Audley Strange wrote:Amusement yes, edification, no.
Stultification would be more accurate.
The problem about speaking "of Christians" is that you fall into the trap of speaking about that which you do not believe for effect and in doing so show your lack of conviction and knowledge regarding theology.
I've never claimed conviction towards theology, and my knowledge is adequate to the task of buggering you all with your own arguments.
I myself have no problem with you trying to defend the faithful from us evil Nihilists, Marxists and Progressives, however the examples you use are often preposterous.
Which begs the question of why you are entirely unable to formulate a cogent argument in refutation that does not involve argumentum ad hominem as you demonstrate here.
I mean Fatima? Come on.
Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.
Aside from it being theologically inconsistent and contradictory to the actual claims of "the book." The fact is that not everyone who was there witnessed anything at all. Some did.
Wouldn't matter if only one person did, if you make the clam it's not a miracle from God, it's up to you to prove your claim. So get on it or shut the fuck up about my holding you to your own ethical and intellectual standards.
I don't find it any coincidence that a cult that has traditionally exploited and abused children since before it rebranded from Roman Empire to Holy Roman empire could have exploited children to talk utter horseshit. This is not uncommon, in fact it is tradition.
Now all you have to do is prove it, or be branded a religious Atheist bigot for refusing to do so. Put up or shut up.
If you look at the history of "SATANIC PANICS!!" You know, when the evil kiddie fiddling Satanists are apparently making children fuck goats head and eat dead babies and all the other lurid crap that the demented faithful coach them into believing, the investigations have, time and time and time again shown that these children were often repeating lies and slander. It is not rare. It's happened quite publicly over the last 30 years in the U.K. France and The U.S. (and IIRC there have been quite a few in Africa which have had murderous consequences) and every time there has been no evidence, the children have often retracted their statements or confessed that they were forced by parents or religious folks into making such claims. However the hysteria is always published front and centre, the retraction and convictions of the real child abusers, the ones that coached them and took them from their families, or in the case of the Fatima incident, encouraged children to self flagellate.
Irrelevant obfuscation and pettifoggery. Get on with the scientific proofs that Fatima was a "mass delusion" or STFU.
As for the miracle vision itself? Well most of those who talk about it being a miracle were devout catholics, though it should be noted that only a fraction of those who were there made any claim at all, on behalf of all the others. (Seem familiar?) Did they see something? Possibly. Did they exaggerate it because of their belief and being whipped up by religious frenzy? Quite likely.
"Quite likely" isn't a critically-robust evidential scientific standard I'm afraid. Try again.
Did they witness a miracle? Improbable and there are many more mundane answers. Sun Dogs for example.
Now all you have to do is prove this claim. Get with it, I'm getting bored with your obfuscations and unsupported assertions.
So. One one side we have. Non evidential being alters reality for a bunch of ignorant religious peasants or in shorter terms "fuck all."
So you say. Prove it.
On the other we have. A Cult with a long history of abuse and exploitation of children. Children making odd and rather mature and specific claims way above their pay-grade so to speak. We have an orchestrated media event in which the desperate faithful (because a lot the faithful seem desperate for proof rather than to abandon a concept they've hung on to all their lives) turn up and make outrageous claims, even to the contradiction of and yes I'll claim this, the silent majority of people there. Because let's be honest, if you or I witnessed something like that and thought it true, I don't think we'd watch shrug and go, "yeah neat, let's go home and not bother about this." I think Portugal would have been in an uproar for months if not years. Over and above this we have the possibility of some kind of solar optical event to feed their belief as evidence, which might be the case but, since there may have been 100,000 people there. So far I have found 7 first hand claims of supernatural activity. 7 out of 100,000? 7? SEVEN! I think it easy to dismiss your claim on behalf of those who's religion you don't even believe in.
Yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. Speculation, supposition, hypothesis, and obfuscation. Where's your critically robust scientific evidence supporting your claims. Put up or shut up.
I bet, that if we were to do autopies on a 100,000 dead catholics who had just received communion we'd find more blood and flesh in their stomachs than 7 out of that 100,000. Should we then start claiming transubstantiation is real?
Where's your data?
Of course not.
Really you can do much better than that.
Yes, I can. But the whole point here is that
you cannot."Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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Oh come on Seth. You are not the type of guy to suspend a judgement or hold back your opinion on anything else, why is such taciturnity reserved for religion? Who are you concerned about upsetting?
