(May 1, 2019 at 10:10 pm)madog Wrote:

(May 1, 2019 at 9:40 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Okay, then we disagree.  At the heart of reality are the Conservation Laws, or, to quote Professor Bart Ehrman, "Bars of Ivory Soap float but bars of iron sink."  This is why people do not walk on water; now, if someone did, I would actively look for fraud, but if that was not present and could be excluded, I would convert to "whatever" religion that claimant asked me to believe in.

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Look, everytime a believer debates a skeptic they throw out stupid fucking examples like  ... If they cut their head off and walked back in with the scars on their neck and their head back on would I believe in the supernatural  .... Its total bullshit ...

If you went out and saw jurasic dinosaurs being chased by green goblins on chariots of flying fish, would you believe in God?
In all cases my belief in reality would be seriously shaken, I would probably question my own sanity ... but wouldn't go scurrying around trying to fit a supernatural deity to the craziness ....

To cut a long story short  ... the incredulous examples those that believe in the supernatural offer as a gotcha's are so dishonest.

Lets face it if someone did agree to this nonesense  ... then you/they would offer totally mundane evidence for your/their stance and expect belief 

Hardly.  Even Professor Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, discusses the following experiment:

Quote:The STEP project

Harvard professor Herbert Benson performed a "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP)" in 2006.[39] The STEP, commonly called the "Templeton Foundation prayer study" or "Great Prayer Experiment", used 1,802 coronary artery bypass surgery patients at six hospitals. Using double-blind protocols, patients were randomized into three groups, individual prayer receptiveness was not measured. The members of the experimental and control Groups 1 and 2 were informed they might or might not receive prayers, and only Group 1 received prayers. Group 3, which served as a test for possible psychosomatic effects, was informed they would receive prayers and subsequently did. Unlike some other studies, STEP attempted to standardize the prayer method. Only first names and last initial for patients were provided and no photographs were supplied. The congregations of three Christian churches who prayed for the patients "were allowed to pray in their own manner, but they were instructed to include the following phrase in their prayers: "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications".[40] Some participants complained that this mechanical way they were told to pray as part of the experiment was unusual for them. Complications of surgery occurred in 52 percent of those who received prayer (Group 1), 51 percent of those who did not receive it (Group 2), and 59 percent of patients who knew they would receive prayers (Group 3). There were no statistically significant differences in major complications or thirty-day mortality. In The God Delusion, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote, "It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it. Dr Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said, "It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?'"[41] Study co-author Jeffery Dusek stated that: "Each study builds on others, and STEP advanced the design beyond what had been previously done. The findings, however, could well be due to the study limitations."[42] Team leader Benson stated that STEP was not the last word on the effects of intercessory prayer and that questions raised by the study will require additional answers.[43]

Wikipedia -- The Step Project

Now, if the results had been positive, then the researches would have demonstrated a causal link between individuals uttering words and the outcomes of patients getting better or worse.  Maybe you would disagree, and that's fine.  For me, under such controlled conditions, atheism would have been disproven, provided that the experiment could be replicated.  At that point, I, as an atheist, would renounce my atheism and become a believer, at least in a theistic God.

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(May 1, 2019 at 10:48 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: If you're watching a magic trick, how good would the magician need to be to convince you that he was doing something supernatural ?

In other words, he was performing "real magic".

Let me state the question another way.

How gullible do you need to be to believe that a magic trick is actually supernatural ?

That's why peer-reviewed scientific journals exist; if something "magical" would find its way into one of those, I would begin to give such serious consideration.  Until then, I routinely dismiss such claims as not being worth my time.  In academia, there is a saying that, "No bad a research paper is, there is some journal somewhere who is willing to publish it."  Goes to show how pitiful the claims to the supernatural and/or paranormal are, in that they have little published in the way of scientific studies to support any of their claims.

(May 2, 2019 at 6:02 am)Jehanne Wrote: Now, if the results had been positive, then the researches would have demonstrated a causal link between individuals uttering words and the outcomes of patients getting better or worse.  Maybe you would disagree, and that's fine.  For me, under such controlled conditions, atheism would have been disproven, provided that the experiment could be replicated.  At that point, I, as an atheist, would renounce my atheism and become a believer, at least in a theistic God.

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I think you used Richard Dawkins in a disingenuous way  

It sounds to me you are a theist in waiting  ... your stance appears to be that if something can't be explained you will insert a God and in particular a theistic God.

Now I'll use a previous example  .....

If a magnet was a new discovery and as yet unexplained  ... If a thiest or any other supernatural peddler could show you it could move certain objects you would become a theist.

(May 2, 2019 at 8:44 am)madog Wrote:

(May 2, 2019 at 6:02 am)Jehanne Wrote: Now, if the results had been positive, then the researches would have demonstrated a causal link between individuals uttering words and the outcomes of patients getting better or worse.  Maybe you would disagree, and that's fine.  For me, under such controlled conditions, atheism would have been disproven, provided that the experiment could be replicated.  At that point, I, as an atheist, would renounce my atheism and become a believer, at least in a theistic God.

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I think you used Richard Dawkins in a disingenuous way  

It sounds to me you are a theist in waiting  ... your stance appears to be that if something can't be explained you will insert a God and in particular a theistic God.

Now I'll use a previous example  .....

If a magnet was a new discovery and as yet unexplained  ... If a thiest or any other supernatural peddler could show you it could move certain objects you would become a theist.

If someone could demonstrate that they were capable of violating the Conservation Laws (energy, momentum and angular momentum) under controlled conditions, then, yes, I would become a theist.

(May 2, 2019 at 11:04 am)Jehanne Wrote: If someone could demonstrate that they were capable of violating the Conservation Laws (energy, momentum and angular momentum) under controlled conditions, then, yes, I would become a theist.

Appearing to violate and violating are two different things ... but even if it could be shown to your skeptic bar, why would you jump to a God?

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Sounds to me as if you desire a God and you are looking for somewhere to insert it?

(May 2, 2019 at 11:22 am)madog Wrote:

(May 2, 2019 at 11:04 am)Jehanne Wrote: If someone could demonstrate that they were capable of violating the Conservation Laws (energy, momentum and angular momentum) under controlled conditions, then, yes, I would become a theist.

Appearing to violate and violating are two different things ... but even if it could be shown to your skeptic bar, why would you jump to a God?

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Sounds to me as if you desire a God and you are looking for somewhere to insert it?

I have already stated this -- bars of ivory soap float, bars of iron sink.  People do not walk on liquid water at room temperature and pressure; only a supernatural god could pull that one off.

(May 1, 2019 at 7:34 pm)Simon Moon Wrote:

(May 1, 2019 at 2:07 pm)Won2blv Wrote: As far as Mormonism goes, I have a subjective experience that helps me relate to Joseph Smith, but I agree with what he concluded about religion. None of them teach the truth but truth could be found through personal revelation.

Not sure how this can be true, when there are Muslims, Christians, Mormons, Hindus who claim to have personal revelation that are all mutually exclusive. A Hindu personal revelation, is not going to agree with a personal revelation of a Muslim. They can't all be right, but they can all be wrong.

And again, I can't help but go back to schizophrenics who have varying personal revelations from all sorts of beings.

How are you able to tell the difference between a 'real' personal revelation, and one caused by mental illness?

Quote:And I do care if my beliefs are true or not. I just know that there is a reason so many humans yearn for a creation narrative that they can understand and relate to. I know my personal beliefs will never interfere with me knowing if something is true scientifically or not

That is just sad to me. I am not sure how you cannot see that this attitude, if applied to other aspects of your life, can be dangerous.

Quote:I know my personal beliefs will never interfere with me knowing if something is true scientifically or not

I don't believe that is true.

If your mind is such that you accept completely unsupported and irrational beliefs in one subject, it may be that you are setting yourself to believe other unsupported and irrational beliefs.

When it comes to my personal beliefs, yes, sometimes I add more meaning to a seemingly meaningless world, but I stand by the fact that I can separate subjective truth and objective truth. You asked how a person is to know if a personal revelation is "real" or created by mental illness, I say they're all real. Probably often misinterpreted due to a lack of understanding as to what may have made the hallucination manifest in the first place.

In some cultures what we call a schizophrenic would be venerated as a holy man. And I get it, some cultures were cannibalistic, would that make it right? I'm saying that from my personal experience dealing with psychoses and delusions, I know that the delusions had a root cause based in reality, but misinterpreted by my brain. In the case of visual hallucinations, I wonder if these people have a higher amount of body made DMT running through their system.

(May 2, 2019 at 1:43 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(May 2, 2019 at 11:22 am)madog Wrote: Appearing to violate and violating are two different things ... but even if it could be shown to your skeptic bar, why would you jump to a God?

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Sounds to me as if you desire a God and you are looking for somewhere to insert it?

I have already stated this -- bars of ivory soap float, bars of iron sink.  People do not walk on liquid water at room temperature and pressure; only a supernatural god could pull that one off.

 Uhm... not necessarily a 'Supernatural diety'.

 Just some one/thing like 'Q' from Star Trek. An entity that has the power to simply alter reality/probability/what ever to its whim "Some how".

 Heck, not even that far. Some one as technologically as advanced as the federation is to us could pull off the 'Walk on water trick' in any number of ways. Since Federation people routinely manipulate gravity and have 'tractor/pressor/ beams. Not to mention being on the 'Cusp' of having 'Hard light' holograms themselves.

Basically you've got to be able to rule out Clarke's Law before you can start looking for dieties behind the skirting boards.



Not at work.

(May 2, 2019 at 1:43 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(May 2, 2019 at 11:22 am)madog Wrote: Appearing to violate and violating are two different things ... but even if it could be shown to your skeptic bar, why would you jump to a God?

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Sounds to me as if you desire a God and you are looking for somewhere to insert it?

I have already stated this -- bars of ivory soap float, bars of iron sink.  People do not walk on liquid water at room temperature and pressure; only a supernatural god could pull that one off.

How you know a God is even possible, that even if such existed it could effect the natural world is just a faith position  ... 

While you maintain your position that anything you can't understand is God, I'm done 

(May 2, 2019 at 2:17 pm)madog Wrote:

(May 2, 2019 at 1:43 pm)Jehanne Wrote: I have already stated this -- bars of ivory soap float, bars of iron sink.  People do not walk on liquid water at room temperature and pressure; only a supernatural god could pull that one off.

How you know a God is even possible, that even if such existed it could effect the natural world is just a faith position  ... 

While you maintain your position that anything you can't understand is God, I'm done 

I never claimed that.  What I have claimed is that a scientific understanding of the Universe is based upon the Conservation Laws.  If a single instance of a macroscopic violation can be repeatedly replicated under controlled conditions, such is proof, for me at least, of something non-physical in the Cosmos.  Call such an entity what you will; I would call such a being "God".

By the way, I think that AC Clarke was wrong.  Any advanced civilization would still be subject to the Conservation Laws.  Faster-than-light travel is a physical impossibility, no matter how "advanced" a civilization might be.

(May 2, 2019 at 2:37 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(May 2, 2019 at 2:17 pm)madog Wrote: How you know a God is even possible, that even if such existed it could effect the natural world is just a faith position  ... 

While you maintain your position that anything you can't understand is God, I'm done 

I never claimed that.  What I have claimed is that a scientific understanding of the Universe is based upon the Conservation Laws.  If a single instance of a macroscopic violation can be repeatedly replicated under controlled conditions, 

All you have shown is the laws are maybe false or  .... Why posit a God? You are replacing a mystery with a bigger mystery.

The time to consider a God is when you can show it is even possible.  Argument from incredulity