I think Steve is getting a little grumpy, and this makes him even more sloppy and error prone than normal. Xtians get furious when you point out that their Bible reveals their gods to be blatant fibbers.
And careful readers will note that as usual, Steve would rather talk about anything other the Easter problems before him (I was just reading some old posts from October where Steve bragged that it would be "a few weeks" before he would have his book/paper ready to be sent to a publisher for review). Yet here we are four months later and he hasn't even begun.
SteveMc wrote:
David, go for it. I am not in this for a goat, or a thousand dollars, which of course mysteriously disappeared from the table after Darrel told me about it and invited my interaction. Go figure...but why would I be surprised?
Steve tells us once again that he isn't in this for the money but then pretends as if it was dishonestly or unfairly taken off the table. This is not accurate. Let me review:
For over a decade have offered various rewards, all of them legitimate and backed by money in the bank.
1) Over ten years ago when there was a spat of bigfoot sightings reported in the news, I went on the local 40/29 evening news and offered a $50,000 reward to anyone that could bring him in. That was about my net worth at the time. Bring in this new hominid, get the money.
2) At our Springfest booth we (meaning me) regularly offer a $5,000 cash reward, to anyone who can move a little Styrofoam ball three inches (under a glass cover), using only the power of their mind. This is a legitimate offer, move the ball, get the money.
3) Also at our booth we offer $1,000 cash reward, on the spot, to anyone that can discern/guess a word that is hidden in an envelope in a box. Guess the word, get the money (we've had probably 400 attempts or so, new word loaded each time).
4) We (meaning me) have long offered (more than a decade) $1,000 standing reward to anyone who can perform a supernatural/paranormal event under proper observing conditions (as determined by all parties involved, in advance). Our local newspaper has published articles about this offer and for years we ran ads. We once had a lady go for this prize based upon her claimed ability to identify the gender of a corpse in a grave using her dowsing rods. We went to a cemetery and she tried her skills on 20 graves where we temporarily hid the gender from her. If she had gotten 16 out of the 20 right (80% accuracy) she would have gotten the $1,000 handed to her on the spot, cash. She got nine right. Less than chance.
The above shows that I am quite forthright in putting my money where my mouth is and providing honest reward offers. All of the above tests above have the fortunate attribute of being straightforward and able to produce black/white up/down results, so discerning success and completion of the challenge is immediately identifiable, no interpretation necessary. This necessarily differs from an offer of a reward regarding supposed prophecy fulfillment or Easter harmonization because when dealing with language, interpretation is required. I've known this from the beginning. So along comes Steve, all full of bluster and talk about how he can waltz through these problems. He talked about the money for a bit but specifically said more than once that he wasn't interested in that. On October 9th he said:
"I don’t have time for finishing this project right now, and in light of what Darrell told me it is pointless to pursue it. I was never in it for the money, so that doesn’t matter."
LINK.
Again above he says: "I am not in this for a goat, or a thousand dollars..."
I've already walked him through how this challenge differs from our other rewards in that it requires interpretation. I could see how this could be a useful rabbit trail for Steve to go on endlessly about, and I really wanted to get on to his solutions, but it really became apparent that it was a huge distraction from the actual goal here (supposedly learning about possibly solutions for these Easter problems), when Steve mentioned a concern
about being sued over these exchanges. And I quote:
ST: "Who you will get who will be qualified to judge whether or not my exegesis and hermeneutic is properly applied and executed? Are you and those you mentioned who will consider my work experts in these disciplines? I am not especially excited at the prospect of entering a class action suit as defendant where plaintiffs have appointed themselves as judge, jury, and court recorder, not to mention establishing the rules of evidence to suit the situation. I trust this is not what I face, for no amount of effort on my part would overcome such a bias." --ibid
That's when I realized we may not be dealing with a person who's elevator goes all the way to the top floor. It's unfortunate that literary harmonization requires subjective human interpretation but there is nothing I can do about that. I hope this makes it clear why I was interested in getting on to
discussing the actual problems at hand rather than trying to figure out a detailed adjudication process with a person who:
a) says they aren't interested in the money/goat anyway
b) is so mentally confused that they could think
they might be sued over their inability to solve these Easter problems.
As I've told Steve from the beginning, it really isn't about the goat or the money, it's about teaching Christians things they don't know about their Bible. And as Steve has forthrightly admitted throughout this exchange, and has been obvious to observers, he has learned a great deal about this issue due to these exchanges (as he notes on his blog). Most Christians are oblivious to these problems.
Now on to Steve's further distractions, evasions and time wasting.
This is so much like shooting fish in a barrel I am embarrassed to be doing what I am doing.
That's appropriate. You should be embarrassed. I know you don't think you are the fish in the barrel, but if you did, you would no doubt fancy yourself a great white shark. I think casual observers might find you to be a bit more of a minnow. I certainly do. Always darting this way and that, avoiding.
If you would ever quit feeding me material to research and respond to I guess I would get farther in these posts than I have.
Yes, it's our fault that you haven't focused on the Easter problems before you. If only you had been given an opportunity to address that topic.
Darrel, you talked about going to a bar the other night and being too influenced to make an accurate assessment of my post.
I was asked to do a comedy routine (roast) on January 3. It went quite well. I had three beers. When I saw that you had made a good faith effort to do something, I said: "good job." When I actually read it the next day, I observed that it was a mess.
And by the way, Darrel, you don't have to use the word "liar" to call someone a liar.
Then what word did I use? You don't provide it. I knew your claim was false (and this was easy to show as I already have) because I consistently use a strict definition of liar, which means to intentionally deceive. I try not to attribute to intentional deceit what may just be gross sloppiness and incompetence. For this reason, and knowing your history, I cut you a lot of slack.
You made the charge: "You HAVE called me both a liar and intellectually dishonest."
This suggests that you grasp the difference between "liar" and "intellectually dishonest." Good. Now either admit your claim is incorrect, or produce the citation/reference showing that I "HAVE" called you "a liar." Otherwise you run the risk of, ironically, becoming that which I didn't call you.
Most of your problems arise from a profoundly sloppy use of language. This is not an accident, it's actually what preachers spend a great deal of time learning (in fundie seminaries) and in church teaching the sheep. We'll see if we can get you to be a bit more honest and accurate with language.
But no matter, if you have called my Lord Jesus, and my Father, Yahweh, liars, then you have applied the term to me as well.
No, that doesn't follow. Unless you are so deluded you think
you are your gods, then, applying the term to them, does not mean the term applies to you. Non sequiter. Think about it.
I will however have to correct you about your comment earlier about the memory of your server. Your server's memory is barely a fraction of what you posted. That is actually referred to as storage capacity of the hard drive. Your server's memory is the RAM that it runs off to process information.
Our total traffic is: 3.8 GB of 99999.0 GB available.
Our disk usage is 520.24 of 1999999 MB available.
Point being, you can dodge and evade all you want, but even if you upload the entire Dallas Theo. library, you'll be running out of apologetics long before we have to deal with the concern you raised which was: "Will that crash your server?"
I work in IT.
Yes, you are the fellow who incorrectly posted on his blog that the Fayetteville Freethinkers were censoring your posts on this forum because you are
so computer literate you didn't notice that our threads have more than one page.
Doug, this is directed to you specifically...
I already know if I ask you what your credentials are that Darrel will blow a gasket, so I will just assume that like the others you don't have any.
(Steve tries to pretend that I am overly concerned with advanced degrees. Little does he know...)
You would have been better off if you had assumed that Doug's credentials vastly exceed your own. Unless Doug pretends to pass himself off as someone who should be listened to regarding ancient dead languages that he doesn't understand, I think we should weigh his arguments upon their merits. Do you have any arguments regarding these Easter problems that we should consider Steve? Maybe you could present them.
I will conclude by what you have said so far that:
A. You believe that Jesus is a real historical figure, and not a figment of imagination like some atheists seem to contend.
B. You believe that the encounter between the high priests, the Sanhedrin with all attendees, and Jesus really took place.
C. That the high priest was really interrogating Jesus.
D. That the words recorded by John were really spoken by Jesus and accurately written down.
E. That the words as recorded in the Gospel according to John are the same words that John actually wrote (that is, there was no corruption in the transmission of them from the autograph to the texts from which modern scholars work to produce our current translations).
For someone who thinks they are shooting fish in a barrel, this is such a rudimentary mistake, it's embarrassing. I hope Doug forgives me for plucking this cherry that was handed to him.
Steve, one does not need to believe any of your A-E actually happened, in order to talk about them in the context of what the Bible claims. You are making the elementary mistake of confusing a discussion about whether a book makes a claim, with a discussion about whether that claim is true. These are two completely different things. Note:
It's true that in the Peanuts cartoon series, Charlie Brown has a dog named Snoopy. Whether Charlie Brown and his dog actually exist, is an entirely different question. Understand?
It is quite possible to talk about Tom Sawyer and his adventures with a runaway slave, without considering the question of whether the characters actually existed. Understand?
For anyone joining the discussion at this point who is unaware of literary devices, what I am doing is called a setup. What Doug and Darrel are about to do is called "Painting yourself into a corner."
Poor Steve, he brings a tiny little paint brush to a room with people packing high pressure industrial paint sprayers. Steve started this exchange months ago, painted in a corner, and he's never been able to even begin getting out of it. He's sits in his corner with paint all over his clothes. Will he someday even try to get out of his corner? We'll see. Maybe he'll return with a boatload of excuses when he comes from the Dallas Theological Seminary, truly an American Mecca of apologetic horse manure. And he thinks we haven't seen it before.
D.
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PS. As I told you in an email Thursday Steve, you do not have permission to post my last name in this forum. Remove it from your signature.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
any aggregate or general collection of particulars of any sort