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https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html Where does is come from? The Russian propaganda model of Firehose of Falsehoods.

Back to baseball. This is a fairly rare occurrence in baseball, although it has happened three times already this year. Some interesting occurrences: On August 27, 1977, Texas Rangers teammates Toby Harrah and Bump Wills did this back-to-back. Ichiro Suzuki is the only player to have done this in an All-Star game. On April 6, 2009, Emilio Bonifacio of the Florida Marlins became the first player in 41 years to do this on Opening Day, On July 18, 2010, Jhonny Peralta of the Cleveland Indians took 16.74 seconds to accomplish this. Only 18 players have done this twice in one game. What is this occurrence? George

It was.

What makes you think that an atheist did not do “in-depth analysis of scripture” (sometimes for years) or have a positive outlook when they did believe in God and in the bible? More than likely, some believed in many things then that you still believe today. As it often happens, people begin deconstructing their “beliefs” because of what their continued study begins to point out to them, inconsistencies being only one of them. I can’t speak for Penworks personally, but it seems to have been that way for her. And it definitely happened that way for Julia Sweeney according to her story. What you wrote above is what people did concerning vpw's and other twi's teachings, usually beginning to question while still being involved and even more so after leaving. You were okay with the process then. It’s only now when some apply the same process to God and the bible that you seem to take issue with it. Perhaps it's not the process you're objecting to but the results of it because with atheists, their results disagree with what you believe. Then, it becomes all about their egos. I'm pretty sure twi followers said the same thing about the people who posted here on the "About the Way" forum.

The Challenging Counterfeit, by Raphael Gasson, if memory serves

That's Clark, nice. Anyone wondering what a Gish Gallop looks like, there's a prime example.

Well, I don't know about that. Heh Burton was the first limb leader for Ohio and the first Ohio FellowLaborers director. I read some sort of thing he wrote about it that was kind of like a high school term paper, complete with scripture references. If I remember correctly (and I'm not certain I do) I think he presented it at some HQ function, such as AC or Summer School or something along those lines.

Since there doesn't seem to be a way of knowing what these probable inaccuracies were, how is anyone supposed to know what the original account, if there was one, even said? Is calling certain people delusional because of their conclusions about the bible not your own way of bringing "bias for the scriptures" to the analysis? I think the account of Jesus casting out that demon from a child is fictional for a number of reasons, one being that if there is no god, then there would also be no devil spirits. Another reason is given at the end of this post. I’ll repeat what I said before except to add "causing physical abuse" to Jesus' actions when he cast out the devil spirit in such a way that the demon “rent him sore (mangled, convulsed), and came out of him: and he was as one dead.” I’ll also repeat my reason for saying this - if Jesus had the authority over devil spirits, why did he not add the command to leave the child without causing harm when he said, “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.” Jesus was obviously the one in control, yet he allowed the spirit to come out in such a violent way as to cause physical harm to the child. (Nothing to be concerned about though, we'll just overlook that part since Jesus then simply took him by the hand and lifted up the boy.) Now, compare this to another account in Mark 5. This demon named Legion (because there were many devil spirits present) was strong enough to repeatedly break the chains which bound the man. When Jesus granted Legion's request to be sent into the swine, this specifically strong demon just came out of the man after Jesus gave them leave. I guess it's "probable" that they were so thankful that Jesus agreed to the swine thing that they decided not to leave violently - but didn't feel the same way when entering the swine. IMO, these accounts were written by men in a way to emphasize the evil and power of demons to make the story more gripping with the additional benefit of likely putting fear of them in the reader.

I suspect he means natural, physical, mammalian death. What was it like before I was were born? I don’t know. I don’t remember. So, I am not afraid of death. I won’t even know that I’m dead.

I totally understand what you are saying. If the scriptures are true, there is a certain comfort in believing one has eternal life over eternal death. I think a "once saved, always saved" doctrine is needed though because without it, many Christians continue to strive to keep in God's graces. I would see that as having both a fear of life, as well as a fear of death, which makes it a kind of hell on earth to live that way. If the scriptures were written by men alone, eternal life is the biggest of all carrots on a stick churches can rely on to get people to believe and act a certain way.

Didn’t he have something to do with that “spiritual” Ghost Busters book? All that ectoplasm and other such pseudo-scientific bullshonta?

Thanks for clarifying what Turek definitely appeared to be doing. It would be very time consuming to read up on his SPURGE theory to see its flaws and as tempting as that is, there are other priorities in life at the moment.

John Quincy Adams was the first President elected in the House of Representatives, as no one had a majority in the Electoral College, so I'm guessing it was he. George

The giant wall/bubble idea is something Earl Burton brought into the mix. I don't remember any specifics. I know. I know. It was only 50 years ago. I should remember this stuff. It was in a class or an AC teaching or a paper or something.

The strange part is that you are blind to the bias you are bringing to the analysis. its easy to be critical of everything and to adopt a critical bias. But even with humans if you approach them with a critical bias it completely affects how you perceive them. This produces a new type of sunglasses- the poop tinted ones. There is no “cosmology” of Genesis that is something you are reading into it. It is an origin story with a lot of symbolic elements. Likewise those who think that Jesus Christ was mentally abusing children he was healing or that somebody made up all those stories completely is delusional. They are ignoring probabilities of any kind discounting inaccuracies introduced by centuries of hand copying and just making up their own narrative completely and saying unless you “prove me wrong” what I say is true. I can read “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and get out of it what it has - the culture of a story passed down by bards, rhyming verse, some elements of the world they lived in, etc. It’s only with the inflated egos like I see on this thread that think they are all the center of the universe that every such literary work must be accompanied by their version of scientific proof. You’re not that important to require or demand any such thing. The scriptures say of themself they are not valuable without a positive outlook toward them. Your attitude towards a Creator really determines what unlocks for you in scripture. If He doesn’t exist then your bias is to tear down everything attached and pointing out inconsistencies to invalidate any value in His messages. So you yourself are the impediment to actually accomplishing an in depth analysis of scripture. And your confirmation bias will allow you to “prove” anything you want. Regarding censorship I believe you at your word it didn’t happen and the 3 dropped posts were something to do with either login issues or the forum database resetting or something. But between dropped posts and the in line responses within a quote it is too tedious to answer certain posts that are now stacking up with similar kind of illogic. You are being a dog in the manger. That is not my problem. Jesus provided exact guidance for these types of interactions in the gospels as he conversed with the Pharisees. They also did not believe in him and were trying to use their “in depth analysis” of scripture to catch him in his words. Conspiracy theory is not in depth analysis. VPWs Advanced Class is living proof of this. To me there absolutely is fundamentalist Way bias in how you are presenting your arguments for being an atheist. “The Word” does not fit with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision. God does not have a purpose for every adjective He inspired, and He doesn’t possess people and write with their hands like automatic writing. That is TWI BS and a symptom of an overly aggressive fundamentalist bias. I find the same hyper ventilation over adjectives in other cults - Mormons and JWs. Except they also use the fundamentalist approach to “prove” Joseph Smiths delusions or the GBs true position as the faithful and discreet slave.

In the short clip Mr. Hitchens refers to the fear of death. Does he mean 'eternal death'. If so, I would agree, it's there for me. The only comfort I see in eternal death if there's any at all is, it's not eternal fire and brimstone torture. Otherwise I think it's eternally tragic and something to be afraid about.

William Lane Craig is the master of the Gish Gallop, a form of debate in which you efficiently spout as much bulls hit in the time allotted as you possibly can. Since it takes more time to clean bulls hit than it does to defecate it, the opponent will leave some arguments unanswered strictly because there's not enough time in the world to answer it. Then Craig cites all the points he made that were not refuted and declares victory. Meanwhile ALL his arguments are bulls hit. All of them, without exception or distinction.

No problem.

I didn't remember. I should watch it again myself. It has been a few years.

I'll have to watch this debate a second time since so much was covered. Turek's religious arguments concerning God were basically "everything is man's fault" (which is nothing new) so he fell well short when opposing Hitchens' arguments. However, much of Turek's rapid science speak for the existence of God went over my head, so I'm wondering if from memory, you think Hitchens effectively debunked any of his assertions. Just a general yes or no is all I'm looking for since I plan to watch the video again.

I'm looking forward to watching the Turek one then.

I've only recently become aware of the "Christian" doctrine of purity culture from some of the people sharing their deconversion stories. Both males and females speak of the harmful impact it has on them as the topic of sexuality is very sin/shame based. It would be interesting to read Cait's story and see how she was able to heal from such an upbringing. Thanks for recommending it.

I'm guessing there weren't any Eagle fans (and will make a note of it) so, it was the second song on album "Hotel California". Another one then. It's an election year so without getting political I'm thinking were about to witness some shenanigans the like never before seen in this country, or possibly not. Which US president lost both the popular and the electoral vote and still won the election?

The Sharpton debate is my least favorite, because, well, Sharpton. If you can tolerate William Lane Craig's grating tone, that one is decent. Hitch always said Dinesh D'Souza was his most formidable opponent - those debates are good and lively. There are many more worth watching, but the one with Frank Turek is the most fun for me.

Use the original definitions as they were intended. Don't let context distort your understanding.