re: Religious Leaders Told to 'Prepare Now' for UFO Disclosure and 'Bible-Changing' Revelation

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A complete misrepresentation of everything I said in an attempt to make a mockery of an argument I am not even making. In fact, I'm making a claim in the exact opposite. Yes, this is indeed a strawman.

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I took a guess at what you were talking about. I didn’t follow what you were trying to say, which is why I started with “I guess…”. No straw man there.

Maybe I was mocking when I said the watchers and Nephilim weren’t real. If you take offense to that, then maybe I should take offense at everyone on here who says Jesus is real. Again no straw man. I’m not saying you are arguing any particular thing. I said “if”. You are welcome to correct me. Maybe you don’t take offense.

The last part about the Angel sex and God giving them sex organs when angels aren’t supposed to have sex at all… that was a question for you. So I can understand what you think about the subject. I’m not falsely describing your argument on the subject, because I don’t know what your argument is going to be.

I’m not convinced you or the other fellow understand what a straw man is. If you know what it is, then I’m not convinced you two can recognize one. The other fellow at least thinks I don’t know what a straw man is. To be clear, properly and accurately summarizing an argument of another person and then refuting said argument, even in a mocking manner, is not a straw man.

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I would like you to respond

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Only because you asked, but this is really it for me.

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Why did I not create a straw man? Because I did not distort your view point. I didn’t falsely accuse you of making a different argument than the one you were making. At least, I don’t think I did. It’s hard to keep up with all you Christians sometimes to remember who said what

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I will give you that you have not distorted MY viewpoint. I have explicitly stated numerous times now that I am not arguing against your positions, but am critiquing your argumentation. I have made no claims from a Christian viewpoint. Zero. I have challenged your framing of the Christian viewpoint and other viewpoints too. I challenged you on your reasoning, your linguistic argumentation and your understanding of discussion and debate. I have said and tried to demonstrate that you have been accusing those with a different view of the very things you are doing about multiple topics.

Specifically, you built up the Christian viewpoint as a logic trap. You tried to force an absurd position because it allowed you to more effectively mock. You say language is figurative when it suits your point of view, but argue it must be literal and understood by a 21st century enlightened standard when it gives you an advantage. That was and is the straw man. You repeatedly said that the biblical viewpoint requires a cosmological view that few Christians hold. I quoted your words. And you reiterate it below. You tried to prove many biblical fundamentalists hold said position by linking 2 videos from no name internet sites from multiple years ago. You also linked to flat earthers who demonstrated no religious view of any kind. After I pointed that out, you said you were only showing that some people believe in flat earth views. Why in the world would that be relevant?


This is what you quoted as proving I made a straw man claim argument you.

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Me: This is you literally saying that rejecting biblical cosmology as you presented it is rejecting the word of God.

You: Ok. You reject biblical cosmology right? You reject the flat earth, covered by a firmament holding up a heavenly ocean, no? It is incontrovertible that the Bible describes such a thing. It’s all over including in Genesis 1. It’s an incontrovertible fact that the Israelites and their surrounding neighbors (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia) believed in this same model.

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I said you made a claim. You agree you made that claim. You are AGREEING with my framing of what you said. You even make the claim explicitly below which I bolded in the next quote. This doesn’t meet even your half definition of a straw man argument. Where is a distortion or falsification of what you said? It’s hard to picture that I misunderstood when you appear to agree, but if I did, then clarify. If I didn’t, withdraw your claim and move on.

Again from you:

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By denying biblical cosmology, which you have done, then the implication is that you are denying the word of God (or the words of the authors of the biblical books, depending on what you believe or don’t believe about divine authorship or inspiration). You are literally denying the truthfulness of the words on the pages. And that was a truthful statement, not mischaracterizing your arguments

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I’ve not confirmed or denied any position. I have argued only on the framing of your position. Do you really not see that this argument here says that your framing of biblical cosmology MUST be the understood view or the mainstream view is incorrect for believers? For people who believe in the word of God, to deny that cosmology would deny the truthfulness of the words on the pages. I would assume you would tell a Jew or Christian who didn’t hold this cosmological view that they deny the word of God. If I am misunderstanding you, then I will admit that I have mischaracterized your POV.

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So here’s the formula. I am saying your accusation that I am saying a flat earth must be a mainstream view is complete bullshite

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I honestly went back at looked at the previous posts. I hope that you will do the same to see if you might have misconstrued anything. I can concede the point that you have not explicitly made this claim in the way I characterized it by the use of the word mainstream. I took your use of the term “a lot” farther than it can fairly go. Contextually you used it as an example of close minded theistic thinking. That is my error and I apologize for it. The intent wasn’t to twist your argument, but I did nonetheless. If you want to call it a straw man feel free.
I will stand by my assertion that your argument above carries the strong implication that Jews or Christian’s can’t claim belief in the Bible while denying that view. You haven’t explicitly said so, but I’m not sure where else logic could lead. I will also say that you have not proved “a lot.” As an aside, I’m interested to know if you think flat earth believers are at least more consistent with what they believe.

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You didn’t like my YouTube videos?

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Two videos from 4 & 7 years ago? I’m going to say insufficient evidence.

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Maybe the article didn’t spoon feed you. The purpose of the article was to show the existence of the flat earthers. What you have to then research yourself is WHY are they flat earthers

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It’s not how you framed it. Go look for yourself. You specifically responded to a quote from me about insufficient evidence for saying a lot of biblical fundamentalists…

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That are all flat earthers due to them being biblical fundamentalists which accept biblical cosmology as the biblical authors believed

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This is a claim you ask me to substantiate for you. Seriously? The article you linked has quotes from flat earthers mentioning how science based it is. It stretches credulity to think that the author of the article wouldn’t mention a religious connection if there had been one presented.

Just for giggles I tried to load the webpage from the billboard. No longer active. And because I am a masochist, I found a webpage called the Flat Earth Society. Their forums seem pretty evenly split between religionists of all types (which they self label jihadists funnily enough) and atheist. There is even a section where they get together to talk about what they have in common if you can believe it.

For my part, I’ll just say a general sorry for the snarkiness. That is absolutely one thing you can truthfully say has been projected. I’d argue both ways. Not sure if either of us learned anything from the other, sadly. I’ll let this thread go back to its topic and quit trashing it up.

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Your entire argument depends on literalism when it’s convenient and contextual interpretation when it isn’t

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Meant for me or who I was responding to? I ask because that was exactly my point.

It seems to me that the Bible describes a process of hybridization. It could be a natural process I suppose, but considering the old texts talk about God-like beings in the mix I lean towards genetic engineering.

Here is Eric Burlison acknowledging the meeting in Tennessee. He says he couldn't make it to the event but he called in and talked to the pastors over the phone. So yeah, it happened, no matter how much the Metal-whatever user thinks he knows about it (didn't know the basic details of course).

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This guy also said, during the same interview I think, that the US has in its possession an egg shaped UFO. Crash retrieval, it sounded like.

Btw, Burlison's message for the pastors was to take the Bible at it's literal word. Not at what you believe about it. I'm not surprised to hear him say that. The example he specifically used, was the appearance of Satan. The other part that should be taken literally is this idea that people came down to earth and made hybrid babies with human women.

If we push this story back farther to its source material, the serpent in the garden was actually Enki. He will have been one of our literal creators and also the God who saved mankind from the flood.

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I will give you that you have not distorted MY viewpoint.

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Thank you. That also helps in my understanding of what argument you were trying to convey.

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Specifically, you built up the Christian viewpoint as a logic trap. You tried to force an absurd position because it allowed you to more effectively mock. You say language is figurative when it suits your point of view, but argue it must be literal and understood by a 21st century enlightened standard when it gives you an advantage. That was and is the straw man.

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I don’t see that as a straw man. I’m not falsifying or misconstruing anyone’s position. What I am trying to do is call attention to the hypocrisy on this site. For those that consider the Bible the inerrant word of their supreme creator deity, I am making the argument that they are rejecting the literal and fundamental words and concepts that their deity was trying to convey, namely the biblical cosmological model. It’s not a straw man to attempt to show someone the folly of their own arguments, as long as one doesn’t misrepresent the real argument or position of another.

It’s not a logic trap neither, at least not in the sense of the definition of a logic trap fallacious argument. Showing someone the illogical and hypocritical nature of their position or argument is not a “logic trap fallacy”.

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You repeatedly said that the biblical viewpoint requires a cosmological view that few Christians hold. I quoted your words. And you reiterate it below

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Yes. The language in the Bible that describes the flat disc shape of the earth, set on pillars in a great deep ocean of chaos, with a firmament made of solid very strong glasslike or rocklike material holding back a heavenly ocean, with the sun moon and stars inside this firmament, is not metaphorical. This contrasts with things like Jesus saying he’s a rock or bread or a gate (as Foo has raised recently) - those are obvious metaphors. When Yahweh asks Job did he build the firmament, did he measure its cornerstones, etc. that wasn’t metaphorical language. And to back that up, we know absolutely that the Israelites/Canaanites and Egyptians and Assyrians and Babylonians and all the surrounding civilizations from that time period believed in that cosmological model from the plethora of historical artifacts, manuscripts, and stone tablets and inscriptions found and translated in modern times. My argument is that to say these are metaphors (the language in the Bible describing tho Biblical cosmology) is misinterpretation of the biblical material and does not take into context the real nature of the beliefs of these people groups which was that there literally was a firmament holding back a heavenly ocean. Praise the firmament and the waters above the firmament! What’s the metaphor there? It’s not. The psalmist is literally praising God’s handiwork for literally making a literal firmament and form separating the waters.

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You tried to prove many biblical fundamentalists hold said position by linking 2 videos from no name internet sites from multiple years ago.

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Look man, if you can’t agree that there are “many” flat earthers and that the main justification is their fundamentalist religious beliefs, then we probably won’t agree on much of anything. This is easily verifiable by you if you try.

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You also linked to flat earthers who demonstrated no religious view of any kind. After I pointed that out, you said you were only showing that some people believe in flat earth views. Why in the world would that be relevant?

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It’s the same as the fundamentalists who try to make up pseudoscience to explain away real science - evolution - in favor of intelligent design. The flat earthers don’t just want to quote scripture, they want to try to use science to justify their dogmas, but are unsuccessful cause they are using pseudoscience. They will be able to perhaps reinforce their own dogmas - as with religious apologists - but it won’t be able to convince anyone outside of their bubble.

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I’ve not confirmed or denied any position. I have argued only on the framing of your position.

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You probably forgot you took a position. Remember this?

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We can laugh at that video together.

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I would assume you would tell a Jew or Christian who didn’t hold this cosmological view that they deny the word of God. If I am misunderstanding you, then I will admit that I have mischaracterized your POV.

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Yes, correct. You are not misunderstanding me on this particular topic.

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I honestly went back at looked at the previous posts. I hope that you will do the same to see if you might have misconstrued anything. I can concede the point that you have not explicitly made this claim in the way I characterized it by the use of the word mainstream. I took your use of the term “a lot” farther than it can fairly go. Contextually you used it as an example of close minded theistic thinking. That is my error and I apologize for it.

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Yes I felt you were mischaracterizing my position. I said there were a lot of fundamentalists who believed the earth was flat, but didn’t say all Christians were fundamentalists and didn’t even say it was a majority position among fundamentalists. If it’s 0.5% of a billion people, that’s still 5,000,000 people which is “a lot” of people. They have global conferences and put up billboards. So at first you tried to argue no one believed that stuff, and then when I said a lot believed it, you tried to say I said it was the mainstream position. Do you understand why that is frustrating to me? Do you understand why I was accusing you of building the straw man and of projection when you were accusing me of doing what you were doing to me?

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For my part, I’ll just say a general sorry for the snarkiness. That is absolutely one thing you can truthfully say has been projected. I’d argue both ways

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I’m guilty of that too. I can be better. Sorry about that.

I say this as a Christian: the relatively new doctrine on Biblical inerrancy is driving people away from God and Christianity. The simple fact is that there are errors and contradictions in the Bible. And that is a undeniable fact.

The issue is that the Bible has become so intertwined with the Christian God, when people realize that there are errors, they throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. They think that if the Bible is wrong, then God doesn't exist.

An old map might have a street misspelled or a coastline slightly off, but it can still get you exactly where you need to go. The Bible is my map for faith, not a textbook.

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If we push this story back farther to its source material, the serpent in the garden was actually Enki. He will have been one of our literal creators and also the God who saved mankind from the flood.

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I may be wrong, but it seems you are scratching the same surface I am. These beings we call divine, may have only seemed that way to more primitive people.

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Yeah, that has been suspected since the 1950's. Even ties in a bit with the whole President Eisenhower thing.

I usually avoid CTs like the plague. ET's are the one weakness I have for CTs.

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This egg shaped UFO he says we have retrieved causes people to lose time when they step inside it.

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Right. We know who the serpent was. And he wasn't the bad guy. They're describing a pantheon of gods who undertook a genetic experiment here on Earth. The Sumerians go into greater detail on this, but even excepting that, look at just what the Bible is telling you about the Eden story. The serpent is arguing for mankind to be able to reach it's full potential.

In the Sumerian literature, again and again, Enki went to bat for humanity while Enlil wanted to keep them enslaved and stunted. These same themes repeat in the Bible. But it was Enki who actually saved mankind from the flood. If Enlil had had his way we would have ended up being just another failed hybrid program. Erased

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Not just Sumerians. Most people had similar stories. Even tribes here in the new world.

We also know that the OT was greatly influenced by Sumerian text.

It is easy to believe that anyone coming down from the heavens "the sky" wielding powers unimaginable, would be seen as dieties.