Repeatedly, I have demonstrated that I understand what Eric Hovind is trying to get at and repeatedly, I have explained that it is flawed because we are not guaranteed some sort of absolute certainty about life and indeed there is no indication of any such reality. That supposed need for certainty is foundational to your argument and it is entirely assumed. The second premise of your argument is flawed because despite your claims otherwise, it is rather easy to function within our limited scope of knowledge and certainty.

You haven't given any examples to the contrary, so in the eyes of everyone who does not defend their imaginary friend at all costs, you are shirking the burden of proof. I'm sorry, but you don't get to default to a universe in which we have absolute confidence in our knowledge. Especially because we so clearly do not have anything of the sort.

This is the extent to which you have addressed these concerns: "So, rather than acknowledge the obvious, which is that you need God to make any sense out of the world."

It is not obvious, it is not necessary, and I'm withholding judgement on the matter until you take the time to demonstrate why it must be so.

The question is, what ground do you have to make *any* knowledge claim? If you can't tell me even one thing you know for certain, then what do you actually know? As I gave in my example, if you asked someone what time it is and they said I think it's 3 pm, do they actually know it?

The point is that we do know things, and we operate in a world of certainty, but the only way to justify that knowledge is by pointing to God. You can't justify it by pointing to yourself.

I happily admit that there is a theoretical possibility that everything is a computer program designed to deceive me into believing a particular state of affairs, but as a sane person, I go about life assuming that my senses do a pretty good job of telling me about the world around me. If you have difficulty with this, you are deranged.

Do everyones senses work equally well? Is everyones reasoning equally valid? If you're satisfied with circular reasoning, ie, that your senses are valid because your senses tell you they're valid, then you should have no problem with the argument that God exists because He exists.

So outright, I reject the notion that there is any need for absolute certainty, much less that someone's imaginary friend they keep telling me about can provide it.

There is when making knowledge claims. Again, if you can't make any, what do you actually know?

Reality is invariably self consistent, the coincidence of that alone is enough to convince me to pay attention to people who do their darndest to understand it (reality) and do my darndest to understand it myself.

What's your theory about why it should it be "self-consistent", or comprehensible by human beings at all?

And no, even if there is some way to improve our current degree of certainty by the ten to the power of negative eighty two percent we lack to achieve absolute certainty, then you don't get to arbitrarily claim that God is that way because a book says he knows everything. And especially not if you had a personal revelation.

That isn't the argument. The argument is, there are only two routes to truth. One is that you're omnipotent. Two is revelation from an omnipotent being. Everyone else is living in a world of uncertainty and does not really know anything. The argument is, without God, you can't prove anything.

My buddy Shane told me yesterday that the buck stops with him, and he was simply born with complete omniscience. He knows absolutely everything. He's coming over to dinner tomorrow, if you stop by my place he can tell you about it too. It's crazy, some weird and rare genetic defect from what I understand. But I'll tell you, boy am I glad he has that defect because if he didn't, I'd only be about 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% sure that it's a bad idea to get shot in the head by an AK 47. I mean, you never know. There are times when I want to test those odds.

I'm sure you could name any number of situations where it seems very likely that you know something, but the question remains, how do you prove it? You don't have any proof for your claims no matter how obvious they may seem.

Whether or not we can know anything for certain to such an extreme is a functionally useless question to start with, I like to think of it as the Sudoku of philosophy - for some it is fun and maybe challenging to work through, it might even make someone feel vaguely intellectual when they're watching an action flick, but it is otherwise utterly pointless.

I happily admit that there is a theoretical possibility that everything is a computer program designed to deceive me into believing a particular state of affairs, but as a sane person, I go about life assuming that my senses do a pretty good job of telling me about the world around me. If you have difficulty with this, you are deranged.

So outright, I reject the notion that there is any need for absolute certainty, much less that someone's imaginary friend they keep telling me about can provide it.

Reality is invariably self consistent, the coincidence of that alone is enough to convince me to pay attention to people who do their darndest to understand it (reality) and do my darndest to understand it myself.

And no, even if there is some way to improve our current degree of certainty by the ten to the power of negative eighty two percent we lack to achieve absolute certainty, then you don't get to arbitrarily claim that God is that way because a book says he knows everything. And especially not if you had a personal revelation.

My buddy Shane told me yesterday that the buck stops with him, and he was simply born with complete omniscience. He knows absolutely everything. He's coming over to dinner tomorrow, if you stop by my place he can tell you about it too. It's crazy, some weird and rare genetic defect from what I understand. But I'll tell you, boy am I glad he has that defect because if he didn't, I'd only be about 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% sure that it's a bad idea to get shot in the head by an AK 47. I mean, you never know. There are times when I want to test those odds.

Hate breeding hate on both sides, and for what? Some so-called "sacred" land? If it weren't for the imaginary friends of the grownups these people could be living peacefully together in one country. Religion poisons everything.

Warning, extremly angry rant follows. this was my hometown and goddamnit I am fucking pissed off.

So yes, welcome to Ireland, where they actually tried to stop a raped teenager from leaving the country on the off chance that she might get an abortion! Google the "X Case"

Ireland, where haemophiliacs infected with aids from tainted blood weren't allowed have condoms so they could have sex with their own wives.

Where divorce was illegal until the mid 90's.

Seriously, as @hpqp said, fuck the Catholic Church. If you want to believe in an imaginary friend, fuck it, go nuts, but I cannot understand how anyone could continue to support such a morally bankrupt institution. The WBC are bad, but they're just fucking redneck idiots. The Catholic Church right now is being investigated in Australia. Not because they raped kids, but because they helped the rapist priests move to other parishes, dioceses, even other countries so they could keep being the evil fucks they are.

And I don't want to hear about missionaries or hospitals or whatever. It doesn't balance out. You can do good without the church.

@Yogi, you want to invade somewhere, bomb some white people?
Vatican City, bro. Nuke the fuckers

@shinyblurry Don't you understand that not everyone believes in your imaginary friend?

Biden never called Ryan a liar, I did. He corrected his lies.

Both campaigns have accused each other of lying and both have told lies. Biden lied many times in the debate; for instance he accused Ryan of putting two wars on a credit card, while asserting that he voted against them for the sake of fiscal responsibility. He made this a big moment in the debate, but it turns out it was a bald faced lie; in fact he voted for both wars. He lied on other topics and mischaracterized Governor Romneys position many times.

There is such a thing as demonstrably untrue things. I know you have a hard time understanding that, considering the delusions that you live under, but take it from me, there are facts, and unfacts. This isn't some magical bullshit that Biden was inspired to believe by his imaginary friend.

Your use of abusive ad hominems as a form of argumentation shows you don't understand simple logic. Yes, there are facts, such as that you have no evidence for your presupposition of atheistic naturalism.

There are things that Ryan said that have been repeatedly proven, by various parties, to be false. Biden was just the one dispute his lies on national television.

They're all liars and it's pretty shocking that you don't realize that.

>> ^KnivesOut:
stuff

Biden never called Ryan a liar, I did. He corrected his lies. There is such a thing as demonstrably untrue things. I know you have a hard time understanding that, considering the delusions that you live under, but take it from me, there are facts, and unfacts.

This isn't some magical bullshit that Biden was inspired to believe by his imaginary friend. There are things that Ryan said that have been repeatedly proven, by various parties, to be false. Biden was just the one dispute his lies on national television.>> ^shinyblurry:

One politician calling another a liar: hilarious.
>> ^KnivesOut:
To sum up:
Biden interrupts to correct lies: bad.
Romney interrupts to lie: good.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^deathcow:
Why does the universe exist and why did it develop in a fashion which encouraged life?

We don't know yet, and may never.
Why does that answer mean we need to say "Magic did it."?

Cause at least someone is trying to write a story. I've got no beef with religion and I would say I'm an atheist. However Richard Dawkins is a dick, even Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks so.
I've always found Dawkins to be a relatively mild and reasoned debater. He loses his cool sometimes, but I don't understand why people claim he's a "dick", unless calmly arguing away people's cherished belief in imaginary friends that provide easy answers to big questions makes you a dick. Neil deGrasse Tyson probably thinks Dawkins is a dick because Tyson is a pussy who feels the need to sugar-coat his science and his atheism to avoid offending people. And dicks, as we all know, fuck pussies.

>> ^bobknight33:

Unless you have young kids you have no room to talk. You don't have knowledge to make any judgement.
Parenting IS filtering out inappropriate material.
I'm talking when a 6 year old is clicking channels to get to his cartoon channel it at times comes across inappropriate material.
WRT to web serving same thing. The kid can be you You-tubing or sifting for kitty cat stuff and come across some wild stuff. Sure I don't want my 6 and 7 year seeing women and men rubbing up against each other or to watch some brutal gang violence event that some posted. What parent would? Some parents don't mind at all and that a darn shame. There are limits for kids and parenting filtering is a must.

I take responsibility for my kids upbringing. If other parents stepped up to the plate kids would have better moral compass.
When you have kids, revisit your post.
You don't seem to have high regard for the parenting skills from you mother. sorry to hear that.

>> ^VoodooV:
Instead of blaming television @bobknight33, the responsibility is still ultimately the parents. You don't have to be a parent to know that. Parents are not helpless to modern television. If you can't be bothered to educate your kids on the difference between made up television and reality, you don't get to blame television. My mom was a pretty horrible parent, but that is one of the first things I recall her ever teaching me. So since I'm actually armed with this thing called knowledge. I can watch any TV I wish and it's not damaging to me because IT'S NOT REAL!
It's the same thing with the teachers. Parents don't want to be the parents anymore, they want to be their pal. So when little billy doesn't do well on his test, who gets chewed out? Not little billy, that's for sure. Parents blame the teachers when they should be blaming themselves.
You can believe television and commercials are inappropriate all you want. Still doesn't absolve you from your responsibility. History has shown over and over again that when you try to hide shit from your kids, they always find it eventually. The more forcefully you dictate how bad something is, the more the kids want to do it just to spite you and rebel. So instead of trying to trick and coerce your kids into behaving, maybe you should actually try to educate them. If your "education" has any merit to it, then it will stick. Education beats coercion every time.
Parenting is not rocket science, it just takes effort, so you can get off your moral high horse. You've demonstrated time and time again you have no claim to any moral high ground, especially not any morality based off made up deities.



Once again, bob laughably attempts to claim moral superiority over everyone. Sorry, but you aren't magically granted wisdom the instant the kid pops out of the womb.

When you fail to educate your kids WHY things are inappropriate and just filter because "you said so" then you're not accomplishing anything. Authority without the actual facts to back it up fails EVERY time to kids with nothing better to do than to rebel. It's the hot stove analogy which you apparently failed to learn. Parents will tell you to not touch that hot stove. Kids disregard this and touch it anyway and are immediately introduced to the facts of WHY you shouldn't touch a hot stove and guess what..they never do it again.

If you told a kid to never touch a cold stove...because you said so. The kid eventually touches it and learns that nothing bad comes of it. Not only are they encouraged to rebel. Your authority is undermined and they learn that you're full of shit and continue to ignore you.

In other words, since bob probably hasn't been following. Moral authority means absolutely jack unless you have provable facts to back it up. When kids find out you're bullshitting them. Kids have this pesky thing called the ability to learn and the ability to detect bullshit. Telling them not to do something only because your imaginary friend up in the clouds told you so has a way of coming back to bite you in the ass when the imaginary friend in the clouds doesn't punish them because that imaginary friend doesn't exist.

Bob lives in the typical republican bubble where he deludes himself into believing he's the good parent and everyone else is lacking. What's it like being so self-centered bob?

And once again, Bob cherry picks what he wants to hear and disregards everything else. I praise my mom for teaching me that TV is make-believe and all bob chooses to hear is the negative part. You are utterly incapable of having a rational discussion bob. I've proven this time and time again. The sift is going to continue to beat you over the head with logic and rationality every time until hopefully you learn something.

The question is what the indies will do. I already know how this indie will vote..but I can only speak for myself.

I am getting sick of the paid personalities though...left and right. These so called discussions between "liberal" and "conservatives" on shows like this are about as genuine as Mitt's smile.

This election is already over though. Mitt simply cannot rally the conservative base because he prays to a different imaginary friend than his other Republican pals. Republicans and Democrats alike are calling for him to release his taxes.

Something tells me it doesn't matter either way. If he stands firm, he's sunk because he's hiding something. If he does release them, he's sunk for being a tax dodger.

They did make an excellent point though. Even if he did really leave Bain like he said in 1999. This notion that he ran things without outsourcing and they only started outsourcing the instant he left is a bit absurd.

Damn, I was hoping to be the first one to comment meaningfully about this subject: seems I came up short (zing!).

I am circumcised. My lady friend and I (who have been together more than five years) have discussed at length (oh! I'm too good) whether I would want a son of mine to be cut as well, so I have mulled this over quite a bit.

Being a nonsuperstitious man (read: nontheist), the only consideration on side of cutting my offspring is that moment in the shower when he is two years old and he asks, "Daddy, why are you different?" (Heading off those who do not yet have children in the close family, I should say that bathing at such a young age with the older crew is not uncommon no matter what your culture.) For a son to see that he is truly, physically different from his old man is probably quite a shock.

Here is the bottom line: I have ZERO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER telling my son that I was cut because of a superstition; that my penis looks the way it does because of a superstitious bond between my parents and their imaginary friend. I am in fact quite excited to tell my young man that there was a time when this kind of thing was necessary so that people could feel closer to whatever it was they thought made the universe. I am excited because it will engender in him the same cynicism that took me more than a decade to discover.

My own father was born and raised Catholic and went to Jesuit schools from pre-K to law school. As Jesus-loving and God-fearing as he was on the surface, he made sure to let me know the barbarism is barbarism. To imagine that genital mutilation is part of a legitimate religious commitment is so far out of whack with current legal and cultural norms. Fuck circumcision and all its superstitious implications.

I'm not a clinical psychologist, so I apologize if I offended any schizophrenics out there. Thanks for encouraging me to learn the difference between DID and schizophrenia.

http://www.christiansurvivors.com/didvsschizophrenia.html
>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^KnivesOut:
You guys trying to argue with the crazy person on his terms are so far down the rabbit hole... I'm sorry, but it's time to pull out.
It's like trying to lawyer a schizophrenic into a logical corner using the fragments of his psychosis as proofs. You can't trap him, because his magical imaginary friend will always provide an escape clause.
Just like in real life, best to not make eye contact and keep a steady pace as you walk on by.

What if you're interested in how schizophrenics think and experience the world? Should you refuse to speak to one or ask him/her questions just because his/her answers might be absurd?
ps. I think you've confused schizophrenia with DID.

>> ^KnivesOut:

You guys trying to argue with the crazy person on his terms are so far down the rabbit hole... I'm sorry, but it's time to pull out.
It's like trying to lawyer a schizophrenic into a logical corner using the fragments of his psychosis as proofs. You can't trap him, because his magical imaginary friend will always provide an escape clause.
Just like in real life, best to not make eye contact and keep a steady pace as you walk on by.


What if you're interested in how schizophrenics think and experience the world? Should you refuse to speak to one or ask him/her questions just because his/her answers might be absurd?

ps. I think you've confused schizophrenia with DID.