The Glade 4.0

Maybe because "God did it" does not mean "God plops down storm out of nowhere." While we can see and understand why these storms form, our understanding of exactly when and where they will form is far from exact; if and/or when there is heavenly interference, there is no reason it has to be obvious and spectacular.

As for you thinking that the "delusion" is mighty thick, you're not in any position to tell anyone they're delusional, so we can pretty much write that off as trolling.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I guess the next time I find a hair on my plate, maybe Bigfoot put it there. Who knows? I mean, maybe some "heavenly" force played a part. We can't know for sure.

No, we can't. We can, however, know that you're begging the question. Your personal evaluation of the credibility of any given evidence is not definitive.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So you are really going to argue because we don't know everything, we can't know anything?

Holy ****. derp indeed.

No one said anything whatsoever. You're just saying whatever you want the other side to say, then making the derpface as if that's a counterargument. I'd say it's a strawman, except you're not even rising to that level, and it still doesn't change the fact that you're begging the question with your previous comment.

The only one deserving of the derpface is you; your position apparently amounts to "because we can observe some things and explain some things, then any belief I arbitrarily decide is unbelievable can be automatically discarded." That's the only one deserving of your silly emoticon. Just keep making it though, I'm sure it's very reassuring to you that you told those mean ole' Christians how dumb they are, cool guy. No need for reason when you can just engage in pointless attempts t ridicule supported only by your own suppositions, is there?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's not just any belief I find unbelievable, it's all beliefs that are improbable because we have no possible example of it ever existing in our realm of reality.

Yeah, sure, I deserve the derpface because I'm the one attributing a tornado, the tornado killing certain people and sparing others, to an entity that is unknowable in our reality. Or if you want to nitpick......the possibility that "we can't know".

We do have evidence of many beliefs existing in our reality. Christian evidence is in a convenient book. The fact that you don't find that evidence credible enough to have faith does not somehow mean anyone else is wrong, delusional, or whatever other pejorative makes you feel better this week if they do believe.



You deserve a derpface because you don't understand the concept of evidence, are begging the question, and are indirectly telling people they are delusional for believing in something just because you think it's "unknowable in our reality" - a statement which is utterly unsupportable. You're also trolling. Nothing you've said is even remotely an attempt at debate or discussion; it's just prejudicial language and pejorative aimed at something you don't like.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So anyone believing a theory that has not yet been demonstrated deserves a derpface? Enjoy the box you're choosing to live in. It may have limited space, but at least those walls are solid.

Can't really have a theory without a demonstration. Perhaps hypothesis would work better here.

Sam, I think you're missing something that many atheists seem to miss when discussing matters of religious belief - namely, believers' experience of what I would call "spiritual knowledge". It's true that we can't "know" anything about God in the sense of rational conclusions drawn from logical inferences about observable phenomena, but for many religious people, I think there is a different kind of knowing that comes from their direct, personal experience of the spiritual: they feel the presence of the divine and the truth of that experience on a visceral level and thus "know" God is there even though they have no way to really explain it, let alone prove it, to an outside observer.

This is why I think equating religious belief with belief in things like Bigfoot, fairies, vampires, etc. falls flat. Even people who do believe in those things don't describe their experience of and justification for that belief the way religious people describe their spirituality - again, as a direct, internal experience of a deeply-felt truth.

The Bible is not evidence. If you cannot understand why, then I'll be damned if I go thru the motions to explain it to you. Believing it is evidence, is delusional. Faith by it's very definition is believing without proof.



How is the very idea of a "god" not unknowable in our reality? Do we have any evidence that states otherwise? It's a conceivable idea, but not probable, and thus should be treated as such. Just like bigfoot putting hairs on my plate.

And if for some reason you think I am trolling my own thread, which now has been derailed a bit, then quit responding?

Sorry RD, not buying it. Spirit has no meaning in the real world, anymore than ghost or soul. It's a meaningless word to reality. If we can't know anything about god in the sense of rational conclusions.......then we can't know anything about god, because all we have is our sense of rational conclusion to base things on.

If people make outrageous claims of some divine power controlling weather, and who lives and dies, then they need to come up with something more than "I feel it", or else I will call bullshit and discount their point as delusional.

I'm sure that "offends" religious people here. I'd say to them, click the back button and move on. Put me on ignore, whatever. I didn't turn this discussion into an all out "god" thing, others did. My thread started over Wolf asking a senseless question to a stranger on national TV.

I don't get this post at all.

So belief in God is the equivalent of runner's high, or something any decent narcotic can produce?

The fact is, those feelings are far, far more likely to be caused by synapses misfiring in the brain that some omnipotent omnipresent being.

When you get a feeling of deja vu, do you honestly think that you've dreamed into the future and see it before?

So, the point of my post on the previous page was that evangelical Christians came out of the woodwork back in 2005 to tell us all about how the people of New Orleans had angered God by being sinful faggots, and hurricane Katrina was God's wrath. Those same evangelical Christians have been conspicuously silent on the issue of God's wrath when it's Oklahoma, one of the most religious states in the Union, that has been devastated by a tornado.

Considering the initial premise of the thread was Wolf Blitzer asking someone of they thanked God that their family survived the tornado, I feel the hypocrisy should be presented to the forum at large. Moreover, I feel it is intellectually dishonest to discuss thanking God for surviving a tornado without raising the question of why God sent the tornado in the first place. What was he trying to tell the people of Moore Oklahoma about their way of life? What did they do to make God so angry that he smite them?

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

The Bible is evidence. You won't go through the motions to explain it to me because you can't. If you think it's not evidence, then you either don't understand the concept of evidence, or are simply refusing to acknowledge it as such because you don't want to. Calling it delusional to think the Bible is evidence is nothing more than you reassuring yourself of your own position (that you can't defend) and as for what faith is, we're talking about evidence, not proof. I never claimed the Bible was proof, I claimed it was evidence. Nice try at switching the goal posts, though, but it's not new.



Yes, in fact we do have evidence. An entire book of it, and the historical circumstances surrounding how that book came into being and a local tribal religion expanded to become the largest in the world rather abruptly. There's also evidence in certain other books for certain other gods. I happen to consider one in particular credible.

If you consider none credible, that's your personal business, but how it "should" be treated is entirely your personal opinion.



No. Quit trolling. So what if it's your thread? You started this out with our stupid passive-aggressive "I'm sorry but derpemoticaon" to Rori. You don't have actual arguments; all you have are your personal impressions of how things are which you seem to think are simply self-evidently true.

They aren't.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So? I don't think anyone here agreed with them then, and we don't now. The only possible exception is already banned.



No, that's really not intellectually dishonest at all, unless you're talking about discussing it with those people who thought Katrina was somehow related to gay marriage. They don't seem to be here. Therefore, the only intellectual dishonesty is in you bringing it up here rather than elsewhere with the appropriate audience.

Or are you accusing a particular person here of this intellectual dishonesty? If so, call them out by name. If I'm mistaken and someone here does think Katrina was due to "Faggots" (hint: it does not make you cool to use pejorative terms sarcastically, especially when you do it in like every third post), then kindly say who it is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Except that you can't say that spirit has no meaning in the real world. You don't know that. If someone else has seen or experienced something, they cannot directly convey that experience to you; they can only describe it. By talking about "rational" conclusions as if they were something other than spiritual experiences, you are again begging the question. You cannot establish that these experiences are irrational; if someone does experience a spiritual thing, the irrational thing would be to dismiss it out of hand.



Except that you calling bullshit is meaningless. You don't get to do that. The person is not talking about what they "feel" they're talking about what they believe based on their reading of the evidence, and whatever personal observations they may have had. You don't get to dismiss those observations simply because they're spiritual. That's simply begging the question again. Even calling it "outrageous" is an attempt at prejudicial language fallacy. There's nothing outrageous about it at all.



Yes, as a matter of fact you did. You made your utterly pointless "I'm sorry but <derpfaceemoticon>" response to Rori, which was utterly devoid of discussion or content, and was just a passive aggressive way of calling him and idiot to his face, and worse, you base it on nothing more than you assuming your own conclusion.

Wolf's question was an entirely trivial matter in the first place. I mean really, who cares if he asked an atheist an awkward question? You started the thread because you were offended by the question.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, they're really not. Even calling them synapses "misfiring" is wildly innaccurate; we discussed this a few years back. You're in no position to make assessments of likelihood, either.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

**** word games is all you got, DE. I'm done.

Versus a blind disdain for other people's beliefs, and a lack of willingness to discuss differing views.

**** your accusations. I was perfectly fine with the subject I posted and had no intention of discussing this **** until someone posted gobbledygook about how god may control the **** weather and DE started his **** after I derped the comments. So piss off.

Good. We are therefore spared any more of your inane bullshit.



Thanks for admitting you acted like a complete and total shitwagon. Your basic attitude is "It's other people's fault for disagreeing with me because I'm unable to see how there could possibly be other points of view".

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

**** you.