Guys,
I also have a favour to ask. . I am having a prolonged debate with someone who was banned from DC a year or so ago called Marcus McElhaney.
Johnny, Johnny. I wasn't banned from DC. I left when GearHedED admitted to being a pig and not worth talking to because I'd be casting my pearls before swine. Not worth the time. Vocal people at DC are only interested in pontificating about how much they hate Christianity and not really interested in discussion. Don't bother them with the facts, they're "minds" are already made up. Just like John Loftus. Since then I haven't made a single comment on the DC blog. But I have made the comments I wanted to make here.
He critiqued a post of mine that John Loftus put up on DC. He is an Original Sin nutjob. He infuriates the hell out of me like some annoying mosquito.
That's because Johnnny P can't mount a decent argument as to why there the Bible is wrong about our state of sin and depravity.
Can you, if you have a spare hour, check out the arguments and see if I am right in what I say (I am sure I am) and post a few comments to him.
Let me help, Johnny P. Yes, you are wrong.
What really pisses me off with people like him is that you present deal-clinching arguments, they answer crappy ad hoc desperate ones, and then claim they are on the intellectual high ground.
If my responses are so ad hoc and desperate, why does Johnny P need help?
I can't overestimate how much of a tool this man is.
http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com...
http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com...
http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com...
http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com...
http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com...
http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com...
Yes, please visit my blog and drive up the hits and read my arguments. Why, that's the last thing I want. Muhaaaaaa!
I basically would like some justification of my arguments since either:
1) he is actually right, and the universe is screwed and irrational
So, the world is perfect and there is no evil. Right. If so then why complain about evil and suffering? Who cares if earthquakes flatten people and people oppress, kill, and persecute others with impunity?
2) he genuinely is wrong, and it makes me want to cry that people exist who will go to any lengths to believe what is clearly mental, and use truly bad arguments to back it up.
Sorry, I admit this is off topic, although it is directly relevant to DC.
Off Topic? Hmmm. I think calling attention to a failed attempt to Debunk Christianity is extremely relevant.
The original post is at:
Is this the Best Possible World and does God have Free Will? Hmmmm. I wonder why he didn't reference in his plea? oh well. And in case anyone is thinking I made this up to make poor JohnnyP look bad look at the comments from JohnnyP at: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/10/richard-dawkins-explains-why-he-refuses.html
My favorite part is his reference to Loftus' "deal-clinching arguments."
ReplyDeleteThat's adorable.
You truly are a dimwit.
ReplyDeleteRead the original post. It never claimed to call the Chritian worldview wrong - another one of your terrible straw men. It said on the Christian worldview, tsumanis must be a necessary ingredient to a perfect world (whether by present reality or outcome).
That was it. But you have misunderstood the argument and talked absolute shit. I could pick apart every word of your last post as being fallacious. You truly are misguided and have a very poor grasp of logic and what I was actually saying.
I concluded "They realise that this judgement by God to actualise this particular world must be supremely wise and must result in the most loving world. This includes every piece of suffering and death experienced by every animal and plant in the history of the world."
i didn't conclude God did not exist or Christians are wrong, so Marcus can take back half the misrepresented SHIT he spewed in half his posts. God knows the outcome of this world and chose it over the outcome of every other possible world. He is perfect / all-loving, therefore that choice is perfect / all-loving. You cannot argue that. Marcus has agreed it - he chooses perfectly. Therefore, the choice is the one that includes tsunamis and cancer. Therefore, these ingredients are necessarily part of the ensemble that is this world.
Jesus, other Christian philosophers can agree with this, but somehow Marcus is too up his own arse to interact appropriately with the argument. Apparently, the argument only works is I prove I am peer-reviewed or that I have university qualifications. I must remember to ask Jesus for his uni qualification next time he gives me a vision in which he puts a syllogism across to me. But Marcus demanded it, Jee! It must be the way!
And Mariano, I wasn't referring to Loftus, but my own arguments. Not a single person who has read all the posts and seen the argument through (including a Christian theologian friend) thinks that Marcus is in any way correct or well-argued. They are all rather less complimentary.
Please read all the posts Mariano and see if you REALLY agree with Marcus. He couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag without fallacy or misrepresentation.
The fact he still demands me to define perfect, when I am not the person arguing Gods perfection - I neither believe in God or perfection (I don't need to - it's not an argument about MY beliefs - I could not exist and the argument would stand) - shows how he doesn't know his arse from his elbow. Christians, however, so think God is perfect, ergo the rest of the argument.
The help is for you. I'm sure, deep inside, you CAN be rational. You just need a little help. Try arguing evidence up, not bible down. Try being humble. Try being mature. Try not to hide behind rhetoric from the start. Try to read and comprehend what you are arguing against. Try not to straw man. Be a better man. If there is a God, and if he is going to judge something he has infallibly set in motion, then he will most certainly judge you as a lost cause; a wasted mind.
Oh, and glad to see you are still hiding behind childish videos. *Guffaw guffaw* *facepalm* Nice touch. How old are you? Would a professional philosopher or theologian do that?
ReplyDeleteHe's playing the hip "youth minister" apologist I think. Not well, but that's what he's playing.
ReplyDeleteResponds http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-had-happen-was-epic-fail-tisk-tisk.html
ReplyDeleteLet me explain this to you in simple terms so that you can finally understand what I am saying. I will do this in several ways so that you are able to follow the argument in a simple fashion.
ReplyDeleteFirst, let’s use the choice approach.
God is perfect.
God makes perfect choices – he cannot choose imperfectly.
God had a choice between this world with tsunamis/cancer/malaria and this world without tsunamis.
God chose this world with tsunamis/cancer/malaria etc.
Tsunamis etc are a necessary part of God’s perfect choice.
Ok, that was simple. Every Christian I have met agrees with this. You seem not to grasp it. Let’s try the question approach. I will answer the questions as to how I think you would answer, since it is how all other Christians answer, including Craig and Fernandes.
Why are there tsunamis/cancer/malaria in the world?
“It’s all part of God’s plan” “We don’t know the mind of God” “It must serve a greater good”
These answers are stock omniscience escape clause answers and can be summed up as “It’s all part of God’s plan (for a greater good)”.
Is God perfect?
“Yes”
Can God plan imperfectly?
“No”
So tsunamis/cancer/malaria etc are part of God’s perfect plan?
“Yes”
Both of these approaches are what I was putting forward. If God is perfect, then these things, since he chose a world with them rather than one without them are part of his perfect plan. This world is his plan, ergo part of this perfect world.
Your main tactic, other than to misunderstand and misrepresent the argument for 8 pages of drivel, was to equivocate on the word ‘world’. For example, you tried to claim it was perfect at creation, but made imperfect by humans. However, you failed to follow your logic through.
God chose humans knowing their Fall, rather than choosing for them not to exist, so EVEN THEY must be necessary part of the perfect plan (and all their evil).
When philosophers talk about actual and possible worlds, they do so without temporality. And here is your equivocation. You kept implying and demanding some kind of temporal quality to WHEN the world is perfect. This is silly, because first of all you claim it was perfect at creation and then imperfect after. Yet humans are a perfect choice of God. What is the point of everything after? Why bother? Why ruin perfection with imperfection? A perfect God wouldn’t choose to ruin a perfect creation without a perfect outcome to mitigate it.
Secondly, you seem to demand a temporal quality to the world I claim as being perfect. But this equivocation is silly. When I first posted the piece, did I mean a perfect world only at 12.15 on 10/01/2011? How about the next day or the day before? When I talk of perfect worlds, is it only relevant at the exact time I say it? Or now? How about now? This is silly. Perfect worlds are judged by the outcome, or the entire process. Either way, the process is integral in reaching the outcome, obviously.
So when philosophers talk about this world being perfect, we don’t mean at 2 o’clock on Tuesday, nor do we mean at the beginning, as you assume. Perhaps we mean as an ensemble. When I mean this world in an atemporal sense, I am talking about the world as an ensemble from start to finish. But, in the sense of judging the world, we mean by outcome. When I talk of a perfect car, I don’t mean during its manufacturing process, but the end result. From a Christian’s point of view, we could still be in the manufacturing process of this world. Which is why I kept mentioning OUTCOME. These tsunamis and natural evils are ingredients are necessary ingredients for this perfect world (which may yet come to pass) otherwise they are neutral ingredients which serve no purpose and are random. To arrive at the perfect world, you need the perfect parameters, which is why I called the parameters and outcome effectively synonymous for the purposes of this argument. God has chose both, and God chooses perfectly. Thus both the parameters and out outcome of this world are perfect choices.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you failed to see how the argument worked, and spent more time demanding my qualifications. More fool you. Well done. You showed yourself to be a consummate philosopher. Sorry, plonker.
Just in case you didn’t realise in my original post that I am talking about the outcome by way of everything throughout history: “This includes every piece of suffering and death experienced by every animal and plant in the history of the world.” I did not say “This is a perfect world NOW based on everything that happens JUST NOW IN THIS INSTANCE!” This is a perfect world based on the choice of this world over any other. How do you compare one world to another? Certainly not by picking arbitrary individual instants of time out, out of their context, and comparing them!!!!
ReplyDeleteThere really is, on a good and proper reading of the original text, no need to have drivelled on and on.