Just dropping in to thank you all for your very interesting posts.
I'll get me asbestos coat...
IJ
Thanks for saying this. I cherish your every utterance - even when the talking dog has difficulty distinguishing your words from street noise, I still want you to know how very much I appreciate you saying this.
By the way, do you exist? I've long pondered this and can see no reason for thinking that you do.
Thank you for this very interesting post, and for the equally interesting query as to whether or not I exist.
I am at present not certain as to whether I do, or, in fact, do not. Any objective evidence, one way or the other, would be welcome.
IJ
A thousand thanks for saying this and I agree with your subliminal message that you are clearly making: namely that you don't exist. It is as I thought and you all are figments of my imagination conjured up from eating too much cheese before bedtime.
But then, as I was saying to the talking dog earlier, does cheese exist? Isn't it just microbe poo?
Thank you so much for your very interesting post regarding the existence of cheese. I am so glad that you regard my message as subliminal - I take this as a well-deserved compliment.
In my experience, yes, cheese does exist, but it may, of course, be simply a figment of my possibly non-existent imagination.
SusanDoris, I really think we need you to return to this thread, and to bring your incisive mind to answer this question for us. That is, if you, too, exist, and are able to experience cheese. Or not.
I am at present not certain as to whether I do, or, in fact, do not. Any objective evidence, one way or the other, would be welcome.
Thank you for this most glorious post. The existence of any human being is a function of biology, which can be studied by science using objectively determinable criteria.
Thank you for your most sublime, glorious, and fascinating post.
However, I have to ask if you can prove objectively that which you assert therein, providing, of course, that you yourself exist.
IJ
Your post made me shake with delight. I've not read anything so exciting and stimulating since at least a week ago last Thursday.
You are my hero and you can be sure that were you ever to grace my humble abode with your presence, then the talking dog and I would be more than happy to share our last Rollo with you.
Providing you could prove your existence first, of course.
As I was saying to the talking dog earlier, there is only one sure way to be 100% sure that a person exists, and that's to kick them in the groin.
I look forward to testing this hypothesis when you come around.
Thank you for your most interesting offer to kick me in the groin as a welcome to the cheesy residence.
However, as I do not objectively know whether I have a kickable groin or not, I am unable in my present state of unknowingness to accept your invitation with any reasonableness (if such a word, or concept, actually exists objectively).
I believe that we require some suitable guidance from SusanDoris, but she seems to have disappeared (or, perhaps, to exist).
I wonder how long it will be before some Hostly Presence (which cannot be proved, of course) appears (or appears to appear) in order to kick us all out, or at least to The Circus....
Mere words cannot express my thanks for your post, although they can, self-referentially, express their inability to express my thanks for your post, and that will have to suffice.
Of course I have never claimed to be able to prove my posts. That would be absurd.
I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
Thank you for your post. Of course I went through a phase of questioning, as many angsty teenagers do, but fortunately I was able to understand the limitations of my immature cynicism and materialism and evolve. Not everyone chooses what is of course to me the most rational and sensible view of the world, but tragically not everyone is as superior as I am, a fact which I feel moved to persistently point out in several forums, regardless of the actual topic.
It occurs to me that perhaps the cusp of the problem is not that @SusanDoris is too stupid to adequately respond. Maybe the real root is that she's too proud to admit that she doesn't really know what the fuck she's responding to. Because simply not knowing something is fine - either you can say nothing or you ask for help. But SD instead blusters on with her Turing-test-failure array of responses, which conveeeeeeeniently veer her words into a well-worn pigeon hole of thought.
So, here we are. Pretty much everybody realizes that SD is largely incapable cognitively to engage on many topics, but her dogged persistence in denying it keeps us hooked with our innate fondness for shared reality. Which is ironic, considering her personal windmill.
@SusanDoris, your assertion that you are engaging well with discussions is your own, personal religion - requiring your devout faith, based on evidence that nobody else can perceive.
I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
Thank you for your post. Of course I went through a phase of questioning, as many angsty teenagers do, but fortunately I was able to understand the limitations of my immature cynicism and materialism and evolve. Not everyone chooses what is of course to me the most rational and sensible view of the world, but tragically not everyone is as superior as I am, a fact which I feel moved to persistently point out in several forums, regardless of the actual topic.
Thanks once again for your interesting posts. You really are full of interesting ideas aren't you. I don't think I've seen so much interesting text since I read Interesting Things by Iva Interesting Idea. I say read but actually it was a video on YouTube because the book was so interesting that the talking dog blew a gasket trying to get through it.
It was a long time since I was a teenager, but your experience matches my own in so many ways: I also was alive between the ages of 12 and 20. Isn't it astounding that we have so much in common.
Meanwhile, I have to ask something that has just occurred to me. How do you know that you exist? I mean, could you not actually be some kind of voice speaking from the void left by a rip in the space-time continuum?
Can you prove objectively that you are not speaking from the 25th century?
Food for thought, as I said to the talking dog last night.
The groaning noise I heard in reply was an affirmative, I'm sure.
...@SusanDoris, your assertion that you are engaging well with discussions is your own, personal religion - requiring your devout faith, based on evidence that nobody else can perceive.
It's a very interesting assertion on her part, but I will require that she provide objective evidence of same that we can examine, according to the scientific method, before I can share her belief in it.
Yes, indeed you may, and thank you for being so considerate as to ask.
Whether the letters B and F actually exist, however, and have any meaning to those who do not believe they exist, I shall have to leave to others to discuss and/or decide.
Whether the letters B and F actually exist, however, and have any meaning to those who do not believe they exist, I shall have to leave to others to discuss and/or decide.
What others?
Oh and before I close, thank you for your excruciatingly specifically allegorically metamagically extrasensory post.
Nope. As this is Hell, I'm going to disagree with you all. I find engaging with SusanDoris exciting and interesting and I look forward to her contributions on the threads I follow.
<snip>I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
If your definition of ‘supernatural’ is “things with zero objective evidence to back them up” then, by definition no-one can produce an ”objective fact about anything supernatural” because if they do then by your definition it won’t have been an supernatural thing.
This slipped by and nobody praised it. Well caught, BroJames. This is the catch-22 of the supposedly open-minded atheist. They define supernatural as that which has no objective evidence (or words to that effect) then challenge you to show objective evidence for something supernatural. At which point of course it would cease to be supernatural (according to their proffered definition), so their challenge would stand. In fact their challenge is a sham; there is no way to satisfy it. It is either stupid, or disingenuous (on a case-by-case basis).
<snip>I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
If your definition of ‘supernatural’ is “things with zero objective evidence to back them up” then, by definition no-one can produce an ”objective fact about anything supernatural” because if they do then by your definition it won’t have been an supernatural thing.
This slipped by and nobody praised it. Well caught, BroJames. This is the catch-22 of the supposedly open-minded atheist. They define supernatural as that which has no objective evidence (or words to that effect) then challenge you to show objective evidence for something supernatural. At which point of course it would cease to be supernatural (according to their proffered definition), so their challenge would stand. In fact their challenge is a sham; there is no way to satisfy it. It is either stupid, or disingenuous (on a case-by-case basis).
Thank you so much. So very very much for not only pointing out the obvious but for highlighting in such an intelligent way when other people point out the obvious. That's a rare skill which I for one am so happy, so very very happy, to experience on a regular basis on this forum.
As I was saying to the talking dog earlier, this forum is so much better, so very much much better, than any fora I have know before. The talking dog reminded me that when I was on the Vermin Appreciation Society forum - many years ago now - there was so much less support and sympathy for people stating the obvious.
Now let me ask you something you may not have asked yourself: do you actually exist? It's a really interesting question, is it not, and one that I have regularly asked myself in public on open internet fora.
Please send mail clippings and DNA records of your family going back 15 generations.
<snip>I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
If your definition of ‘supernatural’ is “things with zero objective evidence to back them up” then, by definition no-one can produce an ”objective fact about anything supernatural” because if they do then by your definition it won’t have been an supernatural thing.
This slipped by and nobody praised it. Well caught, BroJames. This is the catch-22 of the supposedly open-minded atheist. They define supernatural as that which has no objective evidence (or words to that effect) then challenge you to show objective evidence for something supernatural. At which point of course it would cease to be supernatural (according to their proffered definition), so their challenge would stand. In fact their challenge is a sham; there is no way to satisfy it. It is either stupid, or disingenuous (on a case-by-case basis).
I am convinced that love exists so I ask for evidence of love. They always produce evidence of the effects of what they describe as love, but can they identify anything as love? There are songs, poems, stories, paintings, but these are all expressions of the concept of love; I have yet to see a concrete example of love itself, although there are millions of examples of the outcomes of love.
<snip>I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
If your definition of ‘supernatural’ is “things with zero objective evidence to back them up” then, by definition no-one can produce an ”objective fact about anything supernatural” because if they do then by your definition it won’t have been an supernatural thing.
This slipped by and nobody praised it. Well caught, BroJames. This is the catch-22 of the supposedly open-minded atheist. They define supernatural as that which has no objective evidence (or words to that effect) then challenge you to show objective evidence for something supernatural. At which point of course it would cease to be supernatural (according to their proffered definition), so their challenge would stand. In fact their challenge is a sham; there is no way to satisfy it. It is either stupid, or disingenuous (on a case-by-case basis).
I am convinced that love exists so I ask for evidence of love. They always produce evidence of the effects of what they describe as love, but can they identify anything as love? There are songs, poems, stories, paintings, but these are all expressions of the concept of love; I have yet to see a concrete example of love itself, although there are millions of examples of the outcomes of love.
(If anyone can contradict this please do so)
Donning my thickest and most reliably tested asbestos outfit, I will attempt it! No doubt my words will be derided and mocked, but that's not a problem!
You say you are convinced that 'lov exists' and then you ask for identification of 'anything' as love. The only concrete thing or things are the nerves, etc etc whihch produce the emotion, in all its many and varied forms, that is called love. Do you believe that love can exist independently anywhere? If so, how? How would you know?
<snip>I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
If your definition of ‘supernatural’ is “things with zero objective evidence to back them up” then, by definition no-one can produce an ”objective fact about anything supernatural” because if they do then by your definition it won’t have been an supernatural thing.
The Church is an objective fact, as is its coming into being from events in first century Palestinian Judaism. The Gospels (as objects) are objective facts. The question is how are those facts to be interpreted. Science gives us very little or perhaps nothing to help us in that interpretation - largely because in the absence of sound logic, and a sound philosophical underpinning, it is really the wrong tool for the job.
It's inadvisable of atheists to attempt a definition of the supernatural, as they are reversing the burden of proof, as you have shown. I've no idea what it means, but it's not about lacking objective evidence. Well, it seems to mean beyond nature, I'm no wiser.
<snip>I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
If your definition of ‘supernatural’ is “things with zero objective evidence to back them up” then, by definition no-one can produce an ”objective fact about anything supernatural” because if they do then by your definition it won’t have been an supernatural thing.
The Church is an objective fact, as is its coming into being from events in first century Palestinian Judaism. The Gospels (as objects) are objective facts. The question is how are those facts to be interpreted. Science gives us very little or perhaps nothing to help us in that interpretation - largely because in the absence of sound logic, and a sound philosophical underpinning, it is really the wrong tool for the job.
It's inadvisable of atheists to attempt a definition of the supernatural, as they are reversing the burden of proof, as you have shown. I've no idea what it means, but it's not about lacking objective evidence. Well, it seems to mean beyond nature, I'm no wiser.
I cannot recall reading anywhere an atheist's definition of the supernatural. Do you have a citation or a link?
When asked for such, an atheist will mention the NPF - and point out that the burden of proof is on those who believe anything supernatural exists.
Others, please note: It's now clear that SusanDoris is humor-free, irony-deaf, and satire-proof. However entertaining non-SusanDorises, should these exist, may find the jibes above, they're wasted effort in terms of millstone reformation.
Might as well adjourn to The Circus. Anyone up for a round of Nasty Take-Offs of Shipmate Posting Styles? Let's see if we top Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi.
I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up.
<snip>I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up. Okay?!
If your definition of ‘supernatural’ is “things with zero objective evidence to back them up” then, by definition no-one can produce an ”objective fact about anything supernatural” because if they do then by your definition it won’t have been an supernatural thing.
The Church is an objective fact, as is its coming into being from events in first century Palestinian Judaism. The Gospels (as objects) are objective facts. The question is how are those facts to be interpreted. Science gives us very little or perhaps nothing to help us in that interpretation - largely because in the absence of sound logic, and a sound philosophical underpinning, it is really the wrong tool for the job.
It's inadvisable of atheists to attempt a definition of the supernatural, as they are reversing the burden of proof, as you have shown. I've no idea what it means, but it's not about lacking objective evidence. Well, it seems to mean beyond nature, I'm no wiser.
I cannot recall reading anywhere an atheist's definition of the supernatural. Do you have a citation or a link?
When asked for such, an atheist will mention the NPF - and point out that the burden of proof is on those who believe anything supernatural exists.
To be honest, I had not realised that there was any definition of supernatural peculiar to atheists. I would have assumed they used the common dictionary definition
I was just noting that having defined a supernatural event as being something with no objective evidence to back it up, it was then illogical to ask for objective evidence for something which has just been defined by the absence of such evidence. (I’m not sure how the NPF (? No Proof Fallacy aka burden of proof fallacy) is relevant to an attempt to define what is sought to be proved.) But this will not be the first instance in this thread of a logical difficulty being ‘passed over’.
Despite all these interesting posts (for which thanks be to all), I fear that Ohher is right, and that SusanDoris (should she exist objectively) is entirely unable to comprehend either satire or common-sense.
However, I think we all owe her an immense amount of thanks for the interest and entertainment she has provided, and, hopefully (I think) will continue to provide on this and other fora (should they exist).
Donning my thickest and most reliably tested asbestos outfit, I will attempt it!
She says, utterly missing the point.
@SusanDoris, this thread is no longer a conversation. You should stop posting here. All we're doing now is ritualized ruining of a joke. The joke is your posts, and the joke is getting old all by itself. We do not need, nor want, you to repeat the joke of your pretend contributions. Stop pretending. Just stop.
It is clear that you are cognitively incapable of understanding anything we say, though. So I don't know why I bother trying to help you.
(If anyone can contradict this please do so)[/quote]
Donning my thickest and most reliably tested asbestos outfit, I will attempt it! No doubt my words will be derided and mocked, but that's not a problem!
You say you are convinced that 'lov exists' and then you ask for identification of 'anything' as love. The only concrete thing or things are the nerves, etc etc whihch produce the emotion, in all its many and varied forms, that is called love. Do you believe that love can exist independently anywhere? If so, how? How would you know?
Susan, you not only don't have an asbestos outfit, you arrive on these boards much like you arrived on this earth. If you had played American football, you probably wouldn't even have worn a helmet (which could explain a lot).
You're not prepared. You pose as an atheist, sometimes even an evangelical atheist, but you haven't grown beyond JREF debunking. One grows into atheism through thoughtful skepticism and questioning: I fear your investigations of religion and religions faltered from the get-go. If you depend on Dawkins TV talks and popular books for a contemporary grounding in science, you should have taken some high school and college classes in science and math--tried out a few laboratory projects to learn about the scientific method as background. Without a scientific grounding, your understanding will be superficial at best.
When you apply a naive understanding of science as an alternative to an untraveled study of religion, it always comes out wrong.
...Might as well adjourn to The Circus. Anyone up for a round of Nasty Take-Offs of Shipmate Posting Styles? Let's see if we top Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi.
Could they be any less predictable than the infamously condescending, irony-free, humorless posts of the SusanDoris who posts endlessly here, should she actually exist? Sure, why not?
... You pose as an atheist, sometimes even an evangelical atheist, but you haven't grown beyond JREF debunking. One grows into atheism through thoughtful skepticism and questioning...
Sometimes one grows out of atheism. I did...not that I can meet SusanDoris's criteria for Scientific Proof.
But things are bad for SD when even her supposed ally, transported to the Ship purely for the purpose of defending her and attacking her critics, dumps on her to this extent.
I will immediately accept that if I read an objective fact about anything supernatural, i.e. supernatural in its meaning of things with zero objective evidence to back them up.
... You pose as an atheist, sometimes even an evangelical atheist, but you haven't grown beyond JREF debunking. One grows into atheism through thoughtful skepticism and questioning...
Sometimes one grows out of atheism. I did...not that I can meet SusanDoris's criteria for Scientific Proof.
But things are bad for SD when even her supposed ally, transported to the Ship purely for the purpose of defending her and attacking her critics, dumps on her to this extent.
Where did I imply that drayeye is an ally?! He does exactly the same on t'otherforum! I challenge him there too!
By the way, I don't think I have ever seen an SoF rule which says I must stop posting on a thread that I find interesting to read... ...
Perhaps someone will advise...
Last night I was just saying to the talking dog how lucky I am. How very very lucky to have places to go where people regularly tell me I'm full of shit and where people follow me around online to unnecessarily tell other people I'm full of shit.
What a remarkable thing this is!
The talking dog reminded me that There Is No Law stopping me from saying the undigested things that come into my head at any moment but that general manners mean it is impolite to say the things that people are bored of hearing.
I sat in awe of the talking dog for a moment and then told him this was the wisest thing I'd ever heard. And that this had happened to me on a bus-stop only yesterday. I was asking this interesting man a very interesting question that only just occurred to me and another man came along and asked me to move so he could get past in his wheelchair.
I held up a finger to show that I was pausing in my discussion of existence with the interesting man and told the wheelchair man how boring he was being. How very very boring.
After all, the pavement is for everyone, not just boring people and their wheelchairs.
I turned back and unaccountably the interesting man had disappeared. I scolded the wheelchair man because his unhelpful contribution had stopped a very valuable conversation with a very interesting man.
But then looking again, I think I might have been talking to the bus-stop.
By the way, I don't think I have ever seen an SoF rule which says I must stop posting on a thread that I find interesting to read... ...
Perhaps someone will advise...
@SusanDoris there may not be a rule saying you should stop posting on threads, but you are being given advice to stop, @RooK does so here:
@SusanDoris, this thread is no longer a conversation. You should stop posting here.
The advice is: stop now. Most people¹ still involved in this thread are following @Leaf's lead and posting pastiches of your style. They are not asking questions meant to be answered; those questions are jokes, making fun of the kinds of questions you ask on Purgatory threads. This is what RooK meant here:
All we're doing now is ritualized ruining of a joke. The joke is your posts, and the joke is getting old all by itself. We do not need, nor want, you to repeat the joke of your pretend contributions. Stop pretending.
RooK's advice is this:
Just stop.
It's my advice too - just stop posting on this thread. Let it sink down the Hell board.
¹With the possible exception of @BroJames who has reiterated a serious question
Well, you know, not being the daft old bat some here appear to classify me as, I have actually worked that out for myself.
It is not I who keeps on writing in mocking terms!
I will make this my last post here if others do not follow it! Fair enough?
Well, you know, not being the daft old bat some here appear to classify me as, I have actually worked that out for myself.
It is not I who keeps on writing in mocking terms!
I will make this my last post here if others do not follow it! Fair enough?
SD really does need to have the last word. (To be fair to her, she as much as admitted this up-thread.) Will she ignore this post? Doubtful, methinks.
BTW, Bible-people, this Sunday's Lectionary includes the passage about how others see us.
Well, you know, not being the daft old bat some here appear to classify me as, I have actually worked that out for myself.
It is not I who keeps on writing in mocking terms!
I will make this my last post here if others do not follow it! Fair enough?
SD really does need to have the last word. (To be fair to her, she as much as admitted this up thread.
If you recall, I said I realised that was probably not going to be the case.
Will she ignore this post? Doubtful, methinks.
Well, since you have ignored my offer, and have already followed my post, it seems only fair that I post this!
BTW, Bible-people, this Sunday's Lectionary includes the passage about how others see us.
Oh, and just to make it clear, having the last word does not bother me - I just hope the last post on this thread is an int.....ing one!
Well, you know, not being the daft old bat some here appear to classify me as, I have actually worked that out for myself.
It is not I who keeps on writing in mocking terms!
I will make this my last post here if others do not follow it! Fair enough?
So now, in addition to being dull, repetitive, single-tracked, humorless, condescending, irrelevant, and consistently off-topic, SD reveals herself as manipulative too.
Well, you know, not being the daft old bat some here appear to classify me as, I have actually worked that out for myself.
It is not I who keeps on writing in mocking terms!
I will make this my last post here if others do not follow it! Fair enough?
So now, in addition to being dull, repetitive, single-tracked, humorless, condescending, irrelevant, and consistently off-topic, SD reveals herself as manipulative too.
How interesting.
Thank you for this most interesting summary of the characteristics of our beloved Shipmate, if she, in fact, exists.
She denies being a daft old bat, but I'm afraid we need some clear and objective evidence of this.
That is to say, if she, in fact, exists, and is not some form of potentially interesting Artificial Intelligence (in which case, she is clearly a work in progress, as indeed are all we Bible-people - and I render due thanks to Mr. mousethief for that most interesting appellation).
Well, just a minor point, faith in God is faith in the supernatural. FFS, are there supernatural bridges?
There’s a growing stream of evangelical thought which considers the delineation between natural and supernatural as alien the the worldviews of the Old and New Testaments. I find it quite compelling but I still struggle not to think is those categories.
So now, in addition to being dull, repetitive, single-tracked, humorless, condescending, irrelevant, and consistently off-topic, SD reveals herself as manipulative too.
How interesting.
Suddenly the word "troll" returns to mind. I notice that now, at long last, she admits she is capable of being "mocking", an element of the sarcasm she claimed she was incapable of. This is one major, heavy-duty troll. I'm beginning to doubt she's an atheist at all. Just a Class A, Grade 1, disingenous and dissembling troll.
Well, just a minor point, faith in God is faith in the supernatural. FFS, are there supernatural bridges?
There’s a growing stream of evangelical thought which considers the delineation between natural and supernatural as alien the the worldviews of the Old and New Testaments. I find it quite compelling but I still struggle not to think is those categories.
On the other hand, so is heliocentrism alien to the Old and New Testaments. Indeed it is contraindicated. I do not for that reason eschew it.
Dear and esteemed Mr. mousethief, that is a most interesting and insightful...er...insight.
I must admit that I did wonder earlier on (a lustrum or two ago) about the possibility of SusanDoris being a Troll Of The First Order, and I'm now inclined to agree (even without the benefit of objective evidence).
I am eternally grateful to you for pointing out to me what is now becoming painfully obvious.
One can only hope (in the event of an actual Hell existing) that an especially hot and unpleasant place is reserved for Trolls.
Meanwhile, of course, it has to be said that she has at least provided us (if she exists) with some rare entertainment, even though that cannot be proved objectively.
Well, just a minor point, faith in God is faith in the supernatural. FFS, are there supernatural bridges?
There’s a growing stream of evangelical thought which considers the delineation between natural and supernatural as alien the the worldviews of the Old and New Testaments. I find it quite compelling but I still struggle not to think is those categories.
On the other hand, so is heliocentrism alien to the Old and New Testaments. Indeed it is contraindicated. I do not for that reason eschew it.
If you like, but it’s not really a fair comparison.
Comments
A thousand thanks for saying this and I agree with your subliminal message that you are clearly making: namely that you don't exist. It is as I thought and you all are figments of my imagination conjured up from eating too much cheese before bedtime.
But then, as I was saying to the talking dog earlier, does cheese exist? Isn't it just microbe poo?
Isn't everything?
In my experience, yes, cheese does exist, but it may, of course, be simply a figment of my possibly non-existent imagination.
SusanDoris, I really think we need you to return to this thread, and to bring your incisive mind to answer this question for us. That is, if you, too, exist, and are able to experience cheese. Or not.
IJ
Thank you for this most glorious post. The existence of any human being is a function of biology, which can be studied by science using objectively determinable criteria.
However, I have to ask if you can prove objectively that which you assert therein, providing, of course, that you yourself exist.
IJ
I refer you to your Biology 101 textbook which was NOT the product of faith-based belief.
Your post made me shake with delight. I've not read anything so exciting and stimulating since at least a week ago last Thursday.
You are my hero and you can be sure that were you ever to grace my humble abode with your presence, then the talking dog and I would be more than happy to share our last Rollo with you.
Providing you could prove your existence first, of course.
As I was saying to the talking dog earlier, there is only one sure way to be 100% sure that a person exists, and that's to kick them in the groin.
I look forward to testing this hypothesis when you come around.
However, as I do not objectively know whether I have a kickable groin or not, I am unable in my present state of unknowingness to accept your invitation with any reasonableness (if such a word, or concept, actually exists objectively).
I believe that we require some suitable guidance from SusanDoris, but she seems to have disappeared (or, perhaps, to exist).
I wonder how long it will be before some Hostly Presence (which cannot be proved, of course) appears (or appears to appear) in order to kick us all out, or at least to The Circus....
Many thanks, Mr. mousethief (I hope I have your name right), for yet another helpful, if subjective, and unprovable, post.
IJ
Mere words cannot express my thanks for your post, although they can, self-referentially, express their inability to express my thanks for your post, and that will have to suffice.
Of course I have never claimed to be able to prove my posts. That would be absurd.
Thank you for your post. Of course I went through a phase of questioning, as many angsty teenagers do, but fortunately I was able to understand the limitations of my immature cynicism and materialism and evolve. Not everyone chooses what is of course to me the most rational and sensible view of the world, but tragically not everyone is as superior as I am, a fact which I feel moved to persistently point out in several forums, regardless of the actual topic.
So, here we are. Pretty much everybody realizes that SD is largely incapable cognitively to engage on many topics, but her dogged persistence in denying it keeps us hooked with our innate fondness for shared reality. Which is ironic, considering her personal windmill.
@SusanDoris, your assertion that you are engaging well with discussions is your own, personal religion - requiring your devout faith, based on evidence that nobody else can perceive.
Thanks once again for your interesting posts. You really are full of interesting ideas aren't you. I don't think I've seen so much interesting text since I read Interesting Things by Iva Interesting Idea. I say read but actually it was a video on YouTube because the book was so interesting that the talking dog blew a gasket trying to get through it.
It was a long time since I was a teenager, but your experience matches my own in so many ways: I also was alive between the ages of 12 and 20. Isn't it astounding that we have so much in common.
Meanwhile, I have to ask something that has just occurred to me. How do you know that you exist? I mean, could you not actually be some kind of voice speaking from the void left by a rip in the space-time continuum?
Can you prove objectively that you are not speaking from the 25th century?
Food for thought, as I said to the talking dog last night.
The groaning noise I heard in reply was an affirmative, I'm sure.
It's a very interesting assertion on her part, but I will require that she provide objective evidence of same that we can examine, according to the scientific method, before I can share her belief in it.
Yes, indeed you may, and thank you for being so considerate as to ask.
Whether the letters B and F actually exist, however, and have any meaning to those who do not believe they exist, I shall have to leave to others to discuss and/or decide.
IJ
What others?
Oh and before I close, thank you for your excruciatingly specifically allegorically metamagically extrasensory post.
Amen! Preach it!
(yipee)
This slipped by and nobody praised it. Well caught, BroJames. This is the catch-22 of the supposedly open-minded atheist. They define supernatural as that which has no objective evidence (or words to that effect) then challenge you to show objective evidence for something supernatural. At which point of course it would cease to be supernatural (according to their proffered definition), so their challenge would stand. In fact their challenge is a sham; there is no way to satisfy it. It is either stupid, or disingenuous (on a case-by-case basis).
(And I'll just add a couple of
Thank you so much. So very very much for not only pointing out the obvious but for highlighting in such an intelligent way when other people point out the obvious. That's a rare skill which I for one am so happy, so very very happy, to experience on a regular basis on this forum.
As I was saying to the talking dog earlier, this forum is so much better, so very much much better, than any fora I have know before. The talking dog reminded me that when I was on the Vermin Appreciation Society forum - many years ago now - there was so much less support and sympathy for people stating the obvious.
Now let me ask you something you may not have asked yourself: do you actually exist? It's a really interesting question, is it not, and one that I have regularly asked myself in public on open internet fora.
Please send mail clippings and DNA records of your family going back 15 generations.
Not as far as I know. I dassn't attempt to find out, lest I be awakened from my dogmatic slumbers.
Lovely post, though, for which many thanks.
I am convinced that love exists so I ask for evidence of love. They always produce evidence of the effects of what they describe as love, but can they identify anything as love? There are songs, poems, stories, paintings, but these are all expressions of the concept of love; I have yet to see a concrete example of love itself, although there are millions of examples of the outcomes of love.
(If anyone can contradict this please do so)
You say you are convinced that 'lov exists' and then you ask for identification of 'anything' as love. The only concrete thing or things are the nerves, etc etc whihch produce the emotion, in all its many and varied forms, that is called love. Do you believe that love can exist independently anywhere? If so, how? How would you know?
It's inadvisable of atheists to attempt a definition of the supernatural, as they are reversing the burden of proof, as you have shown. I've no idea what it means, but it's not about lacking objective evidence. Well, it seems to mean beyond nature, I'm no wiser.
When asked for such, an atheist will mention the NPF - and point out that the burden of proof is on those who believe anything supernatural exists.
SusanDoris, put your shovel up. Please.
Others, please note: It's now clear that SusanDoris is humor-free, irony-deaf, and satire-proof. However entertaining non-SusanDorises, should these exist, may find the jibes above, they're wasted effort in terms of millstone reformation.
Might as well adjourn to The Circus. Anyone up for a round of Nasty Take-Offs of Shipmate Posting Styles? Let's see if we top Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi.
(You're welcome)
However, I think we all owe her an immense amount of thanks for the interest and entertainment she has provided, and, hopefully (I think) will continue to provide on this and other fora (should they exist).
IJ
@SusanDoris, this thread is no longer a conversation. You should stop posting here. All we're doing now is ritualized ruining of a joke. The joke is your posts, and the joke is getting old all by itself. We do not need, nor want, you to repeat the joke of your pretend contributions. Stop pretending. Just stop.
It is clear that you are cognitively incapable of understanding anything we say, though. So I don't know why I bother trying to help you.
(If anyone can contradict this please do so)[/quote]
Donning my thickest and most reliably tested asbestos outfit, I will attempt it! No doubt my words will be derided and mocked, but that's not a problem!
You say you are convinced that 'lov exists' and then you ask for identification of 'anything' as love. The only concrete thing or things are the nerves, etc etc whihch produce the emotion, in all its many and varied forms, that is called love. Do you believe that love can exist independently anywhere? If so, how? How would you know?
Susan, you not only don't have an asbestos outfit, you arrive on these boards much like you arrived on this earth. If you had played American football, you probably wouldn't even have worn a helmet (which could explain a lot).
You're not prepared. You pose as an atheist, sometimes even an evangelical atheist, but you haven't grown beyond JREF debunking. One grows into atheism through thoughtful skepticism and questioning: I fear your investigations of religion and religions faltered from the get-go. If you depend on Dawkins TV talks and popular books for a contemporary grounding in science, you should have taken some high school and college classes in science and math--tried out a few laboratory projects to learn about the scientific method as background. Without a scientific grounding, your understanding will be superficial at best.
When you apply a naive understanding of science as an alternative to an untraveled study of religion, it always comes out wrong.
Could they be any less predictable than the infamously condescending, irony-free, humorless posts of the SusanDoris who posts endlessly here, should she actually exist? Sure, why not?
Sometimes one grows out of atheism. I did...not that I can meet SusanDoris's criteria for Scientific Proof.
But things are bad for SD when even her supposed ally, transported to the Ship purely for the purpose of defending her and attacking her critics, dumps on her to this extent.
By the way, I don't think I have ever seen an SoF rule which says I must stop posting on a thread that I find interesting to read... ...
Perhaps someone will advise...
What a remarkable thing this is!
The talking dog reminded me that There Is No Law stopping me from saying the undigested things that come into my head at any moment but that general manners mean it is impolite to say the things that people are bored of hearing.
I sat in awe of the talking dog for a moment and then told him this was the wisest thing I'd ever heard. And that this had happened to me on a bus-stop only yesterday. I was asking this interesting man a very interesting question that only just occurred to me and another man came along and asked me to move so he could get past in his wheelchair.
I held up a finger to show that I was pausing in my discussion of existence with the interesting man and told the wheelchair man how boring he was being. How very very boring.
After all, the pavement is for everyone, not just boring people and their wheelchairs.
I turned back and unaccountably the interesting man had disappeared. I scolded the wheelchair man because his unhelpful contribution had stopped a very valuable conversation with a very interesting man.
But then looking again, I think I might have been talking to the bus-stop.
The advice is: stop now. Most people¹ still involved in this thread are following @Leaf's lead and posting pastiches of your style. They are not asking questions meant to be answered; those questions are jokes, making fun of the kinds of questions you ask on Purgatory threads. This is what RooK meant here:
RooK's advice is this:
It's my advice too - just stop posting on this thread. Let it sink down the Hell board.
¹With the possible exception of @BroJames who has reiterated a serious question
It is not I who keeps on writing in mocking terms!
I will make this my last post here if others do not follow it! Fair enough?
SD really does need to have the last word. (To be fair to her, she as much as admitted this up-thread.) Will she ignore this post? Doubtful, methinks.
BTW, Bible-people, this Sunday's Lectionary includes the passage about how others see us.
So now, in addition to being dull, repetitive, single-tracked, humorless, condescending, irrelevant, and consistently off-topic, SD reveals herself as manipulative too.
How interesting.
Thank you for this most interesting summary of the characteristics of our beloved Shipmate, if she, in fact, exists.
She denies being a daft old bat, but I'm afraid we need some clear and objective evidence of this.
That is to say, if she, in fact, exists, and is not some form of potentially interesting Artificial Intelligence (in which case, she is clearly a work in progress, as indeed are all we Bible-people - and I render due thanks to Mr. mousethief for that most interesting appellation).
IJ
Suddenly the word "troll" returns to mind. I notice that now, at long last, she admits she is capable of being "mocking", an element of the sarcasm she claimed she was incapable of. This is one major, heavy-duty troll. I'm beginning to doubt she's an atheist at all. Just a Class A, Grade 1, disingenous and dissembling troll.
Further I don't remember ever having used that term, unless it be in jest.
On the other hand, so is heliocentrism alien to the Old and New Testaments. Indeed it is contraindicated. I do not for that reason eschew it.
I must admit that I did wonder earlier on (a lustrum or two ago) about the possibility of SusanDoris being a Troll Of The First Order, and I'm now inclined to agree (even without the benefit of objective evidence).
I am eternally grateful to you for pointing out to me what is now becoming painfully obvious.
One can only hope (in the event of an actual Hell existing) that an especially hot and unpleasant place is reserved for Trolls.
Meanwhile, of course, it has to be said that she has at least provided us (if she exists) with some rare entertainment, even though that cannot be proved objectively.
IJ