Actually, that was pretty dishonest, Paddoboy.
What you said:
This is pretty straightforward: The statement that, "science would cease to be and we would all simply pray for whatever we wanted, and Darwinism and the theory of evolution would not be fact", is your own article of assertion, a projection drawn from a God of your invention and assigned attributes. It's
your God, Paddoboy.
So bury the self-righteousness: You would be out of here,
if? Well, right; you're a religious zealot who would be out of here if only the infidel would satisfy you. So let me say, at this point, Paddoboy, that in whatever great cosmic show by which you are supposed to be one of the proverbial good guys, your result does not reflect that notion. Fallacious inflammation isn't going to convince religous believers they're wrong. What's the actual behavioral economy, there? Is it that they're wrong, so you're automatically right, thus ridicule them according to fallacious inventions of your own imagination in pursuit of personal satisfaction above all else, and they will suddenly see how right you are, and kneel in awestruck gratitude for their liberation into enlightenment? No, really, what do you expect to accomplish by this vice, other than ephemeral self-satisfcation?
And, sure, it's not like you're the only one, Paddoboy. There was one atheist, recently, telling me his make-believe about and antagonism of religious people is how shows he cares about, "the harms these beliefs do to the believers themselves". No, he doesn't actually care about them for their own sake. He would behave differently, if he did, like actually attending reality and not assembling straw men to scold in order to feel better about himself. And if it really is about "the point where unsupported beliefs start having detrimental impacts on other people", as that other put it, we might expect him to bring something other than unsupported religious assertions.
When people go out of their way to make things worse, they become a detriment and danger to the people around them.
Moreover, seriously, how much credibility should I give an atheist of such poor judgment that Jan Ardena requires such panicked attention? Keep embarrassing yourselves; at least you'll have each other.
So, here's a story, and it even involves Jan, so pay attention:
• In another thread I happen to be razzing a particular proposition for its petulance. Think of it this way, a while back, I asked about some strange things going on, including an annoyed obsession with Jan, a proposition that theists should come say stuff on prompt so an atheist could disagree, and a strange discussion in which an atheistic argument made an affirmative argument, that one either believes in God or not, but could not explain what that meant. At any rate, the inquiry produced some interesting responses, faded out, and was then revived, a year later; Jan figured in the atheistic revival of the thread; over a year after that, the thread revived again in a fourteen-hundred post temper tantrum that opened by calling Jan out directly. Two and a half years, that took, and people are still freaking out about Jan, making him far more important than he is, and in that other thread I'm razzing, we're back to insisting that theists define God for atheists, which, let's face it, is just embarrassing.
Here's another story about Jan, and it's tied into that one: Somewhere along the way, I recalled an occasion that I couldn't pin down specifically, and Jan asked me to let him know if I ever remembered what it was. This thread brings it to mind, because, well, if I happened to be wrong about why and how Jan was botching something, he was still botching up. See, the subject
might have been,
isness. But sometime after being mislabeled by critics, Jan referred to Judaism in an affirmative way that would actually illuminate that episode; if it was
isness, I was thinking of, that's been swirling around in his theology the whole time. Doesn't mean whatever occasion I was recalling didn't botch the concept in some way, but, rather, that it was a different manner of botchery.
The reason
isness comes to mind is that Jan recently, in the aftermath of his idolization by the atheistic community at Sciforums, saw it came up in the discussion of theists defining God for atheists, and whatever shortcomings the character Jan plays, here, might display, he does know what it looks like when atheists are in over their heads. And, well, the topic question in this thread pertains directly to
isness. Unless, of course, it doesn't. But even inasmuch as it wouldn't, it still would. That is, even if Jan was just playing a word game with the source quote, it's still the concept he would have been exploiting. And if I thought he might have gotten it from me, maybe something I said pinged him, because who else spends much on the subject. Or I could be wrong; maybe he was thinking something else, or I was recalling something else, entirely.
Still, that I have before told him what I think of his presentation says nothing about anyone else. Consider that the actual answer to Jan's topic question is that,
you wouldn't know.
He already knows this answer.
To the other, as we learn from another, in that thread where I'm razzing a petulant mulligan, the problem with such answers is that they aren't useful, because atheists cannot judge such a God according to the needs of their personal aesthetics.
No, no, the topic post wasn't an oblique jab at a post that came three days later, but every once in a while I find myself making some sort of grim joke about how atheists shouldn't be faring so poorly in these discussions. Oh, I'm sorry, that actually isn't a joke. At least, not anymore. Used to be, sure, but, hey, I took the hint years ago, and if there is something this atheistic community hasn't failed at, it would be the insistent sustenance of this grim pattern of self-obsessed failure.
Remember, compared to, say, redemptive monotheism, I would usually be putting the topic question, or some form thereof, to believers who seek to usurp God, or contain It in a shoebox. It's absurd, and ought to be embarrassing, that
Jan Ardena is some manner of crisis for any reasonable atheist. Juvenilia is one thing, but some of these people have been at it for years, and ought to know better. This should have been a can of corn. Like reading the early exchanges; I don't have to like Jan's method, but, damn, nobody need serve up, like that.
To reiterate:
• Generally speaking, his ministry ought to be harmless save for whatever the flock invests in him .... Sometimes a ministry itself is less dangerous than its congregation, but this version of it is, truly, one of the most ridiculous things I've ever witnessed ... he only has what power his flock gives him.
(May, 2019↗)
• There are a few ostensibly religious members, utterly full of shite, and while we haven't chased them away or thrown them out for being dishonest, their main effect, to borrow the word, is triggering atheists. One is clearly a clueless egocentric basking in the attention of being an evangelist with a flock. And, sure, give me the line about how these seemingly harmless wolves in sheep's clothing are dangerous to certain ranges of people despite their general inefficacy as evangelists. But, still, who is this unfortunate congregation? Near as I can tell, it's a small handful of evangelical atheists caught up in the thrall of their own zeal and religious fantasies.
(August, 2019↗)
• The Sciforums version of it would look at the scattered street preacher who makes no sense, has no real flock, and spends his time muttering after his own gratification in ways most of us just don't understand, and raise him up as an idol.
(March, 2020↗)
• And, again, Jan Ardena has no flock but those who need him as an idol to lash against.
(March, 2020↗ [two days later; reiterated again eleven days↗ after that])
Also, look, on the point of people lying and generally being dishonest about things, I might reiterate what I told you
two and a half years ago↗. Furthermore, should you ask why you, or anyone else, as a member of Sciforums should be expected to endure such dishonesty, and why the staff does so little about it, please remember, it is already established that yes, we must keep them around even when they are full of shite, per the
Administration↗.
On irony: You'd be out of here, except for the setup? And this somehow warrants your bigotry?
