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Just over two years ago (Feb 28, - March 2, 2015), I witnessed some big time arguing -- my first time sitting in on oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Washington. It was a thrill. On Feb 28, I toured the Newseum. The relevant point for this thread is that while there, I purchased Jay Heinrichs' book, "Thank You for Arguing." I recommend it to readers and participants of this discussion on atheism. The author's collaborators started a website where resources and space for practicing/honing one's rhetorical (argument) skills. arguelab.com. The available resources for readers, writers and speakers to make sound, valid arguments are vast. The help the ones who wish to clearly express themselves to do so with decreasing frustration. And they can substantially reduce tension in discussions. Now, back to your regularly scheduled discussion of Atheist FAQ. And may all participants grow in their knowledge and personal communication skills.

In plain English... I think to answer the question is to be in his heart and judge accordingly. I am not qualified to answer the question in the title of this thread. I am qualified, we all are, to have suspicions based on the available evidence. Here's mine: Remember how Wierwille said he was in those theological cemeteries... errr, seminaries, and they talked him out of God's Word until he no longer believed the words "holy" or "bible" on the cover? (Honestly, why wouldn't he believe "bible"? But I digress). I believe that is the last honest thing Wierwille said. Everything that comes after that moment is consistent with a con man using people's hunger and thirst for righteousness for his personal gain. EVERYTHING. Victor Paul Wierwille, in my opinion, was no more a Christian than I am today, no more confident in Genesis through Revelation than L. Ron Hubbard was in Dianetics. He sold a product he did not buy.

May I suggest that some participants in this thread (esp. TLC) could benefit tremendously from this MOOC on the subject of understanding arguments. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue Reasoning is important. This series of four short courses will teach you how to do it well. You will learn simple but vital rules to follow in thinking about any topic at all and common and tempting mistakes to avoid in reasoning. We will discuss how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by other people (including politicians, used car salesmen, and teachers) and how to construct arguments of your own in order to help you decide what to believe or what to do. These skills will be useful in dealing with whatever matters most to you. [...] Course 1 - Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments Course 2 - Think Again II: How to Reason Deductively Course 3 - Think Again III: How to Reason Inductively Course 4 - Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies Coursera doesn't charge for the courses unless you want an official certificate that you can use for job seeking.

Proving the supernatural would not end atheism. It would move the boundary between natural and supernatural. Discussion would continue. Practically speaking.

My name begins with the letter R. Disagreeing with the premise that my name begins with the letter R results in wrong conclusions. I don't see how you can disagree with the premise that my name begins with R. But if that's what you choose to do, I'm not going to stop you. However, if you expect me to somehow agree to disagree on whether my name begins with R, and allow your conclusions to carry equal weight with my conclusions, then no. My conclusions are based on the fact that my name begins with R, and your conclusions are wrong. If you insist on maintaining that position, FINE. I have no reason to argue with it. But ok. Now, you come along and say my name doesn't begin with R, and that it's small minded of me to fail to see things your way, and I'm just going to give you funny looks and tell you your premise is nonsense. Because my name starts with R. There's really no debate about it, and your false premise does not carry the same weight as my premise, which is supported by the evidence.

Awesome, let's start with basics:

Word!

Don't get me wrong. You're entitled to believe what you want and to express it, but this is a discussion forum, and if your position is "I have my beliefs, evidence be damned," that's not a discussion. That's trolling. And you've made it clear on THIS thread, that's what you're doing. As a participant in this thread (not as a moderator), I'm saying it's not welcome. As a moderator, I can say it violates no rules.

What I mean is, I made a fairly straightforward comment. If the human race was bottlenecked to 8 people at the time of the Flood, genetic research would show it. I never said there have been no bottlenecks ever in the entire history of the human race. My comment has to be taken in context. If the human race bottlenecked to 1,200 people 40,000 years ago, that's fascinating, but it has f-all to do with the flood account in Genesis. So if your rebuttal to my comment does not support a Genesis-era bottleneck bringing the human race down to 8 people, then in the obvious context of this discussion, it is irrelevant. See, this is why I get so painstakingly nitpicky in some of my posts. Because people strain at every single sentence, often out of context, to disprove an assertion not being made.

TLC, When you jumped into this conversation (which anyone and everyone is welcome to do), you quoted my previous post. Specifically, you quoted the following: You then went on to cite Romans as a way to establish that God (the Christian God, the God of the Bible) does indeed exist. Never mind that you're using the Bible to prove the Bible (which Waysider accurately pointed out is circular reasoning: it would be like citing the Qu'ran to prove Islam). The real intellectual crime here is that you ripped my original statement from its immediate context. I expect better. Here's the full(er) quote with the preceding line. restored here with emphases added: You see, my statement was about the deist God, not the Christian God. Debunking the Christian God, from my perspective, is boatloads easier than debunking the deist God, because the Christian God makes testable claims that fail. Remember the time Jesus said he would come back before those who heard his voice died? They did, and he didn't. Enter Biblical contortionism to save the day! "Well, he didn't really mean what it looks like he meant. He used air quotes." Remember the time Paul counted himself among those who would be alive when Christ returned? Well, he (Paul) isn't, and he (Jesus) still hasn't. Remember the time God said he flooded the whole earth and saved just one family of 8? Testable claim. Genetic research would reveal a bottleneck. None exists. Because it never happened. Oh, the flood was regional? Then why ask Noah to take 120 years to build an ark when he could have given him six months warning and told him to move to another region? Remember the Exodus? History doesn't. In the USA, we have a story about how we fought for independence from the British. It's an easy story to tell, because it's true. And the more details you seek, the more you find. Which king? George III. What year? 1776. Where? We have precise locations. How does Exodus compare? When did it happen? Well, we're not really sure, historically. Which Pharoah? Funny, the story doesn't actually name the Pharoah. Fine, but SURELY there is evidence of Egypt losing a couple o'million slaves over a shockingly short period of time. Actually, there is no such account in the whole history of Egypt. Well, the Egyptians didn't record that because they were embarrassed. (WTF?) Yeah, the Bible makes all sorts of testable claims about God that fall short once you start looking at them. The deist God? Makes no claims. None. That's why he's impossible to prove or disprove. "It's like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands." That's why you constantly hear Christians (and other theists) arguing, well, if there's no God, how do you explain the universe existing? Why is there something rather than nothing? Those are terrific attempts to get an atheist to acknowledge the possibility of a god, but it's a deist god. I could say tomorrow, hey, you know what? I think I believe in the god of deism. And you will still not be even a little closer to defending the existence of the Christian God. Genesis 1? Testable claims that never happened. Exodus? Testable claims that never happened. So I'm left a little frustrated here, in this thread, because I can see that you did not carefully read even the portion of the post that you cited in order to present a verse in Romans to prove a point that, sorry, it simply doesn't prove. And then, when that's pointed out, you come along and post some drivel about allowing the Bible to be its own language, which, on top of making no rhetorical sense, is not anywhere near the topic of this thread. Come on already.

Thanks. Let me be more clear: your citation of this verse, in the context you present, makes no sense whatsoever at all even a little. You raise this verse to answer a question about the existence of a deist God. This verse dies not address a deist God. Further, this verse cites a subjective experience, not one that can be independently verified by an outside observer. It is therefore, as far as "proof" is concerned, meaningless. Might as well cite Shirley MacLaine's memories of her past lives as evidence of reincarnation.

Would it have been too hard to quote the verse? The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are the son's of God. And the burning in the bosom testifies that Mormons are right. In terms of proving anything, this verse not only fails to address (even tangentially) the point I was making, but also fails to prove anything to anyone who doesn't already believe it.

Thanks for that audio link, Rocky – I look forward to reading Konnikova’s book in the near future. The thing about it being in our nature to trust is a fascinating point. We are social creatures and do have to rely on others for so many things - otherwise we would not even survive past infancy. But I think life is also about thriving not just surviving – because thriving is about growing…developing useful thinking skills among other things. I think surviving and thriving go hand in hand. Surviving is important – like Twinky and Penworks were saying we need to be wise…cautious…having our BS detector engaged. The world can be dangerous…treacherous…and we will all experience some hardships at times. I am thankful for my mom, dad, siblings, wife, kids, friends, school teachers, mentors, co-workers, books, the arts, the Internet (which includes Grease Spot )…all that good stuff that is passed down or shared amongst us social creatures – because that helps us to survive and thrive. But on the flip side ...sort of relevant here…what about life in a cult? Group think? A “secret” society of social creatures no longer at large? To survive in the hive you must believe all that jive. I do believe we are hardwired to interact with others but I was also fascinated by Konnikova’s point on how we want to think we deserve good things to happen to us or that we tend to overestimate our powers of discernment and like to think we know a good deal when we see one…I liked her idea of stepping back and looking at a situation as if it was about a third person - like it involved someone else and not me (so it’s not my ego at stake) – what would I say to that person if they asked me what I thought of some product or service. Having experience in security technology I’m familiar with playing the role of the bad guy in order to design a better defense system. A good BS detector may be sort of like that – Konnikova’s third person approach is playing the devil’s advocate in your own thought process – it’s having the bad guy tell you exactly why the design is not perfect.

Just pure, unadulterated, chocolate cream! Two of the greatest ever imo!