You are hardly an impartial judge. Tell you what. If massagetrade reads the entire thread and thinks you are the winner, I'll say so, but only if you agree to admit I'm the winner if he says I am. Unqualified. You have to say "Spidercmb won that debate" and actually mean it. Deal?

im not trying to offend you spider, honestly the best way to validate what you believe is to challenge it, and it is enlightening!
if we all believed the same thing, where would we be? probably still hudled in caves or gathering berries right? the only way to grow stronger is to push past resistance and challenge. the brain is just as much a muscle as your biscep, challenge it and it will grow stronger.
you dont have to drop your belifes spider, but try and understand everyone elses, like i said, it enlightening!

You only have around 350 posts, so I assumed you were fairly new. I think this was the first post by you that I have seen.



I don't mind being disagreed with, I'm quite used to it. As far as being stumped and humiliated, that hasn't happened here.



I'm pretty sure this is your first post in the thread.

spider wrote;
You are hardly an impartial judge. Tell you what. If massagetrade reads the entire thread and thinks you are the winner, I'll say so, but only if you agree to admit I'm the winner if he says I am. Unqualified. You have to say "Spidercmb won that debate" and actually mean it. Deal?



so thats what this is about...
hmmm

how about i just say it...
Spidie! your the winner!!!!!

jasonpfaff,

You talk as if you know something about me, frankly, you don't. I do challenge my beliefs, Christians are called upon to do just that by the Bible. I have never had a doubt put into my head by anyone in these forums, their argument aren't convincing. I have had my beliefs strongly challenged by a couple different Imams, but that's neither here nor there. What I find so liberating about Christianity is that it allows me, no...it demands, that I search my heart and the scriptures. If I find the Bible contradictory or flawed, then I will turn away from it. Simple as that. I choose to be a Christian, I don't have to be. Until a few years ago, I wasn't. So far, I have found that Christianity offers a firm foundation of beliefs. If that changes...well I'll deal with that when it happens.

I think you would do better to not assume and instead ask.

I feel that this is sarcasm. It's uncalled for. I'm not here for people to think I'm right, I honestly do enjoy a good debate and that's reward in itself. But I wouldn't mind seeing James have to admit I'm right for once. He always declares himself the winner and me an imbecile. I would like to see him turn the tables for a change.

no spider i dont talk as if i know something about you.
what your doing, is reading arguments and looking for ways to disagree and press your point.
what you need to do, is read arguments and look for valid points, and try and gain a new perspective.
its great that your a christian i can respect that.
again spider, its all how you present your self. if you tell a guy hes wrong (which you have one way or the other several times in the DISCUSSION) he will defend himself wether hes wrong or not. always.
if you attack, they defend. give them a way out spider, and they will be more intrested in what you have to say.
understand the. that doesnt mean you have to like it or agree, but understand
k

That certainly appears to be what it's all about. That whole win-lose thing is ego driven and has nothing to do with the topic.

I'm more interested in truth than in people's sense of ego.

Three people have clearly showed the flaws in the hypothesis that "there exists an absolute right and wrong", especially if it is being held that the 10 commandments and a particular religion supposedly has something do do with that ideal. Those religions can't even agree on what's absolutely right or wrong, so it's an absurd example to begin with.

It really doesn't matter who proposed the hypothesis. The hypothesis has been shown to be clearly false.

That's the bottom line.

Nothing personal implied.

If we were to do this, I would be sure to give you guys my paypal address.

But I wouldn't do this, in part because I believe that ego attachment to the appearance of 'winning a debate' motivates all of us in ways that interfere with having the best possible exchange of ideas we could otherwise have. (I used to think that every one of us who would invoked this idea was simply trolling the others - now I realize many of us really embrace the 'scoring points' approach).

i agree, there are no absolutes, i posted the topic, but i was more intrested in why we belive what we do than being right or wrong about it.
the human brain is amazing isnt it?

no spider i dont talk as if i know something about you.
what your doing, is reading arguments and looking for ways to disagree and press your point.
what you need to do, is read arguments and look for valid points, and try and gain a new perspective.
its great that your a christian i can respect that.
again spider, its all how you present your self. if you tell a guy hes wrong (which you have one way or the other several times in the DISCUSSION) he will defend himself wether hes wrong or not. always.
if you attack, they defend. give them a way out spider, and they will be more intrested in what you have to say.
understand the. that doesnt mean you have to like it or agree, but understand
k

You have repeatedly declared yourself the winner. In fact, probably every thread we've ever debated in, you have declared yourself the winner. I think your reluctance to engage in the exercise is based in fear of being told you aren't the winner. I'm willing to be the loser, there's no shame in it. It would be a nice experiment though. I'm repeatedly told how worthless my arguments are, I wouldn't mind hearing an objective voice, even if it said "you lost".

Exactly.

But arguments based on nothing more than faith are bound to fail.

Besides, the worst thing a person can do is argue from a particular faith-based religious view, and then accuse the other person of attempting to belittle their religion when the flaws in that religion are pointed out.

If a person doesn't want to address the flaws in their religion they shouldn't attempt to use it as a basis for their arguments.

I have an objective voice? (Are we still talking about me as judge? )

Hypothetically, there could be no objective voice without an objective definition of 'winning' and 'losing'. The process of deriving such definition might actually expose some fundamental differences in worldview which would make the debate unnecessary.

Edit: I mean, obviously you guys have fundamental differences in worldview - but I meant specifically in ways related to what it even means to 'be' or 'demonstrate being' 'right'.

spiders ignoring me

For his sake, I hope he's sleeping.

I never said anything about 'win or lose'. I wasn't even aware that we were in a "constest".

You were demanding that absolute sense of 'right and wrong' exists.

You also referenced the 10 Commandments which automatically brings in the Abrahamic religions (you opened to the door to that one!)

I pointed out that even the most scholarly clergy in those religions can't agree with each other. So how could anyone claim that the doctrines of those religions could even begin to represent any "absolute" sense of right or wrong? The people who try to interpret those doctrines can't even agree with each other.

Sky clearly showed plenty of examples where governments and cultures clearly don't agree on what's absolutely right or wrong.

So where's your leg to stand on?

Please explain.

On what do you based the hypothesis that some sort of absolute sense of right and wrong exists.

You confessed yourself that it can only exist if a God exists to be the one to dictate the rules.

So you're kind of stuck with the religious picture are you not?

Didn't I show clearly that even those religions can't agree?

What more is there to show?

James, you are still trying to get a rise, that's not going to work.

If anyone is interested, you can go back to my earlier post when I mentioned the 10 commandments. My point is that most, if not all cultures and societies agree on seven of the 10. It's a really widely accepted belief called Moral universalism.

Moral universalism


It wasn't the basis of my argument, it was a response to Jame's question statement:



The fact is, it really is true that most, if not all religions and societies agree that stealing, murder, adultery, lying are wrong.

So James has constantly mischaracterized my argument, because he assumes people are too lazy or trusting to bother going back to the first page, 4th post down.

Oh no, that's not what I meant. In a debate, neither party is declared right. One party is declared the winner, because their arguments and supporting material was superior.

You wouldn't have to agree with the winner and you wouldn't have to say that the winner's position was right. Just who did the better job of getting his / her point across.

You said:


I really wasn't going to, but I will since you want me to give you attention.

In green, you state that you don't talk as if you know something about me.

In red, you make an assertion about my behavior without any evidence.

I'm not going to declare myself the winner, but I am smiling.