My favorite cogdis of the Mormons.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Kevin was pretty open about sourcing to people like Dinesh D'Souza and Ben Stein, actually. The fact that he wasn't embarrassed by that is a strong testament to how little he understands the subject.

[_JohnStuartMill]

I really want Will to explain to us how he can believe in evolution without believing in transitional fossils. This is gonna be hilarious.

*grabs popcorn*

[_beastie]

Kevin was pretty open about sourcing to people like Dinesh D'Souza and Ben Stein, actually. The fact that he wasn't embarrassed by that is a strong testament to how little he understands the subject.

He must have admitted it on a different thread. On the thread on which I repeatedly asked him which books he had read on the topic, he just didn't answer... which is what I suspect Will would prefer to do.

It's usually not hard to recognize someone who hasn't actually read any of the "doctrine" of the "Church of Darwin".

i.e. selection that occurs through purely “natural” processes, absent any external, intelligent direction...

This must be yet another case of some malicious individual somehow stealing Will's account and posting under his name, unbeknownst to Will. It must be the same fellow who said this, using Will's account:

Well, because it IS clearly a tautology. That is my only point. Period. "Survival of the fittest" has no real meaning whatsoever.

[_Sethbag]

While Dinesh D'Souza does write and say some really stupid things in his vehement anti-atheist and pro-Christianity talks and whatnot, unless I'm mistaken he actually believes in the Big Bang and evolution. One sees him debating the likes of Dan Dennet and Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God, but he's not anti-evolution. I've seen videos of debates where he has explained that he does believe in evolution.

[_JohnStuartMill]

You're right, Seth. I'm mixing up my kooks here. But Kevin definitely has cited Ben Stein as an authority. That alone makes him worthy of derision.

[_AlmaBound]

Almabound must a certain East Millcreek Road neighbor back in the day. I will not tell anyone whom I think you are. But I think you remember me playing the piano loudly in a Church near the Uof U.

Sorry, but I'm not who you think I am. I've only driven through Utah a few times and never heard of East Millcreek Road.

Niac is the brother of kasemaj and yes he is based upon that brother who most betrayed me.

The conversation has slipped way beyond any of this, but your code-names are all relatively simple - Niac, backwards, is of course Cain, a brother who "betrayed" his sibling.

I'm actually a bit concerned for you and how this all has affected you.

Peace.

[_mikwut]

Seth,

When the skeptic dismisses anything that isn't conducive to most sterile and literally reading of the scripture - they create a false environment for the questions to be discussed. It's perfectly fair for you as skeptic to be granted the ability to argue the emperor has no clothes, for alas, that has been the skeptics flag for some time, and rightly so because it is often (not always) correct. But the literal/figurative distinction goes to the very heart of what religion is. I find no way for symbolism to be absent from theistic faith, and that would leave you with a strawman.

my regards, mikwut

[_Gadianton Plumber]

Seth,

When the skeptic dismisses anything that isn't conducive to most sterile and literally reading of the scripture - they create a false environment for the questions to be discussed. It's perfectly fair for you as skeptic to be granted the ability to argue the emperor has no clothes, for alas, that has been the skeptics flag for some time, and rightly so because it is often (not always) correct. But the literal/figurative distinction goes to the very heart of what religion is. I find no way for symbolism to be absent from theistic faith, and that would leave you with a strawman.

my regards, mikwut

I am diggin' this idea of yours, but I am not seeing it in Mormonism. Are you?

[_Sethbag]

Seth,

When the skeptic dismisses anything that isn't conducive to most sterile and literally reading of the scripture - they create a false environment for the questions to be discussed. It's perfectly fair for you as skeptic to be granted the ability to argue the emperor has no clothes, for alas, that has been the skeptics flag for some time, and rightly so because it is often (not always) correct. But the literal/figurative distinction goes to the very heart of what religion is. I find no way for symbolism to be absent from theistic faith, and that would leave you with a strawman.

my regards, mikwut

Religion has the remarkable distinction of being entirely manmade, invented fiction. As such, you are free to make up literally anything you want to believe, and then claim that whatever I'm arguing against, that's not what you believe, so that whatever I've said is automagically a strawman.

So an areligionist cannot escape the claims of strawman arguing, at least not from religionists. As such, I take your criticism entirely in stride.

However, I would also like to argue against it briefly. Most (Christian, at any rate) religionists argue that the Bible is the "word of God", written down at God's behest by men whom he had deputized to be his spokesmen on Earth. These writers did not insert disclaimers telling us that what they were writing is merely figurative. I cannot find Godly license anywhere in scripture to decide, on my own, what parts I will read as history, and what parts I will decide are merely figurative. As such, I feel it is only right and proper to consider the words of scripture at face value, and argue against them as such.

Credibility, reliability, trustworthiness, these are the attributes I'm evaluating scripture for. Anyone can write anything they want. Anyone can say anything they want. There have been many books written by men who claimed they were writing what the Creator of the entire Universe wanted the rest of us to know. These books cannot all be true, due to their mutually-exclusive teachings and commandments. It is important that people feel they can examine the writings, and come to some sort of judgment as to how credible the writings are, how reliable they are, how trustworthy they are.

I feel it is manifestly obvious that the writers of the Bible, and especially its earliest parts, are not credible, not reliable, and not trustworthy. You would try to defend against these charges by declaring most, if not all of the things I criticize in these writings, to be figurative rather than literal, and therefor the original authors are excused from any departures in their writings from what we now know to be Earth's natural history, among other problems. Since you can, and do, believe whatever you want about scripture, there is no way I can argue with you on this stuff.

Pretty much by definition, whatever criticisms I have of scripture that you believe in, will be strawman arguments. Your beliefs are immune to examination, from vetting for reliability and trustworthiness, etc.

[_mikwut]

Gad,

Admittedly, not as much as I would like in the general consciousness. But with fundamentals such as the temple, further scripture that isn't the same as Genesis I don't know how it is completely missing.

my regards, mikwut