In the mood for a fight? I am!

...or he could have taken the honorable, honest, and ethical step of acknowledging that his phraseology was poor...and that he had, indeed, meant to write "What makes you choose to guess you have no invisible incorporeal tail."

To write the sentence as he did (What makes you choose to guess you have no tail?" would, of course, open it up to a reply of "Well, I can look and see if that I have no tail."

Frank Apisa wrote:

...or he could have taken the honorable, honest, and ethical step of acknowledging that his phraseology was poor...and that he had, indeed, meant to write "What makes you choose to guess you have no invisible incorporeal tail."

To write the sentence as he did (What makes you choose to guess you have no tail?" would, of course, open it up to a reply of "Well, I can look and see if that I have no tail."

Nonsense. You already had the tail discussion, and in having it, defined the hypothesis of you having a tail as possbly meaning either a real, physical tail or an invisible, incorporeal tail. So its only logical to, in later reiterations, use "you having a tail" as shorthand for both/either. If you had already established that, in talking about a tail you might have, he might be talking about an invisible tail, the answer "Well, I can look and see" by definition no longer suffices.

Then don't argue with him...the entire point of this thread is pointless, to fight just because is primitive and even ape like....so why fight at all if there is no real point and no real gain?

Nimh...I appreciate your being here, but try to think before posting.

Obviously I was able to divine what was actually being said...and if you look at my post rather than continuing an old dispute between us

I merely called attention to a minor error on Bin's part.

As I then mentioned, rather than own up to the VERY MINOR error or simply ignore my comments about it...Bin chose the cowardly, unethical, dishonest path of pretending he actually meant to use the VERY MINOR error of words because, as he childishly put it "he knew I would catch his meaning."

His defense is absurd and dishonest…and I called this new bit of bullshyt to his attention.

Now you are coming in here and raising non-arguments…

Let the boy argue on his own.

If he needs help, it certainly should be help more competent than you can offer.

I smell herring!

Frank Apisa wrote:

Nimh...I appreciate your being here, but try to think before posting.

I appreciate your reply, but try posting a reply without immediately attaching some form of personal insult. You'll find it is more conducive to a reasonable exchange of views. The attempt to "strengthen" every of your proposed arguments by adding some gratuitous putdown, if anything, evokes the impression of some insecurity about the argument in the first place.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Obviously I was able to divine what was actually being said...and if you look at my post rather than continuing an old dispute between us

I am not aware of an "old dispute" between us. I mean, I find your style of posting aggravating, but I can't remember ever having been in a fight with you myself.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I merely called attention to a minor error on Bin's part.

And I argued why I think it was not an error at all.

Frank Apisa wrote:

As I then mentioned, rather than own up to the VERY MINOR error or simply ignore my comments about it...Bin chose the cowardly, unethical, dishonest path of pretending he actually meant to use the VERY MINOR error of words because, as he childishly put it "he knew I would catch his meaning."

And I argued why that was not just reasonable in a, 'humans presume other humans to understand what they mean even if they dont quite get it right' way, but also as a question of logic. The two of you had already established that the reference to a hypothetical tail could mean both a visible or an invisible one, so there was no need to reiterate that in every future reference to said tail.

Frank Apisa wrote:

His defense is absurd and dishonest…and I called this new bit of bullshyt to his attention.

And I disagreed with that presentation of the matter.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Now you are coming in here and raising non-arguments…

You havent actually addressed my argument in any way whatsoever, apart from just calling it "non-arguments" here. As you will know however, just asserting something doesnt make it true.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Let the boy argue on his own.

No, thanks. It's a forum thread not a private correspondence. Others will step in whenever they see fit.

Frank Apisa wrote:

If he needs help, it certainly should be help more competent than you can offer.

More gratuitous insults ... it really makes you look quite bad, you know that right? I don't mean just as in, unsympathetic, but as in unreasonable, which is a bit of a distraction if one is trying to assert an argument about logic and reason.

Oh yeah!!!

Well so's yer ole man!

And I might reiterate that I do not come up with enough evidence upon which to make a guess to the question of "What is the nature of REALITY?"

So, let me see if I get this right. Is the following a correct description of what you think?

You don't have a tail is a guess you can make because I just then made it up; I do not claim it was revealed to me. If I did claim it was revealed to me (and you believed me)(or guessed that I was not intentionally lying, I guess I should say, since you don't BELIEVE anything), you might have to either come up with another reason to guess I am mistaken or, as you do with the gods case, refuse to draw a conclusion about whether I am mistaken (or agree with me which would not happen).
There is not a god is a guess that you cannot make because some people claim that there is a god and they seriously claim that they have had a revelation of this.

Is this an accurate conclusion? (I am trying very hard to say something in the spirit of your thoughts.)

duh! nobody smells themself when they stink!

-Every theory of god I've ever heard has major logical problems.
-Many contribute seeing improbable things as evidence for their god.
-Many people (I used to do it too) make up "god's will" as they go along, and somehow think something besides their creativity is behind the "answers" they come up with.
-Many believe stories of normally impossible things, but no one I've ever spoken to has ever actually seen an impossible thing.
-Many god-pushers advocate an appeal to faith over reason, and that is the definition of a fool! Look it up!
-Many people (I used to do it too) make up "god's will" as they go along, and somehow think something besides their creativity is behind the "answers" they come up with

Jeez frank, just answer... we have a right to prattle, (or at least I do) because I'm waiting on your response to the ACTUAL argument. WE aren't the ones sidestepping the issue:

Binnyboy, there is some truth to your "facts", but mostly these are careless generalizations.

Quote:

-Every theory of god I've ever heard has major logical problems.
-Many contribute seeing improbable things as evidence for their god.
-Many people (I used to do it too) make up "god's will" as they go along, and somehow think something besides their creativity is behind the "answers" they come up with.
-Many believe stories of normally impossible things, but no one I've ever spoken to has ever actually seen an impossible thing.
-Many god-pushers advocate an appeal to faith over reason, and that is the definition of a fool! Look it up!
-Many people (I used to do it too) make up "god's will" as they go along, and somehow think something besides their creativity is behind the "answers" they come up with

.

All this proves is that "some" people may have questionable ideas about god. Does that automatically prove that there is no God at all? How reasonable is that?

Also, there is nothing to disprove omnipotence of gods who may operate in a way you may fail to detect. Is that possible at all?

You haven't followed the immaterial tail line of argument have you.

Quote:

You haven't followed the immaterial tail line of argument have you.

I think 'tangential' tail is more like escaping the issue and it is in the context of Frank's comments. It even assumes his answer. It is not a question asked to me.

Let me know if you have your own comments on my simple questions posed to Binny's first post.

you will see that I raise the same issues with Bin that you just did.

He has not totally avoided them...but he does try to finesse them. You know...sidestepping and throwing red herrings into the mix.