Lying for Jesus

[Nebula]

The rules of the inept arguer:

1. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.
2. I have the right to argue my point ad infinitum. You don't.
3. I can attack your logic because it is not part of my beliefs, but you cannot attack my beliefs because they are not based on logic.
4. The purpose of the argument is to wear you down in any way possible.
5. I will mock you if you raise a silly example, even though I raise silly examples all the time.
6. Never let facts get in the way of a good argument.
7. If you say something that makes sense, I will immediately dismiss it in favour of a comment beginning with, "Yeah, but what about...," thus changing the subject and causing you to defend a new topic that I won't listen to your side of.
8. Instead of proving what I think is right, I will take every opportunity to try and make you prove I am wrong.
9. As for #8, nothing you can say will prove me wrong.
10. My beliefs are based on 10,000 points. If you counter 9.999 of the points, your arguments have failed because you have not countered the 10,000th point, which I won't be telling you about in order to keep my belief intact that no one can counter all 10,000 points.
11. I reserve the right to adjust any number of points ever so slightly so that you have to start all over again.

[hellomynameis]

... And a partridge in a pear tree!

[Born_again]

I'm going to need some help here.....

Sobrohusfat's comment about the chicanery emanating from both 'sides' got me into research mode. So I got searching in what I perceived to be as objective a manner as possible, but my bias must have been creeping out. I tried many of the popular social video hosting sites and searches on 8 search engines, but I was getting some 'strange' results. Basically, I failed to find what I was looking for: significant results to contradict my position.

So, in departure of the time-honoured fashion of our debate fundamentals, I'd like to ask my protagonists to help share the burden of proof with regards to finding supporting data to suggest that atheists resort to quote-mining(lying) as part of their strategy.

Some examples of search strings that I used are:
quote mining, quote-mining, atheist/s quote mining, atheist/s use quote mining, atheist/s lies, lies atheist/s, christians quote mined, etc, etc.

Interestingly, Yahoo Answers did provide a couple of hits to contradict my position, but I feel certain that my protagonists would rather hope that I sort of ignore them, you know.... to save exposing such masochistic postings from coming to light.

As a concession, I will consider modifying the thread title to reflect the outcome. For the time being it will stay as it is, "Lying for Jesus"

[Mr Danksworth]

Basically, I failed to find what I was looking for: significant results to contradict my position.

Surprised? I'm not. The silence speaks volumes.

[Born_again]

It's still early days, Soulra. Surely there will be something out there, but the probability is that it's already been quote mined.

[Mr Danksworth]

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion ... _rss_daily
Oh, No! It's Making Well-Reasoned Arguments Backed With Facts! Run!
BY MATTHEW BARNES
MAY 28, 2009 | ISSUE 45•22

02.27.08
I…I think it's finally over. Our reactionary emotional response seems to have stopped it dead in its tracks. If I'm right, all we have to do now is smugly reiterate our half-formed thesis and—oh, no! For the love of God, no! It's thoughtfully mulling things over!

Run! Run! It's making reasonable, fact-based arguments!

Quickly! Hide behind self-righteousness! The ad hominem rejoinders—ready the ad hominem rejoinders! Watch out! Dodge the issue at hand! Question its character and keep moving haphazardly from one flawed point to the next!

All together now! Put every bit of secondhand conjecture into it you've got!

*bleep* it, nothing's working! It's trapped us in our own unsubstantiated claims! We need to switch fundamentally unsound tactics. Hurry, throw up the straw man! Look, I think it's going for it. C'mon…c'mon…yes, it's going for it! Now hit it with the thing that one guy told us once while it's distracted by our ludicrous rationalizations!

Gah! It's calmly and evenhandedly deflecting everything we're throwing at it. Our deductive fallacies are only making it stronger! Wait…what on earth is it doing now? Oh, no, it has sources! My God, it's defending itself with ironclad sources! Someone stop the citing! Please, please stop the citing!

The language is impenetrable! For all that is good and holy, backpedal with all your might!

Where are the children? Someone overprotect the children! They cannot be exposed to this kind of illuminative reasoning. Their young, open minds are much too vulnerable to independent thought. We have to shield them behind our unshakeable intolerance for critical thinking.

What?!? Noooooooooo! Richard! For the love of God, it's convinced Richard!

No time for tears now. Richard's mind has been changed forever. But we mustn't let it weaken our resolve. Mark my words, our ignorance will hold, no matter the cost. Now, more than ever, we have to keep floundering ahead with blind faith in our increasingly fallacious worldview.

For Richard's sake.

What's that? Now it's making an appeal to reason? Never! Do you hear me, you eloquent, well-read behemoth? Never! We'll die before we recognize what we secretly know to be true! The cognitive dissonance only makes our denial stronger!

We have but one hope left: passive-aggressive slights disguised as impersonal discourse.† Okay, everyone, careful now…careful…if this is going to work, we have to arrogantly assume that it won't be smart enough to catch on to our attempt to salvage some feeling of superiority and—oh, God, it's calling us out! Quick, avoid eye contact and stammer an apology! Tell it we were just joking! Tell it we were joking!

Arrgh! Our pride! Oh, Lord, our pride! It burns!

All is lost. We don't stand a chance against its relentless onslaught of exhaustive research and immaculate rhetoric. We may as well lie down and—Christ, how it pains me to say it—admit that it's right. My friends, I would like to take these last few moments of stubborn close-mindedness to say that it's been an honor to dig myself into this hole with you.

Unless…wait, of course! Why didn't we think of it before? Volume! Sheer volume! It's so simple. Quickly now, we don't have much time! Don't let it get a word in edgewise! Derisively cut it off mid-sentence! Now, launch the sophomoric personal attacks! Louder, yes, that's it, louder! Be repetitive, juvenile, and obstinate! It's working! It's working!

We've done it! It's walking away and shaking its head in disgust! Huzzah! Finally—defeated with a single three-minute volley of irrelevant, off-topic shouting!

Ironic, really, isn't it?

[Born_again]

Hold the press! A castanet user made me aware of an apologetics' retaliation to Dawkins' charge of "Lying for Jesus", and for good reason, or so it would seem at first glance...... :

In my Atlanta talk, I briefly quoted the journalist Melanie Phillips, as a possible source of John Lennox's 'stunning revelation'. Unfortunately, I also attributed another, similar quotation to her, which was in fact from another blogger who had referred to her. This was inexplicably slipshod on my part. I apologise, and have asked Josh to remove the brief section of my talk where I spoke about Melanie Phillips.

Richard

I only have a few minutes now, so I'll just leave a shed-load of relevant links then get back to this later. What I can say now is that since early this morning, Ms. Phillips blog page has been 'tidied-up' somewhat.
Whilst the quotes Richard used on the video were correct and in the right context, R. Dawkins has attributed one of the quotes to the wrong person. Instead of quoting from Ms. Phillips' blog directly, as Richard should have done, he has quoted Phillips from a 3rd party blogger, Bill Muehlenberg, who is an historical ally of Phillips.

Timeline

On October 3rd of 2007 in Birmingham, Alabama, Professor Richard Dawkins and his Oxford University colleague Dr. John Lennox engaged in a lively debate over what is arguably the most critical question of our time: the existence of God.

2nd debate between Lennox and Dawkins held on 21st October, 2008 at Oxford University.

Lennox gave a lecture in Scotland on the 23rd of October, whereby he used quote mining against Dawkins' position.


Is Richard Dawkins still evolving?, blogged Phillips on Thursday, 23rd October 2008
Notes: Heavy usage of quote mining

Published 30th of October, 2008 Bill Muehlenberg blogs, Dawkins, Deism and Jesus, reflecting on Phillips' blog posting about the debate a week earlier
Notes: Regurgitated quote mining(Phillips'), as well as some fresh quote mining from Bill Muehlenberg.

9th of April, 2009 Dawkins gave the Lying for Jesus speech in Atlanta.

28th April 2009 Melanie Phillips blogs "The Truth Delusion of Richard Dawkins"

The two quotes in question, the 1st being the one wrongly attributed to Phillips by Dawkins. :

Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins is an evolutionist. But many are now asking whether the dyed-in-the-wool critic of religion may be, well, evolving in his views about God. You see, in a recent debate with theist and Christian John Lennox, he let slip what many would regard as a major blooper: he actually admitted that there might be a case for theism of sorts.

Dawkins then went on to quote some of what I had actually written in my own blog entry, as follows:

Even more jaw-droppingly, Dawkins told me that, rather than believing in God, he was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence – but one which had resided on another planet. Leave aside the question of where that extra-terrestrial intelligence had itself come from, is it not remarkable that the arch-apostle of reason finds the concept of God more unlikely as an explanation of the universe than the existence and plenipotentiary power of extra-terrestrial little green men?

What Dawkins has done is wrong. He's a smart man, so it goes without saying that he owes an apology to both of the bloggers for wrongly attributing one of the quotes. What is remarkable in all this is that Dawkins has tripped himself up on quoting the quote mines; the immoral lies that where charged against him in the first place! LOL You just wouldn't credit it, would you?

[sobrohusfat]

Oh well, while we still have a pulse, none of us are through screwing up either.

[Born_again]

Nope, I've got my next screw-up scheduled for 9pm. Oh, and I forgot to put my beer in the fridge earlier today!!

[oldhippy]

Lying for Jesus?

I must have missed something.
I hear that Jesus red from the Koran. If he could read then that means he could write.

I have not found any writings that Jesus wrote. Did I miss something?

I though that all the stories of Jesus was only a metaphor to live by.

My Native Ancestors had many metaphors to live by.

[Mr Danksworth]

How could jesus have read from the qur'an when the qur'an was written in about 653 ce? That's over 600 years after the supposed death of the jesus figure.

[Nebula]

It'sssss maaaaaa-gic!