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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 06/28/2011 : 10:35:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
The purpose of me narrowing it down to one was to simplify the issue. |
And you've oversimplified it.| Can we please assume He's not choosing between multiple generators, but just deal with there being one? |
So you're now saying the programmer has no choice at all?| If there is one generator generating truly random numbers, then an omniscient programmer will know what the truly random numbers will be. That doesn't mean that they aren't truly random. |
If there's one truly random generator and a zillion pseudo-random generators and an infinite number of nowhere-close-to-random generators, then there is still a choice involved which makes the system's output not random.
If there is no choice, if the programmer can implement only the one truly random generator and no other code, then he's not omnipotent, is he?| Because the output is truly random, meaning he isn't controlling what it will be. |
But he does control what it will be, by choosing to implement it instead of any other generator.| Assuming a single generator, he's not choosing what the numbers will be. |
Assuming the programmer has no choices is to assume that he's not omnipotent. You're trying to eliminate the programmer's control of the situation by turning him into a code-bot. As an analogy to god, you're stripping god of his free will.| But I'm trying to keep it simple so that we can get to the heart of the matter. |
The heart of the matter is that an omniscient programmer is forced to choose what the output from his program will be from among all of the possibilities, which means that no output will be random, not even output that is first sourced from a hypothetical "truly random number generator."
You really want to keep it simple? Let's say the output is actually three virtual coin tosses. Using H for heads and T for tails, there are eight possibilities: HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, TTT. Whether using a "truly random number generator" or not, the programmer (being omniscient) must simply pick which of the eight possibilities he wants his program to deliver, since he knows all eight and knows a gazillion different ways to write code to output each one. If he knows that the "truly random number generator" will result in THH, then he'll either pick that or he won't, it's just one of many options. He's got complete control over the software, and thus over the output, and cannot abdicate that control because he knows the output.
If you want him - in the hypothetical situation - to not be able to code anything but the "truly random number generator," then he's either not omnipotent (because he can't do certain things) or he's not omniscient (because he doesn't know how to do certain things). Take your pick.
I know you're trying to focus on just omniscience and just "truly random" numbers, but you can't. Nobody cares whether a code-writing robot that only has a single truly random number generator in its software library is omniscient or not, because it's not intentional. In philosophical arguments, actors for which labels like "omniscient" or "omnipotent" are appropriate have other qualities which have implications that cannot be ignored within the argument.
Hehehe. I just realized that things are worse than I thought. The programmer knows exactly what output will occur before he ever implements the software. In fact, he knows all the computer instructions he will type in before he even reaches for the keyboard. (He can't do otherwise, or it will prove that he's not omniscient. But being unable to do otherwise will prove he's not omnipotent.) The code he writes is therefore determined precisely by its own future output, and so the output cannot be considered random, even if what he writes looks to an outsider like a "truly random number generator" (there was nothing random about it to the programmer). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/28/2011 : 11:22:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by KingDavid8
The purpose of me narrowing it down to one was to simplify the issue. |
And you've oversimplified it.| Can we please assume He's not choosing between multiple generators, but just deal with there being one? |
So you're now saying the programmer has no choice at all?| If there is one generator generating truly random numbers, then an omniscient programmer will know what the truly random numbers will be. That doesn't mean that they aren't truly random. |
If there's one truly random generator and a zillion pseudo-random generators and an infinite number of nowhere-close-to-random generators, then there is still a choice involved which makes the system's output not random.
If there is no choice, if the programmer can implement only the one truly random generator and no other code, then he's not omnipotent, is he?| Because the output is truly random, meaning he isn't controlling what it will be. |
But he does control what it will be, by choosing to implement it instead of any other generator.| Assuming a single generator, he's not choosing what the numbers will be. |
Assuming the programmer has no choices is to assume that he's not omnipotent. You're trying to eliminate the programmer's control of the situation by turning him into a code-bot. As an analogy to god, you're stripping god of his free will.| But I'm trying to keep it simple so that we can get to the heart of the matter. |
The heart of the matter is that an omniscient programmer is forced to choose what the output from his program will be from among all of the possibilities, which means that no output will be random, not even output that is first sourced from a hypothetical "truly random number generator."
You really want to keep it simple? Let's say the output is actually three virtual coin tosses. Using H for heads and T for tails, there are eight possibilities: HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, TTT. Whether using a "truly random number generator" or not, the programmer (being omniscient) must simply pick which of the eight possibilities he wants his program to deliver, since he knows all eight and knows a gazillion different ways to write code to output each one. If he knows that the "truly random number generator" will result in THH, then he'll either pick that or he won't, it's just one of many options. He's got complete control over the software, and thus over the output, and cannot abdicate that control because he knows the output.
If you want him - in the hypothetical situation - to not be able to code anything but the "truly random number generator," then he's either not omnipotent (because he can't do certain things) or he's not omniscient (because he doesn't know how to do certain things). Take your pick.
I know you're trying to focus on just omniscience and just "truly random" numbers, but you can't. Nobody cares whether a code-writing robot that only has a single truly random number generator in its software library is omniscient or not, because it's not intentional. In philosophical arguments, actors for which labels like "omniscient" or "omnipotent" are appropriate have other qualities which have implications that cannot be ignored within the argument.
Hehehe. I just realized that things are worse than I thought. The programmer knows exactly what output will occur before he ever implements the software. In fact, he knows all the computer instructions he will type in before he even reaches for the keyboard. (He can't do otherwise, or it will prove that he's not omniscient. But being unable to do otherwise will prove he's not omnipotent.) The code he writes is therefore determined precisely by its own future output, and so the output cannot be considered random, even if what he writes looks to an outsider like a "truly random number generator" (there was nothing random about it to the programmer).
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You are correct Dave, a random number generator has a set of parameters and the only numbers that are generated are inside set of parameters that the coder created. For it to be a freewill random number generator, the random number would have to be outside of the parameters, which is impossible, because in order for the random number generator to function, it has to have parameters, even if it is 1 to infinity, the numbers are pre-chosen, which are 1 to infinity or any other parameters that the coder decides. And as you have pointed out, the omniscient programmer would still know every number that the random generator could generate, because he set the parameters himself, which is again, opposite of freewill.
Any argument beyond this is special pleading on kingdavid's behalf, he has to ignore one or the other points in order for his omniscient/freewill giving god to exist.
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2011 : 20:42:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
So far, you have said that Egyptologists go around repeating claims, but where did they get those claims to repeat if they didn't get them from Zeitgeist and haven't read them in the original hieroglyphs? |
From whoever made them up, of course. Many of them originated with Gerald Massey. I never said or suggested that Zeitgeist was the original source for these claims. It, also, was just repeating them.
| No, I never conceded that, per pre-Christian mythology, Isis was a virgin. |
@changingmyself Has David#65279; conceded that Isis was indeed a virgin? Or is he still disputing it?
Jcm9991 1 month ago
@Jcm9991 He#65279; conceded, but yet, he wont change his website to show that one |
So...you're quoting JCM claiming I conceded as evidence that I conceded? Why not just quote where I conceded? Maybe because we both know that I did no such thing.
| And yet, for some odd reason, you fail to mention anything about Isis's virginity not being pre-Christian mythology on your website: "Horus being born of a virgin is iffy. None of the stories seem to suggest that Isis was a virgin, though I've seen a few university-level scholar who see to think she was." |
When I talk about "the stories" in that quote, I'm talking about the pre-Christian mythology.
I've never lied in this thread. |
Yes, you have repeatedly |
No, all that's happened is I've said something, then you've twisted my words, and then you used your twisting of my words to accuse me of lying. Quote me directly from where I've lied.
| David, you claim that you want the evidence. If you want the evidence and it is in the books, then why not read the books instead of asking other people to do the work for you? Isn't that common sense? |
That's "if" it is the books. I'm convinced it's not. Because if it was, the people who are trying to convince people that the claims are true would be able to present the evidence to those who ask for it. If this evidence existed, mythicists would be parading it for the world to see, showing it off to anyone who asks for it, and probably even to those who don't. I've been asking mythicists for the evidence for YEARS, and even started offering $1000 for it almost three years ago, and so far, NONE of them have been able to provide the evidence, even though about a dozen of them specifically told me that they'd get the evidence and win the challenge.
No, it's not a case of people presenting the evidence and me turning a blind eye towards it. No one has even presented the evidence in the first place.
Reading the books is clearly a waste of time, since, if the Christ-mythers can't find the evidence in those books, it's pretty unlikely that I'll be able to.
I don't know if I told you about a great conversation I had with a mythicist a few years ago. He told me that all of the Horus claims were backed up by the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I asked him to show me the passages where those things happened, and he refused, saying he wasn't going to "spoon-feed" me the evidence. He kept telling me that I had to read it for myself. So, finally I did, reading every chapter in which Horus, Isis or Osiris was mentioned. It backed up NONE of the claims. I asked him to explain why he told me the parallels were in the EBotD when they weren't, and he just said that I didn't read it closely enough or something like that, still insisting that the parallels were there. So you can see how it's a waste of time. If I were to read all of these books, found no evidence, and come back saying it wasn't there, you'd probably just come up with some excuse like that other mythicist did. All you would be doing is wasting my time, with nothing proven in the end.
Personally, I expect those who are trying to convince me that certain claims are true to present the evidence for them, not to tell me to go look for them elsewhere. That way, no one's time is being wasted.
No, skeptics do not just look at the evidence and decide its validity. They question the claims, approach them with doubt and skepticism. Where's your evidence that these sites did so with the claims? Do you see them approaching the claims skeptically, or just saying that they're true? |
You seem to be confusing skepticism with denial. |
No, skepticism is what I described above. Denial is refusing to believe them even if convincing evidence is presented.
| Skepticism isn't automatically denying things david, |
I know. I didn't say it was. Are you twisting my words again?
| it is looking for at the empirical evidence to back up what ever claim is made. Skeptics look at the evidence and weigh it. |
Sorry, but you're leaving the skepticism out of your description of skepticism. Skepticism isn't just about looking a the evidence and making a decision, but about bringing an initial approach of doubt to the claims, refusing to believe unless and until the evidence itself is enough to convince you. None of those sites you linked showed any evidence of them taking a skeptical approach to the claims. None of them suggest that they initially doubted the claims to be true, but then were swayed by the evidence.
| Automatically denying claims is called denial. That is what you do. |
No, I'm doubting the claims to be true until I see the evidence. The problem is that none of those who are trying to convince me of these claims seem to have any evidence for most of them. All they seem to do is to tell me to go look elsewhere for the evidence, which only increases my skepticism towards these claims. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2011 : 21:34:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by KingDavid8
The purpose of me narrowing it down to one was to simplify the issue. |
And you've oversimplified it. |
No, I've taken it back to the original hypothetical, where it was an omniscient programmer and a truly-random-number (TRN) generator. We don't need to assume the potential existence of other generators, which only complicates the issue.
| Can we please assume He's not choosing between multiple generators, but just deal with there being one? |
So you're now saying the programmer has no choice at all? |
Whether the programmer has a choice between generators is irrelevant to the hypothetical.
| If there is one generator generating truly random numbers, then an omniscient programmer will know what the truly random numbers will be. That doesn't mean that they aren't truly random. |
If there's one truly random generator and a zillion pseudo-random generators and an infinite number of nowhere-close-to-random generators, then there is still a choice involved which makes the system's output not random. |
How so? Look, if the programmer just wants a TRN generator, then the pseudo-random and not-random-at-all generators would be irrelevant. He wouldn't pick them, since they don't meet his needs. So we're stuck with one omniscient programmer and one TRN generator. And if it puts out TRN's, then he, being omniscient, would still know what those TRN's will be.
| If there is no choice, if the programmer can implement only the one truly random generator and no other code, then he's not omnipotent, is he? |
If he's implementing the TRN generator because he wants TRN's, and not a pseudo-random or not-random-at-all numbers, then he's still omnipotent. Omnipotence is only about what one has the ability to do, not about what one ultimately chooses.
| Because the output is truly random, meaning he isn't controlling what it will be. |
But he does control what it will be, by choosing to implement it instead of any other generator. |
Because the other generators don't put out TRN's, which is what he desires.
| Assuming a single generator, he's not choosing what the numbers will be. |
Assuming the programmer has no choices is to assume that he's not omnipotent. |
He can choose to run the TRN generator or not. Let's assume he chooses to run it. He can choose a TRN generator or a not-TRN-generator. Let's assume he wants TRN's, so he chooses the TRN generator. So now it puts out TRN's, and he, being omniscient, will know what those TRN's will be. Yet they're still TRN's.
| But I'm trying to keep it simple so that we can get to the heart of the matter. |
The heart of the matter is that an omniscient programmer is forced to choose what the output from his program will be from among all of the possibilities |
If there's only one possible TRN generator, then he's not choosing from among possibilities. The other possibilities don't produce TRN's, which is what he's desiring.
| You really want to keep it simple? Let's say the output is actually three virtual coin tosses. Using H for heads and T for tails, there are eight possibilities: HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, TTT. Whether using a "truly random number generator" or not, the programmer (being omniscient) must simply pick which of the eight possibilities he wants his program to deliver, since he knows all eight and knows a gazillion different ways to write code to output each one. |
You're assuming he's specifically writing code in order to produce a desired output. In that case, yes, there would be nothing random about it. But, again, I want the "random" to be assumed and "omniscience" to be what is put to the test here. If you don't want to assume "random", then we've got nothing to discuss here. So let's keep it even simpler and assume he's not trying to achieve a specific output, but wants the results of the 3-coin toss to be truly outside of his control, truly random, not a case of "I want HTH, so I'll go with the coding that will produce HTH instead of the others". Let's assume one generator, one set of coding which will achieve it, with the specific results being truly random. Okay?
| If he knows that the "truly random number generator" will result in THH, then he'll either pick that or he won't, |
If there's only one TRN generator, then his choice is between picking THH or picking nothing at all. Let's say he's decided in advance to just go with whatever the TRN generator puts out. If it randomly puts out THH, if that is truly random, then he will know in advance that it will put out THH. But that doesn't mean that THH wasn't truly chosen randomly.
| If you want him - in the hypothetical situation - to not be able to code anything but the "truly random number generator," then he's either not omnipotent (because he can't do certain things) or he's not omniscient (because he doesn't know how to do certain things). Take your pick. |
My pick is to assume that only one TRN generator is possible, that producing two is just as impossible as creating a square circle. As with God, I'll take omnipotence to not include the ability to do things which are paradoxical.
| I know you're trying to focus on just omniscience and just "truly random" numbers, but you can't. |
That's fine, because I don't need to.
| I just realized that things are worse than I thought. The programmer knows exactly what output will occur before he ever implements the software. In fact, he knows all the computer instructions he will type in before he even reaches for the keyboard. (He can't do otherwise, or it will prove that he's not omniscient. But being unable to do otherwise will prove he's not omnipotent.) The code he writes is therefore determined precisely by its own future output, |
I agreed with what you were saying until this point. If it generates TRN's, it generates TRN's. To assume that the results determine the code is really no different than to assume that the code determines the results. Either way, we're assuming that the numbers aren't random. If, hypothetically, the first truly random number it will pick will be "87", then to suppose that his writing the code differently would have created a "34" instead, then we're assuming that the first number to be picked is somehow determined by the code, not by randomness. So, if we're supposing true randomness, then we have to suppose that the hypothetically-random "87" would pop up no matter how he wrote the code. So to suppose that the code is dependent on the first TRN, or that the TRN is dependent on the code, is to assume non-randomness. Let's assume randomness, please.
Or if you'd rather not assume randomness, say so, and we'll end the discussion here. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/29/2011 : 22:06:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by teched246
| God wants us to choose to do right by Him or not. Retroactively aborting anyone who wouldn't makes the choice essentially meaningless. |
It wouldn't be retroactive nor would it be abortive; it'd be preemptive |
Okay, then. Preemptively aborting anyone who wouldn't makes the choice essentially meaningless.
| and an exercise of his infinitely better judgement (omniscience) to not go through with creating unrepenting sinners to begin with. |
I know a lot of unrepentent sinners, and don't see how their continuing existence shows a lack of judgment on God's part.
| By not going through with that half of creation to begin with he wouldn't be affecting freewill, |
Preemptively aborting anyone who chooses "wrong" does ultimately affect free will.
| And think about this - when America's founding fathers gave us freedom of speech, don't you think they knew that people would occasionally use it say things that they (the founding fathers) would disagree with? Does that make the founding fathers complicit in the saying of things they would disagree with? You could, perhaps, answer "yes" to this question (at the very least, they're complicit in the same sense as God is for giving us free will), but in neither case does it make their doing so a bad idea. We SHOULD have the free will to choose God or not, just as we SHOULD have freedom of speech |
You're making an analogy between two completely opposite ideas. Freedom of speech means, to say what you want WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. The founding fathers didn't say that you would be *punished* for choosing to say things that they disagree with, otherwise "freedom of speech" would be a farce. |
Irrelevant to the issue we were discussing. We were discussing whether allowing people to "do otherwise" makes you complicit in what they do. Either it makes you complicit in neither case, or it makes you complicit in both. In fact, I'd say that the "no consequences" factor makes the founding fathers more complicit in the words of those they would disagree with than God is in the actions of those who choose to "do otherwise". If God told us that we could do whatever evils we wanted with "no consequences", then I'd see that as a bit more complicity on His part in what they do.
| Sin would still occur, though. It would just be repented of. |
To create something with hopes in mind, means that creations were counted on to fulfill hopes. However, if a creator knows with absolute certainty that it's creations aren't going to fulfill those hopes, then it turns out that the creator wasn't counting it's creations to fulfill it's hopes, and thus didn't have hopes in mind for it's creations, afterall. |
If it's certainty, then it's not hope. Hope involved uncertainty.
| Besides, I think even unrepentant sinners are worthy of life. |
An eternity of torture would outweigh a finite life. |
I don't believe that hell is a place of endless physical torture. In fact, I don't believe that "time" as we know it, or "physical" as we know it, exists outside of our reality.
| Next you'll say, "Oh well, it's their fault", but god could've avoided the situation altogether by not creating that lot. |
And, again, I don't believe that "that lot" is worthless.
| Come to understand that, once we throw the element of purpose in the mix something's gotta give. You can't say that a creator, was omniscient and yet had hopes (a purpose) in mind for unrepenting sinners. We either throw out omniscience, or the idea that god had hopes (a purpose) for the undesirable half of creation, OR that he had good intentions for this group. |
Only if we're assuming that the "purpose" is just about what the end results will be, and has nothing to do with the process that gets us there. An unrepentant sinner may not get to Heaven, but I'm not assuming that God's purpose is all about getting X-number of people into Heaven. I think His plan is much, much bigger than that and involves all of us here, even those who won't get to Heaven in the end. |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2011 : 06:20:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by teched246
| God wants us to choose to do right by Him or not. Retroactively aborting anyone who wouldn't makes the choice essentially meaningless. |
It wouldn't be retroactive nor would it be abortive; it'd be preemptive |
Okay, then. Preemptively aborting anyone who wouldn't makes the choice essentially meaningless.
| and an exercise of his infinitely better judgement (omniscience) to not go through with creating unrepenting sinners to begin with. |
I know a lot of unrepentent sinners, and don't see how their continuing existence shows a lack of judgment on God's part.
| By not going through with that half of creation to begin with he wouldn't be affecting freewill, |
Preemptively aborting anyone who chooses "wrong" does ultimately affect free will.
| And think about this - when America's founding fathers gave us freedom of speech, don't you think they knew that people would occasionally use it say things that they (the founding fathers) would disagree with? Does that make the founding fathers complicit in the saying of things they would disagree with? You could, perhaps, answer "yes" to this question (at the very least, they're complicit in the same sense as God is for giving us free will), but in neither case does it make their doing so a bad idea. We SHOULD have the free will to choose God or not, just as we SHOULD have freedom of speech |
You're making an analogy between two completely opposite ideas. Freedom of speech means, to say what you want WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. The founding fathers didn't say that you would be *punished* for choosing to say things that they disagree with, otherwise "freedom of speech" would be a farce. |
Irrelevant to the issue we were discussing. We were discussing whether allowing people to "do otherwise" makes you complicit in what they do. Either it makes you complicit in neither case, or it makes you complicit in both. In fact, I'd say that the "no consequences" factor makes the founding fathers more complicit in the words of those they would disagree with than God is in the actions of those who choose to "do otherwise". If God told us that we could do whatever evils we wanted with "no consequences", then I'd see that as a bit more complicity on His part in what they do.
| Sin would still occur, though. It would just be repented of. |
To create something with hopes in mind, means that creations were counted on to fulfill hopes. However, if a creator knows with absolute certainty that it's creations aren't going to fulfill those hopes, then it turns out that the creator wasn't counting it's creations to fulfill it's hopes, and thus didn't have hopes in mind for it's creations, afterall. |
If it's certainty, then it's not hope. Hope involved uncertainty.
| Besides, I think even unrepentant sinners are worthy of life. |
An eternity of torture would outweigh a finite life. |
I don't believe that hell is a place of endless physical torture. In fact, I don't believe that "time" as we know it, or "physical" as we know it, exists outside of our reality.
| Next you'll say, "Oh well, it's their fault", but god could've avoided the situation altogether by not creating that lot. |
And, again, I don't believe that "that lot" is worthless.
| Come to understand that, once we throw the element of purpose in the mix something's gotta give. You can't say that a creator, was omniscient and yet had hopes (a purpose) in mind for unrepenting sinners. We either throw out omniscience, or the idea that god had hopes (a purpose) for the undesirable half of creation, OR that he had good intentions for this group. |
Only if we're assuming that the "purpose" is just about what the end results will be, and has nothing to do with the process that gets us there. An unrepentant sinner may not get to Heaven, but I'm not assuming that God's purpose is all about getting X-number of people into Heaven. I think His plan is much, much bigger than that and involves all of us here, even those who won't get to Heaven in the end.
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OK.
Retroactive abortion is a sardonic way of saying that someone is murdered after they have been born. Often times used in describing how John Q. Criminal gets himself dead at the hands of John Q. Gunowner by breaking into a house and attempting to rape/murder the inhabitants thereof.
Preemptive abortion actually poses a problem for your argument. Miscarriages of pregnancies are referred to as spontaneous abortions. They happen quite frequently. Therefore, it could be argued that the spontaneous abortion rate of 31% (where the existance of the theological construct is assumed) is evidence that the creator is removing those who will not go to plan.
I also note a mistake in the application of "freedom of speech". It does not mean that you will not be punished in general for your speech. It means the government may not punish you for your speech. (See Westboro Baptist Church goes to Joplin, MS and gets their butts run out of town by an angry mob of bikers and truck drivers. In this case, the police attempted to keep the peace in the face of this provocation but were overrun.)
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2011 : 07:30:19 [Permalink]
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| From whoever made them up, of course. Many of them originated with Gerald Massey. I never said or suggested that Zeitgeist was the original source for these claims. It, also, was just repeating them. |
So, you think that the Egyptologists are repeating claims from Gerald Massey? Do you have any proof of this or are you just going around repeating what other Christians have said? Do you even have evidence to prove that the Egyptologists have read Gerald Massey? Again, be forthright with that evidence, otherwise you are just doing the same thing that you are accusing others of.
| So...you're quoting JCM claiming I conceded as evidence that I conceded? Why not just quote where I conceded? Maybe because we both know that I did no such thing. |
Are you claiming that you aren't kingdavid246?
"He conceded, but yet, he wont change his website to show that one..."
I did#65279; change it, and already told you that. It's changed on the two pages that deal with this claim:
kingdavid8(dot)com(slash)Copycat(slash)JesusHorus(dot)html
kingdavid8(dot)com(slash)Zeitgeist(slash)Home(dot)html
kingdavid246 1 month"
| When I talk about "the stories" in that quote, I'm talking about the pre-Christ |
There is a big difference between "the stories" and Pre-Christian mythology. Have you read all of the actual texts and inscriptions or are you just going by "the stories" that you find on the web which are equivalent to story books for children that you posted on your website?
No, all that's happened is I've said something, then you've twisted my words, and then you used your twisting of my words to accuse me of lying. Quote me directly from where I've lied. |
Direct quote of you lying:
| So...you're quoting JCM claiming I conceded as evidence that I conceded? Why not just quote where I conceded? Maybe because we both know that I did no such thing. |
I quoted the whole conversation so people could see the context of the conversation. If I would have just copied your quote, you would have claimed that there was no proof that was what the conversation was about.
| That's "if" it is the books. I'm convinced it's not. Because if it was, the people who are trying to convince people that the claims are true would be able to present the evidence to those who ask for it. If this evidence existed, mythicists would be parading it for the world to see, showing it off to anyone who asks for it, and probably even to those who don't. I've been asking mythicists for the evidence for YEARS, and even started offering $1000 for it almost three years ago, and so far, NONE of them have been able to provide the evidence, even though about a dozen of them specifically told me that they'd get the evidence and win the challenge. |
You are "convinced" it is not in the books based on your own belief, not by factual information. Mythicists are parading it for the world to see, like I said, you can find thousands of books on this subject dating back to the 1st and 2nd centuries and even using Early Christian Father quotes like Justin Martyr. You might have been asking for the evidence for years but you don't accept the evidence that you claim to accept, for instance, you said that you accept top level scholars but when I gave you top level scholars, you said that it wasn't in the stories and claimed that they got their information from Massey. Once people see that you are no different from the Holocaust Deniers and you move the goal posts continuously, they see, like I have seen, that you are in denial.
No, it's not a case of people presenting the evidence and me turning a blind eye towards it. No one has even presented the evidence in the first place. |
Yeah, you do, and yes, they have, but you are in denial.
Reading the books is clearly a waste of time, since, if the Christ-mythers can't find the evidence in those books, it's pretty unlikely that I'll be able to. |
That is because you are a Christ Liar, and Christ Liars only see what they want to see that props up their faith. If they don't see what they want to see, they twist it to fit, or just deny it. You guys do this with the bible also, you look over the bad parts and only accept the good parts and claim the bad parts are just "stories". Do you also sit in the corner covering your ears screaming "lalalalalalallala" when you refuse to read the books?
Also is this why there are so many Christians that deny Evolution because it is in science books and they are "convinced" that there is no proof of it in the science books, so they don't bother reading the books and then they turn around and say that Evolution is still a theory and asking others to prove Evolution to them? That would explain a lot.
I don't know if I told you about a great conversation I had with a mythicist a few years ago. He told me that all of the Horus claims were backed up by the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I asked him to show me the passages where those things happened, and he refused, saying he wasn't going to "spoon-feed" me the evidence. He kept telling me that I had to read it for myself. So, finally I did, reading every chapter in which Horus, Isis or Osiris was mentioned. It backed up NONE of the claims. I asked him to explain why he told me the parallels were in the EBotD when they weren't, and he just said that I didn't read it closely enough or something like that, still insisting that the parallels were there. So you can see how it's a waste of time. If I were to read all of these books, found no evidence, and come back saying it wasn't there, you'd probably just come up with some excuse like that other mythicist did. All you would be doing is wasting my time, with nothing proven in the end. |
I don't know if I told you about the conversation I had with the Christ Liar or not, but I told him that I was looking for historical proof of Jesus and he said it was in Josephus and other historical writers, then I looked all through them and there was a brief mention of Christians but none of the historians claimed to know Jesus. So I asked him why he told me to read Josephus and the other historians to find proof of Jesus when none of them claimed to have met him, and he said that I just needed to go on "faith"....was that you kingdavid?
| Personally, I expect those who are trying to convince me that certain claims are true to present the evidence for them, not to tell me to go look for them elsewhere. That way, no one's time is being wasted. |
If everyone did this same thing with the bible, there would have been a lot less Christians.
People that think that Jesus was a myth, wrote books for people to read them. But of course, people like you, won't bother reading them because they, like you, are convinced that there is nothing in them based on their faith and not facts.
No, skepticism is what I described above. Denial is refusing to believe them even if convincing evidence is presented. |
Exactly...what I said about Skeptics.
I know. I didn't say it was. Are you twisting my words again?
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No, are you twisting my words again? Oh wait, you quote me and it says specifically that they look at the evidence.
Sorry, but you're leaving the skepticism out of your description of skepticism. Skepticism isn't just about looking a the evidence and making a decision, but about bringing an initial approach of doubt to the claims, refusing to believe unless and until the evidence itself is enough to convince you. None of those sites you linked showed any evidence of them taking a skeptical approach to the claims. None of them suggest that they initially doubted the claims to be true, but then were swayed by the evidence. |
If they did not doubt them to be true, they would have believed it without evidence. The fact that they searched for the evidence, is proof enough they did not believe it in the first place. The difference between you and a skeptic is that you deny the evidence or claim some conspiracy theory that all Egyptologists are repeating claims after seeing it while they do not.
No, I'm doubting the claims to be true until I see the evidence. The problem is that none of those who are trying to convince me of these claims seem to have any evidence for most of them. All they seem to do is to tell me to go look elsewhere for the evidence, which only increases my skepticism towards these claims.
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All I have seen you do is deny the evidence when it was given to you or claim that Egyptologists are just repeating claims from Gerald Massey even though you have shown no evidence that they did. The proof of this is when you conceded to Isis being a virgin, then coming here and claiming that you didn't, so I say I have evidence to prove it, so you say to bring it on, so I do, then you attempt to say that I am quoting Jcm, instead of you. You claiming that I quoted JCM and not you to prove it, is a lie, you know that is a lie, and the reason that you lie is because you are in denial.
By the way, are you going to give evidence that the Egyptologists just go around repeating Massey? I would really like to see that. You made the claim, now it is time for you to prove it. You have pussy-footed around for 2-3 pages, it is time for you to back up your claim with empirical evidence.
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2011 : 07:57:06 [Permalink]
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kingdavid8 said:
| You were willing to assume (for the sake of argument) that God is omniscient, but we never really got anywhere in whether it disproved free will or not. |
Actually, we showed you the logical problems quite clearly. Only your ridiculous denial of logic, history, and your amazing handwaving dismissal of the thinking of hundreds of philosophers through thousands of years lets you make statements like that.
Isn't arrogance of the level you have a sin?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2011 : 09:05:55 [Permalink]
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| Okay, then. Preemptively aborting anyone who wouldn't makes the choice essentially meaningless. Preemptively aborting anyone who chooses "wrong" does ultimately affect freewill. |
It wouldn't be meaningless, because those who would make the "good choices" would still be making a choice (to reject the alternative and do right by god), while those who would've chosen the alternative would've never existed to begin with it. You cannot affect the freewill of someone who doesn't exist. By your rationale, the countless people who will never exist are having their freewill affected by god.
| I know a lot of unrepentent sinners, and don't see how their continuing existence shows a lack of judgment on God's part. |
If he had a purpose in mind, and at the same time created people (unrepentant sinners) who he was sure wasn't going to fulfill those purposes in their own freewill, then we have a contradiction of either his omniscience or his purpose. Pick one.
| You're making an analogy between two completely opposite ideas. Freedom of speech means, to say what you want WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. The founding fathers didn't say that you would be *punished* for choosing to say things that they disagree with, otherwise "freedom of speech" would be a farce. |
Irrelevant to the issue we were discussing. We were discussing whether allowing people to "do otherwise" makes you complicit in what they do. Either it makes you complicit in neither case, or it makes you complicit in both. In fact, I'd say that the "no consequences" factor makes the founding fathers more complicit in the words of those they would disagree with than God is in the actions of those who choose to "do otherwise". If God told us that we could do whatever evils we wanted with "no consequences", then I'd see that as a bit more complicity on His part in what they do. |
If the founding fathers created laws against saying certain things and, at the same time, told you that you were free to say what you want, then they would be complicit in any violation of those laws. God setting up rules and, at the same time, creating people of whom he is certain would break those rules is complicit, albeit on a grander scale than that of mortals. The founding fathers aren't complicit in the violation of any laws, given that "freedom of speech", itself, means that, there aren't any laws against speech to be broken. Their (the founding fathers) own personal disagreement with what people will say in their own freedom is irrelevant as long as YOU are making the analogy between fault in the legal context and fault in the divine context. Context is everything. In terms of legality, the opinionated disagreements of the founding fathers, as everyone elses', are ineffectual.
| If it's certainty, then it's not hope. Hope involved uncertainty. |
Exactly. So when god was creating unrepentant sinners, he didn't have any hopes that they would choose to do right by him, and thus did not create them with a purpose.
| I don't believe that hell is a place of endless physical torture. In fact, I don't believe that "time" as we know it, or "physical" as we know it, exists outside of our reality. |
Matthew 25:46 "And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Daniel 12:2 "Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake – some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence."
| And, again, I don't believe that "that lot" (unrepentant sinners)is worthless. |
Right, they'll be filling vacancies in hell... wouldn't want them to go to waste.
| Only if we're assuming that the "purpose" is just about what the end results will be, and has nothing to do with the process that gets us there. An unrepentant sinner may not get to Heaven, but I'm not assuming that God's purpose is all about getting X-number of people into Heaven. I think His plan is much, much bigger than that and involves all of us here, even those who won't get to Heaven in the end. |
According to christian theology our purpose is to choose to do right by god in our own freewill. Now that we have clarification on purpose allow me to reiterate that, "once we throw the element of purpose in the mix something's gotta give. You can't say that a creator was omniscient and yet had hopes (a purpose) in mind for unrepenting sinners. We either throw out omniscience, or the idea that god had hopes (a purpose) for the undesirable half of creation, OR the idea that he had good intentions for this group." |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: ‘Over all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2011 : 09:58:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Whether the programmer has a choice between generators is irrelevant to the hypothetical. |
No, the programmer having choices to make and being omniscient regarding the consequences of those choices gives the programmer complete control of the output of his software, in which case the output is necessarily planned (which, according to the definition you provided, means it is not random).
An omniscient programmer who can make no choices is not omnipotent, which would violate the other premise of your hypothetical.
You're assuming he's specifically writing code in order to produce a desired output. |
No, that's not an assumption, it's a consequence of omniscience. He knows the output of any code he might care to write, so logically speaking, a program and its output are interchangeable.| So let's keep it even simpler and assume he's not trying to achieve a specific output, but wants the results of the 3-coin toss to be truly outside of his control... |
He cannot achieve that goal, because he necessarily has complete control. He knows that if he writes the code one way, it will produce TTH. If he writes it another way, it'll produce HTH. If he writes it still another way, it'll produce TTT. And so on and so on. He also knows that if he writes what would be a truly random number generator to a non-omniscient person, it'll produce THH.
He can't not know all of that, and so he is forced to choose what output he wants, making any output non-random. This isn't an assumption, but a logical consequence of omniscience.| I agreed with what you were saying until this point. If it generates TRN's, it generates TRN's. To assume that the results determine the code is really no different than to assume that the code determines the results. Either way, we're assuming that the numbers aren't random. If, hypothetically, the first truly random number it will pick will be "87", then to suppose that his writing the code differently would have created a "34" instead, then we're assuming that the first number to be picked is somehow determined by the code, not by randomness. So, if we're supposing true randomness, then we have to suppose that the hypothetically-random "87" would pop up no matter how he wrote the code. So to suppose that the code is dependent on the first TRN, or that the TRN is dependent on the code, is to assume non-randomness. Let's assume randomness, please. |
Again, you are massively abusing the word "assume." That the output determines the code was the conclusion of an argument, not a premise of one. Complaining that it's an assumption (when it clearly isn't) is to utterly fail to engage with the argument itself, instead hand-waving it away with ridiculous dictionary revisionism.| Or if you'd rather not assume randomness, say so, and we'll end the discussion here. |
Again, the order in which the premises are examined is irrelevant, if they are contradictory one way, then they're contradictory the other way, too. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2011 : 20:49:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by changingmyself
So, you think that the Egyptologists are repeating claims from Gerald Massey? |
No. Like I said, he was the apparently source for only SOME of the claims, and who knows if he used an earlier source that we don't know about? I'm not really interested in who came up with the claims originally, but just in whether they can actually be shown to be pre-Christian. Most of them cannot.
| Do you have any proof of this or are you just going around repeating what other Christians have said? |
Proof of what? Once again, you seem to be twisting my words and then expecting me to back up what you're merely accusing me of saying. I never said that the egyptologists are just "repeating Massey" any more than I said that they're just "repeating Zeitgeist". Yet you've asked me to prove both. This is getting beyond ridiculous.
| So...you're quoting JCM claiming I conceded as evidence that I conceded? Why not just quote where I conceded? Maybe because we both know that I did no such thing. |
Are you claiming that you aren't kingdavid246?
"He conceded, but yet, he wont change his website to show that one..."
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Yes, I'm KingDavid246 on YouTube, but JCM was wrong when he claimed that I conceded.
| When I talk about "the stories" in that quote, I'm talking about the pre-Christ |
There is a big difference between "the stories" and Pre-Christian mythology. |
"The stories" INCLUDE the pre-Christian mythology. For that matter, I can't find validation for most of the claims in post-Christian stories, either. I half-expect some mythicist to just make up a version of the Horus (or Mithra, Attis, etc.) story in which these details all happen and try to pass it off as the real deal, but, as far as I know, no one's even done THAT yet.
| Have you read all of the actual texts and inscriptions |
I've read all of the ones that mythicists have claimed hold the parallels, including the Book of the Dead, the Coffin Texts, and the Pyramid Texts. If you're saying that the parallels are in ANOTHER pre-Christian text, feel free to show me where in that text where they are. But at this point, I'm going to ask you to show me the specific passages instead of making me read the entire text myself. I'm well aware of the "go read it yourself" followed by "You couldn't find the evidence? Then you didn't read it right!" ploy, and I played along for a while, but I'm done now. Either present the passages where these things happen, or don't expect me (or anyone) to believe that the passages exist.
No, all that's happened is I've said something, then you've twisted my words, and then you used your twisting of my words to accuse me of lying. Quote me directly from where I've lied. |
Direct quote of you lying:
| So...you're quoting JCM claiming I conceded as evidence that I conceded? Why not just quote where I conceded? Maybe because we both know that I did no such thing. |
I quoted the whole conversation so people could see the context of the conversation. |
Yep, and nowhere in the conversation did I concede that the claim was true. I said it was "iffy". Big difference.
| You are "convinced" it is not in the books based on your own belief, not by factual information. Mythicists are parading it for the world to see, like I said, you can find thousands of books on this subject dating back to the 1st and 2nd centuries |
Saying there are books on the subject isn't the same as saying there is evidence for the claims. Heck, there are probably thousands of books claiming we have been visited by alien life forms, but I have yet to see any good evidence for these visitations.
| You might have been asking for the evidence for years but you don't accept the evidence that you claim to accept, for instance, you said that you accept top level scholars but when I gave you top level scholars, you said that it wasn't in the stories and claimed that they got their information from Massey. |
When did this happen? Which scholars are you talking about? If they're "top level" scholars (that is, they work for a university or publish their research in peer-reviewed journals), then I accept their words as evidence for the claims. I have always done so. Even IF they got their information from Massey (and I've never accused them of doing such), I would still accept it as evidence.
| Once people see that you are no different from the Holocaust Deniers and you move the goal posts continuously, they see, like I have seen, that you are in denial. |
I've never moved the goal posts. They're right where they've always been. The types of evidence that I'll accept is right there on my webpage for all to see (http://www.kingdavid8.com/Zeitgeist/Challenge.html ). The few times that evidence has been provided, I've accepted it and posted it to my website for all to see. The problem is that no one has been able to back up most of the claims using that type of evidence.
Reading the books is clearly a waste of time, since, if the Christ-mythers can't find the evidence in those books, it's pretty unlikely that I'll be able to. |
That is because you are a Christ Liar, and Christ Liars only see what they want to see that props up their faith. |
So you claim that I don't want to see the evidence, even though I'm offering $1000 for that evidence? You really believe that I don't want to see the evidence, even though I've been asking mythicists to provide the evidence for YEARS? Do you really believe the things that you are writing? Because I doubt anyone else here does.
I don't know if I told you about the conversation I had with the Christ Liar or not, but I told him that I was looking for historical proof of Jesus and he said it was in Josephus and other historical writers, then I looked all through them and there was a brief mention of Christians but none of the historians claimed to know Jesus. So I asked him why he told me to read Josephus and the other historians to find proof of Jesus when none of them claimed to have met him, and he said that I just needed to go on "faith"....was that you kingdavid? |
No, I never claimed that the historians personally met Jesus, or that you just needed to go on "faith". Multiple historians talking about a person having existed in recent history is evidence for that person having existed in recent history. We don't dismiss what a historian writes just because he wasn't physically present when the events happened. If we did, we'd be dismissing the vast majority of ancient history.
| Personally, I expect those who are trying to convince me that certain claims are true to present the evidence for them, not to tell me to go look for them elsewhere. That way, no one's time is being wasted. |
If everyone did this same thing with the bible, there would have been a lot less Christians. |
We have the stories where Jesus did those things that Christians claim. Some find the stories convincing, and some don't. But we don't have the stories where Horus, Mithra, Attis, etc. did those things that mythicists claim.
| People that think that Jesus was a myth, wrote books for people to read them. But of course, people like you, won't bother reading them because they, like you, are convinced that there is nothing in them based on their faith and not facts. |
Again, if there was, mythicists wouldn't have such a hard time finding the evidence for their claims.
I know. I didn't say it was. Are you twisting my words again?
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No, are you twisting my words again? Oh wait, you quote me and it says specifically that they look at the evidence. |
Skeptics don't just "look at the evidence", but approach the claims skeptically. That's why it's called "skepticism".
| If they did not doubt them to be true, they would have believed it without evidence. The fact that they searched for the evidence, is proof enough they did not believe it in the first place. |
Huh? So do you also believe that all of those conspiracy theorists who go around looking for evidence that G.W. Bush was behind 9/11 or that the C.I.A. assassinated Kennedy or that NASA faked the moon landing...don't believe that those conspiracies are true? People who look for evidence to back up their theories generally believe that those theories are true. Saying "they searched for the evidence" doesn't, in any way, prove that they didn't believe the claims at first.
| The difference between you and a skeptic is that you deny the evidence or claim some conspiracy theory that all Egyptologists are repeating claims after seeing it while they do not. |
First, I don't "deny the evidence", since I have yet to see the evidence for most of the claims in the first place. Second, I don't claim that all Egyptologists are repeating the claims, either. Most Egyptologists ignore this nonsense.
Here is a list of roughly 400 well-known Egyptologists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_egyptologists
I'm sure that very few of the egyptologists on this list believe in most of the Horus claims, much less repeat them. I'd be surprised if even a dozen of them do so.
| All I have seen you do is deny the evidence when it was given to you or claim that Egyptologists are just repeating claims from Gerald Massey even though you have shown no evidence that they did. The proof of this is when you conceded to Isis being a virgin, then coming here and claiming that you didn't, |
Once again, I never conceded to Isis being a virgin. I said the evidence was "iffy". JCM claimed I conceded, but he was wrong. Understand?
| so I say I have evidence to prove it, so you say to bring it on, so I do, then you attempt to say that I am quoting Jcm, instead of you. |
Ummm...you were. The only part of that conversation that said anything about me "conceding" was when JCM accused me of doing so. What part of the things I said do you take as me conceding that the claim is true?
| You claiming that I quoted JCM and not you to prove it, is a lie, you know that is a lie, and the reason that you lie is because you are in denial. |
Wow. So you quoted that whole bit, but never actually read it? At no point in there did I concede that Isis was a virgin, so I don't know why you're calling me a liar when I say I didn't. Are you so desperate to believe that I'm a liar that you'll purposely misread what you posted, and even when it's pointed out that you misread it, still insist that it says what you claim?
| By the way, are you going to give evidence that the Egyptologists just go around repeating Massey? |
I never said that the Egyptologists just go around repeating Massey. That's you twisting my words again, and I'm getting tired of you doing so. Do it again, and I'm done talking to you on this thread. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2011 : 21:11:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by teched246
| Okay, then. Preemptively aborting anyone who wouldn't makes the choice essentially meaningless. Preemptively aborting anyone who chooses "wrong" does ultimately affect freewill. |
It wouldn't be meaningless, because those who would make the "good choices" would still be making a choice (to reject the alternative and do right by god), while those who would've chosen the alternative would've never existed to begin with it. You cannot affect the freewill of someone who doesn't exist. |
But you affect free will overall by preventing the existence of those who make the other choice.
| I know a lot of unrepentent sinners, and don't see how their continuing existence shows a lack of judgment on God's part. |
If he had a purpose in mind, and at the same time created people (unrepentant sinners) who he was sure wasn't going to fulfill those purposes in their own freewill, then we have a contradiction of either his omniscience or his purpose. Pick one. |
Again, you're assuming that the purpose has to do with how it all turns out at the very end. I don't agree with that assumption.
| If the founding fathers created laws against saying certain things and, at the same time, told you that you were free to say what you want, then they would be complicit in any violation of those laws. |
Wait, what? How could there be laws against saying certain things while anyone is free to say what they want?
| The founding fathers aren't complicit in the violation of any laws, given that "freedom of speech", itself, means that, there aren't any laws against speech to be broken. |
There doesn't have to be. I'm simply saying that the founding fathers gave us rights, knowing that they would be used in ways they wouldn't approve of. Does that make them complicit in the "misuse" of freedom of speech? Hard to say, but they're certainly more complicit than they would have been had they made penalties for the "misuse".
| Their (the founding fathers) own personal disagreement with what people will say in their own freedom is irrelevant as long as YOU are making the analogy between fault in the legal context and fault in the divine context. |
I'm not making such an analogy, though. I'm simply discussing whether giving someone certain rights equals being complicit in the situations where those rights are used in a way their "author" wouldn't approve of.
| If it's certainty, then it's not hope. Hope involved uncertainty. |
Exactly. So when god was creating unrepentant sinners, he didn't have any hopes that they would choose to do right by him, and thus did not create them with a purpose. |
Unless His purpose was about something different than whether they would do right by Him.
| I don't believe that hell is a place of endless physical torture. In fact, I don't believe that "time" as we know it, or "physical" as we know it, exists outside of our reality. |
Matthew 25:46 "And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” |
And "eternal" isn't necessarily and endless amount of time, and "punishment" isn't necessarily about physical torture. I believe that God exists outside of time as we know it (since He created it).
| Daniel 12:2 "Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake – some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence." |
Something that exists outside of time as we know it (as God does) could certainly be described as "everlasting".
| And, again, I don't believe that "that lot" (unrepentant sinners)is worthless. |
Right, they'll be filling vacancies in hell... wouldn't want them to go to waste. |
Again, you seem to think it's all about where everyone winds up at the end. I don't.
| Only if we're assuming that the "purpose" is just about what the end results will be, and has nothing to do with the process that gets us there. An unrepentant sinner may not get to Heaven, but I'm not assuming that God's purpose is all about getting X-number of people into Heaven. I think His plan is much, much bigger than that and involves all of us here, even those who won't get to Heaven in the end. |
According to christian theology our purpose is to choose to do right by god in our own freewill. |
Our purpose? The purpose of the saved and the unsaved both? Even if so, we're talking about God's purpose, aren't we? Not ours.
Now that we have clarification on purpose allow me to reiterate that, "once we throw the element of purpose in the mix something's gotta give. You can't say that a creator was omniscient and yet had hopes (a purpose) in mind for unrepenting sinners. We either throw out omniscience, or the idea that god had hopes (a purpose) for the undesirable half of creation, OR the idea that he had good intentions for this group."
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Or you could be completely wrong about what you think God's purpose is. |
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KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2011 : 22:02:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
No, the programmer having choices to make and being omniscient regarding the consequences of those choices gives the programmer complete control of the output of his software, |
Complete control? Actually, he wouldn't. You agree that there is a finite number of possible TRN generators, correct? Let's simplify it, and say that there are four that he can choose from, and that they only give 1 or 2-digit numbers. Let's say that the first five TRN's from each generator are thus:
Generator A) 7, 84, 29, 63, 48
Generator B) 83, 20, 36, 92, 33
Generator C) 30, 28, 92, 5, 24
Generator D) 27, 39, 63, 22, 4
Let's say he picks Generator C because he likes that it begins with the number 30. If so, he's stuck with numbers 2-5 being "28, 92, 5 and 24" and numbers 6+ being whatever comes after. If he wants TRN#1 to be "30" and TRN#2 to be "84", he's out of luck. He can have one or the other, but not both. And if he desires TRN#1 to be "99", he doesn't have that option in the first place. Whichever generator he picks, for whatever reason, he's completely bound by the output that this particular generator produces, no matter what reason he had for picking it in the first place. Now, if the number of generators was infinite, then he could just pick the one generator which gives the exact output he desires. But it's practically impossible that, with finite generators, he can pick one giving the exact output he desires. The best he can do is pick the one that comes closest to what He wants, but he still can't control every single number.
Obviously, "finite" doesn't mean "only four". There could be thousands or millions or billions of them. But if we're producing a long-enough string of TRN's (and we're dealing with numbers that go way more than 1 or 2 digits), our omniscient, omnipotent programmer is eventually going to have accept numbers he didn't desire and can't control.
You're assuming he's specifically writing code in order to produce a desired output. |
No, that's not an assumption, it's a consequence of omniscience. |
No, it's not a consequence of omniscience that he's specifically writing code in order to produce a desired output. If he's trying to create a TRN generator, then I'd say it's unlikely that he's desiring a program that creates a specific string of numbers that he has in mind. If he did, wouldn't he create a program that automatically spits out that specific string of numbers instead of a string of TRN's?
| So let's keep it even simpler and assume he's not trying to achieve a specific output, but wants the results of the 3-coin toss to be truly outside of his control... |
He cannot achieve that goal, because he necessarily has complete control. He knows that if he writes the code one way, it will produce TTH. If he writes it another way, it'll produce HTH. If he writes it still another way, it'll produce TTT. And so on and so on. |
Only if the number of possible generators makes any result possible. You agree that the number of generators is finite, so no matter which generator he picks, it's going to end up producing results that he can't control. If he has, say, 100 possible generators and only three coin flips, then it's safe to say that he can get "TTH", "HTH" or "TTT", whichever he wants. But if we're looking at a string of 100,000 coin flips with those 100 generators, then there's pretty much no way he can get the result that he's specifically desiring (if he is doing so).
| Let's assume randomness, please. |
Again, you are massively abusing the word "assume." That the output determines the code was the conclusion of an argument, not a premise of one. |
But as I pointed out, it's a conclusion that's based on an assumption of non-randomness. If we assume that the truly-random "87" would be the first number to come up no matter HOW he wrote the code (which I think is a reasonable assumption for our purposes), then the output wouldn't determine the code any more than the code would determine the output. The output would be what it is no matter what the code is.
| Complaining that it's an assumption (when it clearly isn't) is to utterly fail to engage with the argument itself, instead hand-waving it away with ridiculous dictionary revisionism. |
I'm not saying that "output determines the code" was an assumption, just that it was based on one, the assumption that the specific numbers that come up are caused by how he writes the code. If it's a TRN generator, it won't be.
| Or if you'd rather not assume randomness, say so, and we'll end the discussion here. |
Again, the order in which the premises are examined is irrelevant, if they are contradictory one way, then they're contradictory the other way, too.
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But we never showed that they were contradictory one way. We came to an impasse, so I thought we'd try it another way. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2011 : 02:55:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by teched246
| Okay, then. Preemptively aborting anyone who wouldn't makes the choice essentially meaningless. Preemptively aborting anyone who chooses "wrong" does ultimately affect freewill. |
It wouldn't be meaningless, because those who would make the "good choices" would still be making a choice (to reject the alternative and do right by god), while those who would've chosen the alternative would've never existed to begin with it. You cannot affect the freewill of someone who doesn't exist. |
But you affect free will overall by preventing the existence of those who make the other choice. |
I thought we already came to the conclusion that you thought a little tampering with free will wasn't such a big deal? Whereever you draw the line between a little benign limitation on free will be arbitrary, so where do you draw the line, and what criteria do you use?
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2011 : 07:23:43 [Permalink]
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| No. Like I said, he was the apparently source for only SOME of the claims, and who knows if he used an earlier source that we don't know about? I'm not really interested in who came up with the claims originally, but just in whether they can actually be shown to be pre-Christian. Most of them cannot. |
Wow, you changed that up fast, first your claim was that the fringe Egyptologists were repeating claims, to repeating Massey, but when asked for proof of that, you change it to "apparently source" But apparently is not evidence or proof, so you need to show some evidence of your claim. This is the 4-5 time I have asked now. Surely you have proof of your claim or are you stalling.
Proof of what? Once again, you seem to be twisting my words and then expecting me to back up what you're merely accusing me of saying. I never said that the egyptologists are just "repeating Massey" any more than I said that they're just "repeating Zeitgeist". Yet you've asked me to prove both. This is getting beyond ridiculous.
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Really? So you are denying this in the thread where you did this? Are you daft?
| So...you're quoting JCM claiming I conceded as evidence that I conceded? Why not just quote where I conceded? Maybe because we both know that I did no such thing. |
Are you claiming that you aren't kingdavid246 again?
This quote is you answering me, not JCM, had you actually read it, you would see that, you even quoted me to answer me. Why would you change it and tell us that you changed it, if you did not concede? Are you a liar?
The quotes are you quoting me, then you replied to me.
"He conceded, but yet, he wont change his website to show that one..."
I did change it, and already told you that. It's changed on the two pages that deal with this claim:
kingdavid8(dot)com(slash)Copycat(slash)JesusHorus(dot)html
kingdavid8(dot)com(slash)Zeitgeist(slash)Home(dot)html
kingdavid246 1 month"
"The stories" INCLUDE the pre-Christian mythology. For that matter, I can't find validation for most of the claims in post-Christian stories, either. I half-expect some mythicist to just make up a version of the Horus (or Mithra, Attis, etc.) story in which these details all happen and try to pass it off as the real deal, but, as far as I know, no one's even done THAT yet. |
This doesn't even make sense. Do you understand that the majority of the Pre-Christian mythology is in many different languages? The majority of the people do not read everything from Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, hieroglyphs and the many other languages. This is why we have to rely on the Professors of those various languages to explain to us what they are saying and what they mean. Apparently, you think that those Professors aren't telling the truth, they are the fringe professors or bad ones.
I've read all of the ones that mythicists have claimed hold the parallels, including the Book of the Dead, the Coffin Texts, and the Pyramid Texts. If you're saying that the parallels are in ANOTHER pre-Christian text, feel free to show me where in that text where they are. But at this point, I'm going to ask you to show me the specific passages instead of making me read the entire text myself. I'm well aware of the "go read it yourself" followed by "You couldn't find the evidence? Then you didn't read it right!" ploy, and I played along for a while, but I'm done now. Either present the passages where these things happen, or don't expect me (or anyone) to believe that the passages exist. |
That is just covering the Horus-Jesus claim and no, there are papyrus's and Stele's that cover these claims too. The only reason that you cannot "find" what you are looking for isn't because you aren't reading it right, it is because you special plead and think that ritual washing isn't the same as baptism and so on. I have seen that ploy many times too: from you. No matter what you think, Christians do not own words and ritual washing for purification is the same as baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Remember when we went over the trinity 100 times? That too, was special pleading.
| Yep, and nowhere in the conversation did I concede that the claim was true. I said it was "iffy". Big difference. |
You are lying again, I quoted you. I quoted the whole conversation so everyone could see what you replied to. If you didn't concede, you would have said that you did not concede, instead you said that you changed it.
The big difference is the fact that you are trying to say that I quoted JCM to prove that you conceded and I didn't, JCM asked me if you conceded and I said that you did because you said that you accepted the information that I gave you and I said that I bet you wouldn't change the information on your website and that is where you came in and said that you did change the information on your website, the whole reason why you conceded was because of the reference that I used specifically said that Isis did not have sex.
This one:
*Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible DDD By K. van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter Willem van der Horst; Page 891
"In Egypt the epithets 'dd.t, rnn.t and hwn.t, 'girl; young woman; virgin', are applied to many goddesses — eg-* Hathor and
;Isis — who had not yet had sexual intercourse."
Pieter Willem van der Horst is a scholar and university professor emeritus specializing in New Testament studies
Bob Becking
Professor for Old Testament Study, Utrecht University
Faculty of Theology
Karel van der Toorn is a Dutch scholar of ancient religions.
Now, we will prove it right here...are these scholars just repeating the claims that Massey or anyone else said or did they get this information directly from the epithets?
Will you move the goal posts again or will you concede the point?
| Saying there are books on the subject isn't the same as saying there is evidence for the claims. Heck, there are probably thousands of books claiming we have been visited by alien life forms, but I have yet to see any good evidence for these visitations. |
So a top level scholar writes a book and you wont read it because you are convinced that there is nothing in it and you compare that to alien visitation books?
| When did this happen? Which scholars are you talking about? If they're "top level" scholars (that is, they work for a university or publish their research in peer-reviewed journals), then I accept their words as evidence for the claims. I have always done so. Even IF they got their information from Massey (and I've never accused them of doing such), I would still accept it as evidence. |
But yet, we have seen that you don't accept them, because the information I gave you for the Isis virginity was from top level scholars but instead of accepting it for the claims, you just say that scholars say it, like you did on your website because above is the exact quote that I gave you before.
I've never moved the goal posts. They're right where they've always been. The types of evidence that I'll accept is right there on my webpage for all to see (http://www.kingdavid8.com/Zeitgeist/Challenge.html ). The few times that evidence has been provided, I've accepted it and posted it to my website for all to see. The problem is that no one has been able to back up most of the claims using that type of evidence. |
I just proved that you move the goal posts. You said that you accept top level scholars, I gave you top level scholars to prove that Isis was a virgin and you say on your website that scholars say that Isis is a virgin, but you do not say that the claim is satisfied, or take it off of your page, you just say that it isn't in the stories, but I have given you the Pre-Christian evidence to back up their claim too, and you didn't accept that either.
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Volume 2 By G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren Page 338-339
"In a text in the Abydos Temple of Seti !, Isis herself declares: "I am the great virgin"
"Botterweck studied philosophy , Catholic theology and oriental studies in Frankfurt and Vienna . In 1944 he received his doctorate in Vienna, Dr. phil. and was ordained a priest in the same year."
So you claim that I don't want to see the evidence, even though I'm offering $1000 for that evidence? You really believe that I don't want to see the evidence, even though I've been asking mythicists to provide the evidence for YEARS? Do you really believe the things that you are writing? Because I doubt anyone else here does. |
Yep, that is exactly what I am claiming, because if you are moving the goal posts, if you wanted it, you wouldn't have to move the goal posts. The Holocaust Deniers say that they want to see the evidence too, and I think they are offering a reward for those that can give them that evidence. So are the people that say that the Piso family wrote the bible, remember me telling you to go do that challenge and what your reply was about them moving the goal posts?
No, I never claimed that the historians personally met Jesus, or that you just needed to go on "faith". Multiple historians talking about a person having existed in recent history is evidence for that person having existed in recent history. We don't dismiss what a historian writes just because he wasn't physically present when the events happened. If we did, we'd be dismissing the vast majority of ancient history. |
And I never said that you did claim that historians met Jesus but you did say that I needed to go on faith when I said that there was no proof that Mary was a virgin because I said that there was as much evidence of her being a virgin as we have for Isis.
Didn't you also claim that there was as much evidence for a historical Jesus as their was for a historical Caesar?
We have the stories where Jesus did those things that Christians claim. Some find the stories convincing, and some don't. But we don't have the stories where Horus, Mithra, Attis, etc. did those things that mythicists claim. |
You have stories all right, but you have no clue who wrote those stories or if they are true, but yet, you believe them.
Again, if there was, mythicists wouldn't have such a hard time finding the evidence for their claims. |
How can a person who feels there is no evidence that Jesus is real prove to a Christian who claims that he was real and "died for the sins of the world" when the Christian wont read the Pre-Christian mythology or believe the Professors who write about it or when that Christian moves the goal posts for the claims constantly?
You can't.
| From Changingmyself: If they did not doubt them to be true, they would have believed it without evidence. The fact that they searched for the evidence, is proof enough they did not believe it in the first place. |
| Huh? So do you also believe that all of those conspiracy theorists who go around looking for evidence that G.W. Bush was behind 9/11 or that the C.I.A. assassinated Kennedy or that NASA faked the moon landing...don't believe that those conspiracies are true? People who look for evidence to back up their theories generally believe that those theories are true. Saying "they searched for the evidence" doesn't, in any way, prove that they didn't believe the claims at first. |
Straw man again...I get so tired of this.
Yes, it is David, if you believe it outright, you wouldn't seek evidence for it, that is common sense. Apparently, you don't have any.
| First, I don't "deny the evidence", since I have yet to see the evidence for most of the claims in the first place. Second, I don't claim that all Egyptologists are repeating the claims, either. Most Egyptologists ignore this nonsense. |
Yes, you do deny the evidence, yes, you have seen it and denying that you have seen it proves that you deny the evidence too. Now you are claiming that "Most Egyptologists ignore this nonsense" please, be forthright with the evidence for that claim too.
Here is a list of roughly 400 well-known Egyptologists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_egyptologists
I'm sure that very few of the egyptologists on this list believe in most of the Horus claims, much less repeat them. I'd be surprised if even a dozen of them do so. |
WOW, so you have a list of Egyptologists and you know what they think just because you have a list of them? Please, back up your claim with evidence.
Once again, I never conceded to Isis being a virgin. I said the evidence was "iffy". JCM claimed I conceded, but he was wrong. Understand? |
Once again, I quoted you, and you claiming that I quoted JCM proves that you are a liar.
Ummm...you were. The only part of that conversation that said anything about me "conceding" was when JCM accused me of doing so. What part of the things I said do you take as me conceding that the claim is true? |
Wrong again.
Wow. So you quoted that whole bit, but never actually read it? At no point in there did I concede that Isis was a virgin, so I don't know why you're calling me a liar when I say I didn't. Are you so desperate to believe that I'm a liar that you'll purposely misread what you posted, and even when it's pointed out that you misread it, still insist that it says what you claim? |
You did purposefully misread what I quoted, because you don't even know who said what.
I never said that the Egyptologists just go around repeating Massey. That's you twisting my words again, and I'm getting tired of you doing so. Do it again, and I'm done talking to you on this thread.
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Posted - 06/29/2011 : 20:42:18
Originally posted by changingmyself
So far, you have said that Egyptologists go around repeating claims, but where did they get those claims to repeat if they didn't get them from Zeitgeist and haven't read them in the original hieroglyphs?
Kingdavid says:
From whoever made them up, of course. Many of them originated with Gerald Massey. I never said or suggested that Zeitgeist was the original source for these claims. It, also, was just repeating them.
No, it was someone else named Kingdavid, in this thread, on this board, at the top of this same page.
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"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
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| Edited by - changingmyself on 07/02/2011 10:43:49 |
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The Mythicist position
