I'll ask the Catholic Forum I've been using if it's cool to link this thread there. Definitely would be interesting to see more theists in the mix here.

(November 25, 2016 at 5:52 pm)Balaco Wrote: From what I'm gathering, you guys generally view religion as a product of the mind, an excuse for hope or political power, etc. that ignores logic and bends accordingly.

What are your thoughts on miracles, whether large-scale ones like the events of Fatima, or "personal" miracles like those listed on sites like these, http://www1.cbn.com/700club/episodes/all...ng-stories ....Lies? Coincidences? Exaggerations?

The Fatima miracle can be approached instead of from the viewpoint of how can the thousands of eyewitnesses who say the sun reversed course, zig-zagged or “danced” in the sky be wrong to logically extrapolating what this would physically mean. Since science has shown that the earth revolves around the Sun, for the illusion that the Sun reversed course the Earth would have to have reversed its orbit. 

What happens to the passengers of a car when you slam the brakes when traveling at 67 mph? Inertia http://www.classzone.com/vpg_ebooks/ml_s...age_47.pdf would send you flying through the windshield if you weren’t wearing a seatbelt.

We know the average distance of the Earth from the Sun is 93.5 million miles. This means that in 365.25 days the Earth travels 587.5 million miles, this works out to about 67 thousand miles per hour. Inertia would have probably sent everything on the surface into space, tectonic plates would have crumpled like paper and the oceans vaporized. The Earth would have ceased to exist as a planet. 

What is more likely? Mass hallucination or that the planet reversed orbit and “zig-zagged”?

People see what they want to see.

(November 26, 2016 at 8:04 pm)Balaco Wrote:

(November 26, 2016 at 4:06 am)robvalue Wrote: I identify as an atheist to try and further break the taboo, to break preconceptions, to support fellow atheists, and to simply be honest. The more "out" atheists there are, the easier it is for the next one to come out, and the harder it is to oppress atheists.



All of the above. Anecdotes are highly unreliable evidence anyway. At best they only tell you what people believe happened. No one is an authority on identifying and classifying miracles. People just find something they consider very out of the ordinary and proclaim, "It's a miracle".

It's a problem of definition. What is a miracle anyway? If it's meant to be God intervening, that means that it's essentially him changing his plan "on the go". Why would he need to do that? If his plan was perfect, it would need no alteration.

And how do you identify one? It's always the argument from ignorance fallacy. People say, "How else do you explain it?" It's irrelevant whether or not I, or anyone else, can explain it. Again, I simply say "I don't know". I don't know what actually happened, or what the explanation is. It doesn't give free license to make up your own explanation without evidence. So what is a miracle? If it's just an unexplained event, then just call it that. No need to assume "God did it". If it's "breaking the laws of nature", then that is an equivocation fallacy, just like with the supernatural in general. We attempt to describe the laws of nature; at no point can we prescribe them. I have a video about this. (I was trying out an angry persona at the time You can skip to 1:00 if you don't want to hear me screwing around at the start.)

Watched through most of the video. Well presented, I'm gathering atheists generally view "supernatural" events or miracles as events that, aside from potentially being lies/distortions of reality thanks to our minds, may simply be out of the windows/models of logic that the religious create.

Looking at this objectively, it seems like belief in these events is another concept that the religious are inclined to believe and defend. Something out of the ordinary may happen, and the minds of the religious are conditioned to feel like it's due to God's intervention. I may bring these points up with some Catholics and share what their defense is.

Thanks for checking it out Good analysis, yes! By all means, I'll be interested to see if there's any cogent defence. I'm always interested in one, I'd actually enjoy one, but they never come.

(November 26, 2016 at 9:10 pm)Balaco Wrote: I'll ask the Catholic Forum I've been using if it's cool to link this thread there. Definitely would be interesting to see more theists in the mix here.

More theists like you, for sure!

I was told I can't link this thread there.

(November 27, 2016 at 12:55 am)Balaco Wrote: I was told I can't link this thread there.

Oops my bad! *smacks forehead

I'm a former mod on here and even I know we can't let you post that link either, not until you've been here
for 30 days! But then.. we aren't much into censoring. Did they give you a time limit or is it indefinite?

I tried desperately to ask a Catholic forum for help once, for a missionary who would be willing to call and speak with my dad--who was threatening to take a walk in the desert and felt god was "okay with it" (he and my brother suffer a severe genetic mental illness). I hoped against all hope they could help him, but.. They didn't even let my post go through to the board! It.. broke my heart at the time. I guess Catholic an Christian forums are picky what does and does not show up on their pages.

Good on you for trying though.

Balaco.  Do two things for me and yourself.

1.  Watch this video.






and 2, honestly evaluate it in terms of your religion.

(November 27, 2016 at 12:55 am)Balaco Wrote: I was told I can't link this thread there.

Then just talk us up. Or down. Which ever you think will work.

(November 23, 2016 at 7:14 pm)Balaco Wrote: I was taught that God doesn't give us undeniable proof of his existence as a test of faith...those with righteous minds would find him. Joker and any other Catholics, what are your thoughts on this?

This is one of those things where the authors of the bible (people wrote it BTW) seemed to forget that not everyone has a short attention span and that some of us actually remember what we read. Case in point, the omniscience of god:

Quote:  tells us that even the hairs on our head are numbered. No matter how carefully we keep secrets from others, we have no secrets from God.

God makes it so there can never be undeniable proof of his existence and he does this as a test of our faith in him. But god knows everything there is to know about us.

Picture for a minute what your life would be like if you could know everything there is to know about everything. You'd sit down at a restaurant and when the server brought out a menu you could just wave your hand and say I already know what's on the menu, I'll have the meatloaf but I'll have it with some broccoli instead of the carrots that come with it. You could also then tell the server hey, you should really have the brakes checked on that old Corolla of yours and get your son into a dermatologist before that skin tag on his back turns nasty. 

Now ask yourself why anyone with that kind of reality would need to give people any kind of a test of faith. You wouldn't because you'd already know who had faith and who didn't.

For god so loved the world, he sacrificed himself to himself to pay himself for the freedom of beings he himself made and gave the ability of consciousness and curiousity, then punished them for using it, and had to "save" them from himself when all he needed to do was say oh okay I forgive you instead of damning an entire population of people for thousands of years, to eternal suffering?! Unless god is held to a standard even higher than him--this doesn't make any sense.

Hell IS in the bible. There's no question about it. Why would an all knowing god (knowing the outcome) do that knowing that the mass majority of its creation would end up suffering for all eternity? I used to placate myself by believing god would surely never leave all of the sinners in hell for all eternity--but, the bible is very clear on this point. And its for this reason, yet another reason, I cannot rectify myself with the Christian god.