Dear Yuyutsu,

<<First it means that whatever claims I made at the time, were not intended for you...>>

Who they were intended for is irrelevant. It’s still a claim.

<<...which in itself makes ridiculous your claims that I owe you any proofs.>>

You have made many claims to me since then. Nice try, though.

<<It has never crossed my mind that by communicating with those two ladies I would invalidate your criticisms and claims…>>

You didn’t. That’s my whole point here. You WERE attempting to invalidate May May’s claim, however, and there is no rule stating that something must be directed towards an individual before they can question it.

<<Once again? this means that the discussion did not start there!>>

Not necessarily. It just means that you’ve made the same claims in other threads.

<<Are you actually trying to say that a priest who sexually-fondles choir-boys in the name of religion is truly religious?>>

I don’t know of any having done it “in the name of religion”, but if he sees himself as a member of a religion, then yes. The molestation is irrelevant to the question.

<<...would you believe that such a priest actually believes in his church's deity?>>

Yes, the Christian God is contradictory enough in his scripture to endorse all sorts of acts, and even condoned rape (e.g. Lot). You’re also forgetting about the moral neutralisation that priests employ: “The devil made me do it”, “I was exorcising my demons.” This is how they manage to simultaneously condemn the behaviour and commit it. It’s not all black and white (e.g. either they believe or they don’t).

<<No, he is a liar and an atheist!>>

Theism and atheism address belief in a gods. Nothing else.

I have no idea what the relevance of your rant on the Enlightenment was, but I see that you inserted another Nazi/racism/antisemitic analogy. Your analogies would be offensive to Jews and victims of racism.

<<Isn't science by definition about the natural and the objective? You are attempting to extend it to where it doesn't belong.>>

You’re right, it is, and it doesn’t.

Continued…

...Continued

But that doesn’t mean we get to make stuff up. And it certainly doesn’t mean we then get to state as fact that which we have made-up ourselves regarding the supernatural. It doesn’t then become reasonable to believe whatever we want when it comes to the supernatural. It just means that the only reasonable position for us to take is one of scepticism.

<<So if the majority of people make a convention, then claiming that something is so because they all say it stops being argumentum ad populum?>>

If what it is, by its very nature, relies upon wide agreement, then yes. Handshakes are friendly because the majority agree that they are. If they didn't agree, then they'd cease to be friendly.

<<I already acknowledged that all my subsidiary claims (to do with God and how to come closer to Him), were an unnecessary diversion.>>

And I already explained that they weren’t.

You claimed that coming closer to (or binding with) God is what true religion is (and not those other bad things); the assumption here is that God exists (or in your case, “doesn’t exist”), and that it is possible to come closer to this God. These are not subsidiary claims but foundational assumptions that your initial claim hinges upon.

<<All I ask you to accept now is our intellectual-property rights and that it is wrong to treat religious people like scum due to the crimes of others.>>

And I’ve already explained why your claim to intellectual property rights is invalid. No-one owns words and languages evolve naturally.

<<Again, you assume that I desire to convince you of anything ... which is simply not so.>>

And again, you assume that the burden of proof has anything to do with whether or not one party is trying to convince another.

<<I was answering your questions, and those of others, by telling how things are.>>

While refusing to acknowledge that this may just be how you believe them to be, and therein lies your burden of proof.

Oh, I just thought. You might have been referring to the burden of proof (and not rational discourse) when discussing the argumentum ad populum.

If that’s the case, then no, I never claimed that majority rules there. I haven’t needed to. I’ve objectively demonstrated why the burden of proof exists. Rational discourse came into it because you tried to portray my claims, regarding the burden of proof, as arbitrary and unique to me:

“To then portray what is an almost universally accepted and demonstrably reliable technique of rational discourse and critical thinking as just someone’s arbitrary standard…” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6579#199540)

Did you miss all that stuff about the legal and philosophic burden of proof?

Dear AJ Philips,

<<because you tried to portray my claims, regarding the burden of proof, as arbitrary and unique to me:>>

Arbitrary indeed - you could just as well tell me that I have the burden to brush your shoes.

Seriously, whether I am conversing with other people or answering your questions, this doesn't oblige me to do your bidding.

(plus in this case, to do the impossible...)

<<Did you miss all that stuff about the legal and philosophic burden of proof?>>

No Australian law states that I must prove what I claim. In fact it's not even within the OLO forum-rules and the philosophical burden of proof is confined to philosophical debates, voluntarily entered.

Since I live in Australia and since it was never my intention to enter a philosophical debate (supposedly for the sake of convincing you of anything), nothing obliges me to prove anything of what I say, how less so to provide an objective proof as you demand.

<<Who they were intended for is irrelevant. It’s still a claim.>>

You still haven't explained how possibly can such an unproven claim invalidate yours.

<<I don’t know of any having done it “in the name of religion”>>

After all, it's very effective in obtaining one's perverse desires.

<<Theism and atheism address belief in a gods. Nothing else.>>

Would someone who believes they would be punished eternally by an almighty, all-seeing god, still commit the act? The simplest explanation is that they don't really believe, only say that they are in order to achieve their sinister goals.

<<You claimed that coming closer...>>

I answered your questions, that's all. I thought you would leave it at that (even if you disagree), but you didn't.

When I'm asked about something I know, I answer what I know. When I don't know, I say that I don't and when I'm unsure, I say "I think" or "I believe" (for example about the afterlife).

<<No-one owns words and languages evolve naturally.>>

Were you ever told that all lawyers end up in hell?
Those with a sense of natural justice wouldn't become lawyers!

Dear Yuyutsu,

<<Arbitrary indeed - you could just as well tell me that I have the burden to brush your shoes.>>

Not quite, because that WOULD have been arbitrary, impossible to demonstrate and unrelated to the situation.

<<Seriously, whether I am conversing with other people or answering your questions, this doesn't oblige me to do your bidding.>>

No, it certainly doesn’t. Whether or not you actually have a burden of proof remains separate from whether or not you choose to provide proof. You are well within your rights to not fulfill your obligation. However, you have argued that you don’t even have such an obligation in the first place. That’s rather different.

<<(plus in this case, to do the impossible...)>>

Then you can’t know that what you claim is fact.

<<No Australian law states that I must prove what I claim.>>

I never said that it did. Appeals to the legal burden of proof are often made as a way of getting others to think about the burden of proof in general. It's not necessarily an appeal to the law.

<<... and the philosophical burden of proof is confined to philosophical debates, voluntarily entered.>>

No, it’s not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof

You just made that up.

<<You still haven't explained how possibly can such an unproven claim invalidate yours.>>

As I alluded to before: it can’t. The person making the claim can use to in an attempt to do so, though. But if that's not a goal of yours, then why claim to be defending religion?

<<Would someone who believes they would be punished eternally by an almighty, all-seeing god, still commit the act?>>

Yes, the Christian God is very all-forgiving. Theists also have a knack for moral disengagement techniques, as do others.

<<The simplest explanation is that they don't really believe, only say that they are in order to achieve their sinister goals.>>

Yes, I'm sure they'd live such highly irregular lives to touch the occasional kid. Get real.

Continued…

...Continued

<<When I'm asked about something I know, I answer what I know.>>

And when it’s shown that you can’t possibly know, you run around like a headless chook and start contradicting yourself, while trying to distract from that by instituting sinister motives on the behalf of others.

<<When I don't know, I say that I don't and when I'm unsure, I say "I think" or "I believe"...>>

Not always, apparently.

<<Those with a sense of natural justice wouldn't become lawyers!>>

Speaking of this...

I’ve been doing a bit of investigating, and it seems that I’ve been taking your word for it a little too much regarding who’s used the word ”religion” in what way, and for how long. I took your word for it because it didn’t help your argument either way. Anyway...

In English, the word “religion” has been used to describe a “particular system of faith” since fourteenth century - a while before the Enlightenment (so you can drop your red herring now and stop reminiscing about the days of witch burnings and demon possession). At no point does it appear that “religion” ever meant the same as just one of the words that it - out of many possibilities - MIGHT HAVE evolved from (i.e. Religare: "to bind fast", via notion of "place an obligation on," or "bond between humans and gods").

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Etymology

Again, though, even if you were right, it still wouldn’t matter; because your claim to the word - via intellectual property rights - relies upon your assumption that you, and those who think/believe/worship like you, are actually the intellectual property owners. How do I know it’s not the intellectual property of those of other traditions, that are not so savoury, if you can’t demonstrate that you and your ilk are the ones binding with God?