Richard,
Somebody opens the door and I say "don't let the cold in". Does this mean I don't really believe that the heat is leaving the house but that cold is moving in? Is this an example of people claiming to believe in physics but their behaviour revealing that they don't really? Does it suggest a fundamental problem in their world view?
Mary, the philosopher has just completed her book outlining her theory of knowledge. "I always knew I had a book in me" she tells her sister. "What?" says her sister. "That intuition you had doesn't constitute knowledge by your definition. You've just proved your own theory wrong! Gotcha!"
Dr Craig says, "all people just know certain things are objectively wrong". "What?" exclaims the atheist. "All people? What about psychopaths? How can I take your assessments of probability and sets seriously when you betray your lack of belief in what the world "all" means. You claim to know what "all people" means, but your usage betrays the fact that you don't really believe this standard definition. Gotcha!"
All of these are ridiculous examples of bogus arguments based on vacuous and superficially literal interpretations of language. And your OP is no better.
A nicely nuanced rebuke against just the bit which needs it.
That is the tricky thing about language, too much of it is self-referential. Leastwise people get caught up in how the definitions interact rather than those things which they represent.
The only people that run into this problem are the ones that serially want to redefine words to mean something else..
But that is EXACTLY what you are doing. You are interpreting our determinist usage of the word choice in your preferred way. We explain that we don't mean what you think we mean and you just ignore us and call us liers who don't know what we actually believe (whereas you of course do). In this thread your arrogance is competing with your lack of intellectual sophistication as to which is the most egregious. It's all a bit embarrassing and cringe-worthy.
You act as if we have a choice. WE ARE PREDETERMINED! We have no choice in the way we respond. We're just playing the tape. Every word and every exchange has been predetermined, so we don't have a choice as to what we believe or the way we act.
Pretending like we do and getting angry about it is unjust. We don't have a choice how we react and what we believe, so why you mad? Were you determined to be angry about our lack of acceptance of determinism?
If you really believe in determinism, don't act as if we have a choice. You're efforts are futile.
Why do you think I'm playing a tape? I don't even own a tape player! Why do you say things that you don't really believe Pat?
I'm not mad at all. But you're not interacting now. You are just repeating your view and failing to respond to the point I have made. This is what RC does as well. We reach a point where you either lack the intellectual understanding or intellectual honesty to carry on, and just repeat your first impression ad nauseam.
We are done. I can't make it any clearer and your failure to adequately respond couldn't be more apparent.
