Challenge for those that believe in billions of years for the age of things. Give anything that is more than 6000 years old. NO ASSUMPTIONS ALLOWED.

[SavedByTheLord]

Now you are openly calling God a liar.

Again with debate 101 false techniques born out of your circular Reasoning.
An unbeliever cannot understand the scriptures.

What was the first living thing and many base pairs did it have?

So are you saying that believers like Muslims understand the Bible? Hindus are believers, so they understand the Bible? How do you explain that many Christians don't interpret the Bible literally? They are believers, so must understand the Bible too? In essence your statement here suggests that any believer can understand the Bible in their own way (since they aren't unbelievers).

Your dispute seems to be that atheists won't assume that a God exists, and won't assume the Bible (in whatever version you present) is true at face value, and won't assume the stories tell the truth about the past and the present. Atheists will approach the Bible like any other human work and examine it historically and understand how it came to be what the many versions are. We have great explanations how the world ended up with many versions, some through coy errors, some through different translations, some through political adjustments and cultural interpretations.

In science and logic we can't make unnecessary assumptions. Even you have required it, even though you violate your own rule from the start by assuming a God exists. Critical thinkers don't make the assumption that any of the many thousands of gods exist. Not assuming any gods exist abllows criical thinkers to stay focused on evidence and look for what is demonstrably true about how things are. Your religious faith and belief taints any conclusion since you assume God exists. No believer has shown any evidence that a God exists, including you. Thus far you have been asked to show any god exists, and you failed. You've also failed to explain why assuming a God is necessary (except to hold religious belief as you have).

So I assert that unbelievers have an advantage in understanding the Bible since they don't assume the magic that comes along with assuming a God. Still, we have seen some believers able to set their religious beliefs aside and understand the reality of how the Bible, and other religious texts, were written and adjusted over time.

by a believer, I mean someone who is saved forever by believing the gospel of Christ.
The unsaved do not have the Holy Spirit in them and thus cannot understand the spiritual truths in the Holy Bible.

Have you met this challenge yet?
To do so you cannot use any assumptions.

 

[ratiocinator]

To do so you cannot use any assumptions.

Matthew 7:5

 

[SavedByTheLord]

Matthew 7:5

You should remove all those motes from your eyes.

Remember the Pharisees did not believe that Christ created all things in 6 days about 6000 years ago.

 

[ratiocinator]

You should remove all those motes from your eyes.

This is a bizarre response. No attempt to address the fact that you (in this case) have made endless assumptions and then told everybody else that they're not allowed.

Taking any argument against you and just blindly accusing the person who made it of the same thing, is behaviour that is common in school playgrounds. It is not a sensible debating strategy for thinking adults.

Remember the Pharisees did not believe that Christ created all things in 6 days about 6000 years ago.

So what?

 

[blü 2]

An unbeliever cannot understand the scriptures.

Ah, you're an unbeliever! That explains a great deal!

 

[ratiocinator]

What was the first living thing and many base pairs did it have?

I really don't know what you think you're achieving by endlessly repeating this question while totally ignoring all the answers. Are you trying to make creationism look absurd?

1. Abiogenesis is an area of ongoing research, not something that we have a definite answer to.
   
   
2. Even if we choose one of the possible hypotheses, you need to define what you mean by 'living thing' before we can have an answer.
   
   
3. Nothing about abiogenesis impacts the endless evidence for subsequent evolution. I could just say something like "okay, fine god magicked life into existence on earth something like 3.6 billion years ago". Then what? Even if we concede this point, you still won't have touched the endless evidence for billions of years and for evolution.

 

[SavedByTheLord]

I really don't know what you think you're achieving by endlessly repeating this question while totally ignoring all the answers. Are you trying to make creationism look absurd?

1. Abiogenesis is an area of ongoing research, not something that we have a definite answer to.
   
   
2. Even if we choose one of the possible hypotheses, you need to define what you mean by 'living thing' before we can have an answer.
   
   
3. Nothing about abiogenesis impacts the endless evidence for subsequent evolution. I could just say something like "okay, fine god magicked life into existence on earth something like 3.6 billion years ago". Then what? Even if we concede this point, you still won't have touched the endless evidence for billions of years and for evolution.

100% score has been granted to you for your learNing of circular reasoning.

 

[ratiocinator]

100% score has been granted to you for your learNing of circular reasoning.

Nothing I said was circular. You seem to be bearing false witness.

Educate yourself:

Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SavedByTheLord]

Nothing I said was circular. You seem to be bearing false witness.

Educate yourself:

Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

100 is your circular reasoning score.

 

[ratiocinator]

100 is your circular reasoning score.

This is just getting silly. You've become your own parody.

Keep it up.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I really don't know what you think you're achieving by endlessly repeating this question while totally ignoring all the answers.

Good question. My guess was that he's performing for an imagined audience of one, martyring himself for a reward, but that assumes that he and I are enough alike that I can understand him. There's a phrase intellectual empathy defined as, “to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them.” Unlike the usual empathy, which is to try to understand what others are feeling, this is about trying to understand how others think.

This points back to the cognitive bias I mentioned earlier, false consensus. It simply may be the case that whatever is going on in that mind is too foreign to recognize or identify with. I tend to assume that when he reads my words and doesn't acknowledge them except to dismiss them with a hand wave and then immediately begin the perseverating and deflection that it's a strategy that he thinks will accomplish some desired end, but that may be wrong, too. There may be no plan at all, just verbal reflexes. My repeated requests for him to chime in, to participate, to engage, have been ignored. Maybe he simply can't understand them.

What else is interesting here? Surely not dealing with him as he presents himself, as if he has something to say or can be taught. As you've noted, his demands are ridiculous and his posting pointless.

 

[McBell]

Good question. My guess was that he's performing for an imagined audience of one, martyring himself for a reward, but that assumes that he and I are enough alike that I can understand him. There's a phrase intellectual empathy defined as, “to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them.” Unlike the usual empathy, which try to understand what others are feeling, this is about trying to understand how others think.

This points back to the cognitive bias I mentioned earlier, false consensus. It simply may be the case that whatever is going on that mind is too foreign to recognize or identify with. I tend to assume that when he reads my words and doesn't acknowledge them except to dismiss them with a hand wave and then immediately begin the perseverating and deflection that it's a strategy that he thinks will accomplish some desired end, but that may be wrong, too. There may be no plan at all, just verbal reflexes. My repeated requests for him to chime in, to participate, to engage, have been ignored. Maybe he simply can't understand them.

What else is interesting here? Surely not dealing with him as he presents himself, as if he has something to say or can be taught. As you've noted, his demand are ridiculous and his posting pointless.

They have admitted the reason in their latest thread.
First post even:

​

 

[Mock Turtle]

They have admitted the reason in their latest thread.
First post even:

View attachment 83613​

​

What, you mean he is working on his CV to present at the Gates of Heaven?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

They have admitted the reason in their latest thread.
First post even:

View attachment 83613​

​

Thanks for that. I hadn't seen it. I found the thread (begun yesterday). It contains the only words I've seen from him that indicate an inner life of any kind. Everything before that has suggested that he has no emotions and doesn't contemplate ideas, just reflexes in fixed patterns of words.

It's also a change of perspective. He seems to be writing to fellow creationist apologists. All other posting I've seen has been addressed to the rest of us, but not as people. We're bots to him and he behaves like one for us.

I hope that that is what motivates him. That's something I can understand, assuming that he means to suffer in exchange for some perceived reward such as the favor of his god or a sense of doing something salutary like self-purification. It's human. Suffering for no purpose goes back into the category of too different to be comprehensible.

And I wonder if my posting to him of late has anything to do with this new manner of posting. I've been addressing him on multiple threads about his motivation and to consider how he is perceived publicly, and suddenly, this. Is it possible that my words had an impact on his thinking? There's been no evidence of that previously, and no evidence that anybody else has impacted him either. His posting until then has been so generic, repetitive, nonspecific, and nonresponsive that you can't connect it to any post or poster. You could literally put any one of those replies after any quoted comment and there'd be no evidence that you'd changed anything.

But those words addressing motivation were different. They suggest that he thought about why he's here, and that connects to posts asking him about that. There has been so little of that that its appearance is striking.

 

[F1fan]

Again with debate 101 false techniques born out of your circular Reasoning.
An unbeliever cannot understand the scriptures.

This is an assumption. Can you show that there is an absolute understanding that is true, and others false? You haven't so far.

What was the first living thing and many base pairs did it have?

You challenge others to answer this but you have no answer yourself. Not exactly a smart approach. Science can answer, your religious belief can't. So science wins, you lose. You seem to think you fool others, but you only trap yourself.

by a believer, I mean someone who is saved forever by believing the gospel of Christ.

And what makes a Christian who is saved, but also accepts science, not a believer? Who says that a saved Christian has to reject science to be saved? Who says that a saved Christian needs to interpret Genesis literally when they know Jews don't interpret it symbolically?

The unsaved do not have the Holy Spirit in them and thus cannot understand the spiritual truths in the Holy Bible.

So being saved is only "believing the gospel of Christ'? What makes this belief absolute and true? Your assumption? The assumption of those who wrote the sories, and then promoted these stories over the many millennia? Where are the facts that shows us salvation is a real thing? There is nothing spiritual about what you are doing. It is propaganda and deception. Do you really believe all the nonsense you write? I'm not sure. Your denials suggest that at some level you have a realization your adoted religious beliefs are contrary to facts and reason, but you are so committed that you can't let tem go. That's the danger of pride.

Let's note that the Holy Spirit has not helped you argue your beliefs in these debates. You are deceptive, use tricks, challenge people to answer question you can't answer, have flawed logic, you set rules like "no assumptions" ans then make assumptions yourself, you misrepresent science, you reject facts and valid theories in science without any explanation, and so on. We hear some Christians warn us about Satan being deceptive and to not listen, yet much of your approach has been deceptive and is a good example of what Satan would do. You have no response to this conundrum that you have created for yourself.

Have you met this challenge yet?

Your challenges are deceptive traps, and even you can;t answer tem. How would you know correct answers when they were presented? You don't. If answers don't match your flawed interpretation of Genesis then you decide to reject them. That's irrational. That is how minds are reduced to being like robots, incapable of learning and adjusting to what is demonstrably true. This is the danger of dogma that we have seen all though history, with believers following others without understanding why. Obedient ghosts, incapable of the very traits that makes a human: reasoning and maturity.

To do so you cannot use any assumptions.

But your whole belief system relies completely on assumptions. There are no gods known to exist. You can't show your interpretation of the Bible is any more valid than Jews or other Christians. You claim the universe is 6000 years old while evidence doesn't support it, meaning you are assumimg it's 6000 years. You fall back on the claim that the Bible says this, but it doesn't. You are using the Ussher calculation. But facts and data shows this to be untrue, so you are still left with your assumption. You reject science, and not because you have better science, but your assumption that your interpretation is correct, which it isn't.

So why do you get to break the rules but demand that we don't? Only Satan would demand such a thing. Your Holy Spirit can't help you.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again with debate 101 false techniques born out of your circular Reasoning.

This is not a debate. You lose the debate a long long time ago. You lost because you could not follow the rules of debate properly. Now you are merely being corrected. As to the fact that you do call your God a liar that is not up for debate either. If you want to debate that fact you have to be willing to learn why it is a fact. When you run away from discussions on that fact you are merely acknowledging that it is true.

And lastly, no. Circular reasoning has been your problem. You won't even show your "reasoning" lately because even you know that it is terminally flawed. So all you can do is to spew nonsense and run away from any actual debate.

An unbeliever cannot understand the scriptures.

See? This sort of foolish ignorance where you state obviously false beliefs as a fact. I have a better understanding of scripture than you do because I do not have an agenda driven by the more cultish sects of Christianity. I understand your beliefs and why they are wrong. You merely have a set of broken beliefs.

What was the first living thing and many base pairs did it have?

You need to show that it matters to ask that question.

by a believer, I mean someone who is saved forever by believing the gospel of Christ.

Okay. so what? That does not give you an edge. A belief doesn't help you in a debate. It is what one knows, and you have been constantly demonstrating an understanding of your Bible. By the way, there is no "saved forever" in the Bible. If anything your actions here of not following the Bible show that you are not forever saved.

The unsaved do not have the Holy Spirit in them and thus cannot understand the spiritual truths in the Holy Bible.

So by your poor logic that could include you. How would you prove that this is true anyway? You need to remember that you never showed that the Bible was reliable in the first place. The Bible may or may not have "spiritual truths". There is no doubt that it also has countless factual errors. That you cannot deal with the factual errors is a sign that your faith is rather weak.

Have you met this challenge yet?
To do so you cannot use any assumptions.

You do not even know what assumptions are and how they are used. Your challenge is void. Everyone has met it as a result.

 

[F1fan]

Good question. My guess was that he's performing for an imagined audience of one, martyring himself for a reward, but that assumes that he and I are enough alike that I can understand him. There's a phrase intellectual empathy defined as, “to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them.” Unlike the usual empathy, which is to try to understand what others are feeling, this is about trying to understand how others think.

This points back to the cognitive bias I mentioned earlier, false consensus. It simply may be the case that whatever is going on in that mind is too foreign to recognize or identify with. I tend to assume that when he reads my words and doesn't acknowledge them except to dismiss them with a hand wave and then immediately begin the perseverating and deflection that it's a strategy that he thinks will accomplish some desired end, but that may be wrong, too. There may be no plan at all, just verbal reflexes. My repeated requests for him to chime in, to participate, to engage, have been ignored. Maybe he simply can't understand them.

What else is interesting here? Surely not dealing with him as he presents himself, as if he has something to say or can be taught. As you've noted, his demands are ridiculous and his posting pointless.

The first section of the book Emotional Intelligence outlines how and why people will think this way. fMRI and pet scans of brains thinking religious thoughts reveals that they fire up the emotion and reward centers of the brain, and that this reward is what motivates the habit of thinking. It is a sort of self-caused pavlov's dog. The "suffering" for God is really just a chemical fix, where the thoughts result in hormone relesed into the blood. This is the euphoria many believers feel when they are devotional. We have all seen video of faith healers, or gosvel revivals, with throngs of believers in a trance-like state of euphoria. To them it is God. In reality it is chemicals in the brain giving them a high. We can understand why a believer would want to keep this feeling going. Their dilemma is that like any chemical in the blood the high is less and less effective over time and the seeker wants more. In my experience over the years I think it's hard for believers to get this feeling of fervor on their own.

Devotion can only go so far. But true believers can exploit the education and debate of critical thinkers by continually claiming their religious belief, facing down the critique, and then reveating the fight back and forth. It is the fight for God that makes them feel this fervor. In essence we are being exploited so they can get their fix. I don't think we are humans to them, and and little more than a syringe to a heroin addict.

It's interesting to see the numerous "true believers" and observe their patterns of behavior. One member will ask questions about science, and then post a while as if accepting the educated answers, and then suddenly reject it all and spout a stream of creationist nonsense. I am astounded that they don't see this pattern in themselves, nor being aware of the lack of genuine curiosity about what science reveals about the universe. All I can say is that I'm glad to not be one of these folks. The inner confusion and stress they experience must be difficult at times.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I answer every real rational answer and many of the non rational answers.

That's a laughable claim.

All reasoning for evolution and billions of years is circular reasoning and not science.

Wrong.

This is it in a nutshell.
We know evolution and billions of years are true (conclusion is the assumption) and since we know evolution and billions of years are true (conclusion is the assumption) and such and such exists, it must have evolved because we know evolution and billions of years are true (restating the assumption as the conclusion).
Furthermore, any evidence that contradicts evolution and billions of years must be false because we know evolution and billions of years are true.

Nope. You really have no idea what you're talking about.

We know the age of the earth from geology, actually. We know evolution is true because all of the evidence from practically every field of science in existence all points to the same conclusion: that evolution is a fact of life. Biology doesn't even work without it. Demonstrably so. There is no evidence against it, anywhere.

All of the circular "reasoning" is on your end: The Bible is true because the Bible says so. That's about as circular as it gets, man.

 

[SavedByTheLord]

That's a laughable claim.

Wrong.

Nope. You really have no idea what you're talking about.

We know the age of the earth from geology, actually. We know evolution is true because all of the evidence from practically every field of science in existence all points to the same conclusion: that evolution is a fact of life. Biology doesn't even work without it. Demonstrably so. There is no evidence against it, anywhere.

All of the circular "reasoning" is on your end: The Bible is true because the Bible says so. That's about as circular as it gets, man.

Thanks for the kind words.

Have you met my very simple and required challenge yet?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Thanks for the kind words.

Have you met my very simple and required challenge yet?

Your challenge was a failure. So yes, it has been met.

If you want to claim that people failed your challenge you need to make an challenge that does not refute your beliefs when it is applied to them