The Jedi Council

[Dre89]

Like what?

His OP for the "new testament" thread: "Because the difference between some volumes in the new testament and jesus dying is around 60 years, compared to alexander the great, god exist."

Oh, and "Jesus has filled out all of the OT prophecies IRL"

And he also claims everything supporting evolution is a hoax.

(that's all i've seen of him, and it doesn't look pretty)

Back yourself up before you spew garbage out of your mouth.

He's also shown evidence of Jesus fulfilling those.

And no, what him and Jaswa are doing is applying the logic you guys are using to evolution, to show that the same logic would dsicredit evolution.

Man, you were the one who randomly came into the thread saying "you cna't use the Bible to prove the Bible is true", like the most generic and unsophisticated statement someone could have possibly made in that thread.

He showed that the Bible is more historically credible than other things we assume to be fact.

For example, showing that there are over 24 000 copies of the New Testament is an argument not contained within the Bible.

Showing that the Bible was collaborated closer to its events than that of other historical figures is not in the Bible.

The fact that we possess the original transcrips, in different languages, yet they translate almost perfectly is not in the Bible.

He also showed knowledge of other historical figures, which is not in the Bible.

He spoke of Josephus who isn't in the Bible.

He spoke of heretics, who claimed Jesus useed dark magic, Which wasn't in the Bible.

I'm not saying that means he's right, but how on Earth can you say all his arguments come from the Bible?

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=11420264&postcount=116

Numbers for debate hall +1 from me.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=11420264&postcount=116 Numbers for debate hall +1 from me.

I guess large copy and paste jobs deserve some form of recognition.

How does that sound like "Hey, let this person in!"?

You haven't mentioned every newcomer in the PG. Whenever you mention certain names and ignore others, there is a certain implication that the posters you mentioned happened to catch your eye. Ergo, my assumption. Of course, this assumes that you actually consider people before you consider them for discussion. Which is apparently not the case as you seem to have clarified a capricious style of choosing who does and does not merit discussion. If your style is neither thought-driven or capricious then I apologize. I never considered a possibility between thoughtful and thoughtless. Unless, "thoughts" now consists of being thoughtless enough to have other people do the thinking.

 

[KrazyGlue]

Dragoon, why in the world does that post make numbers ready for the DH? As Acrostic said, he basically just copy and pasted a bunch of stuff.

Which brings me to lesson #1, kids. If you're going to copy and paste a bunch of crap, please put it in a collapse box. Otherwise you're practically trolling the page by making everyone scroll through all that nonsense.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=11420264&postcount=116

Numbers for debate hall +1 from me.

Look, If he put in quote tags, and annotated it, it'd be a good post, but the formatting is poor, and I don't know what's his writing and what's other people's writing. To be honest, I'm sure he could have done much better.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

-1 to everyone who comments on the length of the post. Whoever takes time to read and use something from the provided text should be noted. Text is... resourceful, yes. Useful, maybe. Personalized, not at all.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

That's -1 ballistics.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

The Jaswa, Succumbio, and Dre three-way appears to be turning into a multi-challenger free-for-all battle royale on Center Stage.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Which thread?

 

[Sucumbio]

The Jaswa, Succumbio, and Dre three-way appears to be turning into a multi-challenger free-for-all battle royale on Center Stage.

lol yeah I was pretty hot for a minute but it's coo. And now I've actually bowed out and feel pretty good about Jaswa's abilities.

+1 from me

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Numbers was trolling >_>

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

From the thread links he provided in the Center Stage for us to review, he's pretty consistent in terms of content and should be commended. He includes details from time to time, such as providing benchmarks for the "car crashes" thread with listing .08 as the declarative BAC, but he neglected to tie it into how alcohol consumption in Australia is relevant to automobile accidents. A point that was contested in that thread by ballin4life.

Allowing drunk driving, on the other hand, lets people who are driving fine continue to drive. Now there may not be many drunk drivers who were truly driving well, but I think that having a looser criteria (reckless driving) is better than an arbitrary limit (.08 BAC) that does not mean the same thing for everyone.

According to the National Vital Statistics Reports it is recorded that accidents accounted for 5% of deaths in 2007, roughly half of those deaths were due to automobile accidents, and half of all automobile accidents were due to alcohol therefore accounting for a 1.25% death of the total US population. National Center for Health Statistics set the number of deaths for 2007 to be 2,423,712 registered deaths which indicates that 30,296.4 individuals died in the US due to driving under the influence.

When isolating the 20-24 age group, a significant proportion of this sector contributes to the mortality statistic. It is possible that decisions could be made to exclusively target this range in an attempt to mitigate the issue. As it is not alcohol itself that is the catalyst for accidents, but rather reckless consumption of alcohol combined with bad decision making that frequently occurs within this age group.

Jaswa is a good contributor and hopefully he will continue to refine his style in the Debate Hall.

Jaswa +1

 

[KrazyGlue]

Ok, that's +4 for Jaswa (me, Dre, Acrostic, Suc), which seems like enough.

Thoughts on pragmatic?

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Thoughts on pragmatic?

Could you link me to his posts? I haven't really seen any.

 

[KrazyGlue]

Well, after reviewing, I'm not quite as sure on him, but here's a few that were good:

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=11365066&postcount=44
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=11382019&postcount=27
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=11390400&postcount=32

All of his posts can be found by searching the Proving Grounds: http://www.smashboards.com/search.php?searchid=3932855

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Thanks, KG.

Pragmatic seems to be decent. He doesn't really shout "excellent" at you, but his points are solid, and he argues them in a reasonable manner.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

+1 to Pragmatic. I think he is good enough.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

I've had a look at Freeman's posts in the Intelligent Design thread. They seem pretty good, in my mind. I haven't seen him anywhere else though. What are our thoughts on him?

 

[Reaver197]

The freeman pleases us. His existence is coterminous with ours.

 

[Sucumbio]

"You will become one with the Borg."

Jaswa's in, not sure if he's noticed yet...

I'll check out freeman and weigh in.

+1 to freeman, he g2g imho. he doesn't even have to have participated in more than the thread I read to convince me of this.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

I have looked at Mr.Freemans post and I am near convinced I need just a little more proof of skill and you can change my +0 to a +1.

 

[Dre89]

If you guys think Freeman should be let in because of his performance in the ID thread, I'm leaving this place.

Not because I have anything against him personally, but that if people here think that he actually debated competently, then I've lost all respect for this place.

I can't believe someone as intelligent as Sucumbio is actually backing him, I can't believe that I'm actually close to agreeing with RDK that this place is becoming a joke....

This isn't a threat, I'm not telling you not to let him in, I realise my participation here isn't really important or valued, or that you guys feel the need to go to certain lengths to keep me here. I'm just saying if that he's let in, you'll know why I'm not posing here anymore lol.

In fact, to show you what I mean when I talk about him, I'll debate someone where I'll play the atheist, and use the logic he uses. I won't try to mock him and exaggerate how bad he is, I'll make a genuine attempt to be as accurate as possible.

Better yet, I can use his logic to defend theism if that will stengthen my case. Someone accept my challenge and I'll show you what I mean.

 

[Evil Eye]

In fact, to show you what I mean when I talk about him, I'll debate someone where I'll play the atheist, and use the logic he uses. I won't try to mock him and exaggerate how bad he is, I'll make a genuine attempt to be as accurate as possible.

Considering you have an unfavorable view of him and a lot of inherent defence mechanisms and generalizations against the arguments of "atheists", I don't how this would be anything less than trolling, nor in any way accurate, for that matter.

I'd much rather see you play devil's advocate on subjects such as those, which would actually be productive and not a partisan takedown.

EDIT: Then again, maybe we should be saving that kind of juice for the DA contest.

 

[Evil Eye]

With that said, I've seen enough in the Ground Zero Mosque thread alone to -1 freeman. I'm sure when I catch up on my PG activity I'll feel even stronger about this opinion than I already do.

His logic is not up to par. He is certainly a debater with definite potential, and he's already got that measured and reasonable composure that a DH member needs, but some of his points come forth from logic that I was pretty sure I'd already shattered with a sledgehammer and set on fire when the topics first came up. Maybe I'll pop my head back in, see how he responds to a few pokes with the ol' EE stick.

 

[Dre89]

I don't have anything against atheism, in fact I've even played DA and argued for it against Guest.

That's why I'm so annoyed. Atheism is a good position, but the fact that he presents such a poor case it but it's been complimented by others is what annoys me.

If atheism was rubbish and Freeman's case was the best one he could put forward, then I wouldn't care. The fact that the DH is complimenting such poor arguments suggests they like them simply because they're atheist in nature, not because of their quality.

And you're right about his debating. For example he said that my claim that beings can't be self necessary and simultaneously co exist with other beings was just a "baseless assumption" when I had just spent two paragraphs explaining the logic behind it.

If he disagreed with the logic, he should refute it, instead he labels it's baseless and doesn't explain why. This is what I mean when I say debates can't go anywhere with him. He doesn't give you refutations to answer to. All he does is say your logic is baseless and then ask questions you've already answered.

Honestly EE, read the ID thread with what Ive said in mind and you should see what I mean.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

For Pragmatic.

Known Total Count: +2 (Dragoon Fighter, Acrostic)
Possible Total Count: +3 (KrazyGlue, Acrostic, Dragoon Fighter)
Optimistic Total Count: +4 (Bob Jane, KrazyGlue, Acrostic, Dragoon Fighter)

 

[Sucumbio]

"So finally you admit it, that all this time you were only going to accept scientific evidence.

I definitely give up now, this is just getting pathetic." -Dre

This is why I back freeman. Being his main opponent in the thread your entire diatribe basically reduced to "So you'll only accept scientific evidence?" "yes."

DUH!!!!!!!!!

That's the WHOLE POINT, lol. Obviously that's the only evidence -anyone- will accept who doesn't use faith, because... faith is the opposite of (scientific) evidence. If you haven't figured it out by now, there is no such thing as evidence that isn't scientific in some way. Empirical. What have you. It's all the same thing. based. on. physical. proof.

Now you can get off your high horse and accept the fact that there's no convincing someone who only sees with their eyes that what they see isn't all that's there.

+1 to Freeman. Still.

And I actually didn't read his posts from the mosque thread. If he's an outright bigot, then I'll retract, but I have to go to work so I'll read it soon.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

For official purposes, +1 to Freeman. I've had a look at Freeman's posts in the mosque at ground zero thread, and to be honest, I don't think he's too bad in terms of bigotry.

 

[Deleted member]

After reading the intelligent design thread and the hate crime thread, I would give a - 1 to Freeman. When I read the hate crime thread I thought it was just because I disagreed with him on a certain point so I didn't say anything, but after reading the intelligent design thread I'm sticking with a -1.

 

[Dre89]

Sucumbio science does not contradict faith.

A principle both religion and science use is reason.

So you're asking for physical evidence of something non physical?

If you're going to say only science can prove truths, instead of constantly repeating myself, I'll post a link proving my point when I get home.

 

[Evil Eye]

I want to clarify that I do not think, in any way, that freeman is a bigot. I was saying that the logic he came forth from seemed highly uneducated to me, and I'm pretty **** sure I'd already put it to bed in that very thread, though it may have been the DH one.

 

[Sucumbio]

noted.

well I've re-read the ID thread. I get a headache reading that thread. Dre... I know you mean well, but your arguments are so tiring! And really annoying, lol. I think freeman managed well, considering.

In the GZM thread, actually in both threads, unfortunately freeman was struggling to "get into" discussion, he'd posted in both and kinda got ignored, so he kept posting until finally someone took the bait, Dre in one, El nino in the other.

I don't think his logic is necessarily flawed, I actually like some of his simile. The house example in the ID thread, for instance. He had another that I can't remember... I can also forgive his comparison to Columbine and the Gun Show. It's hard to justify peoples' decision to believe building the mosque is in "poor taste." Despite the obvious reason (because that's where the 9/11 attacks happened) it's not so cut-n-dry, as EE so well pointed out. There are ... enough Americans with this sentiment however, that it's not a stance that can be dismissed so easily, and it surely can and will be used in an argument over the actual mosque building. Heh, it's not even just a mosque, it's a cultural center with a mosque in it. *sigh* but anyway, freeman's got some skill, and he's not stupid or anything, I can sense he's got strong opinions and a wide array of resources to pull from.

 

[KrazyGlue]

I'll take a look at Freeman when I have the time and return my verdict. I've been way too busy the last week or so.

So what's the count now?
I think:
+4 (Suc, Bob Jane, Dragoon, Acrostic) (Maybe also Reaver but he didn't explicitly state it lol)
-3 (EE, Dre, Puu)

Hmmmm... the DH is really divided here.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

I'll take a look at Freeman when I have the time and return my verdict. I've been way too busy the last week or so.

So what's the count now?
I think:
+4 (Suc, Bob Jane, Dragoon, Acrostic) (Maybe also Reaver but he didn't explicitly state it lol)
-3 (EE, Dre, Puu)

Hmmmm... the DH is really divided here.

Oops. My tally was for Pragmatic. I kind of posted right after he made a comment in the Center Stage, thus my continuity was displaced as I tabbed between threads. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I should have been more conscientious of my thread weaving.

As for Freeman, I'd say that I'm on the fence (+0). I would appreciate a Center Stage debate between him and a Debate Hall Member on an issue that doesn't concern religion, philosophy, conspiracies, mosques, racism, homosexuality, 9/11 or theoretical metaphysics. Maybe against EE or Puu perhaps as they seem more adamant about exclusion. I would also like to see Pragmatic and Nicholas1024 debate under similar conditions.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

I don't think his logic is necessarily flawed, I actually like some of his simile. The house example in the ID thread, for instance. He had another that I can't remember... I can also forgive his comparison to Columbine and the Gun Show. It's hard to justify peoples' decision to believe building the mosque is in "poor taste." Despite the obvious reason (because that's where the 9/11 attacks happened) it's not so cut-n-dry, as EE so well pointed out. There are ... enough Americans with this sentiment however, that it's not a stance that can be dismissed so easily, and it surely can and will be used in an argument over the actual mosque building. Heh, it's not even just a mosque, it's a cultural center with a mosque in it. *sigh* but anyway, freeman's got some skill, and he's not stupid or anything, I can sense he's got strong opinions and a wide array of resources to pull from.

To be honest, I think his argument about the mosque being in "poor taste" isn't bigoted. I think it just means it'd annoy a lot of people and re-open some old wounds. However, this is not because of the culture centre being intrinsically bad, but instead due to a nasty reaction to it.

 

[Evil Eye]

You like his similes, Sucumbio?

Come on, man. He compared building the mosque to filming pornography in your front yard. That's literally one of the worst DH analogies I've seen from someone that clearly wasn't unintelligent. Maybe the worst.

 

[Sucumbio]

To be honest, I think his argument about the mosque being in "poor taste" isn't bigoted. I think it just means it'd annoy a lot of people and re-open some old wounds. However, this is not because of the culture centre being intrinsically bad, but instead due to a nasty reaction to it.

True, but the underlying point against this line of reasoning is that the reaction itself is unwarranted, or intrinsically bigoted.

You like his similes, Sucumbio?

Come on, man. He compared building the mosque to filming pornography in your front yard. That's literally one of the worst DH analogies I've seen from someone that clearly wasn't unintelligent. Maybe the worst.

I said I like some ^^. The one you pointed out (which I did not) is not one of them. I think comparing the two is disingenuous, mainly because filming porn on your front lawn is illegal (due to indecent exposure) but he missed that.

Besides, going way back to the thinking behind the DH "reform" era (lol), we're trying to find people who will add flavor to the DH. He's clearly intelligent, and of strong opinion, and can write a complete sentence. I honestly don't think we can ask much more of our members that that.

 

[Dre89]

noted.

It's annoying how you won't listen to me, then when EE says virtually the exact same thing, you listen to him.

well I've re-read the ID thread. I get a headache reading that thread. Dre... I know you mean well, but your arguments are so tiring! And really annoying, lol. I think freeman managed well, considering.

Do you mean that my arguments are too long/complicated? Or that my behaviour was bad?

If it's the former, I'm not going to dumb down my arguments for people who haven't read up on the issue.

If it's the latter, perhaps you need to have studied philosophy to realise how much of an insult this guy is to philosophy of religion (that's not meant as an insult).

He's the equivalent of young Earth creationist saying "well if we evolved from apes why are gorillas still around?".

I don't think his logic is necessarily flawed, I actually like some of his simile. The house example in the ID thread, for instance. He had another that I can't remember... I can also forgive his comparison to Columbine and the Gun Show. It's hard to justify peoples' decision to believe building the mosque is in "poor taste." Despite the obvious reason (because that's where the 9/11 attacks happened) it's not so cut-n-dry, as EE so well pointed out. There are ... enough Americans with this sentiment however, that it's not a stance that can be dismissed so easily, and it surely can and will be used in an argument over the actual mosque building. Heh, it's not even just a mosque, it's a cultural center with a mosque in it. *sigh* but anyway, freeman's got some skill, and he's not stupid or anything, I can sense he's got strong opinions and a wide array of resources to pull from.

He's made virtually no arguments in the ID thread though. All he does is just say my arguments are basless, without explaining why, then ask questions I've already answered.

He even says I provide no arguments, when I do, he just disagrees with them. For him, it's only an argument if he agrees with it, which shows his immaturity.

EE is right, he's uneducated on the topics he participates in. He made many factually incorrect claims about Christianity and theism in gerenal.

The thing is, even if he's good in other threads, which I haven't seen so I can't comment, he's shown he's the type to participate in threads which he has absolutely no knwoledge about, then has the ignorance to throw claims which are completely incorrect.

 

[Deleted member]

Now now, let's not just berate the guy, especially when he can't respond in this thread. I don't agree with him with a few things but he seems like a nice enough guy.

 

[Dre89]

Yeah it sucks to be the guy who can't defend himself, but still, we do need to discuss him before we make a decision.

Being a "nice guy" doesn't change the fact that he goes into debates completely uneducate don the issue, making misinformed claims, and will just call arguments baseless without explaining why.

On the other hand, I'm not even sure democratic vote is the best way to elect DHers. When I was a PGer, virtually every active DHer at the time was an atheist, so it took something like 4 months before I was let in because they didn't like my arguments, despite the fact I emulated most of the prominent theistic arguments in history.

By the way, something I just posted in the ID thread to prove my point about Freeman-

No, I'm not. You're completely missing the point. Dre makes statements like "Two existing beings must be relational...", and then builds arguments off of those statements without ever giving any explanation as to why the original statement is true. If it's not true that two existing beings must be relational, then any argument following that statement is wrong.

The first cause needs to be unified because co-existing beings are relational. The relationship makes them dependant on each other. You also have no explanation of how they relate, there needs to be another principle that unifies their relationship (think of how glue unifies two objects together).

Any relationship between two beings will have a particular structure. For example, suppose that red and black were the only things that existed. How would they relate to each other? Would on half be red, and the other half black? Would there be random patches of red and random patches of black? Would the two colours be blended together to make one colour?

You see, the relationship between the two colours has a specific form, meaning that there must be a third principle which unifies them. That's why you can't have co-exitsing beings as the first cause. Even have co-existing things as the first cause means that they must be beings, because they're relational, and if the first cause is a being, then it shares traits with the contingent beings it actuates in the future, which makes no sense, because then it would have a contingent nature too.

That’s not building an argument of the original premise that you can’t have co-existing self-necessary beings, that’s explaining how I concluded the original premise of the impossibility of self-necessary beings co-existing.