This is like the atheist version of the so-called "Gish Gallop"- List as many fallacies as you can with a theistic argument and hope one of em will eventually stick!

Trav,

It took me a while to figure out what you meant by having my cake and eating it too, but I suspect you’re referring to the universe’s beginning. If my suspicions are right, then sorry, you’re wrong. What part of “equivocation” don’t you understand?

The science does not necessarily say that there was nothing at all before the big bang. We have all sorts of hypotheses about what - if anything - came before the big bang, but until we find a different method of investigation (which may not even be possible), we may never find out.

Nice try there too with your resurrection of the failed Gish Gallop accusation levied at me earlier. It is in fact you who has resorted to slinging something in the hope that it sticks.

The Gish Gallop tactic refers specifically to half truths and strawmen and I had already demonstrated, in my post to Graham, why the Kalam Cosmological Argument contained fallacies like equivocation, begging the question and potential circularity.

I had - in an almost prophetic manner - stopped short of going into detail about the rest of the fallacies I listed because the Gish Gallop had been mentioned earlier in the thread and I’ve dealt with theists (and even been one myself) for long enough to know what to expect. Yes, instead, I offered to go into them in further detail if Graham so desired. So even if we broaden the Gish Gallop to include arguments that are correct, your accusation still fails.

It never ceases to amaze me just how low you Christians will sometimes stoop when backed into a corner. This is exactly why I’m so against religion; it stops people thinking - to the point where, instead of considering an uncomfortable truth presented to them on a plate, they just start throwing stones, anything… so long as they don’t have to face reality.

It’s disgraceful. Are you at least big enough to take back your accusations?

I’m guessing not.

Our Universe had a beginning in its current form and is supposedly still expanding. That does not exclude the view that there is intelligence in happenings in the Universe.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220638

no Poirot, i am not SAYing anything, i am as usual, simply repeating well documented, scientifically proven facts & evidence.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220645
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220650
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220651
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220658
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220659
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220660
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220661
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220672
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220673
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220677
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220687
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220722

AJ Philips, WmTrevor, Shadow Minister, Ammonite, McReal, micheller & Squeers, please explain? none of you have even attempted to answer the question i have been putting to you, it is extremely simple, plain & easy, i will try again.

Question preamble, we live in a "dumbocracy" i & all the other christians have the right to be wrong, we are NOT hurting anybody, quite the opposite in fact, we (salvos, st vinnies, spiritus, lifeline) are doing almost all of the social work, rehabilitating addicts, homeless, etc, etc, etc, AND much more efficiently than any communazi social engineer/destroyer ever did.

Q, why would you waste your valuable time trying to convert theists to the atheist cause?

The only rational explanation i can come up with is equally simple, a hidden (in plain sight) agenda & Q, what do ALL the text books (bibles of loony left politics) say about the communazi international socialist revolutionary agenda (their ten commandments) say? Destroy religion, family, society & "walk through the wreckage creators".

Perhaps that is why they keep refering to Tony Abbott, another christian (who is in the business of UNdoing damage) as a "wrecker", the Luciferian religion & it's disciples delight in telling the biggest lies/spin.

Really Formersnag? The ONLY 'rational' explanation...is a 'communazi international socialist revolutionary agenda'?

I really don't want to quibble over the definition of rational, but I disagree.

I also often shake my head in disappointment when I read pages such as these and see what many apparently intelligent people decide to waste their brainpower on.

Formersnag,

A while ago I informed my then nine year-old that the tooth fairy wasn't real. He put two and two together and applied the same logic to Santa and the Easter Bunny. He was actually quite disappointed that these comforting entities weren't what he'd been led to believe.

Recently, for the first time in two years, he lost another tooth. He requested that even though he knew the tooth fairy wasn't real, if I could do what I used to do because it was comforting - so we pretended that the tooth fairy left a coin under his pillow...

Now there was no harm in him thinking that those entities were real, but because he was growing older and more informed about the workings of the world, I considered it was better he knew. Who's to say that human consciousness hasn't reached a point in Western secular society where to seriously and unabashedly question the belief in a theoretical entity as an all powerful supernatural force hasn't come of age?

I do take your point about the social work and charity undertaken by religious organisations.....however, the problems associated with our selfish society are more to do with a capitalist base and modern practice which destroys organic communities in favour of centralised planning and a more,more,more ethic than any leftist plot.