Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tom Talbott on the Outsider Test for Faith
Thomas Talbott has written a detailed critique of the Outsider Test for faith. I've been long convinced that the discussion of the OTF needs to move out of the blogosphere and into the realm of peer-reviewed journals. If Tom can be prevailed upon to submit this paper to such a journal, hopefully this can begin. It is the first essay on his list of "other writings."
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I guess I should read it when I get some free time. Guaranteed I will. I hope Tom does submit it for publication (even though I haven't read it yet), and that I am given a chance to respond in print.
I know I will soon enough, on my blog anyway. Perhaps I'll concede defeat! ;-)
Universalism is such bullcrap.
This guy has a Theistic Personalist view of God if ever I saw one.
If one studied the Theology of the Beatific Vision with a Classic view of God then none of these arguments would have any force. Indeed they would all be seen as incoherent.
Victor, what persuaded you to put the advertising banner on your blog?
I got rid of it.
It's a strong critique, and by no means rests on Talbott's universalism. I won't be surprised, however, if John chooses to focus purely on the universalism as a way to avoid addressing Talbott's other substantial criticisms of OTF: "As I've said many times before, I am only focused on debunking fundagelical Christianity, thus Talbott's criticisms are irrelevant"
He often says that anti-fundamentalist position are revisionist attempts to reinvent Christianity. One has to wonder, though, if theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa and Origen were reinventing Christianity.
Hi Ben,
You wrote: “Universalism is such bullcrap.” By “bull crap” you mean, I take it, something worse than simply false or mistaken. May I take you to mean that universalism is an utterly irrational, perhaps a degenerate, or even a demonic view? If so, could you perhaps provide at least a hint of why you believe something like this to be true?
You went on to write: “This guy has a Theistic Personalist view of God if ever I saw one.” I probably don’t know what you mean by a “Theistic Personalist view of God.” But if you have in mind the personalist school of thought sometimes associated with Edgar Sheffield Brightman, an important philosopher of religion in the first half of the 20th Century, then you are quite mistaken. For whereas Brightman believed in a finite God, severely limited in power, my own conception is much closer to St. Anselm’s conception of a supremely perfect being. My own view of God’s nature, in other words, is very much the classic view that you seem to think I should hold.
Finally, you suggest that, given a classic view of God’s nature, “none of these arguments would have any force. Indeed they would all be seen as incoherent.” Here, I fear, you will have to help me out. Just what arguments do you have in mind? Can you cite a single argument of mine whose force or coherence requires me to reject a classic view of God’s nature?
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
-Tom
>if theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa and Origen were reinventing Christianity.
QUOTE""If a man distinguish in himself what is peculiarly human from that which is irrational, and if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted, overcoming the irrational by reason. If he has inclined to the irrational pressure of the passions, using for the passions the cooperating hide of things irrational, he may afterward in a quite different manner be very much interested in what is better, when, after his departure out of the body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire" (Sermon on the Dead [A.D. 382]).
So he believed in Purgatory? Big deal.
Catholics are not impressed.
Hi Ben,
You wrote: “Universalism is such bullcrap.” By “bull crap” you mean, I take it, something worse than simply false or mistaken. May I take you to mean that universalism is an utterly irrational, perhaps a degenerate, or even a demonic view? If so, could you perhaps provide at least a hint of why you believe something like this to be true?
You went on to write: “This guy has a Theistic Personalist view of God if ever I saw one.” I probably don’t know what you mean by a “Theistic Personalist view of God.” But if you have in mind the personalist school of thought sometimes associated with Edgar Sheffield Brightman, an important philosopher of religion in the first half of the 20th Century, then you are quite mistaken. For whereas Brightman believed in a finite God, severely limited in power, my own conception is much closer to St. Anselm’s conception of a supremely perfect being. My own view of God’s nature, in other words, is very much the classic view that you seem to think I should hold.
Finally, you suggest that, given a classic view of God’s nature, “none of these arguments would have any force. Indeed they would all be seen as incoherent.” Here, I fear, you will have to help me out. Just what arguments do you have in mind? Can you cite a single argument of mine whose force or coherence requires me to reject a classic view of God’s nature?
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
-Tom
Hi Ben,
You wrote: “Universalism is such bullcrap.” By “bull crap” you mean, I take it, something worse than simply false or mistaken. May I take you to mean that universalism is an utterly irrational, perhaps a degenerate, or even a demonic view? If so, could you perhaps provide at least a hint of why you believe something like this to be true?
You went on to write: “This guy has a Theistic Personalist view of God if ever I saw one.” I probably don’t know what you mean by a “Theistic Personalist view of God.” But if you have in mind the personalist school of thought sometimes associated with Edgar Sheffield Brightman, an important philosopher of religion in the first half of the 20th Century, then you are quite mistaken. For whereas Brightman believed in a finite God, severely limited in power, my own conception is much closer to St. Anselm’s conception of a supremely perfect being. My own view of God’s nature, in other words, is very much the classic view that you seem to think I should hold.
Finally, you suggest that, given a classic view of God’s nature, “none of these arguments would have any force. Indeed they would all be seen as incoherent.” Here, I fear, you will have to help me out. Just what arguments do you have in mind? Can you cite a single argument of mine whose force or coherence requires me to reject a classic view of God’s nature?
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
-Tom
Hey Ben,
Here is a more explicit quotation from St. Gregory’s sermon on I Corinthians 15:28:
“So I begin by asking what is the truth that the divine apostle intends to convey in this passage? It is this. In due course evil will pass over into non-existence; it will disappear utterly from the realm of existence. Divine and uncompounded goodness will encompass within itself every rational nature; no single being created by God will fail to achieve the kingdom of God. The evil that is now present in everything will be consumed like base metal melted by the purifying flame. Then everything which derives from God will be as it was in the beginning before it had ever received an admixture of evil.”
Sounds like a doctrine of universal restoration to me. How about you?
-Tom
Part one
>Just what arguments do you have in mind? Can you cite a single argument of mine whose force or coherence requires me to reject a classic view of God’s nature?
God is perfect. Or rather God is Perfection Itself. Just as God is Being Itself rather then He has being. The final end of Salvation is the reception of the Beatific vision.
The Beatific Vision is immediate knowledge of God which the angelic spirits and the souls of the just enjoy in Heaven. It is called "vision" to distinguish it from the mediate knowledge of God which the human mind may attain in the present life. And since in beholding God face to face the created intelligence finds perfect happiness, the vision is termed "beatific". The only way one could not have perfect happiness in this context is if God was in fact not perfect.
Thus for your simple argument for universalism to be true God must not be perfect since the vision of him doesn't really produce perfect happiness.
BTW God has no moral obligations to us either but Brian Davies and Herbert McCabe's correct understanding of the non-problem of Evil vs Plantinga good but flawed free will defense is another matter.
How can the happiness I get from seeing God be truly perfect if it can be ruined by the knowledge my idiot loved one has willed to be unhappy for all eternity? Then God must not be perfect or rather God must not be Absolute Perfection Itself. At best such a "god" that would be needed to make the "simple argument" coherent might be relatively perfect but he is not Absolute Perfection thus he is not the Classic Theistic God of Aquinas and Church history.
From your "simple argument".
>God could make us "happy" whilst our loved ones suffered in hell
Rather we would automatically become perfectly happy by virtue being exposed to the Beatific Vision. If we could while beholding the Vision become unhappy then that is incoherent since God not be perfect since the happiness would not be perfect.
>only in two possible ways:
Only if you are a theistic personalist.
>either by concealing from us the magnitude of the tragedy (blissful ignorance),
The tragedy would never be the equal of the Joy of beholding the beatific vision. Thus your argument is incoherent when applied to classic theism.
>or by giving us a callous and stony heart, so that we no longer truly loved those who were lost.
Love is the act by which you will the good for someone. You are reducing it to mere passion alone. You could not will the good for an idiot loved one who has rejected The Good. But your intellect which is beholding the Beatific Vision would inform your will that your relative has made their choice.
Of course the only way in those circumstances you could will further evil for your damned idiot relative is to want them deprived of being(existence). Since evil is the lack of being.
But to wish that God would annihilate your idiot loved one's intellect & will(which would in thomistic terms be to blot out their soul from existence) which freely choose Hell in order to replace it with another intellect & will that choose correctly is more evil.
It would be better to be BenYachov in Hell then No longer BenYachov in Heaven(BTW your understanding of Heaven to me is not Heaven. It's more like STEPFORD).
True it is better to have never been born then to go to Hell. But there is a practical difference between never having received being in the first place vs having it & having it taken away!
I find it more foul to have my soul erased and replaced with another intellect and will that choose better.
I might as well believe in Atheism and be done with it.
>Sounds like a doctrine of universal restoration to me. How about you?
No it still sounds like Purgatory.
For you Tom.
http://www.catholic.com/library/Roots_of_Purgatory.asp
My all time favorite story from THE FOUR LAST THINGS.
The loss of the Beatific Vision is the great agony of Hell. All the other lesser pains are a mercy that distracts you from that great pain.
"St. Bonaventure bears witness to this, when he says: "The most terrible penalty of the damned is being shut out forever from the blissful and joyous contemplation of the Blessed Trinity." Again, St. John Chrysostom says: "I know many persons only fear Hell because of its pains, but I assert that the loss of the celestial glory is a source of more bitter pain than all the torments of Hell."
QUOTE"if God were to send an Angel to the portals of Hell, with this message to the wretched denizens of that place of torment: "The Almighty has in His mercy had compassion on you, and He is willing you should be released from one of the penalties you endure; which shall it be?" What thinkest thou would be the reply? They would all as one man exclaim: "O good Angel, pray God that if only of His bounty He would no longer deprive us of the sight of His countenance!(i.e. Give us the Beatific Vision) "This is the one favour they would implore of God. Were it possible for them, in the midst of Hell-fire, to behold the Divine countenance, for the joy of it they would no longer heed the devouring flames. For the vision of God is so beauteous, so blissful, so full of rapture and infinite delight, that all the joys and attractions of earth cannot compare with it in the remotest degree.
In fact, all celestial happiness, how greatsoever it might be, would be turned to bitterness if the vision of God was wanting; and the redeemed would choose rather to be in Hell, if they could there enjoy that Beatific Vision, than be in Heaven without it. END QUOTE
Thus based on the Tradition of the
Apostles which was handed with Scripture threw the Church (2 Thes 2:15, 1 Tim 3:15) I am compelled to believe the Beatific Vision is so awesome it would be better to have an Afterlife where I felt every other Agony in Hell (sans loss of The Vision) then a Heaven where I had every lesser bliss but felt the pain of Loss of The Vision.
Thus coherently I ask you Tom how could the knowledge of the damnation of my loved ones do to my perfect happiness what every other agony in Hell itself by definition would fail to do?
So I repeat Universalism is pure bullshit & your views are not coherent with a Classical view of God.
BTW Tom this is what I believe about Classic Theism & I am convinced you are not one with all due respect. Though you may in good faith wrongly think otherwise.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/09/classical-theism.html
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-man-and-classical-theism.html
OTOH maybe you are a classic theist but you haven't thought out the implications of your arguments?
We shall see.
Wow, Ben, you do try to cover an incredible amount of ground in an incredibly short amount of space. Because I disagree with most of what you have written, I see little point in our trying resolve our differences here. But if you are interested, I do address your kind of argument about the beatific vision in several places including my reply to William Craig on eternal punishment, and I make this reply available on my website.
What interests me now is your claim that St. Gregory of Nyssa was not a universalist. I personally know of no scholar who agrees with you on this matter, and I certainly have no problem with the Catholic idea of purgatory. But how, I wonder, do you interpret the following statement of Gregory’s: “no single being created by God will fail to achieve the kingdom of God”? This may indeed involve purgatory. But how on earth can you deny that the quoted statement also entails the ultimate purification and reconciliation of all created persons?
-Tom
>Wow, Ben, you do try to cover an incredible amount of ground in an incredibly short amount of space.
I wish I could explain more. But I am still learning Thomism. It saved my faith. St Thomas Aquinas Oro Pro Nobis!
>Because I disagree with most of what you have written,
Fair enough but I must conclude you are not a Classic Theist.
>I see little point in our trying resolve our differences here. But if you are interested, I do address your kind of argument about
the beatific vision in several places including my reply to William Craig on eternal punishment, and I make this reply available on my
website.
Unless it's taylored to answer Traditional Thomism that might be a Problem. I respect & love Craig but he is not a full Classic
Theist either. He denies the Eternal Nature of God by teaching He is temporal after creation. That is not Thomistic or orthodox.
Craig also doesn't fully accept the Divine simplicity. I do & Classic Theism fails without that doctrine.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/11/william-lane-craig-on-divine-simplicity.html
>What interests me now is your claim that St. Gregory of Nyssa was not a universalist.
Maybe he was(the old Catholic Encylopedia says so) but citing his texts on Purgatory doesn't prove it to me. OTOH maybe you might
want to talk to Gregory on the other thread UNIVERSALISM AMOUNGST THE EARLY FATHERS.
-BenYachov James
PS what is wrong with Victor's blog. I hate having a google account I am a Yahoo man!
>I personally know of no scholar who agrees with you on this matter, and I certainly have no problem with the Catholic idea of
purgatory. But how, I wonder, do you interpret the following statement of Gregory’s: “no single being created by God will fail to
achieve the kingdom of God”? This may indeed involve purgatory. But how on earth can you deny that the quoted statement also entails
the ultimate purification and reconciliation of all created persons?
I know the Eastern Church has a different view of the nature of Hell then the west. I won't say it's wrong. I might say it's true
from a different perspective. According to Archbishop Timothey Ware they believe the pain of Hell is caused by the Love of God. For
them recieving love from someone you hate is kind of painful. Like when your worst enemy is nice to you it literally feels like "Coal
poured out on your head". I know from experience people whom I can't stand who are nice to me make me sick. Imagine what it would feel like to feel the Love of God when you have only the ability to hate him for all eternity? That would be "Hell". So I think you might be conflating the Theology of the west with the East here.
OTOH individual Fathers can teach error. But the Church in Her creeds clearly teaches eternal Hell. Plus it's a fallacy to conflate Inclusivist Salvation & or ancient patristic texts on Purgatory with Universalism. so I am not wedded to the idea about St Gregrory not being a Universalist. But he was an Eastern Catholic not a Western Evangelical Protestant heretic who is also a universalist
heretic.
Peace to you. May God save you from you doctrinal errors and correct you at his good pleasure.
-BenYachov-James
Yeh Victor's blog is doing something weird.
Only the google account option seems to work so I got a google account.
But it uses my given name not my clever screen name. Plus I hate google.
I am a Yahoo man born an raised.
So just in case there is any confusion James is BenYachov,
I am after all James Son of James. or Yachov Ben Yachov in Hebrew or Ben Yachov for short.
Well Tom I read threw some of your replies to Craig. All I can say is YIKES! YOU ARE NOT A CLASSIC THEIST in the tradition
of Anslem. This is Theistic Personalist bullcrap. I am sorry. You seem like a nice guy but you are so many levels of wrong.
> It is possible that the very experience itself of being in the immediate presence
of Christ (cf. the beatific vision) will simply drive from the minds of his redeemed
any awareness of the lost in hell.
I reply: The presence of Christ is not the Beatific vision (since His Divinity is hidden behind His Humanity) otherwise Pontus Pilate would have had the Beatific Vision and so would the Pharisees which is nuts! In the actual BV your intellect would be aware of the lost in Hell but it would also know the Supreme Perfection and the happiness of having the BV & that could not be diminished by any created thing. If it could then it would not be perfect
and God would not be Perfection Itself.
>as if those in possession of the beatific vision are no longer free
agents.
Well they are free. But the will is moved by the intellect toward the good. The will always seeks the good. Nobody chooses evil. They choose lesser goods at the expense of greater or the Supreme Good which is God Himself. The intellect which has direct knowledge of the Supreme Good Itself (i.e. the Beatific Vision) can hardly direct the will to reject it.
I can choose to commit suicide. But my intellect tells me I can't kill myself by pouring water on my shoes. Thus I can't be said to not have free will just because I can't rationally will to kill myself via pouring water on my shoes.
>But it is not possible that the beatific vision should undermine supremely worthwhile happiness
There is no such thing as having the beatific vision that is not supremely worthwhile happiness! How can seeing God face to face not be in itself for it's own sake be supremely worthwhile happiness? It can't. It's incoherent to claim otherwise.
-Benyachov-James
Tom I'm finishing up my book The End of Christianity this week and next. It will be available in July. I'm not changing anything I had written in it based on reading what you wrote, just so you know, even though I think I anticipated some of your objections.
Anselmian perfect being theology though, is another story. You simply do not find that in the Bible. I take it you are not a biblical scholar. That's just par for the course with philosophers who don't really look into the basis for what you believe. Your God does not exist because Yahweh didn't exist. He was a tribal god who started out in a pantheon of gods and rose to the top. That's a really funny way for Anselm's God to start out. It looks indistinguishable from a human invention.
See Tom you need to be a big picture man.
John specialises in the Big Picture. This is true and it's no joke. He gathers as much of the relevant material as a mortal can possibly muster and he tries to make sense of it. Confound it though, all of the Big Picture specialists are gone.
He knows as much about the Big Picture (i.e., the forest) as you do about any one of the trees (or a species of tree in that forest.
Do you understand this? Do you think this could make him more dangerous then any given specialist when it comes to the Christian faith, since he is a Big Picture Specialist about all things Christian?
Being a big picture man also allows him to effectively argue against all disciplines when interacting with the Christian delusion. For instance if his philosophical arguments are challenged he can swipe it away with reference to history or theology. If his history is challenged challenge expect philosophy to come back in.
John is a master of atheistic thinking. Three masters in fact. His new book should be great and it will just make you idiots look even more stupid.
Keep up the good work John.
Fellow debunker said: For instance if his philosophical arguments are challenged he can swipe it away with reference to history or theology. If his history is challenged challenge expect philosophy to come back in.
Funny, this is exactly what Christians do, except that evangelical specialists in one field simply refer to evangelical specialists in another field.
Someone has to look at the whole forest. Do you know anyone from my side of the fence that does this better? Perhaps Richard Carrier, Hector Avaolos and David Eller, but I can think of no one else.
Wow. Wasn't this thread supposed to be about Tom's critique of John's OTF?? Tom's incidental reply of how universalism avoids a point of contention that John insisted on connecting to his OTF (though I doubt that contention is really necessary to it) is, by definition, incidental to Tom's overall critique of the OTF.
Not that James' digressions aren't important and worth talking about. (God knows I'm having to restrain myself from jumping in on them myself. {g}) But wouldn't it be more appropriate to discuss them in another thread?
(I could set up a thread for it at the EU forum if Victor wanted; Tom's a guest author there, too.)
JRP
Fan of J'oftus: {{For instance if [John's] philosophical arguments are challenged he can swipe it away with reference to history or theology. If his history is challenged challenge expect philosophy to come back in.}}
Is this supposed to be sarcasm? Because I don't accept it when Christians avoid philosophical challenges by swiping at philosophical challenges with history, nor when they avoid historical challenges by swiping at historical challenges with philosophy. And I'm Christian! So why would I accept it when an atheistic apologist does it??
It's one thing to be a polymath, and so to be competent in multiple disciplines, such that a person can mount (for example) both a good philosophical (and/or theological) argument and also a good historical argument. It's another thing to avoid having to deal with one kind of argument by switching topical categories.
JRP
Interesting how that anon fan of loftus wrote things almost identical to loftus comments in the past....design inference time....checkin ip addresses now....lol just as I thought....lol john
Okay guys,
This thread has simply gotten too confused and too convoluted for me to try to keep abreast of it, and this is at least partly my own fault. For you see, I completely misunderstood Ben’s initial post. When he spoke of “these arguments,” I wrongly assumed, in the absence of any antecedent for the pronoun “these,” that he was referring to arguments in my paper on the OTF—which is, after all, the supposed topic of the current thread. Granted, his opening sentence was “Universalism is such bullcrap.” But since I identified myself as a Christian universalist in the paper, I continued to assume, naively perhaps, that he was responding to something in the paper.
So one final comment on the extraneous matters that seem to have arisen. In your attempt, Ben, to show that I am not a classic theist in the tradition of Anselm, you have somehow managed to attribute Craig’s view, the very view that I argue against, to me. The quotation you attribute to me, in other words, was in fact a quotation from Craig. And your reply to Craig is mistaken in any case. For Craig was indeed speaking of the beatific vision, not merely a vision of Christ in his humanity, the kind of vision that, for example, Pontius Pilate might have had during the trial of Jesus.
Anyway, I intend to restrict future responses in this thread, if any, to comments on the OTF paper.
-Tom
Tom there's a lot of tomfoolery here, as there is on my blog too. It's hard to have a decent discussion anywhere.
In any case you might want to consider the responses to your essay right here.
HonAnon: I'm curious how you check ip addresses on Anonymous comments (or even on registered ones). Could you lead us through the process of that so we can independently verify John was sock-puppeting, and not have to merely take your own (entirely anonymous) word for it?
JRP
C'mon, 'Fellow debunker and Fan of John' has to be a parody, surely...
>Wow. Wasn't this thread supposed to be about Tom's critique of John's OTF??
Sorry about that Tom. It is true this thread is about the OTF.
Sorry for the Hijacking. It was late at night. I am home sick today and I was bored.
Maybe in the future that would be an excellent topic for discussion.
-BenYachov James
Oh yeh now the damn thing works!
I got a google account and everything!
Oh I am so sorry Yahoo!
>In your attempt, Ben, to show that I am not a classic theist in the tradition of Anselm, you have somehow managed to attribute Craig’s view, the very view that I argue against, to me.
Ok so you don't hold Craig's view & I confused the two. But I don't believe Craig is a full classic Theist either. I said that. I follow Edward Feser on these matters you need to read my links.
>The quotation you attribute to me, in other words, was in fact a quotation from Craig. And your reply to Craig is mistaken in any case. For Craig was indeed speaking of the beatific vision, not merely a vision of Christ in his humanity, the kind of vision that, for example, Pontius Pilate might have had during the trial of Jesus.
I think you are confused. Pilate could only have the Beatific Vision by an act of Divine Grace. Merely being in the same room as Jesus is not the Beatific Vision. I can stand next to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament all day doesn't mean I have the Beatific Vision.
I am assuming Catholic teaching and Thomist Philosophy here. I very much doubt you are doing the same. So I stand by my arguments. The knowledge of loved ones in Hell cannot lessen the perfect happiness of seeing the beatific vision otherwise God would not be Absolute Perfection Itself. You cannot be a Classic Theist and coherently accept your simple argument. A Theistic Personalist OTOH can since such a God would only be maximally relatively perfect not Perfection Itself.
Anyway we can deal with your errors late. Go after John's errors.
Cheers!
James: {{I think you are confused. Pilate could only have the Beatific Vision by an act of Divine Grace. Merely being in the same room as Jesus is not the Beatific Vision. I can stand next to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament all day doesn't mean I have the Beatific Vision.}}
You do understand that Tom was explicitly denying that Pilate was experiencing the Beatific Vision, right?
Tom says Craig was talking about the Beatific Vision AND NOT talking about the kind of vision that Pilate for example would have experienced merely from being in the presence of Christ.
I do hope we can have a thread on this topic here (or elsewhere) sometime, as the critique from the Beatific Vision has some interesting angles that universalists don't usually get to discuss--and some interesting logical connotations to it, too. {g}
JRP
>You do understand that Tom was explicitly denying that Pilate was experiencing the Beatific Vision, right?
Ok then. But I was looking for something that addressed my arguments toward Tom and I didn't find anything.
Anyway carry on.
Sorry it was a paraody, and a poor and silly one at that.
I just thought John was on one of his "I am not wrong and there is nothing in your argument I need to respond to anway. I see you only specialise in x if you had the big picture of x,y and z you would see that y makes you even more mistaken.
I have got another book coming out with a brash title 'The Big Picture: How I am so right but your an idiot.' I have answered all your objections there. Your an idiot if you don't see it" speeches.
Sorry John it was petty of me.
So it begins, as promised.
My second response to Talbott has now been posted, again
as promised.
A woman responds to Talbott and Reppert with a smack-down. I guess the boys club is over, boys. Join the civilized world.
The fact that you would implicitly accuse us of intentionally excluding women and so avoiding the "civilized world", in order to provoke attention, tells us you're only being trollish, John--not looking for serious conversation.
(Again.)
JRP
Folks this is the bottom line, right here.
Kick against the goads all you want. That's what happens when a delusion is exposed. Attack the test or the person who exposes it.
You do realize that DNA has shown that Native Americans are not descendants of Semitic peoples, don't you? And you do know that the Shroud of Turin has been dated to the 15-16th centuries, right?
Do you also know the religious responses to these tests? I do. They offer the same reasons against them that you do with the OTF. They attack the people who exposed these things and the test.
You fall into the same typical religious response when your delusion has been exposed.
Can you see this?
I doubt it 'cause you are blind.
Still, I'm not going anywhere.
Cheers
Was the charge that Talbott and Reppert exclude women from philosophical and/or religious dispute false? Yes it absolutely was.
Did you make it anyway without regard to the truth? Yes, you did.
Did you recant when this was pointed out? Nope, just launched into more fundamentalistic chest-thumping, like a Bible college graduate preacher (except for unfaith.)
Is this any good way to convince anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time, that you're looking for serious conversation? Nope.
Readers are welcome to make up their own mind on that, as always.
Meanwhile, I've already posted links this morning to a forum of fans of Tom (which by the way has a strong female readership), so they can read your reply (and the lady you linked to) if they want. I have also posted an addendum with your final link here, along with links to (and quotes of) your comments here so they can decide for themselves if you're presenting as someone interested in serious dispute.
JRP
My God, Joftus's responses are masterpieces of lucidity and wit! Clear and cogent are they. Forceful enough to make men tremble and women swoon.
My God, why have professional journals not discovered this man? Joftus could bypass all reviewers and go direct to publication. He is that good. To reviewers he is a man among mice. Poor deluded mice who are afraid to take the OTF.
Did I miss the part where Loftus actually responds to Talbott's criticisms of the OTF?
I admit I might have missed it between the outbursts of Tourette's syndrome, teeth-baring, and mooning displayed in those posts. But I read carefully through a few times and it *appears* that Loftus just completely ignored all of the substantive criticisms. Am I missing something?
You're blind. Blind, J'oftus tells you! {g}
JRP
A critique of Talbott's claim of progressive revelation.
More to come.
Sorry, I was given a 502 error and tried it again and again.
Here's an update for your reading pleasure.
Since I'm tagging my responses with "Talbott" this is the only link you need here on out.
That's handy, John, thanks!
JRP
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