can you proove there isn't a deity?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

BTW the Bible strictly forbids consulting the dead. I am not sure how it works. My best guess is that demons are impersonating the dead and using the trust of that relationship to deceive people. I know this every story I have heard about this kind of stuff ends very badly.

So when a Christian has a religious experience, it's evidence, but when a non-Christian has a religious experience, it can be dismissed as demonic trickery? Convenient.

Luckily, we don't need to give the Bible any weight, because I heard that it's a fabrication by Loki to deceive people into siding with the Jotnar at Ragnarok.

 

[nilsz]

Now that is invalid logic. Would the speculative an unproven nature of claims to bigfoot mean that all claims to a new species are invalidated?

There is always a very small fringe group that will claim to have experienced anything. However when those numbers start climbing into the hundreds of millions they become impossible to dismiss. There is not even a meaningful fraction of those that claim to have experienced God that claim to have talked with the dead or whatever. You cannot lump them all together and condemn them at one time. I as many Christians (especially those Catholics who's job it is to validate miracles) are extremely skeptical. I rule out probably 90% of claims before hand. However that still leaves such an enormous number that I can find no fault with to indicate there is truth behind their claims.

If the ratio of people with otherwise unverifiable accounts was particularly high, I might have given such claims the benefit of doubt and believed in them. Quantity does not make up for a lack of ratio, however, as Abrahamic faith has influence over a large population. Accounts from people with little to no exposure to Abrahamic faith might be more convincing, but not if they are as unusual as I expect them to be.

I would like to emphasize that I do not necessarily believe that people who tell these accounts are dishonest, but rather suspect that they have misinterpreted whatever they experienced. I do not expect them to reject what they believe to have been their true experience because of my opinion.

 

[Runewolf1973]

I doubt there is anyway to know that with any reliability. However if those that had no faith in life die they are eternally separated from not only God but even the things of God. Their lack of faith might be easily explained if the claim was ever reliable to begin with. I think your were mainly being rhetorical but thought I would chime in anyway.

I hate to say it, but my girlfriend talks about those like you who reside on the other side. They are so strong in their belief in God (unfortunately) that they end up searching and searching endlessly for something that they never actually find. There are some spirits who have been stubbornly searching for that God on the other side for years upon years, if not hundreds of years. They are so convinced that they will find their God that they sometimes never give up that search. They become stuck in a kind of limbo. Then there are the atheists on the other side...those who never believed in an afterlife to begin with, but oddly enough they are generally okay. They eventually come to accept things for what they are and move on. In a way I feel rather unsettled knowing that you may eventually find yourself stuck in limbo, never actually finding what you are looking for. So unfortunate for those like you...but alas, it was their own stubbornness that put them in that position to begin with. I hope you eventually find your peace.

 

[1robin]

"So-and-so says X, therefore X" is a fallacious argument, despite your refusal to acknowledge the existence of quite a few undisputedly fallacious argument forms.

I long ago learned the most futile criteria for an argument about faith is the satisfaction of a person opposed to it all together. Evidence is what convinces a reasonable person. Even proof would not satisfy an unreasonable skeptic. I now make arguments to my own satisfaction. You illustrated exactly why I no longer attempt to meet your sides demands. I must have said a dozen times so far that I have never said because X believes Y or because this amount of people believes Y then Y is true. I have went way out of my way to make this very very clear yet here you are still claiming it. So why in the world would what you think be my standard. The bible charges me to be always ready to supply a reason for the faith I hold. I do that and a whole lot more. I meet my actual burden and exceed it many times over.

Which part was false? Is physics not a technical field? Are you qualified in it? Do the objections of laymen to technical aspects in a given field carry any weight? Looks like a pretty good narrative to me.

1. You have absolutely no way to know what level of achievement I have in any field. I have a degree in math and have worked in the most technical end of military aviation for 20 plus years. I make no claim to mastery of anything but am certainly not a laymen.
2. I have no problem what so ever with the far larger reliable parts of science. In fact I must use their discoveries and formulas every single day at work to produce things that actually work. My complaints are not against the bulk of science. Your counter claims are from the small subsection of science that is theoretical. In it there exists every thing wrong with science in modern times. That is what my complaints are about.
3. While being admittedly the theoretical scientist's inferior scientifically, most of what they claim is not based on science anyway. A teenager has plenty to rule out the credibility of many of their claims. They have absolutely no way to know what a multiverse is or would produce. Statements like gravity proves something can come from nothing are so stupid that it requires no expertise to dismiss. Not only that but most of their claims that conflict with theology are not science anyway. They are philosophical and they have no advantage in that field over me or the scholars I use. They should stay in the lab and quit addressing claims they have no expertise in. Dawkins is such an embarrassment he would shame me, if an atheist.
4. Again even within their scientific claims, the science is all but pure speculation and is impossible to potentially ever verify. It is also claimed to be such not only by people like me but even by their peers. For example Penrose said M-theory is not even a good excuse for not having a valid theory.

It is pure white noise dressed in academic terminology and virtually every claim of science used to counter the bible comes from this least reliable subsection of science. Reliable science and the bible are consistent.

Yes or no- do you have a degree in physics?

I have a degree in mathematics which included taking the bulk of the physics and mathematics classes that a physicist would. I took every calculus based physics course my engineering school offered. However this is irrelevant in most cases. For example Hawkings latest book is said by philosophers to be almost entirely philosophy. You can't measure, detect, or observe most of what they cough up. How is a physics degree relevant? Not only that but what they come up with out of almost thin air is refuted by their peers. Vilenkin for one set up simple and obvious arguments that not only knocked down (but proclaimed impossible) every leading counter theory to a single finite universe. If I had never stepped foot in any school, that alone is enough to destroy or compromise their credibility.

Right; this is basic logic. Validity is a property of the form of an argument, which does not concern the truth or falsity of any of the premises. And arguments cannot really be true or false, that's a category mistake- an argument can be valid, and it can have premises/a conclusion which are true, but it cannot itself be true or false any more than the number 4 can have a hair color.

Since I do not seem to be able to remember to bring the books in to technically challenge your claims. I will make several statements that reflect this and that if agreed to can end this meaningless part of the discussion.

1. I think your are giving an accurate definition from technical philosophy for "logical validity".
2. Even if the cosmological argument was not officially "logically valid" there exist many other technical justifications (mostly Latin which I can never remember) for every step of it's argument. These are what I found in the books that I can not remember to bring.
3. Regardless of the truth of either 1 or 2 the issue at hand is truth. The cosmological argument is a reasonable attempt to derive truth. It contains uncertainties but is a rational deductive exercise. That would be just as true even if your definition for logical validity is perfect.
4. I would not carry it as far as others do. I would stop where it indicates a necessary uncaused first cause is mandated. I would not take that cause, and claim that argument proves it is God.
5. Having said that, what philosophy says about causation necessitates whatever the causes characteristics must be, are consistent with God.

If you can agree with these then this side bar is no longer necessary and maybe we can get back to attempting to resolve truth or best fit explanations.

Basic deductive logic is not "fringe science". You're really grasping now.

I do not care what term is used to indicate it's uselessness. A criteria that validates arguments known to be false and makes false arguments more easy to construct that true ones has no place in any discussion where truth is the objective. I can not for the life of me figure out what gain exists by including that criteria versus anything lost by removing it.

I used fringe because almost no one outside of philosophical think tanks would use that criteria for anything. Even theoretical scientists do not bother with that type of standard. Of course they have little use for fixed standards of any kind.

Well no, not if it is a deductive argument; an invalid deductive argument is just a bad argument. A valid deductive argument needn't be a good one, but a good one must be valid.

On the other hand, inductive arguments are not deductively valid, and there are good inductive arguments. But the causal argument is not an inductive argument, so this is basically just a footnote.


Validity is a necessary condition for soundness. All sound arguments are valid, and no invalid arguments are sound. If the causal argument is not valid, it cannot be sound either. (a sound argument is one that is valid, and whose premises are true)

I think I have already addressed this.

Give some examples then.

Every single link I looked at for Logically validity gave more false arguments that were valid than true ones.

1. Only dogs have four legs.
2. I see a horse with four legs.
3. The horse must be a dog.

My premise if true make my conclusion necessary.

1. Only baseball players are left handed.
2. I see a left handed person on the 50 yard line.
3. The guy on the 50 yard must be a baseball player.

Validity is basically a procedural property- as I said, its a formal property of arguments or their structure, not their content. In other words, this is an entirely toothless objection.

That is why it is useless. It exists as a procedure but not one designed to produce truth.

Definitions are not generally considered true or false, they just are. If they don't suit us, we modify or reject them. And that just is what the definition of validity is in the field of logic. Asking if it is true doesn't make any sense (we could never know whether the definition of "valid" was true, i.e. accurately described valid things, unless we already had a definition of "valid", and so on ad infinitum)

Again that was my point. What a human defines as logically valid has nothing to do with logic or validity. It is a pure human contrivance. The definition of a bear has no effect on bears. Our descriptions change nothing in reality. They are necessary but as usual what is necessary and useful is taken too far by academics until it has no relevance to usefulness. Every subject in human history has a bulk that is valid, impressive, and useful. They all also have a subsection that is none of those. Almost every single argument I get from non-theists lies within that narrow band of garbage academia. I made that a little more black and white than it is but in general that is true. If you must appeal to multiverses, irrational counter explanations for billons of claims to supernatural experience (than that they had them), and rigorous philosophic technicality you might want to rethink that position.

Still confusing validity and truth. Hopefully this has been solved.

I never confused the two. I am contrasting the rigorous and opinion based definitions of validity used in technical philosophy with efforts to arrive at truth. They are not the same and have different goals. You seem to interested in the former and I the latter.

I have a question since it is obvious the criteria for logical validity was not to ensure truth, what was it's motivation? I can't imagine a use for that criteria.

 

[1robin]

So when a Christian has a religious experience, it's evidence, but when a non-Christian has a religious experience, it can be dismissed as demonic trickery? Convenient.

I never said anything that even hints at this. When you have to attribute to your opponent an argument the very opposite of what was made it is evidence of a failed position. I am not going to restate what I have already stated so let me summarize.

1. I claim that supernatural experiences actually occur to Christians and non-Christians. They can be of a godly nature or an ungodly nature. They almost always are consistent with the Bible regardless.
2. It is not who had the experience (in this specific context) but about how many had it and if their are core commonalities in the largest experience groups that correspond to another source or proposition. If only ten million people claimed to have experienced Christ while 1 billion claimed to have experienced Allah. I would have to conclude that in that category the evidence for Allah is greater. However the fact happens to be that vastly higher percentages of people have experiences with the Biblical God than any and probably all other combined by far.
3. I reject almost all claims to supernatural experience whether by Christians or any other just on purely speculative grounds on an individual case by case basis. However even if my hyper-speculation is correct that leaves more than sufficient numbers of reliable Christian accounts (more than any other type by far) that they cannot be dismissed. An example of this is that Catholic specialists are more skeptical of miracles than just about any other group (the reason for this is they incur legal liability for their claims others do not). Even secular people on the scene cannot believe how skeptical the Catholic miracle experts are. Even after that they approve far more miracles as valid than can be swept away and far more than any other faith.

Now then, re-calibrate given what I actually think and respond.

Luckily, we don't need to give the Bible any weight, because I heard that it's a fabrication by Loki to deceive people into siding with the Jotnar at Ragnarok.

Well you go with that then. We will see if whatever that was actually it pans out in the long run.

 

[1robin]

Yikes. You're serious. Yikes.

Yeah, I had a teacher once who asked on a test whether the moon was made of A) cheese or B) flour dough.

That is it compound the problem by inventing tests you never had.

When I answered that I thought the moon was made of rock, she gave me an 'F' and insisted that I was 'amplifying ambiguities that do not exist in an attempt not to answer the simplest and relevant question I could think of."

Then she went around boasting that no one had ever answered her simple test question.

Weird world. Weird people in it.

As usual I am discussing reality and you are supposing about non-existent hypotheticals. Your last statement however is very very true.

 

[1robin]

If the ratio of people with otherwise unverifiable accounts was particularly high, I might have given such claims the benefit of doubt and believed in them. Quantity does not make up for a lack of ratio, however, as Abrahamic faith has influence over a large population. Accounts from people with little to no exposure to Abrahamic faith might be more convincing, but not if they are as unusual as I expect them to be.

The criteria required for your equating two things is not unverifiable, it would be verifiably wrong. If a billion people claimed to have been on board an alien space craft that would be fairly convincing even if I could not verify a single one. There is no possible way to establish a ration between true unverifiable claims and false ones because they are unverifiable. However it is as all together fitting and logical to reject a few claims among a population to extraordinary events, as it would be to assign some credibility to a vast percentage of a population that made the same claims. Quantity does matter. It matters to industries that must have accurate predictions made on only data like hospitals, disease research, governments, and insurance companies. Each one would tell you that data sizes are the most important criteria there are. Small data sets, little credibility. Huge data sets, massive credibility.


You cannot construct ratios about unverifiable claims but what ratios is it that you should not have constructed but did anyway?

I would like to emphasize that I do not necessarily believe that people who tell these accounts are dishonest, but rather suspect that they have misinterpreted whatever they experienced. I do not expect them to reject what they believe to have been their true experience because of my opinion.

This is a maybe even worse claim to make.

I claim hundreds of millions and perhaps several billon people since Christ claimed to have experienced him. I claim the best explanation for that mountain of data is contained in the Gospels. To make your claim you must produce a better explanation for that same data than I did. Epilepsy, mass hallucination, false self conviction of experience, wishful thinking, peer pressure, or al of these combined will not even get you in the ball park. Good luck.

 

[outhouse]

Evidence is what convinces a reasonable person. .

Yet that doesnt work for you.


Evidence shows that man creates deities and redefines them willy nilly, yet do you accept that?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I long ago learned the most futile criteria for an argument about faith is the satisfaction of a person opposed to it all together. Evidence is what convinces a reasonable person. Even proof would not satisfy an unreasonable skeptic. I now make arguments to my own satisfaction.

Still trying to justify...

I must have said a dozen times so far that I have never said because X believes Y or because this amount of people believes Y then Y is true.

If, in arguing for X, you offer as an argument "so and so believes X", the clear implication is that "so and so believes X, therefore X".

1. You have absolutely no way to know what level of achievement I have in any field. I have a degree in math and have worked in the most technical end of military aviation for 20 plus years. I make no claim to mastery of anything but am certainly not a laymen.

Which is why I asked you if you have a degree, or any qualifications whatsoever, in physics or cosmology. If not, then you are a layman in physics and cosmology. That's what "layman" means.

1. I think your are giving an accurate definition from technical philosophy for "logical validity".
2. Even if the cosmological argument was not officially "logically valid" there exist many other technical justifications (mostly Latin which I can never remember) for every step of it's argument. These are what I found in the books that I can not remember to bring.
3. Regardless of the truth of either 1 or 2 the issue at hand is truth. The cosmological argument is a reasonable attempt to derive truth. It contains uncertainties but is a rational deductive exercise. That would be just as true even if your definition for logical validity is perfect.
4. I would not carry it as far as others do. I would stop where it indicates a necessary uncaused first cause is mandated. I would not take that cause, and claim that argument proves it is God.
5. Having said that, what philosophy says about causation necessitates whatever the causes characteristics must be, are consistent with God.

I'm interested in examples of "technical justifications" for a deductive argument that do not include basic validity, as well as examples of good deductive arguments which are nevertheless invalid. I'm saying that the cosmological argument is a bad argument for two main reasons: one, it is invalid- even if its premises are granted, the conclusion still doesn't follow- and two, it is not sound- its premises are highly problematic.

Its hard to think of a way for a deductive argument to be a more thorough failure than by being both invalid and having untrue premises.

I do not care what term is used to indicate it's uselessness. A criteria that validates arguments known to be false and makes false arguments more easy to construct that true ones has no place in any discussion where truth is the objective.

Arguments are not true or false. Validity is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for a good (i.e. sound) deductive argument. Logical validity does not "validate arguments known to be false"- as I've said any number of times now, a valid argument is not necessarily a good one, but an invalid (deductive) argument is most certainly a bad one. Validity is a a requisite, but not a guarantee, of a good deductive argument. But if an argument isn't even valid, then we don't even really need to concern ourselves with the truth of the premises since, by definition, the premises could be true and the conclusion nevertheless false.

I used fringe because almost no one outside of philosophical think tanks would use that criteria for anything.

Which is simply not true, and patently absurd. Basic logical notions like validity underlie all of our academic enterprises, and even much of colloquial discourse, and mathematics and the scientific method in general implicitly use these notions like validity, entailment, etc. Perhaps you're confused by the fact that they are so basic that they are taken for granted and not mentioned explicity; that doesn't mean that nobody uses them.

Every single link I looked at for Logically validity gave more false arguments that were valid than true ones.

1. Only dogs have four legs.
2. I see a horse with four legs.
3. The horse must be a dog.

My premise if true make my conclusion necessary.

1. Only baseball players are left handed.
2. I see a left handed person on the 50 yard line.
3. The guy on the 50 yard must be a baseball player.

I asked for examples of "true arguments" (whatever that means, since "true" and "false" don't apply to arguments) that are invalid, not "false arguments" that are valid.

That is why it is useless. It exists as a procedure but not one designed to produce truth.

Actually, the opposite is the case. A valid argument is one that is truth-preserving; that is, if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true- it preserves the truth of the premises, it never leads you from truth to falsity. An invalid argument, on the other hand, is NOT truth-preserving; the premises can be true and the conclusion false- it can lead you from truth to falsity. And truth-preservation is precisely why validity is such a crucial property of deductive arguments.

Again that was my point. What a human defines as logically valid has nothing to do with logic or validity.

Since logic is an abstract human contrivance, what humans define as logically valid is what is logically valid.

I never confused the two.

You continue to do little else.

I have a question since it is obvious the criteria for logical validity was not to ensure truth, what was it's motivation? I can't imagine a use for that criteria.

See above RE truth-preservation.

 

[1robin]

I hate to say it, but my girlfriend talks about those like you who reside on the other side. They are so strong in their belief in God (unfortunately) that they end up searching and searching endlessly for something that they never actually find. There are some spirits who have been stubbornly searching for that God on the other side for years upon years, if not hundreds of years. They are so convinced that they will find their God that they sometimes never give up that search. They become stuck in a kind of limbo. Then there are the atheists on the other side...those who never believed in an afterlife to begin with, but oddly enough they are generally okay. They eventually come to accept things for what they are and move on. In a way I feel rather unsettled knowing that you may eventually find yourself stuck in limbo, never actually finding what you are looking for. So unfortunate for those like you...but alas, it was their own stubbornness that put them in that position to begin with. I hope you eventually find your peace.

I do not mean to offend you but I have absolutely no use for what she says. The bible that led me to God and is the most scrutinized and beloved text in human history teaches me first not to consult what some claim are the dead and second not to associate with anyone who does. If true your girlfriends situation is not a good and the long history of these claims never ends well (I mean you can literally see the deterioration over time of the individual). I would suggest she first get medical help and if that fails get spiritual help.

I was a prayer councilor for years. This type of thing is never positive and never what it seems. Contact any senior Catholic specialist in spiritual warfare if you doubt the data for these types of things.

I wish you well but fear the worst unless you and here embrace the truth. I would not waste time using a person who claims to consult the dead to judge anyone else, it will never work. However if I can help and you want help I am available.

 

[1robin]

Yet that doesnt work for you.


Evidence shows that man creates deities and redefines them willy nilly, yet do you accept that?

I certainly do agree with that in general. However the evidence shows that human contrivance did not and could not have produced the Bible and what it contains, plus the experiential claims of hundreds of millions add to it. Evidence suggests humans do not drive a golf ball more than 300 yards on average. Does that mean tiger woods does not exist? In fact all the evidence we had 100 years ago suggested everything obeyed Newtonian physics. Does that mean all the quantum physicists are liars? Evidence shows humans invent conspiracy stories. Does that mean no actual conspiracy ever occurred?

This is a false equality mistake.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

That is it compound the problem by inventing tests you never had.

In the world of the mind and spirit, people sometimes convey truth by means of what we spiritual types call 'parables.' I'm sorry that you are unable to appreciate parables, but as Jesus said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear” (Luke 8:10).

Some can see, hear and understand. Some cannot.

I can't say why.

 

[Runewolf1973]

I do not mean to offend you but I have absolutely no use for what she says. The bible that led me to God and is the most scrutinized and beloved text in human history teaches me first not to consult what some claim are the dead and second not to associate with anyone who does. If true your girlfriends situation is not a good and the long history of these claims never ends well (I mean you can literally see the deterioration over time of the individual). I would suggest she first get medical help and if that fails get spiritual help.

I was a prayer councilor for years. This type of thing is never positive and never what it seems. Contact any senior Catholic specialist in spiritual warfare if you doubt the data for these types of things.

I wish you well but fear the worst unless you and here embrace the truth. I would not waste time using a person who claims to consult the dead to judge anyone else, it will never work. However if I can help and you want help I am available.

There is actually only one great deceiver and that is NOT Satan. I posted this in the Satanism DIR, but I will post it here for you to read...

Metaphorically speaking, I see Satan in the bible as symbolizing knowledge and that knowledge is what gives us humans some degree of power over God. For if you really think about it, what is God's worst enemy? Science.... That knowledge which opens the eyes of man allowing us to see for ourselves that God was never there to begin with. Natural processes, evolution, and even a bit of chaos is what created this world as you said, not God. If Satan in the bible symbolized knowledge, then in that sense Satan does truly exist and has great power over God. It is that knowledge and understanding (Satan in the eyes of God) that is the path I choose to follow. So in a way I am choosing the left hand path, not the right hand path of God.


---

I will never choose the right hand path of God. As far as I'm concerned, people only choose the right hand path out of fear or perhaps ignorance (lack of understanding or refusal to understand). They are like thoughtless, mindless sheep that allow themselves to be led by God (the herder), but they are led astray. The left hand path, the path of knowledge is where the true light is to be found...the light of understanding. The path of God is deceiving (a false light, kinda like a flashlight on which the batteries run out just when you need it the most leaving you in the dark to fend for yourself) and it is full of fear (fear of God). It is in that dark where we find ourselves lost and afraid and alone, confused because we ignored that path of knowledge and understanding. The wolves and the snakes lurk in the shadows, in the dark, not because they are evil, but because they are not afraid of it.


---

 

[Runewolf1973]

Sorry, I have a very metaphorical way of writing things like this.

 

[outhouse]

. However the evidence shows that human contrivance did not and could not have produced the Bible and what it contains, .

Yet man ONLY wrote the bible and edited it over and over again to mirror the ever changing cultures that used these text.

That isnt even up for debate here.

This is a false equality mistake

I view it as reality that the religious wont admit due to their own biased opinions.

 

[1robin]

There is actually only one great deceiver and that is NOT Satan. I posted this in the Satanism DIR, but I will post it here for you to read...

Obviously I disagree. I can not say that whatever source for evil is impossible but I can say with certainty my source has greater evidence supporting it. We are both going to make claims to what we cannot know for certain. However I will have much better and more evidence on my side. Do you think this exercise worth undertaking?

I will never choose the right hand path of God. As far as I'm concerned, people only choose the right hand path out of fear or perhaps ignorance (lack of understanding or refusal to understand). They are like thoughtless, mindless sheep that allow themselves to be led by God (the herder), but they are led astray. The left hand path, the path of knowledge is where the true light is to be found...the light of understanding. The path of God is deceiving (a false light, kinda like a flashlight on which the batteries run out just when you need it the most leaving you in the dark to fend for yourself) and it is full of fear (fear of God). It is in that dark where we find ourselves lost and afraid and alone, confused because we ignored that path of knowledge and understanding. The wolves and the snakes lurk in the shadows, in the dark, not because they are evil, but because they are not afraid of it.

There is no left handed or right handed paths to God.

There are right handed and left handed blessing in Jewish cultures. There are single handed, both handed, left handed, and right handed philosophies. There is even a throne on God right hand side. There exists no right hand path to God. There exists only Christ as a path to God in Christianity and we believe Judaism as well.

Those that have traditionally followed the biblical God are the most generous demographic in history. We have built more hospitals, more public school systems and created more rescue efforts than any non-governmental organizations in history. The moral clarity prescribed by Jesus is more associated with moral truth and correctness than all the other teachers in all other faiths combined. Nations who have Christian roots and foundations are almost always the first on the scene in international emergencies and provide most of the aid. You may consider this darkness but most of the starving children in Africa being fed by Christian organizations would not.

You seem to choose by preference and not reason.

I did not mean any insult to you but your preferences and conclusions are irrational and exhibit extreme bias.

Christians have chosen faith in-spite of the fact that the greatest empires in history were persecuting them at the time. They more than any other faith maybe all combined have passively accepted death for their faith more than any other. By it's very definition it is a belief in contradiction to peer pressure and safety. It led Christ to death, led all the apostles to suffer life long for their claims and some even died. Christianity right or wrong is by far the harder and braver choice.

You are simply making irrational complaints about what you do not like for whatever reason. I suspected this was going to turn out to be the case 9and I almost did not open a discussion with you for that reason), I however had hoped it would not be. As usual my Christian instincts proved true.

 

[1robin]

In the world of the mind and spirit, people sometimes convey truth by means of what we spiritual types call 'parables.' I'm sorry that you are unable to appreciate parables, but as Jesus said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear” (Luke 8:10).

Some can see, hear and understand. Some cannot.

I can't say why.

1. Your false claim was a false analogy not a parable.
2. It did not represent reality as all analogies and parables should in order to be relevant. In fact yours completely contradicted reality.

The rest is more of your usual ranting and speculation that I am quite sure even you do not grant any merit to. I think your here for entertainment and anything will be sacrificed to achieve that bizarre goal.

I like how you guys who rail against the bible constantly quote it in an effort to achieve credibility through false association. One great big bowl of wrong.

 

[nilsz]

The criteria required for your equating two things is not unverifiable, it would be verifiably wrong. If a billion people claimed to have been on board an alien space craft that would be fairly convincing even if I could not verify a single one. There is no possible way to establish a ration between true unverifiable claims and false ones because they are unverifiable. However it is as all together fitting and logical to reject a few claims among a population to extraordinary events, as it would be to assign some credibility to a vast percentage of a population that made the same claims. Quantity does matter. It matters to industries that must have accurate predictions made on only data like hospitals, disease research, governments, and insurance companies. Each one would tell you that data sizes are the most important criteria there are. Small data sets, little credibility. Huge data sets, massive credibility.


You cannot construct ratios about unverifiable claims but what ratios is it that you should not have constructed but did anyway?

I am not sure if I understand. Equating two what things?

By ratio I meant ratio of people who claim to have an experience with God and sample set, which is massive in the case of all people who has ever lived. I infer that this ratio is low and presume that most make the same conclusion.

This is a maybe even worse claim to make.

I claim hundreds of millions and perhaps several billon people since Christ claimed to have experienced him. I claim the best explanation for that mountain of data is contained in the Gospels. To make your claim you must produce a better explanation for that same data than I did. Epilepsy, mass hallucination, false self conviction of experience, wishful thinking, peer pressure, or al of these combined will not even get you in the ball park. Good luck.

I do not have a definite explanation, but reason that it may be attributed to the same things that create other accounts of supernatural phenomena, accounts that may be inconsistent with existence of a single God - such Runewolf1973's account of his girlfriend's ability to talk with the dead, or accounts of experiences with other deities.

When I was a kid I was diagnosed with a development disorder, for which my parents placed me on a diet. The diet had then a questionable scientific basis which has now been discredited, but still my parents claimed that I had improved with the diet. Personally, I disagreed that any improvement of mine was attributable to the diet, and was more likely a result of escaping the bullying at my old school. When I became older I was able to make the choice to end the diet, and did not regress as my mother had feared. I hope this story of mine illustrates to you how someone's experience can be misinterpreted.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Obviously I disagree. I can not say that whatever source for evil is impossible but I can say with certainty my source has greater evidence supporting it. We are both going to make claims to what we cannot know for certain. However I will have much better and more evidence on my side. Do you think this exercise worth undertaking?



There is no left handed or right handed paths to God.

There are right handed and left handed blessing in Jewish cultures. There are single handed, both handed, left handed, and right handed philosophies. There is even a throne on God right hand side. There exists no right hand path to God. There exists only Christ as a path to God in Christianity and we believe Judaism as well.

Those that have traditionally followed the biblical God are the most generous demographic in history. We have built more hospitals, more public school systems and created more rescue efforts than any non-governmental organizations in history. The moral clarity prescribed by Jesus is more associated with moral truth and correctness than all the other teachers in all other faiths combined. Nations who have Christian roots and foundations are almost always the first on the scene in international emergencies and provide most of the aid. You may consider this darkness but most of the starving children in Africa being fed by Christian organizations would not.

You seem to choose by preference and not reason.

I did not mean any insult to you but your preferences and conclusions are irrational and exhibit extreme bias.

Christians have chosen faith in-spite of the fact that the greatest empires in history were persecuting them at the time. They more than any other faith maybe all combined have passively accepted death for their faith more than any other. By it's very definition it is a belief in contradiction to peer pressure and safety. It led Christ to death, led all the apostles to suffer life long for their claims and some even died. Christianity right or wrong is by far the harder and braver choice.

You are simply making irrational complaints about what you do not like for whatever reason. I suspected this was going to turn out to be the case 9and I almost did not open a discussion with you for that reason), I however had hoped it would not be. As usual my Christian instincts proved true.

It is obvious that you fail to understand simple metaphorical text, which is why I am dubious as to how you can even claim to understand what is written in the Bible.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

1. Your false claim was a false analogy not a parable.

That's how the rabble used to taunt Jesus, so I've heard. The Holy Spirit -- for whatever reason -- just wouldn't let them appreciate Jesus' parables. It's a mystery.

2. It did not represent reality as all analogies and parables should in order to be relevant. In fact yours completely contradicted reality.

Oh, my. It is not possible that a teacher could make a bad test for a student, eh?

Whatever you need to believe, I guess you should believe it.

The rest is more of your usual ranting and speculation that I am quite sure even you do not grant any merit to. I think your here for entertainment and anything will be sacrificed to achieve that bizarre goal.

I'm here to help you grow, but I often become bored of jogging in place as I wait for you, so I admit that I do work at creating entertainment for us and our audience. It's only polite.

I like how you guys who rail against the bible constantly quote it in an effort to achieve credibility through false association. One great big bowl of wrong.

The whole world is against you, isn't it. Please know that I often weep for you as you cry out God's Truth in the wilderness, all alone like that.