Who's going to protect the Christians?

[RootsBooster]

Roots, I have massive respect for you, your intelligence and your contributions to this type of discussion but may I humbly refer you to post 191, mostly for reason 2?

Give it up Dave.

 

a. it's not worth the frustration

 

b. I'm sick of having to read through his stereotypical nonsense in order to keep up with what is otherwise (aside from the fact it's all been said before) a fairly interesting discussion.

Hahaah, yes, I agree.

I don't sit at home waiting for Mr.Smith/Maxmaximus to post his circular and sideways nonsense, it's just something I do between or during other things. Today I've resealed the garage roof, walked the dog, done some removals work for a family member, gone out for a meal and watch a film with my son, posting from my phone every so often.

I do it in the hope that Mr.Smith/Maxmaximus might once in a while try to redeem himself, but as the debacle on the "Gay marriage" thread has shown, I don't think there's any point wasting time on him any more.

 

All his questions and more have been answered in this thread by myself and others, he just keeps going around in circles trying to make his claim that "he can only be ignostic" seem logical. I think he is best left to his own devices if he chooses to ignore the logic presented to him.

[MrSmith]

Hahaah, yes, I agree.

I don't sit at home waiting for Mr.Smith/Maxmaximus to post his circular and sideways nonsense, it's just something I do between or during other things. Today I've resealed the garage roof, walked the dog, done some removals work for a family member, gone out for a meal and watch a film with my son, posting from my phone every so often.

I do it in the hope that Mr.Smith/Maxmaximus might once in a while try to redeem himself, but as the debacle on the "Gay marriage" thread has shown, I don't think there's any point wasting time on him any more.

 

All his questions and more have been answered in this thread by myself and others, he just keeps going around in circles trying to make his claim that "he can only be ignostic" seem logical. I think he is best left to his own devices if he chooses to ignore the logic presented to him.

 

Back to ridiculing that which you don’t understand I see, when you run out of things to say to support your stance you always make it personal.

 

I’m ignostic because I don’t know what God is so don’t know if I have a belief in it, you are the one that disagrees with me.

 

You claim to be agnostic despite not knowing what it is that you lack a belief in.

 

Theists believe in God despite not knowing what it is they believe in.

 

Constantly saying I believe or lack belief in God is nonsense unless you know what God is. You may as well say I'm atheist because I lack belief in something, or I’m a theist because I believe in something.

 

---------- Post added 18-02-2013 at 07:51 ----------

 

 

b. I'm sick of having to read through his stereotypical nonsense in order to keep up with what is otherwise (aside from the fact it's all been said before) a fairly interesting discussion.

 

 

 

I try to ignore the off topic posts such as this which are clearly meant to cause trouble, but on this occasion I thought it would be help you alleviate your frustration by telling you about the ignore function. I’m sure if you ask nicely someone will tell you how to put me on your ignore list.

[Lockjaw]

I try to ignore the off topic posts such as this which are clearly meant to cause trouble, but on this occasion I thought it would be help you alleviate your frustration by telling you about the ignore function. I’m sure if you ask nicely someone will tell you how to put me on your ignore list.

 

Trouble is, I am always interested in what Roots has to say and ignoring you would make it hard to understand his points.

 

Regarding the causing of trouble, you got that wrong too. I have engaged with you before and decided not to bother continuing because of your infuriating habits of diversion and circular reasoning & so on. You'll have noticed that a. I have pointed this out to you and b. many other posters have done the same. I am, genuinely, still not convinced you aren't simply on the wind up (though your prolific posting rate would suggest otherwise unless it's a major hobby of yours) and so feel justified in pointing that out to others for the two reasons mentioned in #191.

 

There is, of course, always the chance that my (& others') doing so might prompt you to have a little look at yourself.

 

HTH

[MrSmith]

Trouble is, I am always interested in what Roots has to say and ignoring you would make it hard to understand his points.

 

 

In that case I serve a useful purpose in that I give Roots something interesting to say that he wouldn’t need to say if I stopped posting.

[RootsBooster]

Back to ridiculing that which you don’t understand I see, when you run out of things to say to support your stance you always make it personal.

If that's true maybe you should report me.

Where have I run out of things to say to support my stance and where have I made it personal?

I’m ignostic because I don’t know what God is so don’t know if I have a belief in it, you are the one that disagrees with me.

You just said that I'm the one who ran out of things to say to support my stance, yet you're the one who keeps repeating yourself and ignoring the explanation of how you can find out if you're a theist or atheist.

You claim to be agnostic despite not knowing what it is that you lack a belief in.

Agnosticism isn't concerned with the definitions of what we may or may not believe in. To be agnostic one must simply have take the stance that the truth or facts may never be known or are unknowable.

 

Theists believe in God despite not knowing what it is they believe in.

Cool, were you under the impression I had stated otherwise?

 

Constantly saying I believe or lack belief in God is nonsense unless you know what God is. You may as well say I'm atheist because I lack belief in something, or I’m a theist because I believe in something.

Post #181 applies

[Lockjaw]

In that case I serve a useful purpose in that I give Roots something interesting to say that he wouldn’t need to say if I stopped posting.

 

 

Yup. That was the expected response.

 

Nonsense though, isn't it?

[MrSmith]

If that's true maybe you should report me.

Where have I run out of things to say to support my stance and where have I made it personal?

You keep referring me back to one of your post as if it is supposed to mean something.

 

 

You just said that I'm the one who ran out of things to say to support my stance, yet you're the one who keeps repeating yourself and ignoring the explanation of how you can find out if you're a theist or atheist.

I'm not ignoring your repeated explanation I'm dismissing it as meaningless and constantly repeating it won't make it any more meaningful.

 

 

 

 

Agnosticism isn't concerned with the definitions of what we may or may not believe in. To be agnostic one must simply have take the stance that the truth or facts may never be known or are unknowable.

How can you form an opinion that something is unknowable without knowing what the something is, it’s a contradiction because to believe its unknowable implies you know something about it.

Post #181 applies

Only in your mind, to me its meaningless.

 

I can't be a theist because I can't form a belief that something exists without knowing what the something is.

 

I can't be an atheist because I can’t lack a belief in something without first knowing what the something is.

 

I can’t be agnostic because I would have to know something about the something to know that it isn’t knowable.

 

To me God is a meaningless word that describes many things for many different people, and until there is a unified definition any discussion about it is meaningless making me ignostic.

[spilldig]

Answer to the original question, christian's protect themselves.

[onewheeldave]

 

I can't be a theist because I can't form a belief that something exists without knowing what the something is.

 

I can't be an atheist because I can’t lack a belief in something without first knowing what the something is.

 

I can’t be agnostic because I would have to know something about the something to know that it isn’t knowable.

 

To me God is a meaningless word that describes many things for many different people, and until there is a unified definition any discussion about it is meaningless making me ignostic.

 

Which is why people need to know which definition of 'God' they're using when they come to deciding whether they are atheist or not.

 

If for example, they're talking about the Christian God as per the subject of this thread- if they have no belief in that God, then they are atheist about it.

 

What about the issue of people having different ideas about what the Christian God is?

 

No problem, as the Christian God has certain attributes by definition- for example, being the creator of the universe. If someone has an idea of a God, and that idea does not include the fact that it's the creator of the universe, then clearly, it's not the Christian God.

 

This means that anyone who does not have a belief that the universe was created by the God in question, must therefore be an atheist (when it comes to the Christian God).

 

They don't need to know every single characteristic of the God in question, to be atheist about that God.

[PaliRichard]

Which is why people need to know which definition of 'God' they're using when they come to deciding whether they are atheist or not.

 

If for example, they're talking about the Christian God as per the subject of this thread- if they have no belief in that God, then they are atheist about it.

 

What about the issue of people having different ideas about what the Christian God is?

 

No problem, as the Christian God has certain attributes by definition- for example, being the creator of the universe. If someone has an idea of a God, and that idea does not include the fact that it's the creator of the universe, then clearly, it's not the Christian God.

 

This means that anyone who does not have a belief that the universe was created by the God in question, must therefore be an atheist (when it comes to the Christian God).

 

They don't need to know every single characteristic of the God in question, to be atheist about that God.

 

I agree.

 

Every religion I know, Theistic or not, has some form of 'unkowable' 'dimesion' (for want of a better word) to God, or a relative alternative.

 

But as you rightly state it's the attributes that people can touch that give them that faith. It's these attributes that you can touch and decide if it is good enough evidence for you to acknowledge faith in that God or not.

 

It's a little bit like not knowing the entire makeup of Space, we don't need to know all the details of dark matter/energy etc to be able to say 'space exists' or not (and bear in mind to some people in the past 'space' as we know it didn't exist, some believed it was merely a ceiling over the earth etc).

 

Good post Dave