Personal miracles that cant be adequately explained except by invoking God

[Warcraft3]

POWELL:
Perhaps now would be a good time to begin a thread of "Personal miracles that can't be adequately explained except by invoking God." I will begin the thread in hopes of your participation, Russ, unless you would like to do the honor.

John Powell


I offically open this thread:solly: for the discussion of any and all personal experiences that could be labeled as "miracles". I guess Ill post two of the best ones I have some time tomorrow. But in the mean time, does anyone else have anything they would like to share and discuss/debate?

Thanks John Powell for suggesting this thread, it may end up being a good one.

Lets hear those stories people.



Russ

[SlaveofChrist]

My current AP English teacher had stage 4 Ovarian cancer. She was about ready to die when they started chemo. None of the doctors thought it would work but she is still around to assign me essays. There was A LOT of people praying for her and she COMPLETELY defied the odds. She might just be lucky but it looks like God to me. Same thing happened with my pastor, not sure what kind of cancer though.

[John Powell]

POWELL:
I'll give 5 stories. Three of my own, one from my dad (now dead) and one from my mother.

Miracle Story 1: John jumps out of the bus.

When I was a freshman at BYU, I stayed with my uncle who was at the time an archeaology professor at BYU, Ross T. Christensen. I took the bus home from school. After stopping at University Mall in Orem, the bus traveled south on State Street. At this time there were not concrete sidewalks on the west side of the road near my stop, but only dirt.

It was my habit to be ready at the front exit door at the moment the driver stopped and opened the door so I could quickly jump out. This particular time, however, I was playing with a pen or pencil. As the bus approached my stop, I surprisingly dropped the thing. I quickly picked it up and then rushed to the front of the bus, concerned that I would be late to jump out. I arrived before the door opened.

The door opened, but I paused. Something flashed in front of me traveling fast from right to left. I then jumped out of the bus and looked to the left where I saw a Jeep driving on the dirt shoulder.

If I had jumped out of the bus when I usually do then I would have been hit by the jeep.

At that time and for years later, I interpreted this as my guardian angel holding me back so I could be an instrument in the hands of my God.

Miracle Story 2: John has tinglings.

Beginning about a year before my mission to Argentina, I began to feel a tingling sensation in the upper part of my face.

It usually began above my eyes, either in the area of my forehead or near the top of my head, but sometimes extended to my ears and to my lower face. It was a tingling that only rarely got so strong it began to cause a headache.

I imagined that it was something similar to the "burning in the bosom" that is spoken of among Mormons as a physical manifestation of inspiration, but this was a "burning of the face".

Initially, I only felt it at church and, so, concluded that it was a special revelation from God assuring me that the LDS church was true. Later, I felt it when reading scriptures or praying at home. I began to think that maybe it could be used to guide me to visit the right homes or say the right things to help convert those I would see in Argentina.

When I would feel the sensation, I would think "Now why would the Holy Ghost being doing that now? What am I supposed to be doing?" I tried following the promptings while on my mission but couldn't tell if they were confirmed.

When I returned from my mission, I noticed that sometimes I felt the tingling even when I wasn't doing something religious. I would still wonder that maybe I was supposed to call someone on the phone or visit someone or do something, but I could not tell what.

When I was upset I didn't have the tinglings.

Miracle Story 3: John finds an Argentine coin.

After I received my "call" to serve a 2-yr mission for the LDS church to the Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission, but before I entered the Mission Training Center in Provo, UT to learn Spanish and the Missionary discussions, I was cleaning my basement room in my parents farm in Safford, AZ. While cleaning the room, I discovered an Argentine coin, a peso. As far as I knew, no one who had rented the farm from my grandparents had been to Argentina. Furthermore, although I didn't clean the room much, I would have expected to have found the coin long before.

I imagined that it was a small miracle from God assuring me that Argentina was where I was supposed to go. It was a revelation to me that the prophet who called me to Argentina, Spencer W. Kimball, was a prophet of God and, therefore, that Mormonism was true. I carried the coin with me as a "good luck" piece through out my mission.

Miracle 4: John's Dad survives a plane spiral.

My Dad's favorite faith-promoting story was when he almost crashed in a plane. He was a non-fighting pilot during WWII. In one of his flights, his plane went into a nose dive. He was scared that he'd crash. He heard a voice tell him something like "Roy, you've learned how to come out of difficult situations." He wanted to take it out of the dive, but didn't know how long to turn the "wheel." He turned it for a while and then the voice said "now" or "stop" or something like that. My dad survived. He believed this was help from God so that he could be a valuable servant of God on the Earth.

Miracle 5: John's Mom knows the names of her children.

My mother's favorite faith-promoting story was that she knew the gender of every one of her 11 children before they were born. She even had dreams where some of them visited her and spoke to her. She said that I visited her before I was born. This made me feel like I must be someone very important to God.

Concluding Comments

There are more I could share, but perhaps these are enough for now.

I now have what I think are reasonable naturalistic answers to each of these. I'm curious to hear what theists and atheists have to say about them.

John Powell

[Vorkosigan]

Are you serious? I thought you were going to talk about suspensions of natural law, not cute little synchronicities.

In any case, nothing above calls for a theistic explanation. For example, in the ovarian cancer case above, even assuming that there is a supernatural element in her cure, it is not necessarily due to the prayers of theists. For example --

*My atheist Buddhist wife prays for the sick every day. How would you go about proving that it wasn't her prayer than reached out and healed your teacher?

*The praying individuals in that case used their latent atheistic psychic powers, harnessed and focused by their talismanic belief in Jesus, to heal the woman of cancer. That's a much better explanation than some particular one out of the thousands of theisms, since it more or less accounts for all miracle claims in all cultures.

Vorkosigan

[Ryokan]

Its like this, for me to believe any peace of good luck was a miracle, I would need some, not vague, indication that it was from a divine source or had some divine purpose. Hitler had good luck, and I hope that wasn't from God.

[John Powell]

VORKOSIGAN:
Are you serious? I thought you were going to talk about suspensions of natural law, not cute little synchronicities.


POWELL:
What typical personal modern "miracles" would constitute suspensions of natural laws that could not justifiably be considered synchronicities?

VORKOSIGAN:
In any case, nothing above calls for a theistic explanation.


POWELL:
I agree, but would you be willing to give your most likely naturalistic explanations? Otherwise, an apologist might disregard your casual rebuttal with something like, "Vorkosigan might say that about almost any miracle, but then be unable to provide a satisfactory naturalistic explanation."

What is the threshhold for you at which so-called miracles would begin to justifiably call for theistic explanations? Please don't give me the extreme cases, but some meaningful borderline ones.

Evidently, religious people have a significantly different threshhold than skeptics at which point supernatural explanations for synchronicities or miracles are preferred.

An atheist fireman, Bruce Monson, has claimed that he would devote the rest of his life to Jesus if only one of the many children he knew who had died in a fire were brought back to life.

http://www.freethoughtfirefighters.org/Just_One_Child.htm

I feel like I should agree with that, but I can't honestly. With enough money I might be able to pull off just such a magic trick or scam. Bruce evidently isn't really serious. His challenge is more of an effort to get Christians to rethink their religious views about prayer and such things than an honest promise to change his beliefs on the basis of such a well-attested miracle. The fulfillment of his challenge is probably safely beyond the power of Christians or their God. They don't have the means to call Bruce's bluff.

John Powell

[John Powell]

RYOKAN:
Its like this, for me to believe any peace of good luck was a miracle, I would need some, not vague, indication that it was from a divine source or had some divine purpose. Hitler had good luck, and I hope that wasn't from God.


POWELL:
Good example.

For you personally, Ryokan, at what threshhold level would good luck begin to justify you thinking it was from a divine source? Please don't give me extreme examples, but meaningful borderline ones.

Also, do you have reasonable naturalistic explanations for the miracle-stories given here?

John Powell

[dawnghost]

alright, let me share one of my stories here. I chose this one because it's very short, so I can post it here quickly. the longer ones should wait till weekend.

my uncle Arino was with his friend in a car, driving back from a party. at the time when it happened, he lived in Macaé, which is located in the northern part of the Rio de Janeiro state. they were driving back from a place called Carapebus. my uncle was not driving, his friend was.

both of them were 'mildly' drunk.

well, it was night, and they were talking. his friend was driving fast. then my uncle said:

- slow down. God just told me there's a dead horse in the road, and if you don't slow down, we will die.

I guess if John or Vorkosigan were driving in that moment, they'd speed up to test God, eh? :teeth:

but anyway, his friend didn't give him any credit, so he repeated:

- slow down, God told me there's a dead horse in the road!
- that's ridiculous! how'd you know that?!
- I don't! slow down or stop this car and I'll return home on foot!!

well, the friend slowed down.
then came a curve... and they bumped into a dead horse, which almost drove the car out of the road.

:yipee:

[Satori]

Today @ 03:16 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=101696#post101696)
steadele:
I offically open this thread:solly: for the discussion of any and all personal experiences that could be labeled as "miracles".

Oh dear. Well, I'll bite. Yesterday I got out of bed and I was feeling kinda tireds. So I ate some oatmeal and exercised a little and then I felt much better.

I think it's quite sad and lame how quickly the faithful jump to the "god did it" conclusion when stuff happens. I think they do this because they are looking for something to substantiate their faith (seeing as it's sooo extremely important that they cling to whatever religious beliefs are common in their culture). Stuff happens, good stuff, bad stuff, all sorts of stuff, it simply happens, and such stuff will continue to happen, whether or not you attribute it happening to some metaphyical god/dictator of some kind. In this universe of perpetual flux, it would be bizarre if stuff DIDN'T happen.

That reminds of a story once that I got from a christian as "proof" (cough, cough) of god's existence and personal interaction with her own life. What she said was: "When I am feeling stressed and I pray to god for strength, I feel stronger."

I think that about says it all, doesn't it?

Satori

[John Powell]

SLAVEOFCHRIST:
My current AP English teacher had stage 4 Ovarian cancer. She was about ready to die when they started chemo. None of the doctors thought it would work but she is still around to assign me essays. There was A LOT of people praying for her and she COMPLETELY defied the odds. She might just be lucky but it looks like God to me. Same thing happened with my pastor, not sure what kind of cancer though.


POWELL:
One should notice that we generally hear the survival stories of those who beat the odds. Those in the majority group who die don't seem to come back to remind us that they were one of those who didn't get blessed by God with longer life.

If there was a 10% chance (I don't know the true probability for chemotherapy of stage 4 ovarian cancer) that your AP English teacher would pull through and she was 1/10 who did then why do you think God picked her to survive and none of the 9 others? Presumably, some of those others were just as worthy as she. Would you say that the others were more sinful or otherwise not needed by God or something like that?

Can you predict BEFORE THE FACT which good Christian patients will beat the odds by being the 1/10 and which will end up being one of the 9/10?

If you cannot reliably predict such things and if their survival rate is not significantly greater than the survival rate of non-Christian patients of similar diagnosis then isn't the explanation "it was luck" significantly more justified than "The Christian God saved her"?

John Powell

[Satori]

Today @ 04:51 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=101772#post101772)
SlaveofChrist:

My current AP English teacher had stage 4 Ovarian cancer. She was about ready to die when they started chemo. None of the doctors thought it would work but she is still around to assign me essays. There was A LOT of people praying for her and she COMPLETELY defied the odds. She might just be lucky but it looks like God to me. Same thing happened with my pastor, not sure what kind of cancer though.

This just proves the point I made in the preceeding post.

Contrary to the beliefs regarding cancer held by most religious people, it's not necessarily terminal, in fact, our bodies are quite able to defeat cancers all on their own, and it happens all the time. The only time that god is responsible for healing someone's cancer is when the person who got rid of it happened to be religious. Attributing the function of the human immune system to some unseen god force is simply wishful thinking and nothing more.

I find that people are far to quick to jump on the "god did it" bandwagon whenever stuff happens (but only good stuff, of course). For example, 911. God had nothing to do with the planes crashing (unless you ask Osama and like-minded fools of course), but when a few people survived the destruction it was held up as a "miracle". Oh boy, it would be funny if it were not so sad. But I realize how important it is to people to attempt to find some sort of justification for their beliefs, no matter how innane, so I can't really blame them I suppose. Hey, look at my friend, he was mangled and crippled in a bike accident (and he survived) and his parents were all like "praise da lord, he lives". Umm yea. That makes a whole lot of sense.

Btw, your handle is SlaveofChrist? Oh dear. I hope it doesn't fit you too well, as being a slave is not something to be proud of. But then, I realize that christianity was a proponent of slavery up until very recently (backed by biblical dogma of course).

Satori

[dawnghost]

Today @ 08:26 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102414#post102414)
John Powell:
Can you predict BEFORE THE FACT which good Christian patients will beat the odds by being the 1/10 and which will end up being one of the 9/10?

If you cannot reliably predict such things and if their survival rate is not significantly greater than the survival rate of non-Christian patients of similar diagnosis then isn't the explanation "it was luck" significantly more justified than "The Christian God saved her"?

hey John,

I'll be sure to post a good story for you next weekend, that happened to ME, and has to do with predictions. LOTS of predictions. :smile:

[John Powell]

SLAVEOFCHRIST:
alright, let me share one of my stories here. I chose this one because it's very short, so I can post it here quickly. the longer ones should wait till weekend.

my uncle Arino was with his friend in a car, driving back from a party. at the time when it happened, he lived in Macaé, which is located in the northern part of the Rio de Janeiro state. they were driving back from a place called Carapebus. my uncle was not driving, his friend was.

both of them were 'mildly' drunk.

well, it was night, and they were talking. his friend was driving fast. then my uncle said:

- slow down. God just told me there's a dead horse in the road, and if you don't slow down, we will die.

I guess if John or Vorkosigan were driving in that moment, they'd speed up to test God, eh?


POWELL:
I tested God when I still believed in Him. I didn't used to wear a seatbelt because I figured if God wanted me to live I'd pull through. I now wear a seat belt.

SLAVEOFCHRIST:
but anyway, his friend didn't give him any credit, so he repeated:

- slow down, God told me there's a dead horse in the road!
- that's ridiculous! how'd you know that?!
- I don't! slow down or stop this car and I'll return home on foot!!

well, the friend slowed down.
then came a curve... and they bumped into a dead horse, which almost drove the car out of the road.


POWELL:
Did your Uncle Arino ever lie or exaggerate about his stories? Did you ever ask his friend to tell his version of the story? I encourage you to write his friend and post your friend's response. In fact, given the possibility that you or he has altered the story, I encourage you to get your Uncle Arino to give his current version of the story. This is relevant to my Mom's miracle story of knowing the gender of all 11 of her children.

What theistic explanations would you give for my five stories, especially if they happened to you or to one of your loved ones?

This might be more difficult, but now could you give atheistic explanations for those same stories?

John Powell

[Warcraft3]

Okay a quick post for now......

I think Powell made some really good points and asked some excellent questions that we should address in this thread. Thanks for contributing John, I hope you continue discussing this issues in this thread.


Satori: Your second post actually did make a point which I agree with. People are often too quick to label something a miracle which in fact is not one. Now I do agree with you there. But do not assume all "miracles" are easily explained, especially since this thread has just started. See what develops and make comments accordingly.

Your first post was nothing more than sarcasim and contributed little to the discusion. Please refrain from making such posts in the future, since they do not benefit anyone. Your skepticism is understandable (especially if you have never witnessed an actual supernatural event) and I do appreciate skepticism. But I do not appreciate cynicism and ask that you leave it out of future posts.

Skeptics who are open and honest without the bad attitude deserve my respect. Some have my respect and others do not. Your second post was excellent while the first was poor. Keep the excellent posts coming, but refrain from those like the first. Thanks.

I will post my comments and share some of my "miracles" this evening. Until then.....



Russ

[John Powell]

SATORI:
Stuff happens, good stuff, bad stuff, all sorts of stuff, it simply happens, and such stuff will continue to happen, whether or not you attribute it happening to some metaphyical god/dictator of some kind. In this universe of perpetual flux, it would be bizarre if stuff DIDN'T happen.


POWELL:
At what threshhold level would bizarre stuff have to happen, Satori, before you would begin to be justified in invoking some metaphysical god as the explanation? Please don't give extreme examples, but meaningful borderline ones.

SATORI:
That reminds of a story once that I got from a christian as "proof" (cough, cough) of god's existence and personal interaction with her own life. What she said was: "When I am feeling stressed and I pray to god for strength, I feel stronger."


POWELL:
If God existed in the way she believed, Satori, would you expect anything different than that to happen? That is, would you expect her to feel the same or weaker after stress-caused prayer if her God existed?

What is your naturalistic explanation for her experience? Was it merely some kind of positive biofeedback psychotherapy? In other words, can atheists relieve their stress essentially just as effectively by meditation?

What is your naturalistic explanation for the 5 "miracles" I posted?

John Powell

[dawnghost]

Today @ 08:41 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102429#post102429)
John Powell:
Did your Uncle Arino ever lie or exaggerate about his stories? Did you ever ask his friend to tell his version of the story? I encourage you to write his friend and post your friend's response. In fact, given the possibility that you or he has altered the story, I encourage you to get your Uncle Arino to give his current version of the story. This is relevant to my Mom's miracle story of knowing the gender of all 11 of her children.

What theistic explanations would you give for my five stories, especially if they happened to you or to one of your loved ones?

This might be more difficult, but now could you give atheistic explanations for those same stories?

my uncle Arino was always a very blunt, straightforward man. I have never seen him lie or exaggerate about anything, actually he is a very serious person, one that doesn't smile much.

I don't think it's gonna be easy to contact his friend nowadays... Arino is now living in Carapebus, which is a darn difficult place to visit (actually my father was raised there, civilization hasn't reached it much). but I think I might be able to contact him and know his 'current' version of the story.

about your stories, I am very skeptical about all of them, John. let me state I used to be an evolutionist and all that, and I still am a very skeptical person nowadays (when it comes to believing in miracles etc).

so, atheist version of the stories? I'd have to think about that... a lot. it's kind of an investigative process isn't it? all the suppositions...

I'll give you later the story that happened to me, so you won't have to believe my uncle or anything. about an atheist explanation for my uncle's story... I'd have to imagine where his 'prediction' came from. that wouldn't be easy as well, I imagine. :ponder:

[dawnghost]

Today @ 08:44 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102431#post102431)
steadele:
Satori: Your second post actually did make a point which I agree with. People are often too quick to label something a miracle which in fact is not one. Now I do agree with you there.

yes, that happens a lot.

[John Powell]

DAWNGHOST:
my uncle Arino was always a very blunt, straighforward man. I have never seen him lie or exaggerate about anything, actually he is a very serious person, one that doesn't smile much.


POWELL:
My mother is very serious about such things. Furthermore, I believed, until recently, that she was largely incapable of lying or exaggerating.

DAWNGHOST:
I don't think it's gonna be easy to contact his friend nowadays... Arino is now living in Carapebus, which is a darn difficult place to visit (actually my father was raised there, civilization hasn't reached it much). but I think I might be able to contact him and know his 'current' version of the story.


POWELL:
I hope it's not too much bother. One of my points is that most such stories are not really "proven." People usually just accept as honest what generally honest people claim to be true.

DAWNGHOST:
about your stories, I am very skeptical about all of them, John.


POWELL:
What do you mean? Do you mean you think I have lied or exaggerated about them? I have tried my best to be honest.

DAWNGHOST:
let me state I used to be an evolutionist and all that, and I still am a very skeptical person nowadays (when it comes to believing in miracles etc).

so, atheist version of the stories? I'd have to think about that... a lot. it's kind of an investigative process isn't it? all the suppositions...

I'll give you later the story that happened to me, so you won't have to believe my uncle or anything.


POWELL:
I didn't mean to say I don't believe your uncle.

One of the things that might come out is that atheists might end up looking as slippery in their explanations as theists sometimes appear to them with their harmonizations of Biblical problems.

If it turns out that your Uncle appears to be telling a consistent story, I could still claim that he lied or exaggerated in the first place and stuck with it, but that might not be justified.

DAWNGHOST:
about an atheist explanation for my uncle's story... I'd have to imagine where his 'prediction' came from. that wouldn't be easy as well, I imagine


POWELL:
Let me help then.

Atheist Explanation 1. Story is a lie.

Your uncle lied.

Atheist Explanation 2. Story partly true.

2a. Intentional exaggeration.

2b. Unintentional revising.
Your uncle warned his friend to slow down or they might hit something. His friend said something like, "yea, like what a cow or something?" Your uncle said "sure, maybe." The friend slowed down, but still hit a horse. Your grandfather revised his drunken recollection later on, not necessarily with intent to deceive. So called "memories" can be false-to-the-facts creations of our own minds later on.

Atheist Explanation 3. Story true, but merely a rare coincidence.

3a. De ja vu.

As your uncle looked out the window on the side of the road he saw a shadow that looked like a horse, whether it was or not. Later, his subconscious mind placed that warning thought in his conscious mind and by chance the warning was fulfilled quite soon afterward.

3b. Selective memory of "hits."

Through out his life your uncle has felt premonitions of the future Some of them were very strong impressions, most were much weaker. Where the events were rare things, his predictions never were fulfilled except in one or two notable cases. The most notable case was the one you mentioned where he had a strong premonition AND it turned out to be true very soon afterward.

One way to try to test this idea is to ask your uncle if he had ever had premonitions that didn't come true, especially any where the feeling was as strong as the "horse in the road" example. People tend to remember and reinforce correct predictions, so it's not likely that he'll remember other events that may, in fact, have been just as strongly felt, but turned out to be false.

Concluding remarks.

Perhaps like apologists who seem too willing to accept any "what could have been scenario" to explain a Biblical problem even if they can't show that it is THE SOLUTION to the Biblical problem, atheists might be seen by theists to be too willing to accept any naturalistic explanation even if they can't show that it is THE SOLUTION to the miracle story.

John Powell

[CriscoDisco]

The issue here is, if current understanding of natural laws can not explain an event -- then only the God hypothesis can explain the event, and therefore the event is evidence for or proof of the God hypothesis.

The rule is, if a hypothesis can't be tested nor can it make useful predictions, it has no pragmatic value, and therefore has no scientific worth.

Explanative power of any hypothesis or even causal description, is only that: a story that explains the events that happened in the past.

Here, because John's stories only serve to explain the occurrences, only suggest of a good story. Not a real hypothesis/test/theory phenomenon. It is not meaningful in any way.

The validity of its explanation is equivalent to any perceived causal connection. ie: I was saved because I wore my blue sneakers today-- wow, lets all pray to the blue sneaker. I was saved because I didn't shave today-- lets never shave again! etc....

I could go on, but there is a deeper, more troubling aspect to the notion of miracles that should be investigated.

When good luck and fortune are attributed as God's will, the conclusion becomes: I'm so wonderful, God saved me for this particular purpose.

He believed this was help from God so that he could be a valuable servant of God on the Earth.

This is an explanation based on ego. It is repulsive. It is full of self love and self adulations. A very common reaction in Mormon culture-- the sense of superiority, the "chosen" people.

The converse must mean then, all those who died in WW2 were perverse and had no value to God. They were trivial deaths that God cared little or nothing of or about.

Can you see it? People who think in terms of miracles, ignore the freak accident and the horrible tragedy. Usually, when good people die in horrible, bizarre ways-- they never say: God wanted him dead, or he must have been a secret sinner. They say, God works in mysterious ways.

To me, it is offensive and insulting to attribute the flux and play of unpredictable forces as the will of God. This is tantamount to saying, God is the mindless, perverse giver of undeserved fortunes, and unreasoned deaths. This is basically saying, there is no reason to trust God, because-- he is insane.

Wasn't there something about performing miracles in the three temptations of Christ? I can't remember now, but didn't, in the story Satan say something like-- lets wow these people with your powers-- but Christ refused? And is it really faith, if you think a freak miracle is evidence of god? Or has it become something different? And when is it right to "test" god, if you're a true believer?

[Undomiel]

There is a healthy brand of skepticism that we all rely upon day to day in decision making processes, and ultimately that is the purpose of skeptical thought, a cognitive tool by which to make right, reasonable, and realistic appraisals and determinations.

However...skepticism is often turned into a surrogate type of undeclared ideology, or philosophy by default if not by intention. That becomes a misuse of skepticism and ultimately renders skepticism an impediment to clear thinking and analytical faculty, denuding it of authenticity of methodology. In short, it ceases to be legitimate skepticism and becomes a smokescreen subservient to personal ideology and bias. It is nolonger "skepticism" but an anti-intellectual sham, a useless shell of a methodology with "critical analysis" playing the part of sycophant to willful ignorance, a tool for reinforcing one's own presuppositions, used to support what one wishes to support, and for denial of what one wishes to deny.

Often, I've seen a type of "skepticism" tending to be applied very one-sided regarding issues which are multifaceted, or applied analytically like a one-way thorough fare, which in actuality strays from the semblance of true skeptical inquiry, of objectivity and impartiality...qualities which if in absence denote not skeptical thought but a priori prejudice. For skepticism to be rightly applied, the thinker must continuously question his or her own motives in the process, to guard against improprietous self-indulgence. If the thinker is prone only to use "skepticism" to produce answers being sought, or as a sword against an ideology to which he or she is opposed, the tool has ceased be true skeptical reasoning. "Skepticism" is then mere obstructionism, becoming more prone to harmful and misleading reasoning, and even possibly dangerous to one's own mental processes. The "skeptic" is then a proselyte, albeit in some cases obliviously, to a philosophical inclination. Taken to extreme, it a tool of denial and delusion, and sinks to be only folly, foolishness, and absurdity.

There can be a difference, an important distinction more than thin nuance, between someone who is an unabashed self-proclaimed "skeptic" and someone who utilizes healthy skepticism.

When we speak in terms of "mass hallucination" the path of "skepticism" has been forsaken, and the thinker is then wandering into the mentally myopic bracken, of parody and perfidy, knowingly or unknowingly. The argument is in defiance of rationalism, stripped and devoid of empirical reasoning, for even the empiricist must be able to observe, even if that observation is of other witnesses reports. There is at least a reliance upon materialism, such that the "skeptic" can be logically skeptical of nothing if the thinker cannot determine if his or her own being has actual substance in any form, or that substance actually exists apart from his or her identity. "We think therefore we are." The skeptical thinker must have surpassed this bit of profundity or the thinker has not even the right to be skeptical, for any question beyond that is simply ahead of schedule, premature, and all other inquiry follows such a foundational determination of the legitimacy of reality. The "skeptic," then, is lost, and nothing can satisfy his or her questions, as she or he cannot even determine the validity of the questions, muchless subsequent answers. The "skeptic" in such a case has limited reality to vocabulary without realizing it, and that vocabulary and language have limitations, that being supercedes semantics. Confusion.

There also seems an interesting connotative quality to the term "mass hallucination," one evocative of the Catholic ritual, and incidentally, the occurrence of "mass hallucination" is frequently trotted out by the "skeptic" in regard to reports depicting the "paranormal" or "spiritual" as a tool for use in attempts at rebutting the reality of such prevalent phenomenon. It is here our words "parody" and "perfidy" are exampled within such context. "Skepticism," then, relies upon a conditional-ized rebuttal that cannot be supportively backed by any philosophical or scientific thought or methodology. Hallucinations, as any qualified psychiatrist or psychologist will attest, are by definition subjective, relative only to the mind hallucinating, and totally devoid of any element of contagion which isolates such phenomenon as endemic only to the individual hallucinating. Simply put, "mass hallucinations" is a term best relegated to the lore of modern urban myths. There is no such beast. More importantly, the skeptic has disqualified/ undermined his or her own "skepticism" in implementing such a supercilious scenario and concept. The skeptic is not being critical of his or her own skeptical approach, and that becomes a bit of a non sequiter, and a logical fallacy. This then, is not authentic skepticism, but a canard which is only symptomatic of bias if presented as argumentative assertion and not in question form.

What it boils down to is simply that the spiritual component of life is truly undeniable by any realistic, rational, and logical approach in light of the superlatively abundant and voluminous evidence.

Here is the thorn the "skeptic" must avoid; 100,000 eyewitnesses to miraculous events. It cannot be denied without the "skeptic" relying upon the absurd...which then emphatically asks, what then is the motivation of the skeptic, and/or the mental condition of the "skeptic"?

A Favored Straw Man and the Great Randi:

Randi, greatly impoverished but adroit at sleight of hand in the eyes of multitudes. The Great Randi has a challenge, a million dollars kept in escrow upon the contingency someone can show him an undeniable demonstration of the "supernatural/paranormal." One certainly recognizes the promotional value of such an offer, and the impossibility of collecting the sum should be sufficiently apparent. I would even venture to say it is an example of something technically legal but illegitimate. It is built upon a premise that the supernatural is not actual, only illusory, yet, it is the offer that is not actual and illusory. It is illegitimate, in one sense, because it allows for endless goal post moving.

It does not allow for eyewitnesses to report correlatively in concert events of "paranormal" or "supernatural" phenomenon, and is also requiring a bit of an adherence of the spiritual to conditions of the material. One cannot simply take the documentation of a terminally ill patient who was miraculously healed and present it before Randi. Randi must be a firsthand witness, and that is tantamount to saying, God must bow to Randi and not Randi to God. That of course is highest and chiefest of absurdity and merely a rendition of the fall from grace of humanity in the Garden. Even if one could arrange for Randi to be present, one would then have to contend with endless hypothetical explanations for phenomenon attempting to relegate the events to the mundane from the divine. Argumentatio ad absurdum ad infinitum.

What it clearly amounts to is the "skeptic" ironically trying to relegate the paranormal to the normal using abnormal/paranormal and unrealistic hypothetical explanations. They are actually relying upon the devices they are often trying to debunk, and failing to recognize the implicit contradiction. It amounts only to bullheaded denial.
It also reveals the "skeptic" isn't employing authentic skepticism.

It is also of interest to note that I've encountered some who attempt to legitimize their brand of "skepticism", attempting lean upon intellectuality and free-thinking, yet refuse to follow the clearly outlined path to encountering the spiritual by which to verify it's reality, which is akin to saying "present me with the proof, but I refuse to go through the door which you say houses the truth on the other side." How convenient, yet it illustrates clearly the anti-intellectuality of the investigation on the part of the "skeptic," as he or she adamantly refuses to follow the dilineated proscription which contains the possibility of revealing his or her error. It makes of the "skeptic" a liar and a perpetrator of fraud, intentionally or not, but in belligerence intentionally often. The alleged debunker of the hoaxes is him or herself caught in their own mental hoax box.

Be skeptical of the skeptics. It may be that psychologically they are so caught within their own self-deception what they see of external reality is perceived as questionable. There are a number of interesting philosophical and psychological questions which arise in relation.

What do people speak?
Whatever is in their thoughts and hearts.
We must remember that skepticism is a mark of uncertainty on an issue, of not knowing, and a tool which is intended to lead us to a conclusion where possible, and at which point actual skepticism is left behind. The individual who leads a life committed to philosophical "skepticism" is then a very unsure and uncertain, individual. Such a dedication is probably a water-mark indicative of a very confused mentality.

In one of the late C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia books, The Last Battle, there is a group of skeptical dwarves, a group that eventually found locked and sitting, huddled in a circle within a pitch-black barn. Their skeptical denial reached such a point that when subsequently the barn was deconstructed from around them in the clear light of day the dwarves adamantly refused to accept that they were nolonger in the darkness of the barn, captured by their own pervasive doubt and "skepticism," lost to the net of confusion which ensnared them, and unable to get beyond themselves.

This parable is more than merely a child's tale, as I've known intellectually brilliant people caught the same way, and sadly watched an innocuous deterioration follow over time, in slow manifestation of anti-social tendencies, a pitfall of an unrecognized self-absorption.

(Here, I wish to briefly touch on a difference between true spirituality and counterfeit spirituality; true spirituality doesn't lead to self-absorption, but warns against it. The philosophical "skeptic" is a spiritual being, although he or she has not yet reached that realization, and is in fact in denial. This alone demonstrates the beginning of greatest internal errors, and the ramifications regarding their own determinations is readily apparent. Until the materialist comes to recognize the greater nature of the universe, they are handicapped, and their own "intellectuality" is at work against them.)

Skepticism used arightly, as a type of analytical compass, should lead progressively to true spirituality, not leave one mired without progress stuck in the muck of stagnant unending and stunted doubt. Doubt leads to confusion, confusion is of the darkside. As a Christian I would point to the Apostle, notorious for his skeptical inquiry, "Doubting Thomas," who did come to the truth. The point of true spirituality leads us to the Truth and peace, or it is not spirituality but a masqueraded counterfeit. There is never peace in confusion.

(An excellent post presented by an acquaintance of mine who really thinks ALOT. Very interesting individual. )

[dawnghost]

Today @ 09:33 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102461#post102461)
John Powell:
POWELL:
What do you mean? Do you mean you think I have lied or exaggerated about them? I have tried my best to be honest.

not at all. but as well as you have done with my uncle's story, I could be eager to do so with yours (coincidences happen etc). I really didn't mean that I think you lied or exaggerated. it's just that I've been where you are (and I don't wanna sound like I 'evolved' here hehehehe) but I know I used to be very skeptical about everything, so I understand you.


POWELL:
I didn't mean to say I don't believe your uncle.

One of the things that might come out is that atheists might end up looking as slippery in their explanations as theists sometimes appear to them with their harmonizations of Biblical problems.

If it turns out that your Uncle appears to be telling a consistent story, I could still claim that he lied or exaggerated in the first place and stuck with it, but that might not be justified.



POWELL:
Let me help then.

Atheist Explanation 1. Story is a lie.

Your uncle lied.

Atheist Explanation 2. Story partly true.

2a. Intentional exaggeration.

2b. Unintentional revising.
Your uncle warned his friend to slow down or they might hit something. His friend said something like, "yea, like what a cow or something?" Your uncle said "sure, maybe." The friend slowed down, but still hit a horse. Your grandfather revised his drunken recollection later on, not necessarily with intent to deceive. So called "memories" can be false-to-the-facts creations of our own minds later on.

Atheist Explanation 3. Story true, but merely a rare coincidence.

3a. De ja vu.

As your uncle looked out the window on the side of the road he saw a shadow that looked like a horse, whether it was or not. Later, his subconscious mind placed that warning thought in his conscious mind and by chance the warning was fulfilled quite soon afterward.

3b. Selective memory of "hits."

Through out his life your uncle has felt premonitions of the future Some of them were very strong impressions, most were much weaker. Where the events were rare things, his predictions never were fulfilled except in one or two notable cases. The most notable case was the one you mentioned where he had a strong premonition AND it turned out to be true very soon afterward.

One way to try to test this idea is to ask your uncle if he had ever had premonitions that didn't come true, especially any where the feeling was as strong as the "horse in the road" example. People tend to remember and reinforce correct predictions, so it's not likely that he'll remember other events that may, in fact, have been just as strongly felt, but turned out to be false.

for the lie possibility: ok, it can happen. I don't believe it happened, but it can happen.

for the unintentional revising: my uncle is a very proud man, and at that time he wasn't much worried with religion (as a matter of fact, I don't think he is nowadays... but at that time he really didn't care much), so I don't know if he'd credit God for his prediction.

for the selective memory: my uncle was not a mystical person, he was very down-to-earth. do you ever play AD&D games? my uncle is like a dwarven blacksmith, blunt and focused. :smile:

but that's ok, even while I think those possibilities would have been very difficult altogether, that's ok if you don't believe my uncle's story. I guess if it was your uncle, I'd very :hrm: about it.


Concluding remarks.


Perhaps like apologists who seem too willing to accept any "what could have been scenario" to explain a Biblical problem even if they can't show that it is THE SOLUTION to the Biblical problem, atheists might be seen by theists to be too willing to accept any naturalistic explanation even if they can't show that it is THE SOLUTION to the miracle story.

John Powell

that's a good point.

[Satori]

I think this thread is just people giving stories about perfectly normal things, or bizarre things without immediate explanation, and attributing them to whatever god/gods or ideas are fashionable in their culture. This has been going on since the dawn of human civilization, and nothing has changed in that regard. We still live in a universe with features which cannot be adequately explained by the old Newtonian paradigms.

I just wanted to add 2 stories of my own however:

1) About 6 years ago I was leaving a local bar and grill (after having absolutely nothing to drink) and I stopped at a red light. The light turned green, and for some reason I couldn't bring myself to push the gas and go through the intersection. So I paused there for a few seconds, thinking, looking around, and then suddenly a car came flying through the intersection, from my left, through the red light, which would've hit me on the driver's side door and probably killed me cuz I drive a little paper-thin crx.

Do I attibute this to some unseen force? Of course not. This is not the first time that this sort of thing while driving, or something like it, has happened to me. I have a long history of somehow "knowing" things that I shouldn't have otherwise known. Do I know how I felt that danger? No. Do animals or people know how they can sense when someone is looking at them? No.

2) When I was 14 (a while after I deprogrammed myself to be free from the silly catholic brainwashing I endured in catholic school) I was riding my bmx bike a long a trail in a wooded area, and then suddenly I felt the strong urge to stop, so I did. Then I felt the urge to look to my right, in the grass and trees that were there, I felt there was something there that needed to be found. I started to think it was a dead human body or something. I got off my bike and started searching the area where I had first got the urge to stop, a few meters back. After a few mins I found something, it was a tiny tiny kitten, barely clinging to life. It was infested with insects and obviously starving to death. It was smaller than the length of my hand. I picked it up and brought it home with me and tried to feed it some milk (it was too young to drink though) and I called our local animal shelter. Later, when my mom arrived home with her car, we took the kitten too the shelter, where they saved it from certain death and eventually adopted it out (I would've kept it myself, but I'm horribly allergic to kittys, which is a sad because I adore the little things). I took a picture of it though, and I still have the picture.

Do I think that a god of some sort told there was something there that needed finding? No. As I said, I've always had a way of just somehow being aware of things which I shouldn't have known anything about, and I'm not the only one, this is a phenomenon that is extremely old and exists in every human culture. It's called intuition. At around the time that I found this kitten I had been practicing daily meditation (as a way of overcoming my catholic brainwashing), which I had read often increases one's intuition by simply quieting the unceasing chatter of the conscious mind.

In my opinion, such intuition is a built-in feature of this universe. The fact that police successfully use psychics indicates there is more going on than meets the eye.

Many people still don't realize how profoundly WEIRD our universe is, and we've known about this for about 100 years now but it's still not common knowledge.

Many theist people seem to think that nontheists think that nothing unexplained ever happens, that we live in a mechanistic Newtonian existence. Nothing could be further from the truth. I for one fully realize that the universe is very peculiar in some respects, and I also realize the tendency for the human mind to seek explanations for bizarre occurances which fit with their own human-centric higher-power-believing ideas (which I feel is the trend in this thread). People seek to explain things to fit in accordance with their own world view, and they do so, no matter what world view it happens to be.


The best example of (weird stuff) is perhaps that of quantum entanglement. If you don't know what that is, do a quick search and read a bit about it. It's pretty wild. Anyway, the cold FACT of quantum entanglement denotes that the aquisition of non-local information IS possible, this is not in dispute. There have even been experiments performed which take advantage of this bizarre phenomenon to effectively aquire information about the state of a neighboring particle without actually interacting with it (in other words, to know something about a different particle without actually looking at it). Such experiments use common everyday particles (photons) and exploit their uncanny and inexplicable ability to have access to information indirectly (in other words, everyday subatomic particles are somehow "psychic", believe-it-or-not).

The key here is the 'aquistion of non-local information', which is what ESP is rumoured to be. Having experienced many occurances of ESP in my own life (not to mention how many people simply know things, even future events, without having access to that info), I think there is something to it. And given the fact that regular light particles display their own type of ESP, I think there has got to be some correlation there.

If you hold a fragmented world view, the kind preached by religions which seek to solidify the sense of personal division from the rest of nature and reality by means of the concept of the "eternal soul", this will not make any sense to you at all, but I'll say it anyway:
There's a theory known as the quantum hologram which is seeking to explain this sort of phenomenon (quantum entanglement/esp). This is an extension of quantum field theory. Here's a short synopsis of what that is all about. The universe is thought to be a field, kind of like a lake of water. Some parts of the universal field are very dense, these areas we call particles (and thus physical matter). Low density areas are the vacuum of space. The density and composition of the area (of the field) is what gives rise to different sorts of particles, and even dimensions (including time). The idea I'm trying to communicate here is that in the prevailing quantum theories space and matter aren't different from each other, they are composed of the exact same "energy" (now called strings). Due to this, it is thought, a quantum hologram is born. This means that every particle, and every macro object for that matter, is not confined to the little space it dwells in but instead extends (though the universe's field) to the very edges of the universe. This extension is what is called the quantum hologram, as demonstrated by quantum entanglement. So everything in the universe is connected to everything else in the universe because everything in the UNIverse is just a part of the field in which it resides. This of course will not sit well with those who have a fragmented world view, for whom the this/that, here/there, brain/soul, me/you absolute divisions are regarded as completely real and not just creations/conventions of the minds of people and animals. To me, in my world view (one that is backed by hard science, naturalist philosophies, common sense, and even quantum physics) everything in this UNIverse are just parts of a single whole. Beneath the surface, everything is one, it's all the same stuff.

So anyway, to summarize: We know for a fact that quantum entanglement means that the faster than light aquisition of non-local information is simply a reality of this universe. The universe itself has a spooky sort of ESP quality to it (this is so well established that it's not even really open for debate). Not coincidentily, people and animals also seem able to demonstrate this ability (acquire non-local information). Therefore, it seems perfectly resonable to me to conclude that the same mechanism is at work in both particles and the minds of animals (since animals and particles are actually composed of the same "energy"). What applies to base particles should therefore apply, at least in some respects, to the macro objects and organisms which are composed of those very same particles.

I have a question for anyone who feels that intuition/esp comes to them as a message from whatever god they happen to believe in: Do you feel that quantum entanglement is also a message delivered from one particle to another by a god for some reason? If not, if you feel quantum entanglement demonstrates a very peculiar feature of this universe, but one that is absolutely unique from that of human intuition/esp, then why do you feel that we humans, composed of those very same subatomic particles as is the rest of the universe, are completely immune to the universe's esp-like feature denoted by quantum entanglement? For you, why is it perfectly reasonable to see that tiny unintelligent particles have access to non-local information, but this same feature is an impossibility for animals who are composed of those very same particles?

Satori

[John Powell]

POWELL:
I guess to be fair, the theists should indicate at what threshhold level they would think they should not invoke a "God did it" explanation. Steadele and Dawnghost seem to have fairly high skeptical standards compared to most Christians.

What are meaningful borderline cases where a theist should begin to prefer a naturalistic explanation?

Perhaps I should make a list for atheists and theists to indicate where their threshhold lies.

1. Ulta-class of Biblical miracles. Things like having God appear to the entire world or the graves opening and the dead appearing to family and then floating into the sky. The kinds of things no magician could conceivably pull off. (Powell's threshhold).

2. Super-class of Biblical miracles. Things like individual resurrections of, say, a child killed in a fire (The Bruce Monson threshhold). The kinds of things that would be nearly impossible for a magician to pull off.

3. Normal-class Biblical miracles. Things like multiplication of food, walking on water, drinking poison without harm, knowing the thoughts of others. The kinds of things that would be difficult for a magician to pull off.

4. Minor-class miracles. Surviving life-threatening trauma. An inerrant Bible. The rise of Christianity as reported by fundamentalist Christian historians.

5. Sub-class miracles. Coming out well in traumic experiences that aren't life-threatening. An errant, but still amazing Bible. The rise of Christianity as reported by liberal Christian historians. (Powell's former threshhold)

6. Inferior-class miracles. Coming out well in little problems of life. Things like finding your keys after meditating about it.

John Powell

[Satori]

Today @ 09:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102442#post102442)
dawnghost:
yes, that happens a lot.

I'd say it happens just about every single time someone proclaims "it's a miracle".

A "miracle", according to the common use of the word, is simply something that defies immediate explanation. In that sense, just about everything is a miracle, in fact, the universe being here is also a miracle because we can't adequately explain how the universe came into being (though some of us choose to use the "god did it" explantion, which explains nothing and only postpones the question by begging the next question "so where did god come from?" That's why "god did it" is not a valid explanation, it's just a put-off to another similar question, which it never even attempts to answer).

Satori

[dawnghost]

Today @ 09:39 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102465#post102465)
CriscoDisco:
And when is it right to "test" god, if you're a true believer?

good points, especially the one above.

there was a time when I struggled with my faith, and what I came to realize (from my own mistake) is that it's wrong to test God, it's not like he's our servant or anything.

really, I sometimes imagine the following (bizarre) scenario: imagine if, instead of the Sun, we had God's face staring at us all day long. do you think anything would commit a sinful act? I sure as hell wouldn't! I'd be scared to death!

now imagine this God's face one day says "hmmm tell you what. I have to go sleep. I'll be back in 20 years"

lemme tell you, I think those 20 years would be chaos. that's why I think we're just spoiled children, asking from our Father and blaming Him for our mistakes.

when is it right to test God? for me, the answer is NEVER. you're only testing yourself.

[John Powell]

CRISCODISCO:
The issue here is, if current understanding of natural laws can not explain an event -- then only the God hypothesis can explain the event, and therefore the event is evidence for or proof of the God hypothesis.


POWELL:
Given what you say below, I can't tell for sure if this above is your opinion of what is right or your opinion of what theists think is right. Which is it?

CRISCODISCO:
The rule is, if a hypothesis can't be tested nor can it make useful predictions, it has no pragmatic value, and therefore has no scientific worth.


POWELL:
Are you suggesting that the "God does it" theory can make no useful predictions or are you saying that the predictions are significantly less useful than naturalistic ones?

CRISCODISCO:
Explanative power of any hypothesis or even causal description, is only that: a story that explains the events that happened in the past.

Here, because John's stories only serve to explain the occurrences, only suggest of a good story. Not a real hypothesis/test/theory phenomenon. It is not meaningful in any way.


POWELL:
Are you saying that because I did not provide a theoretical explanation for the stories that they weren't meaningful stories? My purpose in not doing that was to encourage others to come up with explanations first.

CRISCODISCO:
The validity of its explanation is equivalent to any perceived causal connection. ie: I was saved because I wore my blue sneakers today-- wow, lets all pray to the blue sneaker. I was saved because I didn't shave today-- lets never shave again! etc....


POWELL:
Are you saying that Samson would have been justified by Christianity to have prayed to his hair?

CRISCODISCO:
I could go on, but there is a deeper, more troubling aspect to the notion of miracles that should be investigated.

When good luck and fortune are attributed as God's will, the conclusion becomes: I'm so wonderful, God saved me for this particular purpose.

He believed this was help from God so that he could be a valuable servant of God on the Earth.

This is an explanation based on ego. It is repulsive.


POWELL:
Mormons and most of their investigators see the Mormon idea of "we are all children of God" as attractive or neutral rather than repulsive.

CRISCODISCO:
It is full of self love and self adulations. A very common reaction in Mormon culture-- the sense of superiority, the "chosen" people.


POWELL:
True.

Do you think it's wrong to love and adore yourself? If you don't love and adore yourself, CriscoDisco, do you hate yourself or are you neutral towards yourself?

CRISCODISCO:
The converse must mean then, all those who died in WW2 were perverse and had no value to God. They were trivial deaths that God cared little or nothing of or about.


JOHN MORMON (my former believing self):
Not necessarily. Maybe their deaths served an important purpose. Maybe they had jobs to do in the afterlife.

POWELL (my current atheist self):
However, now that I'm an atheist I see problems with this attitude of "I am special. Certain others aren't." It doesn't seem to be able to reliably predict before the fact who will live and who will die, who will be blessed by God on Earth and who will not. Luck does not seem to favor Mormons over others.

CRISCODISCO:
Can you see it? People who think in terms of miracles, ignore the freak accident and the horrible tragedy. Usually, when good people die in horrible, bizarre ways-- they never say: God wanted him dead, or he must have been a secret sinner. They say, God works in mysterious ways.


POWELL:
Sometimes they do think bad things about the dead. That has been the attitude of too many people towards Gays with AIDS or others suffering venereal diseases or the children of evil people.

CRISCODISCO:
To me, it is offensive and insulting to attribute the flux and play of unpredictable forces as the will of God. This is tantamount to saying, God is the mindless, perverse giver of undeserved fortunes, and unreasoned deaths. This is basically saying, there is no reason to trust God, because-- he is insane.


POWELL:
Interesting comments.

I wonder if theism is the expected result of a human mind dealing with the flux and play of unpredictable forces around them. Since they see themselves as a powerful thinking causal agent perhaps they are driven to believe there is a thinking causal agent behind the wind and the rain and the Sun and the luck of their lives.

CRISCODISCO:
Wasn't there something about performing miracles in the three temptations of Christ? I can't remember now, but didn't, in the story Satan say something like-- lets wow these people with your powers-- but Christ refused?


POWELL:
I fail to see the relevance. Elsewhere Jesus performed miracles according to the Bible.

CRISCODISCO:
And is it really faith, if you think a freak miracle is evidence of god? Or has it become something different? And when is it right to "test" god, if you're a true believer?


POWELL:
As a believer I thought God welcomed being tested within reason. Many believers think this is evil, however. Now, that I'm atheist, I imagine that if God existed, He would not be upset by people testing Him.

John Powell
A former believer in Mormonism.
Now an athe-ist or strong atheist.

[John Powell]

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
There is a healthy brand of skepticism that we all rely upon day to day in decision making processes, and ultimately that is the purpose of skeptical thought, a cognitive tool by which to make right, reasonable, and realistic appraisals and determinations.

However...skepticism is often turned into a surrogate type of undeclared ideology, or philosophy by default if not by intention. . .


POWELL:
Interesting ideas. Basically, he thinks too many skeptics have become too skeptical.

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
When we speak in terms of "mass hallucination" the path of "skepticism" has been forsaken, and the thinker is then wandering into the mentally myopic bracken, of parody and perfidy, knowingly or unknowingly.


POWELL:
This I disagree with more. He seems to think that there's no such thing as "mass hallucination" partly because "hallucination" is, by definition, subjective. Well, then wouldn't adding "mass" to the definition suggest it applied to more than just one person?

How does Undomiel or his friend explain the fact that stories of alien abductions were largely unheard of prior to the 20th century? Why is it that similar abduction stories in the past were described in terms of religious characters like demons? Did aliens really start doing experiments on our people around 1950 or whenever, or is it that the features of this kind of human dream state have been altered based on what the participants have heard others are experiencing or based on what they have heard might be done by modern technology?

Why is it that religious people who have near-death experiences relate visiting the kinds of people their religion teaches them they might see? Why do Christians see Jesus in their dreams, but not Mohammed, while Muslims do the reverse?

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
What it boils down to is simply that the spiritual component of life is truly undeniable by any realistic, rational, and logical approach in light of the superlatively abundant and voluminous evidence.


POWELL:
Fine. Then Undomiel's friend should start a thread showing solid evidence for the existence of "spirit."

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
Here is the thorn the "skeptic" must avoid; 100,000 eyewitnesses to miraculous events.


POWELL:
What event is he referring to? Dream states in which a divine being is seen?

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
A Favored Straw Man and the Great Randi:

Randi, greatly impoverished but adroit at sleight of hand in the eyes of multitudes. The Great Randi has a challenge, a million dollars kept in escrow upon the contingency someone can show him an undeniable demonstration of the "supernatural/paranormal." One certainly recognizes the promotional value of such an offer, and the impossibility of collecting the sum should be sufficiently apparent.


POWELL:
I don't want to be hypocritical by supporting Randi's challenge but discounting anti-evolution challenges, but I think Randi deserves support.

Randi's challenge is not designed to test miracles outside the laboratory, but only those that are claimed to be miracles-on-demand.

It is my understanding that Randi's purpose is to provide the miracle claimant the opportunity to demonstrate their powers in ways that could not be reasonably faked by a magician. In other words, if you really could see through walls then you should be able to see through this wall that doesn't include accomplices to give you clues. If you really can read someone's mind then here is a person's mind to read that isn't an accomplice of yours, etc.

What Randi tries to do, I think, is design an experiment that would validate the claimant as authentic if they were, in fact, authentic. His methodological attitude is not "there's no such thing as the supernatural. You have to make me believe it to get your money." like the anti-evolution challenges seem to be. On the contrary, it's more like "let's set up the test so you feel comfortable that you can demonstrate your power and I feel comfortable that you can't cheat. If you can do that and still demonstrate your power and I can't explain / duplicate it then the money is yours."

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
What do people speak?
Whatever is in their thoughts and hearts.


POWELL:
As if what he means by "heart" isn't also thoughts.

I wish people would use a more physiologically accurate term for this "heart" thing when discussing things in forums like this.

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
We must remember that skepticism is a mark of uncertainty on an issue, of not knowing, and a tool which is intended to lead us to a conclusion where possible, and at which point actual skepticism is left behind. The individual who leads a life committed to philosophical "skepticism" is then a very unsure and uncertain, individual. Such a dedication is probably a water-mark indicative of a very confused mentality.


POWELL:
I think this is one of the reasons that skepticism and ambivalence towards religion is more popular today than ever. In the past you could not afford to be a fence sitter. You had to be on the side of X or on the side of Y. Now, however, you can say "I'm not on either side" and survive in society. Undomiel's friend seems to want us to revert back to the days when we preferred a leader who was certain they were doing the right thing rather than one who admitted they didn't know.

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
In one of the late C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia books, The Last Battle, there is a group of skeptical dwarves, . . .

This parable is more than merely a child's tale, as I've known intellectually brilliant people caught the same way, and sadly watched an innocuous deterioration follow over time, in slow manifestation of anti-social tendencies, a pitfall of an unrecognized self-absorption.


POWELL:
I'm sure a talented atheist writer could come up with a similar tale of gullible religious people. I'm not going to cease to be a skeptic because the dwarves in a fictional book suffered for being skeptics. I don't care if the tortoise beat the hare by plodding slowly along. If I have a faster vehicle, I might use it.

In the first movie Superman, a girl runs in to tell her mother that a man swooped down to give her kitty. I won't disagree with the inappropriateness of slapping her daughter, but was the mother wrong for criticizing her daughter for habitually lying? The intent of the movie writers, I think, was to suggest the mother was wrong. We're supposed to believe these outrageous things, I guess. The next time some child tells you something like that, will you believe them? I don't think so.

UNDOMIEL'S FRIEND:
(Here, I wish to briefly touch on a difference between true spirituality and counterfeit spirituality; true spirituality doesn't lead to self-absorption, but warns against it. The philosophical "skeptic" is a spiritual being, although he or she has not yet reached that realization, and is in fact in denial.


POWELL:
And, where is that solid evidence in support of this assertion? What are the physical properties of spirit, huh?

UNDOMIEL:
(An excellent post presented by an acquaintance of mine who really thinks ALOT. Very interesting individual. )


POWELL:
Why don't you invite your friend to TWEB?

John Powell

[CriscoDisco]

Are you suggesting that the "God does it" theory can make no useful predictions or are you saying that the predictions are significantly less useful than naturalistic ones

By definition, (God is unknowable, or at least unpredictable) therefore, such a hypothesis is un-testable on its face.

Are you saying that because I did not provide a theoretical explanation for the stories that they weren't meaningful stories

This sentence can turn so many different ways depending on what you mean by "meaningful." They may have some aesthetic or egotistical meaning, but they have no predictive or pragmatic meaning.

Are you saying that Samson would have been justified by Christianity to have prayed to his hair?

I'm saying two events can have an arbitrary causal connection.
If they have an actual causal connection, you must make previously unknown predictions, and then test those predictions.

Do you think it's wrong to love and adore yourself? If you don't love and adore yourself, CriscoDisco, do you hate yourself or are you neutral towards yourself

A healthy balanced self-esteem is swell.

An irrational belief that because you were born in America, to a white upper/middle-class family with food and shelter readily available means that your spirit was superior in the pre-existence-- that's repulsive.

. Maybe their deaths served an important purpose. Maybe they had jobs to do in the afterlife.

Exactly proving my point. Any outcome will be explained by the "God Cause."
What of the freak accident that kills the almost repented? Lets say Joe, has heard the message of Joseph Smith and is off to be baptized, but his coke can (his last coke before becoming mormon) explodes and rips his face to shreads, sending a small shard of aluminum into his brain killing him. Leaving his four kids to the orphanage.

What "Work" does God have for this guy, who has died in sin? Why did God cause this freak accident? Why did God take his only chance of going to the Celestial kingdom away?

See how this believing in god becomes a crap shoot? Who knows what nasty things god has in store for you.

Any mention of Angels and miracles just makes me sick. People don't see the negative assumptions one must make to believe in miracles.

[True Walsh]

I don't think miracles neccesarily imply divine intervention. Miracles are not exclusive to Christians, or Jews, or Muslims; people with no affirmed faith experience miracles every day, even something as general as the miracle of life. Not being able to explain something doesn't justify resorting to a deity as an explanation. Could those people who overcame cancer have tapped into immune systems through deep concentration and other yet-to-be-explained immune functions, such as placebo? I don't mean to assign a burden-of-proof - or maybe I do. I don't think a "last resort" method of assigning miracles to God is viable for proof of existence.

Please, refute me though; I registered on here for feedback.

[John Powell]

SATORI:
I just wanted to add 2 stories of my own however:


POWELL:
Great! :thumb:

SATORI:
1) About 6 years ago I was leaving a local bar and grill (after having absolutely nothing to drink) and I stopped at a red light. The light turned green, and for some reason I couldn't bring myself to push the gas and go through the intersection. So I paused there for a few seconds, thinking, looking around, and then suddenly a car came flying through the intersection, from my left, through the red light, which would've hit me on the driver's side door and probably killed me cuz I drive a little paper-thin crx.

Do I attibute this to some unseen force? Of course not. This is not the first time that this sort of thing while driving, or something like it, has happened to me. I have a long history of somehow "knowing" things that I shouldn't have otherwise known. Do I know how I felt that danger? No. Do animals or people know how they can sense when someone is looking at them? No.


POWELL:
This is similar to my jumping off the bus story and probably has a similar natural explanation.

I find it inconsistent for Satori to invoke unseen powers while denying he's doing it.

SATORI:
2) When I was 14 (a while after I deprogrammed myself to be free from the silly catholic brainwashing I endured in catholic school) I was riding my bmx bike a long a trail in a wooded area, and then suddenly I felt the strong urge to stop, so I did. Then I felt the urge to look to my right, in the grass and trees that were there, I felt there was something there that needed to be found. I started to think it was a dead human body or something. I got off my bike and started searching the area where I had first got the urge to stop, a few meters back. After a few mins I found something, it was a tiny tiny kitten, barely clinging to life. It was infested with insects and obviously starving to death. It was smaller than the length of my hand. I picked it up and brought it home with me and tried to feed it some milk (it was too young to drink though) and I called our local animal shelter. Later, when my mom arrived home with her car, we took the kitten too the shelter, where they saved it from certain death and eventually adopted it out (I would've kept it myself, but I'm horribly allergic to kittys, which is a sad because I adore the little things). I took a picture of it though, and I still have the picture.


POWELL:
This one probably has essentially the same natural explanation as the previous one.

SATORI:
Do I think that a god of some sort told there was something there that needed finding? No. As I said, I've always had a way of just somehow being aware of things which I shouldn't have known anything about, and I'm not the only one, this is a phenomenon that is extremely old and exists in every human culture. It's called intuition. At around the time that I found this kitten I had been practicing daily meditation (as a way of overcoming my catholic brainwashing), which I had read often increases one's intuition by simply quieting the unceasing chatter of the conscious mind.

In my opinion, such intuition is a built-in feature of this universe. The fact that police successfully use psychics indicates there is more going on than meets the eye.


POWELL:
You seem to think there's more to the police-psychic connection than I do.

I suspect this happens, when it does, primarily for two reasons.

1. Some police are superstitious believers in ESP.

2. Others aren't believers, but want to be able to reply to residents who ask why the police don't use every tool available.

SATORI:
Many people still don't realize how profoundly WEIRD our universe is, and we've known about this for about 100 years now but it's still not common knowledge.


POWELL:
You seem to be an atheist who believes in the supernatural, Satori.

SATORI:
The best example of (weird stuff) is perhaps that of quantum entanglement. If you don't know what that is, do a quick search and read a bit about it. It's pretty wild. Anyway, the cold FACT of quantum entanglement denotes that the aquisition of non-local information IS possible, this is not in dispute.


POWELL:
So what? If it is true that you have a twin and it is true that you or your twin is in China and the other is in Africa and it is true that I'm in Africa and I see you, would I then have knowledge that your twin is in China?

The violation of natural law would be if you could get that information faster than the speed of light.

SATORI:
There have even been experiments performed which take advantage of this bizarre phenomenon to effectively aquire information about the state of a neighboring particle without actually interacting with it (in other words, to know something about a different particle without actually looking at it). Such experiments use common everyday particles (photons) and exploit their uncanny and inexplicable ability to have access to information indirectly (in other words, everyday subatomic particles are somehow "psychic", believe-it-or-not).


POWELL:
I don't believe particles are somehow psychic.

SATORI:
The key here is the 'aquistion of non-local information', which is what ESP is rumoured to be. Having experienced many occurances of ESP in my own life (not to mention how many people simply know things, even future events, without having access to that info), I think there is something to it. And given the fact that regular light particles display their own type of ESP, I think there has got to be some correlation there.


POWELL:
You are far more mystical and religious than I had previously thought, Satori. This thread is producing some very unexpected results.

SATORI:
If you hold a fragmented world view, the kind preached by religions which seek to solidify the sense of personal division from the rest of nature and reality by means of the concept of the "eternal soul", this will not make any sense to you at all, but I'll say it anyway:
There's a theory known as the quantum hologram which is seeking to explain this sort of phenomenon (quantum entanglement/esp). This is an extension of quantum field theory. Here's a short synopsis of what that is all about. The universe is thought to be a field, kind of like a lake of water. Some parts of the universal field are very dense, these areas we call particles (and thus physical matter). Low density areas are the vacuum of space. The density and composition of the area (of the field) is what gives rise to different sorts of particles, and even dimensions (including time). The idea I'm trying to communicate here is that in the prevailing quantum theories space and matter aren't different from each other, they are composed of the exact same "energy" (now called strings). Due to this, it is thought, a quantum hologram is born. This means that every particle, and every macro object for that matter, is not confined to the little space it dwells in but instead extends (though the universe's field) to the very edges of the universe. This extension is what is called the quantum hologram, as demonstrated by quantum entanglement. So everything in the universe is connected to everything else in the universe because everything in the UNIverse is just a part of the field in which it resides. This of course will not sit well with those who have a fragmented world view, for whom the this/that, here/there, brain/soul, me/you absolute divisions are regarded as completely real and not just creations/conventions of the minds of people and animals. To me, in my world view (one that is backed by hard science, naturalist philosophies, common sense, and even quantum physics) everything in this UNIverse are just parts of a single whole. Beneath the surface, everything is one, it's all the same stuff.

So anyway, to summarize: We know for a fact that quantum entanglement means that the faster than light aquisition of non-local information is simply a reality of this universe.


POWELL:
Could you describe how these experiments violate the speed of light prohibition?

SATORI:
The universe itself has a spooky sort of ESP quality to it (this is so well established that it's not even really open for debate). Not coincidentily, people and animals also seem able to demonstrate this ability (acquire non-local information). Therefore, it seems perfectly resonable to me to conclude that the same mechanism is at work in both particles and the minds of animals (since animals and particles are actually composed of the same "energy"). What applies to base particles should therefore apply, at least in some respects, to the macro objects and organisms which are composed of those very same particles.

I have a question for anyone who feels that intuition/esp comes to them as a message from whatever god they happen to believe in: Do you feel that quantum entanglement is also a message delivered from one particle to another by a god for some reason? If not, if you feel quantum entanglement demonstrates a very peculiar feature of this universe, but one that is absolutely unique from that of human intuition/esp, then why do you feel that we humans, composed of those very same subatomic particles as is the rest of the universe, are completely immune to the universe's esp-like feature denoted by quantum entanglement? For you, why is it perfectly reasonable to see that tiny unintelligent particles have access to non-local information, but this same feature is an impossibility for animals who are composed of those very same particles?

Satori


POWELL:
Perhaps you believe in an impersonal God, Satori, and that God is the mystical universe.

Thank you, especially for those two personal stories.

John Powell

[John Powell]

SATORI:
A "miracle", according to the common use of the word, is simply something that defies immediate explanation. In that sense, just about everything is a miracle, in fact, the universe being here is also a miracle because we can't adequately explain how the universe came into being (though some of us choose to use the "god did it" explantion, which explains nothing and only postpones the question by begging the next question "so where did god come from?" That's why "god did it" is not a valid explanation, it's just a put-off to another similar question, which it never even attempts to answer).

Satori


POWELL:
Then why are explanations invoking the known laws of nature valid? Don't they beg the question of where they came from?

I think the "God did it" explanation is unacceptable because it provides poor predictive reliability compared with naturalistic explanations.

John Powell

[John Powell]

DAWNGHOST:
when is it right to test God? for me, the answer is NEVER. you're only testing yourself.


POWELL:
What about Malachi 3:10?

Mal 3:10 (KJV):
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.


POWELL:
There are other scriptures also.

John Powell

[Warcraft3]

Well before this thread gets any longer I guess I will post the two miracles that i remember the best. There are others, but these two stick out in my mind for some reason. Ill try to comment on everyones posts when I get the chance, but let me remind those posting that the purpose of this thread is to discuss events that can possibly be interpreted as miracles. Hopefully we wil get more people posting their personal events so that we can discuss them. Here are two of mine.............

The "dog" incident

This event occured while I was walking up the road with a friend of mine (I was around 13 at the time so this occured about 14 years ago). I am still very good friends with this individual, so perhaps I can get him to comment on the event. He is currently an atheist, so we frequently discuss these issues.......Okay back to the story........

One day we were walking up the road and talking about religion (big surprise there). He said he did not believe in God and I asked him what would convince him. I do not remember his specific answer, but as we talked the Holy Spirit put a strange thought into my mind.

There was a dog walking around on the road (we were going up hill during this time) and I told my friend that God could make the dog just stop and freeze if He wanted to. Feeling led by the spirit I asked him if he would believe in God if this occured. He said yes he would. So while we were walking I pointed at the dog (who was not even looking in our direction) and said (we were pretty far away so I doubt the dog heard me at all, since I did not even raise my voice), "In Jesus' name stop". And the dog stopped and proceeded to lay down in the middle of the road.

We continued to walk up the road as the dog just lay there while cars drove by on both sides of the road. As we walked my friend became concerned for the dog and asked me if I could release him. I asked him if he would believe if I released the dog, and he said yes. So I pointed and said, "In Jesus' name I release you".

And the dog got up and ran up the road, eventually out of our field of vision. I have often tried to reproduce the event on my own, but have never been successful. So I do indeed believe that such an event was a miracle.

My Mothers healing

My mother (who passed away two years ago) was someone who suffered alot during her life. She had epilepsy and lupus, and also had many complications due to drugs and effects of the disease.

This event also occured around the time when I was thirteen years old.

It was a Friday and she was going to be put into the hospital first thing Monday morning. She was very sick during this time (as often was the case) and had three very specific problems which were causing her great pain and putting her life in danger.

She had extreme swelling of every joint on her body, she had an almost non-existant white blood count, and both of her lungs had fluid in them (one of them was almost completely full). So she had alot of trouble breathing during this time. I will never understand why they scheduled her to go in on Monday, because she really should have been hospitalized immediately. Anyway back to the story.........

For some reason my Mother decided to go to a Christian womens breakfast that morning, despite her condition. There was a female evangalist speaking at the event, and she called my Mother up front. (Im leaving out some details here for brevitys' sake).

Now my Mother had been prayed over by many so-called "faith healers" in the past. Many tried to get her "slain in the spirit", but my mother did not(at this time) believe in such a thing. She had been prayed over many, many times and nothing ever happend. But this time was different......

The lady told my mother that this day three things would be healed....the white blood count deficiency, the pleurisy(this was causing the fluid in the lungs), and her joint swelling. She said after the woman said these words it felt like something slammed into her and she hit the ground. There was no one there to catch her and she hit the ground with some force, banging her head in the process.

She was not injured by the fall (this is amazing in and of itself due to how brittle her bones were) and said that as soon as she hit the ground the pressure in her chest left and her joints returned to normal size.

I remember when she came home from that meeting.........something was obviously different. She was breathing normally and her joints were not swollen anymore (they were always swollen so this seemed strange). She told us what ahd happened and said she wanted confirmation from the doctor.

She called the doctor and forced him to test her the very next day, which was Saturday. He reluctantly agreed, and told her she was crazy. He tested her over and over for hours, all the while shaking his head. He finally gave up and said, "Fluid in the lungs does not just go away in an instant". He eventually cancelled the hospital appointment and she was not hospitalized. He told her that he had never seen a "miracle", but if he had to put a label on what had happened he would use that word. Her joints were normal size, her white blood count was normal, and all the fluid in her lungs was gone. Everything else remained the same.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay those are the two I will share for now. There are some more details that I left out for brevity, but I think what I wrote is a good start.



Russ

[Satori]

Undomiel, your friend's post seems to me like a tangle of word play, which says a lot without actually saying very much at all.

Here are just a few things which rang bells in my head:

Today @ 09:59 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102475#post102475)
Undomiel:
In short, it ceases to be legitimate skepticism and becomes a smokescreen subservient to personal ideology and bias.

A "smokescreen subservient to personal ideology and bias"? Oh, you mean like FAITH? I find it rather interesting (and absurd) that your friend would rag a little on skepticism and yet he seems to be keeping the faith quite nicely. I would ask of your friend, does he actually think that skepticism about anything is more of a "smokescreen subservient to personal ideology and bias" than faith is? To me, faith is the ultimate smokescreen, imagine, expecting people to buy into an idea regardless of it's merit or degree of substantiation. I can't think of anything more unhealthy than that. In other words, if your friend is keeping the faith as he/she likely is, then I think he/she doesn't have much wiggle room to rag on "I'll believe it when I see it" skepticism.

It is nolonger "skepticism" but an anti-intellectual sham, a useless shell of a methodology with "critical analysis" playing the part of sycophant to willful ignorance, a tool for reinforcing one's own presuppositions, used to support what one wishes to support, and for denial of what one wishes to deny.

It seems to me your friend is perfectly describing "faith", not skepticism. I do see the point he/she is making however, and I agree with that point, however, I'm not aware of any occurances where this would apply (though it does apply to faith quite nicely in many many instances). It seems to me your friend is shooting himself in the foot.

It's not as if one of the world's many gods came down to earth recently and said hello and put aside all doubts. At best, we have only highly speculative circumstantial evidence and sketchy eye witness accounts to serve as a basis for the god theory. So where would your friend's faith-like definition of skepticism even apply?

As everyone is aware, there are also loads of accouts of mutiple people seeing ufos, aliens, and bigfoots. According to your friend's ideas about skepticism, we should adopt these things as real (even though the people giving the accounts likely didn't have any pre-existing inclinations to have such visions, unlike religious folks who are often looking for some kind of substantiation for their faith).

Often, I've seen a type of "skepticism" tending to be applied very one-sided regarding issues which are multifaceted, or applied analytically like a one-way thorough fare, which in actuality strays from the semblance of true skeptical inquiry, of objectivity and impartiality...qualities which if in absence denote not skeptical thought but a priori prejudice.

It seems like your friend is trying to blur what he/she is saying with rhetorical language, and that is indicative of most of what he/she wrote. It's a shame he/she couldn't state it simply. I have a skeptical attitude toward anyone who feels the need to resort to a tangle of language to attempt to make a point.

To the above passage I would say that skepticism begs objectivitiy and imparticiality (even though these things are rather impossible, but we try). And again, it sounds to me like "faith" is being defined and discussed.

As I see it, your friend has an underlying obligation to denounce and ridicule skepticism as it applies to his/her faith-based theories/ideals, and due to this faith, I sincerely question your friend's objectivity and impartiality, seeing as there is a MAJOR prior prejudice which obligates him/her into taking this stance on skepticism (in defence of "faith"). That prejudice could be the desire for heaven, or the fear of damnation, or perhaps a bit of both.

Anyway, to me it seems a bit absurd for a person of faith to be denouncing some forms of skepticism by suggesting it is the result of a prior prejudice, seeing as it's his/her much grander (and far more drastic/consequential) faith-prejudice which is (at least in part) serving as the motivation for writing this in the first place. Interesting, very very interesting. It's not that I don't agree with what he/she is saying, it's just that I feel he/she is far more guilty of the charge (prior bias) that is being made than are any skeptical person I've ever met. Kinda puts it in perspective, doesn't it?

For skepticism to be rightly applied, the thinker must continuously question his or her own motives in the process, to guard against improprietous self-indulgence.

This is even more true of "faith". Such motivations skew self-honesty and objectivity. That's why people are so quick to say "it's a miracle" at the slightest little thing, even if it's something as mundane as finding a lost piece of jewelry. However, skeptics on the whole are far less driven by their pre-existing obligations and prejudices since for them their alleged "immortal soul" isn't hanging in the balance.

I also think that "faith" in something like christianity is the ultimate in self-indulgence because it's puts the ego at the forefront and gives it a degree of importance that I personally find incredibly egocentric.

If the thinker is prone only to use "skepticism" to produce answers being sought, or as a sword against an ideology to which he or she is opposed, the tool has ceased be true skeptical reasoning. [QUOTE]

I agree completely with this statement. However, I don't think that applies to very many skeptics. Every skeptic I know, including myself, is open to the truth behind things, regardless of what that is. Can the same be said of the faithful? Of course not, they are, after all, deeply obligated to hold to a single viewpoint at the negation of all the rest, regardless of how little evidence there is in support of their theory, and regardless of how much evidence there is to counter their theory.

I again think the above quite applies far more to "faith" than to skepticism. In fact, I think that faith short-circuits skepticism, and that, as I'm sure everyone can agree, is a very unhealthy and dangerous thing. That's why I think faith in something unsubstantiated is something to be avoided. That's why I think various gods expecting humanity to simply have faith in their mythologies is simply innane. People are far better off being skeptics and remaining open than closing their minds with faith, the reasons of which I'm sure everyone can see clearly.

[QUOTE]"Skepticism" is then mere obstructionism, becoming more prone to harmful and misleading reasoning, and even possibly dangerous to one's own mental processes.

This is even more true of "faith".

The "skeptic" is then a proselyte, albeit in some cases obliviously, to a philosophical inclination. Taken to extreme, it a tool of denial and delusion, and sinks to be only folly, foolishness, and absurdity.

Again, faith is perfectly defined.

There can be a difference, an important distinction more than thin nuance, between someone who is an unabashed self-proclaimed "skeptic" and someone who utilizes healthy skepticism.

It's my contention that a person (of faith) who is obligated to adhere to a single viewpoint and negate all others (usually out of fear and desire with regard to their supposed "soul") is far less capable of employing healthy skepticism than your friend is likely to admit. I feel that faith greatly inhibits healthy skepticism where it is more needed in regard to those very beliefs the thinker is metaphysically obligated to adhere to.

When we speak in terms of "mass hallucination" the path of "skepticism" has been forsaken, and the thinker is then wandering into the mentally myopic bracken, of parody and perfidy, knowingly or unknowingly.

I see. So I guess when 2 or more people are abducted together by aliens, or if they have a close encounter with big foot, then it's absolutely real then. I'm glad we resolved that issue. Mass hallucinations are impossible. Umm.. sure. You see, as a skeptic, I'm not *quite* as sure of what's possible and what's not. I prefer to keep an open mind with regard to such things. I would imagine this is what your friend would label "unhealthy skepticism" (though it hardly seems unhealthy to me, it's not as if I'm denying the fact that drinking over cleaner will kill me or something). Very interesting. I think your friend is showing us far more about his/her own thought processes than he/she intended, chiefly, that he/she is even more guilty of the pitfalls of bias/prejudice than are the skeptics he/she is politely ragging on.

It's a shame that your friend's ability to employ healthy skepticism doesn't apply to his/her own view on mass hallucinations. I would also point out that your friend probably only believes mass hallucinations are real events if and only if they support his/her pre-existing prejudices and faith obligations. If a bunch of hindu's or ufologists had such an experience (and it has happened A LOT) I'd bet your friend wouldn't be so quick to conclude that it was a real event. Just a hunch.

The argument is in defiance of rationalism, stripped and devoid of empirical reasoning, for even the empiricist must be able to observe, even if that observation is of other witnesses reports.

At this point it's clear to me what your friend is attempting to convince us of, and it's fueled (of course) by a prior prejudice (faith). As much as he/she would like to believe, the idea of mass hallucinations is NOT "defiance of rationalism", it's merely healthy skepticism and open-mindedness, not closing any doors. This is nothing more than a very weak attempt to uphold his/her own faith obligations and prejudices by suggesting that all mass hallucinations are actually REAL events. Perhaps your friend is simply unaware that such mass hallucinations have been occuring for a very long time, and not just within the religion he/she happens to identify with. So what are we to believe, such hallucinations are real in some cases but are actually just delusions in other cases? Who is the grand decider of which are real and which are delusions? No one is in a position to make such decisions, which is why all such mass hallucinations should be discarded, particularly when the visions contradict one another.

Relying upon the idea that mass hallucinations are real events simply doesn't work, not even a little bit. It was a nice effort however, and I give a lot of credit for the cleverness of the attempt.

There is at least a reliance upon materialism, such that the "skeptic" can be logically skeptical of nothing if the thinker cannot determine if his or her own being has actual substance in any form, or that substance actually exists apart from his or her identity.

Exactly. If we can't even substantiate the absolute existence of our own egos, how can we pass judgement about what's real and what's not?

"We think therefore we are."

Yes, an idea which has contributed greatly to the common fragmented world view by suggesting that people identify themselves as the little thought in their head (their ego) instead of their whole being and the environment/earth which they are so obviously a part of. The idea is magnified further by the whole "soul" theory. I won't even get into the many reasons why such a limited and ego-based notion of self is so very foolish and counterproductive to individuals and societies (not to mention the health of the earth itself).

The skeptical thinker must have surpassed this bit of profundity or the thinker has not even the right to be skeptical, for any question beyond that is simply ahead of schedule, premature, and all other inquiry follows such a foundational determination of the legitimacy of reality.

The supposed legitimacy of reality has not been adequately established, something which makes the questions AND the answers merely exercises in asserting one's ego-based conceptualizations on the rest of reality. The world is simply how we interpret it to be, and there is no absolute objectivity available to any of us.

The "skeptic," then, is lost, and nothing can satisfy his or her questions, as she or he cannot even determine the validity of the questions, muchless subsequent answers.

Now this is getting a bit ridiculous. Admitting to one's self that one's own perspective is inherently biased and ego-driven is not akin to being "lost". Such a person simply refuses to adhere strictly to the common ideas of what reality actually is and how they exist in relation to it. They still have their own ideas about what reality actually is, they just don't cling on to them so tightly, unlike people of faith.

Who is really lost? Someone who adheres himself to a single limited conception of reality (ie. religious doctrine), or someone who admits that he isn't even in a position to ask the question, much less understand the answer?

The "skeptic" in such a case has limited reality to vocabulary without realizing it, and that vocabulary and language have limitations, that being supercedes semantics. Confusion.

Again, defining faith. Being bound and obligated to one conception of reality is (I feel) nothing to be so proud of. On the other hand, admitting that you simply don't know and keeping an open mind is something I am personally proud of. I don't particularly how many religions out there are threatening me for not buying into their respective mythologies, until one of them is substantiated above all refution, I'll maintain an open mind and prefer natural explanations for things over supernatural ones (which history has taught us time and time again are simply and expression of our own ignornace).

Continuing through the rhetoric....

There also seems an interesting connotative quality to the term "mass hallucination," one evocative of the Catholic ritual, and incidentally, the occurrence of "mass hallucination" is frequently trotted out by the "skeptic" in regard to reports depicting the "paranormal" or "spiritual" as a tool for use in attempts at rebutting the reality of such prevalent phenomenon.[QUOTE]


The "reality of such prevalent phenomenon"? Sounds like your friend could use some healthy skepticism there. But anyway...

Excellent. So nearly all religions are true, as are alien abductions, and bigfoot. I'm glad we cleared that up. All mass hallucinations are all real. Sure, whatever you want to tell yourself to maintain your faith obligations is fine with me.

[QUOTE] Hallucinations, as any qualified psychiatrist or psychologist will attest, are by definition subjective, relative only to the mind hallucinating, and totally devoid of any element of contagion which isolates such phenomenon as endemic only to the individual hallucinating.

As this point your friend suggests that we already know everything about everything pertaining to mind. Yes, it's impossible for people to share exact thoughts across distances, esp/intuition is a piece of fiction, and all those occurances of mutiple people having the same dreams (as was the case preceeding 911) are all fictional as well. It would seem that your friend has a rather closed mind, which is what one might expect from someone who is determined to remain fixed upon a single conception of reality at the negation of all others (which is what faith, in fact, expects, demands, and threatens against in the even of non-compliance).

It's so easy to fool ourselves, which is why trusting your own conceptualizations too much is such a pitfall. What's real, and what's not real? I have no idea. My eyes tell me the sky is blue, but that is purely a delusion of the senses, my skin tells me my tea is warm, but that is just an approximation that exists only in relation to my own body temperature. The sky isn't really blue, and my tea isn't actually "warm", but my mind tells me that that's the case. Given that our senses lie to us so blatantly, I would think your friend would be a little more skeptical with regard to his/her own ideas pertaining to reality.

Simply put, "mass hallucinations" is a term best relegated to the lore of modern urban myths. There is no such beast.

That's a good example of that closed mind and the desire to fool one's self that I just spoke about.

What it boils down to is simply that the spiritual component of life is truly undeniable by any realistic, rational, and logical approach in light of the superlatively abundant and voluminous evidence.

Evidence? What evidence? Did I miss the news or something?

And what's with this "spiritual component of life is truly undeniable". Oh really? To me, spirituality is an aspect of mind, and expression of ego, just like the perceived warmth of my tea or the colour of the sky, and it is no more or no less real than either of them. It's a pity your friend cannot recognize the limitations of his/her own conceptualizations, in the obvious attempt at validating his/her faith ideals.

Here is the thorn the "skeptic" must avoid; 100,000 eyewitnesses to miraculous events. It cannot be denied without the "skeptic" relying upon the absurd...which then emphatically asks, what then is the motivation of the skeptic, and/or the mental condition of the "skeptic"?

This is why I bothered replying. What "events" is being referred to here?

I am aware of a religious event from the Hindu religion, witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people, where many statues of a hindu god began drinking milk in huge quantities. I suppose this is one the events that your friend is thinking of, and if not, he/she can add to his/her list. I guess that means hinduism is true then huh. Very illuminating, but not in the manner your friend hoped it would be of course.

We should avoid jumping to conclusions about the nature of things, particularly since the reality we inhabit is so very very odd and at the quantum level (from which macro objects and animals like us are derived) it's utterly senseless to the typical human conception of "reality". For example, you probably think that the desk you are sitting at right now is actually solid, but that is pure delusion, it's far more empty that solid.


I could continue dissecting this post, but I feel I've sufficiently made my point. I hope that you will pass this along to your friend, and I hope that he/she rebuttals it, and while doing so, leaves the rhetoric inclinations behind in favour of something much more desirable: clarity.

I feel your friend's post was little more than an exercise in self-delusion, an attempt at justifying his/her own lack of healthy skepticism, an attempt to convince the reader that anything other that faithfully adhering to one conception of reality and closing one's mind to alternate viewpoints is somehow unfavourable. It's a rhetorical justification for keeping the faith, something which I realize is a pretty hot commodity considering how difficult it must be for an intelligent person to be so closed minded in these modern and advanced times.

Don't get me wrong however, I appreciate the cleverness that was employed, but even cleverness such as this isn't justification for closing one's mind to alternate viewpoints, as you friend has so obviously done (with good reason of course, he/she probably thinks there's some punishment or reward to be dished out as a result of his/her "beliefs", so I can't blame him/her in the least, I totally understand the motivations beneath this blatantly biased rhetoric).

best wishes,

Satori

[Warcraft3]

Therefore, it seems perfectly resonable to me to conclude that the same mechanism is at work in both particles and the minds of animals (since animals and particles are actually composed of the same "energy"). What applies to base particles should therefore apply, at least in some respects, to the macro objects and organisms which are composed of those very same particles.

Now be careful here Satori.......Applying Quantum mathematics and concepts to such macro objects as molecules can get tricky. Once you get a "whole bunch" of "particles" together they start interacting and affecting the wave functions of one another.

You can apply quantum mechanics to a photon or an electron, but not to an animals mind. Well you could try to I guess, but it is highly problamatic since you are dealing with ALOT of statistical averages here.


Russ

[John Powell]

POWELL:
Are you suggesting that the "God does it" theory can make no useful predictions or are you saying that the predictions are significantly less useful than naturalistic ones

CRISCODISCO:
By definition, (God is unknowable, or at least unpredictable) therefore, such a hypothesis is un-testable on its face.


POWELL:
So, by definition, God does not keep His promises?

POWELL:
Are you saying that because I did not provide a theoretical explanation for the stories that they weren't meaningful stories

CRISCODISCO:
This sentence can turn so many different ways depending on what you mean by "meaningful." They may have some aesthetic or egotistical meaning, but they have no predictive or pragmatic meaning.


POWELL:
You said "It is not meaningful in any way." Do you wish to revise your exaggerated statement?

POWELL:
Are you saying that Samson would have been justified by Christianity to have prayed to his hair?

CRISCODISCO:
I'm saying two events can have an arbitrary causal connection.
If they have an actual causal connection, you must make previously unknown predictions, and then test those predictions.

POWELL:
Do you think it's wrong to love and adore yourself? If you don't love and adore yourself, CriscoDisco, do you hate yourself or are you neutral towards yourself

CRISCODISCO:
A healthy balanced self-esteem is swell.


POWELL:
Is it wrong to characterize that as "loving yourself"?

CRISCODISCO:
An irrational belief that because you were born in America, to a white upper/middle-class family with food and shelter readily available means that your spirit was superior in the pre-existence-- that's repulsive.


POWELL:
What if the belief were based on reason rather than being irrational, would it still be repulsive to you?

JOHN MORMON:
Maybe their deaths served an important purpose. Maybe they had jobs to do in the afterlife.

CRISCODISCO:
Exactly proving my point. Any outcome will be explained by the "God Cause."


POWELL:
Are you saying that theists use the "God cause" to explain "any outcome", that they never use naturalistic explanations? I believe you write with too much exaggeration, Criscodisco.

Why do you think your explanation "it was good luck or it was bad luck" has greater predictive reliability than the theistic explanation "God did it or God let it be"?

CRISCODISCO:
What of the freak accident that kills the almost repented? Lets say Joe, has heard the message of Joseph Smith and is off to be baptized, but his coke can (his last coke before becoming mormon) explodes and rips his face to shreads, sending a small shard of aluminum into his brain killing him. Leaving his four kids to the orphanage.

What "Work" does God have for this guy, who has died in sin? Why did God cause this freak accident? Why did God take his only chance of going to the Celestial kingdom away?


POWELL:
Mormons believe that God would judge Joe by his works and his desires. If they liked Joe they'd claim he would receive the Gospel in the afterlife and become a God anyways. If they didn't like Joe they would suggest He wouldn't accept it in the afterlife. His children might have asked to be orphans for it would build their eternal character.

Now that I'm an atheist, I also find these explanations to be unsatisfactory. They are typically used after the fact to explain past events rather than very useful before the fact as a predictive tool.

CRISCODISCO:
See how this believing in god becomes a crap shoot? Who knows what nasty things god has in store for you.

Any mention of Angels and miracles just makes me sick. People don't see the negative assumptions one must make to believe in miracles.


POWELL:
Perhaps you're taking this too personally, Criscodisco. Does it make you sick to invoke "luck" to explain things?

John Powell

[John Powell]

TRUE WALSH
I hope I'm doing this right...


Welcome to TWEB, True Walsh. Have a banana. :yipee:

TRUE WALSH:
I don't think miracles neccesarily imply divine intervention.


POWELL:
Your opinion is respectfully noted. Personally, I don't think there are any miracles that imply divine intervention. That's because I'm an atheist and I don't believe in the existence of God.

TRUE WALSH:
Miracles are not exclusive to Christians, or Jews, or Muslims; people with no affirmed faith experience miracles every day, even something as general as the miracle of life. Not being able to explain something doesn't justify resorting to a deity as an explanation.


POWELL:
Good point. We're trying to discuss events that might be thought to require the "God did it" explanation.

TRUE WALSH:
Could those people who overcame cancer have tapped into immune systems through deep concentration and other yet-to-be-explained immune functions, such as placebo?


POWELL:
Sure. Currently, I would be much more eager to accept an explanation like that than a "God did it" one.

TRUE WALSH:
I don't mean to assign a burden-of-proof - or maybe I do. I don't think a "last resort" method of assigning miracles to God is viable for proof of existence.

Please, refute me though; I registered on here for feedback.


POWELL:
I don't see much of anything I should refute since I'm largely in agreement with you.

Maybe someone else will step in.

John Powell

[dawnghost]

Today @ 12:18 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102586#post102586)
John Powell:
What about Malachi 3:10?


hi John. thanks for replying, but I think you might have misunderstood me. my point wasn't that God will refuse to answer when we test Him.

and in your example, the Lord was ordering the nation to bring the offerings into His storehouse. there, his test sounds more like a promise that He will bless the nation when His will is done.

but anyway, what I meant is that we have the common perception that God should prove Himself to us in miracles and supernatural phenomena, and that if we don't believe otherwise that's just not our fault. I disagree.

actually, I think it's rather nice that He isn't a big face in the sky looking down upon us. if He was, our free will would be severely challenged. and many times our own mistakes gives us the opportunity to grow.

that being said, I think the main purpose of this thread is to show that our God is not an absent one. if you choose to test Him, that's your choice, but you should remember that HE is Sovereign, and not you. what if He doesn't answer? what if the very nature of your request is bad to His eyes? you'd surely risk your faith for a "gamble of judgement" with the Almighty God, which just isn't wise.

now, if you remember to trust Him, and remember that He is Sovereign and Good, miracles can happen. :smile:

[Warcraft3]

Let me just say that when we are confronted with some event which may or may not be a miracle, we need to ask several questions to seperate a deliberate action from a random event.

One of these is that if a miracle occurs there should be some kind of indication of intelligence behind it (because a decision or choice was made). So keep this in mind when discussing miracles.


On a side note, does anyone else have any stories? I dont want the thread to get to far off topic.



Russ

[Undomiel]

Satori,

I think what he's trying to say is, to call an unsual or miraculous event viewed by several people, nothing but bunk, is dishonest even from a scientific perspective. It requires you constantly proscribe the same answer for every event which you cannot or have not experienced, without investigation. This, he feels, is intellectually dishonest. And if you really think about it, it is.

[dawnghost]

Today @ 12:21 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102589#post102589)
steadele:
Feeling led by the spirit I asked him if he would believe in God if this occured. He said yes he would. So while we were walking I pointed at the dog (who was not even looking in our direction) and said (we were pretty far away so I doubt the dog heard me at all, since I did not even raise my voice), "In Jesus' name stop". And the dog stopped and proceeded to lay down in the middle of the road.

We continued to walk up the road as the dog just lay there while cars drove by on both sides of the road. As we walked my friend became concerned for the dog and asked me if I could release him. I asked him if he would believe if I released the dog, and he said yes. So I pointed and said, "In Jesus' name I release you".

And the dog got up and ran up the road, eventually out of our field of vision.

praise the Holy Spirit for that! what I find interesting is that your friend still remained an atheist after this happening... and to think I used to be just like him.

it was like if I was waiting for God to appear to ME, when I called Him... yes it was exactly that, I was waiting for Him to show Himself to me, almost as if He needed to reveal Himself to me in a physical form so I would believe.

I'll give you some pearls for reminding me that. thanks. :smile:

[dawnghost]

Today @ 12:57 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102611#post102611)
steadele:
On a side note, does anyone else have any stories? I dont want the thread to get to far off topic.


I have, but it's a longer one. as soon as I have time I will post it.

[John Powell]

STEADELE:
two miracles

Well before this thread gets any longer I guess I will post the two miracles that i remember the best.


POWELL:
I should think so. :smile:

STEADELE:
There are others, but these two stick out in my mind for some reason. Ill try to comment on everyones posts when I get the chance, but let me remind those posting that the purpose of this thread is to discuss events that can possibly be interpreted as miracles. Hopefully we wil get more people posting their personal events so that we can discuss them. Here are two of mine.............

The "dog" incident

This event occured while I was walking up the road with a friend of mine (I was around 13 at the time so this occured about 14 years ago). I am still very good friends with this individual, so perhaps I can get him to comment on the event. He is currently an atheist, so we frequently discuss these issues.......Okay back to the story........


POWELL:
If it would not be too much trouble please get his version of the story.

STEADELE:
One day we were walking up the road and talking about religion (big surprise there). He said he did not believe in God and I asked him what would convince him. I do not remember his specific answer, but as we talked the Holy Spirit put a strange thought into my mind.

There was a dog walking around on the road (we were going up hill during this time) and I told my friend that God could make the dog just stop and freeze if He wanted to. Feeling led by the spirit I asked him if he would believe in God if this occured. He said yes he would. So while we were walking I pointed at the dog (who was not even looking in our direction) and said (we were pretty far away so I doubt the dog heard me at all, since I did not even raise my voice), "In Jesus' name stop". And the dog stopped and proceeded to lay down in the middle of the road.

We continued to walk up the road as the dog just lay there while cars drove by on both sides of the road. As we walked my friend became concerned for the dog and asked me if I could release him. I asked him if he would believe if I released the dog, and he said yes. So I pointed and said, "In Jesus' name I release you".


POWELL:
Your friend was surprisingly both willing to believe, but insincere about his promises to continue believing.

STEADELE:
And the dog got up and ran up the road, eventually out of our field of vision. I have often tried to reproduce the event on my own, but have never been successful. So I do indeed believe that such an event was a miracle.


POWELL:
Ok, let's assume this really was a divine miracle that you and Mr. J experienced. The question is, why did God do it?

If this question were asked you shortly after the event, perhaps you would say something like "to prove to J that God lives." If the question is asked 14 years later, however, you might deny that it was in vain, suggesting that either Mr. J will convert in the future due to this miracle and other events in his life or, if you didn't like Mr. J, you might say that it was so God had just cause to punish the fool for unbelief.

Now, imagine the story were altered so that some of the later times you tried these "Jesus says lay down, Jesus says get up" magical phrases it worked! How would the "God did it" explanation work? Perhaps you would say that God wanted you to know that He would sometimes be there at your call to do good things. Maybe you would think this was God's way of reminding you of the important previous miracle, to never forget it. Maybe you would think you had a special spiritual power over animals and you might branch out and try cats, horses, and others. If you really had that power almost always on command you could make lots of money as an animal trainer. If you could train others to do the same you could make even more money.

The "God did it" explanation may appear to be useful here, but the necessity with which the explanation changes based on later events suggests it's not so useful after all. The "it was luck" explanation does not pretend to give mystical meaning to the event and, furthermore, matches your later experiences.

Now, what if it was not a divine miracle after all?

Is it possible, Russ, that it was a coincidence the dog did those things at the times you commanded him? In particular, could it have been a coincidence that the dog happened to lay down shortly after your first command, perhaps due to something else the dog heard or saw or decided to do?

Is it possible that the dog did hear you tell him to stop and he obeyed and then got up and ran off after you approached and said something to him?

STEADELE:
My Mothers healing

My mother (who passed away two years ago) was someone who suffered alot during her life. She had epilepsy and lupus, and also had many complications due to drugs and effects of the disease.

This event also occured around the time when I was thirteen years old.

It was a Friday and she was going to be put into the hospital first thing Monday morning. She was very sick during this time (as often was the case) and had three very specific problems which were causing her great pain and putting her life in danger.

She had extreme swelling of every joint on her body, she had an almost non-existant white blood count, and both of her lungs had fluid in them (one of them was almost completely full). So she had alot of trouble breathing during this time. I will never understand why they scheduled her to go in on Monday, because she really should have been hospitalized immediately. Anyway back to the story.........

For some reason my Mother decided to go to a Christian womens breakfast that morning, despite her condition. There was a female evangalist speaking at the event, and she called my Mother up front. (Im leaving out some details here for brevitys' sake).

Now my Mother had been prayed over by many so-called "faith healers" in the past. Many tried to get her "slain in the spirit", but my mother did not(at this time) believe in such a thing. She had been prayed over many, many times and nothing ever happend. But this time was different......

The lady told my mother that this day three things would be healed....the white blood count deficiency, the pleurisy(this was causing the fluid in the lungs), and her joint swelling. She said after the woman said these words it felt like something slammed into her and she hit the ground. There was no one there to catch her and she hit the ground with some force, banging her head in the process.

She was not injured by the fall (this is amazing in and of itself due to how brittle her bones were) and said that as soon as she hit the ground the pressure in her chest left and her joints returned to normal size.

I remember when she came home from that meeting.........something was obviously different. She was breathing normally and her joints were not swollen anymore (they were always swollen so this seemed strange). She told us what ahd happened and said she wanted confirmation from the doctor.

She called the doctor and forced him to test her the very next day, which was Saturday. He reluctantly agreed, and told her she was crazy. He tested her over and over for hours, all the while shaking his head. He finally gave up and said, "Fluid in the lungs does not just go away in an instant". He eventually cancelled the hospital appointment and she was not hospitalized. He told her that he had never seen a "miracle", but if he had to put a label on what had happened he would use that word. Her joints were normal size, her white blood count was normal, and all the fluid in her lungs was gone. Everything else remained the same.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


POWELL:
That one is pretty amazing.

Do you remember the name of the Doctor? It would be nice if he remembered the story even after all this time.

Two typical naturalistic explanations would be that things weren't as bad as you remember them or the complicated problems went into surprisingly quick remission. Either way, the prayers had little to do with her recovery except perhaps in encouraging her to remain upbeat about things.

Let's suppose you had 10 righteous cousins or aunts with the same conditions as your mother before her remarkable recovery. How many of them would you expect to be healed by going to that same woman healer or her daughter or whatever? Would you be willing to wager very much money that even half of them would be healed as remarkably as your mother was?

Now, let's suppose there were a medical cure for the condition that was 90% successful. Would you then be willing to wager money that at least half of those women would be cured by using modern medicine?

Why is it, Russ, that medicine is apparently so much more reliable as a cure to illness than prayer to the Creator of medicine?

Also, Russ, we're grateful your mother survived, but how do you explain the loss of all those other mothers with similar problems and similar aged-sons-who-needed them? Did God love and need you and your mother more than He loved and needed them?

The "luck" explanation suggests they were just less lucky than you and your mom.

STEADELE:
Okay those are the two I will share for now. There are some more details that I left out for brevity, but I think what I wrote is a good start.


POWELL:
Thanks for sharing them.

John Powell


Russ

[Warcraft3]

POWELL:
If it would not be too much trouble please get his version of the story.
I will ask him.


POWELL:
Ok, let's assume this really was a divine miracle that you and Mr. J experienced. The question is, why did God do it?
I do not know John. I only know that the event occured. Any answer I give would be simply speculation.

If this question were asked you shortly after the event, perhaps you would say something like "to prove to J that God lives."
That would appear to be the reason, but we may be incorrect.


If the question is asked 14 years later, however, you might deny that it was in vain, suggesting that either Mr. J will convert in the future due to this miracle and other events in his life or, if you didn't like Mr. J, you might say that it was so God had just cause to punish the fool for unbelief.
Im not sure if I would say that, although some people might. I simply know the event occured, exactly why it did I can not say.

Now, imagine the story were altered so that some of the later times you tried these "Jesus says lay down, Jesus says get up" magical phrases it worked! How would the "God did it" explanation work?
That is a hypothetical situation which does not reflect what actually occured.

Perhaps you would say that God wanted you to know that He would sometimes be there at your call to do good things.
I would not come to that conclusion.

Maybe you would think this was God's way of reminding you of the important previous miracle, to never forget it.
I would not come to that conclusion either.

Maybe you would think you had a special spiritual power over animals and you might branch out and try cats, horses, and others. If you really had that power almost always on command you could make lots of money as an animal trainer. If you could train others to do the same you could make even more money.
Another conclusion that someone else might come to, but not me. My reasons for attempting to reproduce the event were to disprove that is was a miracle, not to prove it. I am a very skeptical (and cynical) person and tried to show that it was just a coincedence. Every attempt i have tried at reproducing the event has failed, leading me to the conclusion that something very improbable happened that day.

The "God did it" explanation may appear to be useful here, but the necessity with which the explanation changes based on later events suggests it's not so useful after all.
How so? The dog was quite a distance from us and only lay down and got up when I said those two phrases. I remember it quite well. It was an event which was beyond "a bit weird".


The "it was luck"explanation does not pretend to give mystical meaning to the event and, furthermore, matches your later experiences.
I would challenge people to tell each dog they see outside (animals they are not familiar with) to lay down and see if it does so. Then to observe if the dog stays there for a prolonged period of time and only gets up after they issue another command. Both must be done a very good distance from the dog and must happen immediately. This would match the event I described and could be attributed to "chance". I doubt anyone will be sucessfull though, since I have been trying for 14 years.

Now, what if it was not a divine miracle after all?
Then I have misinterpreted the event.

Is it possible, Russ, that it was a coincidence the dog did those things at the times you commanded him?
It is possible, of course. I do not find it probable though.

In particular, could it have been a coincidence that the dog happened to lay down shortly after your first command, perhaps due to something else the dog heard or saw or decided to do?
Yes that is a possibility, of course. I am not sure if you would think so had you been there, though.

Is it possible that the dog did hear you tell him to stop and he obeyed and then got up and ran off after you approached and said something to him?
I did not yell. I did not even say it loudly, in fact. And when the dog got up we were still a good distance away. So I do not think the dog was even aware of the fact that I was talking to it. It was not even looking at us when I told it to stop.



POWELL:
That one is pretty amazing.
Thank you John, I hope you got something positive out of it.

Do you remember the name of the Doctor? It would be nice if he remembered the story even after all this time.
I know it was one of two doctors, but I do not remember exactly which one. I also do not know if he remembers (or would want to remember) the event.

Two typical naturalistic explanations would be that things weren't as bad as you remember them or the complicated problems went into surprisingly quick remission.
Believe me, the situation was very bad indeed. In fact I understated how bad things were in the story I told. She was dying from the symptoms and we were watching her closely, expecting to have to call the ambulence at any minute.

Fluid in lungs does not go into remission. It is either there or it is not there. This is not a tumor I am talking about here or some other aliment which can "appear" and "disappear" on tests. And people who have such complications as my Mother did do not have sudden jumps in white blood count. As to the joints.......her joints were swollen when she left and when she came home they were normal. Coincedence? Maybe, but I doubt it. There was nothing that happened or changed which should have stopped the swollen joints.

Either way, the prayers had little to do with her recovery except perhaps in encouraging her to remain upbeat about things.
Well she was never healed of such things before or since. In fact she died from the lupus (and related complications) two years ago. Believe me I wish such a "coincedence" would have happened again, but it did not.

Let's suppose you had 10 righteous cousins or aunts with the same conditions as your mother before her remarkable recovery. How many of them would you expect to be healed by going to that same woman healer or her daughter or whatever? Would you be willing to wager very much money that even half of them would be healed as remarkably as your mother was?
John, I do not know if anyone else has been healed through this womens ministry. I do not even know who the woman is, though I have tried to find out. I also do not know if anyone will ever be healed in the future through this woman. I can only tell you what I know happened 14 years ago.

Now, let's suppose there were a medical cure for the condition that was 90% successful. Would you then be willing to wager money that at least half of those women would be cured by using modern medicine?
I do think modern medicine is a wonderful thing. So yeah if there is a cure we should use it.

Why is it, Russ, that medicine is apparently so much more reliable as a cure to illness than prayer to the Creator of medicine?
I would say the reason healings are rare is largely because of Christians. I include myself in that statement John. We are the reason. It is our fault. And for that I am truly sorry.

Also, Russ, we're grateful your mother survived, but how do you explain the loss of all those other mothers with similar problems and similar aged-sons-who-needed them? Did God love and need you and your mother more than He loved and needed them?
John, I do not understand Gods will. I do not know why He only chooses to heal some people, instead of everyone. I have my own views on why He does that (which I will share if you are interested), but it is just my speculation.

The "luck" explanation suggests they were just less lucky than you and your mom.
Yes perhaps these things, along with everything else i have seen, were simply just chance. I do not think that they were, but it is possible. I wish I had better answers to give you John, but I do not. I often wonder about many things myself and struggle to understand them. I often question Gods will and want to know "why", but I rarely get an answer (I have a few times though). Maybe I would not understand the answer even if I had it, I do not know. But I know I have seen things that I can not deny, regardless of how difficult they make my life.

I wish I had all the answers for you John. I really do.

POWELL:
Thanks for sharing them.


You are quite welcome John.


Russ

[dawnghost]

Today @ 03:23 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102721#post102721)
steadele:
I would say the reason healings are rare is largely because of Christians. I include myself in that statement John. We are the reason. It is our fault. And for that I am truly sorry.

you and me too.
I agree with you 100%.

[JardinPrayer]

I'll admit, I read the first few posts in this thread and then scanned the last few. My response is based on what I absorbed from that exercise.

If this thread was started to share miracle stories, then I would think it inappropriate for folks to submit miracle-debunking posts. If it was started to have a rousing, healthy debate on the validity of miracles, I understand what I've read here a bit better.

Whatever the case, I'd like to address Satori and other non-theists who have been calling people of faith silly or deluded here and in other threads. From the Christian perspective, we have a God who gave us a book that instructs us in His will for us. In it, there is a section called the Book of Hebrews, the first chapter and the first verse, in which we are told:

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen."

This means it is your very belief that God CAN DO that makes it so. It is your very belief that His will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven that brings it about. Every time Jesus performed a healing miracle, he asked the afflicted, "Do you believe I can do this?" and when they affirmed this and were healed, he said, "Your faith has made you whole."

Faith is the activator. It is not tangible and it cannot be reasoned in the intellectual, academic, or doubting world. In fact, faith and doubt are diametrically opposed...they cannot co-exist. One cannot be 80% faithful and 20% doubting.

I was an unbeliever for nearly 40 years. The arguements of athiests are familiar to me...indeed I spent more of my natural life making them than having faith. Once God reveals Himself to you, though, you learn to suspend a lot of the arrogant, stubborn, limited thought processes you've protected yourself with and embrace something much bigger, much more awesome, and MUCH more comforting.

People of faith BELIEVE. That's what they do. And in believing, they find strength, joy, comfort, and, yes, MIRACLES. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to come along and tramp on that! Even our founding fathers tell us we have the inalienable rights of life, liberty and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. People have a right to be happy. If seeking, finding, and following God does that, why would you wish anything less for them?

Oh, incase anyone was wondering about my own miracles: I believe it is a miracle that God brought me back from a VERY nearly successful suicide attempt even before I knew Him. I believe it is a miracle he chose this wretched soul who had never set foot in a church in her life and always enjoyed shaking up a room by saying "I don't believe in God," and whispered in her ear and transformed her life in a single heartbeat. I believe it is a miracle that the universe has order, that the sun shines, that life IS, and that we have the capacity to even comprehend the notion of the unseen, of salvation, of eternity. I believe it is a miracle that a non-theist can form their arguements and find comfort in them while GOD STILL LOVES THEM and patiently allows them to do what He already knows they will.

With deep respect, deep regard, and deep passion,

JardinPrayer

[Ryokan]

Well, John, I would say that I don't require a uber miracle, but rather any small, non-life saving miracle that also involves a personal experience with a personal God. That would be the BEGINNING. I have never had one.

[CriscoDisco]

So, by definition, God does not keep His promises

I think you've really made an insight here.

To interpret any event as a miracle: requires a definition of God.
Clearly, God doesn't make any sort of promise that is distinguishable from chaos.
At best is, he/she/it promises to have unpredictable events occur.

You said "It is not meaningful in any way." Do you wish to revise your exaggerated statement

Clearly, you can define meaning to encompass everything, at which point the term has no fidelity-- in a sense, you've made meaning-- a meaningless word.

Just because I wore a blue shirt the day my foot gets caught in a blender-- doesn't mean there is a "causal" connection. I lament the fact that I didn't make this clarification-- I found it rather obvious considering the context, that we were focusing on this sort of meaning-- ie, a fortuitous event as the influence of god, -- in other words, a fortuitous event means that there are God forces at play.

Is it wrong to characterize that as "loving yourself"?

No. Although, in this culture-- it maybe twisted as narcissisms: a pejorative term.

I sense you're trying to show something with this example, but I don't see it.

What if the belief were based on reason rather than being irrational, would it still be repulsive to you

By definition, such a belief can only be based on supernatural explanations, and therefore can never be rational.

I believe you write with too much exaggeration, Criscodisco.

I think you're right.

Why do you think your explanation "it was good luck or it was bad luck" has greater predictive reliability than the theistic explanation "God did it or God let it be"?

Nice question. Luck isn't generally seen as a Force or a causal event, but a way to describe the happenstance occurrence of two relatively unassociated events.

Event X didn't occur because of luck.
Event X was a lucky event.

Clearly, in the use of the English language, this is not a clear distinction. But if push came to shove, I don't think you'd find too many worshipers of Fortunia, the god of the wheel of luck.

Mormons believe that God would judge Joe by his works and his desires.

Oh, I thought, if a person wasn't married in the temple and baptized in the flesh-- they couldn't make it to the celestial kingdom. So, basically God's will to cause, or not prevent tragedy, to Joe-- would de facto prevent him from ever becoming a Celestial entity.

Perhaps you're taking this too personally, Criscodisco. Does it make you sick to invoke "luck" to explain things

I must admit, It really gets me when I shows like "touched by an angel" or when people say on the news "It was such a miracle that after horrible tragedy "Y" happened and 100 people died, my baby sister Jane lived-- praise god!"

It just seems like they are insulting the dead and dying.

And, as I noted above. If someone thinks Luck is out there doing its Lucky business, smiling its good fortune powers on some but not on others--well, that's just like believing in a form of God-- which returns us to your original statement: If you're going do define something as a miracle-- first one must define God.

[Satori]

Today @ 12:31 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102596#post102596)
steadele:
Now be careful here Satori.......Applying Quantum mathematics and concepts to such macro objects as molecules can get tricky. Once you get a "whole bunch" of "particles" together they start interacting and affecting the wave functions of one another.

You can apply quantum mechanics to a photon or an electron, but not to an animals mind. Well you could try to I guess, but it is highly problamatic since you are dealing with ALOT of statistical averages here.

I'm fully aware that phenomenon cannot directly be applied between quantum and macro objects, however, I'll re-state what I was saying in a more simplified way:

Both animals and quantum particles display an ability to acquire non-local information. Since animals and particles are composed of the same base "energy", it's seems perfectly reasonable to me to conclude that the same or a very similar feature of the universe is at work. After all, we are talking about the same phenomenon, the aquisition of non-local information.

If simple photons have this feature, it's built into the fabric of spacetime itself, then why should we assume that thinking animals do not share this same feature in with the same underlying mechanism?

But then, since I view the universe as a whole rather than a bunch of eternally fragmented parts (a view supported by science of course), I don't necessarily see myself as being all that different from the base quantum particles which exibit this uncanny esp-like behaviour. My brain is *actually* composed of those particles after all.

We have no means of proving the same mechanism (quantum entanglement) is at work in the brain, but we have no solid reasons for completely discounting it either. Besides, does it not seem just a little coincidental to you that particles and animals can and do exibit the ability to aquire non-local information? If there are 2 completely distinct/unrelated mechanisms at work here, then I'd personally be more surprised than if it was NOT the same underlying mechanism manifesting them both.

Satori

[Warcraft3]

Satori:

I am a bit hesitant to respond, because I am trying to avoid a discussion of quantum mechanics in this thread. Most people only know about the subject through popular media sources or internet articles, which rarely go into the actual mathematics or physics of the theory. These sources often talk more about philisophical interpretations of the theory, than the theory itself. From the few courses I have taken on quantum, the many discussions I had with physicists at Penn State on the topic, and the hours I have spent doing homework in the subject; I think it is really difficult to arrive at solid conclusions of reality based on the theory.

With that said I will attempt to respond to your latest post......



Both animals and quantum particles display an ability to acquire non-local information. Since animals and particles are composed of the same base "energy", it's seems perfectly reasonable to me to conclude that the same or a very similar feature of the universe is at work. After all, we are talking about the same phenomenon, the aquisition of non-local information.
I am not sure if I would compare the two as being the same kind of aquisition of non-local information. I think such a comparison needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. Like a grain the size of the earth.

If simple photons have this feature, it's built into the fabric of spacetime itself, then why should we assume that thinking animals do not share this same feature in with the same underlying mechanism?
Well you certainly could try to extend it out to such macro-objects, but I am not sure I would do so. The "non-local" information you are comparing (to the quantum level) is very different from the quantum level.

But then, since I view the universe as a whole rather than a bunch of eternally fragmented parts (a view supported by science of course), I don't necessarily see myself as being all that different from the base quantum particles which exibit this uncanny esp-like behaviour. My brain is *actually* composed of those particles after all.
Well, groups of particles behave very differently in many cases than an individual particle would.

We have no means of proving the same mechanism (quantum entanglement) is at work in the brain, but we have no solid reasons for completely discounting it either.
I am not trying to completely discount your view here. I think that in a way I actually agree with you, since I believe that God may use quantum uncertainties as the means for interacting with the physical world. But I rarely bring this idea up, because it is so very speculative.

Besides, does it not seem just a little coincidental to you that particles and animals can and do exibit the ability to aquire non-local information? If there are 2 completely distinct/unrelated mechanisms at work here, then I'd personally be more surprised than if it was NOT the same underlying mechanism manifesting them both.

Well its not really the same kind of non-local information, but I do see where you are going with this. Interesting comment, but completely speculative. The two phenomenon (spelling?) are so different, that they may be different on a fundamental level---which would then imply that they did have different mechanisms.




Russ

[Satori]

Today @ 12:08 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102576#post102576)
John Powell:
I find it inconsistent for Satori to invoke unseen powers while denying he's doing it.

"invoke unseen powers"? I'm sorry, did I mention that I boiled up some hair of dog and eye of newt or something?

I have no reason to deny that I'm invoking "unseen powers" because I am not doing any such thing.

You seem to think there's more to the police-psychic connection than I do.

Perhaps. I don't cling to the notion of it being absolutely real however, I merely see it as a possibility, a good possibilitiy considering how much praise has been afforded to certain psychics by police officers and such. But I am aware it could all be coincidence and/or wishful thinking. I don't close my mind to either alternative, but I do suspect there is perhaps something to it. That's all.

1. Some police are superstitious believers in ESP.

Yes, and that makes them more accepting of the idea. However, their "belief" doesn't necessarily ensure that the psychic does their police work effectively. There are some instances which, if true, are awfully coincidental. But for every supposed "real" police psychic there are probably 100 more who are full of it. We simply don't know, so it's a bit silly to cling too firmly to one point of view and negate all the rest (which is why faith obligations are such obstructions to rational though).

2. Others aren't believers, but want to be able to reply to residents who ask why the police don't use every tool available.

I'm sure this one is at work as well.

You seem to be an atheist who believes in the supernatural, Satori.

You are mistaken:

- As I explained to you already John, I don't "believe in" anything, I merely see some things as more fitting to the data that other things, and that's all. I realize and acknowledge the limitations of my own subjectivity and personal bias. (I DO make the assertion however that since I'm not obligated to hold to one point of view at the negation of all others then I am actually more rational and far less biased than religious folks for whom tightly grasping onto one viewpoint has become a lifelong commitment, an obligation, and a bit of an obsession).

- I am of the opinion that "supernatural" is merely a term that humans apply to things which they can't explain. At a time in the not so distant past people thought that common colds and flus were caused by demons or whatever, for them, bacterial and viral infections were "supernatural". Ditto for thunder storms and natural disasters, and even the rain for that matter. We have a long and ignorant history of attributing the "supernatural" concept to natural things, and we have a long history of being completely wrong when we do that. In my opinion, nothing is truly supernatural, everthing is perfectly natural and exists as a feature of this universe, even if we self-absorbed primates cannot explain it in Newtonian terms. There is much about this universe which we cannot explain with our Newtonian paradigms, and these things are coming to light as quantum physics continues to advance and show us that what lies beneath our macro world in the quantum realm is quite whacky/impossible. Everything we take for granted as "real" are simply conceptualizations/interpretations/approximations. Our interpretation of reality is inherently limited and skewed by our animals senses which are far more geared to ensure our biological survival than they are grasping what I call "ultimate reality".

So what? If it is true that you have a twin and it is true that you or your twin is in China and the other is in Africa and it is true that I'm in Africa and I see you, would I then have knowledge that your twin is in China?

I fail to see what this was intended to accomplish, and I fail to see how this applies to animal esp or quantum entanglement. My understand of it is that it doesn't apply in the least. Please elaborate.

The violation of natural law would be if you could get that information faster than the speed of light.

I'm sure that when you use the term "natural law", you are aware that this is just a humanistic and ego derived approximation and nothing more. It's not really a "law", just a noted consistent behaviour which may or may not always apply. You see, I'm very wary of conversation that clings to notions of absolutes, because I feel it is an expression of how closed our minds are and how seriously we take ourselves and our fleeting perceptions.

But anyway, quantum entanglement appears completely instantaneous, even if the entangled particles are meters, miles, or galaxies apart from one another (not that that last one has been tested, it has been extrapolated).

I don't believe particles are somehow psychic.

Quantum entanglement is a reality of this universe and is not even open for debate because it's been so conclusively shown so many times, regardless of whether or not you "believe" it.

You are far more mystical and religious than I had previously thought, Satori. This thread is producing some very unexpected results.

Religious? I define "religious" as adhering to (having faith in) some form of doctrine, and I don't even have "faith" in my own thoughts, so I don't feel that this term fits me in the slightest. I am however a mystic, with regard to the eastern definition of mysticism (one who feels absolutely connected to and one with the universe and everything in it).

Could you describe how these experiments violate the speed of light prohibition?

I suggest you simply read about quantum entanglement. The experiments are extremely simple and easy to understand, unlike some others.

The other experiment which I mentioned (how we can obtain information about the state of a particle without interacting with it), which is another demonstration of quantum "esp" (aquistion of non-local information) was the result of actually physically performing real the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiments. Basically, physicists were able to determine if the "cat" (particle) was dead or alive without opening the box. I read about that particular experiment in a scientific journal at a local library a few years ago, and it took me an entire day just to wrap my head around the concept (which was presented in simplified layman terms). I barely understood it, and I'm certainly not qualified to explain it, however, if you search for text on this experiment I'm sure you'll eventually find it.

It's important to note that this spooky quality of the quantum realm is just a feature of the universe and it's totally natural. Reality is simply bizarre to our primate frontal lobes.

Perhaps you believe in an impersonal God, Satori, and that God is the mystical universe.

As I said, I don't "believe in" anything, I merely have loosely held opinions. My opinion regarding this is simply that the universe exists and it's stranger and more varied than we can even conceive at this point.

Another peculiar feature of the universe comes to mind for me. Experiments have been done as follows:

A bunch of rats/mice/whatever are taught to run a maze. The mean time for the group to learn the maze is calculated. Then these animals are removed and completely new ones of the same species are brought in. The groups never meet, and neither sees the maze before the experiment begins. For some bizarre reason, the second group will learn the maze quicker, it's as if that knowledge has somehow been passed to the second group. I recall reading about this a few years ago. I don't know if it's actually "true" or not, but the evidence is pretty compelling. I recall also reading that the experiment was successfully repeated by different researches and the same results were achieved. It's almost as if the universe itself "learns" something and is better able to repeat it in subsequent attempts. I've read the same is also true of growing crystals in test tubes, if it's been done before it's easier for someone else to do it again, even if they are on the other side of the planet. Reality is weird, but I'd hardly call it "supernatural" just because it voilates what we humans arrogantly and egocentrically label "natural laws".

Always a pleasure John,

Satori

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 06:33 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=103611#post103611)
Satori:
- As I explained to you already John, I don't "believe in" anything, I merely see some things as more fitting to the data that other things, and that's all. I realize and acknowledge the limitations of my own subjectivity and personal bias. (I DO make the assertion however that since I'm not obligated to hold to one point of view at the negation of all others then I am actually more rational and far less biased than religious folks for whom tightly grasping onto one viewpoint has become a lifelong commitment, an obligation, and a bit of an obsession).

- I am of the opinion that "supernatural" is merely a term that humans apply to things which they can't explain.

To respond, I simply refer to dictionary definitions of terms Satori chooses to use to distinguish his viewpoint from the rest of ours:

opinion: A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof

belief: Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something

assertion: Something declared or stated positively, often with no support or attempt at proof

The interesting thing I notice here is that "belief" has the only definition that does not qualify the term as being without substantiation or proof. Belief is just fine the way it is, with or without proof. Of the three, I'll take that one.

Also, I'm afraid I must take exception, as I did in another thread, of Satori's general use of the term "religious folk" and his description of that group as people who "tightly grasp one viewpoint." My own tightly grasped viewpoint comes from my God's instruction that we are not to judge one another, for that is God's role. We are to love one another, forgive one another, and rest in the authority of the Almighty. Were it not for my love of Satori as a fellow human being, I would not take the time to expose him to alternative thoughts and views. I wonder if his motivation is as noble? That, however, is not a judgement :wink:!

Blessings,
JardinPrayer

[Morpheus]

to satori.

To me, faith is the ultimate smokescreen, imagine, expecting people to buy into an idea regardless of it's merit or degree of substantiation. I can't think of anything more unhealthy than that.

at least from my experience, that's not how christianity works. christians don't want you to have faith and buy into christianity "regardless of its merit or degree of substantiation," but because of its merit and degree of substantiation (from the christian perspective).

At best, we have only highly speculative circumstantial evidence and sketchy eye witness accounts to serve as a basis for the god theory.

of course, from the christian perspective, the basis for the god theory is much better substantiated than your portrayal. it doesn't make sense for you, the non-christian, to put forth your perspective on how strong the god theory is and try and apply it to undomiel's friend, who is presumably a christian and probably finds the god theory quite strong.

To the above passage I would say that skepticism begs objectivitiy and imparticiality (even though these things are rather impossible, but we try).

if it is objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," then objectivity is possible. if it is not objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," then it is possible that objectivity is possible; i.e., objectivity is possible. so either way, objectivity is possible, though this is to say nothing of what the metaphysical objective truth is or whether or not it has been obtained by mankind.

I sincerely question your friend's objectivity and impartiality, seeing as there is a MAJOR prior prejudice which obligates him/her into taking this stance on skepticism (in defence of "faith").

the christian faith does not obligate one to take such a stance against skepticism. though some christians certainly are overly prejudiced by their beliefs, many christians i know are christians simply because they think the christian worldview makes the most sense of the universe and what we find therein. there is nothing wrong with such a position, and i hardly think that the bias that comes with holding this position is so heavy that it makes it impossible for the christian to impartially judge other viewpoints.

That prejudice could be the desire for heaven, or the fear of damnation, or perhaps a bit of both.

of course, there are many, many people who are christians not because they just want the happiness of a heavenly future or because they want to avoid hell, but because they think the christian worldview makes the most sense of the universe.

Anyway, to me it seems a bit absurd for a person of faith to be denouncing some forms of skepticism by suggesting it is the result of a prior prejudice, seeing as it's his/her much grander (and far more drastic/consequential) faith-prejudice which is (at least in part) serving as the motivation for writing this in the first place.

then again, it could also be the case that this person wrote what he did because that's his unbiased opinion on skepticism.

It's not that I don't agree with what he/she is saying, it's just that I feel he/she is far more guilty of the charge (prior bias) that is being made than are any skeptical person I've ever met.

i'm interested to know how you gauge the prior bias of someone you've never met. could it have something to do with your prior bias in thinking that christians are always heavily biased?

However, skeptics on the whole are far less driven by their pre-existing obligations and prejudices since for them their alleged "immortal soul" isn't hanging in the balance.

it does not follow from the fact that christianity posits an immortal soul that christians are more prejudiced or biased than skeptics. i could just as easily state that because non-christians so ardently want to avoid the possibility that christianity is true and that they actually do have an immortal soul "hanging in the balance," they are more driven by their "pre-existing obligations and prejudices."

I also think that "faith" in something like christianity is the ultimate in self-indulgence because it's puts the ego at the forefront and gives it a degree of importance that I personally find incredibly egocentric.

but if someone finds that the christian worldview makes the most sense of the universe and what we find therein, then he would not be honest to himself if he did not adhere to the christian faith, regardless of what one may think regarding christianity's supposed egocentricity.

It's my contention that a person (of faith) who is obligated to adhere to a single viewpoint and negate all others (usually out of fear and desire with regard to their supposed "soul") is far less capable of employing healthy skepticism than your friend is likely to admit. I feel that faith greatly inhibits healthy skepticism where it is more needed in regard to those very beliefs the thinker is metaphysically obligated to adhere to.

while this may be true of some christians, it certainly is not true of all. i could just as easily say that the skeptic's fear that christianity is right and that he may actually be hellbound makes him far less capable of employing healthy skepticism toward his own skepticism. these statements/opinions can work both ways.

undomiel's friend:
"We think therefore we are."

satori:
Yes, an idea which has contributed greatly to the common fragmented world view by suggesting that people identify themselves as the little thought in their head (their ego) instead of their whole being and the environment/earth which they are so obviously a part of.

if that's what you think the main point of the cogito is, then i don't think you understand descartes. his point was not that one identifies himself as his thoughts to the exlusion of his body, but that, starting from a position of extreme doubt, one can only know himself as a "thinking thing." this is not to say that one does not have a body or that the material world does not exist, but just that we cannot definitively know of their existence because our senses may be deceptive. in fact, later in the meditations, descartes attempted to prove the existence of one's body and of the material world.

The supposed legitimacy of reality has not been adequately established, something which makes the questions AND the answers merely exercises in asserting one's ego-based conceptualizations on the rest of reality.

the second clause of this statement posits some view toward reality, namely that our questions and answers regarding reality are merely exercises in asserting one's ego-based conceptualizations on the rest of reality. if this view is legitimate, then some legitimacy of reality has been established; if it is illegitimate, then it is obviously not worth heeding.

The world is simply how we interpret it to be,

the world is what it is. the computer screen i'm staring at may not actually be what i perceive it to be, but it is whatever it is regardless of my perception of it. to say that "the world is simply how we interpret it to be" is to imply that our interpretations define and create the existents we interpret. i find this view repulsive due to its egocentricity - it relegates the rest of the universe to whatever we humans perceive it as (that last sentence is tongue-in-cheek, btw).

and there is no absolute objectivity available to any of us.

so is the absolute objectivity of the statement "there is no absolute objectivity available to any of us" available to you? if so, the statement is self-contradictory. if not, then the statement is subjectively true, and it is possible that absolute objectiviy is available to some humans.

Who is really lost? Someone who adheres himself to a single limited conception of reality (ie. religious doctrine), or someone who admits that he isn't even in a position to ask the question, much less understand the answer?

the person in the latter case is also adhering to a single conception of reality - that he isn't in a position to question or answer the state or reality. i don't see a more inherent open-mindedness in either case.

if someone says that he is not in a position to understand reality, he is making some statement regarding his understanding of reality - namely, that he can't understand reality. this is a self-refuting position.

Again, defining faith. Being bound and obligated to one conception of reality is (I feel) nothing to be so proud of. On the other hand, admitting that you simply don't know and keeping an open mind is something I am personally proud of.

if there was a person who found that the christian worldview makes the most sense of reality, what would you have them do? a person can be a christian and still keep an open mind. i'm a christian, and i don't have any problem admitting that i may be wrong, and that it is possible that no god exists and that i'm actually wildly delusional. but, from my perspective and that of many christians, christianity makes the most sense of the universe, and so, naturally, we believe in its veracity.

It would seem that your friend has a rather closed mind, which is what one might expect from someone who is determined to remain fixed upon a single conception of reality at the negation of all others (which is what faith, in fact, expects, demands, and threatens against in the even of non-compliance).

the christian faith simply does not do what you accuse it of doing.

It's so easy to fool ourselves, which is why trusting your own conceptualizations too much is such a pitfall. What's real, and what's not real? I have no idea. My eyes tell me the sky is blue, but that is purely a delusion of the senses, my skin tells me my tea is warm, but that is just an approximation that exists only in relation to my own body temperature. The sky isn't really blue, and my tea isn't actually "warm", but my mind tells me that that's the case. Given that our senses lie to us so blatantly, I would think your friend would be a little more skeptical with regard to his/her own ideas pertaining to reality.

but throughout all of this, you have your own conceptualization - that we should be skeptical toward our ideas pertaining to reality - in which you are putting quite a bit of trust. if you are to remain consistent in your thinking, you have to hold that your conceptualization of reality that says that human conceptualizations of reality should not be trusted to a great extent should itself not be trusted to a great extent - in which case, it remains quite possible that you are wrong and our conceptualizations of reality ARE quite trustworthy.

i think that covers your main points. regards.

edit: this post is pretty much off topic, so i hope it doesn't detract from the main thrust of the thread, which is quite interesting. it is just the case that sometimes, when discussing one issue, tangential issues come into play.

[dawnghost]

Today @ 01:28 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=103696#post103696)
Morpheus:
the world is what it is. the computer screen i'm staring at may not actually be what i perceive it to be, but it is whatever it is regardless of my perception of it. to say that "the world is simply how we interpret it to be" is to imply that our interpretations define and create the existents we interpret.

THANKS! THANKS!

I am gonna print that statement, then put it in a frame and hang it on my bedroom wall!

:cheers:

[John Powell]

STEADELE:
The two phenomenon (spelling?)


POWELL:
The two phenomena.

John Powell

[John Powell]

POWELL:
Nice comments, Russ, to my proposed naturalistic explanations to your two miracle stories.

STEADELE:
I would say the reason healings are rare is largely because of Christians. I include myself in that statement John. We are the reason. It is our fault. And for that I am truly sorry. ”

DAWNGHOST:
you and me too.
I agree with you 100%.


POWELL:
That sounds too negative to me. Why were those Biblical people so special that they or their neighbors experienced so many amazing miracles, but the miracles modern Christians experience (if any) are at a significantly lesser level?

If your father paid for college and paid for the first car of your elder brothers and sisters, but then did much less for you and your younger siblings, would you be justified in thinking he loved you less than he loved them (this is assuming your father did not lose his job).

John Powell

[John Powell]

POWELL:
There was a question you asked me, so I should respond.

POWELL:
The "God did it" explanation may appear to be useful here, but the necessity with which the explanation changes based on later events suggests it's not so useful after all.

STEADELE:
How so? The dog was quite a distance from us and only lay down and got up when I said those two phrases. I remember it quite well. It was an event which was beyond "a bit weird".


POWELL:
What I meant was that the "God did it" explanation for the experience with the dog could dramatically change merely by what your friend did later on. In other words, the explanation for why God obeyed your voice would likely change depending upon whether your friend became a believer or not.

Trying to figure out the mind of God is speculative, as you say, but it's something that is frequently done. Perhaps Mormons are encouraged to play that game more than other Christians because they believe that one day they can be Gods themselves.

I think most believers think things like "Would God be happier with me if I were to do X or Y?"

Your description of the event makes it less likely that the dog was listening to you than I previously thought.

John Powell

[John Powell]

SATORI:
Yes, it's impossible for people to share exact thoughts across distances, esp/intuition is a piece of fiction, and all those occurances of mutiple people having the same dreams (as was the case preceeding 911) are all fictional as well.


POWELL:
How many dreams are we talking about, Satori?

Given the population size, it should not be surprising that some people had prior dreams of things that appear to be similar to the events of 9/11. Given the state of communication, it's not surprising that those people could have made their dreams known. Now, the more important question than whether there were some:

Were those dreams in the month before 9/11 significantly greater in number or quality than such that were dreamed in the months before that or the years before that?

Furthermore, one must be aware of the likelihood of many attention-grabbers who really didn't have the dreams they claimed they had.

SATORI:
I could continue dissecting this post, but I feel I've sufficiently made my point. I hope that you will pass this along to your friend, and I hope that he/she rebuttals it, and while doing so, leaves the rhetoric inclinations behind in favour of something much more desirable: clarity.


POWELL:
I know you don't like grammar corrections, Satori, but maybe this one will be well-received: ". . . he/she rebuts it . . ."

John Powell

[John Powell]

JARDINPRAYER:
Faith is the activator. It is not tangible and it cannot be reasoned in the intellectual, academic, or doubting world.


POWELL:
In other words, are you saying that faith is unreasonable, irrational, and illogical? Then, without using reason or logic, Jardinprayer, what good REASON can you give me for having faith? If you can't give even yourself a good REASON for having faith then why do you have it?

You appear to be a woman, Jardinprayer, who knows that her feelings are justified, worthwhile, true, but sometimes has troubles giving logical reasons, say that a man might understand, why this is the case.

JARDINPRAYER:
In fact, faith and doubt are diametrically opposed...they cannot co-exist. One cannot be 80% faithful and 20% doubting.


POWELL:
Are you saying that people who have faith all have exactly the same amount of faith and those who have doubt all have exactly the same amount of doubt, that there is nothing in between extreme faith and extreme doubt?

JARDINPRAYER:
I was an unbeliever for nearly 40 years. The arguements of athiests are familiar to me...indeed I spent more of my natural life making them than having faith. Once God reveals Himself to you, though, you learn to suspend a lot of the arrogant, stubborn, limited thought processes you've protected yourself with and embrace something much bigger, much more awesome, and MUCH more comforting.


POWELL:
Any adult who can't spell "atheist" probably wasn't an atheist well-versed in the views of educated atheists. Any adult who can't spell "argument" probably was not well-versed in the arguments of educated atheists.

To you, Jardinprayer, what is an atheist? What's your definition?

The philosophies typically supported by atheists are not very comforting to many religious people, Jardinprayer, but atheism itself has the virtue of being true (IMO).

Would you rather be very happy believing an awesome, comforting lie, Jardinprayer, or less happy believing a mundane, harsh truth?

Is "wishful" thinking a valid basis for belief? For example, since having people lie to me would make me very unhappy, should I refuse to believe that is happening even if there's good evidence for it?

John Powell

[John Powell]

POWELL:
I find it inconsistent for Satori to invoke unseen powers while denying he's doing it.

SATORI:
"invoke unseen powers"? I'm sorry, did I mention that I boiled up some hair of dog and eye of newt or something?

I have no reason to deny that I'm invoking "unseen powers" because I am not doing any such thing.


POWELL:
I'm speaking of "unseen powers" like ESP.

POWELL:
You seem to think there's more to the police-psychic connection than I do.

SATORI:
Perhaps. I don't cling to the notion of it being absolutely real however, I merely see it as a possibility, a good possibilitiy considering how much praise has been afforded to certain psychics by police officers and such.


POWELL:
I see it as a possibility that is so unlikely that it's more wise to deny it than support it. Santa Claus is a possibility too, but I think we agree that the wise person will deny that the magical fellow, and his flying reindeer, and magical elves live at the north pole.

SATORI:
But I am aware it could all be coincidence and/or wishful thinking. I don't close my mind to either alternative, but I do suspect there is perhaps something to it. That's all.


POWELL:
I concede that ESP is possible. I concede that Santa Claus might exist. I concede that an OmniGod might exist. Ok? Nevertheless, I think the possibilities of these being true are too small to justify supporting them.

POWELL:
1. Some police are superstitious believers in ESP.

SATORI:
Yes, and that makes them more accepting of the idea. However, their "belief" doesn't necessarily ensure that the psychic does their police work effectively. There are some instances which, if true, are awfully coincidental. But for every supposed "real" police psychic there are probably 100 more who are full of it. We simply don't know, so it's a bit silly to cling too firmly to one point of view and negate all the rest (which is why faith obligations are such obstructions to rational though).


POWELL:
Is the success rate of psychics sufficiently high to justify hiring them to do their thing for the police?

POWELL:
2. Others aren't believers, but want to be able to reply to residents who ask why the police don't use every tool available.

SATORI:
I'm sure this one is at work as well.

POWELL:
You seem to be an atheist who believes in the supernatural, Satori.

SATORI:
You are mistaken:


POWELL:
Good point. I should rephrase that. If I replace "supernatural" with "mystical" would you accept it?

SATORI:
- As I explained to you already John, I don't "believe in" anything, I merely see some things as more fitting to the data that other things, and that's all.


POWELL:
Didn't I already inform you that your understanding of the meaning of "belief" is mistaken?

Depending on what you mean by "believe in":

I'm surprised that you claim that you don't believe in your own existence or in the existence of the universe. I'm surprised that you have absolutely no trust in anyone or anything. I'm surprised that there is no philosophy, even your own, that you fully support.

SATORI:
I realize and acknowledge the limitations of my own subjectivity and personal bias. (I DO make the assertion however that since I'm not obligated to hold to one point of view at the negation of all others then I am actually more rational and far less biased than religious folks for whom tightly grasping onto one viewpoint has become a lifelong commitment, an obligation, and a bit of an obsession).

- I am of the opinion that "supernatural" is merely a term that humans apply to things which they can't explain. At a time in the not so distant past people thought that common colds and flus were caused by demons or whatever, for them, bacterial and viral infections were "supernatural". Ditto for thunder storms and natural disasters, and even the rain for that matter. We have a long and ignorant history of attributing the "supernatural" concept to natural things, and we have a long history of being completely wrong when we do that. In my opinion, nothing is truly supernatural, everthing is perfectly natural and exists as a feature of this universe, even if we self-absorbed primates cannot explain it in Newtonian terms.


POWELL:
Is supernatural a thing? Is supernatural natural?

Perhaps you mean something like everything that physically exists in our universe is natural.

SATORI:
There is much about this universe which we cannot explain with our Newtonian paradigms, and these things are coming to light as quantum physics continues to advance and show us that what lies beneath our macro world in the quantum realm is quite whacky/impossible. Everything we take for granted as "real" are simply conceptualizations/interpretations/approximations. Our interpretation of reality is inherently limited and skewed by our animals senses which are far more geared to ensure our biological survival than they are grasping what I call "ultimate reality".

POWELL (to quantum entanglement):
So what? If it is true that you have a twin and it is true that you or your twin is in China and the other is in Africa and it is true that I'm in Africa and I see you, would I then have knowledge that your twin is in China?

SATORI:
I fail to see what this was intended to accomplish, and I fail to see how this applies to animal esp or quantum entanglement. My understand of it is that it doesn't apply in the least. Please elaborate.


POWELL:
It would help if you would indicate which experiment(s) you are referring to.

POWELL:
The violation of natural law would be if you could get that information faster than the speed of light.

SATORI:
I'm sure that when you use the term "natural law", you are aware that this is just a humanistic and ego derived approximation and nothing more. It's not really a "law", just a noted consistent behaviour which may or may not always apply. You see, I'm very wary of conversation that clings to notions of absolutes, because I feel it is an expression of how closed our minds are and how seriously we take ourselves and our fleeting perceptions.


POWELL:
Is it correct to say "never say never"?

Are so-called absolutes ALWAYS less than being absolute?

SATORI:
But anyway, quantum entanglement appears completely instantaneous, even if the entangled particles are meters, miles, or galaxies apart from one another (not that that last one has been tested, it has been extrapolated).

POWELL:
I don't believe particles are somehow psychic.

SATORI:
Quantum entanglement is a reality of this universe and is not even open for debate because it's been so conclusively shown so many times, regardless of whether or not you "believe" it.


POWELL:
My opinion of what is true or real is a reality of the universe and is not even open for debate because it's been so conclusively shown so many times, regardless of whether or not you "believe" it.

If you're justified in arguing by assertion then so am I.

POWELL:
You are far more mystical and religious than I had previously thought, Satori. This thread is producing some very unexpected results.

SATORI:
Religious? I define "religious" as adhering to (having faith in) some form of doctrine, and I don't even have "faith" in my own thoughts, so I don't feel that this term fits me in the slightest. I am however a mystic, with regard to the eastern definition of mysticism (one who feels absolutely connected to and one with the universe and everything in it).


POWELL:
Ok, for now I retract "religious."

POWELL:
Could you describe how these experiments violate the speed of light prohibition?

SATORI:
I suggest you simply read about quantum entanglement. The experiments are extremely simple and easy to understand, unlike some others.

The other experiment which I mentioned (how we can obtain information about the state of a particle without interacting with it), which is another demonstration of quantum "esp" (aquistion of non-local information) was the result of actually physically performing real the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiments. Basically, physicists were able to determine if the "cat" (particle) was dead or alive without opening the box. I read about that particular experiment in a scientific journal at a local library a few years ago, and it took me an entire day just to wrap my head around the concept (which was presented in simplified layman terms). I barely understood it, and I'm certainly not qualified to explain it, however, if you search for text on this experiment I'm sure you'll eventually find it.

It's important to note that this spooky quality of the quantum realm is just a feature of the universe and it's totally natural. Reality is simply bizarre to our primate frontal lobes.


POWELL:
Why should people believe you about this if you can't supply a reference?

POWELL:
Perhaps you believe in an impersonal God, Satori, and that God is the mystical universe.

SATORI:
As I said, I don't "believe in" anything, I merely have loosely held opinions. My opinion regarding this is simply that the universe exists and it's stranger and more varied than we can even conceive at this point.


POWELL:
That means you believe that the universe exists and that it's stranger and more varied than we can even conceive at this point.

SATORI:
Another peculiar feature of the universe comes to mind for me. Experiments have been done as follows:

A bunch of rats/mice/whatever are taught to run a maze. The mean time for the group to learn the maze is calculated. Then these animals are removed and completely new ones of the same species are brought in. The groups never meet, and neither sees the maze before the experiment begins. For some bizarre reason, the second group will learn the maze quicker, it's as if that knowledge has somehow been passed to the second group. I recall reading about this a few years ago. I don't know if it's actually "true" or not, but the evidence is pretty compelling.

POWELL:
You are surprisingly gullible, Satori, for someone who criticizes the gullibility of theists.

SATORI:
I recall also reading that the experiment was successfully repeated by different researches and the same results were achieved. It's almost as if the universe itself "learns" something and is better able to repeat it in subsequent attempts. I've read the same is also true of growing crystals in test tubes, if it's been done before it's easier for someone else to do it again, even if they are on the other side of the planet. Reality is weird, but I'd hardly call it "supernatural" just because it voilates what we humans arrogantly and egocentrically label "natural laws".


POWELL:
I think you are accepting too many "weird" results as true largely because in your philosophy, the universe is very weird.

SATORI:
Always a pleasure John,

Satori


POWELL:
Sometimes likewise (I rarely exaggerate).

John Powell.

[John Powell]

JARDINPRAYER:
To respond, I simply refer to dictionary definitions of terms Satori chooses to use to distinguish his viewpoint from the rest of ours:


POWELL:
Trying to improve definitions is a hobby of mine.

JARDINPRAYER:
opinion: A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof


POWELL:
This is what one means when they say or imply "mere opinion."

However, the word "opinion" is essentially synonymous with "view," "belief," "position," "attitude," etc. when used in the context of ideas.

One might think of opinion as being less certain than knowledge, for example "That's my opinion, but I don't know it for certain." However, that's not necessarily the case. If you know that you exist then it is also true that it is your opinion that you exist. Your opinion is merely what you think, what you believe whether you know it to be true or not.

JARDINPRAYER:
belief: Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something

assertion: Something declared or stated positively, often with no support or attempt at proof


POWELL:
The "often" is useful, but it's not essential. There are supported and unsupported assertions.

John Powell

[John Powell]

SATORI:
To the above passage I would say that skepticism begs objectivitiy and imparticiality (even though these things are rather impossible, but we try).

MORPHEUS:
if it is objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," then objectivity is possible. if it is not objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," then it is possible that objectivity is possible; i.e., objectivity is possible. so either way, objectivity is possible, though this is to say nothing of what the metaphysical objective truth is or whether or not it has been obtained by mankind.


POWELL:
That doesn't seem to follow, Morpheus.

It cannot be objectively true that "nothing can be objectively true" or there would be a contradiction. If such a thing were objectively true then it could not be objectively true.

That would be like asserting that it's possible to do the impossible. That's impossible, right?

SATORI:
It's so easy to fool ourselves, which is why trusting your own conceptualizations too much is such a pitfall. What's real, and what's not real? I have no idea. My eyes tell me the sky is blue, but that is purely a delusion of the senses, my skin tells me my tea is warm, but that is just an approximation that exists only in relation to my own body temperature. The sky isn't really blue, and my tea isn't actually "warm", but my mind tells me that that's the case. Given that our senses lie to us so blatantly, I would think your friend would be a little more skeptical with regard to his/her own ideas pertaining to reality. ”

MORPHEUS:
but throughout all of this, you have your own conceptualization - that we should be skeptical toward our ideas pertaining to reality - in which you are putting quite a bit of trust. if you are to remain consistent in your thinking, you have to hold that your conceptualization of reality that says that human conceptualizations of reality should not be trusted to a great extent should itself not be trusted to a great extent - in which case, it remains quite possible that you are wrong and our conceptualizations of reality ARE quite trustworthy.


POWELL:
Yes it's possible, but maybe not "quite" possible.

It might seem that it's "quite" possible because it's difficult to attach reliable, objective numerical values to these kinds of things. If you could then it would no longer be philosophy, but it would be science.

Suppose Satori were saying "all statements of truth have 'error bars' associated with them. They aren't absolutely true. Therefore, we can't justify absolute trust in them."

Then you would be justified in saying "Since there are errors in your statement, therefore I can't justify absolute trust in what you're saying either."

However, you would not be justified in claiming the error bars were so large that they justified believing the opposing view.

For example, the proposition "Santa Claus exists" might be true. Maybe there's a massive conspiracy among adults claiming otherwise, but he really does live at the north pole with flying reindeer and an army of magical elves. However, is the possibility of this large enough to justify the belief that Santa Claus exists? I don't think so. What do you think?

Perhaps all I'm saying is "possible" is not necessarily "probable."

I liked pretty much everything else you criticized Satori about (although I read it quickly so I might reverse myself on this).

Welcome to TWEB!

John Powell
A former believer in Mormonism,
Now an athe-ist or strong atheist.

[Warcraft3]

Your description of the event makes it less likely that the dog was listening to you than I previously thought.

John Powell

I am not sure what your reasons are for thinking it less likely. If the dog was very close to me, one could claim that the dog was simply responding to my voice and sitting down (not very likely, but possible). One could then claim that the dog got up and ran because it was startled by me the second time (also unlikely, but possible). The fact that the dog was far away decreases the chances that the dog was responding to my commands in a natural way. I do believe the dog was obeying the commands I gave it, but it was obeying in a supernatural way.

There was intelligent intervention from some third party (in my opinion) which caused the dog to sit and stand at exactly the moment I gave the command.

If you walk up to a dog and point at it and tell it to "stop" or "sit", you have a much better chance of obtaining the desired result than if you did so from a distance. Most dogs do not sit much when they are roaming outside, much less lay down in the middle of the road. They would rather be chasing rabbits or something.

So I think the fact that I was far away makes the event highly improbable as a mere chane occurance. And, of course, in this example we would need not one, but two unlikely events to occur with perfect timing.



Russ

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 04:00 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=103976#post103976)
John Powell:



POWELL:
In other words, are you saying that faith is unreasonable, irrational, and illogical? Then, without using reason or logic, Jardinprayer, what good REASON can you give me for having faith? If you can't give even yourself a good REASON for having faith then why do you have it?

You appear to be a woman, Jardinprayer, who knows that her feelings are justified, worthwhile, true, but sometimes has troubles giving logical reasons, say that a man might understand, why this is the case.
Are you saying that people who have faith all have exactly the same amount of faith and those who have doubt all have exactly the same amount of doubt, that there is nothing in between extreme faith and extreme doubt?


Any adult who can't spell "atheist" probably wasn't an atheist well-versed in the views of educated atheists. Any adult who can't spell "argument" probably was not well-versed in the arguments of educated atheists.

To you, Jardinprayer, what is an atheist? What's your definition?

The philosophies typically supported by atheists are not very comforting to many religious people, Jardinprayer, but atheism itself has the virtue of being true (IMO).

Would you rather be very happy believing an awesome, comforting lie, Jardinprayer, or less happy believing a mundane, harsh truth?

Is "wishful" thinking a valid basis for belief? For example, since having people lie to me would make me very unhappy, should I refuse to believe that is happening even if there's good evidence for it?

John Powell


I am a woman, I am an adult, and I am guilty of occasional mispellings. I also believe no one ever gets to a place of better understanding when they're attacking the person who is sharing their thoughts. Even when I am in deepest disagreement with Satori in this thread, I do not insult, attack, or belittle. Judgement is not for us, but for God.

I lovingly suggest that you simply go back and read my post again without your anger and defenses and you may see what I was saying. I will offer this in assistance, however: much like you cannot say someone is "a little bit pregnant," so it is with faith. You either have it or your do not. There are moments when I have doubt. In those moments, I do not have faith. There are moments when I am in my car. In those moments, I am not in my house. I would not presume to compare my faith with anyone else's, nor my doubt. I am simply saying they are opposite and that the presence of doubt is the only obstacle to receiving the miracles and blessings already promised to us by the finished work of the cross.

I joined this form to exchange ideas, perhaps learn a thing or two, perhaps teach a thing or two. I'm not one to sling mud. I don't get off on watching others deflate because of the pins I've stuck in them. Jesus says we are to spread the good news and love one another. That is my only agenda. You will be in my prayers today.

JardinPrayer

[Morpheus]

to john powell.

MORPHEUS:
if it is objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," then objectivity is possible. if it is not objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," then it is possible that objectivity is possible; i.e., objectivity is possible. so either way, objectivity is possible, though this is to say nothing of what the metaphysical objective truth is or whether or not it has been obtained by mankind.

POWELL:
That doesn't seem to follow, Morpheus.

It cannot be objectively true that "nothing can be objectively true" or there would be a contradiction. If such a thing were objectively true then it could not be objectively true.

That would be like asserting that it's possible to do the impossible. That's impossible, right?

you are right. i think my response should have been something like:

it cannot be objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," because that is a contradiction. so that statement at best has subjective truth, in which case the possibility remains that it is wrong, and that objectivity is possible. though this is to say nothing of what the metaphysical objective truth is or whether or not it has been obtained by mankind.

POWELL:
Yes it's possible, but maybe not "quite" possible.

It might seem that it's "quite" possible because it's difficult to attach reliable, objective numerical values to these kinds of things. If you could then it would no longer be philosophy, but it would be science.

Suppose Satori were saying "all statements of truth have 'error bars' associated with them. They aren't absolutely true. Therefore, we can't justify absolute trust in them."

Then you would be justified in saying "Since there are errors in your statement, therefore I can't justify absolute trust in what you're saying either."

However, you would not be justified in claiming the error bars were so large that they justified believing the opposing view.

For example, the proposition "Santa Claus exists" might be true. Maybe there's a massive conspiracy among adults claiming otherwise, but he really does live at the north pole with flying reindeer and an army of magical elves. However, is the possibility of this large enough to justify the belief that Santa Claus exists? I don't think so. What do you think?

Perhaps all I'm saying is "possible" is not necessarily "probable."

i did not mean to infer "probable" with the phrase "quite possible." i just inserted the word "quite" to emphasize that there was, indeed, that possibility. but you could read my statement without the "quite" and my intended meaning would not change.

i certainly agree that, given the philosophical assumptions that are senses are generally reliable and that our cognitive faculties are not completely erroneous, statements such as "santa claus exists," though impossible to disprove, cannot justifiably be held as true. if there is no evidence, the default position is no belief. i'm sure this is how you feel also about the existence of god; i, on the other hand, find the evidence for his existence sufficient to warrant belief. (but that's another thread.)

liked pretty much everything else you criticized Satori about (although I read it quickly so I might reverse myself on this).

Welcome to TWEB!

John Powell
A former believer in Mormonism,
Now an athe-ist or strong atheist.

thanks john!

[Warcraft3]

Okay anyone else have any miracles we can discuss?


Russ

[dawnghost]

Today @ 03:28 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=107697#post107697)
steadele:
Okay anyone else have any miracles we can discuss?


Russ

I still do, but I must talk to my father about it for some details, for example, the scriptures that the beggar and her friend told him to read, and that would predict the miracle.

I haven't been much with him during this weekend... :(

[AtheistArchon]

- I've heard hundreds, if not thousands, of testimonials about miracles. Most of them have been Catholic in nature (weeping statues, bleeding hands, lots of body fluids for Catholics), but certainly there have been countless others.

- My favorite story comes from a guy on the forums (I don't know if he's around or not... he used to visit my home forum) named Tornadotron. His personal miracle claim was that he and his family (his mother, I think) were dead broke... no job, no income, and about to lose their house. They had been slowly approaching this bitter outcome for several weeks, and now it seemed certain they were going to be evicted and homeless. Just then, a check came in the mail from a church downtown with the exact amount needed to make the next mortgage payment! A miracle! Torn claimed that they'd told nobody at the church about their problem, so it must have been a miracle straight from god.

- Of course, the check wasn't signed by god. =) I imagine god doesn't need to use banks, either. And I pointed out to him that even though they didn't tell that church that they needed money, certainly one of their friends or family may have done so. Indeed, since the amount was exactly what they needed, someone at the church itself must have been informed as to their situation... namely the signer of the check. It wasn't god, it was a person. Perhaps that person had some kind of divine knowledge? If so, they ought to be a millionaire. =)

- Bottom line is that everyone has the stereotypical unexplainable story that they might attribute to being a miracle. Usually it's a story told to them by someone else, and retold again (because it's so cool!), and so on. Personal testimony. Every religion that contradicts Christianity has these too. In order to sort them out fairly, I'd need to see them demonstrated.

- Yeah, I'm a skeptic.

[Warcraft3]

- Yeah, I'm a skeptic.

As am I. But I have heard several "miracles" which truly defy any natural explanation. I posted two of these on page 3 of this thread. I have had many, many people try to explain these two miracles (or reproduce them to show a mere coincedence) and I have not seen a good natural explanation yet. So while many claimed "miracles" are simply silly, every now and then you bump into one which is not so easy to ignore or explain.



Russ

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 03:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=108220#post108220)
AtheistArchon:

- Yeah, I'm a skeptic.

I was a skeptic for most of my life. Making the transition from doubt to faith is, in itself, a miracle. The bible tells us that faith is "a gift from God," which makes a pretty good definition of miracle for me. Jesus tells us:

Mt 17:20 ... for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.'

As long as you are not part of the remnant that have "ears to hear," miracles are not available to you. Granted, some things that individuals consider personal miracles are, indeed, explainable in logical terms. But, a stranger in a church the man you refer to did not attend was moved to send money. I'd call that a miracle. I'd call that a gift from God as well as from that person. Would you do that for a complete stranger?

JardinPrayer

[AtheistArchon]

As long as you are not part of the remnant that have "ears to hear," miracles are not available to you.

- Sorry, but that just seems too convenient. Why should I have to believe in order to be shown a miracle? It's kind of like Catholics are the only people who see the Virgin Mary in windowpanes.

But, a stranger in a church the man you refer to did not attend was moved to send money. I'd call that a miracle. I'd call that a gift from God as well as from that person. Would you do that for a complete stranger?

- I'd call it human kindness, nothing else. I see no divine working in the charity of human beings.

- Would I do the same? I honestly don't know. I give to charities, but I would have to prioritize my goals. Can I feed myself and my own family first? If so, then perhaps I can think about feeding someone else's.

[JardinPrayer]

Yesterday @ 11:36 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=108605#post108605)
AtheistArchon:

- Sorry, but that just seems too convenient. Why should I have to believe in order to be shown a miracle? It's kind of like Catholics are the only people who see the Virgin Mary in windowpanes.

Miracles are not "shown" to you...they happen constantly and are available to work in your life when you open your heart to them. It's not convenience...it's scriptural (as I quoted in my last post). If you don't believe, you won't see. Some skeptics I know see and STILL won't believe. It has to do with your heart.

From the Hebrew Lexicon (old testament):

wonder, sign, miracle, portent
wonder (as a special display of God's power)
sign, token (of future event)

In the new testament, the word "miracle" is not used in many translations, but there are 2 words in the Greek Lexicon for "miracle." The first is translated often as "power" or "mighty work," and is defined:

1. strength power, ability
(a)inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth
(b)power for performing miracles
(c)moral power and excellence of soul
(d)the power and influence which belong to riches and wealth
(e)power and resources arising from numbers
(f)power consisting in or resting upon armies, forces, hosts

and the second is often translated as "sign" and is defined"

1. a sign, mark, token
(a)that by which a person or a thing is distinguished from others and is known
(b)a sign, prodigy, portent, i.e. an unusual occurrence, transcending the common course of nature
(1)of signs portending remarkable events soon to happen
(2)of miracles and wonders by which God authenticates the men sent by him, or by which men prove that the cause they are pleading is God's.


AtheistArchon:Can I feed myself and my own family first? If so, then perhaps I can think about feeding someone else's.

If you reached out and fed someone else's sacrificially, that would make a miracle, for that would be a sign that distinguishes you from all others. Another scriptural reference:

Mark 12:41 Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. 42 Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, F64 which make a quadrans. 43 So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; 44 for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."

I wish you peace and revelation, my brother.

JardinPrayer

[AtheistArchon]

Miracles are not "shown" to you...they happen constantly and are available to work in your life when you open your heart to them. It's not convenience...it's scriptural (as I quoted in my last post). If you don't believe, you won't see.

- Still too convenient. Aborigineal tribes see goddesses in the cliffs while you and I do not... and guess what, their religious beliefs dictate that goddesses live in the cliffs.

- I have a hard time accepting that belief gives you some sixth psychic sense that suddenly enables you to see the miracles going on around you every day. As a believer, I didn't see these things. Why can't you describe them to me? My guess is because they would sound like everyday, ordinary things.

If you reached out and fed someone else's sacrificially, that would make a miracle, for that would be a sign that distinguishes you from all others.

- No, it would be a humanistic act, and a kind one at that, but it would not be supernatural in nature.

I wish you peace and revelation, my brother.

- The same to you. =)

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 02:36 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=109154#post109154)
AtheistArchon:

- I have a hard time accepting that belief gives you some sixth psychic sense that suddenly enables you to see the miracles going on around you every day. As a believer, I didn't see these things. Why can't you describe them to me? My guess is because they would sound like everyday, ordinary things.

and

- No, it would be a humanistic act, and a kind one at that, but it would not be supernatural in nature.


I was really making my best attempt to illustrate the definitions of "miracle" I cited above, in particular:


inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth
moral power and excellence of soul
that by which a person or a thing is distinguished from others and is known

I'm suggesting that one does not acquire an additional sense to percieve miracles...they just learn to see miracles in what they can already perceive. If you didn't see the miraculous qualities in people, places, or events as a "believer," then I wonder what it is you actually believed in? That's not a jab. It's an honest query. I wouldn't find a God who did not thrill my senses with the very wonder of His creations worth worshiping.

To your other point, I'm saying that qualities like generosity, human kindness, trustworthiness, honor do not have to be supernatural in order to qualify as miraculous, according to the definitions I found. In fact, I did not expect to find that little jewel of revelation when I reached out to the lexicon...but, I'm overjoyed that I did! :joy:

Whatever it is that made you an unbeliever breaks my heart. If anything you've read in these boards, by me or anyone else, even sparks a glimmer of desire in your soul...I am thankful on your behalf and I pray it will be nurtured. I'm a pretty grounded, fairly intelligent adult...not a space case with dreamy notions of utopia. I was an unbeliever for nearly 40 years before my own miraculous revelation. I wish it had been that way for you rather than the other way around. It still can. :pray:

Blessings and peace to you.

[dawnghost]

alright, here goes my personal stories.


Nocturnal Terror

I had this strange dream once. when it happened, I was about 15 or 16 years old. in the dream, I woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn't move. I was like stone in my bed, facing up. then, I started to float, and as I floated, the lights in my bedroom went off and on all the time. I tried to scream but I couldn't, and I looked down to see my brother (who still sleeps in the same room as I) and he was sleeping peacefully. I stayed up there, floating, for a brief time, like 10 seconds, and then came down again slowly. when I touched the bed again, I woke up. everything was normal, but I had this immense fear inside of me. I went to my parents' bedroom and slept there.

when this dream happened, I was interested in stuff like UFOs and extraterrestrial life. I had a friend at school who'd buy those magazines and well, I just found them interesting and I'd say to myself "the universe is big, why not?". ok.

after the dream, I started to develop an incredible fear of the dark. in some time, I couldn't sleep alone anymore, and I was always plagued by visions of extraterrestrials (the grey, thin ones with large heads) and UFOs, and it was like if I had to protect my family from something horrible at night. I would only be able to sleep when sun went up, and when night was coming I could feel the fear taking me over completely.

sometimes, I'd just go days without getting any sleep, and I'd faint from fatigue. my parents tried everything to help me, they paid expensive (much more expensive than they could afford) shrinks for me, but it was no use. they prayed and prayed, but the fear only grew stronger.

I had to deal with this fear for a period of like... a year and a half, maybe more. and I was always scared of the visions of extraterrestrials and UFOs, as if they were coming to abduct me. there was a time even that the fear got so strong that I could only sleep if my dad or my mom was holding my arm.

then, when no one could know what to do, I decided to visit the church. my parents were christians, but even though sometimes I attended to the church, I was never a christian. I went there and I made a commitment to God, that if He'd save me from my fear, I'd trust Him and become a christian. I really meant it, like He was my last hope and I was really desperate. this happened in a Sunday.

on the friday, I was able to leave my bedroom at the middle of the night, go grab a glass of water, come back and sleep peacefully. from there on, the song "Fear of the Dark", by Iron Maiden, became one of my favorite heavy metal songs, to remind me of what I was like before God reached me.



Leap of Faith

this one happened 2 years ago. I was 21 years old, studying at UERJ, which stands for Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro State University).

now let me explain what UERJ is. UERJ is a public university, with a good quality level. every year, there's an exam called Vestibular, where students from all over the state try to earn the chance to study there. it's a very fierce battle, some people try to pass the Vestibular for 3 or 4 years straight, never to succeed, and give up.

my parents' dream was that I passed the Vestibular, so I'd study in a good and FREE (oh yeah I forgot to tell you this) university. well, I studied real hard and passed the Vestibular, for the course of Computer Science at UERJ.

as time passed, I started to realize I hated Computer Science. I hated programming and I didn't really care about the structure of a computer as well. after 2 years there, I was so frustrated that I couldn't even study for the exams. it was a disaster.

then, I realized that my passion was actually Marketing/Advertisement. I don't know how I came to realize that so late in my life, but I was always so thrilled by the commercials on TV and in the magazines, and I loved reading about market strategies as well...

so, well, there was this institution called ESPM (Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing) which means "Superior School for Advertisement and Marketing", and they were the best in Latin America in the teaching of marketing. but there was a problem: you had to pay a lot of money to study there. the monthly fee was absurd.

even so, I decided I'd study at ESPM. I'd leave UERJ behind and just take the exam to study at ESPM. my parents, obviously, became desperate. "how are we ever gonna afford that? it's impossible!" but I just though to myself "something will happen, God will help us".

I left UERJ and took the exam to ESPM. my parents having a heart attack a day. as I waited for the results, I started looking for a job, so I'd be able to pay the fee.

but there was one problem: I was no longer in a university. I had left UERJ to take the ESPM exam. no company would hire me. my mother at this point was so upset at me that we fought nearly every day.

then something interesting happened. my father was returning to work from his lunch, and he saw a beggar. the beggar lifted a coin up high, and tried to block the sun with it. as he did it, he said to my father "spare a coin, spare some change for me please, so I'll have something to eat!".

my father gave him some change and said "you should look for a church, they can help you there". then the beggar said "oh, I've been a christian once. are you a christian?" my father said "yes, why did you leave the church?" and the beggar said "oh, some things just happen... but God wants me to say something to you. God says it's important! when you get home, you'll grab your Bible and read Joshua 1:9. that's what God is telling me to tell you, don't forget to read it."

my father got home and read it. the verse is the following:

Joshua 1:9
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

ok. finally the result of the exam came. I scored the highest marks! #1! my mom and I rushed to see the manager of ESPM, so see about a scholarship program. unfortunately, there was no scholarship program at ESPM. we insisted, and told him it was important and asked and asked, but he'd just say he was sorry, that ESPM didn't have a scholarship program, never had, and that I'd have to pay like the other students.

ok, we visited ESPM to ask for the scholarship every three days. no results. at the time, I think it costed about $680 a month to study there. and to confirm that I'd study there, there was also a $680 tax to be paid before the first fee. that means, we'd have to pay about $1360 in the first month, and then $680 every month after that. it was impossible. we only had $350!

after a lot of talking, they decided to let us pay $350 for the initial tax, but when I started studying, I'd have to pay $680 like everyone else. I'd have to choose: give up now and try to go back to UERJ, or pay the $350 and wait for a miracle. I decided to pay the $350 and wait for a miracle.

when I got home, my father was so angry at me. "how could you do that?? are you insane?? you'll study for a week, then the first month's fee will come and we won't have the money for it!".

but I still believed a miracle would happen.

my classes would begin on monday, and on thursday everyone was very sad. no miracle had happened and we didn't have the money. I hadn't found a job. it was over.

then on friday my mom woke me up crying! I woke up and there she was, so happy she couldn't even talk to me! I said "mom what happened? calm down and tell me!" and tears flowing down her cheeks, she was laughing and crying!

she told me she had called ESPM to try and have our $300 back, cause we wouldn't be able to afford it, and when she called, the manager wanted to talk to her. his name was Tatsuo (later I came to know he was one of the most ruthless and mean people at ESPM... everybody hated him). he said to my mom that he had been struggling for some time, and that he had decided to go against ESPM's internal policy: he'd give me a 50% scholarship.

I couldn't believe it when she told me that!! I got out of bed and started screaming! Tatsuo also said since ESPM didn't have a scholarship program, we wouldn't be allowed to tell anyone about it, since a lot of people had asked for it in the past and were refused. it wasn't anything official, so every month I'd receive a $680 bill at home, and then I'd have to go to ESPM and pay half of it, saying that I was that guy that Tatsuo decided to give a chance.

the week that followed, my father and I went out to buy some groceries, and he encountered an old friend from his childhood at the store (they hadn't seen each other in over 30 years). as they began to talk, she said to him "God is telling me something. you have received a blessing. when you get home, you will open your Bible and read Revelation 3:8."

we did it together. here's the verse:

Revelation 3:8
'I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.

I love studying at ESPM, and it's thanks to the Lord that I am there nowadays. so there you go, the two biggest miracles that happened to me.

[Warcraft3]

Thanks for sharing dawnghost:thumb:


Russ

[JardinPrayer]

Yesterday @ 10:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=111043#post111043)
dawnghost:

from there on, the song "Fear of the Dark", by Iron Maiden, became one of my favorite heavy metal songs, to remind me of what I was like before God reached me.

If you're a metal fan you may not appreciate this, but I highly recommend to you a song written and recorded by Gloria Estefan as she was recovering from her terrible accident. It's called, "Coming Out of the Dark." Know it? If not, find it!

said to my mom that he had been struggling for some time, and that he had decided to go against ESPM's internal policy: he'd give me a 50% scholarship.

Wonderful! God's timing is often like that, I've seen. He does test the endurance of your faith, keeps you humble, and makes you thankful...which means He provides for you all the very things He is demanding of you. One of my favorite popular Christian expressions is, "If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it." Another is, "If I obey, He'll make a way." Congratulations and enjoy every blessed second of your study.

JardinPrayer

[dawnghost]

Today @ 05:01 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=111540#post111540)
JardinPrayer:
If you're a metal fan you may not appreciate this, but I highly recommend to you a song written and recorded by Gloria Estefan as she was recovering from her terrible accident. It's called, "Coming Out of the Dark." Know it? If not, find it!

I don't know that song, but I checked the lyrics.

so yeah, why be afraid if I'm not alone? :teeth:

ROCK ON! :rockon:

[JardinPrayer]

Dawnghost - It's done as a kick-a** gospel song with a full choir. You may want to pick up her greatest hits or download it from KaZaA or somepin.

[Rubens]

As they say, the more we pray, the more coincidences happen...

AtheistArchon
Of course, the check wasn't signed by god. =) I imagine god doesn't need to use banks, either. And I pointed out to him that even though they didn't tell that church that they needed money, certainly one of their friends or family may have done so. Indeed, since the amount was exactly what they needed, someone at the church itself must have been informed as to their situation... namely the signer of the check. It wasn't god, it was a person. Perhaps that person had some kind of divine knowledge? If so, they ought to be a millionaire. =)

Thank God for a free will, eh? Nothing that is called a miracle by a Christian is ever conclusive enough to force an unbeliever to believe. Some compelling, yes, some provocative, but never forceful. This makes perfect sense, God does not force anybody to believe, despite having the means to do so. This would not be love, would it?

I say this because it seems to me the average skeptic expects a miracle to involve some supernatural display of pyrotechnics or cosmic spectacle culminating, in this particular case, in a cheque descending from the heavens held by glowing winged angels.

Only the people involved, who alone are fully aware of their individual circumstances, desires and needs, can truly appreciate the event enough to call it a "miracle". Of course it was an act of generosity by a third party, but the timing and the numbers mean more to the people involved than to the outside observer, particularly ones with presuppositions about the supernatural.

It depends on perspective, doesn't it? I, for example, fully believe that when Moses and his people were stuck at the Red Sea, they desperately needed nothing less than for the sea to "part" for them to get through safely. I believe this actually happened, at the exact time they needed it to happen. Then modern day science discovers, in the approximate area of the recorded Exodus, a land bridge in the Red Sea around 50ft below the water level, that could easily have been exposed through simple tidal or storm activity. Whammo, no Godly miracle, right?

Wrong. Just because it wasn't accompanied with heavenly fireworks, a great big supernatural hand appearing out of the sky and the deep booming voice of Charlton Heston or George Burns, it's still a miracle. God created the laws of nature, thus He uses them where He sees fit.

True, God does not sign cheques, we do. God does not need banks, we do. God does not need cars and houses and jobs, we do. We made it that way. Does God provide our needs? You betcha.

The people who wrote the cheque may not have neccessarily felt inspired by God nor heard angelic choirs singing out the monetary amount. But at that exact point in history, they did something slightly irregular that was desperately required by another Christian brother or sister, at that exact point in history.

Not overly compelling if you're a skeptic, I totally agree. But I'd reckon that the Christian recipient of that cheque doesn't care less whether anybody else thinks it's a miracle or not!

[dawnghost]

Yesterday @ 05:15 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=111548#post111548)
JardinPrayer:
Dawnghost - It's done as a kick-a** gospel song with a full choir. You may want to pick up her greatest hits or download it from KaZaA or somepin.

hmmm I'll think of it. :teeth:

maybe we could trade?
what do you say... you download a christian heavy metal song that I'll recommend, and I'll download the Gloria Estefan one :brow:


so... what do you say? :deal:

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 04:38 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112471#post112471)
Rubens:

Not overly compelling if you're a skeptic, I totally agree. But I'd reckon that the Christian recipient of that cheque doesn't care less whether anybody else thinks it's a miracle or not!

Apparently, nothing is overly compelling to most skeptics. However, for those of you in this thread that missed the headline article here at T-Web written by the good folks at exathiest.com, I HIGHLY recommend it. If it doesn't appeal to your doubting, analytical, logic-thriving side, I doubt anything will. Which reminds me...I'll be starting another thread asking how many ex-athiests we have out there and why. Be on the lookout for it!

Blessings,

JardinPrayer

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 11:20 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112673#post112673)
dawnghost:
maybe we could trade?
what do you say... you download a christian heavy metal song that I'll recommend, and I'll download the Gloria Estefan one :brow:

so... what do you say? :deal:

Hey, I'm not afraid of heavy metal. Give me your best shot!
:bonk:

[dawnghost]

Today @ 04:30 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=112684#post112684)
JardinPrayer:
Hey, I'm not afraid of heavy metal. Give me your best shot!
:bonk:

ALRIGHT!!!!!! :rockon:


download the following song then:


band: Sanctifica
title: The Dark Desires


I'll download the Gloria Estefan one. :cheers:

[John Powell]

POWELL:
I've been out of this for a while. Sorry. I'll try to catch up.

steadele:
I am not sure what your reasons are for thinking it less likely.


POWELL:
It was that it was less likely that the dog responded to you in the natural way, sort of like you say.

John Powell

[John Powell]

POWELL:
So, by definition, God does not keep His promises

CRISCODISCO:
I think you've really made an insight here.

To interpret any event as a miracle: requires a definition of God.
Clearly, God doesn't make any sort of promise that is distinguishable from chaos.

At best is, he/she/it promises to have unpredictable events occur.

POWELL:
You said "It is not meaningful in any way." Do you wish to revise your exaggerated statement

CRISCODISCO:
Clearly, you can define meaning to encompass everything, at which point the term has no fidelity-- in a sense, you've made meaning-- a meaningless word.

Just because I wore a blue shirt the day my foot gets caught in a blender-- doesn't mean there is a "causal" connection. I lament the fact that I didn't make this clarification-- I found it rather obvious considering the context, that we were focusing on this sort of meaning-- ie, a fortuitous event as the influence of god, -- in other words, a fortuitous event means that there are God forces at play.

POWELL:
Is it wrong to characterize that as "loving yourself"?

CRISCODISCO:
No. Although, in this culture-- it maybe twisted as narcissisms: a pejorative term.

I sense you're trying to show something with this example, but I don't see it.


POWELL:
I guess primarily to encourage you to be more lenient towards this characterization.

POWELL:
What if the belief were based on reason rather than being irrational, would it still be repulsive to you?

CRISCODISCO:
By definition, such a belief can only be based on supernatural explanations, and therefore can never be rational.


POWELL:
Interesting. Is religious belief irrational by definition?

POWELL:
I believe you write with too much exaggeration, Criscodisco.

CRISCODISCO:
I think you're right.


POWELL:
That admission wins you lots of points from me.

POWELL:
Why do you think your explanation "it was good luck or it was bad luck" has greater predictive reliability than the theistic explanation "God did it or God let it be"?

CRISCODISCO:
Nice question. Luck isn't generally seen as a Force or a causal event, but a way to describe the happenstance occurrence of two relatively unassociated events.

Event X didn't occur because of luck.
Event X was a lucky event.

Clearly, in the use of the English language, this is not a clear distinction. But if push came to shove, I don't think you'd find too many worshipers of Fortunia, the god of the wheel of luck.

POWELL:
Mormons believe that God would judge Joe by his works and his desires.

CRISCODISCO:
Oh, I thought, if a person wasn't married in the temple and baptized in the flesh-- they couldn't make it to the celestial kingdom.


POWELL:
Have you never heard of Mormon "baptisms for the dead" and such things? Were you aware of the extra strong interest Mormons have in genealogy? Theologically, that's so they can do the proxy baptisms and marriages and such things for them.

CRISCODISCO:
So, basically God's will to cause, or not prevent tragedy, to Joe-- would de facto prevent him from ever becoming a Celestial entity.

POWELL:
Perhaps you're taking this too personally, Criscodisco. Does it make you sick to invoke "luck" to explain things

CRISCODISCO:
I must admit, It really gets me when I shows like "touched by an angel" or when people say on the news "It was such a miracle that after horrible tragedy "Y" happened and 100 people died, my baby sister Jane lived-- praise god!"

It just seems like they are insulting the dead and dying.


POWELL:
I understand that. It seems unnecessarily hurtful to a believer whose family didn't have the miracle happen to them and, so, they're left wondering why not.

CRISCODISCO:
And, as I noted above. If someone thinks Luck is out there doing its Lucky business, smiling its good fortune powers on some but not on others--well, that's just like believing in a form of God-- which returns us to your original statement: If you're going do define something as a miracle-- first one must define God.


POWELL:
Clearly the definition needs to be understood by both parties to effectively discuss it.

John Powell

[John Powell]

JARDINPRAYER:
Faith is the activator. It is not tangible and it cannot be reasoned in the intellectual, academic, or doubting world.

POWELL:
In other words, are you saying that faith is unreasonable, irrational, and illogical? Then, without using reason or logic, Jardinprayer, what good REASON can you give me for having faith? If you can't give even yourself a good REASON for having faith then why do you have it?


POWELL:
Answer?

POWELL:
You appear to be a woman, Jardinprayer, who knows that her feelings are justified, worthwhile, true, but sometimes has troubles giving logical reasons, say that a man might understand, why this is the case.

Are you saying that people who have faith all have exactly the same amount of faith and those who have doubt all have exactly the same amount of doubt, that there is nothing in between extreme faith and extreme doubt?


POWELL:
Reply?

JARDINPRAYER:
I was an unbeliever for nearly 40 years. The arguements of athiests are familiar to me...indeed I spent more of my natural life making them than having faith. Once God reveals Himself to you, though, you learn to suspend a lot of the arrogant, stubborn, limited thought processes you've protected yourself with and embrace something much bigger, much more awesome, and MUCH more comforting.

POWELL:
Any adult who can't spell "atheist" probably wasn't an atheist well-versed in the views of educated atheists. Any adult who can't spell "argument" probably was not well-versed in the arguments of educated atheists.

To you, Jardinprayer, what is an atheist? What's your definition?


POWELL:
If someone claimed to have been an active Mormon, but mispelled or mispronounced Nephi or Moroni then I would be similarly skeptical of their claim.

If you were familiar with their "arguements" then why didn't you read the word enough times to know how to spell it properly? If you were an "athiest" why didn't you ever learn to properly spell what you were? Do you know how to spell what you believe in now?

If you would supply your definition of atheist perhaps I can further justify my skepticism.

POWELL:
The philosophies typically supported by atheists are not very comforting to many religious people, Jardinprayer, but atheism itself has the virtue of being true (IMO).

Would you rather be very happy believing an awesome, comforting lie, Jardinprayer, or less happy believing a mundane, harsh truth?

Is "wishful" thinking a valid basis for belief? For example, since having people lie to me would make me very unhappy, should I refuse to believe that is happening even if there's good evidence for it?


POWELL:
Response?

JARDINPRAYER:
I am a woman, I am an adult, and I am guilty of occasional mispellings.

POWELL:
Do you mispell the words that are important to you? To atheists, what they are (atheists) and the reason they are (arguments) are very important to the educated among them. The fact that the spelling of those words is not well known to you now suggests that they never were that important to you.

JARDINPRAYER:
I also believe no one ever gets to a place of better understanding when they're attacking the person who is sharing their thoughts.


POWELL:
I think you don't write truthfully enough since you use exaggerations like "no one ever . . ."

JARDINPRAYER:
Even when I am in deepest disagreement with Satori in this thread, I do not insult, attack, or belittle. Judgement is not for us, but for God.


POWELL:
Maybe you just have a general problem with spelling since you mispell "judgment" too.

That's too-thoughtless repetition of an exaggerated maxim. If you don't judge the person, JardinPrayer, then how do you rationally decide what kind of a relationship to have with the person?

The Bible doesn't seem to teach to not judge, but to judge righteously and to warn you that you will be judged by the standard by which you judge others.

JARDINPRAYER:
I lovingly suggest that you simply go back and read my post again without your anger and defenses and you may see what I was saying.


POWELL:
Curious. Are you judging that I felt significant anger when I replied to your post? I don't remember feeling anger. There may have been some defensiveness.

JARDINPRAYER:
I will offer this in assistance, however: much like you cannot say someone is "a little bit pregnant," so it is with faith. You either have it or your do not.


POWELL:
So what? You either have money or you don't, but that doesn't mean that there aren't grades of having money, that is, having more or less. You're either big or you're not, but that doesn't mean there aren't degrees of "bigness" with some things being bigger than others.

JARDINPRAYER:
There are moments when I have doubt. In those moments, I do not have faith.


POWELL:
Might it not be useful to think of these as times of less faith (and correspondingly more doubt) rather than as times of absolutely no faith whatsoever?

JARDINPRAYER:
There are moments when I am in my car. In those moments, I am not in my house.


POWELL:
It's possible to be both in your car and in your house at the same time, right?

JARDINPRAYER:
I would not presume to compare my faith with anyone else's, nor my doubt.


POWELL:
That seems mistaken. How do you judge or determine whether your level of faith or doubt is acceptable if you don't compare yourself to others?

JARDINPRAYER:
I am simply saying they are opposite and that the presence of doubt is the only obstacle to receiving the miracles and blessings already promised to us by the finished work of the cross.


POWELL:
The example of believing children appears to contradict your claim, JardinPrayer. Most children appear to be even more believing, less doubting, than most adults, yet their sincere prayers remain equally unanswered. The faith of a person appears to produce no significant improvement on their getting answers to prayers that aren't able to be significantly affected by the actions or attitudes of people. For example, modern prayers don't seem to ever bring buried dead loved ones back to life.

JARDINPRAYER:
I joined this form to exchange ideas, perhaps learn a thing or two, perhaps teach a thing or two. I'm not one to sling mud.


POWELL:
Ok, perhaps I should put the mud down.

JARDINPRAYER:
I don't get off on watching others deflate because of the pins I've stuck in them. Jesus says we are to spread the good news and love one another. That is my only agenda. You will be in my prayers today.

JardinPrayer


POWELL:
Did I deflate you with my questions, JardinPrayer?

I appreciate the supportive thoughts, JardinPrayer, but I suggest you not expect Jesus to do anything significant for me. I don't.

John Powell

[John Powell]

MORPHEUS:
you are right. i think my response should have been something like:

it cannot be objectively true that "objectivity is impossible," because that is a contradiction. so that statement at best has subjective truth, in which case the possibility remains that it is wrong, and that objectivity is possible. though this is to say nothing of what the metaphysical objective truth is or whether or not it has been obtained by mankind.


POWELL:
Why am I getting so many people at TWEB to revise what they write based on my criticism? This didn't used to happen to me so often. Am I significantly more persuasive now or is TWEB just a magnet for such self-reflective people?

POWELL:
Yes it's possible, but maybe not "quite" possible.

It might seem that it's "quite" possible because it's difficult to attach reliable, objective numerical values to these kinds of things. If you could then it would no longer be philosophy, but it would be science.

Suppose Satori were saying "all statements of truth have 'error bars' associated with them. They aren't absolutely true. Therefore, we can't justify absolute trust in them."

Then you would be justified in saying "Since there are errors in your statement, therefore I can't justify absolute trust in what you're saying either."

However, you would not be justified in claiming the error bars were so large that they justified believing the opposing view.

For example, the proposition "Santa Claus exists" might be true. Maybe there's a massive conspiracy among adults claiming otherwise, but he really does live at the north pole with flying reindeer and an army of magical elves. However, is the possibility of this large enough to justify the belief that Santa Claus exists? I don't think so. What do you think?

Perhaps all I'm saying is "possible" is not necessarily "probable."

MORPHEUS:
i did not mean to infer "probable" with the phrase "quite possible." i just inserted the word "quite" to emphasize that there was, indeed, that possibility. but you could read my statement without the "quite" and my intended meaning would not change.


POWELL:
Ok.

MORPHEUS:
i certainly agree that, given the philosophical assumptions that are senses are generally reliable and that our cognitive faculties are not completely erroneous, statements such as "santa claus exists," though impossible to disprove, cannot justifiably be held as true. if there is no evidence, the default position is no belief.


POWELL:
But there is evidence that Santa exists. I would just claim that what evidence exists is very poor and better explained otherwise.

MORPHEUS:
i'm sure this is how you feel also about the existence of god; . . .


POWELL:
Right. I feel what little evidence exists is too poor to justify belief. This evidence is better explained otherwise IMO.

MORPHEUS:
. . . i, on the other hand, find the evidence for his existence sufficient to warrant belief. (but that's another thread.)

POWELL:
I liked pretty much everything else you criticized Satori about (although I read it quickly so I might reverse myself on this).

Welcome to TWEB!

MORPHEUS:
thanks john!


POWELL:
Great.

John Powell

[John Powell]

POWELL:
You gave two good stories, Dawnghost. Do they require the God explanation or is a natural explanation better?

I'm glad you admitted that it was only a dream rather than an "awake" experience. Young people eventually resolve their scary dreams. Typically, I think, it's after they discuss it with someone else. I suggest that the nightmares would have ended eventually whether you had made promises to God or not. Making those promises may have just sped the process along because it supplied you with a reason to believe the nightmares would end. Perhaps this became a self-fulfilling prophecy for you. The same could have happened if you had made promises to Allah or to the Mormon God or to Zeus or Odin or any other of the ancient Gods if you were inclined to believe in them.

By the way, this nightmare might be related to the muscle rigidity that sometimes happens to people when they're waking up. Evolutionists have suggested that it's a reflex left over from when our ancestors slept in trees. When a person feels this they are typically scared and I think their mind sometimes makes up reasons for the rigidity such as being held down by alien examiners or something like that.

As to your scholarship experience, I think it was a combination of 1) hard work on the part of you and your parents, 2) good luck, and 3) generally applicable scriptures judged to be overly unique.

If you had a worthy younger brother or relative would you suggest he expect a similar miracle to happen in his life when he considers whether to go to a free college or to an expensive one that doesn't give scholarships?

If there are worthy relatives who never seem to have that great a miracle happen to them, why not?

John Powell

[Rusty T]

Here are two miracle stories that I can provide names and numbers for (i'll double check with the people first of course and I will not post them here - maybe in PM).

The first involves a a young boy in my old church back in good ole Mississippi. He was around eight years old. His vision was deteriorating at an alarming rate. I remember seeing this boy with coke-bottle glasses, pushing them up on his face and thinking, "He's going to be blind one of these days." Well, I went away to college and eventually found my way back to the church. The story told to me was told by several people. Unfortunately I was not present. Basically the father and mother were very very concerned about the boy's failing vision. They had prayed before of course, many, many times. Yet they prayed again, and the church prayed with them. The next time I saw that young boy he had no glasses whatsoever. His Dad told me the doctors had said his vision was normal. Whenever I see that young man now, I always remember him as a young boy with very bad vision - and still he has no problems with his vision.

The second miracle story I was present during. A member of our congregation walked with a cane for quiet some time. I am not sure the reason for this but I can find out if someone wants me to. I remember we were up in the choir singing when our pastor stopped us. He said God was going to heal Bro. ***** that day. The men of the church prayed for this man, and I saw him lay that cane down and never use it again. He still attends the church and is a faithful member. I think of this miracle every time I see his face on our trips home.

tizzidale

[John Powell]

Dawnghost:
. . . said to my mom that he had been struggling for some time, and that he had decided to go against ESPM's internal policy: he'd give me a 50% scholarship.

JARDINPRAYER:
Wonderful! God's timing is often like that, I've seen. He does test the endurance of your faith, keeps you humble, and makes you thankful...which means He provides for you all the very things He is demanding of you.


POWELL:
What about those whose faith endurance isn't significantly tested but who get the great blessing essentially right away?

What about the equally worthy people who don't get the miracle, Jardinprayer? For example, what about all those other worthy students who didn't get the 50% scholarship and so had to quit that college?

You seem to believe in a divine entity who doesn't treat his equal creations equally. If a parent dished out inconsistent blessings like this to their children, giving a car to one, but forcing the others to get their own, would you consider such a parent fair?

JARDINPRAYER:
One of my favorite popular Christian expressions is, "If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it."


POWELL:
What about those who are brought to it, JardinPrayer, but don't get through it? Were they unworthy or something like that?

JARDINPRAYER:
Another is, "If I obey, He'll make a way."


POWELL:
What about those who obey, Jardinprayer, but don't ever find the way?

Our churches seem to be filled with people who are survivors. We have those who survived life-threatening experiences. Those who were equally worthy are dead, but don't come back to church to complain about it.

I imagine an island in the middle of the ocean populated by shipwreck survivors singing praises every Sunday of God's benevolence in helping them to survive, but who never seriously wonder why the other worthy shipmates didn't obtain a similar blessing.

John Powell.

[John Powell]

POWELL:
Thanks for the stories, Tizzidale.

First, I'll comment on the boy with the vision problem that improved. Does very bad vision sometimes become reasonably good without any help from modern medicine? I would think yes. Does this mean that God caused a special blessing to happen to that boy? Perhaps, but I don't think so.

What about all those other worthy boys prayed for by worthy parents whose vision never improved, but maybe even worsened? Why didn't they receive a similar blessing given a similar level of worthiness and prayerful effort? God seems surprisingly unfair in His blessings.

Now, about the man who stopped using his cane. Could it be that he merely decided to not use the cane anymore, maybe never really needed it as much as he had thought?

Why is it that all these medical miracles appear to be the kinds of things that happen to people even without Christian prayer or Christian religious belief?

At miracle shrines you'll see discarded canes and wheelchairs, but no discarded artificial limbs having been replaced miraculously by regrown ones. Why is that, Tizzidale? Would such a miracle be too much to expect from God?

John Powell

[Rusty T]

First, I'll comment on the boy with the vision problem that improved. Does very bad vision sometimes become reasonably good without any help from modern medicine? I would think yes. Does this mean that God caused a special blessing to happen to that boy? Perhaps, but I don't think so.

Interesting. From what I know of the incident, his vision immediately improved - not gradually. I will get the details from his dad.

As far as why God doesn't perform miracles on demand, that's not for me to decide. I wear glasses, and have. I could easily get surgery to repair my eyes, but I choose not to do so. I don't understand why God doesn't repair my eyes and save me thousands of dollars - but I do know that that little boy was losing his vision and suddenly could see.

The man with the cane - I am going to call home to Mississippi and get more details. Hopefully I can get in touch with him and find out why he was using the cane to begin wth.

tizzi

[dawnghost]

hi JP, how are you? :smile:

Today @ 06:52 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119978#post119978)
John Powell:
I'm glad you admitted that it was only a dream rather than an "awake" experience. Young people eventually resolve their scary dreams. Typically, I think, it's after they discuss it with someone else. I suggest that the nightmares would have ended eventually whether you had made promises to God or not. Making those promises may have just sped the process along because it supplied you with a reason to believe the nightmares would end. Perhaps this became a self-fulfilling prophecy for you. The same could have happened if you had made promises to Allah or to the Mormon God or to Zeus or Odin or any other of the ancient Gods if you were inclined to believe in them.

I strongly disagree with you here. I don't know if I was clear when I typed my experiences, but I was not having nightmares, what I had was a very strong fear of the dark. And the fear was getting stronger and stronger. So I went through a very violent cure, from sleeping only when my parents were at the same room to going out of my room to grab a glass of water, laying down and sleeping peacefully.

By the way, this nightmare might be related to the muscle rigidity that sometimes happens to people when they're waking up. Evolutionists have suggested that it's a reflex left over from when our ancestors slept in trees. When a person feels this they are typically scared and I think their mind sometimes makes up reasons for the rigidity such as being held down by alien examiners or something like that.

ok, but the problem wasn't nightmares, and my ancestors sure as hell didn't sleep in trees. Unless they decided to build a treehouse at some point, but that sounds scary: I'm afraid of heights. :teeth:

As to your scholarship experience, I think it was a combination of 1) hard work on the part of you and your parents, 2) good luck, and 3) generally applicable scriptures judged to be overly unique.

I disagree with you here as well. The first one, yeah, ok. But 'good luck' associated with 'generally applicable scriptures'... I think you're just tossing the first easy explanation that comes to your mind here. I had one prediction that spoke to my parents' fears when they were experiencing it, and a promise at that very scripture, saying that God was providing something for me. Then I had a second one, after the 'miracle' happened, that was like God saying "see? I told you!". I wouldn't say that those two scriptures, combined to what happened, combined with the right timing, could be considered 'generally applicable scriptures'. :hrm:

[John Powell]

DAWNGHOST:
hi JP, how are you?


POWELL:
I'm doing better now that the root canal was done.

Powell:
I'm glad you admitted that it was only a dream rather than an "awake" experience. Young people eventually resolve their scary dreams. . .

DAWNGHOST:
I strongly disagree with you here. I don't know if I was clear when I typed my experiences, but I was not having nightmares, what I had was a very strong fear of the dark. And the fear was getting stronger and stronger. So I went through a very violent cure, from sleeping only when my parents were at the same room to going out of my room to grab a glass of water, laying down and sleeping peacefully.


POWELL:
Huh? Let's look at what you wrote again.

DAWNGHOST:
Nocturnal Terror

I had this strange dream once. when it happened, I was about 15 or 16 years old. in the dream, I woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn't move. I was like stone in my bed, facing up. then, I started to float, and as I floated, the lights in my bedroom went off and on all the time. I tried to scream but I couldn't, and I looked down to see my brother (who still sleeps in the same room as I) and he was sleeping peacefully. I stayed up there, floating, for a brief time, like 10 seconds, and then came down again slowly. when I touched the bed again, I woke up. everything was normal, but I had this immense fear inside of me. I went to my parents' bedroom and slept there.

when this dream happened, I was interested in stuff like UFOs and extraterrestrial life. I had a friend at school who'd buy those magazines and well, I just found them interesting and I'd say to myself "the universe is big, why not?". ok.

after the dream, I started to develop an incredible fear of the dark. in some time, I couldn't sleep alone anymore, and I was always plagued by visions of extraterrestrials (the grey, thin ones with large heads) and UFOs, and it was like if I had to protect my family from something horrible at night. I would only be able to sleep when sun went up, and when night was coming I could feel the fear taking me over completely.

sometimes, I'd just go days without getting any sleep, and I'd faint from fatigue. my parents tried everything to help me, they paid expensive (much more expensive than they could afford) shrinks for me, but it was no use. they prayed and prayed, but the fear only grew stronger.

I had to deal with this fear for a period of like... a year and a half, maybe more. and I was always scared of the visions of extraterrestrials and UFOs, as if they were coming to abduct me. there was a time even that the fear got so strong that I could only sleep if my dad or my mom was holding my arm.

then, when no one could know what to do, I decided to visit the church. my parents were christians, but even though sometimes I attended to the church, I was never a christian. I went there and I made a commitment to God, that if He'd save me from my fear, I'd trust Him and become a christian. I really meant it, like He was my last hope and I was really desperate. this happened in a Sunday.

on the friday, I was able to leave my bedroom at the middle of the night, go grab a glass of water, come back and sleep peacefully. from there on, the song "Fear of the Dark", by Iron Maiden, became one of my favorite heavy metal songs, to remind me of what I was like before God reached me.


POWELL:
Didn't the dream scare you so much that you tried to scream, but couldn't? Wouldn't that experience constitute being a nightmare?

I was trying to explain the rigidity you felt while dreaming. I understood that you were scared about these things even while awake. Otherwise they wouldn't have been a traumatic experience for you. People often forget what happens in their dreams. I rarely remember my dreams.

POWELL:
By the way, this nightmare might be related to the muscle rigidity that sometimes happens to people when they're waking up. Evolutionists have suggested that it's a reflex left over from when our ancestors slept in trees. When a person feels this they are typically scared and I think their mind sometimes makes up reasons for the rigidity such as being held down by alien examiners or something like that.

DAWNGHOST:
ok, but the problem wasn't nightmares,


POWELL:
I don't understand. If you had never had something like that rigid / floating dream would you have ever had the strong fear of the dark and of sleeping that you felt afterwards?

Perhaps your point is that the fear developed long after the dream and so the dream was not very relevant to the fear you felt and also that it was only one bad dream, not a recurring nightmare.

Perhaps you scared yourself with reading about UFO abductions and imagining bad scenarios when the dream itself had nothing to do with extraterrestrials.

DAWNGHOST:
. . . and my ancestors sure as hell didn't sleep in trees. Unless they decided to build a treehouse at some point, but that sounds scary: I'm afraid of heights.


POWELL:
I take it you don't believe in human biological evolution. That's a separate topic.

How do you explain this muscle rigid experience that so many people have?

When it happened to me as a believing Mormon, I couldn't decide if it was a bad thing, Satan trying to take over my body, or a good thing, my spirit merely trying to leave the physical body to allow me to have spiritual revelations.

POWELL:
As to your scholarship experience, I think it was a combination of 1) hard work on the part of you and your parents, 2) good luck, and 3) generally applicable scriptures judged to be overly unique.

DAWNGHOST:
I disagree with you here as well. The first one, yeah, ok. But 'good luck' associated with 'generally applicable scriptures'... I think you're just tossing the first easy explanation that comes to your mind here.


POWELL:
Well sure. I prefer the easy solutions to the more difficult ones if they'll work.

DAWNGHOST:
I had one prediction that spoke to my parents' fears when they were experiencing it, and a promise at that very scripture, saying that God was providing something for me. Then I had a second one, after the 'miracle' happened, that was like God saying "see? I told you!". I wouldn't say that those two scriptures, combined to what happened, combined with the right timing, could be considered 'generally applicable scriptures'.


POWELL:
I think those scriptures are generally applicable similar to how typical astrological horoscopes and fortune cookies are generally applicable.

As long as I can remember my mother has used the "pray then flip open the scriptures" method to get answers from God to her questions.

John Powell

[dawnghost]

Today @ 06:40 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120326#post120326)
John Powell:
POWELL:
Didn't the dream scare you so much that you tried to scream, but couldn't? Wouldn't that experience constitute being a nightmare?

I was trying to explain the rigidity you felt while dreaming. I understood that you were scared about these things even while awake. Otherwise they wouldn't have been a traumatic experience for you. People often forget what happens in their dreams. I rarely remember my dreams.

(...)

POWELL:
I don't understand. If you had never had something like that rigid / floating dream would you have ever had the strong fear of the dark and of sleeping that you felt afterwards?

Perhaps your point is that the fear developed long after the dream and so the dream was not very relevant to the fear you felt and also that it was only one bad dream, not a recurring nightmare.

I have the feeling I wasn't very clear. :teeth:

You are right in your last assumption: the fear developed after the dream, it's not very relevant to what I felt afterwards. I just though that, somehow, something was 'triggered' that night, but I don't know.

Anyway, my problem wasn't the nightmares, it was the fear. I just couldn't sleep, thinking of the 'grey little men'. :eek:



How do you explain this muscle rigid experience that so many people have?

When it happened to me as a believing Mormon, I couldn't decide if it was a bad thing, Satan trying to take over my body, or a good thing, my spirit merely trying to leave the physical body to allow me to have spiritual revelations.

I didn't consider if a demon was possessing me or whatever, but people did tell me I might have had a 'out of the body' experience. At the time, I did think of that as a possibility, now I just don't think of it anymore.

POWELL:
Well sure. I prefer the easy solutions to the more difficult ones if they'll work.

yes. if they'll work. as it seems, considering all the elements involved in this story, it's harder just to consider it 'sheer luck'. why would my father's friend say 'you have received a blessing, go read xxxx'? we're dealing with STRONG LUCK here then.

POWELL:
I think those scriptures are generally applicable similar to how typical astrological horoscopes and fortune cookies are generally applicable.

As long as I can remember my mother has used the "pray then flip open the scriptures" method to get answers from God to her questions.

and I agree with you that doing this ain't the best way to talk to God. that ain't much different from the typical "God, give me a sign... NOW". it feels like trying to test the Lord. :ponder:

thanks for your answers JP. :smile:

[JardinPrayer]

To John Powell:

Sorry to disappoint you, but I found your quoting of practically an entire thread that is already many weeks old a bit annoying and overwhelming. A number of the quotes you demanded replies from me on were already replied to in subsequent posts, which you demonstrated yourself further down in your same post by quoting my replies and attacking them, too.

I'm not here to get my jollies from sparring. I don't get any particular thrill from trying to either prove myself right or others wrong. I speak from my heart and I daily pray for guidance from the Lord so that my actions and my words might glorify Him. Period. If you have ears to hear...wonderful. If you do not, hey, I'm not going to beat you over the head and call you names and stick pins in your balloons.

Your last several posts here, quite frankly, reminded me of a schoolyard bully just dying to find someone to pick on. Not my idea of a good time. If, however, you'd like to have a genuinely open-minded idea exchange at any point in the future, I would be more than happy to engage you in future threads.

Peace,
JardinPrayer

[John Powell]

JARDINPRAYER:
To John Powell:

Sorry to disappoint you, but I found your quoting of practically an entire thread that is already many weeks old a bit annoying and overwhelming.


POWELL:
Sorry. That can happen when one takes a break for a few weeks.

JARDINPRAYER:
A number of the quotes you demanded replies from me on were already replied to in subsequent posts, which you demonstrated yourself further down in your same post by quoting my replies and attacking them, too.


POWELL:
Is this how you usually respond to people who disagree with you, JardinPrayer, by criticizing them for being critical? Do you prefer that people merely agree with you whether they think you're right or not? Do you want honesty or the facade of agreement between us?

JARDINPRAYER:
I'm not here to get my jollies from sparring. I don't get any particular thrill from trying to either prove myself right or others wrong.


POWELL:
It's very important to me to be right, JardinPrayer. Do you feel differently? People are important to me, so I would like to persuade them to agree with me when they don't if I can do so properly. Do you feel differently?

JARDINPRAYER:
I speak from my heart and I daily pray for guidance from the Lord so that my actions and my words might glorify Him.


POWELL:
I, of course, speak words directed from my brain and seek guidance from my own sense of ethics so that my actions and words might be ethically right.

JARDINPRAYER:
Period. If you have ears to hear...wonderful. If you do not, hey, I'm not going to beat you over the head and call you names and stick pins in your balloons.


POWELL:
Does this mean that if I put on the facade of agreement that you would then praise me?

JARDINPRAYER:
Your last several posts here, quite frankly, reminded me of a schoolyard bully just dying to find someone to pick on. Not my idea of a good time. If, however, you'd like to have a genuinely open-minded idea exchange at any point in the future, I would be more than happy to engage you in future threads.


POWELL:
Perhaps some of those were too critical.

As for something for us to discuss, how about this issue of whether your statement "The arguements of athiests are familiar to me...indeed I spent more of my natural life making them than having faith." is a fair representation or an exaggeration? I'm still somewhat open to the possibility that your claim is true, but I'm becoming more and more skeptical about this considering your continuing reluctance to support that claim with the simple opportunity to prove yourself that I've given you, namely by giving me your definition of what an atheist is. Surely a former atheist would know what an atheist is, don't you think? Of course, some reluctance is probably due to the natural resistance to succumb to someone else's pressure, but more importantly, could it also be that you realize that you made an exaggerated claim to atheist knowledge that you didn't really have, perhaps still don't have, in other words that I've called your bluff, but you don't want to show your cards?

You can choose to believe that other people should merely believe whatever you tell them, JardinPrayer, perhaps that's what you're used to getting from your religious listeners, but it takes more than that to persuade a skeptic such as myself. Perhaps you have no interest in persuading me, but are merely speaking to me for yourself and for the benefit of others who might be reading this.

John Powell

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 03:51 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=122295#post122295)
John Powell:

POWELL:
Is this how you usually respond to people who disagree with you, JardinPrayer, by criticizing them for being critical? Do you prefer that people merely agree with you whether they think you're right or not? Do you want honesty or the facade of agreement between us?
I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. It's your manner that bugs me.


POWELL:
It's very important to me to be right, JardinPrayer. Do you feel differently? People are important to me, so I would like to persuade them to agree with me when they don't if I can do so properly. Do you feel differently?
Yes, I feel differently on both counts. It isn't important for me to be right to the point of not being satisfied unless I have "persuaded" everyone I encounter to see things my way. If we disagree, I can gracefully say "Hey, we disagree. That's okay." Sometimes, I actually even see their point and change my own perception...being open to idea exchange is much more desirable to me than insisting I'm right all the time. Also, "if I can do so properly" is really where I have my issue with you. You attack, John. You don't persuade. You put me off such that I'm far less likely to be open to what you have to say than if you took a more respectful, tolerant, open approach.

POWELL:
Does this mean that if I put on the facade of agreement that you would then praise me?
See my comments above. It isn't about agreeing. It's about courtesy and respect for one another's ideas.

POWELL:
Perhaps some of those were too critical.
Indeed.

POWELL:
As for something for us to discuss, how about this issue of whether your statement "The arguements of athiests are familiar to me...indeed I spent more of my natural life making them than having faith." is a fair representation or an exaggeration? I'm still somewhat open to the possibility that your claim is true, but I'm becoming more and more skeptical about this considering your continuing reluctance to support that claim with the simple opportunity to prove yourself that I've given you, namely by giving me your definition of what an atheist is. Surely a former atheist would know what an atheist is, don't you think? Of course, some reluctance is probably due to the natural resistance to succumb to someone else's pressure, but more importantly, could it also be that you realize that you made an exaggerated claim to atheist knowledge that you didn't really have, perhaps still don't have, in other words that I've called your bluff, but you don't want to show your cards?
Here's a case in point. Why don't you simply say you're not sure you understand where I'm coming from with this point and invite me to clarify? We both stand a much better chance of coming away from this enlightened if we treat each other the way we would like to be treated. Would you enjoy someone approaching you the way you're approaching me? If the answer is "yes," I'm afraid I have to express my sympathy for you.

I'm not trying to bluff or coerce or anything else. My definition of atheist is one who does not believe in God. That is what I meant when I used the term. I never flew an atheist banner, so if there's some code of ethics to being in that club, I am more than willing to admit my ignorance. There are no cards to show. I'm being totally above board, trying to be understanding, and trying to get some usable knowledge from this exchange. I did not make an exaggerated statement. Perhaps I made an ignorant one. I thought I was making a simple statement about my spiritual path. That was my entire agenda. See? I don't have to prove I'm right. Now I'm asking you for the purpose of enlightenment: What's an atheist?

POWELL:
You can choose to believe that other people should merely believe whatever you tell them, JardinPrayer, perhaps that's what you're used to getting from your religious listeners, but it takes more than that to persuade a skeptic such as myself. Perhaps you have no interest in persuading me, but are merely speaking to me for yourself and for the benefit of others who might be reading this.
I'm not the one who has to be right all the time.

Peace,
JardinPrayer

[John Powell]

JARDINPRAYER:
Here's a case in point. Why don't you simply say you're not sure you understand where I'm coming from with this point and invite me to clarify? We both stand a much better chance of coming away from this enlightened if we treat each other the way we would like to be treated. Would you enjoy someone approaching you the way you're approaching me? If the answer is "yes," I'm afraid I have to express my sympathy for you.


POWELL:
Perhaps I should ask for clarification more. I think I welcome pointed questions directed at me more than you do.

JARDINPRAYER:
I'm not trying to bluff or coerce or anything else. My definition of atheist is one who does not believe in God. That is what I meant when I used the term. I never flew an atheist banner, so if there's some code of ethics to being in that club, I am more than willing to admit my ignorance. There are no cards to show. I'm being totally above board, trying to be understanding, and trying to get some usable knowledge from this exchange. I did not make an exaggerated statement. Perhaps I made an ignorant one. I thought I was making a simple statement about my spiritual path. That was my entire agenda. See? I don't have to prove I'm right. Now I'm asking you for the purpose of enlightenment: What's an atheist?


POWELL:
In my opinion, that's a good definition for atheist, which reassures me you that you know a lot more about atheism than the majority of educated theists. Maybe you weren't exaggerating about your familiarity with atheist arguments after all.

The dictionary definition of atheist as "someone who denies the existence of God" or "someone who believes that God does not exist" without allowing for those who merely don't believe that God exists are not good definitions since they ignore the meaning of the prefix a- and they exclude the vast majority of self-proclaimed atheists.

John Powell

[JardinPrayer]

Today @ 05:49 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=122429#post122429)
John Powell:
POWELL:
In my opinion, that's a good definition for atheist, which reassures me you that you know a lot more about atheism than the majority of educated theists. Maybe you weren't exaggerating about your familiarity with atheist arguments after all.

The dictionary definition of atheist as "someone who denies the existence of God" or "someone who believes that God does not exist" without allowing for those who merely don't believe that God exists are not good definitions since they ignore the meaning of the prefix a- and they exclude the vast majority of self-proclaimed atheists.


Hallelujah! Now THAT is the kind of exchange I can work with. My humble thanks for your consideration and your respect. I knew ya had it in ya, since I've seen your posts in other forums and am aware of your prestigious status on T-Web. I never meant to offend you...just wanted to break through the barriers and get on neutral territory.

Not sure I understood your last sentence, though. It looks like you said the dictionary definition of atheist includes someone who believes that God does not exists, but does not include those who "merely don't believe that God exists." What's the difference or did I read you wrong? Also, that this definition ignores the prefix a- confused me, too. Don't those definitions match the one I gave, which you applauded me for?

Sorry if I'm being dense. I'm really trying to understand where you're coming from. I'm genuinely interested in learning.

We've also gotten WAY off topic, so, Russ, if you're still monitoring your thread, would you like us to start a new one?

Peace,
JardinPrayer

[John Powell]

POWELL:
In my opinion, that's a good definition for atheist, which reassures me you that you know a lot more about atheism than the majority of educated theists. Maybe you weren't exaggerating about your familiarity with atheist arguments after all.

The dictionary definition of atheist as "someone who denies the existence of God" or "someone who believes that God does not exist" without allowing for those who merely don't believe that God exists are not good definitions since they ignore the meaning of the prefix a- and they exclude the vast majority of self-proclaimed atheists.

JARDINPRAYER:
Hallelujah! Now THAT is the kind of exchange I can work with. My humble thanks for your consideration and your respect. I knew ya had it in ya, since I've seen your posts in other forums and am aware of your prestigious status on T-Web. I never meant to offend you...just wanted to break through the barriers and get on neutral territory.


POWELL:
I'm sure that with few exceptions I offend more than I am offended. I'm trying to come up with the best method of persuasive discourse without sacrificing too much what I believe to be right. It's slow going sometimes. If I don't do better at avoiding offense, Dee Dee might regret having nominated me.

JARDINPRAYER:
Not sure I understood your last sentence, though. It looks like you said the dictionary definition of atheist includes someone who believes that God does not exists, but does not include those who "merely don't believe that God exists." What's the difference or did I read you wrong? Also, that this definition ignores the prefix a- confused me, too. Don't those definitions match the one I gave, which you applauded me for?


POWELL:
Sort of.

Theist means someone who believes in God.

An a-theist then is someone who doesn't do that or is someone who is opposite to that.

You could think of an atheist as someone who doesn't believe in God, but you could also think of an atheist as someone who believes in not (i.e., the nonexistence of) a God. The first is merely the absence of belief in the God under discussion while the second is belief in the non-existence of that God. The first type does not deny that God exists, but the second does. Perhaps it makes more sense if you split up the word atheist.

If theist = "God believer" then a-theist means "not - God believer" or someone who does not believe in God. An athe-ist, on the other hand, could be thought of as a "not God - believer," or someone who believes there is no God.

The distinction is important because someone might merely not believe in God (be an a-theist), but be unwilling to go so far as to declare that they believe that God does not exist (be an athe-ist). The first position, also called weak atheism or negative atheism, requires less justification. The second position, also called strong atheism or positive atheism (positive as in "not negative," not as in certain), puts a heavier burden of proof on them.

Strictly speaking, all athe-ists are also a-theists because if you believe that God does not exist then to be rational it must be the case that you don't believe God exists. However, all a-theists are not athe-ists. In fact, most atheists are the weaker a-theists rather than the stronger athe-ists.

One could argue that anyone ignorant of a particular God-idea is necessarily an a-theist with respect to it.

I'm disturbed at the too large number of theists trying to define atheists away by claiming that atheist means to have certain knowledge that God does not exist or something like that which no atheist could have unless they were God!

Athe-ists, like myself, do not claim to absolutely know there is no God anymore than we absolutely know that Santa Claus, as usually described, does not exist, but we're confident enough to believe it and to declare it.

JARDINPRAYER:
Sorry if I'm being dense. I'm really trying to understand where you're coming from. I'm genuinely interested in learning.

We've also gotten WAY off topic, so, Russ, if you're still monitoring your thread, would you like us to start a new one?

Peace,
JardinPrayer


POWELL:
We had a discussion about this in the Religion 101 section a month or so ago begun by Dee Dee, I think, asking if atheists denied the existence of God or something like that. My basic response was that athe-ists deny, but mere a-theists don't.

Promoting my opinions about the meaning of atheism for the benefit of the members and visitors of TWEB is one of the things I am most interested in doing at TWEB, so I would be happy to participate in a new thread concerning it if you would be willing to sponsor it.

John Powell
A former believer in Mormonism.
Now an athe-ist or strong atheist.

[JardinPrayer]

Now I'm enjoying discussion with you. Honestly, I'm pleased.

I took your suggestion and opened a new thread...I titled it: "What brings atheists to T-Web," in hopes of drawing more interest than a dryer title would. I did open the thread to that topic as well.

Blessings,
JardinPrayer

[Warcraft3]

POWELL:
It was that it was less likely that the dog responded to you in the natural way, sort of like you say.

John Powell


I just noticed this today.........

I misunderstood what you were saying John.

My apologies.




Russ

[John Powell]

POWELL:
It was that it was less likely that the dog responded to you in the natural way, sort of like you say.

STEADELE:
I just noticed this today.........

I misunderstood what you were saying John.

My apologies.

Russ


POWELL:
You're a soldier and a gentleman, Russ.

John Powell

[Warcraft3]

POWELL:
You're a soldier and a gentleman, Russ.

John Powell


:cheers: Thanks John

:smile:



Russ

[Warcraft3]

So..............does anyone have any additional comments or stories for this thread?

[sidthesquish]

My personal belief in 'miracles' is that they aren't a direct intervention of god. I believe that there is a large supenatural force that has its hands in everything that goes on in this world. I believe that this is human conscience. Every being is just a part of this one earth, just as people are mad of molecules, the eart is made of animals, earth and many other things. Do we commonly refer to humans by our molecules? no we refer to them as a whole. The earth is the same way. But, because of our perspective, it just seems that everything on this earth is different. It seems that I am me and You are You. But we are the same. It is human delusion that prevents us from seeing this. We grow up in a world that selfishness and greed are everywhere. Those that can peirce this veil of delusion are enlightened. Seemingly miraculous things are completely understandable, we just arent fully aware of our world yet. Some syncrocities are mostly just coincidence or a manifestation of karma. But thats just my opinion, please correct me if im wrong.