To the readers:Excellent learning points in this thread. Thanks in advance to BG and brv.
Balloon guy, on Monday, April 25th, 2011, 11:59 AM, said:
What is the likelihood that these 'problems' being answered will be accepted by the people who bring this up even thought they are told the truth?0%,
BG begins by implying that the points raised in the OP are actually not a problem. He even puts 'problems' in what I assume to be quotes. His refutation of these "problems"? Well, nobody would believe the refutations. He provides no counter-argument. Simply says "you wouldn't believe it." This is what I call hand waving. There is no content, no refutation, no engagement on the topic at hand. There is only, *waves hands* "you wouldn't even believe it if I provided you with a sound, well-evidenced refutation. So instead of giving this refutation, I'll say you wouldn't believe it and wave my hands."
Balloon guy, on Monday, April 25th, 2011, 11:59 AM, said:
even though their own insanity shows itself because they try to make two important points that cancel each other out.1. If the Bible is truly the Word of God then these problem have answers.2. Since the Bible was written by man, then the only conclusion we can derive is that complete and utter fools made the first drafts of these Gospels, and not one Christian for hundreds of years was smart enough to 'fix' these errors.
Next, he hilariously combines two fallacies together for an uber-fallacy. He creates a
False Dichotomy (a fallacy) and then places this fallacy within a
straw man (a fallacy). Awesome.
Balloon guy, on Monday, April 25th, 2011, 11:59 AM, said:
( which makes it extremely unlikely of being true since at the time probably 1 in a couple thousand people was capable of writing, which makes it almost a miracle that there were dozens of scholarly elites that conspired to invent the Gospels using hundreds of prophetic writings in the Jewish books for the sole purpose of ....(this is where it gets really tricky since ALLLLLLL those early church fathers died horrible deaths after living lives of poverty and persecution for what they knew to be a lie ) the sole purpose of fooling people for no outward gain)
Now he kind of makes an attempt to logically refute something. Unfortunately, he is attempting to refute his own false dichotomy that he propped up as a straw man. Sadly, even against his own straw man, his only points are:1. lol, there weren't that many people who wrote (implication: therefore it must be true).2. The people who wrote it were willing to die (implication: therefore it must be true). Putting aside that he provides no citation for these claims, even though citation would be needed to take his claims seriously - but even putting that important fact aside - notice how poor his argument is - even against his own straw man. Point 1 has literally no content. Simply bald assertion. Let's take a look at his implication in point 2:1. They were willing to die for their cause.2. Therefore their cause was true. This is embarrassingly stupid. Despite the desperate stupidity, it is an extremely common claim you'll hear when discussing a person's cult. How often this is used is another indicator of how poorly an irrational mind can operate while defending a magical belief. Even a child, thinking clearly, could formulate the equivalent of "uhm, radical Muslims blow themselves up for Islam. So you're saying Islam must be true. And we even know with relative certainty they are willing to die for their belief, since they are doing it today. We don't even have to trust the word of a collection of cobbled texts thousands of years old that claims they died for their belief."
Balloon guy, on Monday, April 25th, 2011, 11:59 AM, said:
So by rehashing the tired old arguments that have been trounced for centuries, you in fact reinforce the Gospels.
After making a stupid argument against his own straw man, he goes right back to the beginning. Waves his hands and makes a bald claim that the points have been "trounced for centuries". Pure, content-free, un-cited, un-evidenced assertion. Without even addressing the 'problems', he declares victory. Adorable.
Balloon guy, on Monday, April 25th, 2011, 11:59 AM, said:
No no. We should thank BG. We should thank him for providing another classic example of a type of
Gish Gallop.We can see how one can make a content-free argument, fallacy after fallacy... and the difficulty in having a discussion with such a person. It is time consuming and annoying to point out discrepancy, lies, bulls
hit and fallacy in arguments that are composed
exclusively of discrepancy, lies, bulls
hit and fallacy. This type of argument can be effective in debate because it is a rare person who is willing to address such prolific bulls
hit, and this gives the impression of potency to a casual observer. "Hmm, that other guy didn't even address most of his points, maybe some of them are true. Maybe he
can't address them." Another fine example of hand waving:
Balloon guy, on Monday, April 25th, 2011, 1:52 PM, said:
Case in point:If you are correct than how do you know A isn't the correct answer?You claim that you know that the original writings were 'anonymous'...how? You would need the originals to make this claim.You also claim that the originals were changed..how? See above.In fact you guys really just need them to be untrustworthy so you can therefore declare that they are not worthy to be trusted. But your own methods to cast doubt actually lend credit to two things: One you guys really don't know so you need to spread your bias thickly over the facts, and two you guys are afraid.Once you accept this specific question's answer as being correct: Please to return to the other questions and ask yourself how anyone would know what you are claiming. I mean you guys are claiming to 'know' what happened using books that were written anonymously hundreds of years later and changed many times, and yet you guys 'know' what actually happened with enough authority to declare the current Gospels as being incorrect.You guys must have 'another' source for your knowledge, I wish you guys would share it.
Parse this post for actual claims. Notice, again, he provides absolutely no citation, evidence, scholarship... nothing... for his implicit claim that the bible is inerrant or written by the named authors. There have been numerous references in multiple threads in this forum to scholarship and work in the area. You can, if you desire, find such scholarship yourself. Even if you pick up any number of
bibles today - I mean, in an actual
bible itself - right there in the notes or indexes are statements that "the actual author of x is unknown" time and time again.He says that his opponents are "afraid" and that one needs to "spread his bias thickly over the facts", waves his hands and, humorously, implicitly claims that "even you admit that nobody knows who wrote them: therefore who I say wrote them wrote them." lolGood stuff. Also notice how he once again doesn't address any of the "problems" - he waves his hands while shaking his head and mumbling about unrelated nonsense. This amounts to the entirety of his argument. Gish Galloping off into the sunset.
brvheart, on Monday, April 25th, 2011, 2:09 PM, said:
Randy: All of these "points" have easy answers, even though the site you copied them from says they are a "smoking gun".
LOLWithout the Gish Gallop, brv simply waves his hands.The points have "easy answers". This is his answer. He doesn't provide any "easy answers". It is enough, to his mind, to state that there are easy answers.Who knows what he means? Maybe he means a case of
Special Pleading (a fallacy you should well aquaint yourself with if you are to engage or observe a religous person in debate - it is a real go-to in defending a god): "Yahweh did it, therefore any inerrancy you see is not actually inerrant because Yahweh isn't bound by logic." In that case, he's right, it's easy indeed. Simply say "MagicWizard did it", problem solved.Or perhaps he is referring to apologetic maneuvering. If that is the case he is being dishonest. Apologetic rhetoric and bulls
hit takes work. Especially to have one's reworking and "interpretations" and selective metaphor find even minor consensus within even a singular denomination let alone amongst thousands. You talk to 10 different "bible believers" concerning a single biblical absurdity and you could receive 12 different apologetic answers, some mutually exclusive. Try it some time. It's fun. So one is left wondering what these "easy answers" are, since he does not provide them despite how easy they are. --------------------------------These two usually approach arguments concerning their beliefs with what is by far the most common methodology of magical believers. Hand-waving, fallacy and bald assertions.To their credit, they forgo another common meme, "pearl-clutching" (clutching one's pearl necklace to their chest with a gasp). They don't dismiss or avoid or attempt to refute arguments by "being offended".However, if you run across an irrational thinker who actually will address your arguments with apologetic wizardry, or history revision (for example: "America was founded as a christian nation", lol - or "a bunch of zombies came out of their graves and walked around major cities", lol)
and is willing to cite the references from which they gleaned this information, check their sources. Discover where they are getting their material and support, and evaluate the source within their particular field. Weigh it against the breadth, compositon, depth, and peer review of other scholaship in the field. Examine the standards of evidence utilized by the source.Proceed from there.
'"Luck" is people taking the laws of probability personally, it is the excitement of bad math.'
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