Quote:You were saying?

Already been refuted as pseudoscience  nice try

https://debunkingdenialism.com/category/featured/
And here
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/1...ggeration/
And here
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/1...deception/
And here
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/1...lacebo-ef/
And here
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-harn...-anything/
And here
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-are-you-there/
And here
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-ris...-medicine/

And Each of those have links to more information

Quote:Giving patients placebo treatments for real medication conditions in a clinical setting is a terrible idea. Placebos are weak, their effects disappear within a short period of time, and have very little effect on objective measures. At best, you are merely suppressing subjective symptoms while objective symptoms remain or worsens

Could not have said it better myself

(September 11, 2017 at 9:00 pm)Whateverist Wrote:

(September 11, 2017 at 8:07 pm)SteveII Wrote: Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Like I have said above, Christianity is a cumulative case. Not all people come to believe it from the same direction and for the same reasons.

Does anything really ride on the strength of the case you put together?  I mean for you.  For those who want to believe or start off already believing I think it must really just be about making the case for the plausibility of God existing.  You just need to smooth over the rough parts and preserve as much common sense and intellectual rigor as you can .. under the circumstances.  You have my sympathy on that.  Can't be easy.  For what it's worth, I think you do a better job than most.

That's a good question. I was raised in a Christian home. My father is still a pastor of a small evangelical protestant country church (not the one I attend). I have a brother who sounds a lot like the the angrier of the bunch on AF. He has rejected Christianity. Growing up. we got the same classic fundamentalist super-conservative evangelical version of Christianity. I spent years discovering philosophy of religion, apologetics, doctrinal differences, historical thought, atheist arguments and their rebuttals, and satisfied myself that the Christian belief system was well-reasoned. My beliefs are different than my parents. 

My brother did not take these steps and rejected whatever his understanding was of Christianity from his childhood. He thinks Dawkins is a great thinker and the science will prevail. His view of Christianity and it's teachings are a weird mix of evangelical fundamentalism and the straw men that Dawkins and other erect to sell books. His arguments against Christianity are all over the place and often nonsensical. 

So, to answer your question, yes. The cumulative case for Christianity is so much more convincing than the classic evangelical fundamentalism I came from. The more I understand the details of systematic theology, doctrine, natural theology, how we should live, historical Jesus, and questions of morality, purpose, meaning, and eschatology, the more convinced I am that God is real.

Well, Steve, I've heard a lot of apologetics. I've read the Bible. I've heard innumerable testimonies. I've never believed.

My parents did not raise me as a Christian, either; we were nominally Christian but no one in the household was a regular churchgoer (I remember my mother going to one Easter service, and that's about it). Religion was not something we bothered discussing; we were vastly more interested in astronomy and electronics and the NASA space programs. The only reason I know as much as I do is because I liked to read, and I just can't shake the initial impression of the Bible as just one storybook among many.

(September 11, 2017 at 8:32 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: Apparently you haven't the slightest clue of what constitutes hearsay, do yourself a favor and go sit down somewhere.

Piss off, Huggies.

(September 11, 2017 at 9:11 pm)Tizheruk Wrote:

Quote:You were saying?

Already been refuted as pseudoscience  nice try

https://debunkingdenialism.com/category/featured/
And here
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/1...ggeration/
And here
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/1...deception/
And here
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/1...lacebo-ef/
And here
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-harn...-anything/
And here
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-are-you-there/
And here
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-ris...-medicine/

And Each of those have links to more information

Quote:Giving patients placebo treatments for real medication conditions in a clinical setting is a terrible idea. Placebos are weak, their effects disappear within a short period of time, and have very little effect on objective measures. At best, you are merely suppressing subjective symptoms while objective symptoms remain or worsens

Could not have said it better myself

The placebo effect is NOT pseudoscience dummy, it has been studied extensively.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/01/the-p...phenomenon

Quote:The Placebo Phenomenon

phe·nom·e·non
fəˈnäməˌnän,fəˈnäməˌnən/
noun
noun: phenomenon; plural noun: phenomena

1. a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.

Quote:But researchers have found that placebo treatments—interventions with no active drug ingredients—can stimulate real physiological responses, from changes in heart rate and blood pressure to chemical activity in the brain, in cases involving pain, depression, anxiety, fatigue, and even some symptoms of Parkinson’s.

(September 11, 2017 at 8:13 pm)Brakeman Wrote: The Bible is the claim. Impeached evidence is no longer evidence. It is special pleading to the max.

The Bible is not 'the claim' for the simple reason that it is not one thing. To be accurate, it is claims (plural). And if it is really claims, then your statement make no point whatsoever. 

What impeaching evidence do you offer? 

Conversations work better when you explain your reasoning. Otherwise I can't tell you where you went wrong. 

(September 11, 2017 at 4:53 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(September 11, 2017 at 4:33 pm)TheBeardedDude Wrote: Mormonism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhist, etc

Christians would accept all evidence provided for Judaism. 

Buddhists don't really make any claims that require evidence or that would have evidence. 

Hindus have stories that were written down after 400+ years of telling stories about events before those 400 years. What specifically are you proposing as evidence?

Mormons, are you serious? Do you think there is evidence to consider outside Joseph Smith's head?

How nice for you. You asked for a comparison based on quantity alone and then disqualify these religions works based on quality.

You should probably stay in the shallow end.

The placebo effect depends primarily on belief. If someone knows they're ingesting a placebo it generally has no effect; that's why trials of new drugs use a blinded control, and look for a statistically significant variation between the placebo control and the drug being tested.

(September 11, 2017 at 10:03 pm)Astreja Wrote: The placebo effect depends primarily on belief.

That's my exact point.

Thank you.

(September 11, 2017 at 1:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: This charge comes up from time to on this forum. 

First, let's define our terms:

Special Pleading: Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification. Special pleading is often a result of strong emotional beliefs that interfere with reason. reference

Evidence: Evidence is not proof. It is a fact that supports a conclusion. For the purposes of this discussion, eyewitness testimony (from any religion) is evidence.  

Central Question: Is it true that other religions have bodies of evidence that can be examined in the same or similar way as Christianity's is and therefore are legitimate comparisons in which special pleading can actually occur?

Is there any debate that no major religion that has a fraction of the amount of evidence of Christianity to even examine in support of its main claims? If other religions do not have a body of evidence or there only exists one piece of evidence, then how could there be any special pleading in favor of Christianity? 

If you are tempted to just answer there is no evidence for Christianity, they we are just arguing definitions of words. Whatever you call the material under consideration, there is more of it under Christianity and therefore no special pleading.

Dude...wha...no. What are you even...no.

"Christianity is supported by the BIGGEST pile of trash, and that makes it the best!"

Please tell me that's not what you're going with.

If you're talking about personal testimony of live people, then Christianity wins only by virtue of having the largest number of adherents.

If you're talking about text...no. Most especially if you're talking about ancient texts. Pretty much everything pertinent to Christianity boils down to a little fistful of books that they've all been rewriting and fighting over since ever, and it's not testimony, it's mythology.