    25 May 2006, on 12:59 pm

    Yet all of these people filled with the love of jizzus only see the death and failing health around them.

    And they wonder why we see their religion as one focused on doom and gloom.

    I have a perfect example of gloom & doomy xian-ness right now. I am emailing back and forth with my Baptist sister who gets in these sad moods and she is whining about how hectic and stressful and hopeless her job is and that her stupid pastorwannabe son-in-law and daughter are going away to an island in Alaska and leaving her alone, and she is “edgy” and sad. I am resisting the urge to say “where is your trust in your great sky daddy?” I could be really sarcastic, but am holding back. She is more often in a gloom and doom mood than happy. In fact, I don’t know if she is EVER happy. If I try to joke her out of it, she gets mad. Maybe she goes to church too damn much.

32. percyprune:
    25 May 2006, on 1:04 pm

    In the UK many years back they used to have a TV anti-drugs campaign that was quite vicious in showing the effects of narcotics. Its strapline was: “DRUGS: They Screw You Up.”

    It is a shame that this poor tormented soul is so unhappy. I think that if he ditched his faith he would find it a great relief. At least he would no longer have the burden of expectation his church places upon him.

    Religion. It Screws You Up.

33. stardust1954:
    25 May 2006, on 1:12 pm

    Religion. It Screws You Up.

    RAmen!

34. lurch:
    25 May 2006, on 1:16 pm

    Lya,
    Excellent rebuttals all the way and I really appreciate the links as well! Thanks for taking the time.

35. Pablo:
    25 May 2006, on 1:17 pm

    This blog is going to my Favorites!!! My colleagues are asking “why you cryin’?
    Thanks, this country has some hope!!!

36. percyprune:
    25 May 2006, on 1:28 pm

    It is extraordinary, this confluence of depression and religion. Our erstwhile correspondant said:

    “If there is no life after this life, then there is no reason to live at all and life is useless and meaningless and there is no reason not to just end it all now if I will never know the difference after I die.”

    That’s such a sad sentiment. Without his god this man tells us he will roll over and die. Does he want to rush to death, like those idiot Islamists who are promised houris if they die in a jihad? What kind of culture of death does he come from? I think you have to be a serious depressive to get this low.

    Life is wonderful and joyous (and also wicked and brutal and nasty at times–we all take the rough with the smooth). To give it all up because there is no afterlife? I think you have to come from a very dark place to think like that. Some hard, grabgrind Dickensian mileu where life isn’t worth living and where you cannot see beauty in anything.

37. raindogzilla:
    25 May 2006, on 1:38 pm

    percyprune,

    There are a lot of reasons that religion and drugs are bloodkin. Acid is fun but, take too much and you’re Syd Barrett back home living with your mother. Alcohol is fun and, in moderation, can actually be beneficial to one’s health but drink too much and you’re Christopher Hitchens stealing private emails and brownnosing neo-cons- or worse you’re W. himself. Similarly, religion in moderation- as a method of imposing order on a big, scary world, as but one form of “whatever gets you through the night”, as a security blanket even- is okay and probably keeps psychiatric hospitals from being standing room only (or sitting glassy-eyed and drooling room only). It’s like a nonthreatening personality quirk that can even be quaint and endearing. Trouble is, when they get too much of it, it starts to spew outwards on innocent passers by, it obscures their vision and impedes their thought- well, much like being drunk. This is where I’d like to see it summarized. Maybe some day.

38. JokerCross:
    25 May 2006, on 2:39 pm

    Religion: It’s like giving a monkey a gun

    Even if he comes back, it won’t matter. I’ve said it before, arguing with them is like fighting the T-1000 in Terminator 2. You can blow all the big holes in them you want, they just seal them up and keep on going like it never happened.

    only way to win is to drop them in a vat of molten steel.

39. King Retard:
    25 May 2006, on 3:00 pm

    JokerCross, that image is great!

40. Brandon Warmke:
    25 May 2006, on 3:12 pm

    Lya,

    “I notice you didn’t answer my question.”

    Which, if I remember right was whether or not you all had a right to defend yourselves against what you all characterized as patent nonsense. Well sure you do, I suppose, although I am a bit curious as to why you feel the need to defeat patent nonsense. Will this person respond with an indefeasible argument, or even one you find plausible? Well probably not. But not altogether because he has not had much philosophical training, though that is part of it. Primarily, though you will disagree because you don’t see eye to eye with respect to what counts as a primary source of evidence. I suspect you only take science and perhaps some sorts of rational intuitions as primary sources of evidence. If that is the case, though, I would be curious to hear how you might justify beliefs about the intrinsic modal properties of material objects (e.g. persistence conditions).

41. JokerCross:
    25 May 2006, on 3:16 pm

    It’s my desktop wallpaper, too.

    Make your own!

42. Matt:
    25 May 2006, on 3:27 pm

    “What kind of culture of death does he come from?”

    And the funny thing is fundies will be the first to condemn us heathens as worshipping a culture of death because we’re pro-choice (or whatever you want to call it), meanwhile they support the war, and talk about how they’d just die with a God, and others even want to make being a non-Xian an offense punishable by DEATH, and all of this is sanctioned by a book they deem to be perfect and the only true guide to moral living.

    So how is it that we Atheists are worshippers of Death again?

43. Sean:
    25 May 2006, on 3:28 pm

    Brandon is referring to this buttload of malarky:

    http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1368

    Trouble begins with what Rea calls, the “discovery problem,” which “is just the fact that intrinsic modal properties seem to be undiscoverable by the methods of the natural sciences” (77). Our ordinary beliefs about material objects carry modal commitments. A statute, for instance, cannot survive smashing, but a lump of clay can. Such persistence conditions are integral to our very concepts of material objects. But how can a naturalist account for our knowledge of these modal properties? A naturalist observes a region of matter arranged statue-wise. Without appealing to a faculty of intuition, how can she justifiably infer that something in that region cannot survive smashing? There is only one way, according to Rea, and that is to adopt conventionalism: our conventions make it true that wherever there is some matter arranged statue-wise, there is something that cannot survive smashing. But conventionalism renders modal properties extrinsic, existing only in relation to us and to our mental activity. If minds like ours had not existed, then neither would these modal properties or, consequently, the objects that have them. That, says Rea, is just antirealism.

    From antirealism follows a host of evils. First, substance dualism. If dualism were false, then minds could not exist unless material objects like brains existed. But by conventionalism, such material objects could not exist unless fairly advanced minds already did. Since at least one mind exists, dualism is true. Second, given that naturalists think non-physical minds play no role in the explanation of behavior, and given their newfound dualism, they must be skeptics about the existence of other minds. Third, without appeals to intuition, naturalists find themselves with no grounds for ruling out idealism. For, even if the hypothesis that there is a mind-independent external world is simpler than idealism, naturalism provides no reason to think that simpler hypotheses are more likely true.

    Ooh, reality couldn’t exist if my mind didn’t exist.

    I gave up on the idea of solipsism back in 6th grade, after I realized it was either a) a mental disorder, or b) a hackneyed sci-fi idea (”the moment Bobby stopped thinking about it, all reality winked out of existence!”)

44. Brandon Warmke:
    25 May 2006, on 3:44 pm

    Sean, you have mischaracterized Rea’s argument; it has nothing to do with solipsism. Rea’s argument doesn’t concern the existence of the external world, it concerns the existence of material objects and their sorts. Rea’s primary thesis is that a necessary condition for knowing that some given sorted material object exists (that chair) is that you have at least one justified belief about the object’s persistence condiditions (which is a modal claim). None of this calls into question beliefs that the world simpliciter is mind-dependent. If he is right, the naturalist is only forced into holding that sortal properties are mind-dependent

    Charicaturing the argument in that way just betrays your ignorance. Posting a hand-selected paragraph of a professional peer review of a book, and then calling the book names names doesn’t give you any credibility, as I am sure you know.

    Side note: And that review is by Troy Cross–we did our MAs at the same school!

45. Lya Kahlo:
    25 May 2006, on 3:53 pm

    “Which, if I remember right was whether or not you all had a right to defend yourselves against what you all characterized as patent nonsense.”

    Not quite. You told me that I shouldn’t lambast him. I am asking why shouldn’t I since he entered the convo with insults to us. Sure, his insults were masked behind his logical fallacies and nonsense, but they’re there. i.e. “You go ahead and believe that because you won’t wish to consider that their just might be a God who created and gave life that we will one day be accountable to. It makes far more sense than the insanity of evolution. Do you call that fiction, science?”

    Which, if you activate the theist translator basically says: You’re all just morons who believe in fake science and are too arrogant to accept god.

    The only difference is that his insults are dishonest, and couched in self-righteous language whereas I put my insults right out there in the open.

    But, since you started up this “patent nonsense” train:

    “Well sure you do, I suppose, although I am a bit curious as to why you feel the need to defeat patent nonsense.”

    Abstinence only ed that is guaranting the upsurge of STD, pregnancies and abortion. ID crap pseudo-science being masqueraded around like it’s not just forcing religion where it doesn’t belong. Fred Phelps shitting on the grief of families who’ve lost loved ones in an illegal war because he thinks his imaginary friend doesn’t like gays. The “war” on christmas. Do you see where I’m going? Patent nonsense, when left unchecked and unchallenged, finds ways to make it into the mainstream where it can become at best ridiculous and at worst down right dangerous.

    “Will this person respond with an indefeasible argument, or even one you find plausible? Well probably not. But not altogether because he has not had much philosophical training, though that is part of it. Primarily, though you will disagree because you don’t see eye to eye with respect to what counts as a primary source of evidence.”

    Very true. But I fail too see how anyone, when talking to Rationalists and Materialists, can offer up a book of mythology as evidence of anything. Does Pi = 3? Does the sun revolve around the earth? Do burning bushes talk? Absurdities – even if we’re going to couch them in metaphorical language – have no business in debate.

    Now, I understand that to these people this book of contradictory nonsense is the very word of god. But, they know ahead of time we don’t accept that, so why peddal it? They can’t possibly believe that we’ll be convinced and converted by the recitiation of a few Bible passages, can they? . . . . can they?

    “I suspect you only take science and perhaps some sorts of rational intuitions as primary sources of evidence.”

    Anything verifiable from a credible source. Anything that stands up to scrutiny, however intense. Exactly how does the Bible (for example) fit either of these conditions? You don’t know who wrote it, it’s been translated repeatedly, there are thousands of different versions, it contains well known inaccuracies, absurdities, and contradictions. It stands up to almost no scrutiny from a historical perspective (I’m speaking specifically of the NT here). The more we learn about nature and the universe the more inaccuracies we find in it.

    “If that is the case, though, I would be curious to hear how you might justify beliefs about the intrinsic modal properties of material objects (e.g. persistence conditions).”

    Christ on a pogo stick. If you have a question to ask, ask it.

46. JokerCross:
    25 May 2006, on 4:05 pm

    What Brandon is referring to is more or less just a matter of semantics.

    It states in the article, a statue can be smashed to bits and destroyed, but clay cannot. This is simply a matter of the names we ascribe to the concepts of things.

    My own blog is titled “There is No Such Thing as Half a Stick” because one day, in a fit of realization (while working the box office of a movie theater during a rush) I suddenly realized that this was a true statement.

    But it is only true insofar as the language I ascribe to said stick. If I break a stick in half, anyone that sees the end result will refer to it as “two sticks” rather than “two halves of a single stick”. The conversation might go:

    “What are you doing with those two sticks?”

    “I had a big stick, and I broke it in half”

    “Well now you have two sticks, good for you. Now go take out the trash.”

    This of course leads to a greater idea of what actually constitutes a stick. How big does it have to be to BE a stick? At what point is a twig a “twig”? When does it become a “stick”? When does a “stick” become a “branch”? How does one delineate a “branch” from a “log”? And end the end, it’s all just wood, so it only matters if you need to make a fire.

    The status of the statue can be altered by referring to it as its base material component. If one refers to said statue as “lump of marble” (or what have you) then it falls within the same category as the clay and cannot be destroyed. It can only be destroyed so long as we label it with the apellation “statue”. A name change is only a concept change. It does not alter the intrinsic physical nature of a thing in and of itself. Merely our conception of the thing. Our need to understand and describe the world around us to others leads to this sort of “dualism”.

    “Mind”, therefore, is merely a word we have invented to describe amongst ourselves the natural processes of synapses firing, it is not some supernatural construct.

    If you ask me, this sounds like someone took a Zen Buhddist aphorism a little too seriously.

47. Sean:
    25 May 2006, on 4:12 pm

    Side note: And that review is by Troy Cross–we did our MAs at the same school!

    I’m impressed, godboy. Are you the kind of person who is so insecure that you have to talk about your MA in every other breath?

    Talking to you is like listening to “Who’s on First?” The same few names and ideas keep coming up: Quine, Rea, Plantinga. You’re starting to sound like the typical Xian broken record, only with a layer of philosophy student jargon laid on top of it.

    I asked you in another thread to produce a single shred of evidence that god or god(s) exist. You ignored it, as theists always do. Now you are babbling about modal logic. Until you can prove that god or god(s) exist, you lose every argument by default. Atheists make no claims. We just laugh at your unsubstantiated ones. No amount of logical contortionism on your part will change that basic premise.

    By the way, whatever happened to your claim that you didn’t come here to argue? And why did you shut up when a PHD in philosophy backed you into a corner? Did you decide that you’d rather go pick on somebody your own size?

    Hope this helps.

48. Eve:
    25 May 2006, on 4:15 pm

    Lya, Sean, JokerCross, the checks are in the mail!

49. GM:
    25 May 2006, on 4:41 pm

    Gosh, I do like that “die like a dog and rot like a log” locution. I might be using that in the future.

50. John W. Loftus:
    25 May 2006, on 4:50 pm

    You might all want to look at this.

51. JokerCross:
    25 May 2006, on 4:57 pm

    Eve said:

    Lya, Sean, JokerCross, the checks are in the mail!

    I’ll just use it to buy beer.

52. duquesne_pdx:
    25 May 2006, on 5:05 pm

    I don’t normally stoop to troll-baiting, but wth.

    I think Brandon = latest iteration of random theist saying “You can’t possibly know that gawd doesn’t exist! Ergo, your ‘belief’ in atheism is just as fallacious and misguided as yon atheist believes the theists are! Therefore I have caught you out and now you have to admit to the existence of gawd! Bwahahahaha!!!!11!!!”

    Speaking for myself — though I know that there’s quite a few others on this site who have had similar experiences (c.f., percyprune, Lya Kahlo) — I’ve been there and done the religion thing. Thought about joining the priesthood for a while. Seriously. Started studying a lot more than was probably good for me. Which led to more questions. Most of those questions were not able to be answered without resorting to some variant of GWIMW. Started examining the world and abstract concepts like “justice” and “compassion” and “morality”. Decided religion wasn’t the place to find those things. Discovered ’spirituality’. Decided that was even less grounded in reality. Went through an ‘agnostic’ phase, which for me was atheism without the guts to admit to atheism. When I realized that, well, I started to enjoy my life a whole lot more — not only because I didn’t have to try and justify putting babies in the woodchipper anymore — while still maintaining a set of ethical standards that do not depend on fear of the sky daddy’s disapproval.

    Anyway, Brandon, to make a long story end sooner: how hard is it to understand that I (we) don’t need “positive” proof not to believe in something that doesn’t exist. Betcha my bank would look at me kinda funny if I told them that I believed — without any evidence whatsoever, and despite conflicting stories from other folks in the line — that there was a million dollars in my bank account, and that I’d like to close it now, thanks. Small bills, please. The burden is on the theist to prove the existence of whatever, not on the atheist to provide proof of non-existence.

    /trollbating

    BTW… Hmmmm. That’s one mighty fine set of BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS you got there, Lya.

53. Sean:
    25 May 2006, on 6:05 pm

    Sean, you have mischaracterized Rea’s argument; it has nothing to do with solipsism. Rea’s argument doesn’t concern the existence of the external world, it concerns the existence of material objects and their sorts.

    So material objects don’t exist in the external world?

54. Eve:
    25 May 2006, on 6:57 pm

    *grumbles as writes out another check* Check’s in the mail, duquesne_pdx.

    Use it and drink in good health, JokerCross!

55. jimmer:
    25 May 2006, on 10:39 pm

    Because you have not seen good or evil spirit, angels or demons, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
    J; Yes it does
    Look at anything, the sun, the stars, your health until you die, all things are winding downward not getting better. With all our increasing knowledge and medicine we are not getting healthier…
    J; yes we are.
    In 1900 the average age of people in the US was 45 today it is 73
    Polio, Small pox, Rubella and Many more diseases are no longer feared because we as humans have nearly eradicated them. Recently we have heard of a vaccine that will provide 100% protection from 2 types of cancer which are spread by the human papilloma virus. I could say and write for hours on this but it would do little good for people who do not read. The above commenter has done so little reading that it is no wonder that the xians are so easily mislead and manipulated.

    It amazes me to realize that most active scientists are in fact nonbelievers of some type. And yet do you ever hear of Them/Us discriminating against believers and denying them treatments? According to the hateful mean spirited xians we atheists are just such people. More lies that are easily refuted by reality. But it sure is tiring.

56. Brandon Warmke:
    25 May 2006, on 11:48 pm

    I am out of town for my brother’s wedding so I will be away for awhile. I should say so to guard against anything thinking that I have been so browbeaten that I don’t know what to do with myself. But I will just respond to something that briefly caught my eye.

    ad Sean:

    “I asked you in another thread to produce a single shred of evidence that god or god(s) exist.”

    Sean, whatever I evidence I offer up you will refute out of hand because we disagree about what counts as a basic source of evidence. I take religious experience as a basic source of evidence. You, I presume, do not. That is why I refrain from providing such arguments. They are fruitless for someone whose program of research denies a source of evidence I take to be primary. But of course, using your own program of research you cannot show that religious experience is not a basic source of evidence. We are sort of at a standstill, apart from pragmatic arguments which attempt to show that one research program is more desirable than some other. Have a great weekend, all.

57. ChuckA:
    26 May 2006, on 1:41 am

    I REALLY needed to make this posting ‘visit’…WOW!…I feel energized,…and SO impressed!
    “I’m not WORTHY!”
    I just flashed on my youth as a ‘good’ Catholic boy ['Holy' water dip,...very hasty self blessing...and genuflection?]: What!…should I light a vigil light in honor of the wonder I feel here? Do I smell WAX melting? [Yeah, I was an altar boy, too...non-molested,...thank Jeebus?]
    OK, I’m just being silly trying to somehow work in a ‘WAXING PHILOSOPHICAL’ reference joke! Yeah,…MY BAD!
    [Please Pardon my recurring sarcastic kidding!]

    Seriously though [Sorta!]:
    To Lya:
    “Oy Vey!”
    Yeah, I concur with so many others…Youse obviously got lots of Braaaaains-s-s-ss! Truly, an inspiring job; with lots of “Hard Work” [ala Dubya?] in putting it all together…and really great links too! Man, you really have the neatest .gif anims! [Does that sound sexual?]

    To Stardust:
    I was, just today, mulling over MY long evolutionary journey in life [I haven't contributed my Bio yet to that previous May Bio posting...at my age, it's a long and complicated matter!], Like many of you, though, I’ve been influenced by so many various wonderful people; one of whom being Joseph Campbell, with his ‘ground breaking’ exploration of World Mythologies etc.
    Thanks for that Campbell reference quote:
    “Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. THE MEANING OF LIFE is Whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.”
    Of course, my silliness ‘addiction’ immediately followed my sober thinking with another mentally archived, visual scene; that being from Monty Python’s hilarious, and totally irreverent,…and thought provoking…”The Meaning of Life” film. I’m referring, ‘of course’, to the scene with, the ‘dangerously obese’ …hold on to your ‘barf bag’ [or well placed bucket!]…”Mr. Creosote”! To any of youse guys who want to lose weight…and/or…haven’t seen that particular film, I highly recommend it.
    Hmmm…I’m not sure you should watch it before…or…after…eating! “You decide”?

    All in all,…I feel SO much better now,…after reading all your great posts,…being a ‘godless heathen’…. Godless Heathen!…GODLESS HEATHEN!…Even SAYING Godless Heathen is more fun now…it somehow rolls off my tongue so much more easily…and with absolutely NO guilt!
    So NOW what?…”I think I’ll go for a walk”?
    [OK, any of you Python film buffs,...which Monty Python film would THAT little quote refer to...hmmmMM? (too easy?]

    Oh, one more…
    To Sean:
    Are YOU the one with the .PHD in Philosophy? Did I misread?
    I was a Music (& additionally Philosphy) Major during my late 1950s into 1960s college days. [I became an Agnostic in those years....DePaul U. in Chicago] I started going for a Masters in Philosophy but the Music ‘gigs’ took over; and I’ve spent most of my life as a singer/musician/private music teacher.
    Like, hey man,…again…”OY VEY!”

    ‘Nough already!
    Love to ALL youse guys! THANKS FOR BEING ALIVE!!

58. Sean:
    26 May 2006, on 2:13 am

    ChuckA:

    Are YOU the one with the .PHD in Philosophy? Did I misread?

    No. The link I provided was to a debate between Brandon and Ron, who is the Allmighty God of GifS. He’s the smarter mouse.

59. Sean:
    26 May 2006, on 2:18 am

    I take religious experience as a basic source of evidence. You, I presume, do not. That is why I refrain from providing such arguments. They are fruitless for someone whose program of research denies a source of evidence I take to be primary.

    Okay, Brandon. When you get back we will work on quantifying, measuring and verifying religious experience as a primary source of evidence. Then we’ll submit it for rigorous peer review.

60. Percyprune:
    26 May 2006, on 2:23 am

    Brandon’s post is so tortured in its logic as to defy belief. However, even if we were to go down the path of accepting religious ‘experience’–which is to say, subjective personal testimony–as evidence of the divine, then he would still have to prove that such experiences were unique to religion. He would have to prove that it could not, as I’d assert from personal testimony, also be the product of secular events such as sports, dance, music, art or drugs. If I can have as transcendent an experience on methylenedioxymethamphetamine in a nightclub as I could have in any prayer session seized by raptus, or when I’m in the zone, dribbling a ball past two defenders before scoring, then we are on the way to asserting that such psychochemical experiences are universal to humanity.

61. percyprune:
    26 May 2006, on 3:34 am

    “When you get back we will work on quantifying, measuring and verifying religious experience as a primary source of evidence. Then we’ll submit it for rigorous peer review.”

    I wish I knew more about psychopharmacology. This may well be an interesting area of research. If we can reproduce religious-type transcendent experiences through a combination of environment (mood, social setting, music), physical or mental exercise (dance, artistic expression, sports competition, breathing exercises) and/or pharmacology, then this pretty much knocks arguments about religious experience out of the park. For religious experience to be a source of evidence, it has to be proven to be unique to religion and not a psychochemical effect that can be reproduced in secular settings.

62. Steve:
    26 May 2006, on 3:35 am

    “So, it’s okay by you that he’s lies, and lambasts us, then? We’re not allowed to refute him?”

    You refuted him on several points, but technically Lya, a lie is a false statement deliberately presented as true, and no where on your post did you prove that he knowingly told a false statement, only that they were false statements. It is quite possible he’s not as “logical” as you are, or capable of making the same deductions. Therefore, your claim that he lied is unsubstantiated.

63. JokerCross:
    26 May 2006, on 4:07 am

    Steve has a point. If a dude doesn’t know he’s lying, is it still lying?

64. P.C.:
    26 May 2006, on 5:31 am

    In defense of Lya:

    Lying is lying is lying and ignorance is absolutely no excuse in my book. If one spouts false statements not knowing that they are false then it is still lying because one can easily research and think about a subject before blathering around it as if they know something.

65. John:
    26 May 2006, on 6:10 am

    Man, that Brandon is one great example of the “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” adage, no?

    Twisted up pseudo-philosophical sophistry, all in service of holding onto his invisible daddy.

    When push comes to shove, though, it really bottoms out:
    

    I take religious experience as a basic source of evidence. You, I presume, do not. That is why I refrain from providing such arguments. They are fruitless for someone whose program of research denies a source of evidence I take to be primary. But of course, using your own program of research you cannot show that religious experience is not a basic source of evidence. We are sort of at a standstill, apart from pragmatic arguments which attempt to show that one research program is more desirable than some other.

    See? It’s just that he says po-TAY-to, and we say po-TAH-to. Or, better, that we say “real evidence and critical rational examination” and he says “how I feel when I pray to Jeebus”.

    Bang hard enough on a theist, and it’s always about some mix of moralistic predjudice and bullshit along with how they FEEL.

    Feelings ain’t facts; and no amount of half-assed pseudo-academic obscurantist bullshit is gonna change that.

66. Ron:
    26 May 2006, on 6:31 am

    percyprune, as to “If we can reproduce religious-type transcendent experiences ..” It’s pretty much been done. Start with
    http://www.google.com/search?q=Ramachandran+artificial+religious+experience&start=0

67. percyprune:
    26 May 2006, on 6:45 am

    Thanks, Ron. The Ramachandran conclusions are interesting in that they point out that artificial religious experiences are not a proof of an absence of god, and indeed can be asserted to be facilitators of a ‘real’ experience of the divine. However, we are not interested in proving god. Rather, the ability to recreate religious experience in a secular settign kicks the legs out from under the argument from religious experience. The Christian is still required to prove that this experience is truly religious and not some epiphenomenon of the brain.

68. percyprune:
    26 May 2006, on 6:47 am

    “However, we are not interested in proving god.”

    Actually, what I meant to say was that we are not interested in proving the existence or absence of god. Rather we deny god due to the absence of proof.

69. Lya Kahlo:
    26 May 2006, on 6:54 am

    Responding to everything:

    “I’ll just use it to buy beer.”

    Beer? It’ll be hookers for me. The older and more hairy the better.

    ~~
    “That’s one mighty fine set of BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS you got there, Lya.”

    *ZOMMMMMMBIIIIEESSSSS* You know, they’re not so scary anymore.

    ~~
    “[Does that sound sexual?]”

    well, it does NOW.

    “?…”I think I’ll go for a walk”?”
    [OK, any of you Python film buffs,…which Monty Python film would THAT little quote refer to…hmmmMM? (too easy?]”

    Hmm. I actually don’t know and I’ve seen them all a million times. Damn weed (in my youth!). Tell me. TELL ME NOW!!!!!

    ~~~
    “You refuted him on several points, but technically Lya, a lie is a false statement deliberately presented as true, and no where on your post did you prove that he knowingly told a false statement, only that they were false statements. It is quite possible he’s not as “logical” as you are, or capable of making the same deductions. Therefore, your claim that he lied is unsubstantiated.”

    I disagree. If one can be labeled a criminal even despite being ignorant of the law, why can’t he be labeled a liar even despite ignorance of the truth? I reposted the one of the statements I took issue with. He is babbling on about things he clearly knows nothing about, but that didn’t stop him from calling evolution fake science (for example). We all know this is untrue, but he clearly presented it as if it were.

    You don’t know that he didn’t knowingly lie. You don’t know what he knows at all. You’ve just guessed. Therefore, you claim he both didn’t lie (even possibly) and that I didn’t present enough eveidence is unsubstantiated.

70. Sean:
    26 May 2006, on 7:43 am

    Lya sez:

    I disagree. If one can be labeled a criminal even despite being ignorant of the law,

    I wuz a’gonna make da same point!

    John sez:

    Man, that Brandon is one great example of the “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” adage, no?

    Twisted up pseudo-philosophical sophistry, all in service of holding onto his invisible daddy.

    But, John, why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberatin’ and conjugatin’ the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

71. Bob:
    26 May 2006, on 9:25 am

    I take religious experience as a basic source of evidence. You, I presume, do not. That is why I refrain from providing such arguments. They are fruitless for someone whose program of research denies a source of evidence I take to be primary. But of course, using your own program of research you cannot show that religious experience is not a basic source of evidence. We are sort of at a standstill, apart from pragmatic arguments which attempt to show that one research program is more desirable than some other.

    Uh, dude, WTF?

    You take, as “evidence,” something that ordinarily has nothing but completely subjective evaluations for its content — or, when those evaluations can become objective in any workable sense (i.e., #66 above), the content seems to be very much undermined (ah, the joys of supervenience!) — and you think you and Sean “just disagree” on these concepts? Please.

    You must realize (grad student that you are) that the scope of such claims involving these “basic sources of evidence” is going to be pretty much all over the place, and that people can easily use this “evidence” to justify more things than you can shake half-a-stick at.

    Enjoy your wedding.

72. Ron:
    26 May 2006, on 9:37 am

    Percyprune, I just meant to point to the Ramachandran stuff as an illustration of inducing the experience. The apologistic “maybe God put the button there” stuff seems like pathetic ad hoc responses. I think we’re pretty much in agreement.

73. John:
    26 May 2006, on 9:40 am

    Yes! Wookies! NOW I see. It’s just doesn’t make sense!

74. percyprune:
    26 May 2006, on 10:11 am

    “The apologistic “maybe God put the button there” stuff seems like pathetic ad hoc responses. I think we’re pretty much in agreement.”

    Yes, I think we are. I was just anticipating a handwringing response along the line of God being in the gaps of our knowledge.

75. Steve:
    26 May 2006, on 11:02 am

    “If one can be labeled a criminal even despite being ignorant of the law, why can’t he be labeled a liar even despite ignorance of the truth?”

    Well, your first and second statement are different completely. One can be a criminal and not know it – although some crimes like conspiracy do require knowingly engaging in certain activities, so certainly not ALL crimes can be committed without knowing it. However, in all cases of being a liar one must KNOWINGLY present false information as true, therefore you cannot be a liar and not know it.

    Your point that he may or may not know is not sufficient evidence to say that the allegation he is a liar is substantiated. My argument is not that he’s lying or not lying, merely that the statement that he’s lying is not provable given the information.

76. Nymphalidae:
    26 May 2006, on 11:42 am

    I’m sure being a grad student in philosophy gets the undergrad coeds all wet in the crotch, but the rest of us don’t give a shit.

    “I take religious experience as a basic source of evidence.”

    Ok, people have religious experiences. Something must be causing this. There are ways to examine this phenomenon and determine if the cause is physical. Automatically assuming religious experience is caused by a deity is not something a thinking person would do. In fact, you could visit pubmed.org and find several research articles regarding the physiological basis for religious experience. While you sit around engaging in mental masturbation about how religious experience constitutes evidence of a deity, real scientists do real work and gather real evidence about how religious experience is nothing more than a neurological phenomenon.

77. Lya Kahlo:
    26 May 2006, on 12:22 pm

    “Well, your first and second statement are different completely. One can be a criminal and not know it – although some crimes like conspiracy do require knowingly engaging in certain activities, so certainly not ALL crimes can be committed without knowing it.”

    I think you missed the point. I wasn’t talking about specific crimes, merely the old cop saying: Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

    “However, in all cases of being a liar one must KNOWINGLY present false information as true, therefore you cannot be a liar and not know it.”

    Bullshit. You’re lying if you state things you can’t possibly be sure about as the truth. For example, if a theist comes here and posts something like “you all just hate god” that’s a lie. They are presenting this as if they know it’s true when they can’t possibly have enough info, or any evidence that this is the case. This guy says that evolution is fake science and then goes on to show that he doesn’t have a damn clue. Without doing any research into evolution, you cannot state that its fake science. He did. And he did so as if it were the only truth. He lied.

    Therefore he did KNOWINGLY present false information as if it were true. He may believe that evolution is false, but having done no research, how can he know that? He lied.

    “Your point that he may or may not know is not sufficient evidence to say that the allegation he is a liar is substantiated. My argument is not that he’s lying or not lying, merely that the statement that he’s lying is not provable given the information.’

    Garbage. See above answer.

78. no_fx:
    26 May 2006, on 7:11 pm

    Lya concluded > [...] You have not one single shred of evidence that god exists. Or heaven, or hell, or demons or angels. You choose to believe them, or you were indoctrinated to believe them. And you do so only to get your ass into heaven. Yours is a selfish faith. …

    I’ve “always” said that myself! In Norwegian, though…

    Believe (that is, prostitute your intellect) in order to save… nothing but your OWN sorry ass.

    If Christianity didn’t have a reward, a promise, a carrot, potential believers would turn elsewhere…

    Christianity’s disgusting appeal to the ego is the ultimate proof that this religion too, is man-made…

    The keyword is “psychology”…

79. jimmer:
    26 May 2006, on 7:27 pm

    A lie is a lie. I’m with you on that.
    Presenting information as if it were true when it is not is a LIE. Especially when that information is used to make a point and that point is also a lie. My dictionary (oxford) says a liar is someone who tells lies. They do not qualify it with knowingly telling lies. This is also why liars are the very worst people any society can have. They are lazy and will not check their facts. They lack the discipline to do sufficient investigations into what they believe. And yet they do not hesitate to tell us all the way of the world. Based on what?? Lies.

    Take a hit of LSD and have a ?Religious experience? A mental experience? How do you know? Because we have ways of testing such things and those tests are objective. Apparently both religious and mental experiences stimulate the same parts of the brain. I say no religious experience exists that it is all biochemical. And it sure can be fun.

    I have noticed a few other mental masturbations going on this week. Try the Evangelical Atheist. Look for Lori- Jean towards the end. You may need to take a few aspirin after you read her.

80. stardust1954:
    26 May 2006, on 10:10 pm

    I have noticed a few other mental masturbations going on this week. Try the Evangelical Atheist. Look for Lori- Jean towards the end. You may need to take a few aspirin after you read her.

    jimmer – I checked it out and see what you mean! Excuse me now while I go take a couple of Excedrin and lie down.

81. Steve:
    26 May 2006, on 11:01 pm

    ” You’re lying if you state things you can’t possibly be sure about as the truth”

    I don’t mean to beat this point into the ground, but that is not actually the definition of the word lie. If a person states things they can’t possibly be sure about, then they can be a) unintelligent b) irrational c) illogical etc. But stateing that it is a lie is, well, factually unknowable based soley on a persons false or illogical statements. A lie is something which implies intent and manipulation. It may seem obvious to you that a person is being manipulative, but its not necessarily that way to another person. I re-read your reply and it really doesn’t make much sense, at least logically. What you are doing is redefining “know” to mean what a person SHOULD know, and that’s not the same thing as what they DO know.

    I’m not saying the man is not a liar, only that the claim he is a liar is unsubstantiated based on the information provided. Furthermore the statement “a lie is a lie” is true, but that doesn’t establish that a lie is a statement which is UNKNOWINGLY false – that is simply a false statement. A lie is a lie once it is established to be a lie. You have to establish a) the the statement is false and b) a false statement was knowingly presented as true. You seem to have no problem doing “a” but you have a lot of trouble doing “b.”

    From the looks of your replies, you can’t seem to grasp what the definition of lie is so you redefine it to simply mean a false statement, or a false statement which a person “should know.” And according to Oxford dictionary that is not, im afraid, a lie.

    Think about it. If you hooked this theist up to a lie detector, would it come out as a lie when they stated their information? Not if they were certain of their beliefs as being true, or had so convinced themselves that they were true. It is called a lie detector because it detects changes in the patients body system when they knowingly say something false. It cannot do it when they actually think what they are saying is true, even if it is objectively false.

    There’s nothing wrong with dissing someone on logical grounds, just make sure you have your own bases covered first. And I think what I’m saying is pretty self explanatory – which under your logic means that you are lying just because you don’t have your facts straight despite being presented with convincing evidence to the contrary. Ironically, your best defense against a claim of you lying would be to agree with me…

82. ChuckA:
    27 May 2006, on 12:53 am

    I don’t really have much to add here, after reading so many interesting, and much more relevant posts. I’m just trying to finish off a bit of silliness I started yesterday.
    “What!…comic relief?”
    Firstly:
    Chuck to Lya [in Yesterday's 5/25 episode]:
    “[Does that sound sexual?]”

    Lya’s response: “well, it does NOW.” [animated, “whole lotta shaking" .gif]
    Chuck [5/26]: “Shake!, baby, shake!” [Drool!]

    Secondly…Lya, RE the Python shtick…
    Me [5/25]:
    “?…”I think I’ll go for a walk”?”
    [OK, any of you Python film buffs,…which Monty Python film would THAT little quote refer to…hmmmMM? (too easy?]”
    YOU:
    Hmm. I actually don’t know and I’ve seen them all a million times. Damn weed (in my youth!). Tell me. TELL ME NOW!!!!!

    ME: [5/26] more addendums:
    [Note: MY brain damage, by the way, was due MUCH more to booze than 'weed'!]

    OK…Same Python film…Other ‘memorable’ Scene Hints:
    [Castle Anthrax:] “And now, for the Oral Sex!”
    “She’s a witch!”; “Message for you Sir!”; “The Knights who say: Nee!”
    “It’s only a flesh wound!”; “What is your Quest?” What is your Favorite Color?”
    [Yeah, like the Mel Brooks films...the Python's are loaded with very silly, funny lines!]
    Enough already?…”Hmmm… Lya, you weren’t just pulling my chain, claiming not to know the answer…were you?” [Kidding!]
    OK…One…NO..’TWO’ more:
    1) Film title: Monty Python and the________ [Da Vinci Code?]
    2) Visual reminders…
    Scene: The Plague [London?]; [bodies being loaded on a cart]
    Worker: “Bring out your dead!”
    [last man on cart:] “I’m getting better!…I think I’ll go for a walk!”
    [I think I hear voices...all the Python fan readers screaming the answer.]

    Soooo, there you have it!…It’s another ChuckA…forgetful,..”Oy Vey” moment.
    Thanks Lya, for a your great sense of humor!
    To everyone else: “Sorry for the interruption!”

83. jimmer:
    27 May 2006, on 1:58 am

    Steve
    First about polygraphs.
    http://antipolygraph.org/pubs.shtml

    According to your writing it is nearly impossible to determine a person is lieing.
    A lie is a lie once it is established to be a lie. You have to establish a) the the statement is false and b) a false statement was knowingly presented as true. You seem to have no problem doing “a” but you have a lot of trouble doing “b.”
    While I understand this it becomes apparent to me that we all have a problem with “b” as “knowingly” qualifies it.

    The commentor made statements which are untrue and if I understand you then it is undetermined that he lied.
    The commentor said; “Quote #3: “It makes far more sense than the insanity of evolution. Do you call that fiction, science? Real science totally disproves the possibility of evolution. Science is something you can prove and recreate.”

    The commentor has no basis for such statements but does in fact make these statements. He knows that statement is false or he’s irrational. Which means we still are unable to determine the lie. That being the case we have no basis for calling him a liar. Only because we very rarely know for sure that someone is wilful in their false statements.

    While the above may be factual in some respect the very idea of lying goes beyond the lack of veracity of someones statements. We have been calling people who make false statements amd who do so without a basis in fact, liars. People who wilfully misrepresent the truth for their own gain or benefit are considered liars. If they do it for god it is still a lie. They are still making statements that are deceptive and that is a lie. Intent is not always necessary. The intent of our commentor here could be so many things. Unless the commentor just came out and said that he’s a liar we will not know for sure.

    The greatest coup and deception for liars is that people give them the benefit of doubt. But in doing so the lie grows stronger.

    If a child is taught a lie but lives as if it were true is it still a lie? I say it is.

    Good discussion.

84. Steve:
    27 May 2006, on 3:52 am

    “According to your writing it is nearly impossible to determine a person is lieing.”

    Well, respectfully you should re-read what I wrote a little more carefully – I didn’t say that. You can definitely determine someone is lying once you establish that they knowingly said something false. On a polygraph, it would show up very easily as their heart begins to race, etc but it is also determined through documentation, previous statements, etc. It might be possible to show that the person Lya referred to was lying based on those past statements (for example admitting they were wrong, but then hiding it later), however Lya did not demonstrate that.

    You seem to be saying that were we not to have this liberal definition of lying, then we couldn’t have lies at all, which seems scary to you so it can’t be true. It seems like you’re saying that either I’m incorrect in what I’m saying about lies, or the consequence could be upsetting so it can’t be true. I think the consequence of what I’m saying is immaterial to whether it is actually true or factual.

    “People who wilfully misrepresent the truth for their own gain or benefit are considered liars. If they do it for god it is still a lie. ”

    I see where the confusion is coming from in part – its not “wilfully” it’s “knowingly.” And you’re right, if they do it for god they are still a liar. But Lya hasn’t established them as knowing the falsehood (the reasons can be for god, their Buick Skylark, whatever, its immaterial to whether they knew it false when they stated it) only that it IS a falsehood.

    “If a child is taught a lie but lives as if it were true is it still a lie? I say it is.”

    I understand how you could feel this way, but it isn’t true. If a child is taught a lie, but doesn’t know its a lie, and then passes on the lie they think is true to another person… it does not make them a liar. Just an idiot, illogical, uncritical, etc.

    So, I stand by my claim that the comment that the theists lied is unsubstantiated, even if the claim that they were factually incorrect is true. The difference is important, particularly if you’re calling someone out on logical fallacies.

85. Percyprune:
    27 May 2006, on 4:04 am

    I agree with those who state that the key feature of the lie, as the term is commonly used, is the intent to deceive. My non-Oxford dictionary (i.e. Collins) emphasizes the intent.

    HOWEVER, a person who believes something that is untruthful or deceptive to be true can still be a conduit for a lie. Certainly an individual who passes on lies they have been taught risks being called a liar, regardless of their own belief in them. Ignorance of the lie is a fairly weak defence.

86. stardust1954:
    27 May 2006, on 12:24 pm

    Certainly an individual who passes on lies they have been taught risks being called a liar, regardless of their own belief in them.

    I agree.

    Also, if xians who lurk here were totally honest they would admit their doubts and not pretend to be 100% believers in their mythology.If they firmly believed it they would not need it pounded into their heads week after week at so-called “worship” services. Sermons are all about keeping the flock from questioning and “going astray”.

    I don’t need a “worship” service or a sermon to tell me that the sun will rise tomorrow or that I need oxygen to breath, or food for energy. I don’t need weekly sermons that there is a sun we need in order for life to exist. I don’t need a weekly lecture that a solar system exists. Once we know these things, unlike religious mythology, we don’t need it drilled into us day after day in order to believe it.
    But since religion is a big lie people created in order to cope with death and bad things that happen in life, they need it reaffirmed constantly.

87. Ford:
    27 May 2006, on 1:05 pm

    Oh come on now, if you want to define a liar as someone who is a conduit for lies even if they don’t know it, then whatever, but that definition can’t also inherit the same negative connotation as the commonly thought of intentful liar. They can have the same negative connotation as someone who is ignorant or stupid, but not a deceitful manipulative bastard. I mean, seriously, it’s not bad enough for you that ignorant people are, well, ignorant? Now we have to further demonize them? Let’s call this person what they are, ignorant, and leave it at that. This really gets to me because the same word game shit I see truly manipulative assholes use is being used by some of the fine people of this site.

    I understand that this site is here for atheists, by atheists, and that we come here to express our frustration and anger with the bullshit of the religious world, but I think the religious world is full of enough bullshit for us to be honestly pissed about without us having to resort to word game mindfucks to make them sound all the worse. If there isn’t enough to be pissed about without having to invent reasons, then this site is basically just a bunch of angry hateful fucks that get pleasure from belittling people, and I don’t think that that’s the case. Hell, the way I see it, there is enough bullshit from the religious world to deal with that we could give religious fucksticks the benefit of the doubt 95% of the time and still have plenty to be pissed about, so let’s drop the whole liar liar pants on fire thing and mock this guy for what he truly is, an intellectually lazy, ignorant, asshole. If he presents himself to be a manipulative bastard at some later point, then we can add that to the list as well.

    Much love people.

88. Steve:
    27 May 2006, on 5:50 pm

    Ford – well said. The word “liar” can be added on as soon as the evidence is there to establish it. If atheists become too loose with their language… they run the same risks as theists of becoming illogical.

    “Certainly an individual who passes on lies they have been taught risks being called a liar, regardless of their own belief in them. Ignorance of the lie is a fairly weak defence”

    This doesn’t make sense. Ignorance of a lie is a great defense against being called a liar because knowledge of the lie prior to making your argument is a prerequesite to being a liar. Secondly your point that a person who unknowingly passes on a lie risks being called a liar is actually a logical fallacy itself called appeal to consequences – these consequences have no bearing on whether the person is actually a liar.

    http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-consequences.html

89. jimmer:
    27 May 2006, on 6:46 pm

    Ford, Steve
    Well ok then.:)

90. Lya Kahlo:
    30 May 2006, on 6:46 am

    Steve – get over it. The dude’s a liar. Why are you trying to hard to defend him? He’s a liar. Period.