Dinosaurs versus Flat Earth

It’s a hypothesis, not a fact.

You are falsely labeling people as absolutists to compensate for your inability to deal with ambiguity. It’s what fundamentalists do.

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That’s like saying evolution is a hypothesis. My theory has supreme explanatory power and therefore it is to be preferred. What is your theory? You either don’t have one or are afraid to say.

No, it isn’t. Evolution is a phenomenon whose underlying mechanisms are explained by multiple strong theories, with many hypotheses at the edges.

You don’t have a theory. Hypotheses have to explain and are only useful if they make empirical predictions. Theories are hypotheses whose empirical predictions have been confirmed repeatedly. You don’t have a single empirical prediction, much less multiple successful predictions.

So we’ve now established that you don’t know the difference between a hypothesis and a theory; you use the creationist misrepresentation of “theory” and even tart it up with “supreme.” Why is that?

I don’t have a theory. I only have hypotheses, like you. But unlike you, I know the meaning of the term “theory.”

My hypothesis is that you are intellectually and/or psychologically incapable of tolerating ambiguity, so you relentlessly misrepresent your own hypotheses as facts, then relentlessly misrepresent the positions of others as absolute to pretend that there are stark dichotomies.

So far here, you’ve done nothing but provide evidence consistent with that.

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I’ve encountered this new form of Christian apologetics chicanery several times before. This is where the Christian claims to be an unbeliever but then goes on and on about how convincing Christian arguments and “evidence” and apologetics seem to be. If that’s not reason enough why no one should listen to you talk about this subject you are totally unaware that for thousands of years humans worshiped the sun as a visible representation of God. Unaware that almost all Gods were allegorical representations of the sun. But not your God! Not your beloved Jesus! Only a modern Christian could be so oblivious and never have read what Thomas Paine said about the subject because Paine was critic of Christianity and your cult leaders would never allow the reading of Thomas Paine. Did they? “The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally paid to the sun.” You never had me fooled for a second and if there’s anyone else who still buys your nonsense, well shame on them.

What makes you think that you’ve done any significant work? If you reread for comprehension, I was judging your personality.

I’m content not being in a lane with someone who touts his scholarship by pointing to Facebook and podcasts while using a misspelled cartoon character’s name as a pseudonym.

Wanna bet? How much? I’m sure there are plenty of people here willing to hold our wagers.

We can add “empirical” to the list of relevant words that you don’t understand.

If someone describes your behavior and you find that description to be insulting, perhaps changing your behavior is the smart choice.

And there you go again, misrepresenting the positions of others to try to deflect from the weakness of your own.

Wow. You are light-years from reality there, as I find apologetics of all types to be a waste of time. But it is entertaining to point out what you are doing, have you claim that my accurate description is insulting, then watch as you do precisely that immediately afterward.

Again, the hypothesis that explains and predicts your behavior here is:

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Me! Me!

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I also will take you up on this.

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I’ll give 10/1 odds he is. 2$ gets you $20 if he isn’t.

Come on @Boris_Badenoff, it won’t cost you much even if you lose. :slight_smile:

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I just totally humiliated you and destroyed your position when I pointed out that you never even heard of thousands of years of human sun worship. Of course, you’re not even going to mention that or try to defend it because it’s indefensible and you know it. Instead, you fall back to the destructive Christian teaching that people who disagree with you are evil. And you’re a scientist, you really, really are! Wanna bet? And I shouldn’t’ have to point out the moderators are protecting one of their favorites because they see what I do to bad arguments on an even playing field. And your arguments are as bad as they get.

Yeah, but how long did you watch them fail you before you figured that out?

No, you’ve only misrepresented my position so far. You didn’t bother to determine my actual position before going off on one of your many straw men.

I have heard of it; so what?

So my not responding to one of your straw men, in your opinion, is some sort of concession that I’ve been humiliated and destroyed?

That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there.

I put that question to you, remember? Do you wanna bet?

I don’t see any moderation going on here. I see you looking for excuses. Are we betting?

My actual arguments, or your imaginary ones?

I was never interested in them. Are you always this oblivious?

You simply can’t stay on point because you know you lost this debate a long time ago. Try to focus. Your claim is that it is just a hypothesis that Jesus is essentially like all the other mythical solar deities that came before him. So, on what basis does your Jesus deserve this exalted status, as someone who supposedly actually existed? There’s no more evidence for your Jesus than there is for Apollo, Attis, Dionysus, Horus or any of the others of these deities. Mom and dad told you about Jesus and your parents couldn’t be wrong about such matters? You are much too smart to have believed (and obviously still do) in someone who never existed. Or is it “You couldn’t be smarter than me Boris! Harrumph!” A man’s gotta know his limitations. You clearly do not.

So… is that a no on the bet, or…? :grimacing:

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Mind your own business.

It is a public forum. Maybe exercise a bit of restraint before calling other people’s credentials into question, particularly if you live in a glass house.

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I can’t get my ideas discussed here and the reason is obvious. “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Eleanor Roosevelt

You could, if you ever tried. But you don’t try to discuss. You just assert, and then reassert (and reassert and reassert).

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Here’s just a handful of the negative comments people make to me. Do they look like comments from people who want to or even know how to discuss the big idea here? They clearly are not.
We can add “empirical” to the list of relevant words that you don’t understand.
What makes you think that you’ve done any significant work? If you reread for comprehension, I was judging your personality.
My hypothesis is that you are intellectually and/or psychologically incapable of tolerating ambiguity, so you relentlessly misrepresent your own hypotheses as facts, then relentlessly misrepresent the positions of others as absolute to pretend that there are stark dichotomies.

But unlike you, I know the meaning of the term “theory.”
It’s what fundamentalists do.
You’re moving the goalposts

They are reacting to your style (if it can even be called “a style”).

I have made no claims of having done significant work in that area. I’m just an observing bystander.

You might as well be doing theology. You are just making stuff up as you go along.

I have no problem with ambiguity. Whether mythicism or historicism makes no difference to me. You just made up your false accusation.

In simple terms, you are what is often called “a bullshitter”.

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I think he’s actually just forgetting to use the tool to format a series of blockquotes. He meant to be quoting some of the things people have said to him, but the way it was posted, it looked like he was saying those things to you.

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You might be right about that. Just using quote marks (") appropriately could have clarified that.

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