The Problem with Christians

[J a c k]

Was it an online degree? 

Dude with a science degree claims wife and sister in law had a prophetic dream. Boys and girls, please identify which part or parts of that sentence are most likely false. 

Even if it was true that they has a prophetic dream, what was the purpose? lol! Did it stop the tragedy from happening? You see, when I hear people talk about these prophetic dreams, or prophets at their church telling them about something that will happen in the future (typically that they'll save a lot of souls across the nations for the lord), I can't help but be mind blown at the arrogance that emanates from inside them. Like I said, I was Christian, too. I was an arrogant little nugget.


Let's say that you do have a science degree, and it wasn't from a biased Christian school. Let's assume that your wife and her sister really did have a prophetic dream and they're not lying, they didn't unintentionally misrepresent any details, their emotions didn't make them believe they had a dream that never happened. gasp! Let's pretend that something "supernatural" actually happened. There will never be a scientific explanation, there is no natural explanation hidden behind the scenes, we are sitting here discussing something that the whole time has actually been a miracle. This actually predicted the future in a way that defies the laws of nature. I say "in a way" because we now do and understand things that hundreds of years ago might have seemed unnatural, but there are explanations now. So, let's be grandiose and go as far as saying that it predicted the future in a way that was miraculous, no natural explanation will ever exist, because the god did it.


Tell me something. Why? What was the fucken purpose? Go ahead, spread your wings and fly in the skies of arrogance. 

( should add, this is just a side note question. sorry if I derailed the thread. If I did, carry on.)

[pocaracas]

I think it counts for you because you are susceptible enough to believe it.

For the rest of us, however, we need more than that.

It has nothing to do with susceptibility but probabilities. What would be the statistical chances of two individuals having the same dream about the same person concerning a future event that then transpires? fifty fifty? two to one? A million to one? A billion to one?

Let's say, for argument's sake, that the odds of that happening by sheer chance are a billion to one.
Out of every billion people on earth, one has such a dream at the same time as someone else in their close vicinity and it's temporally close to the actual dream "coming true".

How many people are right now on the face of this planet?
7 billion!
That means that, by sheer luck, 6 more people are having the same sort of prophetic dreams as your wife and her sister.
Still way more likely than god-did-it.

How about you learn some statistics?

If we look at the fact that there are multiple factors that have to happen, the numbers would be astronomically high against this occurring by random chance. If you want to ignore the numbers, that is your prerogative but I regard them as significant. Each to his own.

As I see it, you're the one who fails at properly grasping the numbers...

Also, "chance" is a word that describes our ignorance of all the factors that play a role in a particular outcome. Just because we don't know them all, doesn't mean they're unknowable (in theory), just unavailable in practice.

[robvalue]

And so what if something is unlikely?

Statistically, incredibly unlikely things happen all the time. And even if the probability was astronomically low, that doesn't tell us what other cause may be involved, if any.

This is just God of the gaps, sadly completely predictable from the word go. Science, it is not.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

I simply look at the statistical probability that this all happened through random chance. I believe that it takes more faith to believe it was random than to accept that it was deliberate.

What you stubbornly refuse to look at is the statistical probablility that a fantastical story which has not a single word of historical corroboration is exactly what it appears to be, which is false. People accept fiction as reality when they have a use for it, and human neurological development facilitates the indoctrination of young children, which is why you were taught stories such as this when you were a very young child. Your bible is not history, it is at best a collection of unconfirmed stories. Just because you were indoctrinated with such stories doesn't make them true in reality.

If you had a science degree, then the above would not need explaining.

[Jackalope]

If you had a science degree, then the above would not need explaining.

Whomever granted them a science degree did them a disservice and they should ask for their money back.

[GUBU]

If your wife knew her grandfathervhad heart troubles and if it was worrying her, she would be thinking "what if he has a heart attack?"and out in the yard is a bad place to have it, away from view and away from stuff like phones if he were conscious. It's not that big of a jump to start dreaming about one's grandfather dying of a heart attack.

I wouldn't be suprised if you wife had other dreams about her grandfather dying and this is the only one your remember because of its seeming predictiveness. I remember having a dream once about moving into a house and meeting one of my fellow tennants who was a jockey and said he recently won a race. Imagine my suprise when I moved house a few days later when I did move house ant the conversation happened like I imagined. This wasn't god speaking however, I read the sports news and the race was high enough profile that it was written about, I had received some information from my mother's friend who had put me in the know about the room to rent, and the jockey's name is James, very common. Just a bunch of details I had that my subconscoiusness threw together into a lucky coincidence.

No discussion with or about Grandpa's heart as he had no known heart problems at the time of the dream. Two people having the identical dream would be exceptionally rare, especially given that they had the dreams at about the same time. To add a further level of unlikeliness that it was coincidence, the event happened about a week or so after the dreams happened. Two prophetic dreams that came true - I find it compelling

You're just projecting your conclusions onto events here. Fact of the matter is your wife and her sister would not even have to talk about something to be worried about it. Another fact is older people suffer from heart trouble as a matter of course, heart failure and cancer are the two leading causes of elderly deaths because they both result from the body giving up. Even if her grandfather never had heart trouble in his youth, his age would have significantly increased his risk, and your wife if she has any brains would know this. And finally, your basing your conclusion on two points of data, ignoring all the wrong data that has been generated by your wife and her sister's dreams over the years. Unless you can point to thousands of predicted events recorded before the fact your conclusion is simply invalid, ridiculously stupid and laughably useless.

One final thing, why did you come here to peddle your nonsense? Surely you'd realise that on an atheist forum the other users would use their critical faculties to dismantle your rubbish.

[GUBU]

I doubt that the Jews believed that the earth was flat since the same guy that used the four corners idiom (Isaiah), said  it was round.

Is 40:21 "Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth."

You ignore the meat of my message, the fact that the passage you said predicted the creation of Israel did no such thing, and try (while failing dismally) to refute a small aside. To quote Napoleon "bah, I have not ime for such nonsense!"

[GUBU]

Wait... I was explaining the difference between the actual laws of nature and our scientific models of them to a guy with a science degree? And he still doesn't get it?

Something's fishy here.

We observe, and we model. It appears many laws of nature stay relatively constant. They may suddenly change for a period of time, or perhaps permanently. They don't need our permission. I don't know what's so hard to understand about this. If they did change, we'd need to alter our models accordingly.

This is all just a desparate attempt to shoehorn woo language into science, and any scientist worth their salt would know better.

Yeah Im wondering is AJW just a sock puppet of that other idiot AAA?

[AJW333]

Truth matters, yes. But you're nowhere near any sort of truth, you're wildly speculating.

This is not consistent with someone who claims to know how science works.

I think we're done. I'll leave you to your imagination.

I realise that we are at an impasse but you're being somewhat harsh here. I have provided a truthful definition of "supernatural." From there, I've posited that there are certain events that would qualify as supernatural because they violate natural law. This would also be truthful on the basis that I'm using standard definitions.

No matter. I'll continue to answer any posts here till it peters out and then I'll start a new thread on abiogenesis - a process that is claimed as truth but never witnessed, never tested and no reasonable model for it exists. And yet it's still considered fact.

[abaris]

I have provided a truthful definition of "supernatural." From there, I've posited that there are certain events that would qualify as supernatural because they violate natural law. This would also be truthful on the basis that I'm using standard definitions.

Or so you say. You never presented anything even remotely resembling evidence of the supernatural actually happening. Only hearsay, what ifs and anecdotes. Not surprising, really, since there is no evidence. If you really hold a science degree, you should know the definition.

But even if I give you anything of what you claim to have happened to be real. What in the world makes you think, it was god? Your god, to be precise.

That, in my book is double suspension of disbelief. First, the supernatural is real and secondly, it can only be my god causing it.