(March 5, 2016 at 8:29 am)AJW333 Wrote:

(March 5, 2016 at 2:45 am)robvalue Wrote: Let me address this "are they all lying" point.

Lying is not the issue, when it comes to anecdotes. Someone can fully believe what they are saying is the truth. However:

1) Memory is notoriously unreliable and warps over time; false memories can even be created

2) Even if the memory is more or less correct, it doesn't mean the person correctly identified what was happening

3) No one has the authority to categorise things that have not as-yet been demonstrated to be real

For example, my wife tells me stories about ghosts. I believe she is being sincere. I believe she really believes she saw ghostly activity. What I don't believe is that she has correctly evaluated her experience.

From my position, there is nothing to test. I can have no opinion of it, other than it is an extroidanary claim. So until such time as there is evidence to examine, I don't believe her conclusion. I don't have to say her conclusion is false; although weighing up the probability, it's reasonable to say it is probably false.

If you just believe conclusions people make about mysterious phenomena based on anecdotes, you are gullible. The filter you apply is likely to be the same as your own beliefs. If you already thinks ghosts are real, you'll probably believe ghost stories. But if you also don't believe in vampires, you'll likely reject vampire stories.

 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.

---

(March 5, 2016 at 8:07 am)robvalue Wrote: If god was something real, you wouldn't need all this sneaking around, switching terms, trying to create "reasonable doubt" as if you're OJ's lawyer, and then saying "just maybe it was god..."

This is how someone makes themselves feel better about something they already believe, for other reasons. Because I can't believe for one second anyone believes because of this nonsense. Even if there was something supernatural, you're no closer to finding out what it is, you still have an uncrossable chasm to correlate it with a storybook.

And then you have to explain why I should care, even if you're right.

Because truth matters - doesn't it?

---

(March 5, 2016 at 3:12 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote: None of what you quoted in isiah happened. None of the countries mentioned existed in 1948, there literally no corners to the Earth, being an oblate spheroid (and yes the bible writing goat fuckers did literally believe the world was flat and square). And finally there was no act of god involved in tthe creation of Israel, just the Balfour declaration, the holocaust and its aftermath, western latent anti-semitism and terrorist groups like the Stern Gang. In fact Isiah is most likely an after the fact "prophesy" about the end of the Babylonian captivity where it was written in that yhwh said he would return the jews to judea after they were returned to judea by the Babylonians (the Torah was mostly written at the end of and just after this period a combination of old oral legends [hence the henotheistic nature of the pentateuch] and post hoc aggrandising of the jewish people from a powerless random Canaanite tribe into great conquerors who were brung low by evil "false gods")


And this isn't even going into stuff like the fact that the majority of the iron age jewish tribes' descendants probably stayed in Palestine, converted, and are now the people being oppressed by Israel for being the "wrong race and religion".

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."

(March 5, 2016 at 8:29 am)AJW333 Wrote:  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.

(March 5, 2016 at 8:11 am)AJW333 Wrote:  if I saw something supernatural happen, would my testimony not carry weight since I do have a degree in science?

(March 3, 2016 at 7:25 am)AJW333 Wrote:

(March 3, 2016 at 6:58 am)robvalue Wrote: This is so ridiculous. This is what he's trying to say:

"If reality doesn't fit our current models of it, which are perfect, then nature isn't what we think it is. There must be other things... supernatural things!

No. That is unbelievably ignorant.

If reality doesn't fit our current models, our models are wrong.

You haven't addressed the critical issue here. That is, we have a dictionary definition that I am using.

If something violates natural law, that is the dictionary definition of supernatural - not mine, it is the dictionary's, don't get mad at me.

(March 5, 2016 at 11:15 am)robvalue Wrote: 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.

(March 5, 2016 at 1:56 am)AJW333 Wrote: So using the above definition of "supernatural," abiogenesis qualifies because it violates the laws of nature which, without exception require all life to come from life. Abiogenesis violates this natural law.

(March 4, 2016 at 1:15 am)Kitan Wrote:

(March 3, 2016 at 11:38 pm)AJW333 Wrote: I would say that every atheist here who says that there is no such thing as the supernatural is automatically ruling out the possibility of there being a God, since God is synonymous with the supernatural.

I am not most atheists. I have no qualms in stating with an authority of certainty that god does not exist.