Quote:there are people convinced that the world is flat.

They are shitheads, too.

There is no shortage.  There is a whole political party made up of them.

(September 16, 2017 at 3:41 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(September 16, 2017 at 7:44 am)Mathilda Wrote: Doesn't matter how much christian testimony there is if it's all indistinguishable from what could have been imagined instead.

Meaningless observation since it could literally apply to every human perception ever.

It could literally apply to every human perception ever, but there is a way we can tell the difference. Does it work in the real world?

Someone tells me about gravity.  I drop something.  It falls.  Gravity works.

Someone tells me about electricity.  I plug a lamp into a wall receptacle and click the switch.  Electricity works, too.

Someone tells me about Jesus, and about believers supposedly being able to perform even greater miracles.

Get back to me when you can consistently restore limbs to amputees and life to the dead, Steve.

(September 16, 2017 at 7:36 pm)Astreja Wrote: Someone tells me about gravity.  I drop something.  It falls.  Gravity works.

A Christian tells you about gravity and asks you to believe in it without evidence because that's the only to experience its existence. Once you do you then have to develop a personal relationship with gravity and to give up questioning because apparently this is an enemy of faith and you can only question so much before you need to start believing.

(September 16, 2017 at 7:36 pm)Astreja Wrote: Someone tells me about electricity.  I plug a lamp into a wall receptacle and click the switch.  Electricity works, too.

A Christian tells you about electricity and asks you to believe in it without evidence because that's the only to experience its existence. Once you do you then have to develop a personal relationship with electricity and to give up questioning because apparently this is an enemy of faith and you can only question so much before you need to start believing.

(September 16, 2017 at 7:36 pm)Astreja Wrote: Someone tells me about Jesus, and about believers supposedly being able to perform even greater miracles.

A Christian tells you about Jesus and asks you to believe in him without evidence because that's the only to experience his presence. Once you do you then have to develop a personal relationship with Jesus and to give up questioning because apparently this is an enemy of faith and you can only question so much before you need to start believing.

Oh wait. My wrong. Only the last one is what Christians do. Must be some kind of special pleading.

(September 16, 2017 at 7:36 pm)Astreja Wrote:

(September 16, 2017 at 3:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: Meaningless observation since it could literally apply to every human perception ever.

It could literally apply to every human perception ever, but there is a way we can tell the difference. Does it work in the real world?

Someone tells me about gravity.  I drop something.  It falls.  Gravity works.

Someone tells me about electricity.  I plug a lamp into a wall receptacle and click the switch.  Electricity works, too.

Someone tells me about Jesus, and about believers supposedly being able to perform even greater miracles.

Get back to me when you can consistently restore limbs to amputees and life to the dead, Steve.

Not to mention even logically the whole brain canard it's all a dream is not that hard to debunk (if your an Atheist)

https://useofreason.wordpress.com/2017/0...-argument/

Steve is coming dangerously close to "since you can't disprove the miracles of Jesus, that means they must've happened."

Apologist philosophy, ladies and gentlemen.

But can "Steve" disprove the miracles of Vespasian or Apollonius of Tyana? 

Miracles were a dime a dozen in the ancient world. 

https://infidels.org/library/modern/rich...kooks.html

Quote:We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously.

--Richard Carrier

(September 16, 2017 at 3:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: That's a horrible comparison. Aggregated population  trends and attitudes compared to "I'm convinced this is what happened"?

Aggregated population trends? Is this some new and exciting proof of god that I've not previously encountered?

Quote:Aggregated population  trends

Bullshit apologist speak

(September 16, 2017 at 10:08 pm)Succubus Wrote:

(September 16, 2017 at 3:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: That's a horrible comparison. Aggregated population  trends and attitudes compared to "I'm convinced this is what happened"?

Aggregated population trends? Is this some new and exciting proof of god that I've not previously encountered?

This is honestly the kind of word salad I would use in an assignment I had to pad for length. For some reason, it worked in 12th grade.

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(September 16, 2017 at 10:25 pm)KevinM1 Wrote:

(September 16, 2017 at 10:08 pm)Succubus Wrote: Aggregated population trends? Is this some new and exciting proof of god that I've not previously encountered?

This is honestly the kind of word salad I would use in an assignment I had to pad for length.  For some reason, it worked in 12th grade.

And, of course, what's really funny is that aggregated population attitudes is exactly what he's relying on for his argument....

(September 16, 2017 at 11:26 am)Mr.wizard Wrote:

(September 16, 2017 at 7:16 am)SteveII Wrote: The fact is that the testimony exists. Whether the claims of the testimony are facts is a whole different question not related to special pleading.

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I'm pointing out that you defined evidence as facts that support a conclusion and you just acknowledged that claims of the testimony may not be fact, therefore by your own standards for evidence that you set up testimony would not count as evidence. Then you said in the OP that testimony will be considered evidence for religions, which i'm pretty sure is special pleading.

Testimony is an assertion of fact. If you believe the person you accept the content of the testimony as fact. If you accept someone's testimony as fact, you have evidence to support a conclusion. Notice none of these steps are considered proof.

I said that last statement because some people here think testimony is not evidence in any situation.

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(September 16, 2017 at 6:33 pm)Mathilda Wrote:

(September 16, 2017 at 3:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: Meaningless observation since it could literally apply to every human perception ever.

No because if we use the scientific method then we can write down a falsifiable hypothesis, an experiment to test it and the observed results. Then someone else can repeat the experiment and try it for themselves without having to imagine it.

That's not how analysis of history works. Not at all, not every. Falsification is a concept reserved for the scientific claims.

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(September 16, 2017 at 7:36 pm)Astreja Wrote:

(September 16, 2017 at 3:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: Meaningless observation since it could literally apply to every human perception ever.

It could literally apply to every human perception ever, but there is a way we can tell the difference. Does it work in the real world?

Someone tells me about gravity.  I drop something.  It falls.  Gravity works.

Someone tells me about electricity.  I plug a lamp into a wall receptacle and click the switch.  Electricity works, too.

Someone tells me about Jesus, and about believers supposedly being able to perform even greater miracles.

Get back to me when you can consistently restore limbs to amputees and life to the dead, Steve.

That last sentence, the reasoning is significanlty flawed. You want me, a person clearly of the natural world to produce a supernatural cause. That isn't even a logical possibility.