Can someone make sense of this sentence? "I didn't

> I stated the insistence of the materialist skeptics that they were to argue that natural reality is greater than they concede

He said:
> the insistence of the materialist skeptics that they were to argue that natural reality is greater than they concede

The 'materialist skeptics' said:
> natural reality is greater than they concede

The 'materialist skeptics' said reality cannot be known.

>>8316328
PS. Sounds a lot like bullshit.

>>8316332
The "that they were to argue" part is throwing me off.

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Translation

>I didn't say these things were supernatural, I'm only saying the materialist-skeptics should grant that reality is perhaps greater than what they conceive of it.

Basically, don't act like you know everything


That is a SHITTY sentence so I'm not surprised you had trouble with it. Was it a translation?

>>8316314

It's a tortured and quite stupid sentence bordering on incoherence.

He says the materialist skeptics insisted that certain phenomena were supernatural, because this proves his point that their understanding of natural reality is flawed.

First of all a "materialist skeptic" would by definition not claim, and certainly never insist, that any phenomena are supernatural. It's literally the opposite of what they would claim.

His argument is basically - "Natural reality is beyond our comprehension because materialist skeptics insist that certain phenomena are supernatural."
It's total nonsense. What idiot wrote this?

>>8316354
No, native English speaker. Guy wrote some shit book too called "God reconsidered".

>>8316356
You sure he didn't mean skeptics of materialism?

It seems like OP's the dumb one for not giving us more to work with.

>>8316381
No he didn't mean that. His book is an attempted critique of atheists, materialists, and skeptics.

>>8316369
Don't bother with any Christian books unless they're Vatican-approved. The Vatican knows the good shit.

>>8316314
I think it's literally incoherent. I can't parse the second part at all.

>>8316314
Shit's complex, yo.

>>8316314
No idea what it means. If I had to parse it I would guess

[I didn't say these phenomena were supernatural]
parataxis
[I stated
[the insistence of the materialist skeptics
[that they were to argue
[that natural reality is greater than they concede]
]
]
]

But I wouldn't be able to tell you what it means. Maybe it would make sense if we know the pragmatic context.