TheFightingPikachu

No worries. And merry Christmas to you too, TFP! ^_^

Yep. I received a Ditto safari from someone here with an unusual username... which, unfortunately, I cannot remember exactly. It was something like 'vanhquieu." Or thereabout. Good luck!

Hello, TFP! It has been a while, hasn't it?

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Okay, adding on from crobatman's important point about passages that do, in fact, refer to Jesus as God, I would like to ask a question (though I may ask more questions at a later point):

Are you saying that you believe that there is more than one god? That is, are you saying that there is both God (called Jehovah), and a god (called the Word, born as the human Jesus), who really, truly exist?
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Seeing as the topic has changed, and they are not keen on discussing this in the Christian Club, I figured I'd just answer you directly.
I believe that there is only one almighty god that should be given "exclusive devotion". The Bible indicates that Jesus is the son of God. That being so, he most certainly will be god-like. In fact, the Bible also refers to the devil as "a god" [2 Corinthians 4:4]
Now, the logical next question is "then what the heck is meant in John 1:1?" Now, because of the countless other scriptures that indicate that Jesus and Jehovah are separate and that Jesus is the son of Jehovah, we can conclude that this scripture does not indicate that Jesus is Almighty god.
I may still post these in the club, but I'll give them to you anyways.
[source1] [source2] [source3]

Hah, I'm glad you laughed. I did feel bad about that afterward, though, since picking on a typo was unnecessary. But the joke was irresistible!

Ooh, an FA Mew EX reprint? It's not a bad-looking card. I wish you good fortune in your collecting endeavors, sir~

And given that something sad has required your attention, I hope you'll forgive me for my impish impatience. The coming weeks will see my own forum pace slow down, so don't worry - there's no actual need to rush. =)

I hope you're writing or Pokémonning very productively, because I was enjoying our PM conversation. ;3

When you start submitting to papers, TFP, I wish you the utmost luck. It's already cool to know that your thoughts and writings are distributed to a public audience (that's different than what we're doing here, heh). ^_^

Those IEP articles were great reading, but I'm not sure they do anything toward making me reconsider my evals of metaphysics and epistemology. They're well-written, helping to demonstrate that we can understand how to do epistemology easily enough, but it's still the case that epistemology (and meta-epistemology) deal with truth and knowledge itself, even the veracity of logic. Those are things that are necessary for anything else we want to sensibly think or converse about (as opposed to metaphysics, which can safely be returned to after settling epistemology and logic, and is thus, by my estimation, less necessary), and the answers there are much harder to find since you can't exactly rely on proven knowledge to prove knowledge itself (which is a tool metaphysicians do have at their disposal).

*An interesting aside: you seem to tell me you lean towards what IEP described as internalist epistemology; I get a preliminary feeling that my preference would be found in the externalist camp. =P

Yeah. I used to be able to knock out near-flawless breeding products swiftly, but there's so much to study now that in all the time since the game came out I've so far just been able to breed two Pokémon to my satisfaction. So there's definitely a time-consumption tension that doesn't permit many extra diversions.

And hm, I could've sworn I replied to that earlier VM of yours. What I thought I said: no worries about long convo intervals, TFP, it's a fact of life and well understood. And thanks for taking the time to acknowledge the answers I gave to your large VM series. Also, congrats on finishing an article, but to have it be the first time in a year is a surprising factoid, unless you write articles so infrequently that a year's interval between finishing them is typical. =P

Your very welcome

Happy Birthday

I've tried it, and still have my account, but I don't actually play it. In fact, I taught my baby sister how to play and opened her an account, and every card/booster code I've gotten I've given to her. So she'd have a better deck to face you with, heh. Anyway, I'm very sorry to disappoint (especially because I also think it would be awesome to have a battle with you~), but with the amount of work I have, adding the Pokémon TCG back onto my hobby list is just not in the foreseeable future. =/

Part III

However, I defend my characterization of the God as Being problem as nebulous metaphysics, and of metaphysics as generally nebulous. As far as I can see, too much of metaphysics suffers from the same criticism A.N. Prior makes of the problem you quoted him in reference to. Maybe it's just because metaphysics is the most difficult branch of philosophy (though I'm not certain epistemology can't claim that distinction). May I ask what you mean by you and I each having distinct metaphysics? If metaphysics deals with what is ultimately real, does this suggest that there are two ultimate realities - yours and mine? I'm also interested in your diagnosis of my metaphysics, and how you can 1) be sure mine does not include a priori a role for the supernatural, and 2) identify proofs of the supernatural playing a role in yours. But to reiterate the major theme, I think you and I disagree strongly about the merits of metaphysics.

Thank you for recognizing the level of responsibility I hold myself to, TFP, and for pointing out what errors I've made. No one brought them to my attention until you, and that's one of the reasons I'm glad you and I have met - I would have gone on indefinitely ignorant of my own mistakes if it weren't for you. I'll take a moment to swallow my pride and confess that being uneducated in calc-level mathematics is a source of shame for me. I never really feel like I know enough about anything, but when it comes to sophisticated math my inadequacies feel so much more intense. Of course this is all very hard to say to anyone, and blah blah blah.

Ah, but, anyway. You can certainly PM me a serious request. I make no guarantees about satisfying the request, but you know I'll handle it honestly and respectfully.

Part II

To your points: When you included that quote about what all Christians think, I was shocked because it did not sound like me, and I went to see where I had written it. I guess you mean my posts could have given the impression that I was explaining the subject as a commonplace general Christian argument, in which case you could be right and I could have given explicit notice against that inference. I will add, though, that even if the "God as Being" argument is flawed and controversial (and I am familiar with its main problem, being a fan of Kant as I am), it is the most common theological reply given when atheists ask, "Well then, who created God?" I'm glad you recognize that I was, at least, trying to give a flawed argument a kind and fair treatment in an educational context. In any case, I happen to think the alternatives to God as Being - for example Plantinga's person-God - are every bit as inevitably meaningless as the criticism you quote suggests God as Being is. (And you may be seeing the result of an education largely influenced by a neo-Thomistic professor's appreciation for Aristotle and Aquinas, ahaha. There are bound to be plenty of non-Catholic theological perspectives of which I am utterly ignorant.)

As far as my brief use of Zeno's paradox of motion goes, I think you're being too aggressive to say I was shooting my mouth off, but I do have to embarrassedly admit that I did not research answers to his actual paradoxes. I actually can be accused of the same error as Zeno and Aristotle: not knowing how to use calculus to resolve the paradoxes (though considering calculus actually exists during my lifetime, it is less convincing an exculpation on my part, hehe). You have managed to catch me at a loss, though, since I really do not know calculus or understand how limits and derivatives function (pun intended). I'll have to illustrate logic's limits elsehow.

Part I

No worries, TFP. There are things to do besides VM each other on SPPf. Your belief that I am in principle willing to discuss and debate anything with you happens to be true, by the way! I'm glad to hear you won't be the sort to give negative rep for matters of disagreement, but it only strikes me now that I would have had you, with access to a rep button, paying such attention to errors in my posts all over the forum - and I had to shake off a frisson of ego-related fear, ahaha. I've actually only given a single rep so far, and it was praise for striking compassion amid a sea of the most mirthless mockery and insensitivity. I don't intend to use the rep system at all, but that post truly merited reward. (I guess you and I seem to have come to similar conclusions about rep.)

Anyway, aha! You read my Atheist/Agnostic Club posts! I've always been mildly disappointed that non-members are not allowed to post in the Christian Alliance, because there have been many times I saw an opportunity for an interesting and educational (for me, at least) conversation. So I'm very glad - and flattered, hey hey - that you read my A/A Club posts.

Here you go! No worries about the rights discussion. I'm not feeling well prepared for it myself.

Go right ahead and change it as you wish. ^_^

Mostly that I'm not going to be involved in Competitive Pokemon section much anymore, so hopefully I won't get any more request to rate teams and such. I am going to be much less active when school comes back too, so there's that.

I mention Pieper largely because he addressed justice in his work in relation to whether mankind is owed existence; he talks about rights, dues, and their philosophical origins. (I learned a lot of ethics and philosophy in the space of the last year from a devout Catholic, including some of the philosophy of science, which means a great deal of Aristotle and Aquinas, hah.) But more to the point, if you're interested in reading something about the "right to exist," as good a place to start as any might be Pieper's approach to justice. You can find it online for free.

Haha, well, best to avoid drama after all, yes? X3

I totally forget the context of our previous conversation, though. Reading our VMs, I'm not even sure I can pick up my own trail of thought, and I'm wondering if I've re-evaluated my understanding since. I happen to have read Pieper's "Four Cardinal Virtues" since last we discussed the right to exist. ^_^

I just finished reading some comment of yours about a poster, concurrent with a discussion of sea-dwelling life, fishing for a contradiction that only netted him a boot, and I wanted to tell you it made me laugh. It's not always easy to maintain a sense of lighthearted humor in the midst of very contentious conversations, but I am pleased that you do. ^_^

I went ahead and responded to your comments.
You have really thin skin for someone who is so quick to condemn others.

Not really. Amazon takes a huge cut of your income, I still can't use PayPal, and... I forget what the problem was with Google Checkout, but there was one. Hmm... =x