This is exactly what an internet argument would look like IRL.

Yeah, any type of cherry picking in studies irks me badly. For instance, I recently got into an internet argument with one of the people who try to claim we didn't land on the moon.

They were using the results of a single study that tentatively said the Van Allen radiation outside of LEO possibly causes higher rates of cardio-vascular disease in astronauts. I then read the study and found out they picked 7 out of the 13 deceased astronauts vs a sample of 100 LEO astronauts, plus the general public's rates of CVD. That set off my alarm bells, so I then looked at the ages the people died at and their actual cause of death on the internet.

Three of the astronauts died at 56, 61, and 61. So basically about a decade early. The other 4 died in their 80's, basically a decade later than average. Out of those 4, they were suffering other conditions and illnesses that might have influenced the final cardiac failure. Sadly no one in the scientific community seems willing to challenge the study, so it stays valid, and the news media posted great big headlines about it when it came out.

Like I told the person I was arguing with, the median age of death of lunar astronauts is 87, even including the three that died early. Even if Van Allen radiation increases CVD likelihood, living to 80 something is pretty damn spectacular, so it really doesn't matter if you die from CVD, cancer, or a stroke.

I am open to rational answers, but not hokum. Using mythos to prove mythos is no answer.
I've said I'm not open to suspending rationality or sanity, you say that means I won't listen to you....um.....

The entirety of Christianity hinges on one thing; the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is a historical event and can be investigated that way. Jesus Christ is a real person who lived 2000 years ago in Israel. This isn't mythos and there is good evidence to believe it happened.

How do you know there's no FSM? I've seen exponentially more evidence of his existence than Yahweh's. I've eaten pasta. I absolutely believe in it more than Yahweh, but that's not a high bar.
Edit: How do you know there's no Allah? Odin? Zeus? Mythra? Mot? Cthulhu?

We both know that the fsm is a joke religion invented to mock Christianity.

The scripture tells us that men have worshiped other gods for thousands of years, but that what they worship are demons. So I believe those beings exist, but they aren't what they claim to be. One of Satans primary tools to deceive mankind is false religion. He provides supernatural confirmation of these religions. There is a desire in mans heart to worship God, and it gets corrupted so that man is willing to worship just about anything. In western culture, men idolize money, materialism, carnal lusts, even themselves. Our idols are less obvious but they are still idols.

One more time, my questions were 1.why is God's word so easily misstated, misunderstood, misidentified, misused, confused, and used for evil and hate? (Edit: especially given that properly interpreting it is allegedly the only way to escape eternal torture, seems like a set up.)

Any truth is easily misstated, misunderstood, misidentified, misused, confused, and used for evil and hate. This isn't a phenomenon unique to the scriptures; this is the reality of living in a fallen world. Corrupt men distort truth for their own gain. Look at the political situation in our country; how is what politicians do different from what prosperity preachers do? It really isn't.

The fact is that the gospel is very simple to understand; even a child could understand it, and they do. Gods word is very clear about our need for salvation and how to obtain it. It's man who overcomplicates it, distorts it for gain, or deliberately conceals the truth. Trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and believe He was raised from the dead. You don't need to be a theologian to understand that.

2.why is disbelief apparently worse than murder, rape, and slavery and so not covered by Jesus's sin erasing sacrifice and the only sin that's totally unforgivable.

How did you come to the conclusion that Jesus didn't die for unbelief? We all have unbelief that needs forgiveness which we receive by repentance. His atonement is not automatically transferred to everyone; the condition of receiving forgiveness is to believe. If you don't believe you won't receive forgiveness because you failed to meet the condition, not because unbelief is worse than murder necessarily. Dying without forgiveness for your sin is the problem, not that it can't be forgiven, but it can't be forgiven without repentance. It's kind of like this:

Let's say you had cancer and the only cure was in Los Angeles. You had no way to get there but God sent you a car to get you to Los Angeles and get the cure. When it arrived you didn't believe it would take you there so you didn't get in. A short time later you died of cancer.

So what was the reason you died? It was your unbelief that stopped you receiving the cure, but it was your cancer that killed you. In the same way it is your unbelief that keeps you from coming to Jesus Christ for forgiveness, so you will die in your sin.

I am interested in and open to an actual answer to either or both if you have one. It won't make me believe, but it might help me understand those who do a little better.

I'm happy to answer your questions newtboy..I just didn't want it to turn into another internet argument. I appreciate your candor

@Engels You COULD NOT be more wrong about me. However, I so deeply love that image, I'm going to stick with it.

(I was fairly sure your comment wasn't directed at me, however it did LAND on me, because my monocle slipped there. Codswallop. Lovely lovely monocle-ish word that is still denigrating instead of descriptive. I prefer description when in monocle mode.)

And yeah. Internet arguments. I'm severely allergic to them now.

My original statement was not a call to action, rather a historical highlight of how we kaboshed the opportunity to correct a bad deed. Seeing as this statement has devolved into an internet argument (my least favorite online activity), I am going to refrain from participating altogether. It's been fun Videosift.

http://videosift.com/video/Why-Internet-Arguments-are-Useless

Let's try this. Explain to me how Sarkeesian ISN'T a con-artist.

I know you don't care. (even tho you keep responding) But.. humor me.

Seriously, the only reason this debate has gone this far is because you refuse to call a duck.. a duck.

This is a waste of time I'm sure, because you seem pretty tunnel visioned @shinyblurry, but you're not bringing a Christian voice or viewpoint, you're bringing YOUR Christian voice and viewpoint. It's not necessarily the voice or viewpoint of all Christians. You need to get over yourself and whatever delusion you have that you are Christ's representative here. There are a lot of atheists here. I'm not one of them. I'm also Christian (albeit a terrible one I suppose). There are other religious people on the Sift as well. Yet, somehow, I'm able to cope with reality and science etc and not feel like it's my mission to come in here and tell all the heathens the evil of their ways. Shit, I'm probably more a sinner than all of them. In any event, my point is, this is what you do all the time, every time. Every fucking comment. Give it a rest. This is why you're having a hard time here. For fucks sake, I like a pointless internet argument as much as anyone else but can't you take a little time and have some fun here once in awhile too? Or at least talk about something else.

Yet you keep responding. I must be pushing your buttons again ☺

If a guy like me on the Internet can make you angry so easily and make you lose your cool, I'm going go ahead and say you're not a cop, or a very bad one, or just a fucking desk jockey. In either case, the instant you try to bring your rl into an Internet argument, you've lost because you can't stand on your arguments merits and you try (and fail) to make appeals to your "authority"

Hell if you are a cop, you've threatened on sift lounge to smash my face in... So can I have your name and badge number so I can make some phone calls?

Didn't think so. So not only are you a violent cop, you're a coward

It's interesting that you called me a punk instead of a thug. Obviously you think I'm white then.

@VoodooV as much as you'd like to fantasize about me being hurt and crying in a corner, I assure I'm just pointing out that you're wasting time trying to troll me instead of arguing like someone with the least bit of intellectual honesty, so you'll hopefully realize it doesn't work.

I guess you didn't, and now you're just being juvenile, even quoting my entire post after I asked you not to. This begs the question, why haven't you insulted my mom yet? Seriously, it's the logical next step. Why can't you be honest about being a troll? I already have the thumbnail, is this the best you can do?

There are no rules for us talking, you can do whatever you want, really, just troll like you've been doing since all this started, I won't be impressed. You think debating requires enforceable rules? Rules that involve some kind of coercion, like a fine, maybe prison time? Is that why you've been acting like a brat, to illustrate the need for what... censorship?

As much as I'd like to see you booted from the videosift community, I can't pull any strings around here, but that wouldn't be coercion if I did, because no one has a right to post on videosift. Censorship, on the other hand, would involve sending a police officer to your house and arresting you for excessive trolling. Can you see the difference? Does that example help illustrate what "coercion" means?

When I say no one cares about this internet argument, I'm hoping you'll stop trying to impress the huge crowd you think is reading this BS you've been posting. You do realize your antics are useless on me, right?

What emotional content am I resorting to when I use the words "freedom" and "coercion"? I dare you to prove to me how I'm being emotional about them. Prove it. PROVE IT. lmao

My initial question didn't involve gun control at all, it was broader, I was asking, "won't people be less inclined to be responsible if they have less freedom?", it's about how having less freedom makes people tend not to be so responsible.

Over time, when we take people's freedoms away, they tend to be less responsible about the decisions we're not letting them make. There's no way they can learn about any different (good or bad) outcomes related to decisions they couldn't make, and they can't be held responsible for them either, so they can hardly become more responsible.

You keep avoiding this simple explanation and shouting about everything else. What are you so afraid of?

P.S.: if you want to admit to trolling me, just quote my entire post again. I dare you.

@VoodooV don't be flattered when I call you a bully, it means your posts are mostly attempts at intimidation, you trying hard to come out on top of an internet argument no one cares about. Calling me names only convinces me you understand your own beliefs so poorly that you resort to personal attacks as substitute for critical thinking.

The way you counterargue is mostly by taking whatever I write out of context and poking fun at it, calling me names, or pointing out something completely irrelevant as reason to invalidate it.

Like, "if you steal a gun,...", you intently misinterpret me, then, of course, flip the tables (why not?), and accuse me of "changing the argument". Here's the argument: demanding registration for voting is not an impediment to voting if it's required for the actual process. It's unlike gun control, imposing arbitrary rules to own a gun are far removed from the basic requirements of owning an actual gun.

Now, do I need to define "requirements", "arbitrary", "gun" with some kind of measurable unit before we continue? Are you going to resort to shifting focus to the loaded words I use, as excuse not to deal with the arguments they form?

This all started with a simple question, "won't people be less inclined to be responsible if they have less freedom?", and you did everything from claiming not to understand it, to insist that I "prove" that assertion, only to incessantly bicker at my naive attempts to indulge you.

I don't know what's more disappointing, that no one ever showed you what a productive debate looks like, or that you're trying so hard to avoid one. It's pointless.

No one likes to watch this, I'm sure you and I are the only people reading this far into our own posts. So stop with the chest-thumping, everybody left by now, and I'm not the least bit impressed. Also, stop quoting my entire posts, it's annoying.

So we can't criticise Islam unless we live under a theocratic regime that doesn't allow us to criticise Islam?

Let me very clear. I believe that the vast majority of muslims (any figure would be a guess, but I'll go with at least 90%) are decent people who, deep down, are probably kinda embarrassed at some of the bullshit inherent in their religion (much as the majority of catholics are truly disgusted at their churchs handling of child rape cases).

But that does not stop me from criticising the ideology within the religion. This is not some hypothetical internet argument; the WHO estimates that 140 million girls have their genitals mutilated annually, most in the name of Islam. (I'm not even going to start on the socially accepted genital mutilation of males).

Finally, I take issue with the term "islamophobia", not because it's an *irrational* fear, but because it's a *fear*. I am not afraid of Islam. I object to parts of it on moral grounds.

So yeah, call me an "internet atheist" if you want. Unless you have some evidence to back up your specious little rant, I'm not interested.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I have every right to express my views, and simply because you don't agree with them doesn't mean you have the right to censor me. This is quite plainly a fascist statement, where you are advocating that I be monitored so I am making the right kinds of comments that the most people agree with as being proper.
Your comment is also hypocritical as you were just recently having an indepth conversation with me on the nature of time and space. I didn't see your last reply there, otherwise I would have finished the conversation..however now I guess I shouldn't bother since you have me on ignore.
>> ^kceaton1:
The only problem I have with the trolling of shinyblurry, is that while I have him on ignore it doesn't resolve the issue. Everyone one else starts to participate in these religious flame wars, that are never informative , always the same in tone and nature, and always moronic. The thread turns into this wasteland of shinyblurry topics instead, with no way to sort it out except by reading a bit and moving on.
I can do this, no problem. But, I think we gain little from shinyblurry's contributions if they are one trick pony efforts alone and always on "convert" mode. I can't ignore everyone. Just look at this thread and the nature it took on. Half of it is for shinyblurry except for the top part.
I don't think we need a ban, but perhaps a censure/suspension to try to assuage shinyblurry's "one trick pony" attitude. Perhaps to learn to post in a normal sense than always trying to thread-jack with commentary I could pre-emptily write myself, most likely semi-verbatim (I hate to say, but the thread-jacking works well, and I think needs to be discussed). It may not bother some of you, but may of us are tired of the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
No the comments are not hurtful or an outrage. They are merely begin to reach off-topic, every-time, in the exact same fashion.
Sorry, @shinyblurry (don't respond to this as I don't read your stuff anymore, go ahead--if you feel you need to though), but you are an outright troll for this community. I've yet to had a reason to feel a need to upvote anything you've ever done. Even QM gets upvotes from me all the time as he doesn't have to rely on some sideshow to answer or post about in every video/post he does participate in.
For now I will just browse and scroll. Sooner or later I may just downvote any comment that is thread-jacking continuously that deals with this subject. Harsh, but it gets tiring. Especially, when we are talking about a plastic bracelet that does nothing.



Its impossible to win any kind of Internet argument/debate. Its impossible to have any sort of rational/logical discussion with a fanatic or member of the religious fringe. Basically, debating with this guy will only lead to a double loop of fruitlessness and inanity. Its tempting to engage people like this (which unfortunately I am doing right now) but all youre doing is "feeding the 'tards."

@hpqp

Thanks as always for taking the time to write a detailed response.

I'm sorry, but I won't respond to the comments made in your most recent post until you answer my question. It is the same question as it always has been:

Q: What do you and/or Harris hope to achieve with all this (by this I mean the talks, articles, heated Internet arguments, etc)?

I hate repeating myself too, but as I teacher I have learned that it is often necessary to do so--several times--before people actually hear what you are saying, whether it be giving instructions for a class activity or telling someone your opinion on the Internet. That's why I gave you the courtesy of re-writing my question above.

I would ask a little more courtesy, patience, and understanding of you as well. If you are serious about achieving you goal (whatever that may be--I don't mean that sarcastically, I really do look forward to reading about it) and convincing others of your cause, I think you'll find that you'll have to repeat yourself many, many times... and not get enraged when people don't understand what you are saying or agree with your conclusions (even when they do understand). They key is to say things in a way that the other person will understand the message. Clearly neither of us have been successful so far in doing this. And that is why I have been begging you to answer my question, because I feel it will really help me understand your/Harris's position.

Looking forward to your reply.

P.S. I didn't get any email notification of that last post... not sure why. That's why it took so long for me to reply.

>> ^blankfist:

There's someone wrong on the internet.


Please refer to #1 in this article:
http://www.cracked.com/funny-3809-internet-argument-techniques/

I believe you used a few others while in the throes of this awesome beatdown that you just took.

*edit* Thanks for the correction blankfist. See how easy it is to admit that you can be wrong? (Oh god, did I just use #1 as well? INCONCEIVABLE)