So I was leaving the pub tonight, perhaps a little drink, but none the less, merry. When suddenly I'm aware there are many people around me holding "John 3:7" signs. Knowing full well what the story was, I walked over and said "Whats the story here?" baiting them like the drunk troll that I am.

So it starts off.

The quote that the sign references is "Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again. However, these saps decided that the actual quote was whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die that and a butchered other quote from somewhere in Johns book. I ignored their obvious ignorance of the exact chapter and verse because quite frankly, its irrelevant to the message they wanted to convey. So I tried to argue that anyone could experience the same enlightenment they did through whatever path suited them best. NO! Wrong (according to them)! But there is no religion like this that says that god loves everyone blah blah blah, he whoever believeth in me etc etc. Says I, but hang on a minute, you said god loves everyone and yet he's all like, screw you, you don't believeth in me, I don't give a shite about you. One guys head practically exploded and started ranting and raving about how I'm trying to detract from his revelation. Says I, I'm not taking anything away from your personal experience, but is it not possible that your taking some post hoc ergo propter hoc and that someone else could experience the same thing but with any other religion? At which point him and his friend started laughing at me. Post what? they said. I said Post hoc ergo propter hoc... you've never heard of the Latin phrase? They started roaring laughing Nooooo!!!

At this point in my head I'm thinking WTF?!?! Not 30 years ago ALL mass was said through latin... and they call me weird for quoting ONE line of reasonably common latin... So I explain that it mean After therefore because of and how it very rarely the case in fact its almost never the case, quoting Jed Bartlet exactly cause I'm drunk and think the Sheen is a legend. Again they talk about how you have to be born again etc to be truly saved.

At this point an older gentleman comes over and in a slightly more aggressive attitude starts demanding answers of me. In his questioning, he mentions something about the bible. Says I to him, so you believe in the literal interpretation of the bible? Says he, I do. Says I, wtf, so your breaking your own beliefs by wearing this cotten/polyester coat (wearing clothes made of two different threads). Shortly after this his head explodes and he turns around and says to his traveling minstrels, Don't talk to him he's a heathen!!

Then a reasonable man from his troupe comes over and has a civilised conversation with me about the whole thing, failing to understand any of the points I made to him. The crux of the discussion was boiled down to one point. I said, is it not possible that the earliest written account of Jaysus was written 90 years after Jaysus was banging around the place, is not possible, that the story was exaggerated, or that facts may have been changed? To which he replied, I think you've been tainted by the word of men and that men can be wrong. I conceded this point, that I lt;igt;maylt;/igt; may have been tainted by word of men, but I also asked, is it not possible that you could also have been tainted by the very same logic? The answer?

No...

My question is this...
Is there anyway to have a discussion with people who can't accept the logic of their own arguments?

Is there any way to have a discussion with people who are just looking to troll?

Valid question, I think. Answer seems like it would probably be the same for both.

As infuriating as it is for any free thinking individual, no. There is absolutly no clear cut way too have a balanced logical discussion with these people.

The simple reason is if they apply the slightest taint of logic to their thought processes their ideals and beliefs are going to tumble around them like a badly stacked card tower. I genuinly think theres a possibilty that belief in these things has its roots in genetics. Thats the only way I can rationalize the fact that some people see theology for the absolute absurdity it is whilst others (sadly the great majority) will blindly, ignorantly and foolishly follow whatever their religous upbringing has dictated (I think they call it faith).

I remember in primary school first encountering mass. I looked around at all the robes, big alter and processions thinking "Shit, are these deluded fuckers gonna cut some guy up an make me eat him?" Luckily I quickly surmised the white bread stuff wasn't anybodys actual body, but fuck it, was better than math class.

When attempting to debate civilly with these people you get two main arguments which once they fall back on, you know thats the closest your getting to winning.

First is "faith" which literally has the same definition as Ignorance, Faith to me means believing physical facts to be wrong and is a word most people seem to think nullifies any scientific / rational argument.
The secound, and this really gets on my tits, is the old prove there ISN'T a God argument. Once someone has resorted to this you know you are genuinly dealing with an abortion on legs.

A little thought experiment I've tried a couple times to counter both nonsensical arguments: "In my open outstreched hand there is a leprechaun. However, only I can see, hear and feel it. It is there for you too but it is simply untouchable and invisable as far as your concerned. I need you to have have faith in what I'm saying and beleive it is there."

Now if you take what I said there to be true (the leprechaens undetectable to anyone but me) how do you go about proving otherwise? You can't. Your two options are to beleive what I'm saying or not beleive. Now I'll let you in on a secret- There is no leprechaun.

Now replace the word leprechaun with God and you have a very simple analogy which gets the basic point across. If they scoff I would point out that they beleive textual evidence handpicked from politicly motivated people centurys ago over a present day witness in the here and now. There is literally more evidence for the leprechaun in my hand than any biblical text provides for their deity. And they can't prove otherwise.


It annoys me to write all that because I find any concept off a big man in the sky so fundamentally absurd, that to argue/debate about it gives the subject more intellectual credance than it deserves or earns. I think to any intelligent aliens mans belief in God would be akin to how we veiw a dog surprised by its own farts.

/Rant

I hate people who try to force a religion upon others, and are intolerant of other beliefs. I appreciate that people believe there is a God but I find it wrong of these people to assume their position is the only valid one.

Belief is a personal thing, in my view, to allow any other man to taint that view makes it political. How you view the universe should be a personal conclusion drawn by study of facts and experiences.

I do however find it equally a problem to preach that there is *no* God - while this is my personal view - I don't see why I have any right to tell anybody who does believe in God that his religion is false. There is, however, a difference between trying to change someone's views and having a reasonable debate, but for such a debate to occur, both parties have to be open minded about each other's arguments, and that is very rarely the case in religion. I therefor stay out of the issue.

It's not possible to have a practical religious debate except perhaps between two equally open minded people who are willing to accept neither the possibility or the impossibility of God.

Hit the nail on the head there Trek. Whilst I won't pretend I don't argue with religous people as if I'm Richard Dawkins apprentice, drawing your own conclusions and not attempting to ram them down throats is absolutly the way to go,if everyone took such a direction there'd be alot more tolerance in the world.

I do forget often that angrily trying to make people (in my veiw) "see sense" makes me as bad if not worse then the religous preachers, because I'm throwing hypocrasy into the bargain.

I think it was Socrates who said "The wisest men are wise because they know they know nothing." Which I interpret as keep your beliefs too yourself because like everyone else including me, Your probably wrong.

I wasn't solely looking to troll, but I was raring for a debate. And if theres one thing I enjoy its debating. Which is why I stood for an hour and half in the freezing cold while I was tired and bursting to go to the bathroom. The conversation is always interesting and if nothing help to expand on your knowledge of the other side. In this case I was looking to see if Born Again Christians can actually engage in a dialog with someone with going off the rails. One member of their group of 15 or so could. The rest couldn't.

I like to think that I can be reasonable, I can be conciliatory if I feel its called for and I can admit when I'm wrong if someone can present an argument which I feel is valid. So by these standards I feel I'm not a troll.

I have to agree with FT and Ben, the come to your own conclusion and then allow others to do the same is the way to go. In this case these people were there, perhaps not to force their message, but to allow others to hear they're message, so I believe that they should be only willing to hear my interpretation after I heard theirs. Being available to discuss your beliefs is one thing, but ambushing people as they leave a night club, guilting them by the fact that they're a little bit drunk seems to be a cheap stunt to me.

Here's an argument against religion:

1. Religions have always tried to explain what we don't know, relative to the time period they are in (Greek mythology explaining lightning, Egyptian mythology explaining the sun, Christianity explaining the origin of the universe, etc.)
2. As of now, no religious explanation has been confirmed by science (lightning does not come from Zeus, the sun is not a god).
3. We do not currently know beyond a doubt how the origin of the universe and life happened (theories and facts are there, but are not absolutely complete yet).
4. Christianity and Islam both claim to know the origin of the universe and life.


Now, if there has been a record of religion always getting science wrong, why should we expect differently from Christianity? What separates Christian explanations from the Greek myth ones?

I enjoy certain religion's actual philosophies that have nothing to do with a creator. For example, Islam preaches being active and helpful to their fellow man and the world around them, rather than being cloistered away preparing for death. Shinto preaches extreme reverence for nature and one's environment, and to be respectful of it. Christianity, like Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc, preaches ways for one to live a responsible life and teaches good morals and values to people. While it is true that one should easily be able to learn these ethics by experience, I see nothing wrong with reinforcing those learned truths with a weekly service, if only one keeps in mind to not get lost in the deluded mysticism and take to heart these philosophies rather than simply doing whatever it takes to get to heaven. If there is a dualist Heaven/Hell afterlife, I think one's soul would be weighed in a gracious light if they actually used religions as guides to help make better decisions in their life.

It isn't so much that religion tries to explain what we don't know, though some, of course, do this, but they are telling us (specifically Christianity since I'm most familiar with it) how things came to be, who the creator is, how we can know him.




This is very funny. As if the scientific method is the 'end all, be all' to knowledge. Can you prove that the scientific method works? How would you do that without using the scientific method and therefore begging the question? Have you read Hume's problem of induction?

Also, you do realize that science by default rules out any supernatural answer to any question, right? You can't argue that science has never 'proved' God when science by definition ignores the possibility of anything beyond the material.




First, This is only true if you hold that you can only know things through the scientific method (which is an incoherent position to take since it can't be proved). Secondly, you can't know anything 'beyond a doubt' if your basis for knowledge is science. Since all science is is induction, and you still don't have any reason for believing that induction works.




Yes they do, how does this disprove religion? I'm not sure I understand what you were trying to do with this point.

Thanks in advance for your response!

That may be what faith means to you, but thats simply not what it means. In this case, you are the one who is ignorant. All knowledge requires faith. Your "scientific / rational" arguments are built upon induction, and laws of logic which you have no basis for believing are true except that "they've always worked before". The point being, is that you have to exercise faith in those tools to be able to make any sense of the world you live in. This isn't a bad thing.



I can basically agree with you here. Terrible argument.



I'm curious what you know about that "textual evidence handpicked by politically motivated people". Do you know the processes that went into (in at least the Christian canon) determining which books should be accepted? I'm talking beyond the nonsense that the history channel says. Have you done any study into this? Or are you just repeating things you've heard on tv?



This isn't even worth responding to.




Well, considering that most (any that I can think of) religions don't believe in a 'big man in the sky' this isn't really a problem. I like how you decry the possibility of a God existing and complain about how worthless it is to write about but in the same breath use an example of intelligent aliens, pretty amusing.