Somehow this ending with IT'S A TRAP made my day.

How can an adversarial question addressed to a group that does not have a right answer not be a trap?

Touche... Thanks Elem, I actually hadn't attached the word "trap" to what I was doing.

Yes then JonJon, you played right into my hands! bwahahaha!

"There's really no right answer here JonJon..."

Really, not a rhetorical trap?

Admiral Ackbar disagrees!

How can an adversarial question addressed to a group that does not have a right answer not be a trap?

Care to point out where I've been telling my story?

I don't believe you are reading the same thread... or the quotes you take from my posts.

I said "You want to tell your story" not "You have told your story"

I've played into your hands somehow?

I didn't say that, nor did I say anything about a trap. You reacted predictably.

I'm trying to summon up the mental fortitude to stop responding to this thread. I may eventually manage it...

I'm so terribly hurt that you want to leave. What will I ever do without someone who says exactly what I say as a retort, then changes the words of what I say so he can respond to them? Do come back sometime when you're capable of actually reading my posts, and responding to them, instead of the imaginary posts you think I made.

I'm trying to summon up the mental fortitude to stop responding to this thread. I may eventually manage it..

LOL. That just happened to me on another forum. Will save == FAIL

"There's really no right answer here JonJon. You responded how I would expect any christian to respond, and you did it beautifully."

I've played into your hands somehow? Fallen into your cunning trap of answering a question you didn't want me to answer? Does pointing out the fact that a slur on an entire ideological group does not make for a good argument somehow prove I'm just part of the hive mind? Maybe I'm too dense to pick up on your argument; this is a legit possibility. Let's assume this is true: please explain to me your line of thinking. I want to understand.

"You want to tell your story because you think you're the only one that got it right."

Maybe I'm not reading the same thread you're reading. Care to point out where I've been telling my story? I'd be interested in hearing my story.

I'm trying to summon up the mental fortitude to stop responding to this thread. I may eventually manage it...

You want to tell your story because you think you're the only one that got it right.

I somehow doubt that JonJon believes that he is the only one who "has it right", or only members of his denomination, or only people who share his particular theological sympathies.

There's really no right answer here JonJon. You responded how I would expect any christian to respond, and you did it beautifully. You want to tell your story because you think you're the only one that got it right. Everyone else might be a part of the hive mind, but you certainly are not.

"They don't have a hive mind, you know."

Sure we do. And its ok to address us "as a whole," because only the Collective will answer, not individual, specific people. Obviously!

PS: Nzo, while you seem to be lumping my claims in with the claims of the Collective, you haven't (that I know of) asked me about any of my claims. It's hard for me to take your objections seriously when you object to claims that I may or may not actually make. If you just want to say that you think all Christians are necessarily dishonest/condescending, then that's certainly your prerogative. I assumed you were asking a question and wanted some kind of answer. If your question was entirely rhetorical, then perhaps attempting to interact with it was foolish of me. Apologies.

PPS: Also, why on earth would I look down on someone for not being a "true Christian?"

PPPS: Also, I prefer to think of Christianity as Zerg...

Are you certain of this? I could have sworn I when Billy Graham was passing the plate around I heard, "We require more minerals".

I had no intention of addressing you, or any other christian on this site directly, but as a whole.

They don't have a hive mind, you know.

Atheists: why do you always generalize your claims to include all Christians?

Because I'm not asking each individual person what flavor of christ they choose to believe in, because I don't have the time, resources, or infinite patience it would take to listen to each one of you spout your B.S. beliefs. I'm asking all of you why you're dishonest when it comes to your religion.

Most of us don't even agree that all of us are real Christians.

I mentioned that... how very irritating that with the exact same book as your reference, every one of you thinks that most, if not all, other christians out there got it all wrong.

Even though (I hope) you try to avoid making completely unprovable and patently absurd claims in your normal, everyday lives, you wash your hands of that impulse as soon as its time to talk about religion.

Every supernatural claim a christian makes about the religion is "completely unprovable and patently absurd", but when I say something that hurts your feelings, you try and turn it around like I'm the only one being unreasonable. You even proved one of my assertions above by saying the exact same thing I did, which is more than you can say for any of your claims.

...I wince because I anticipate some sort of condescending statement that lumps different people with different beliefs...

I wince when a christian starts talking about religion because it is always condescending to those around him/her. It lumps everyone that doesn't believe exactly what is being proclaimed into a group meant to be looked down upon.

...avoid dealing with them as actual people

Two things, one, I had no intention of addressing you, or any other christian on this site directly, but as a whole. Two, you all wind up saying basically the same things as the others you look down upon that obviously aren't "true christians".

It's irritating, dishonest, and stupid, all on a colossal scale.

<sarcasm>

@DDM: Being a minority (Christians in the U.S.) they're just YELLING to be heard!! ;)

</sarcasm>

Is capitalizing RANDOM words STYLISTIC? Because a lot of CHRISTIANS do that, you KNOW.

To me, "supernatural" is just a categorically lazy way of saying "anomalous". And we believe in, and make use of, all sorts of anomalies. In science, anomalies spur a search for better theories and better explanations that can account for the anomaly, but that is not generally true in most other areas. Capitalization is an important parsing feature of written English, and e.e. cummings is an anomaly in that sense. Does the anomaly require an explanation, or is it simply a stylistic oddity taken in stride?

Now, when it comes to anomalies being forwarded *as* explanations or answers to inquiries, that's the real problem with the religious approach, and one that causes all the friction with science and philosophy. It is *not lazy*, necessarily, to say "Jesus is an anomaly". It *is* lazy to answer a question about life, the universe, and everything, with some form of "...because Jesus is an anomaly".

You won't change my mind on that. Supernaturalism lives in the same space (to me) as healing crystals and homeopathy. It's something that requires belief without evidence, and then goes on to build enormous and complex structures on top of that non-existent foundation.

The only way (in my opinion) that it isn't intellectually dishonest is if you grant every claim the same exemption from empiricism that supernatural claims receive. In my experience, no one actually does that.

But, as I've stated previously, EVERYONE is intellectual dishonest about something. Everyone. Anyone who claims they aren't is being dishonest about their honesty.

I know, I went with the supernatural Jesus claim. It works better with what I was trying to say anyways. Perhaps I dwelt a little too much on the OP. Frankly, I don't care as much about the tendency to over-generalize. I like to jump in when people do it, because its a problem, but saying that one can't believe in a supernatural world while maintaining intellectual honesty makes me grumpy. (Yes, this means sometimes you make me grumpy...)

I was only talking about the supernatural Jesus claim. Nzo used a far broader brush, and I am not arguing in favor of that.

But Kodie, you've just explained why it's important to consider each person individually and give careful attention to the context of interpersonal activity. That's all I'm saying: it isn't appropriate to cast an entire group in perfectly equal moral fault, because people are so much more complicated than that. Not only are people complicated and individual, but as you point out, any person looking at someone else and trying to be "objective" is probably still filtering things through their own prejudices or preferences.

I don't agree that the topic here is faith, at least not from the way I read the OP. I'm pretty sure the topic is dishonesty on the part of a specific ideological group. That's a perfectly valid topic to think about. I've even mentioned in another discussion that I think many Christians are intellectually dishonest to some degree. However, I don't like Nzo's argument because it isn't a good argument; casting the entirety of the opposed side as stupid, deluded, dishonest, or what have you, is not a good argument. Being frustrated (and I get that religion frustrates people, believe me) might make me forgive a bad argument, but it doesn't turn a bad argument into a good one.

Ty, I figure that's a workable definition of "Christian" although some people would probably disagree with me. I would suggest that this claim is not strongly verified by empirical evidence. Historically, there have been two camps within Christianity: those who think there is strong verification (for this and other claims) available from empirical evidence, and those who think such verification is not only unavailable, but destructive to Christianity when it is present.

If I professed to be an empiricist, I would (in order to remain intellectually honest) need to spend a great deal of time and effort dealing with the fact that empirical verification of Christ's supposed supernatural nature doesn't seem forthcoming. Perhaps I would arrive at the idea that empiricism isn't sufficient to find such verification (since empiricism doesn't admit of a supernatural world on any terms whatsoever.) Perhaps I would begin to have doubts about the existence of the supernatural at all. Perhaps I would deconvert entirely, or perhaps not.

I don't think that fact agrees with Nzo's point, which is if I'm reading correctly, that "Every single ounce of your beliefs is intellectually dishonest. Every single claim you've made has either never been proved, or has been disproved time and again. Every single time you utter something about your religion, you are LYING." Disregarding impolitic language, I just don't think this is at all a workable position. What Nzo is saying is that when my beliefs (or anyone's) don't mesh with the "science and logic" that everyone uses in their daily lives, my beliefs are wrong, stupid, condescending, and/or dishonest.

The thing is (again, leaving aside provocative language, which I don't really care about,) what Nzo is effectively saying is that anytime someone's beliefs don't sync up with *his own personal beliefs about the way the world works, and the best way to understand that world* then their position is dishonest. His position assumes that everyone sees things the way he does, it assumes that his position is right *a priori,* and it assumes that it is impossible to honestly enjoy the productive aspects of a scientific industrial establishment while believing that their might be a non-materialistic component of the universe.

This is the way I read the OP. I could be wrong. But if this *is* what the OP says and means, then I firmly do not agree with it, and I think I'm right to do so. Then again, I'm always willing to talk about why I might be wrong. ;D

At minimum, would you agree that all Christians believe there was something supernaturally special about Jesus?

A belief which is not supported by any available evidence other than a couple two thousand year old writings.

Regardless of sectarian differences, this seems to be a central fact, and I think one that agrees with Nzo's point. A point which was made in an. . . impolitic way.

However, I agree that talking about specific doctrinal points (like belief in a literal flood) and then painting all Christians with that brush doesn't work.

Can you understand where the impatience comes from? I mean, JonJon, can you understand where Nzo says "puff yourselves up to look down your nose at everyone that doesn't believe EXACTLY what you do about your god, even going so far as to call others like you "not real christians"," and then you come back with "Most of us don't even agree that all of us are real Christians," how that is so very frustrating.

The topic is faith. You can say I'm intellectually dishonest about a few things, but it's not a consistent "atheist" thing. I don't know about everything, I was a terrible student and my grasp of science isn't the best, I don't know if it's dishonest to explain how something works that I have wrong. I will make something up - leaves fall off of trees because in winter, trees make leaves that go on the inside of the bark to keep warm. I saw a hole in a tree once, and there were little leaves growing inside it, is how I discovered this and came to my conclusion. I'm not dishonest about this, I just see it this way, but if you told me how trees and leaves and seasons actually worked, I would not still insist that I was correct.

Does my personality have flaws? On the topic of my personal dishonesty and how it's hard to tell: I get conflicting messages about that, so how do I figure it out? Some people say "be yourself," some people say I'm messed up, lazy, a little too jaded, too intellectual and also not intellectual enough, whatever. Some people love me just the way I am, if I am self-critical, they will tell me I'm being too hard on myself. Who is right, my favorite answer, the ones who tell me I'm ok, or the ones who tell me I'm not ok, or myself? I've been accused of being not the least bit curious by several people for not knowing A or B, when we don't talk about things I have been curious and know a lot more about - who is being dishonest? Accused of not being curious at all is pretty harsh. Even with A or B, I can be not curious, that just means I'm not curious about A or B that the person wants to talk about. It is hard to tell if anyone has an objective observation about me, myself included, because they are using what they think of themselves to compare to me, which is how I can be both too intellectual and not intellectual enough. It depends on the company, and who likes to tell me I'm dull, right to my face, as an expression of their own lack of grasp or interest in smarter topics - rather than say, gee you're so smart (to them); likewise, much smarter people will realize how far behind I am, and embarrass me. I tend to side with the latter. I'm not as intellectual as I'd like to be, but see: lazy. I can't pretend I'm smarter than I actually am, but some people do just that.

But the topic is faith. And how do you define a real Christian, because I don't believe there's a real Christ or a singular valid interpretation of the bible if you intend to follow it. Some of it is nicer than other parts, it makes you a nicer person to talk to, but that doesn't make it realer.

Atheists: why do you always generalize your claims to include all Christians? Most of us don't even agree that all of us are real Christians. Even though (I hope) you try to avoid making completely unprovable and patently absurd claims in your normal, everyday lives, you wash your hands of that impulse as soon as its time to talk about religion. Every single time you mention something about "every single time," "every single claim," or even "Christians" considered generally, I wince because I anticipate some sort of condescending statement that lumps different people with different beliefs, education, background, and personal experience together in order to avoid dealing with them as actual people...

I s'pose that pretty much sums it up. Every single ounce of your beliefs is intellectually dishonest. Every single claim you've made has either never been proved, or has been disproved time and again. Every single time you utter something about your religion, you are LYING.

While science and logic are a huge part of your everyday lives, you wash your hands of them as soon as it's time to talk about religion. Just when it's time to talk about "god" do you puff yourselves up to look down your nose at everyone that doesn't believe EXACTLY what you do about your god, even going so far as to call others like you "not real christians".