David Anderson

@DrEricDing What's the purpose of taxation? To raise revenue for government. But there are investments, like municipal bonds, the IRS is forbidden to touch. They don't have as great a return as taxable investments. So where a muni-bond might earn $85, a stock might earn $100. But if I ...

@CultureExploreX No, they protected religion by keeping government out of religion, not the other way around. More than one of the original 13 states required religious adherence to serve in state government.

Someone should remind Leavitt what actually happened 250 years ago. The United States was not founded as a religious state. It was founded as a constitutional republic that explicitly rejected one. No national church. No enforced doctrine. No state-controlled belief. The founders drew from many sources, including Christian thought, Enlightenment philosophy, and classical history. But they made a clear choice: protect religion by keeping it out of government power. That distinction is the foundation.

@MilitantAI @Askwhyisit So, if I understand what you're saying, if I claim, "the sun is a flat disc", but that claim is false, it is no longer a claim about objective truth?

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit The point I'm making is that your claim doesn't even get onto the same set of ontological scales as 'truth', and to pretend it does is both moronic, and pedestrian.

You have to redefine "objective" several times to get to the resurrection of Jesus being objective truth. Isn’t it in the slightest disturbing to you that nobody actually saw it and that the gospels can’t agree on what happened as people approached the tomb?

@MilitantAI @Askwhyisit By "valid", do you mean true?

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit In your assumptions that the story of the resurrection is any more valid in reality than that of pinocchio.

@MilitantAI @Askwhyisit And it is a fact that Jesus either was resurrected, or he wasn't. One of those is objectively true, with no third option. If he wasn't resurrected, my belief can't change that. If he was, your disbelief can't change that, either. Where am I wrong?

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit Why not use the source? We have dictionaries for the very purpose of being objective about the meanings of words. You're a pseudo-intellectual clown begging fairytales for unprovable truths.

@MilitantAI @Askwhyisit The biggest difference is that he's talking about objective truths, I'm talking about objective truth CLAIMS.

@MilitantAI @Askwhyisit This squares with what I said. If you'll note, this author's 2nd premise (top paragraph) closely matches the post you first responded to. Do you agree? secularhumanism.org/2022/10/the-tr…

@harryspalding67 @Askwhyisit I don't disagree. If there is a cause of any kind, P1 is true. If the cause is quantum instability, that's a cause & P1 is true, because that's all P1 says, "Anything that begins to exist has a cause." Those words don't imply any specific interpretation. "A cause" can be anything

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit Not really: KCA's reliance on defining "begins to exist" philosophically, where quantum instabilities in static models (e.g., tunneling probabilities ~0.028 per Mithani-Vilenkin 2011) challenge eternal claims but leave the cause's nature open to interpretation.

If God allows demons to possess a believer, wouldn’t exorcism be counter to God’s intentions?

@MilitantAI @Askwhyisit I'm sorry if the way I expressed it sounded offensive to you. OTOH, what did I say that was incorrect? Objective truth claims are either true or false. No one can make the claim true by believing it. No one can make it false by disbelieving it, unlike subjective truths.

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit Because one rots your brain beyond the simple lesson to not act like a dick.

@Sassafrass_84 Left out again.

🤣🤣🤣

@MilitantAI @Askwhyisit Why not both?

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit You need a dictionary more than you need a bible.

@harryspalding67 @Askwhyisit You seem determined to talk past me, rather than interact with my points. If you'd like to chat some other time, that's fine. But now, I think this conversation has run its course. Thank you for the conversation. Farewell for now.

@harryspalding67 @Askwhyisit The path to many destinations can have the same first steps. For instance, in a cyclical model, the specific universe we observe began at a point in that cycle. There was a first moment. If the universe had no first moment, these models must be false, and one based on eternal...

@harryspalding67 @Askwhyisit No, that is not part of Kalam's syllogism. It by itself never considers the nature of the cause, it only says that there must be one if a thing begins to exist.

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit The argument jumps from "unknown cause" to "a deity," ignoring potential naturalistic explanations.

@harryspalding67 @Askwhyisit The cause is the thing with potential, not nothing. I agree that nothing has no properties. Apparently Lawrence Krauss doesn't, exactly.

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit The argument also has a conclusion disconnect: even if a "cause" is accepted, the argument does not prove this cause is a sentient, omnipotent, or personal deity.

@harryspalding67 @Askwhyisit Citation, please. And does that matter? Theories get refined, why is it an illicit move to refine logical arguments, assuming it has indeed changed?

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit Actually the Kalam doesn't say that: That wording—"whatever begins to exist"—is a critical refinement popularized by William Lane Craig. It addresses a common objection: "If everything has a cause, what caused a deity?" It's a vain attempt to introduce an exception lol

@ScottPresler Must've attended the Learing Academy.

The jokes write themselves. “My dog is smarter then Trump.” Bless her heart.

@TrumpsHurricane Careful what you wish for...

Hillary Clinton says, "Americans who engage in misinformation should be civilly or criminally charged." What's your response to her ??

@harryspalding67 @Askwhyisit In that case, the universe would not be in the category of things that "begin to exist". P1 would still be true, P1 just would not apply to the universe. The exact same reason it would not apply to God, btw. An eternal universe would falsify P2, making Kalam's conclusion false.

@DAConsult @Askwhyisit It replaces a "creation event" with a physical mechanism (inflaton field) that generates space, eliminating the necessity of a "First Cause".