Yes the burden of proof is upon me. I could also argue that you are already an atheist or naturalist and will continue to interpret everything as such. I am trying to look beyond how I see things to understand how you see them so that I can better articulate a response to your/atheists actual positions. So I keep at it, asking questions, trying again in a new post, reading the responses, studying more on the topic, and trying again, etc.

I am also finding that not all of my readers of the atheists worldview, if you will, do not maintain the same positions on some subjects and so when I address something I am not addressing it as a position that you all hold, but simply a position that is held.

I am certain you can find Christians who really do think Christianity is all about not going to hell, but saying that across the board would not be a good representation of us. However, if that has been your experience with us then it would be my job to illustrate that it is not so so that next time you would see there are Christians that don’t fit that category (there are a lot of us indeed). I would not be offended for you to represent my belief as such but would try an explain further to show that it is not a an accurate representation on the whole.

Please know that I persist so that I can understand. If only wanted to misrepresent atheism I could just read books, write post, and disallow comments so no one could contradict me. Instead, I really want to know how you all think and not just have someone tell me in a book. I really want to know what you think about what I think and I want to correct any misunderstandings I have of your view and you have of mine. I think if we come to truly understand each other in a way that we feel confident we can then talk about what we believe at a deeper level.

I do want to write books one day in the field of apologetics and I most certainly don’t want to misrepresent anybody. So I really do want to get to know atheists and learn all I can and learn it correctly. I thank you for the time you spend talking with me. It helps and I am listening.

Understanding doesn’t mean agreeing, but it’s the first step to really being able to discuss the real issues of humanity.

Correct.

So when I say atheists don’t have knowledge of all things to know that there is no supernatural realm… how is that a straw man?

A “straw man” argument is a logical fallacy in which someone misrepresents an opponent’s argument, twisting it into something that (1) was never claimed and (2) is easier to knock down.

You wrote: “Do we have the bird’s eye view of all things to know that there is nothing that transcends nature?”

Your implication (common among theists) is that we atheists claim special “bird’s-eye view” knowledge that leads to a dogmatic rejection of the concept of a supernatural realm.

This is textbook example of the straw-man argument fallacy. We claim no such special knowledge and hold no such dogmatic views, yet you theists continue to attack us as though we did, e.g. as in your original post.

It’s reasonably clear to me that you do understand, or at least are able to regurgitate, our actual (skeptical) position, so I’m just asking that you refrain from accusing us of dogmatism in the future.

In contrast, theism isn’t simply a set of informational knowledge, but an experiential reality. Yes the experiential needs to make sense cerebrally as well, but it can be certainly known for it is an encounter with God that is claimed and not just philosophy about him proclaimed. I see both the experiential and the cerebral working together to form true knowledge, not one at the exclusion of the other.

Let’s cut through the bullshit here. You have been claiming recently that the “informational knowledge” of Christianity is backed up by the “experiential reality” of encounters with God. As we have repeatedly counter-argued, your purported evidence — an uncorroborated anecdote filtered through heavy confirmation bias — does not stand up to scrutiny.

If you posit the existence of a god, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that your specific god is the best explanation of your observations, as opposed to a parsimonious naturalistic explanation or even the actions of a different hypothetical god.

Your “evidence” is just part of a vicious cycle. You already believe in Christianity, so you are prone to misinterpreting every event as confirmation of your position, which strengthens your resolve, which leads to further misinterpretation, and so on.

Kevin writes “To explain the available data, there is only one explanation that is coherent and parsimonious: there is no supernatural realm, or if there is, it has no effect upon the natural realm and is therefore meaningless.”

So atheists don’t claim to know that there is no supernatural realm, but the only adequate explanation is that there is no supernatural realm with the provision that if there is it doesn’t effect us and doesn’t matter anyway.

So when I say atheists don’t have knowledge of all things to know that there is no supernatural realm… how is that a straw man? The statement doesn’t prove that there is a supernatural it only affirms what you are agreeing to on one hand that you don’t know for certain and yet questions the other hand that you could still hold it to be most likely.

In contrast, theism isn’t simply a set of informational knowledge, but an experiential reality. Yes the experiential needs to make sense cerebrally as well, but it can be certainly known for it is an encounter with God that is claimed and not just philosophy about him proclaimed. I see both the experiential and the cerebral working together to form true knowledge, not one at the exclusion of the other.

Moreover, to answer Skinner, the if there were no laws of nature how would we know when something has broken them? Moreover the supernatural affirms the natural and does not invalidate it. It gives it meaning, it doesn’t rob it of meaning.

The thing i overlooked in my xen config was the use of /dev/loop/0 instead of /dev/loop0 :-/

this blog entry just saved the longer part of my night. It’s not fair that a kernel update leads to the /dev/sdX devices being reordered… Now I changed the device names into /dev/disk/by-id/… to be save from such surprises…

Thanks, Dirk

I commend you for that opinion, but that seems to have more in common with the gun control people than with the NRA. What about the archetypal slippery slope argument of the NRA? Isn’t it what this is all about? Gun control is not and has never been about foregoing the right to bear arms, it is about having a rational set of guidelines to keep gun ownership from becoming more of a liability than a benefit to free society.

But, I don’t buy the argument that it helps to be “prepared” for the inconceivable. A single cop working in a professional environment is a thousand times more effective than a civilian using a gun for self defense. If you’re a gun owner, you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than to shoot someone in self defense. If you’re a woman, you’re actually 100 times more likely to be the victim of a weapon than to be saved by one you own. If you’re a child, you’re more likely to be accidentally killed by a parent’s firearm than to be protected by it. But if you pool the money that just a couple hundred people spend on buying guns in any given neighborhood, you can actually pay a cop for a full year and get an actual benefit out of it.

So, being “prepared” to defend yourself is exactly what I had been referring to. It just doesn’t happen. People win the lottery every day, too, but does that mean we should all be playing it? No, it’s a waste of 5 bucks. Same with handguns. They’re a waste of money when used simply for “preparedness.” Nothing more than filling a paranoid psychological need.

Thank you for your comment, but civilian defensive firearm ownership is not about preventing nebulous, inconceivable harm; it is about preparing oneself to have a chance at preventing actual harm. It is easily verifiable that such harm is done by Bad Guys every day.

Situation 1: A CPL holder is out in public, minding his/her own business. A bad guy pulls a gun, a knife, a blunt-force weapon, etc. The CPL holder draws a lawfully purchased and inspected/registered handgun. The bad guy stops, and is covered at gunpoint until the cops show up. Or, the bad guy continues his assault, and is neutralized. Result: lawful civilian defensive possession of a firearm has kept innocent people safe.

Situation 2: A bad guy breaks into a house in the middle of the night with a weapon, and invades the master bedroom. The homeowner identifies and, with a lawfully purchased shotgun, neutralizes the threat. Result: lawful civilian defensive possession of a firearm has kept innocent people safe.

There is one and only one way that any gun can effectively keep you safe. You have to actively go out and eliminate the threat.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for proactive crime prevention, to the degree that it’s reasonably possible. I’m a Libertarian (not an anarcho-capitalist) and have no problem with a tax-supported police force.

However, please don’t tell me that there’s no justified reason to prepare for reactive crime defense as well. Police cannot be everywhere, protecting everyone, at once.

But that’s not the tone of the dialogue that I hear from the gun crowd. They shy from everything - the training, responsibility, and the dedication.

There are certainly firearms enthusiasts who shy away from training and responsibility. I don’t appreciate being lumped in with them. I am on record as wholeheartedly supporting a drastic increase in the training requirements for CPLs and the strengthening of background checks for firearm ownership in general.

There is one and only one way that any gun can effectively keep you safe. You have to actively go out and eliminate the threat. Not the way grandpa does when he hides his duck hunting rifle under the pillow, but the way police officers do when they go out on patrol.

I’m completely in favor of more and more people doing things to that effect. It works. No matter what libertarians claim, the fact remains that the majority of crime is prevented and the majority of criminals are stopped by police officers. But that’s not the tone of the dialogue that I hear from the gun crowd. They shy from everything - the training, responsibility, and the dedication. I don’t hear them talking about the need for more police officers on the street. I don’t hear them volunteering to put their own lives on the line to fight crime. They just want guns as some sort of panacea to the things that make them really scared.

That’s why I take everything coming from the NRA crowd with a grain of salt. They’re implying that our police forces are too incompetent to keep our society reasonably safe. Yet, they claim that untrained civilians can do a much better job simply by hiding guns under their pillows, in their pickup trucks, or wherever they want.