Religious broadcaster builds $4M home despite layoffs at his ministry

[Neosutra]

Hey Plow, notice the nice discussion the rest of us were having before you countered with another shit post?

No? Ok continue.

And now a baby's moma is god. Awesome. I LOVE how you change your definition of god in every post, then say "it has no definition".

[Beckwin]

plow rollin' hard with the victim mentality and accusations of thought policing

[Plow]

How about you address the points I made instead of cower behind 5 word comebacks?

Do they not teach that in PoliSci?

Hey Plow, notice the nice discussion the rest of us were having before you countered with another shit post?

No? Ok continue.

And now a baby's moma is god. Awesome. I LOVE how you change your definition of god in every post, then say "it has no definition".

So am I supposed to reply to your ridiculous bullshit or not?

Because if you're going to continue to beg for replies, you're going to continue to get them.

For some reason, even when you're simply begging for more replies because you have no answer to the last.

[Neosutra]

Ok Plow, Ill give you the time of day one more time tonight:

I never said perfectly.

I said better than you.

And it is beyond naive to believe you can get a better understanding (which you need explain something) of a subject than someone that has a phd in said field, with 15 minutes and google. If you dont see how blatantly insulting, overwhelmingly offensive, and massively sophmoric that is, then i really doubt you are even in college, let alone graduated HS.

You're accepting the idea that a baby can look at its mother, understand that it cares for and nurtures them, and consider it a form of God.

No, "nice" things are not miracles or any version of "god". Those words have specific meanings and you cant attribute them to 'anything nice'. It is the very antithesis of the word miraculous for it to be so common.

Because no, despite your massive self absorption, most atheists are not people that used to believe and then decided they didn't. Unless you're accepting concepts of God you don't want to argue about.

Actually, most atheists did come from religious backgrounds. This derives from most of our planet being theists, so any given person has a high percentage of being raised as a theist. Obviously a small % has a lucky chance to be raised free from bias.

Again, as stated repeatedly, your problem is with the people responsible for certain sects of organized religion, not with religion itself.

Nope, religion itself is contrary to the scientific method and is what I have a problem with. You would know this if you had read any of the religion threads.

I dare you to find a scientific concept I've posted about here and been completely wrong about.

Well specifically the "god of the gaps" postulate you keep pushing (even though you scream and moan that you arent playing that card). But as for a specific concept I have to go with "But what holds atoms together neo?!". You backtracked in your followup posts and just reiterated it "oh I just meant what makes particle physics work", but you cant really pull yourself back from that level of ignorance. You were looking for a point in science that we didnt have a finished model for, as a place to put god, and then later get offended when we call you out on "god of the gaps". You then counter by saying you can show greater mastery with 15 minutes of google on advanced physics then a phd in the subject. The last one is by far your greatest display of pure naivity and really the largest baseless insult to me and everyone else in this field that you have done to date.

As for your analysis: Again they are oversimplified, and if you really think your oponents are so dimwitted, then you are significantly less enlightened then you think you are as a sophmore in polisci.

I am arguing that it is ok for people to believe things I may or may not believe myself.

As long as they dont beleive religion is wrong? What you should reword your statement to is "I am arguing that it is ok for people to believe things i may or may not believe myself, as long as I agree with it".

No, I am arguing that advocating the elimination of free thought is a terrible thing to do. It doesn't matter if it's grounded in science or religion, telling people how to think is wrong.

But telling people that thinking religion is bad is "a wrong way to think" is any better? I dont like racism, but I dont see you getting upset about people's right to be racist.

Just face it, you picked poor theist arguements and had them torn apart by me and several other people here, and all you could do is fall back on "well your just an asshole then".

Sounds like a white flag to me Plow.

[Plow]

Ok Plow, Ill give you the time of day one more time tonight:



And it is beyond naive to believe you can get a better understanding (which you need explain something) of a subject than someone that has a phd in said field, with 15 minutes and google. If you dont see how blatantly insulting, overwhelmingly offensive, and massively sophmoric that is, then i really doubt you are even in college, let alone graduated HS.

Which would be why I specifically stated that it wasn't because I know it better than you, it's because I can understand it well enough to express it better than you, because you're bad at communication.

No, "nice" things are not miracles or any version of "god". Those words have specific meanings and you cant attribute them to 'anything nice'. It is the very antithesis of the word miraculous for it to be so common.

Again, you are literally forming your own Atheism of the gaps argument. You're stating that because we know what something is scientifically, it can't be Godlike, too. Which is a really horrible argument to make when you're trying to force the idea that because we don't know what something is, it can't be Godlike either.


You're creating a circular self-fulfilling prophecy by stating that you can scientifically debunk any meaning of God, then claiming only the meanings you can scientifically debunk are legitimate meanings.

Actually, most atheists did come from religious backgrounds. This derives from most of our planet being theists, so any given person has a high percentage of being raised as a theist. Obviously a small % has a lucky chance to be raised free from bias.

And here you've created a logical fallacy. The fact of the matter is, 85% of the world is religious because... they're religious. The other 15% did not, for the vast majority of them, believe in a certain deity, and then stop believing.

They consist largely of the remnants of atheistic societies, largely communism. The percentage of "true" atheists in theist societies is around or below 1%. The percentage of "true" atheists in the world is about 2.5%.

You may have been somewhat more correct if you applied it to the "I don't know" and "agnostic" groupings, but the reality of pure atheism is that the bulk of what remains of it, for the moment, is in atheistic societies.


Wait, I don't need to tell you all of this, you're a physicist! You know everything there is to know about sociology, you took soc 101!

Nope, religion itself is contrary to the scientific method and is what I have a problem with. You would know this if you had read any of the religion threads.

No, neo. Your perverted depiction of what you want religion to be is contrary to the scientific method. Religion itself is far, far too broad of a concept to be simplified into your strawman God.

Well specifically the "god of the gaps" postulate you keep pushing (even though you scream and moan that you arent playing that card).

Because I'm not, no matter how desperately you've tried to get me to, so that you could argue against it without knowing you're purely bullshitting.

But as for a specific concept I have to go with "But what holds atoms together neo?!". You backtracked in your followup posts and just reiterated it "oh I just meant what makes particle physics work", but you cant really pull yourself back from that level of ignorance.

No. This is where you're wrong. This is also one of the multitude of ways in which it became obvious to me that I was absolutely not dealing with the kind of intellect you think, and want to portray that you possess.

I was setting you up. I *KNOW* that I was asking a question that has the answer.

You specifically asked a few weeks ago, where was the physicist that sees God in the patterns and beauty of atomic structure.

I literally set you up to confront you about it, gave you exactly what you asked for, and watched as you scrambled desperately to try to find *anything* about the exchange to attack.

And you know what the worst part is? Not only have you still not gotten it, but even after my explaining it to you, you're going to convince yourself it's not what happened.

You were looking for a point in science that we didnt have a finished model for, as a place to put god, and then later get offended when we call you out on "god of the gaps".

I was not. I asked a question that had an answer, and demonstrated how the answer can be considered Godlike, even when understood perfectly.

You then counter by saying you can show greater mastery with 15 minutes of google on advanced physics then a phd in the subject. The last one is by far your greatest display of pure naivity and really the largest baseless insult to me and everyone else in this field that you have done to date.

I countered your claims that anyone that disagrees with you, particularly me, is stupid, with a challenge to test my intelligence.

You've spent 10 pages running from said challenge, trying to turn it into something ridiculous so as not to actually have to face it. Just like good ole Fred.

As for your analysis: Again they are oversimplified, and if you really think your oponents are so dimwitted, then you are significantly less enlightened then you think you are as a sophmore in polisci.

I'm not attempting to teach you things neo. Get it out of your head. I demonstrated my own capability to understand. If proving that people you think are stupid are, in fact, not is something you consider terribly insulting and horrible, you really need to sit down and just think about that for a little bit.

As long as they dont beleive religion is wrong? What you should reword your statement to is "I am arguing that it is ok for people to believe things i may or may not believe myself, as long as I agree with it".

I am 100% ok with you believing religion is wrong. I am 100% ok with Fred Phelps and his family believing fundamentalist Christian beliefs are right.

I do not agree with either.


I am absolutely not ok with either attacking others on the basis of what they believe.


Again, you are projecting your own hatred for anyone that doesn't agree with you directly onto those that don't agree with you.

But telling people that thinking religion is bad is "a wrong way to think" is any better? I dont like racism, but I dont see you getting upset about people's right to be racist.

Really? I absolutely believe everyone has the right to be racist. You can hate black people as much as you like.

When you actively try to force your hatred of black people onto others, and attempt to argue that hatred of black people makes you superior to anyone that doesn't hate black people, then it becomes a problem.

Just face it, you picked poor theist arguements and had them torn apart by me and several other people here, and all you could do is fall back on "well your just an asshole then".

Sounds like a white flag to me Plow.

No, neo, I've given you countless arguments, you've replied with countless "nuh-uh's" and "no, you believe this!"

[Blarg]

And here you've created a logical fallacy. The fact of the matter is, 85% of the world is religious because... they're religious. The other 15% did not, for the vast majority of them, believe in a certain deity, and then stop believing.

They consist largely of the remnants of atheistic societies, largely communism. The percentage of "true" atheists in theist societies is around or below 1%. The percentage of "true" atheists in the world is about 2.5%.

Seeing as how you like to use miracle as how the layperson would I'm surprised you have the opposite feeling towards the term atheist. According to you the way most people call themselves an atheist is wrong (I disagree) Self described atheists are growing faster than most other groups and as far as my experience (in person and listening to people on youtube/vid sites) most people who are atheists used to be christians when they were kids.

[Plow]

Gonna go out on a limb and guess you missed the atheism definition semantics argument that made neo hate me so much in the first place.

Regardless of that, though, the point still stands that as far as people that believe there is no God goes, there are far, far, far more in China, Russia, and the former U.S.S.R., who never believed in a God in the first place, than in your youtube groups.

[Blarg]

Gonna go out on a limb and guess you missed the atheism definition semantics argument that made neo hate me so much in the first place.

Regardless of that, though, the point still stands that as far as people that believe there is no God goes, there are far, far, far more in China, Russia, and the former U.S.S.R. than in your youtube groups.

No I read it and based on you saying 'true atheists' in this thread I'm pretty you were a 'no you are agnostic not atheist' person. I'm also thinking that neo was referring to NA in particular.

[Plow]

True atheists is just a descriptive.

Yes there's a God, no there's not a God, I don't know if there's a God, are distinctly different outlooks.


We had this discussion, I think it was the "U.S.A. is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" thread.

[Blarg]

Different but also able to be combined. I can't remember who posted it in that thread but they basically described what I think is correct in that agnostic pertains to everything (open to aliens, god, easter bunny and stuff like that, basically not be sure) and people are agnostic atheists and agnostic theists. The level of agnosticism varies based on certainty. I don't believe it's possible to be 100% certain (99.9% certain is fine) so you saying true atheist seems like you mean those who are 100% sure that no god exists, and I don't think that is a correct position.

[Plow]

dictionary says it better than I can:

Atheist, agnostic, infidel, skeptic refer to persons not inclined toward religious belief or a particular form of religious belief. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings. An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. Infidel means an unbeliever, especially a nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity. A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.

Neo literally attacks the belief that defines Agnostic, i.e. believing it impossible to know, I don't think he really wants to be included as part of that group as an Atheist, as much as he might try to say it's fine when it suits his argument.



The thing is, you're trying to accuse me of making my own meanings up of words that inherently have multiple definitions, then trying to argue that words that literally do not must if any do.


edit: to make sure you get what I'm referring to:

a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

That's it. It's not a multi-meaning word, it's very close to a simple root word. It's simply a root word with a prefix.

1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.
3. a wonder; marvel.
4. a wonderful or surpassing example of some quality: a miracle of modern acoustics.

It's a naturally wide word, there are a whole hell of a lot of them.

(it also lists miracle as a descriptive of a play, along the lines of romance, comedy, etc., but that's not exactly relevant to the discussion heh)

[Blarg]

Honestly you will find different definitions for words for all kinds of dictionaries. Some dictionaries have 1 entry for a word and some have 5 so.

This whole deal has been done many times already and you haven't changed your mind so I will just provide 2 links instead of typing myself.

Agnostic atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Atheism vs. Agnosticism: What's the Difference? Are they Alternatives to Each Other?

[Plow]

Honestly you will find different definitions for words for all kinds of dictionaries. Some dictionaries have 1 entry for a word and some have 5 so.

This whole deal has been done many times already and you haven't changed your mind so I will just provide 2 links instead of typing myself.

Agnostic atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The idea of agnostic atheism is specifically why I pointed out that he should've included them if that's what he meant.

Atheism vs. Agnosticism: What's the Difference? Are they Alternatives to Each Other?

Can you imagine the outbursts if I tried to use a guy with art degrees who writes internet guides to religion, writing an article trying to make religion seem more politically correct, on ask.com, as a credible source?

I don't even want to think about it.

However, giving him credibility, that is still an opinion article with a very clear purpose-- trying to make Atheism as a concept more palatable to those who view disbelief as a bad thing. He also literally declares that the historically accepted definition is just plain wrong, and all just one big misunderstanding.

It's like it never even occurred to him that he might be the one misunderstanding.


He makes the clear discernment at the end, that his point is that you can be both. Yet he never acknowledges the fact that you don't *have* to be both, and that they are not just interchangeable words.

[Blarg]

The idea of agnostic atheism is specifically why I pointed out that he should've included them if that's what he meant.





Can you imagine the outbursts if I tried to use a guy with art degrees who writes internet guides to religion, writing an article trying to make religion seem more politically correct, on ask.com, as a credible source?

I don't even want to think about it.

However, giving him credibility, that is still an opinion article with a very clear purpose-- trying to make Atheism as a concept more palatable to those who view disbelief as a bad thing. He also literally declares that the historically accepted definition is just plain wrong, and all just one big misunderstanding.

It's like it never even occurred to him that he might be the one misunderstanding.


He makes the clear discernment at the end, that his point is that you can be both. Yet he never acknowledges the fact that you don't *have* to be both, and that they are not just interchangeable words.

Since this whole thread is basically opinions it shouldn't matter if it's a non posters opinion. I read the first 2 paragraphs and it seemed to be saying what I would type so I just went with it. Agnostic means it's impossible to KNOW if god exists or not, an awfully broad definition that includes basically everyone. That doesn't say anything about your belief which is where theist and atheist come in and the ability to combine the 2 words to state what you think.

[Plow]

Ok, so let's assume he's talking about agnostics.

What evidence is there to support his claim?


Over recent history, the percentage of the world that is Christian has stayed relatively stable. The percentage that is Muslim as grown extensively.

The percentage of the world consisting what I referred to as "true atheists" has about halved since the fall of the U.S.S.R. alone.


The percentage of the world that fits your broad definition of atheist and agnostics together is also declining. This is because the vast majority of them are from the widely atheistic societies, which have fallen in number for a variety of reasons.


The percentage of atheists themselves who are formerly religious may be rising, due to the simple fact that not only are the atheistic societies falling, but they just plain don't reproduce as much; however, it is not nearly greater than the number of atheists who never believed in the first place.


Just another case of the guy that accuses people of claiming they're superior in his field of knowledge trying to act superior in another field of knowledge, and being completely wrong, really.

[Acturus]

Over recent history, the percentage of the world that is Christian has stayed relatively stable. The percentage that is Muslim as grown extensively.

I thought this was more of a casualty of the Islamic community breeding like rabbits, and not necessarily indicative of conversion of belief.

[Plow]

I thought this was more of a casualty of the Islamic community breeding like rabbits, and not necessarily indicative of conversion of belief.

It's a little bit of both, the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the modernization of China allowing more outside ideas to seep in kind of opened up the "last bastions" of "unconverted" masses.


edit: lol @ 6667 thread views

[Neosutra]

The percentage of the world that fits your broad definition of atheist and agnostics together is also declining. This is because the vast majority of them are from the widely atheistic societies, which have fallen in number for a variety of reasons.
.

Atheist countries falling?

Jesus titty fucking christ, you are the biggest closet theist I have ever met.

I never argued against agnostism, I argued agaisnt YOUR specific definitions of god (or lack there of). You are the one that perverted the word agnostism/atheism, and misrepresented "god" and "miracles" to be trivial terms you use to describe every day actions.

Keep trying to generalize me as attacking everyone that is a theist, when I am specifically attacking YOUR words and YOUR casual dismissal of reality when you debate.

Miracles are not common place. It is not a miracle when a baby smiles.

God is not "anything nice that happens". That isnt what the word "god" means. If you want to pull your god back to some mysterious force that explains the wonders of the universe then admit you are just playing the god of the gaps and move on.

You desperately try to play the agnostic in this thread, but you cant quite pull it off, because your seemingly DEVOTE christianity shows through in every post. You dodged this last time I asked it, when you gave your biography of your beliefs, but:

Do you believe jesus existed, was the son of god, a prophet, or a just a nice guy? And I want a direct answer to this.

As for your "challenge Ive been running from for 10 pages". There is no challenge. There is nothing you can prove by plagiarising someone else's work off google. The fact that you STILL dont get that a mastery of any hard science (especially particle physics) doesnt happen in 15 minutes (and yes you do need to understand these fields to explain them), is beyond insulting to me and should be a HUGE embarrasment to yourself. Unfortunately you just dont get how stupid you look every time you say this, so Ill let you keep thinking you are calling me out. Why is it always the idiots like you that breed, and breed young.

[Day]

Best thread ever in forever

[Maxxthepenguin]

Jesus titty fucking christ, you are the biggest closet theist I have ever met.

How bizaare is this board that is full of Americans and apparently makes people be in the closet about religion.